HISTORY
OF THE SHRINE OF
IMAM MUSA AL-KADHIM & IMAM MUHAMMAD AL-JAWAD (a.s)
Anyone approaching Baghdad from the north or the west will be
impressed by the sight of the four golden minarets at Kadhmayn, the Shrine of
the Two Imams, Imam Musa al-Kadhim and Imam Muhammad Taqi al-Jawad, peace be
upon them. They are respectively the Seventh and the Ninth of the Twelve Imams,
at whose tombs we are accustomed to seek healing and to invoke their
intercession for the forgiveness of our sins and the fulfilment of our needs.
The
present building dates back only to the beginning of the sixteenth century and
has been kept in excellent repair. This building represents the restoration of
Shah lsmail I (1502 - 24), though when the Turkish Sultan, Suleman the Great,
captured Baghdad and remained there for four months in 1534, he visited this
sacred place, and is said to have contributed to the further ornamentation of
the Shrine at Kadhmayn. The tiles for the double cupola, however, were provided
in 1796 by Shah Agha Muhammad Khan, who was the first of the Persian Kadjar
dynasty. In 1870, Nasr-al-Din Shah had these golden tiles repaired on one of the
domes and on the minarets. It is interesting that the dates of all these
alterations are clearly indicated by inscriptions.
If we bear in mind that the Two Imams who are buried here died in the beginning
of the eighth century, it will be evident that there are seven hundred years of
the history of their tomb to account for, previous to the comparatively modern
restoration of Shah Ismail I. The Imams lived in the early days of Baghdad,
while the walls of Mansur's round city on the western side of the Tigris were
still standing. There were cemeteries to the north-west that went by various
names - that at the Syrian Gate, that of the Abbasids, and that of the Straw
Gate. The Two Imams were buried immediately to the west of this latter cemetery,
but by the time Yakubi wrote, the whole northern district was designated in a
general way as the cemetery of the Kuraish. Both of these Imams were poisoned at
the instigation of the reigning Caliphs, but it is significant that in the case
of Imam Muhammad Taqi, the funeral service was read by a representative of the
royal family, which undoubtedly distinguised the Imam as an important person, at
whose grave some sort of a mausoleum would be built.
But as to the importance attached in the early times to the visit to this tomb,
the only information available is on the authority of traditions that have been
attributed to the Eighth and Tenth Imams. These traditions are answers they are
said to have given when they were asked by their followers concerning the merit
of pilgrimage to Kadhmayn. It is related that the Imam Ali Reza, whose life in
Baghdad was during the caliphate of Haroon al-Rashid, told his Shia followers to
say their prayers of salutation to his father, the Imam Musa al-Kadhim,
"Outside the walls of the Shrine, or in the nearby mosques," if the
Sunni authority and prejudice in Baghdad was too great for them to do so at the
tomb itself. From this we infer that a building of some sort was recognised at
that early date as marking the tomb of the Imam Musa and that it was surrounded
by a wall. Further statements are said to have been made a few years later by
the Imam Ali Naqi, whose period in the Imamat began during the later part of the
Caliphate of Mu'tasim, and who enjoyed greater indulgence that was shown to the
Shias until the period of reaction against them and the Mu'tazalites under the
Caliph Mutawakkil. The following particular instructions for visiting this
Shrine have been given by Majlisi.
When you wish to visit the tomb of Musa ibn Jafar and the tomb of Muhammad ibn
Ali ibn Musa, first you must bathe and make yourself clean, then anoint yourself
with perfume and put on two clean garments, after which you are to say at the
tomb of the Imam Musa: -
Peace be upon thee, O Friend of God!
Peace be upon thee, O Proof of God!
Peace be upon thee, O Light of God!
O Light in the dark place of the earth!
Peace be upon him whom God advances in thy regard,
Behold I come as a pilgrim, who acknowledges your right,
Who hates your enemies and befriends your friends,
So intercede for me therefore with your Lord.
"You are then free," said the Imam Ali Naqi, "to ask for your
personal needs, after which you should offer a prayer in salutation to the Imam
Muhammad Taqi, using these same words."
Majlisi, who has included these traditions in his instructions for modern
pilgrims to this Shrine, makes the observation in explanation of the unusual -
brevity of the prescribed prayer, "that it was necessary in those times to
take great care in dissimulation (taqiyah) that the Shias should not suffer
injury.
