Imam Abū Ṭālib the Later — al-Muʾayyad Billāh (D. 520AH)
Imam Abū Ṭālib the Later — al-Muʾayyad Billāh
Yaḥyā ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Hārūnī — Peace Be Upon Him
Imam al-Muʾayyad Billāh, Abū Ṭālib the Later (al-Akhīr), Yaḥyā ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Hārūnī — son of the Great Imam al-Muʾayyad Billāh Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn (may God be pleased with them). He called to God in the year 502 AH, and his entourage of the people of knowledge numbered twelve thousand, following the doctrine of Imam al-Hādī ilā al-Ḥaqq (peace be upon him).
He rose in the Jīl and the Daylam after his gathering of the qualities of the Imamate and his securing of the various aspects of leadership. The scholars and the sayyids unanimously agreed upon him, after they had debated and examined him for a month and found him combining the qualities of the Imamate; and he had, in addition to that, an acquaintance with medicine, arithmetic, and the rest of the sciences extraneous to the matter of the Imamate.
— Imam al-Manṣūr Billāh ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥamzah, in Al-Shāfī1
God cast upon this Imam such awe and majesty as belonged to no one else. The hearts of the wrongdoers trembled at him and all regions held him in awe.
He continued occupied with war against the heretics, raiding on land and sea. In his age a great redness filled the horizon of the sky, and the scholars said this was the sign from the covenant of Ibrāhīm (peace be upon him) — that whenever a matter occurs among his offspring that is to elevate them, this sign comes forth. The like of it was also seen in the days of Imam al-Manṣūr Billāh ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥamzah (peace be upon him).
Indeed, this Imam is the renewer (mujaddid) of the [year] five hundred.
He dispatched fighters toward Yemen by way of Oman.2 In his days there was also killed al-Sayyid al-Muḥsin ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Nāṣir ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Muntaṣir Billāh ibn al-Mukhtār ibn al-Nāṣir ibn al-Hādī — the Ḥaddādūn killed him at Ṣaʿda together with his son.
The one who took up the vengeance for al-Sayyid al-Muḥsin was the noble Abū ʿAbdullāh al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Mahdī ibn ʿAbdullāh, son of Imam al-Murtaḍā li-Dīn Allāh Muḥammad, son of Imam al-Hādī ilā al-Ḥaqq (peace be upon them). He came forth from the Daylam, and Imam Abū Ṭālib the Later appointed him over all the lands between Mecca and Aden Abyan and the regions of farthest Yemen — and entrusted to him the following covenant of investiture.
Imam Abū Ṭālib entrusted to the appointed Sayyid a covenant of investiture (ʿahd fī al-wilāya) from whose corners the lights of prophethood and legateeship radiated, in whose buds the fruits of comprehension and guidance came forth, interwoven with the various rhetorical figures and overflowing with the sciences of the explicit and the implicit. Here follows a selection of its content:
This is what the true Imam Abū Ṭālib Yaḥyā ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Hārūnī entrusted to the most exalted Sayyid, the scholar Abū ʿAbdullāh al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Hādī, son of the Messenger of God ﷺ — may God strengthen his banner — when he tested him and tried him and witnessed his outward appearance and his inner reality. He appointed him and delegated to him the caliphate and the judiciary over what is between Mecca and Aden, and all the regions of farthest Yemen.
On Judging by God’s BookHe commanded him to make obedience to God and fear of Him his inner motto, and to judge by what God has sent down — “And whoever does not judge by what God has sent down, those are the wrongdoers” [al-Māʾida: 45] — knowing that God is the Knower of the unseen: “He knows the treachery of the eyes and what the breasts conceal” [Ghāfir: 19].
He commanded him to begin with the highest proof in rank — and that is the certain truth, the manifest light, the Book of God the Mighty: His well-guarded fortress, the deliverer from perdition, the urger-on toward guidance, the most luminous lamp, the brightest morning, the clearest highway, the most spacious watering-place, the firm one that does not crumble, the well-established one that does not shake — one finds in it security and intimacy, [while] the jinn and humankind are collectively incapable of matching it; a healing for what is in the breasts and a mercy for the believers.
