Tacit and Explicit Testimony as proof of abu Ja‘far al-Thani’s (the second)  عليه السلام Divine Authority over the people after abu al-Hassan al-Rida  عليه السلام — report 4

RESEARCH · UNREVIEWED. Source publication is not a certification of authenticity.

hadith

ORIGINAL ARABIC SOURCE TEXT

4ـ عِدَّةٌ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ يَحْيَى عَنْ مَالِكِ بْنِ أَشْيَمَ عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ بَشَّارٍ قَالَ كَتَبَ ابْنُ قِيَامَا إِلَى أَبِي الْحَسَنِ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) كِتَاباً يَقُولُ فِيهِ كَيْفَ تَكُونُ إِمَاماً وَلَيْسَ لَكَ وَلَدٌ فَأَجَابَهُ أَبُو الْحَسَنِ الرِّضَا (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) شِبْهَ الْمُغْضَبِ وَمَا عَلَّمَكَ أَنَّهُ لا يَكُونُ لِي وَلَدٌ وَالله لا تَمْضِي الايَّامُ وَاللَّيَالِي حَتَّى يَرْزُقَنِيَ الله وَلَداً ذَكَراً يَفْرُقُ بِهِ بَيْنَ الْحَقِّ وَالْبَاطِلِ.

Arabic source transcription, not a back-translation. Text nodes are preserved without spelling or diacritic changes. Printed-edition comparison is pending.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

4. A number of our people has narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from Ja’far ibn Yahya from Malik ibn Ashyam from al-Husayn ibn Bashshar who has said the following. “Ibn Qiyaman wrote a letter to abu al-Hassan عليه السلام in which he had said the following. ‘How can you be an Imam when you do not have a son?” Abu al-Hassan al-Rida عليه السلام replied him with signs of anger, “How do you know that I will not have a son? By Allah, not many days and nights will pass before Allah will grant me a male child through who He will make the truth distinct from falsehood.”

Source & scholarly assessments

Al-Kafi, vol. 1, book 4, chapter 73, report 4

Open original digital source ↗

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi · مجهول · Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (3/374)

Shaykh Baqir al-Behbudi · لم يخرجه · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kāfī

Digital-source transcription only. The recorded assessment is attributed to the named scholar; it does not establish absolute historical certainty.

Arabic witness SHA-256: 6dfd8841eba228a8dc1fa463cfa3417e5a5ed9494c1d217c9e6035a8922c2357

Source: Thaqalayn (Stichting Thaqalayn), https://thaqalayn.com/hadith/1/4/73/4. Al-Kafi by al-Kulayni. English translation attributed by the digital catalogue to Muhammad Sarwar. CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. No endorsement implied.