Question 110 - The Enlightening Answer Across the Ether, Vol 2

Ahmed al-Hasan Response:

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, the Imams and the Mahdis, and grant them abundant peace. 1. The prophets (a) have no concern for this world or for accumulating its property. Yet for some reason it may happen that they possess something from the property of this world. Thus they generally leave their heirs nothing of this world’s property. They do not leave inheritance-that is, they do not concern themselves with accumulating worldly property for their heirs. 2. What the prophets (a) bequeath of knowledge, wisdom, and Allah’s vicegerency on His earth to the vicegerents who succeed them leaves no value, however great it may be by comparison, to the worldly property they leave their heirs. 3. In the case of Fadak, is it right that the Muslims inherit Muhammad (s) while his daughter Fatima (a) does not inherit from him? If, in their view, Fatima daughter of Muhammad (s) could not inherit from her father Muhammad (s), then by which verse from Allah’s Book and which narration from the Messenger of Allah (s) did they validate all of their own inheritance from the Messenger of Allah (s)? How did they validate Aisha’s inheritance of the Messenger’s chamber and make it her right to permit her father and Umar to be buried there, while preventing al-Hasan, son of Fatima (a), daughter of the Messenger of Allah (s), from being buried there? If the chamber was inherited, Fatima (a) had a share in it, and al-Hasan (a) had a share through his mother Fatima (a). How, then, did she prevent him, and by what right did Aisha prevent him from being buried in his own property? 4. The Exalted said: ‘Solomon inherited David and said, “O people, we have been taught the language of birds and have been given from all things. Indeed, this is surely the manifest bounty”’ (^[213]). The Exalted said in the story of Zechariah (a): ‘I fear my relatives after me, and my wife is barren, so grant me from Yourself an heir who will inherit from me and inherit from the family of Jacob, and make him, my Lord, pleasing’ (^[214]). What did Allah intend by these verses? What did Solomon inherit from David, and what did John inherit from Zechariah (a)? Did the Children of Israel inherit the property of David and Zechariah instead of Solomon and John (a)? Allah says: ‘Blood relatives are nearer to one another in the Book of Allah. Indeed, Allah knows all things’ (^[215]). If they say it was only prophethood, knowledge, wisdom, and Allah’s vicegerency on His earth, then how did they usurp the vicegerency instead of al-Hasan and al-Husayn when they were the sons of the Messenger of Allah (s) through Fatima? Jesus (a) inherited this divine vicegerency from David (a), and he was his son through Mary (a). Allah says: ‘Descendants, one from another, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing’ (^[216]). How did they usurp it instead of Ali (a), when they were certain-if they were believers-that after Muhammad (s) was sent, it belonged exclusively to the children of Hashim from the descendants of Abraham (a)? ‘Or do they envy the people for what Allah has given them of His bounty? We certainly gave the family of Abraham the Book and wisdom, and We gave them a great kingdom’ (^[217]). How did they usurp it instead of Ali (a), when he was the most knowledgeable and wisest among them, if any of them carried anything of knowledge and wisdom? In any event, Allah, Glorious is He, made clear that the prophets (a) bequeath and are inherited from. However they interpret this inheritance, it makes clear the invalidity of their setting Ali, al-Hasan, and al-Husayn (a) aside and the invalidity of their usurpation of Fatima’s (a) right.