NAJMUS SAAQIB Incident Thirty-three: A Short man prays behind Imam (a.s.)

The respectful Shaykh, chief of the pious, Warraam bin Abi
Faraas, at the end of the second volume of Tanbiyatul Khatir,[1]
says: Informed me, the noble Sayyid, Abu Hasan Ali bin Ibrahim Arizi Alawi
Husaini that: Informed me Ali bin Ali bin Numa that: Informed me Abu Muhammad
Hasan bin Ali bin Hamza Aqsasi in the house of Sharif Ali bin Ja’far bin Ali
Madaini Alawi that he said:

There was a short-stature Shaykh in Kufa, who was well known
for his piety, he liked sight-seeing, was an ardent worshipper and preferred
seclusion. And he was always in pursuit of historical information and
traditional reports.

One day it so happened that I was in the gathering of my
father when this gentleman arrived and began to converse with my father and the
latter was listening to him intently.

The senior gentleman said: One night I was in Masjid Jofa,
which is an ancient Masjid on the outskirts of Kufa. Half the night had passed
and I was engrossed in secluded prayers when suddenly three persons entered.
When they reached the center of the courtyard, one of them squatted and began
to move the soil to the right and the left. A spring of water appeared and
water gushed out of it.

He performed the ritual ablution with this water and
gestured to the other two persons and they also performed the ablution. Then he
stood in the front and the other two stood behind him to pray. I also went and
stood at the back and recited the prayers with them.

Since I was astonished at the erupting of the spring, when
the prayer was concluded, I asked the man to my right: Who is that gentleman?
He told me: He is the Master of the Affair, son of Imam Hasan Askari (a.s.). So
I went forward and kissed the blessed hands of His Eminence and asked very
respectfully: O son of Allah’s Messenger (s.a.w.a.), what is your opinion about
Shareef Umar, son of Hamza? Is he on the right faith? He replied: No, but it is
possible he may come to the right path. However, it is sure that he would not
die without seeing me.

The narrator says: We wrote down this interesting tradition,
and some time passed after this incident till Shareef Umar bin Hamza expired
and it was not heard that he had seen Imam Zamana (a.s.). One day I met that
old gentleman at a place and reminded him about that incident and asked: Did
you not say that Shareef would see Imam Zamana (a.s.) before his death? The
aged gentleman replied: How do you know that he did not meet His Eminence?
After that, one day I met Shareef Abul Manaaqeb son of Shareef Umar son of
Hamza and discussed about his father with him.

Shareef Abul Manaaqeb said: One night I was with my father,
when he was in his terminal illness. It was the last part of the night. The
physical strength of my father was sapped and his voice had become feeble. All
the doors of the house were shut when suddenly a man came to us and I was
overwhelmed by his awe. We were so astonished that we didn’t even ask him how
he managed to enter the house when all the doors were closed and what the
purpose of his visit was. That gentleman sat besides my father, spoke softly to
him and my father wept. Then he arose and went away. And when he went out of
our sight, my father shook terribly and asked me to make him sit up. I helped
him to sit up. He opened his eyes and asked: Where is that gentleman who was
sitting near me? I replied that he had left. He said: Go after him. I went
after him, but could not find him again as all the doors were closed. I
returned to my father and related the matter to him. Then I asked him who that
gentleman was. He said: He is the Master of the Affair (a.s.). After that his
illness intensified again and he became unconscious.[2]

The author says: Abu Muhammad, Hasan bin Hamza
Aqsasi, alias Izzuddin Aqsasi was a well known Sadat and a man of noble stock;
he was an accomplished litterateur of Kufa and an expert poet. Nasirullah
Abbasi had appointed him as the leader of the Sadat. He had gone for the Ziyarat
of Janab Salman with Mustansirbillah Abbasi when the latter said to him: The
extremist Shia lie when they claim that Imam Ali (a.s.) traveled from Medina to
Madayan in a single night, performed the Ghusl of Salman Farsi and returned to
Medina the same night.

So he composed the following verses in reply:

They deny the night when the
Successor set out for Madayan when he was summoned.

And he gave Ghusl to Salman and
returned to the lands of Yathrib when the morning rose up.

And say that it is a claim of the
extremists (Ghulaat) and there is no fault of theirs till they do not
lie.

So Asif brought the throne of
Bilquis in the wink of the eye from the land of Saba
piercing the obstructions.

So you do not say it is extremism
in the matter of Asif. How can I be an extremist regarding Haider? It is a
strange matter.

When Ahmad is the best of the
messengers and he is the best of the successors or the whole report is fake?

Masjid Jofa is among the well known mosques of Kufa and His
Eminence Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) prayed four units of prayer there, recited the
rosary of Zahra (s.a.) and a long Munajaat after that; which is present in
books of Ziyarats and is mentioned in the second Saheefah Alawiya; but
today no trace is found of that Masjid.