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The Second Imam: Hasan ibne Ali (AS)
by Dr. Syed Haider Husain Shamsi
Name: Hasan
Title: al-Mujtaba
Epithet: Abu
Muhammad
Father: Ali
ibne Abi Talib (as)
Mother: Fatima
binte Muhammad, the Prophet of
Islam (pbuh)
Date of Birth: Ramadhan
15, 3 AH (March 1, 625 AD)
Place of Birth: Madinah
Progeny: From
Umm Bashir binte Abu Masud al-Khazraji:
One son: Zaid
From; Khawla binte Fazari:
One son: Hasan al-Muthanna
From: Umm Is-haq binte Talha bin
UbaidAllah al-Taimi
Two sons: al-Husain, Talha
One daughter: Fatima
He had many other children from
other wives
Date of Death: Safar
28, 50 AH (March 6, 670 AD)
He lived to an age of 45 years
Place of Death: Madinah
Place of Burial: Jannatul Baqi
LIFE OF
HASAN (AS) DURING
THE TIMES
OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD
The
Holy Prophet was very happy when
he heard the news of the birth
of his grandson. He
came to the house of Ali and his
beloved daughter Fatima and
named the child Hasan. He
had the good fortune to be loved
and nurtured personally by the
Messenger of Islam for seven
years before his death. He
often carried his grand child on
his shoulders.
As a youth, he witnessed the
conflict between kufr (paganism,
polytheism) and Islam. He
saw his father, Imam Ali being
victorious and playing the key
role in many important battles
with the non-believers. This
was also the glorious time of
Islam with the inception of the
Muslim community in Madinah
under the Holy Prophet himself,
and the rapid expansion of the
message of Islam throughout the
Arabian peninsula.
Hasan was one of the five
members of the Ahle Bait. It
was in 9 AH when the Prophet of
Islam took him along as one of
the five who went out to face
the challenge of the grand
cardinals of Najran on the
occasion of Mubahala, and
witnessed the triumph of the
Truth over Falsehood.
LIFE OF HASAN
DURING THE
TIMES OF IMAM ALI
As a growing youth, Hasan saw
the active role of his father,
Imam Ali, in the
battlefield defending Islam, as
a preacher to a vast
congregation of believers on the
occasion of Haj, and as a
missionary of Islam to Yemen. After
the death of his grandfather,
the Prophet, he saw his father
having retreated to a passive
role in the matters of the state
during the period of the first
three caliphs. However,
whenever he saw it necessary,
Imam Ali never refrained from
giving his opinion to the caliph
of the time on matters of the
practice of faith. He
had also seen that the caliphs,
in turn, respected Imam Ali for
his overall knowledge, and
consulted him on many occasions
as the need arose.
When the third caliph was
murdered by a mob of agitated
demonstrators in his palace in
Mad'mah, and Imam Ali was
elected to lead the Muslim
nation, Imam Hasan took active
part in assisting his father in
many ways. He
went to Kufa and successfully
raised the first army of
believers against the dissenting
Muslims. He
participated actively in the
battlefields of Basra, Siffeen
and Nahrawan alongside his
father, and demonstrated his
skills as a soldier and as a
leader.
Before he died, Imam Ali
appointed Hasan to lead the
nation of believers and to be
their Imam after him. The
people also chose him to be
their Caliph.
THE LIFE OF
IMAM HASAN AS A CALIPH
Imam Hasan assumed the
responsibility of the Caliphate
after the martyrdom of his
father, and the people of Kufa
gave him the pledge of fealty. He
addressed a large congregation
of believers in the
mosque and reminded them of the
stand his father had taken in
upholding the Truth, and that he
would not change his course of
conduct in any other way. He
also reminded them of the
deceitful way in which they were
deprived of their victory over
Muawiyah, the defiant governor
of Syria. He
strongly urged them to search
their hearts if they wished to
achieve a stable and pious way
of life under his rule.
Muawiyah continued his
unrelenting efforts to weaken
the position of Imam Hasan from
the seat of Caliphate. The
hnam wrote him a letter inviting
him for peace, and to join him
in furthering the cause of a
unified Islamic State. This
called for Muawiyah to accept
Imam Hasan as the legitimate
successor of the Caliphate. Muawiyah
had previously declined this in
a similar communication from
Imam Ali, and had carried arms
against him.
Imam Hasan called up his forces
from his pledged supporters. However,
the army he could gather
consisted of people with
disparate motives. Although
there were some true believers
in the army, many others had
joined in for the sake of war
spoils and with divided
loyalties. Thus,
even some Kharjites had joined
the army, not for the love of
the Imam but, in the event of
victory, for their own design of
eliminating Muawiyah from the
Caliphate. There
were others who had come, not
because they believed in
fighting for the cause of the
Truth but because their tribal
leaders had urged them to do so.
However, just before the
impending war, Muawiyah was able
to break the strength of the
Imams army by paying off some
and diverting others away from
h4n, and spread the manors that
the Imam had agreed to stop the
war to save bloodshed of Muslims
on either side. These
rumors had their desired effect. The Kharjis saw
a failure of their own goal
through the forces of the Imam,
so they turned against him. He
received a bad slash on his
thigh, and was quickly taken
away by his supporters for care
and tending. His
army dispersed to escape a
general massacre by Muawiyah's
forces.
The leaders of several tribes
wrote to Muawiyah for his
clemency towards them in
exchange for surrendering Imam
Hasan to him. Muawiyah
sent all these letter to the
Imam and offered him safe
passage to Madinah under all the
conditions he chose for himself. To
this end, he sent Imam Hasan a
blank page with his stamps in
the bottom of the page. Then
Muawiyah wrote, "In this page,
whose bottom I have stamped,
stipulate whatever you want, for
that will be for you."
