MIRACLE 91 – AMEERUL MOMINEEN (AS) AND GREEK PHYSICIAN
It is reported in Tafseer of Imam Hasan Askari (a.s.), ‘Ameerul Momineen (a.s.), was seated one day, and a man from the Greeks came over, who claimed to have knowledge of philosophy and the medicine, and he said to him (a.s.), ‘O Abul Hasan! A piece of news has reached me that your companion (Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.)), and that he (s.a.w.a.) is with the insanity, and I have come to cure him (s.a.w.a.). I want to meet him (s.a.w.a.), but I was told that has passed passed away.
It was said to me, that you are his cousin and his son-in-law, and I can see paleness with you, and I have seen that your legs are thin. I do not see them bearing your weight.
As for the paleness, so there is its cure with me, and as for the two thin legs, so there is gimmick with me in order to thicken these, and the mode is that you should increase walking a little, not more, and in what you can load upon your back, and embrace it with your chest if you are less with these, and do not be excessive with these two for your legs are thin – they would not be safe if you carry a heavy load and they might break.
And as for the paleness, so its cure is with me, and it is this’, and he brought out a medication and he said, ‘This will not harm you nor would it alter anything in you, but it would necessitate a dieting from the meat for forty morning, then your paleness would decline’.
Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (a.s.) said to him: ‘You mentioned the benefits of this medicine for my paleness, so do you recognise anything which would increase it and harm it?’ The man said, ‘Yes, a seed from this’ – and he gestured by his hand to a medicine with him – and said, ‘If the human being takes it and there is paleness with him, he would die from it and that very moment, and if there was no paleness with him, the paleness would come to be with him until he dies during that very day’.
Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (a.s.) said: ‘Then show me this harmful one’. He gave it to him, and he (a.s.) said to him: ‘How much is the measurement of this?’ He said, ‘A measurement of two Misqaal of pure poison, a measurement of each seed from it would kill a man’.
Imam Ali (a.s.) took it, and sat comfortably and sweated with light sweating, and the man went on trembling and he was saying within himself, ‘Now I will be seized by the sons of Hazrat Abu Talib (a.s.) and it would be said I killed him (a.s.), and my word would not be accepted from me that he (a.s.) has offended against me’.
Imam Ali (a.s.) smiled and said: ‘O servant of Allah, I am healthy as I was. It did not harm me what you claimed that it has poison, so close your eyes’. He closed. Then he (a.s.) said: ‘Open your eyes’. He opened, and looked at the face of Imam Ali (a.s.), and he (a.s.) was white, red, unblemished redness. The man trembled from what he saw, and Imam Ali (a.s.) smiled and said: ‘Where is the paleness which you claimed that it is with me?’
So, the man said, ‘By Allah! It isn’t what I saw before. You were pale, and now you are rosy’. Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (a.s.) said: ‘The paleness has declined from me due to your poison which you claimed that it would kill me.
And as for these two legs of mine’ – and he (a.s.) extended his left and uncovered from his leg – ‘So you are claiming that I am needy to be kind to my body, in carrying what I carry from the load upon it, it might break the two legs, and I will now show you that the medicine of Allah, the Almighty is different to your medicine’ – and He (a.s.) struck his hand at a large wooden pillar, upon its top was the ceiling sitting on it in which he (a.s.) was, and above it were two floors, one of them above the other – and he (a.s.) moved it and carried it, and the ceiling and the walls raised, and above them were the two storeys, and there was faintness upon the Greek physician.
Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) said: ‘Pour water upon him!’ So, they poured water upon him, and he awoke, and he was saying, ‘By Allah! I have not seen wonders like today’. Imam Ali (a.s.) said to him: ‘This is the strength of the two thin legs and their carrying capacity. Where is this medicine of your (now), O Greek?’ The Greek said, ‘Was Mohammed (s.a.w.a.) similar to you?’.
Imam Ali (a.s.) said: ‘And my knowledge is infact from his knowledge, and my intellect is infact from his intellect, and my strength but from his (s.a.w.a.) strength? A Saqafy (man) who was a physician of the Arabs, came to him (s.a.w.a.) and said to him (s.a.w.a.), ‘If there was insanity with you (s.a.w.a.), I can cure you (s.a.w.a.)’. Mohammed (s.a.w.a.) said to him: ‘Would you like me to show you a sign by which you can know my needlessness from your medicine, and your need to my medicine?’ He said, ‘Yes’.
He (s.a.w.a.) said: ‘Which sign do you want?’ He said, ‘Call that bunch’ – and he gestured towards a distant palm tree. He called it, it uprooted itself from the ground – and it was grooving in the ground with a grooving, until it paused in front of him (s.a.w.a.). He (s.a.w.a.) said to him: ‘Does that suffice you?’ He said, ‘No’. He (s.a.w.a.) said: ‘What is that which you want?’ He said, ‘Order it to return to where it came from and settle in its residence from which it uprooted. He (s.a.w.a.) ordered it, and it returned and settled in its residence.
