Imam Al Mahdi Al Husayn Ibn Al Qasim Al Iyani (D. 404AH)
Imam al-Mahdī al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Qāsim al-ʿIyānī
Al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh — Peace Be Upon Him
The Imam al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh, al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlī al-ʿIyānī (may God be pleased with them). His birth was in the year 376 AH. He called people to God after the death of his father. He was among the great scholars of the Family of the Prophet, and he has numerous works from which the imams benefited. He reached in the sciences a degree at which thoughts are bewildered and gazes are dazzled — despite his young age, for his age on the day of his rising (peace be upon him) was only seventeen years.
There have been related from him things departing from the way of the People of the House. Imam Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān related them in Ḥaqāʾiq al-Maʿrifa — but then exonerated him of them, saying after relating them: “We negate this speech from him, and we say: it is a fabrication against him, and it is not authentically traced to him.”
There is no reliance on what is in Al-Ḥikma al-Durriyya, for it has been established that much was interpolated into it falsely attributed to the Imam — and for this reason it was not counted among his writings.
As for Imam ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥamzah, his transmission from him in Al-Risāla al-Nāṣiḥa and his praise of him are already before you. The speech of this Imam in the book Al-Raḥma and others — on the transmission of the great learned Sayyid Ḥumaydān ibn Yaḥyā al-Qāsimī — decisively shows that his doctrine and his creedal beliefs are the beliefs of Imam al-Hādī and his son al-Murtaḍā, which are those that God approved for His servants. He disavowed before God everything attributed to him contrary to that.
Perhaps the matter was misrepresented to Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān (peace be upon him) because of the multitude of his enemies in that age. He (peace be upon him) used to complain greatly of those who distorted his speech; and with the motive of his detractors being apparent, the transmission is not to be accepted against him, however far it may appear to go. This is a difficult matter, and to attack him without insight is a grave offense.
This is an imam, a scholar, a righteous doer —
I disavow to the All-Merciful any hatred of him,
And any alliance with his enemies, and any exaggeration concerning him or repudiation of him.
Halt, and fear God, the God of heaven —
O you who slander his honor!
If you are today a borrower from him —
then tomorrow you will regret your loan.
I hold as religion that the truth is what he said —
of the attribute of the Creator and of His obligation imposed on man,
And that whoever has exaggerated concerning his merit —
is greater in offense than those who hate him.
So fear the God of creation, O you who has exaggerated —
in mixing what you have adulterated into his pure doctrine —
Like Ibn Ghiṭrīf, who did not state the truth —
in any of it nor in part of it.
Ibn Ghiṭrīf said what he said —
so al-Mahdī rolled up his sleeves to refute it,
And he rejected what he said and was not pleased with it —
since it angered God and did not please Him.
May God bless him as one who cleanses error —
he was pure, and the religion was made pure by his cleansing.
— Qāḍī Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar
- Kitāb Muhaj al-Ḥikma
- Kitāb Tafsīr Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān — Exegesis of the Rare Words of the Qurʾān
- Kitāb Mukhtaṣar al-Aḥkām
- Kitāb al-Imāma
- Al-Radd ʿalā Ahl al-Taqlīd wa-l-Nifāq — Refutation of the People of Blind Imitation and Hypocrisy
- Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā al-Daʿī — Refutation of the Pretender/Impostor
- Kitāb al-Raḥma
- Kitāb al-Tawfīq wa-l-Tasdīd
- Kitāb Shawāhid al-Ṣunʿ — The Evidences of Divine Craftsmanship
- Kitāb al-Dāmigh
- Kitāb al-Asrār
- Al-Radd ʿalā al-Mulḥidīn — Refutation of the Heretics
- Kitāb Nabaʾ al-Ḥikma
- And sixty further works — seventy-three in total
He was killed in Wādī ʿArār in the year 404 AH, at the age of twenty-some years. His shrine is at Rayda, of the districts of Ṣanʿāʾ. And God burned his killer with fire.