Another tradition that dates from the same century in which these two Imams died
is attributed to a certain Hasan ibn Jamhur, who said:
"In the year 296 A.H., when Ali ibn Ahmad al-Frat was Vizier, I saw Ahmad
ibn Rabi", who was one of the Caliph's writers, when his hand had gotten
infected so that it had bad odour and turned black.
Everyone who saw him had no doubt but that he would die. In a dream, however, he
saw Hazrat Ali, and said to him: "O Amiru'l Momineen, will you not ask God
to give me my hand?" Hazrat Ali answered, `go to Musa ibn Jafar and he will
ask this for you from God.' In the morning they got a litter and carpeted it,
gave him a bath and anointed him with perfume. They had him lie down in the
litter and covered him with a robe. Then they carried him to the tomb of Imam
Musa, whose intercession he sought in prayer. The afflicted man took some of the
earth from the tomb and rubbed it on his arm upto the shoulder and then bound
the arm up again. The next day, when he opened the bandage, he saw that all the
skin and flesh of the arm had fallen off, and that only the bones and veins and
ligaments remained, and the bad odour had also ceased, When the vizier heard of
this he took the men to testify as what had happened. In a short time the
healthy flesh and skin grew back again, and he was able to resume his work of
writing.".
Majlisi adds the comment that "in every period there have been so many
miracles (mu'jizaat) and demonstrations of power (karamat) at the tomb of these
two saints that there is no need to describe cases of the past. In our own times
there are so many instances occuring and recurring that to recount them would be
a lengthy process.
After the Abbasid caliphs had fallen more under the authority of the commanders
of their armies of Turkish mercenaries, there was a rising of the Buyids (or
Buwaihids) in Persia; and in A.D. 946 the Caliph Mustakfi was blinded by the
Buyid Prince, Mu'izzu'd Dawla, who set up the blinded Caliph's son, al-Muktaddir,
as a nominal ruler while he exercised the actual authority himself. Ibn Athir
has related that "the Buyids were fanatical adherents of Ali and firmly
convinced that the Abbasids were usurpers of a throne that rightfully belonged
to others. They did not take over the Caliphate, but in addition to retaining
for themselves the authority and perquisites of the government of the provinces,
they proclaimed the first ten days of the month of Muharram as a period of
public mourning for Husain, and they frequently enriched the sanctuary at
Kadhmayn with their gifts. The Caliph Tai' is reported to have led the Friday
prayers in the Kadhmayn mosque, so that in the period of the revival of the Shia
influence under the protection of the Buyids, we are certain that the Kadhmayn
Shrine was regularly visited by pilgrims and served as "the rallying place
of the Shia party."
It was during this period that the four great works of the Shia tradition were
compiled. Kulaini died in Baghdad in A.D. 939, after completing his monumental
work, the Compendium of the Science of Religion (al-Kafi fi Ilm ad-din), which
is perhaps the most highly esteemed of all the Shia source books. Ibn Babuwaihi
had come to Baghdad from Khorasan in 966 A.D., where he devoted himself to
teaching and writing. His `Every Man His Own Lawyer' (Kitab man la yadhuruhu' l-Faqih),
is also one of the four most authorative books on Shia law and tradition. And
sixteen years after the death of Ibn Babuwaihi, Al-Tusi also came from Khorasan
to teach in Baghdad, where he wrote the remaining two of the four great books of
traditions that lie at the basis of Shia theology and jurisprudence, `The
Correcting of judgments' (Tahzhib al-Ahkam) and the `Examination of Differences
in Traditions' (Al-Istibsar).
At this time of greater boldness on the part of the Shias, riots with the Sunnis
were not infrequent in Baghdad. In one of these disturbances in 1051 A.D. the
Sunni leader was killed in a fight that had ensued when the Shias ventured to
put an inscription laudatory of Ali above one of the city gates. The indignation
of the Sunnis was so great that in the tension of the situation after their
leader's funeral, they went as a mob into the Shrine of Kadhmayn and plundered
the tombs of the two Imams. After carrying off the gold and silver lamps and the
curtains which adorned these sanctuaries, the rioters on the following day
completed their work by setting fire to the buildings. The great teak-wood domes
above the shrines of the Imams Musa and Muhammad were entirely burnt. This fact
that the domes were at first of teak-wood has something to do doubtless with the
number of times they were burned.
