In His Name, the Most High
سَلامٌ عَلَى آلِ يس
السَّلامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا دَاعِيَ اللَّهِ وَرَبَّانِيَّ آيَاتِهِ
السَّلامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا بَابَ اللَّهِ وَدَيَّانَ دِينِهِ
السَّلامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا خَلِيفَةَ اللَّهِ وَنَاصِرَ حَقِّهِ
السَّلامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا حُجَّةَ اللَّهِ وَدَلِيلَ إِرَادَتِهِ
السَّلامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا تَالِيَ كِتَابِ اللَّهِ وَتَرْجُمَانَهُ
Peace be upon the House of Yā-Sīn.
Peace be upon you, O caller of God, O one made divinely learned in His signs.
Peace be upon you, O gate of God, O judge of His religion.
Peace be upon you, O vicegerent of God, O helper of His truth.
Peace be upon you, O proof of God, O evidence of what He wills.
Peace be upon you, O reciter of the Book of God — and its interpreter.
— Excerpt from Ziyārat Āl-e Yāsīn
The Voice of the Awaited One
This maqtal is spoken, as every maqtal of various is spoken, in the voice of the Awaited Imam — the Mahdi, the son of Hasan, may our souls be his ransom and may God hasten his return — looking back across the veils of his long absence.
And he is not negligent of attending to us, and he is not forgetful of remembering him, therefore we too should not forget him.
Voiced in the series’ Mahdi-Maqtal-Voice — an imagining of the Awaited Imam’s voice, rendered in clear English by the means of our age, belonging to no living man.
The Maqtal — “Ten Years at Mina”
I. The Old Man in the Mosque
I was not there — but I remember.
I remember an old man, a black turban wound about his head, who used to sit in the mosque of my grandfather, the Messenger of God, long after his death.
The last of the companions of the Messenger of God still living, and a man who belonged wholly to our house: Jabir, the son of Abdullah al-Ansari.
The old man we followed to Karbala.He would sit there and call out, again and again:
O splitter-open of knowledge!
O splitter-open of knowledge!And the people of Medina said that Jabir was raving.
He swore to them, by God, that he was not.
He had heard the Messenger of God tell him that he would live to meet a man of the Prophet’s own family — with the Prophet’s own name, and the Prophet’s own bearing — who would split knowledge open.That was why he called.
II. Where the Children Were Taught
And one day, as he went to and fro through the streets of Medina, he passed a place where the children were taught.
And among them was a boy.
He called him forward — and the boy came. He told him to turn back — and the boy turned.
And the old man swore, by the One in whose hand was his soul, that this was the bearing of the Messenger of God.
He asked the boy his name, and the boy told him that he was Muhammad, the son of Ali, the son of al-Husayn.
That boy was my forefather.
The one the old man had been calling for in the mosque was standing in front of him — a boy, among the children, on a street in Medina.
Jabir went to him, and kissed his head, and said:
May my father and my mother be your ransom.
Your father, the Messenger of God, sends you his greeting.
III. Both Ends of the Day
The boy went home, frightened, to his father, Ali, the son of al-Husayn, and told him everything that had happened.
His father asked him whether Jabir had really done it.
The boy said that he had.And his father told him to keep to his house.
A greeting from the Messenger of God — and a child, afraid, told to stay at home.
After that, the old man came to him at both ends of the day — in the morning, and in the evening.
And the people of Medina said:How strange of Jabir.
The last of the companions of the Messenger of God, coming to this boy morning and evening.To them, it was only strange.
IV. Fifty-Seven Years
The boy grew into the name the old man had called out in the mosque.
He outlived his father by nineteen years and two months.
And then God took him too, in the year one hundred and fourteen.
He was fifty-seven years old.
V. Ten Years at Mina
He had called his son by name — Ja’far — and told him what he wanted.
A sum of his wealth was to be set aside, as an endowment, for women to lament him.
For ten years. At Mina, in the days of Mina.That is what he asked for: women lamenting him, year after year, at Mina — in the days when the pilgrims are camped there.
My forefather, who split knowledge open, asked to be wept for.
He set it at ten years.
Tonight — all these centuries later, and far from Mina — he is lamented in this room.All that I have told you of him tonight, I have from his son Ja’far.
It was Ja’far who told of the old man in the mosque and the greeting in the street, and who counted his father’s years to the month.
And he was the son his father told to see to the women at Mina.A son, telling his father’s story — to Aban, and to Abu Basir, and to Yunus.
The Messenger of God had spoken of the boy in the street before he was born — his name, his bearing, what he would do with knowledge.
An old man waited for him on that word.
They called him raving for it, and he went on calling.
And he lived to meet him.What the Messenger of God promises comes — however long it is waited for.
I was not there — but I remember.
And I am not gone.
May our Lord hasten my return.
Pray ardently for my return.
Sources Cited
al-Kulayni, al-Kafi, Volume 1, hadiths 2 and 6 of their chapter — both from Imam al-Sadiq. Hadith 2, through Aban ibn Taghlib (the first half only): Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansari, the last of the companions of the Messenger of God, a man devoted wholly to us, the Household; his call in the Prophet’s mosque, O splitter-open of knowledge; what he had heard the Messenger of God say — you will live to meet a man from me, whose name is my name and whose bearing is my bearing; he will split knowledge open; the boy in the place where the children were taught; may my father and my mother be your ransom — your father, the Messenger of God, sends you his greeting; the boy home to his father, frightened, and keep to your house; Jabir at both ends of the day, and how strange of Jabir. Hadith 6, through Abu Basir: Imam al-Baqir taken at fifty-seven, in the year 114, nineteen years and two months after Ali ibn al-Husayn.
al-Kulayni, al-Kafi, Volume 5, hadith 1 of its chapter — from Imam al-Sadiq, through Yunus ibn Ya’qub: My father said to me: O Ja’far, endow for me, from my wealth, such-and-such — for women mourners to lament me for ten years at Mina, in the days of Mina.
Further reading, not drawn on above: the martyred leader, Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei, may God rest his pure soul, Insan-e 250 sale (A 250-Year-Old Man) — on the meaning of this will.
Covered in Lantern of the Path, Imamah, Imam al-Baqir and Imam al-Sadiq
