Imam Abu Al Fath Al Daylami (D. 44X-45XAH)
Imam Abū al-Fatḥ al-Daylamī
Al-Nāṣir ibn al-Ḥusayn — Peace Be Upon Him
Imam Abū al-Fatḥ al-Daylamī, al-Nāṣir ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may God be pleased with them). He rose in the Daylam in the year 430 AH, and was among the eminent figures of the imams.
He had of excellence and knowledge what none of the people of his age had. He continued upholding the command of God until certainty came to him, having attained the merit of the preceding imams.
— Imam al-Manṣūr Billāh ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥamzah (peace be upon him)
- Al-Burhān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān — The Proof, on the Exegesis of the Qurʾān; four parts, gathering all kinds of sciences; both the opponent and the ally attested to the brilliance of its author
- Al-Risāla al-Mubhija fī al-Radd ʿalā al-Firqa al-Ḍālla al-Mutalajlija — The Delighting Treatise in Refutation of the Erring, Faltering Sect (the Muṭarrifiyya)
He called to God in the Daylam, then went out to the land of Yemen and gained dominion over most of the lands of Madhḥij, Hamdān, and Khawlān. The Arabs submitted to him, and he fought the unjust armies of the rebels (al-mutamarrida) and the Qarāmiṭa.
The Imam was martyred in the famous battle between him and ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣulayḥī — the commander of the Bāṭiniyya and their caller. The site of the battle is Najd al-Jāḥ, of the district of Radāʿ, in ʿAns of Madhḥij, the makhlāf of Khawlān.
Companions martyred alongside Imam Abū al-Fatḥ at Najd al-Jāḥ — God’s peace and good pleasure be upon them.
During the days of this ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣulayḥī, in the year 459 AH, the martyred Amīr Ḥamza ibn Abī Hāshim was also killed. But God hastened vengeance upon al-Ṣulayḥī at the end of that same year — Saʿīd al-Aḥwal killed him in the worst killing. The ʿUthmānī poet said, addressing Saʿīd ibn Najāḥ with the head of al-Ṣulayḥī before him:
O sword of the state of the religion of the Family of Muḥammad —
not the sword of the state of Khaybar and its Jews!
You arrived on Saturday, leading young men —
who meet death with their throats and their cheeks.
Be patient — for it was nothing but the turn of a kohl-stick,
until the embers of the fire with its fuel were extinguished;
And you saw the enemies of the Sacred Law, slain,
and atop the spear the head of their chief.
O what a raid for ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad —
how ill-omened was the echo of its poet!
His war-canopy set out early upon him, and did not return —
except carrying upon it the most exalted king, its Saʿīd.
How hideous was his person in its shade —
how handsome was his head upon its pole!
The black serpents fought the lions of the thicket —
O my mercy for its lions killed by its black ones!
He desired the dominion of the whole earth, but he did
not attain of it other than the hand’s span of his grave.
He came to magnify himself against his Creator out of ignorance —
so he ended up pressing his cheek to the dust of the grave.
— The ʿUthmānī poet, on the killing of ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣulayḥī
By the last verse he alluded to what had occurred — that when al-Ṣulayḥī came forth from his palace on this journey, his poet ascended a raised place and said: “Indeed ʿAlī and God divided the world between them — so they made the division equal, then they cast lots: so to ʿAlī belongs the earth, and to God the heaven.” This is mentioned in Maṭlaʿ al-Budūr.
He set out with two thousand horsemen, among them one hundred and sixty of the Āl al-Ṣulayḥī, and fifty kings and sultans whose authority he had removed, with five hundred adorned horses, fifty crossbred camels, and other adornments beyond enumeration — as reported in the Tārīkh of ʿUmāra.
The difference between them was nothing other than that the Imams of the progeny called to divine unity, justice, the establishment of the Book and the Sunnah, and the setting-right of the servants and the lands; while those who opposed them called to heresy and the corruption of the lands and the servants.
The mujāhidīn alongside the People of the House were none but the people of faith from among the people of Yemen specifically — the helpers of the Messenger and his Legatee, the Commander of the Faithful. They sought no aid against their enemies from others, and they brought no foreign intruder into Yemen. Rather, the Imam among them does not rise except after the people who loose and bind have agreed upon him and bound him with the obligating argument — so he rises to rescue the nation, appropriating for himself not even the weight of a mote over them; then he exits the caliphate as he entered it, and leaves them to choose for their affair and their religion whomever they approve. Such was their prophetic conduct and their ʿAlid way.
And faith is Yemeni (al-īmān yamān), as the Greatest Messenger ﷺ said.
Among his offspring is al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Mudāfiʿ ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn, son of the Imam (peace be upon him) — caller during the days of Imam Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamza; died 750 AH; shrine at Raghāfa. The Āl al-Daylamī in Yemen are attributed to this Imam. Among their eminent figures in the recent age: al-Sayyid Zayd ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb — who died at Ṣanʿāʾ in the year 1366 AH. From Nayl al-Ḥasanayn, p. 153.