Chahardah Ma'sum
Chahardah Ma'sum, les quatorze figures infaillibles ou immaculées vénérées par les chiites comprennent le prophète Muhammad, sa fille Fatima et les douze imams. Selon le concept théologique de 'isma, tous les rae sont considérés comme infaillibles. La 'isma est communément définie comme une bonté (lutf) accordée par Dieu qui n'entraîne pas l'incapacité de commettre des actes de désobéissance.
'Isma
The Number of Fourteen
It might be thought that the numbering of the inerrant ones as fourteen was retrospective and subsequent to the occultation of the Twelfth Imam, and it is certainly true that some time elapsed between the death of the eleventh Imam, Hasan al-‘Askari, in 260/873 and the emergence of a consensus that Imamite line had been completed with the occultation of his infant son, the Twelfth Imam.[1] However, materials already existed in Shi’ite tradition that spoke of Twelve Imam only, so that the crystallization of belief in a line of twelve was not excessively problematic.[2] The inerrancy of the Prophet, ‘Ali, Hasan, and Hussein, together with nine unnamed descendants of Hussein, is attested in a tradition attributed to the Prophet.[3] In another tradition, which has the Prophet addressing Salman, the nine are named explicitly, and mention of Fatima is, also included.[4] The same tradition states that the Prophet, Fatima, and the Twelve Imams were created out of light, « before the creation of creation ». related to this luminous origin of the Chahardah Ma’sum is the interpretation of the Light Verse (24:35) and, of almost every Quranic reference to light, as alluding to them.[5] According to Ja’far al-Sadiq, the creation of the Chahardah Ma’sum from light preceded that of all other beings by fourteen thousand years[6] Other traditions speak of the Chahardah Ma’sum being fashioned from « celestial clay », « white clay », « clay beneath the Throne », and « the clay of the Throne ». [7] the succession of the Chahardah Ma’sum on earth is held to mirror the order in which they responded, in pre-eternity, to the divine question, « Am I not your Lord ?»[8], and the line of descent connecting the mis take to be a visible sign of their joint origin as a single luminous substance.[9] Even the sperm from which they grew was of ultimarely heavenly origin.[10]
Cosmology and Significance
There was evidently a tendency to believe in God’s delegation (tafwiz) of the task of creation to the Chahardah Ma’sum, since Majlesi finds it necessary to denounce the belief.[11] However, the Fourteen Inerrant Ones are said to have witnessed creation[12], and a tradition attributed to Muhammad al-Baqir, the Fifth Imam, proclaims, « We [the Imams or the Chahardah Ma’sum] are the means (sabab) for the creation of creation ».[13] There is general agreement among Shi’ite authorities that all fourteen are superior to the rest of creation, including even the major prophets.[14] The cosmic functions of the Chahardah Ma’sum were much elaborated by the theosophers of the Safavid (http://www.iranicaoline.org/articles/safavids) periods. Mola Sadra (d. 1050the 1640) intergrated the Chahardah Ma’sum into Avicennan cosmology, enabling them to replace the Active Intelligences (al-‘aql am-fa’’al) as the ontological causes of existence.[15] Qazi Sa’id Qomi (d.1103/1691) designated them as a “supernatural humanity” (bashar al-‘awali), eternally gathered around the Throne in their essential beings.[16] It can be said that the French scholar Henry Corbin has both reflected and continued this Safavid tradition, with his frequent evocation of the « the pleroma of the Fourteen Immaculate Ones » as divine epiphanies manifest at every level of being ( numerous references in En Islam iranien and other works)
In Popular Piety
The Chahardah Ma’sum are collectively present at the level of popular piety in the formula that invoke divine blessings on all of them by name and that are known generically as ziarat-e jame’a.[17] Dreams and visions of the Chahardah Ma’sum are sometimes encountered in Shi’ite biographies; particularly remarkable, perhaps, was the vision seen by Haydar Amoli in the sky over Baghdad, with the Fourteen figures arranged diagrammatically around a square[18]. It remains to add that the Chahardah Ma’sum are venerated by the nominally Shi’ite Bektashi order of dervishes (q.v), who add a second series of fourteen, consisting of various offspring of the Imams, to yield the numerologically significant total of twenty-eight.[19]
Bibliography
- J. K. Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, London, 1937.
- H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4 vols., Paris, 1971-72.
- Idem, Corps spirituel et Terre céleste, new ed., Paris, 1979 (s.v. index “Quatorze Immaculés”).
- E. Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya to Ithnā-ʿAshariyya,” BSOAS 39, 1976, pp. 521-34.
- W. Madelung and E. Tyan, “ʿIṣma,” in EI2. Muhammad-Baqir Majlesi, ʿAyn al-ḥayāt, Tehran, 1347 Š./1968, pp. 101-02.
- Idem, Jalāʾ al-ʿoyūn dar zendagī wa maṣāʾeb-e Chahardah Maʿsum, Tehran, n.d.
- Idem, Beḥār al-anwār, 102 vols., Tehran, 1384/1964.
- M. Mossa, Extremist Shiʿites. The Ghulat Sects, Syracuse, N.Y., 1988, p. 108.
- Shaikh ʿAbbās Qomī, Mafātīḥ al-jenān, Tehran, 1340 Š./1961.
- Idem, Safīnāt al-beḥār, Tehran, 1355 Š./1963; II, pp. 201-02.
- S. H. Nasr, Sadr al-Din Shirazi and His Transcendent Theosophy, Tehran, 1978.
- A. A. Sachedina, Islamic Messianism. The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shi’ism, Albany, N.Y., 1981.
- Ṣ. Šīrāzī, Ahl al-Bayt fi’l-Qorʾan, Beirut, 1400/1979.
Source
References
- ↑ Sachedina, pp. 42ff
- ↑ Kohlberg, pp. 529-33
- ↑ Majlesi, 1384, XXV, p. 201
- ↑ ibid., pp. 6-7
- ↑ ibid., XXIII, pp. 304-48, XXVI, pp. 242-43; Shirazi, pp. 209-11
- ↑ Majlesi, 1384, XX, pp. 15-16
- ↑ ibid., XX, pp. 15-16, XXV, pp. 8-12
- ↑ Koran 7:172
- ↑ Corbin, 1971-72, I, p. 68
- ↑ Majlesi, 1384, XX, p. 38
- ↑ ibid., XXV, pp. 328ff.
- ↑ ibid., XXV, pp. 339-41
- ↑ ibid., XX. p. 20
- ↑ ibid., XXVI, pp. 267-319
- ↑ Nasr, p. 58
- ↑ Corbin, I, p. 98
- ↑ for examples, see Qomi, 1340, and Corbin, I, pp. 71-73
- ↑ Corbin, III, pp. 200-08
- ↑ Birge, pp. 147-48