On the SunnahHe commanded him, if that fails him, to seek the ruling in the Sunnah — for it is the second proof alongside the Qurʾān, the highway following the Furqān, the one resembling it in furnishing proof: “Nor does he speak from his own desire — it is nothing but a revelation revealed” [al-Najm: 3–4]. When the Sunnah is mass-transmitted it makes knowledge and action obligatory; when it is solitary, action alone is incumbent. If two reports conflict, he investigates the chronology to identify abrogation; if not found, he proceeds upon weighing-the-preponderant, following the method of reconciliation if driven to a tight spot.
On ConsensusHe commanded him, when direct transmission fails him, to seek the witness of consensus — for it runs, after the Book and the Sunnah, as a shield for those who hold fast to it. When he finds in the consensus of the progeny an escape, he drives toward it; and if he finds them in agreement with the rest of the nation, the reliance is upon them, for the dispelling of the obscuring gloom.
On the Sayings of the Infallible ImamsHe sought the truth from the sayings of the infallible among the Imams — for that takes the place of the saying of the Prophet of mercy. And they are the Legatee ʿAlī and the two grandsons al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn. To this the Messenger alluded: “ʿAlī is with the truth and the truth is with him.”3
On Analogy & Independent ReasoningHe commanded him, when these foundations fail him, to resort to deduction and analogy — being meticulous in referring the branches back to the fundamentals, so that whatever has a firm origin, a solid support, and a paved foundation, he attaches to it the ruling of the branch and fulfills the right of the Sacred Law’s indication. For there must be, in every legal case, a proof, even if it may sometimes plunge into obscurity in an ocean’s depth.
On Impartiality & Prior JudgmentsHe commanded him with the lifting of the veil of bias, the suppression of desire and self-conceit, and the deliberateness in giving the answer — inclining with the truth wherever it inclines, not abandoning impartiality and balance; for injustice — its food is fatal and its pasture is blameworthy:
Every eclipse among the bright stars is a disgrace —
but in the sun and the full moon it is the more disgraceful.
He commanded him to confirm the judgments of those who were before him of the judges of the Muslims, and not to subject any to alteration or annulment, so long as it does not contradict a definitive text from the Book or the Sunnah, or a consensus they have contravened. For the product of independent reasoning is not annulled by another act of independent reasoning: “Indeed, God commands justice, beneficence, and giving to kinsfolk, and forbids immorality, wrong, and oppression” [al-Naḥl: 90]. And: “And whoever relies upon God, He is sufficient for him” [al-Ṭalāq: 3].
And the way of our subjects is that they answer his command, support him, and aid him. O people: whoever obeys him has obeyed us, and whoever obeys us has obeyed God and His Messenger; and whoever disobeys him has disobeyed us, and whoever disobeys us has disobeyed God and His Messenger: “And whoever disobeys God and His Messenger has certainly strayed into clear error” [al-Aḥzāb: 36].
He died in the year 520 AH. He left instructions that he be buried secretly, out of fear of the heretics — may God Most High curse them.
The people of this prophetic House, with whom God deposited the treasured knowledge and the hidden secret, are such that the observer is bewildered at their qualities: for whenever he looks into the merits and the bounties of one Imam, it occurs to him that he is the most excellent of them; and when he moves on to another, likewise the same. They are like the seamless ring — one does not know where its two ends are.
Scholarly References & Annotations
Al-Shāfī (1/910), by Imam al-Manṣūr Billāh ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥamzah (peace be upon him).
As clarified in Al-Shāfī (1/911): This Imam dispatched five hundred fighters to Oman so that they might come by way of the East, and equipped them with reinforcements over twenty thousand. They reached Oman but the reaching of Yemen was not made possible for them.
For an exhaustive investigation of the ḥadīths of the inseparability of ʿAlī (peace be upon him) from the truth and their transmitters, see Lawāmiʿ al-Anwār fī Jawāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa-l-Āthār by Imam Majd al-Dīn ibn Muḥammad al-Muʾayyidī (peace be upon him): vol. 1/p. 147 (1st ed.), vol. 1/p. 205 (2nd ed.), vol. 1/p. 293 (3rd ed.).