It was shortly after the burning of the Shrine in 1051 A.D. that the Seljuk
Sultans displaced the Buwaihids as military dictators in Persia and
"Protectors" of the Caliphs in Baghdad. They learned what they knew of
Islam in the distinctively Sunni atmosphere of Bukhara. Nevertheless, when they
came to Baghdad, no injury was done to the Shrine at Kadhmayn. And when Sultan
Malik Shah visited it in 1086, it had apparently been repaired from the damages
of the fire of thirty-five years before.
Ibn Jubayr, who gives a detailed description of Baghdad in 1184, A.D. in his
Travels, mentions the tomb of Musa ibn Jafar, but he does not speak of it as
Kadhmayn, and he makes no reference to the tomb of the Imam Muhammad Taqi, which
would suggest that Shia influence was at that time at such low ebb that this
shrine, so close to the city of Baghdad had, been abandoned as a place of
regular pilgrimage.
Notwithstanding, before another hundred years had passed when the domes of the
Shrines had again been destroyed by fire, we find that its repair was regarded
as of sufficient importance to be the one and only enterprise that the
shortlived Caliph Zahir had been able to undertake. And Ibn Tiktaka who mentions
this repair of the domes in his Kitab al-Fakhri,12 is known to have succeeded
his father as supervisor of the sacred towns of the Shias in the vicinity of
Baghdad, so that it is possible that the minority community, while by no means
free, may have enjoyed certain prescribed and restricted rights. Their
headquarters however, were no longer in Baghdad but in Hilla, and greater
importance was given to Najaf and Kerbala as places of pilgrimage.
When the Mongols came with their overwhelming force in 1258, they wrought almost
complete devastation in and around Baghdad. There is said to have been an
understanding, however, that the holy cities of the Shias should be spared, and
in fact Kadhmayn was the only one of these shrines that suffered. This was
perhaps to the destruction of the western part of the city first. It may have
been during the subsequent siege of the fortress on the eastern side of the
Tigris that the deputation of Shias from Hilla arrived and arranged with Khulagu
Khan for the special protection of Najaf and Kerbala. However that may be, we
know that the city of Baghdad was utterly ruined by the Mongols, and that the
tombs of Kadhmayn were burned. "Nearly all the inhabitants, to the number,
according to Rashid ad-Din, of 800,000 (Makrizi says 2,000,000) perished, and
thus passed away one of the noblest cities that had ever graced the East - the
Cynocure of the Muhammadan world, where the luxury, wealth and culture of five
centuries had been concentrated... The booty captured, we are told, was so great
that Georgians and Tartars succumbed under the load of gold and silver, precious
stones and pearls, rich stuffs, gold and silver vessels, etc., while as to the
vases from China and Rashan (i.e., procelain), and those made in the country of
iron and copper, they were deemed scarcely of any value, and were broken and
thrown away. The soldiers were so rich that the saddles of their horses and
mules and their most ordinary utensils were inlaid with stones, pearls and gold.
Some of them broke off their swords at the hilt and filled up the scabbards with
gold, while others emptied the body of a Baghdadian, refilled it with gold,
precious stones and pearls, and carried it off from the city.
The death of the last of the Abbasid Caliphs, Mustasim, has been so celebrated
in literature that what actually happened is obscure.
There are numerous accounts of how Khulagu Khan was disgusted when he saw that
in his avarice the Caliph had gathered gold which he had been unwilling to spend
either in defence of the city or to effect favourable terms of capitulation.
Marco Polo relates the story that when Khulagu Khan entered Baghdad he found to
his astonishment a town that was filled with gold and silver, and in his
indignation he gave orders that the avaricious Caliph should be "shut up in
this same town, without sustenance; and there, in the midst of his wealth, he
soon finished a miserable existence."
This story is based on the narrative of Mirkhond, of joinville, and of Makakia,
the Armenian historian, and as Howarth remarks it has provided "one of
those grim episodes which Longfellow delighted to put into verse":-
I said to the Caliph, "Thou art old,
Thou hast no need of so much gold;
Thou should'st not have heaped and hidden it here,
Till the breath of battle was hot and near,
But have sown through the land these useless hoards,
To spring into shining blades of swords,
And keep thine honour sweet and clear."
Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,
And left him there to feed all alone,
In the honey cells of his golden hive;
Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan,
Was heard from those massive walls of stone,
Nor again was the Caliph seen alive.
One notable fact in this connection is that the life of the Caliph's vizier in
Baghdad was spared. He was Muayid-ud-din Alkamiya who was known to have been
favourable to the Shias, and who was also reported to have sent his submission
to Khulagu, and had invited him to invade the country. However, this may be, the
Caliph was put to death on the 21st February, 1258. Wassaf and Novairi say he
was rolled up in carpets and, then trodden under by horses so that his blood
should not be spilt. This was in accordance with the `yasa' of Jingis Khan,
which forbade the shedding of the blood of royal persons.
But the Caliph's vizier, whose life was spared, "retained his post as
vizier, the reward doubtless of his dubious loyalty." Various prominent
Persians, as distinguished from Arabs or Turks were appointed to important
positions in the new administration of affairs, and among the first buildings to
be rebuilt was the Shrine of the two Imams, at Kadhmayn.
After the fall of the last of the Abbasid Caliph, Baghdad was never rebuilt on
its former scale of grandeur. The Il-Khans, Who were the descendants of Khulagu,
held the city for 82 years, not as a capital, however, but merely as the chief
town of the province of Iraq. It was near the close of their period of authority
that the traveller Mustawfi visited Baghdad (1339) A.D., and at that time he
mentioned seeing the Shrines of al-Kadhim and of his grandson, Taqi, the seventh
and ninth Imams. He observed that Kadhmayn was a suburb by itself, about six
thousand paces in circumberence.
About that time the Mongol tribe of Julayr wrested the power from the Il-Khans,
and their chief, Shaikh Hasan Buzurg, made his residence in Baghdad in 1340, as
the town best suited for his tribal headquarters.
Fifty odd years later, in connection with his widespread conquests, Timur spent
three months in Baghdad. It happened to be in the summer that he besieged and
captured the city, and the Persian chronicler in the Zafar Nameh remarks that
"the heat was so intense, that as for the fish in the water, the saliva
boiled in their mounts: and as for the birds in the air, from the fever heat
their livers were cooked and they fell senseless."
The horrors of the taking of the city are described in graphic detail. So
thoroughly had all avenue of escape been closed that when the wind accelerated
the flames that filled the air, there were many people who threw themselves into
the water, to escape the fire or sword. It was a time when the slave market was
such that an old man of eighty and a child of twelve sold for the same price and
the fire of hate waxed to such a heat that the garment of the wealthy merchant
and the rags of the sick beggar burned the same way. Individual soldiers in
bands of the troops had been each commissioned to each get a head, but some who
were not content with one head got all they could tie to their belts. It is
mentioned, however, that some of the men of learning and rank as were granted
his protection and shared his bounty, but the general carnage was hideous. When
the inhabitants had been thus almost annihilated, their habitations were dealt
with. Only the mosques, the schools, and the dormitories were spared.
Accordingly, we read that Timur left Baghdad on account of "vile odour of
the carcases of the dead.
Nevertheless, when Timur took his departure, we are told that he ordered that
the city should be rebuilt. The shrine at Kadhmayn, however, was not restored.
After the death of Timur, there was a brief reoccupation of Baghdad by the
Julayrs, who were displaced by the "Black Sheep" Turkomans, who held
the city from 1411-1469. They in turn were driven out by their rivals, the
"White Sheep" Turkomans. It was therefore after a long period of
neglect, when the city had been held by successive generations of half savage
tribes, that Shah Ismail I, of the Safawi dynasty captured Baghdad in 1508, and
it was in 1519 that he completed the rebuilding of the Shrine at Kadhmayn much
as it stands today. With the rise of Shah Ismail there is an interesting and
significant story of the revival of Persian Shia Power, which belongs in the
history of Ardebil in Azerbaijan rather than in a description of the Shrine of
the "Two Kadhims" in Baghdad.
We are told that frequently from twenty-five, to thirty thousand pilgrims visit
the Shrine in one day. If viewed from a point of vantage, this Shrine with its
twin domes of gleaming gold is one of the most beautiful sights in Baghdad; and
if studied in its historical associations throughout the last eleven hundred
years, it affords a thrilling resume of the changing fortunes of the far-famed
city of Arabian Nights.
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Updated on 24 April, 2005