The Greek said to Ameerul Momineen (a.s.), ‘This which you are mentioning from Mohammed (s.a.w.a.), he is absent from me, and I want reduced from you and less than that. I shall go distant from you, and you call me over, and I will choose not to respond. If I do come to you, then this would be a sign’.
Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) said: ‘This rather happens to be a sign for you alone, because you know from yourself that you do not want (to come), and (it would not be known whether it was) I who moved your choice from without any gesture to anything from me, or (whether it was) from I having ordered it with your coming, or (whether it was) from the (other) ones who aimed to that and it wasn’t I who ordered it.
But (you should ask for) what would happen to be from the Power of Allah, the Exalted, the Compeller. And you, O Greek, otherwise it would be possible that you claim that somebody else enabled it, and he would be saying, ‘I have made you obey upon that’. Therefore, suggest if you were suggesting, what would be a sign for the entirety of the worlds’.
The Greek said to him (a.s.), ‘Since you have made the suggesting, to be for me, then I suggest that you disjoint the parts of that palm tree and separate them and distance what is between them. Then you should gather and return them just as they used to be’.
Imam Ali (a.s.) said: ‘This is a sign, and you be my messenger to it – meaning to the palm tree – and say to it that the successor of Mohammed (s.a.w.a.), the Messenger of Allah orders your parts that they should separate and distance from each other’.
He went and said to it, and it disjointed, and gathered, and separated and became small parts to the extent that neither could they be seen by the eye nor any traces of it, until it was as if the palm tree had not existed over there at all. The body parts of the Greek trembles and he said, ‘O successor of Mohammed (s.a.w.a.)! You have given me my first choice, so (now) give me another. Order it to gather and return to be just as it was’.
He (a.s.) said: ‘You be my messenger to it and repeat saying to it, ‘O parts of the palm tree! The successor of Mohammed (s.a.w.a.), the Messenger of Alah, orders you that you gather and return to be just as you were’.
The Greek called out and he said that, and they raised in the air as if they were dust particles, then went on to gather, part by part from it – until the branches were formed for it – and the leaves, and the roots, and the trunk. Then it composed and gathered and elongated and displayed and settled its roots in its residence and planted its trunk upon these and joined the branches upon it and joined up the leaves upon these, and its dates upon it – and beforehand its clusters were bare – as it was far from the season for the ripe dates, and the un-ripened dates, and the twigs.
The Greek said, ‘And another (thing) I would like is that ripened dates should come out from its twigs, and transform it from green to yellow and red, and dates reaching maturity in order to be eaten and you feed me and the ones in your presence from it’.
Imam Ali (a.s.) said: ‘You be my messenger to it with that and instruct it with it’. The Greek said it to it what Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) had ordered him, and it sprouted twigs and un-ripened dates, and they became yellow, and red, and ripened, and its twigs became heavy with its dates.
The Greek said, ‘And another thing I would like is to draw nearer its branches in front of me, or elongate my hand so I can grab these, and the most beloved thing to me is that one of them descends to me and my hand elongates to the other which is its counterpart.
Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) said: ‘Extend your hand which you want to be elongated and said, ‘O the One who brings nearer the distant, cause my hand to be near to it!’ And withhold the other (hand) which you want the dates to descend to it and say, ‘O Easer of the difficulties! Ease for me the grabbing of what is remote from me, from it!’ He did so and said it, and his right hand elongated and arrive to the dates, and the dates came nearer to the other one and fell upon the ground, and its branch had elongated.
Then Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) said: ‘You, if you were to eat from these, then do not believe in the one who displayed to you its wonders, Allah, Mighty and Majestic would hasten the Punishment to you - as you would be yried with it what the intellectuals of His creatures would take a lesson from it (as well as) the ignorant ones’.
The Greek said, ‘I, if I were to disbelieve after what I have seen, then I have reached to be in the stubbornness, and moved to be exposed to the destruction. I testify that you are from the special ones of Allah, the Almighty – truthful in the entirety of your words from Allah therefore order me with whatever you so desire to, I will obey’’.1
MIRACLE 121 – POWER OF AMEERUL MOMINEEN (A.S.)
It is narrated in al-Ikhtisas from Hazrat Imam Sadiq (a.s.),
‘O Aban! How can the people deny the word of Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) when he (a.s.) said: ‘If I so desire, I can raise this leg of mine and strike the son of Abu Sufyan with it in Syria, and overturn him from his throne’, and they are not denying that Aasif, the successor of Sulaiman (a.s.) had brought the throne of Bilquees and came to Sulaiman (a.s.) with it before his glance could return to him?’
Is not our Prophet the most superior of the Prophets and his successor, the most superior of the successors? Why are they not even making him (a.s.) to be like the successor of Sulaiman? Allah, the Almighty will be judging between us and the ones who reject our rights and are denying our merits’.2