Last day of Dhul Qa’dah marks martyrdom anniversary of Imam al-Jawad (peace be upon him)
The last day of the month of Dhul Qa’dah marks the martyrdom anniversary of Imam al-Jawad (peace be upon him). The holy grave of that Imam, next to that of his revered grandfather Imam al-Kazim (peace be upon him) in Kazimiyya, is the destination of pilgrimage for millions of the loyalists of Ahlul-Bayt (peace be upon them).
The martyrdom of Imam al-Jawad (peace be upon him) was carried out on the last day of the month of Dhul-Qa’dah in the year 220 AH in Baghdad on the order of Mo’tasim al-Abbasi, who was worried about the impact of the Imam on the people, by his wife Umm al-Fazl with the connivance of Ja’far son of Ma’mun.
It is mentioned in the hadith that the story of Imam al-Jawad with Umm al-Fazl, or Imam al-Hassan al-Mujtaba with Jo’dah, and even the Holy Prophet with some of his wives, were a Divine destiny and a Divine decree, as a part of the trial for the Ummah, said Grand Ayatollah Shirazi on the reason why some of the Ma’sumeen, peace be upon them, were afflicted with unworthy wives.
Referring to the famous narration of Imam al-Reza (peace be upon him) on the birth of Imam al-Jawad (peace be upon him), “This is a child no other child has been born more blessed than him for our Shiites”, Grand Ayatullah Shirazi explained: During the time of all the Imams, peace be upon them, there were differences, the most severe of these differences, which caused a number of Shiites to go astray, was the story of Waqifiyyah.
His Eminence went on to say: The deviation of Waqifiyyah began with the martyrdom of Imam al-Kazem and the Imamate of Imam al-Reza. During this period, many Shiites chose to believe that Imam al-Kazem had not passed away, and therefore, Imam al-Reza is not an Imam. A large number of Shiites gravitated towards this belief because some of the great Shiite scholars at the time, such as Ali bin Abi Hamza al-Bata’ini and Ziyad bin Marwan Qandi, joined the league of Waqifiyyah.
On the victory of Imam al-Jawad over this group, Grand Ayatollah Shirazi said: Imam al-Jawad was able to defeat the Waqifiyyah, and in the context of Shiism, Imam al-Jawad, peace be upon him, was the most blessed among the Imams, peace be upon him, because he was able to remove this grave deviation.
The Supreme Marja also pointed to the difficult test of the Shiites in this period and said: It was a great Divine test that Imam al-Jawad assumed the position of Imamate at the age of seven or eight, and this was a hard test for the Shiites, and like the story of Ghadir, with all its clarity and fame, some people chose to oppose it.
