TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD
This is the first American edition of a great book, actually one of the greatest in the
Islamic library, a book so important the government of Iraq banned it in the 1960s,
imposing a hefty fine and a jail sentence, or both, on anyone found to have it in his
personal library. But if you read this book, you will conclude that those who ban it are
really cursed with shallow minds, short-sightedness and blind prejudice based on
ignorance.
Ignorance and fear have always been mankind’s worst enemies. Fear is caused by
ignorance. This means that the Number One Enemy of man is ignorance. It is for the
sake of removing this ignorance about what Shi`a (or Shi`ite) Muslims believe that we
introduce this book to the readers all over the world. When they read it, they will
wonder about the stupidity of those who banned it and of those who till now are
reluctant to translate it into other foreign languages…, let alone those who are “too
scared” to read it. I say so because when I inquired at the time about why this great
book was not translated until then, I was told that translators did not want to take such
a “risk”…
Surely there is a story behind the publication of every book, and this one is no
exception at all. Here is the complete story for you:
When I was living in the early 1970s in Atlanta, Georgia, and studying for my
graduate degree on my own, two dignitaries asked me to edit an awful translation of
this book titled “The Right Path”. The Indian translator of the latter book, whose
name I was told once as being “Dr. Haidar”, had obtained a Persian (Farsi) translation
of it, so he, a physician whose knowledge of English was pathetically limited, decided
to undertake the task of translating it into English. Some Iranian people in Houston,
Texas, decided to spend money on publishing and promoting “The Right Path” and
later asked me to send them my own translation of it, which I refused to do.
One of those two dignitaries who asked me to edit “The Right Path” was the late Dr.
Muhammed-Ali al-Shahristani, and the other was martyr Sayyid Muhammed-Mahdi
al-Hakim, so I feel that it is incumbent on me to introduce the reader to both of these
great men in recognition of their contributions to the promotion of accurate
knowledge about our precious creed.
Dr. Muhammed-Ali al-Shahristani, an architect by profession, was born in Kerbala in
1932 and died in London, U.K., on February 28, 2011 and his body was transported to
Kerbala for burial near the Shrine of Imam al-Hussain . Al-Shahristani was an
expert on Islamic architecture and founder of the International Islamic University of
England. He contributed to the reconstruction efforts of the holy shrines in Samarra,
Iraq, which were bombed by Wahhabi terrorists on February 22, 2006. He acted as a
representative of UNESCO in also reconstructing other holy shrines in al-Kadhimiyya
and Kerbala, all located in Iraq. He also rendered architectural services to Saudi
Arabia, the United Kingdom and Iran.
Al-Shahristani, whom I met two times in the U.S. and once in the U.K., founded the
International Islamic University of England in London, which is often referred to as
the Islamic Open University due to its open teaching method, and set up research
centers affiliated with this university in various Arab and Islamic countries. He was
one of the first figures to defend religious leadership in al-Najaf, Iraq, actively
supporting human rights organizations in Iraq and elsewhere. I could not find a date
for the founding of the said University…
The last time I met Dr. al-Shahristani, that is, “Abu Ihsan,” Ihsan being the name of
his oldest son, was during the Summer of 2003 when I was on my way back home,
Iraq, which I left the last time in 1971. He took me for a tour of his school and
familiarized me with its teaching and curricular methods as well as degree awarding.
As for the other dignitary whose support resulted in the
translation and publication of Al-Muraja`at, he was HujjatulIslam wal Muslimeen Sayyid Muhammed-Mahdi al-Hakim,
one of the sons of the late Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhsin
al-Hakim whose biography is detailed in the Preface to my
book titled Mary and Jesus in Islam which you can obtain
from Amazon or any other major bookseller. I had the honor
of meeting this great sage, i.e. the Grand Ayatollah, when I
was studying for my undergraduate degree at the College of
Arts, Baghdad University, a year before his demise. One of
his sons, Sayyid Yousuf, showed me their very small house,
and I exchanged correspondence with him when I later went
to the States. Sayyid Muhsin al-Hakim was one of Iraq’s foremost scholars and
religious leaders of the twentieth century, and his family has produced great
theologians, scholars and political leaders.
Martyr Sayyid Muhammed-Mahdi al-Hakim, more famous
as Sayyid Mahdi al-Hakim, “Abu Salih”, was born in 1940 in
the holy city of al-Najaf al-Ashraf where he started at the
very young age of ten studying the Muqaddimat
(Introductions) under the tutelage of mentor MuhammedTaqi al-Faqih. Having completed this study phase, he started
studying the Sutooh in the Kharij under the tutelage of
mentor Ayatollah Hussain al-Hilli. He also studied the
Sutooh in Fiqh al-Kharij at the hands of then Grand
Ayatollah Sayyid Abul-Qasim al-Khoei whose biography is
also included in the Preface to my book Mary and Jesus in
Islam. He maintained a strong relationship with martyr Muhammed-Baqir al-Sadr
who set aside for him a class in the Usool (principles of jurisprudence) at the start of
his youth, having noticed his early interest in Islamic work.
