The traditional evidence of the existence of the twelfth Imam Muhammad bin Hassan Askari depends on the Glorious Quran and the Hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the traditions of the Imams from the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), which prophesied the coming of the awaited Mahdi. These texts are divided into a number of major classes:

            FIRST GROUP: THE GLORIOUS QUR’AN

1.      Allah’s statement: “ And We decreed for the children of Israel in the scripture: Indeed you would do mischief in the land twice and you will become tyrants and extremely arrogant. So, when the promise came for the first of the two, we sent against you slaves of Ours given to terrible warfare. They entered the very innermost parts of your homes. And it was a promise (completely) fulfilled. Then We gave you a return of victory over them”: Kulayni has reported in the Al-Kafi from Abu Abdullah (peace be upon him): These verses were revealed concerning the Qa’im (Mahdi). (1)

2.      Allah’s saying: “ So hasten towards all that is good. Wheresoever you may be, Allah will bring you together. “ Kulayni has reported from Abu Ja’far (peace be upon him) that those addressed above are the companions of the Qa’im (Mahdi). (2)

3.      Allah’s saying: “ Until it becomes manifest to them that this is the truth” Kulayni has reported also that it means the appearance of the Qa’im from Allah. (3)

4.      Allah’s statement: “ And you shall certainly know the truth of it after a while. “

5.      Allah’s statement: “Then, when they perceived Our torment, behold, they (tried to) flee from it. Flee not but return to that wherein you lived a luxurious life and to your homes, in order that you may be questioned.”  Kulayni has reported from Abu Ja’far (peace be upon him) that he said: “When the Qa’im will appear and will be raised to the Umayyads in Syria, they will flee to Rome. When the companions of the Qa’im will descend on them, they will seek for safety and agreement, the companions of the Qa’im will say: “We will not guarantee that till you bring yourselves to us”, and they bring themselves to them, that is Allah’s saying: “ Flee not but return to that wherein you lived a luxurious life.” He further said: “He will then ask them about the treasures, While he knows best of them, and they will say: “ Woe to us! Certainly we have been unjust. And that cry of theirs ceased not, till we made them as a field that is reaped, extinct (dead) by means of the sword”. (5)

6.      The saying of Allah: “ Till when they saw that which they are promised…” That is with the appearance of the Qa’im, as Ali bin Ibrahim al-Qummi says in his ‘Tafseer’. (6)

7.      Allah’s statement: “ The day when they will hear the shout in truth: that will be the day of coming out”. That is the shout of the Qa’im from the heavens. (7)

8.      Allah’s saying: “ That He makes it superior to religions, even though the idolaters hate it.” What is meant here is the Mahdi from the children of Fatimah?

a.       The statement of Allah: “ Allah has promised those among you who believe and do righteous deeds that He will certainly grant them succession to (the present rulers) in the land.”

9.      Allah’s saying: “ And we wished to do a favor to those who were weak (and oppressed) in the land, and to make them Imams (Leaders) and to make them the inheritors.”

All these verses are interpreted as referring to Mahdi, the Qa’im.

SECOND GROUP: HADITHS (TRADITIONS)

1.The reports on the Mahdi, the Qa’im of the time: “ Have glad tidings for the Mahdi” so also “ The Qa’im will not come, till a caller from heavens calls…” and “ The world will not perish till a man from my household (Ahl al-Bayt), called the Mahdi rules this Ummah” and  “The Mahdi is from the children of Fatimah.” and “The Mahdi is from the children of Hussain…” These are numerous reports transmitted by Kulayni in al-Kafi, so also Nu’mani in ‘Al-Ghaybah’ and Saduq in  ‘Ikmal al-Din,’ and Tusi in his ‘Al-Ghaybah’. Only that many of those who wrote on the twelfth Imam, extract from them evidences on his existence and birth, that is with other narrations from Imams Jawwad and Hadi: That the Mahdi will be from their children. (8)

2.The reports on the occultation and the occult (Imam) like: “ The Mahdi from my children will go into occultation and experience perplexity” and “Those who adhere to the belief in the Mahdi at the time of his occultation are indeed greater than the red matches?” (Al-Kibrit al-Ahmar)  and  “ The Mahdi … has to undergo occultation, and experience (perplexity) that mislead people away from their religions” and “ The Qa’im from among us has a long occultation”, and “ The owner of the affairs has to (experience) seclusion and occultation.”  And “The Qa’im has to (experience) occultation before his (final) appearance”, and “ The owner of this affair will experience two occultations, one will be long to the extent that some of them will say he died, and some of them will say, he has been killed, and some of them will say he has gone. No one will remain on his affair among his companions save a few people.”

