Mawsu'at kalimat al-Imam al-Husayn (a) (book)

Mawsu'a kalimat al-Imam al-Husayn (a)

Author	Mahmud Sharifi, Sayyid Husayn Zaynali, Mahmud Ahmadiyan, and Sayyid Mahmud Madani
Language	Arabic
Subject	Imam al-Husayn (a)
Genre	Hadith
Published	1420/1999-2000
Publisher	Ma'ruf
Pages	878

Mawsū'a kalimāt al-Imām al-Ḥusayn 'alayh al-salām (Arabic: موسوعَةُ کَلَماتِ الامامِ الحُسَین علیه‌السّلام) is an Arabic encyclopedia compiled by some researchers at Baqir al-'Ulum Research Institute associated with the Islamic Propagation Organization. This encyclopedia contains some reports and 970 hadiths from Imam al-Husayn (a) as well as supplications and poems. Its contents include the biography of Imam al-Husayn (a) from birth to martyrdom, the Battle of Karbala, as well as his remarks.

Authors

The editors of Mawsu'a kalimat al-Imam al-Husayn (a) are: Mahmud Sharifi, Sayyid Husayn Zaynali, Mahmud Ahmadiyan, and Sayyid Mahmud Madani.

Purpose of the Book

According to the preface of the book, the motivations and purposes of its writing include:

• The particular place of Imam al-Husayn (a) among all Islamic sects.

• Providing materials for the explanation and analysis of the events of the early years of Islam and the period of Imam al-Husayn (a).

• Revealing the distortions of Imam al-Husayn’s (a) remarks and events of his life.

• Umayyad criminals did not rest content with killing the Imam (a) and his companions, as well as taking his family captive; rather they also tried to destroy all the traces of the Imam (a).

• Examination of the historical uprising of Imam al-Husayn (a) from different aspects.

Contents

The book has two parts and nine chapters:

The first part contains historical remarks of Imam al-Husayn (a) within some chapters:

• Chapter 1: Imam al-Husayn’s (a) remarks in the period of the Prophet (s),

• Chapter 2: Imam al-Husayn’s (a) remarks in the period of Amir al-Mu'minin (a),

• Chapter 3: Imam al-Husayn’s (a) remarks in the period of Imam al-Hasan al-Mujtaba (a),

• Chapter 4: Imam al-Husayn’s (a) remarks in the period of his own imamate: before the death of Mu'awiya b. Abi Sufyan, after the death of Mu'awiya, in Mecca, on the way to Karbala, in Karbala, Eve of Ashura, the morning of Ashura, after the martyrdoms of his companions, about the martyrdom of Ahl al-Bayt, evening of Ashura, and after his martyrdom.

The second part consists of five chapters: beliefs, jurisprudential rulings, ethics, supplications, and poems.

Features

• Editors of the book have cited hadiths with their full chains of transmitters and their sources.

• They refused to cite hadiths from Imam al-Husayn (a) which are transmitted from dreams.

• They did not cite hadiths that contain only a word or two from the Imam (a) without any informative contents.

• In order to avoid repetition or fractionation of hadiths, they cited hadiths concerning different topics only in one place.

• The book cites some objectionable hadiths, such as Qasim’s Wedding or martyrdom of people such as Ahmad, the son of Imam al-Hasan (a), in Karbala which appear in sources such as Nasikh al-tawarikh.

• Specific topics of the book are noteworthy. For example, under the topic of “beliefs”, we find monotheism, the Qur'an, its exegesis, the Prophet (s), the place of Ahl al-Bayt (a), Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali (a), Imam al-Hasan (a), himself, Imams after him, and the Shi'as. Also under the topic of “jurisprudential rulings”, we find tahara (cleanliness), prayer, fast, zakat, charity, hajj, jihad, al-amr bi l-ma'ruf wa l-nahy 'an al-munkar (enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong), marriage, purchasing, debts, wills, livelihoods, and hudud.

• Although it is widely believed that there are few hadiths from Imam al-Husayn (a), the book has collected 165 hadiths from him regarding jurisprudential rulings from reliable collections of hadiths.

• The book has organized Imam al-Husayn’s (a) poems regarding different topics in accordance to their rhymes.

• The book has distinguished Imam al-Husayn’s (a) remarks with distinctive fonts with diacritics.

• If a hadith is contrary to Shiite beliefs, the editors have pointed to its unreliability in footnotes.

• For the sake of brevity, hadiths which appear in a chapter and are related to other chapters as well, are not cited more than once; rather they are just referred to.

Sources of the Book

Here are some sources of the book: al-Kafi, al-Irshad, Tarikh al-Tabari, Futuh by Ibn A'tham, Tarikh Dimashq (History of Damascus), al-Amali (by al-Saduq), al-Manaqib by Ibn Shahrashub, Bihar al-anwar, Maqtal al-Husayn (Muqarram), Luhuf, Asrar al-shahada, Muntakhab al-Turayhi, al-Dam'a al-sakiba, and so on.