Early in 1964, martyr al-Hakim represented his father, who was then the supreme
religious authority in Iraq, the Grand Ayatollah, in Baghdad and was involved during
those years in many social activities in the capital. He was an active member of the
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commission known as the Group of Scholars in Baghdad in general and alKadhimiyya in particular which assumed a significant role in disseminating awareness
and resisting the dubious ruling regime.
Having noticed the impacts of his social and political activities and the clout enjoyed
by the martyr throughout Iraq and the importance of his ties with politicians, the
officials of the then ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party in Iraq decided to eliminate
him, so the Party accused him of having “connections with foreigners” as a prelude
for arresting him. Another objective behind this scheme was the defamation of the
supreme Marji`iyya, the country’s highest Shi`ite religious authority. The Party,
therefore, announced this charge on the government’s radio in June of 1969,
sentencing him to be executed and his possessions confiscated, posting a bounty of
five thousand dinars which, at the time, was the equivalent of fifteen thousand dollars,
for anyone who could apprehend him. He, therefore, had to discreetly leave Iraq for
Pakistan then Dubai, U.A.E., where he carried out wide charitable projects in order to
serve the issue of Islam and Muslims. Those activities included the building of
mosques and Husainiyyas, the delivering of lectures and the establishment of the
Ja`fari Endowments as well as the Ja`fari Council of Shari`a. He kept himself
informed of all Islamic awareness movements throughout the Islamic world.
After that, the martyred al-Sadr asked him to go to
London and to settle there in order to manage the Islamic
and political work from there and thus expand the area of
the Iraqi opposition abroad. All this preceded the
outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war which Saddam Hussein
started in September 1980. After his arrival at London
and the escalation of the Iraqi opposition on the political
and military levels, he founded the following:
1. The Islamic Regiments Movement ‫حرك ة األف واج‬
‫ اإلس المية‬for organizing the Iraqi forces to fight the
then regime,
2. Ahl al-Bayt Center ‫مرك ز أھ ل البي ت‬, a cultural and religious center for serving
Islamic world issues,
3. The Human Rights Organization in Iraq ‫منظمة حقوق اإلنسان في العراق‬,
4. The Committee for Looking after Displaced Iraqis ‫لجن ة رعاي ة المھج رين الع راقيين‬,
particularly those whom the Saddami regime expelled to Iran because it
suspected them of dissent.
All these activities intensified the hostility of the Saddami regime towards him, so it
decided to eliminate him once and for all, and here is the complete story of his
martyrdom:
On Thursday-Friday, January 7, 1988, martyr al-Hakim received a
letter from Sa`eed Muhammed, editor-in-chief of Al-Aalam newspaper
‫ جري دة الع الم‬inviting him to attend the Islamic Conference in the
Khartoum which was held under the auspices of the National Islamic
front in the Sudan ‫الجبھة االسالمية القومية في ال سودان‬. The afore-mentioned
individual received al-Hakim’s passport in order to get the entry visa
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to the Sudan. Martyr al-Hakim found out later that he did not get the entry visa
because, reportedly, his passport was lost at the Sudanese Consulate in London, so he
sent Dr. Abdul-Wahhab al-Hakim, who was accompanying him, to Sa`eed
Muhammed in order to inquire about the fate of his passport. There, Dr. al-Hakim was
introduced to one Tijani man as their host in the Sudan.
On Wednesday, January 13, 1988, the day when both Hakims were supposed to fly to
the Sudan, the men visited the said Consulate and received their passports which did
not have any entry visas, something which Sayyid al-Hakim denounced, prompting
the Consulate to issue the visa on the spot so they could travel. But both men could
not leave before Friday, January 15, causing Sayyid al-Hakim to miss the sessions of
the conference, so he was quite angry with the behavior of his Sudanese invitees. On
the same day, al-Hakim received at his residence at the Khartoum Hilton Hotel
Captain al-Noor Zaroof who was accompanied by the afore-mentioned Muhammed
Sa`eed. The Sudanese couple went to al-Hakim to apologize for all the run-around he
had been given by the Sudanese Consulate in London. At the same time, they warned
him about Sudanese Baath Party elements whom they described as “killer criminals
who may harm you.” This statement may have been either a warning or a prediction
of an imminent attack on a guest of the Sudanese people.