Those who believe in the existence of the twelfth Imam-Muhammad bin Hassan Askari have taken those traditions as evidence on the validity of their theory: Muhammad bin Abi Zaynab has said in Al-Ghaybah, “Even if no other tradition has been reported on occultation except this tradition (the last one), it would be enough for anyone who reflects on it.” (9)

Muhammad bin Ali bin Babawaih Saduq considered the Shiites’ transmission of these reports that discuss ‘occultation before it happened’, as evidence on its validity. (10) He said: “ The non-appearance of any text and successor after Hassan Askari, and the occultation of Imam Mahdi and his concealment, and the conflict among Shiites, and the perplexity on his affair, as mentioned in the previous reports, all these serve as evidence on the existence and the occultation of the Mahdi”. (11)

Sheikh Tusi said in ‘al-Ghaybah’: “ The core of the evidence from these reports is what it contains of foretelling something before it happens.  That validates and confirms what we believed as regards the Imamate of Hassan’s son, because of the fact that the knowledge of what happens in the future is known only to the Knower of all Unseen. So even if only one report narrated, conforms to what has been predicted, that would have sufficed. “ (12)

He added: “ What proves the Imamate of the son of Hassan and the validity of his occultation, is the well-known and wide spread reports from his fore-fathers much long before his time, telling that the owner of the affair (Mahdi) will experience an occultation, the nature of that occultation, and evolves of differences concerning it and other happenings related to it. And that he will experience two occultations, one being longer than the other. And that in the first one, his affairs will be known, unlike in the second, when nothing will be known of him…. That exactly conforms to what the reports contain. If not because of the validity of such reports and the validity of his Imamate that would not conform to it. Such will not happen except through a revelation from Allah, the Exalted on the tongue of His Prophet (peace be upon him).” (13)

3- Reports on the Twelve Imams:Like the Hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him), “There will be twelve caliphs after me” or “The affair of my Ummah will never cease being dominant till the appearance of twelve Imams. All of them being from Quraish.” or “Twelve Imams (Leaders) will lead this Ummah… All of them will be from Quraish, nothing will be like it.” or ‘Twelve princes will be after, me, all of them from Quraish’. All these reports are from Sunni collections. Saduq has reported them and he commented on them thus. “ Our opponents from the scholars of Hadith have reported overwhelmingly from the Hadith of Jabir bin Samrah al-Sawa’i from the Messenger of Allah…. I have studied and investigated the chains of narrations of these Hadiths, …Which shows that the reports in the hands of the Imamate Shiites from the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the Imams, on the twelve Imams, were sound reports.” (14) Just as Kulayni reported them in ‘Al-Kafi’. (15) And Tusi has also reported them in ‘al-Ghaybah’ (16).

            As for the Shiite reports on the issue of twelve Imams, Kulayni has mentioned in ‘ Al-Kafi’ seventeen traditions on that. Saduq also has mentioned in ‘Ikmal al-Din’ about little over thirty reports in that regard… Al-Khazzaz has also reported in his ‘Kifayat al-Athar fi al-Nass ala al-A’imah al-Ithna ‘Ashar’ about (200) two hundred reports. He said regarding them: “They have the level of consensus due to ‘the impossibility of the companions of the Messenger of Allah and the chosen of his household and followers of the companions through whom these reports were reported, agreeing on falsehood.” (17)

                        The doctrine of the twelve Imams according to the Shiite report which mentions the names of twelve Imams in a pre-determined list before that time depends on the book of Salim bin Qays al-Hilali, that says: ‘The Shiites were keeping and preserving the list of the twelve Imams for the period of three centuries’.

