The Madhloom of Ahlulbait: Imam Hassan Al-Mujtaba AS

He was born in Madinatul Munawarrah on 15th of Ramadhaanul Mubarak, in the second or third year of the Hijrah to Imam Ali ibni Abi Talib AS and Seyyidah Fatimatu Zzahraa AS. Such a noble lineage and Infallibility should have been enough to enable this Imam AS bring about the fulfillment of the message of The Prophet SAWW. The name Hassan by itself is enough to distinguish him from everyone else, since no one before him had this name, though 'Hassan' was not unknown among the Arabs. He was the first among the Purified Ahlul Bayt to enter the Yemeni Kisaa after The Prophet SAWW and at a tender age walked on his own with his finger wound in The Prophet SAWW's hand to testify to the Truth of Al-Islam at Mubahila. He was one of those about whom Suratul Hal Ataa was revealed.Yet, this is the most maligned Imam AS from among the Aimmah of Ahlul Bayt AS. He has been the victim of injustice not only from his enemies but also from those who claimed to be his admirers and devotees.

How have his devotees been unjust to the Imam AS?

One such admirer, Justice Ameer Ali portrayed him as "fond of ease and quiet". The devotees of the Imam AS have been lacking both in the celebration of his joyous birth and in the commemoration of his agonizing martyrdom. Many a times he is mentioned in passing and there are those who claim to be adherents of The Prophet SAWW and Imam Ali AS but do not consider Imam Hassan AS as an Imam. One sect of the Shi'a, the Ismailis, considers him as a Pir (a saintly person) only. This is clearly going against the pronouncements of The Prophet SAWW who declared that Al-Hassan wa Al-Hussein Imaman, Qama au Qada3 i.e. Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein are Imams, whether they sit or stand. Then are those authors who have maligned the Imam AS by imputing his character when he decided on cease-fire (hudna) with Mua'wiyah, instead of opting to fight and destroy Al-Islam that Mua'wiyah in cohort with the Byzantine Emperor aimed at doing so that he could follow his ways of the Jahiliyah and the Byzantine decadence and avoid adhering to the demanding and uplifting moral values of Al-Islam of The Prophet SAWW. They compare him to Imam Hussein AS and say that Imam Hussein AS was braver than his elder brother because he chose to fight. These ignorant authors forgot that Imam Hassan AS followed the model of The Prophet SAWW's Pact of Hudaibiyyah and Imam Hussein AS the model of battles as circumstances dictated. Imam Hassan AS could have fought Mua'wiyah and defeated him had he had sincere supporters and a reliable army. But, as history has shown, his own cousin betrayed him and was ready to kill the Imam AS at the behest of Mu'awiyah for "thirty pieces of silver." Those who had pledged allegiance to Imam Hassan AS and accompanied him to Camp Al-Maskan and Camp al-Madain5 turned treacherous, disobeyed him and literally pulled the rug from under him as he sat on it. An attempt was made on his life and the traitor's sword hit the Imam AS in the thigh. Imam Hussein AS had the support of 72 brave men, youths and the elderly who fought valiantly in the battlefield and he was able to face the might of Yazid and rescue Al-Islam from total annihilation that the father and son had been bent upon. Then there were the women and children who never complained nor beseeched the Imam AS to abandon his stand; rather, they gave him all the support and assistance in making his stand successful.

Imam Hassan AS showed the real double-face of Mu'awiyah and Imam Hussein AS tore the mask off Yazid's face in Karbala. These authors wrongly attribute to Imam Hussein AS the indignant statement that his brother, Ma'dhaLLAH, had given in to Mu'awiyah. Indeed, Imam Hussein AS fully endorsed and supported Imam Hassan AS' stand. Indeed, Imam Hussein AS always deferred to Imam Hassan Al-Mujtaba AS as his Imam and elder brother. Once when Imam Hassan AS and Imam Hussein AS were on a journey, they were hosted by some bedouins in a desert. The two Aimmah AS invited them to come to their houses whenever they came to Madinah. So, when these two bedouins happenstanced in Madinah and were without food or money, they remembered the Aimmah AS' invitation and went to visit them. Imam Hussein AS gave them less than Imam Hassan AS did. When asked why he gave less as he was well-known for his generosity, his reply was: "I neither want to be equal in generosity to Hassan nor above him". This is how Imam Hussein AS respected and obeyed the Imam of the time.

