MIRACLE 29 – COMPANIONS WITNESSING PARADISE AND HELL

Hazrat Imam Baqir (a.s.) narrates,

‘The companions of Imam Ali (a.s.) said to him: ‘O Ameerul Momineen (a.s.)! If you could show us what we are wishing for and what has reached you from the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.a.).

He (a.s.) said: ‘If I were to show you a wonder from my wonders, you will disbelieve and say, ‘he (a.s.) is a lying sorcerer, and a soothsayer’.

They said, ‘There is no one from us except and he knows that you have inherited Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.a.) and his knowledge has come to you’.

He (a.s.) said: ‘Knowledge of the scholar is severe, and no one can endure it except a believer whose heart Allah has tested with faith and aids with him with a spirit from Him.

Then he (a.s.) said: ‘Since you are insisting, now I will show you a part from my wonders that Allah has bestowed upon me from the knowledge’. So, seventy men followed him (a.s.), considering themselves to be the best of his Shias.

Imam Ali (a.s.) said to them: ‘I will not show you anything until I take a pact with Allah that you all will not disbelieve in me nor will you accuse me of being a sorcerer. For by Allah, I will not be showing you except what Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) has taught me’. So, he took the pact and the covenant from them, as tightly as what Allah, the Almighty had taken upon His Messenger (s.a.w.a.).

Then he (a.s.) said: ‘Turn your face away from me until I supplicate with what I want’. They heard him (a.s.) supplicate with a supplication they had not heard the like of it. Then he (a.s.) said: ‘Turn your faces around’. They turned and there were gardens, and rivers, and castles on one side, and the blazing fire flaming from one side, they realized that they were witnessing the Paradise and the Fire.

He (the narrator) said, ‘their best in words said, ‘this is mighty sorcery!’ And they return to be Kafirs except for two men.

When he (a.s.) returned with the two men, he (a.s.) said to them: ‘You have heard their talk and I had taken the pacts from them, yet they returned to disbelieving. But, by Allahit will be my argument upon them tomorrow in the presence of Allah, the Almighty’.

‘Surely Allah, the Almighty knows I am neither a soothsayer, nor a sorcerer, nor my forefathers were sorcerers, rather it is a teaching that Allah, the Almighty transmitted to Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.), who transmitted it to me and I am transmitting it to you. So, if you were to reject me, you will be rejecting Allah, the Almighty’.

Then he came to the mosque and supplicated with a supplication and the pebbles of the mosque transformed into jewels and rubies. He (a.s.) asked them: ‘What is that which you two are seeing?’ They said, ‘These are jewels and rubies’. He (a.s.) said: ‘If I were to swear upon my Lord regarding what He is more Magnificent that this, He would fulfil my vow’.

One of them returned to be a Kafir, and as for the other, he was steadfast. He (a.s.) said to him: ‘If you were to take something (from the jewels and rubies), you will regret it, and if you leave it, you will still regret it’.

But his greed did not leave him until he grabbed a jewel and made it to be in his sleeve, until when it was morning, he looked at it, and it was a white gem, the people had not looked at the like of it before.

He said, ‘O Ameerul Momineen (a.s.)! I have taken one jewel from that’. He (a.s.) said: ‘And what caused you to do that?’ He said, ‘I desired to know, whether it is true or false?’ He (a.s.) said: ‘if you were to return it to the place which you have taken it from, Allah, the Almighty would replace it with Paradise instead, and if you do not return it, Allah, the Almighty would replace it with Fire’.

The man stood up and returned it to its place which he had taken it. Allah, the Almighty transformed it into a pebble like what it had been.

Some of them said, ‘This man was Misam al-Tammar’, and some of them said, ‘it was Amr ibn al-Hamaq al-Khuzaie’.¹

Footnotes

1. Behar al-Anwaar, Vol. 41, Chp 112, Trad 20 ↩