                        Ibn Abi Zaynab al-Nu’mani has said regarding the book of Salim: “There is no conflict among the entire Shiites who were learned and who transmitted (Shiite learning) from the Imams, that the book of Salim bin Qays al-Hilali, is one of the fundamental and oldest source books reported by scholars and transmitters of the traditions of Ahl al-Bayt. It was one of the most important reference books the Shiites refer to and depend on”. (18)

                        Saduq and the rest of the theologians regarded those reports considered as popular, as evidence on the existence and the birth of the twelfth Imam Muhammad bin Hassan Askari, so as to complete the ‘twelve’ foretold before. Without him, the number will be (11) eleven Imams only, contrary to the traditions. So also due to the fact that, the narrations mentioned that the Mahdi will be from among the Ahl al-Bayt, and will be of the children of Hussain. The eleven Imams have gone, and the Mahdi was not among them. It therefore becomes inevitable that he was the Mahdi that will appear and fill the world with justice as it was filled with injustice and tyranny”.  (19)

                        Tusi considered the consensus of the two different groups the general Muslims and the Shiites that the Imams will be twelve in number, after the Prophet (peace be upon him) no more, no less. He considered that as evidence on the birth of the Mahdi (Sahib al- Zaman) and the validity of his occultation. He said: ‘ The Shiites report these traditions contentiously from generation to generation’. (20)

4- The Mahdi – The Twelfth Imam In addition to the above, we find in the Shiite heritage more than seventy narrations from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the member of his household (peace be upon them) mentioning the Mahdi and the Qa’im in clear terms: That he is the twelfth Imam and the ninth of the children of Hussain. Some of the narrations mention him by his complete name, while some only pointed to his nicknames and ‘kunya’. Of those narrations, Saduq mentions in ‘Ikmal al-Din’ from the Messenger of Allah that he said: “ My successors (Khulafa) and (the Inheritors of) the will and the evidences (hujaj) of Allah after me will be twelve in number, the first of them is my brother and the last of them will be my son, the Mahdi….” (21)

            He also reported from him: “ Allah, the Exalted has chosen from Ali, Hassan and Hussain, and has chosen from Hussain the inheritors of the will from his children … the ninth of them is their Qa’im.” (22)

            And from Amir al-Muminin (Ali), (peace be upon him): “ I pondered on a child in my loins the eleventh of my children. He is the Mahdi.” (23)

            From Hussain bin Ali (peace be upon him), “The ninth of my children…. will be our Qa’im, we the Ahl al-Bayt, Allah will prepare and accomplish his affair in one night”. (24)

            From Abu Abdullah (peace be upon him): “ The sixth of my children will experience occultation and he will the twelfth of the Imams of guidance after the Messenger of Allah, the first of them was Amir al-Muminin, and the last will be ‘Baqiyyat al- Lah’ on earth and the ‘Sahib al- Zaman’. (25)

            And from Imam Rida (peace be upon him) “ The Qa’im will be … the fourth of my children.” (26)

            From him also: “ The Imam after me is Muhammad my son and after him, his son Ali and after Ali, his son Hassan, and after Hassan his son ‘Al-‘Hujjah’ the Awaited Qa’im’.  (27)

            From Imam Hadi (peace be upon him). “ The Imam after me will be Hassan my son, and after Hassan, his son the Qa’im (Mahdi)”. (28)

            Abu Abdullah reported from Jabir bin Abdullah al-Ansari who said that he went to Fatimah al- Zahra, in the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah, so as to congratulate her on the birth of Hussain, he saw in her hand a green board, and he saw on that board some writing as bright as sun-light. He then asked her about it and she replied him. “ This board was bestowed by Allah to the Messenger of Allah, on it is the name of my father, and the name of Ali and the names of the (owners) of the will from my children, and my father gave it to me to please me on that… and on it were the names of the twelve Imams, one after the other…. The last of them (M H M D). Will be raised by Allah as a mercy for all the world.” (29)