Then there was the Umayyad false propaganda of Imam Hassan AS' luxurious lifestyle and his wont to marry and divorce women. Unfortunately, Al-Kafi also mentionstwo 'ahadith' purportedly referring to Imam Hassan AS' frequent marriages and divorces. When challenged, these authors cannot produce the names of these women nor their parentage nor tribal affiliation because all these were fictitious and gratuitous accusations against a Pure, Infallible Imam AS. Several devotees of the Imam AS , inter alia, Hijr bin Uday, Adiy bin Hatim, Al-Musayyab bin Nijba, Bashir al-Hamadani and Sulayman Bin Surad addressed the Imam AS rudely and criticized him for making peace with Mu'awiyah. The Imam AS calmly explained them that his action was to save their lives and avoid bloodshed. One cannot but help reproduce the words of an Urdu poet who said: Dushmano ne to dushmani ki, magar dosto ne kya kami ki?(Enemies showed their enmity, but did the friends show any less enmity?

And his enemies?

Will Frischaurer, 4 obviously a detractor of the Imam AS, called him "the great divorcer". Marhum Allammah Seyyid Saeed Akhtar Rizvi has written a detailed treatise showing the falsity, fallacy and fabrication of these accusations4. Marhum Allamah Rasheed Turabi used to ask: "In bibiyo ke naam wa nasab wa hasab to batao."The greatest enemy of The Prophet SAWW and his Ahlul Bayt, of course, was Mua'wiyah ibni Abi Sufyan, who left no stone unturned to win people away from Imam Hassan AS and to lash out against The Prophet SAWW, Imam Ali AS, and the descendants of The Prophet SAWW. He set up a hadith manufacturing outfit paying each fabricator handsome rewards from public treasury! Mu'awiyah's hatred against The Prophet SAWW was intense. Al-Mughira's son narrates that once when his father went to see Mu'awiyah, Al-Mughira advised Mu'awiyah to be kind and gentle towards Banu Hashim. In reply, Mu'awiyah said that the three caliphs had ruled, died and lay forgotten. Yet, Muhammad SAWW's name was proclaimed five times a day in the adhaan and vowed to eliminate the adhaan altogether and everything that followed the adhaan5. Whenever he would hear the adhaan, he would say: "How great, O Son of Abdullah! You have a high determination! You are not satisfied with anything except that you are compared to the Name of the Lord of the world!"6.Before Imam Hassan AS had agreed to the peace proposal by Mu'awiyah, the Kharjites (the forerunners of today's Wahabbis) spread rumors that he had already agreed to peace. Thus, the hot-headed members of the Imam's army, who turned out to be fickle in their loyalty and bravery anyway, they accepted the rumors without checking their veracity and attacked the Imam AS. Another rumor that Mu'awiyah succeeded in planting in the fickle, betrayers of Damascus was that ...'The Umayyad party was that of the religion and the regime.8 Thus, Mu'awiyah split asunder the Imam AS' army through false rumoring and caused treachery against the Imam AS and forced the Imam AS to settle for a cease-fire with Mu'awiyah.

Mua'wiyah gathered people after signing the cease-fire pact with Imam Hassan AS and gave himself away by his words: "I did not fight against you that you may pray, fast go to pilgrimage or give the poor-due; rather, I fought because I wanted to rule over you....I will not be faithful to any of the conditions I agreed with Hassan ibni Ali. The blood that has been spilled has been in vain. The treaty is under my feet".

The Imam AS had to encounter Mu'awiyah on different occasions and suffer indignity. Yet, when he stood up to reply, he turned the tables upon Mu'awiyah who turned tails. Mu'awiyah, humiliated and outwitted by the Imam AS time and again, saw no recourse other than luring the Imam AS' treacherous wife, Jo'da binti Ashash, to poison him. Jo'da was eventually repudiated by the same Mu'awiyah and she was the loser of both the worlds.

