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 — “The Last of the Dust”
I. The Old Man of Nakha’
There is a man whose name you will say tomorrow night.
Tonight I want to tell you how he left us.
His name was Kumayl, the son of Ziyad.
Many years after that night in the desert — after my forefather, Amir al-Mu’minin, was gone, and his sons after him — a governor came to Iraq.
And in the days when Kufa had risen against him, he went looking for the men of Ali.
He asked after Kumayl.
He was told: he is an old man now.And Kumayl hid.
He was old, and he had every reason to stay hidden.
No one would have blamed him.So the governor did what such men do.
He could not reach the man, so he reached for his people.
He cut off the stipends of the tribe of Nakha’ — the bread of every family that shared his name.And Kumayl said: I am an old man, and my life is spent.
It is not right that I should be the reason my people go without.And he got up, and walked out, and gave himself up.
II. The Last of the Dust
They brought him in.
And the governor said to him:
I have long wanted to find a way to you.
And Kumayl answered him:
Do not grind your teeth at me.
By God, nothing is left of my life but the last of the dust.
Decide whatever you are going to decide.
The appointment is with God — and after the killing, there is the reckoning.The last of the dust.
The little that trails behind, after the rest has settled.And then he said:
Amir al-Mu’minin told me that you would be the one to kill me.
And the governor said:
Then the proof is against you.
And Kumayl said:
Only if the judgement were yours.
An old man with nothing left, telling the most powerful man in Iraq whose judgement it really was.
III. More Than You Love Him
Then the governor spoke of Ali.
And Kumayl, standing in front of him, called down God’s blessings upon him.And the governor swore:
By God, I will send to you a man who hates Ali more than you love him.
He gave a reason, as such men always have one — an old accusation, from long before.
But you heard what he swore.
The charge was love.Strike his neck, he said.
And his neck was struck.
An old man, who had walked out of hiding so that the families of his tribe could eat.
It was the year eighty-two.
He had kept company with my forefather for years — and he outlived him by more than forty.
IV. What Was Taken from the House
Years before, that same man had torn down the House of God in Mecca.
And the people carried away its earth.And when they came to raise it again, a serpent came out and barred the way, and they could not build.
And he had to send and ask my forefather, Ali, the son of al-Husayn, what to do.And my forefather told him:
Command the people that not one of them keep anything he took from it.
Let them return it.They returned it.
And the walls rose.
The House stood again, because what had been taken from it was given back.Kumayl had nothing to return but himself.
So he returned himself — so that his people could eat.He was the man Amir al-Mu’minin took by the hand, out past the graves.
The man to whom he sighed, if only I could find those to carry it.
The man he told, one day, how he would die.He carried it all the way.
And he did not put it down at the end.
V. What Are You Building?
So — what are you building?
Not what are you collecting.
Not what you will keep.
Build something you can hand back whole.
Kumayl was given a prayer, and he gave it to you, and you will say it tomorrow night.
He was given a counsel, and when he was asked for stories, he passed the counsel on instead.
And at the end, when the only thing they wanted was him, he gave that back too.
Not a name over a door.
Not a library.
A prayer, a counsel, and a life — and every one of them handed on.
Whatever you have been handed — carry it, and hand it back whole.
I was not there — but I remember.
And I am not gone.
May our Lord hasten my return.
Pray ardently for my return.
Pray ardently for my return.
Sources Cited
The hunt, the stipends of Nakha’, and I am an old man, my life is spent — Shaykh al-Mufid, al-Irshad, Volume 1, printed page 327; Ibn ‘Asakir, Tarikh Madinat Dimashq, Volume 50, entry 5829, page 256, the third account (through al-Asma’i) — in the days when Kufa had risen against him — Yahya ibn Ma’in in Ibn ‘Asakir, page 249 (killed in the days of Ibn al-Ash’ath) — he is an old man — Ibn ‘Asakir, page 256, the first account.
The exchange — I have long wanted to find a way to you; do not grind your teeth at me; the last of the dust; the appointment is with God, and after the killing the reckoning; Amir al-Mu’minin told me you would kill me; then the proof is against you; only if the judgement were yours; strike his neck — al-Mufid, al-Irshad, Volume 1, printed page 327. The last of the dust is al-Mufid’s own word, kawāsil al-ghubār, which his editor glosses (footnote 3) as the remnants of the dust that lag behind the first of it. Al-Khoei’s quotation of the same report (Mu’jam Rijal al-Hadith, Volume 15, entry 9776) reads kawāsir. Al-Mufid adds that the report is carried by the other school’s transmitters from their trustworthy narrators, and that ours share in it; his editor cites Ibn Hajar, al-Isaba 3:318, and al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar 42:148, no. 12.
The governor speaks of Ali; Kumayl calls down blessings on him; by God, I will send to you a man who hates Ali more than you love him — Ibn ‘Asakir, Tarikh Madinat Dimashq, Volume 50, page 256, the second account (through Hisham ibn ‘Ammar). The man sent is named differently in different accounts, and is not named here.
The year eighty-two — Khalifa ibn Khayyat and al-Mada’ini, in Ibn ‘Asakir, page 257 (Yahya ibn Ma’in: eighty-two or eighty-four) — His age is given as seventy and as ninety; the maqtal keeps to his own words, an old man.
The House torn down; its earth carried away; the serpent; the question put to Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn, and his answer, command the people that not one of them keep anything he took from it, but return it — Shaykh al-Saduq, Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih, Volume 2, hadith 2116. The year of the demolition is not given in the report, and is not given here.
The pretext — given in both al-Mufid and Ibn ‘Asakir; named in one clause and not weighed.
The hand, the graves and the sigh — Nahj al-Balagha, Saying 147.