5-     The Indispensability of the Existence of the Hujjah (Mahdi) on Earth: There were other traditions that emphasize the necessity of the ‘Hujjah’ (evidence) on earth and the impossibility of the world being devoid of Imam, like what was reported from the Messenger of Allah in the books of the Sunnis: “ Anyone who dies without (allegiance to) the Imam, has died, the death of Jaliliyyah (similar to the death in the period of ignorance—before Islam), and anyone who withdrew his obedience (revolted) will come on the day of Judgment without ‘Hujjah’ (evidence)”. And from Imam Sadiq: “ Anyone who dies without knowing his Imam (leader) has died similar to the death of pre-Islamic Jahili period,” as reported by Salim bin Qays in his book, and Saduq in his (Ikmal al –Din) p. 413), so also Kulayni in (Al-Kafi, vol.1.p, 376), Nu’mani in (Al-Ghaybah, p, 129) and Mufid in (Al-Ikhtisas, p. 268) and (Al-Rasa’il, p. 384).

            The other tradition being reported by him from Imam Sadiq: “The world will never be devoid of the man who knows the truth, if people increase in that, he says, they have increased, and if they decreased, he says, they have decreased. When they come with it, he believes them. If not because of that, the truth can never be known from falsehood”. : Baqir in (Al-Mahasin P. 235), Saduq in (‘Ilal al-Shara’i, vol. 1 p. 200,and Mufid in (Al-‘Ikhtisas, p.289) have all reported it.

            Likewise, what was reported from Imam Sadiq that: “ Allah is so exalted that He will not leave the world without an (Imam), as was reported by Saffar in (Basa’ir al- Darajat p. 485), Kulayni in (Al-Kafi, vol 1 p. 178) and Saduq in (‘ Ikmal –al-Din, p. 229).

            In the same way, he was reported to have said: ‘ Allah has never abandoned the world since the creation of Adam (peace be upon him) without an Imam to be followed, in line with Allah’s guidance. He is the evidence on the servants (of Allah). Anyone who abandons him will stray, and he who sticks to him will be saved, as a duty on Allah, the Exalted. “ (30)

            Another narration from Imam Sadiq puts it that he said, “If the world will be devoid of the evidence (Mahdi) even for the blink of an eye, it would have swallowed its people.” Saffar reported this in (Basa’ir al-Darajat, p. 481) Kulayni also in (Al-Kafi vol. 1. p, 179), Nu’mani in (Al-Ghaybah p. 139) and Saduq in (‘Ilal al-Shara’i, p. 197) and (Ikmal al- Din, p. 201).

            Therefore the traditional given evidence comprises of a number of spheres, like Qur'anic verses and traditions that mention the Qa’im and the Mahdi in the general sense, and limited that to the Ahl al– Bayt and to the children of Imam Ali (peace be upon him). This is in addition to the narrations that mention the number of twelve Imams, so also the birth of Imam Mahdi and his name. This will lead to the belief in the birth and existence of the twelfth Imam, Al-Hujjah, the son of Hassan Askari, and the continuation of his life: despite the fact that he has never appeared in the life of his father nor was there any will for him, or a direct pointer from him to it.

REFERENCES

1-     Al- Kafi, Al- Rawdah, p.175

2-     ibid. p.260, Al- Iyashi: Al-Tafsir, vol. 1, p. 66

3-     ibid, p.312

4-     ibid, pp. 239-240

5-     ibid, p. 44

6-     ibid. Vol. 2, p. 390

7-     ibid. Vol. 2, p. 327

8-     Sadiq: Ikmal al- Din, p. 378, al-Khazzaz: Kifayat al- Athar, p. 277

9-     ibid. p. 116

10- Ikmal al- Din, p. 19

11- ibid. P.113

12- ibid. P.109

13- ibid. p.110

14- ibid. PP. 67-68

15- Vol. 1, pp. 525-534

16- PP. 88-90

17- P. 201

18- Al- Ghaybah, p. 77

19- Ikmal al- Din, p 66

20- Al- Ghaybah, p. 88 and 100

21- P. 280

22- P. 281

23- P. 279

24- P. 342

25- P. 342

26- P. 379

27- P. 372

28- P. 383

29- Ikmal al-Din. P 305, Al- Kafi of Kulayni: vol. 1, p. 527

30- Ikmal al-Din, p. 220