A'isha, the step-grandmother of Imam Hassan AS and Imam Hussein AS, had such hatred for Imam Ali AS and his sons that she used to veil herself from the grandsons of her own husband, The Prophet SAWW, and mahram to her. When Imam Hassan AS' body was being brought for burial by the side of The Prophet SAWW, A'isha rode on a mule and came to stop the burial of The Prophet SAWW's grandson by his side. Her nephew, Qasim ibni Muhammad ibni Abi Bakr, rebuking her said to her: "O aunt, we have not washed our heads from the disgrace of The Battle of the Camel. Do you want this day to be called the Day of the Grey Mule?"9She denied The Prophet SAWW's son burial next to his grandfather, yet allowed a total stranger, Abdulrahman bin Awf, to be buried in the room of The Prophet SAWW10.

The Madhloom of Ahlul Bayt'sNoble Lineage Shines

However, this Madhloom of Ahlul Bayt AS shone amidst all the atrocities committed against him. He was after all the grandson of Prophet Muhammad SAWW and Seyyida Khadija AS and the son of Amirul Mumineen Ali ibni Abi Talib AS and Seyyidati Nisail 'Alamiin Fatimatu Zzahra AS. Whereas the usurpers of the mantle of The Prophet SAWW used to give largesse to friends and favorites from Baytul Maal, Imam Hassan AS would give away his personal wealth to the poor and the needy.

Imam Hassan AS was around 8 to 9 years of age when The Prophet SAWW and Seyyidah Fatima AS passed away in 11AH and he spent his adult life with Imam Ali AS until 40 AH when he became Imam after the martyrdom of Imam Ali AS. Therefore, his sayings would manifest the knowledge, wisdom and upbringing of these noble personages besides his own status as a divinely appointed Imam AS. Thus, the ahadith narrated from him demonstrate that brilliance, erudition and nobility of character that these personages exuded. For example, when he was asked what generosity is, the Imam AS said: "securing and protecting religion, self-respect, gentle behavior, constant kindness and fulfillment of rights." 11 This hadith does not refer to a Muslim or Mu.min; rather, it encompasses all humanity. When someone asked the Imam AS what constituted munificence, he replied that it was giving before being asked for it. And the Imam AS practiced what he preached. Once a person came to him and even before he asked for anything the Imam AS gave him all the money he had in the house. The man said, "O Master! Did you not consider me worthy of expressing my need before you and expose my impecunious state?" The Imam AS replied, "We are those people who give so much that every need is fulfilled. We are afraid of hurting the dignity of the persons who ask from us, so we give them even before they ask."12 The Imam AS' erudition is legendary. In his childhood, while in the lap of his grandfather, he educated Nabi Khidhr on a matter that he had come to seek knowledge from The Prophet SAWW about. Then, as Allamah Ibni Talha Shafe'i writes, when once somebody sought the meaning of the Qur'anic verse :Shaahidun wa Mash.hood" (85:3)13, Abdullah ibni Abbas and Abdullah ibni Umar explained it as referring to Friday and Day of Arafah or Day of Adh.ha, but Imam Hassan AS interpreted Shaahid as Allah SWT's Prophet SAWW and Mash.hood as The Day of Resurrection and provided proof of this from The Qur'an itself (33:45 and 11:103)14.

1. Anas bin Malik is a companion of The Prophet SAWW revered by the Sunnis.
2. Ameer Ali: The Spirit of Islam.
3. The Prophet SAWW said: Hassan and Hussein are Imams, whether they sit or stand i.e. whether they sign peace pacts or fight in a battle.
4. Will Frischaurer: The Agakhans.
5. Seyyid Saeed Akhtar Rizvi: "Imam Hassan:The Myth of his Divorces", Al-Serat, vol 4 (1978), no.3. Reprinted from The Light.
6. Ibn Abi al-Hadeed (Mu'tazali): Sharh Nahjul Balaghah.
7. Idem.
8. Al-Yaqubi: Tarikh, vol. 2,p.191.
9. Ibid. vol.2, p.200.
10. Al-Durra al-Thamina fi Tarikh al-Madina, p.404.
11. Hashim Ma'ruf Hasani: Sirate Aimae Ahle Bayt.
12. Ibid.
13. Tafsir Wasit Wahidi.
14. Ibn al-Sabbagh: Al-Fusool Al-Muhimma, p.160