On the next day, Saturday, one Ahmed al-Imam conveyed a message to Sayyid alHakim that the renown Sudanese politician, Hassan al-Turabi, wished to meet him, so
the Sayyid decided to oblige on the following day. Al-Hakim visited al-Turabi with
whom he held an extensive meeting during which a discussion went on regarding
some issues that concerned the Arab and Islamic worlds, including the role of the
Islamic movement in Iraq and its plan to establish an Islamic government. Al-Hakim
offered an initiative to mediate to mend broken ties between al-Turabi and al-Sadiq
al-Mahdi, who was then the head of the Sudanese government and the president of the
Umma (nation) Party, which the first welcomed. Al-Hakim contacted al-Sadiq alMahdi who also welcomed his initiative. The men’s meeting went on till 8:10 am on
the next day, Sunday. After the meeting, al-Hakim and his companion returned to the
hotel which they reached 15 minutes later.
When both men entered the door to the reception area of the Hilton Hotel, they
noticed two suspicious persons at the end of the hall who seemed to be Iraqis, perhaps
men of the Iraqi Embassy’s intelligence staff. Both Hakims asked for the keys to their
rooms. Moments later, on that Sunday, January 17, 1988, according to the Gregorian
Christian calendar (which coincided with the 4th of January according to the Julian
Christian calendar), both suspicious looking men fired at the Hakims, killing Sayyid
Mahdi al-Hakim and wounding Dr. Abdul-Wahhab al-Hakim in the leg. Despite his
wound, Dr. Abdul-Wahhab tried to get close to Sayyid Mahdi by rolling his body. He
saw the culprits going towards the hotel’s door. Dr. Abdul-Wahhab told me later,
when he visited me at my Falls Church, Virginia, house, just few days after the
incident how not a single individual at that crowded hotel hall tried to stop the
assailants or catch them or do anything at all. Dr. Abdul-Wahhab al-Hakim did not get
medical assistance except two hours later. The culprits were seen leaving the hotel,
each driving his Mercedes car, a red and a white one, both carrying diplomatic license
plates clearly indicating that they belonged to the staff of the Iraqi Embassy at the
Khartoum.
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Hours after this incident, the Sudanese minister of the interior went to the site of the
crime and stressed, perhaps for domestic consumption, that Sayyid Mahdi al-Hakim
was “guest of the Sudan” and that “justice would take its course.” It never did, and it
never will.
In the evening of the same day, senior Sudanese officials were at the Khartoum
Airport in order to welcome Arab ministers of agriculture who were to hold a meeting
there and then. They were Arab Gulf ministers in addition to the Iraqi minister of
agriculture. All arrived on board an Iraqi plane. As the plane was heading towards the
stop point, someone noticed an official of the Iraqi Embassy who worked as the media
attaché and whose name was Muthanna al-Harithi ‫ ُمثَنّ ى الح ارثي‬rushing towards the
Iraqi ambassador to the Sudan, Tariq Yahya who was among the welcoming party. He
greeted the ambassador while being in a clearly visible tense mood, and both men
talked for few moments following which Muthanna al-Harithi went to the plane that
had just brought the ministers of agriculture there and boarded it.
The visiting delegation noticed at the Umm Durman
area of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, some security
barriers and obvious confusion among the police which
surrounded the entrances and exits of the Hilton Hotel.
Reports by then had spread about an assassination that
took place at the hotel’s hall where an unknown
assailant emptied bullets from his silenced pistol in the
chest of Sayyid Muhammed-Mahdi al-Hakim and that
the assailant and an accomplice were able to flee.
After security investigations had been conducted, the incident’s details became clear,
and fingers of accusation were directed at Muthanna al-Harithi who boarded the Iraqi
plane minutes after the assassination. Once he was on board, the plane turned around,
taking him away. Time played a role as it was calculated by the Iraqi intelligence
operatives who plotted so the crime could be carried out in a way that would enable
the assailant, Muthanna al-Harithi, to disappear from Khartoum.
Saddam Hussein’s regime, which was installed and maintained then toppled by the
U.S., collapsed in 2003, and now this is the year 2015, yet nobody has conducted an
investigation into this crime in which the criminal remains at large, all due to the
political turmoil into which Iraq was hurled since its “liberation” from Saddam’s
regime.
All these details are introduced to the reader for one purpose: revealing the truth about
the bloody hands that ruled Iraq with the blessing of the West in general and the U.S.
in particular for so many years. Iraq remains the hostage of Western plots that are
woven and executed with plenty of help from “allies,” i.e. stooges and lackeys, of the
West in the region: Wahhabi rulers of Saudi Arabia and corrupt tyrants of the Gulf
area.
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