The Imam, in his desire to avoid
bloodshed and to uphold the
unity of the Muslim Ummah, saw
the advantage in accepting
Muawiyah's offer. He
was well aware of the ploy of
Muawiyah during the days of his
father, and he had seen his
tactics during the Battle of
Siffeen. He
had seen Muawiyah's devious
means during his confrontation
with him, and had seen the rift
and loss of life of the Muslims
on both sides. The
apparent truce was a safe way
out from the bitter
confrontation. The
Imam accepted peace in order to
preserve the integrity of Islam. He
wrote on the page provided by
Muawiyah all the conditions that
suited him, his family and
towards his role as the Imam of
believers. It
is unfortunate that this page is
not valuable to us. However,
the conditions laid down by the
Imam have been mentioned in
several authoritative works of
history and biography. THE PEACE TREATY
5. "The
people should be safe wherever
they are in the earth of Allah;
in Sham (Syria), Iraq, Hijaz,
Yemen, etc. He
should give security to the
black and the red alike. He
(Muawiyah) should bear their
slips, should not follow some of
them for the bygone, nor should
he punish the Iraqis foe
hostility."
"The
companions of Ali should be
given security wherever they
are; that he (Muawiyah) should
not expose them to any evil;
that they should be given
security over their lives, their
properties and women and
children; and that he should
give them their rights.
"He
(Muawiyah) should not seek a
calamity secretly or openly for
alHasan or his brother
al-Husain, nor for anyone from
the progeny of Ahle Bait of
the'Apostle of Allah, nor should
he frighten them in any country
or territories."
Many historians have related
that the text of this Peace
Treaty was conveyed to Muawiyah
who read this in his court, and
made a covenant with Allah to
fulfil the conditions stipulated
by Imam Hasan. It
was not long after this event
that Muawiyah went back from his
part of the covenant with Allah
and put the Peace Treaty aside. He
took pleasure in demeaning the
Imam just as he had been doing
to his father. The
Imam decided to leave Kufa and
return to Madinah.
Marwan bin al-Hakam, who was the
personal secretary to the third
caliph, and had fought against
Imam Ali during the Battle of
Camel, was now the governor of
Madinah under Muawiyah. He
took personal pleasure in
discharging Muawiyah's wishes to
slur the reputation of the Imam
and his father. Needless
to say that the Imam's life in
Madinah after the treaty of
peace was not peaceful at all. In
addition to the relentless
taunts and abuse slung at him by
Muawiyah, the Imam had to endure
the anger of his supporters for
having relinquished the
Caliphate to the life long enemy
of himself and that of his
father before him. They
had failed to appreciate that
Imam Hasan had given up his
right in the larger interests of
Islam, and to avoid further
bloodshed of the Muslims. The
Imam continued to deal with the
abuse with patience and
forbearance, and continued to
uphold the Truth.
THE
MARTYRDOM OF IMAM HASAN
Muawiyah was successful in
deceitfully gaining the absolute
power he had aspired for. He
was not interested in the
functions of preaching piety or
theology. He
was interested in expanding his
sphere of influence in the
territories already conquered by
the Muslims, and was actively
engaged in further conquests to
the north and north west of
Syria. In
utter violation of the terms of
the Treaty with the Imam,
Muawiyah decided to name his son
Yazid to succeed him after his
death. He
knew that Yazid lacked all
qualifications to be a caliph
for the Muslims and to represent
the Holy Prophet of Islam. He
also knew that the Imam, being a
true representative of the
Prophet, would oppose the
nomination of his son. Consequently,
he decided to eliminate the
opposition.
Muawiyah solicited the services
of Marwa'n bin Hakam, a
son-in-law of the third Caliph,
who was the governor of Madinah
at that time. With
a promise for a reward, Marwan
approached one of the wives of
the Imam, Ju'da binte al-Ash'ath
bin Qais to poison the Imam. He
was successful, and the Imam
died as a result of this plot.
Before he died Imam Hasan, in
accordance with the Will of
Allah, named his brother, Husain
to be the next Imam. He
expressed his wish to his
brother to bury his body near to
the grave of his grandfather,
the Prophet of Islam. This
caused an armed opposition by
the governor of Madinah. Under
a shower of arrows, the
jenazh (funeral
procession) of Imam Hasan had to
withdraw and be diverted to
Jannatul-Baqi', the general
graveyard of Madinah, where he
was buried.
REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE OF IMAM
HASAN
Imam Hasan lived a life of piety
mirroring the teachings of the
Quran and the Sunna of the
Prophet. The
ten years he spent in Madinah
under the oppressive rule of
Muawiyah and his appointed
governors, only revealed his
tolerance and forbearance
towards the abuse. Some
followers felt that the Imam
should have retaliated against
Muawiyah when he ignored the
terms and conditions of the
Treaty, oppressed them slung
verbal abuses at them. But
the Imam only pointed to the
conduct of his father before
him, who had endured similar
circumstances without armed
retaliation. He
told his followers that he did
not retaliate against the
oppressor because the abuses
that were being thrown at him
were against his person and not
against Islam.
THE TABLE
OF IMAM HASAN
From the time of the
assassination of the third
caliph and the events
surrounding Imam Ali's rule, the
Ahle Bait had again come into
focus. Many
dignitaries and new Muslims from
far off places sought audience
with the Imam in Madinah. They
came to learn interpretations of
the Quran, the teachings of
Islam, and expounded the seera (the
conduct of personal life) of the
Prophet of Islam. |
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