Miracle 89: A Lover of Imam Ali (a.s.) Did Not Burn in the Fire

It is reported by Ammar bin Yasir (r.a.),

‘Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) was seated in the seat of judgment when a man called Safwan Al-Ak’hal got up and came to him (a.s.), and said to him, ‘I am a man from your Shias and there are sins upon me. I want you to purify me from these in the world, so I can arrive to the Hereafter and there would be no sin with me’.

The Imam (a.s.) asked him: ‘How bad are your sins, and what are these?’ He said, ‘I have sodomised the children’. He (a.s.) said: ‘Which one is more beloved to you, a strike with Zulfiqa or I overturn a wall upon you (crushing you), or I throw fire upon you, for that is a recompense of the one who indulges in that act of disobedience’.

He said, ‘O my Master! Burn me with the fire so I can be rescued from the Fire of the Hereafter’. He (a.s.) said: ‘O Ammar! gather a thousand stick for us to incinerate him tomorrow morning with the fire’. Then He (a.s.) said to the man: ‘Get up and bequeath with whatever is for you and with whatever is upon you (debts)’.

He (Ammar) said, ‘The man got up and bequeathed with whatever was for him and whatever was upon him, and he divided his wealth upon his children, and gave everyone his right. Then he spent the night in a room of Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) in the house of lamentation in the east of the central Masjid of Kufa.

When Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) had prayed Salat, he (a.s.) said: ‘O Ammar! Call out at Kufa, ‘Come out and look at a judgment of Ameerul Momineen (a.s.)!’ A group from them said, ‘How can he burn a man from his Shias and one who loves him (a.s.), and at the moment he (a.s.) is wanting to burn him with the fire? His Imamate is invalidated’.

Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) heard that. Ammar said, ‘The Imam seized the man and threw a thousand sticks towards him. He (a.s.) gave him an igniter and a matchstick and said: ‘Ignite and burn yourself! If you were from my Shias and one who loves me and my recogniser, you will not be burned by the fire, and if you were from the adversaries, the beliers, then the fire will devour your flesh and break your bones’.

The man ignited upon himself, and the sticks burned, and there were white clothes upon the man, but the fire did not attach with these and the smoke did not go near him. The Imam revealed (the truth) and said: ‘The deniers with Allah, the Almighty have belied and have strayed with a far straying!’

Then he (a.s.) said: ‘Our Shias would be with us, and I am distributor of the Paradise and the Fire, and Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) has testified for me with that in many places’’.¹

Footnotes

1. Behar al-Anwaar, Vol. 42, Chp 116, Trad 16 ↩