Al-Jaza’iri defends As-Saduq and affirms that God causes the Messenger to forget

Ni’matullah Ibn Muhammad Al-Jaza’iri writes: “Among the sensitive narrations is the one that is authentically (sahih) reported by the scholar At-Tusi from Sa’id Al-A’raj, who heard Ja’far As-Sadiq (a.) say: “The Messenger of God (s.) was performing the prayer, after which he said the greeting of peace (taslim) after two bows (rak’ah). Therefore, the one who was behind him asked him: “O Messenger of God, did something happen in the prayer?” He said: “What is it about?” They said: “You performed only two bows (Rak’ah).” He asked: “Is that so, O you, with the two hands?” He was referred to as the one who has two left hands. He replied: “Yes.” Thereupon he continued to build on his prayer and completed the prayer as four (prayer units). It is God Who made him forget out of a mercy to the nation.” Do you not see that if someone did that, he would be reprimanded and told: “Your prayer is not accepted!” So, to whom this happens today he says: “The Messenger of God (s.) used to observe the custom and went ahead in an exemplary manner and performed the two bows instead of the words.” I say: “Disagreement and dispute arose over this report and it is probably the most enormous fight between As-Saduq, God have mercy on him, and the majority of our scholars, God be pleased with them, because they excluded it completely and rejected the traditions that prove it and went overboard regarding its revilement.” Among the later contemporaries who reviled him was the evaluative scholar Baha’-ud-Din, May God Illuminate His Resting Place, who stated in one sentence of his treatise: “Attributing forgetfulness to the son of Babawaih is more likely than attributing it to the Messenger of God (s.).” Regarding the statement of As-Saduq: “If God allows us to succeed, we will compose a book about the way and manner of the forgetfulness of the Prophet (a.).” Baha’-ud-Din remarked: “Praise be to God who did not let him succeed in composing that book.” As for the early scholars, among them is our noble master Al-Murtada, may God rest his soul, for after naming the statement of As-Saduq, may God have mercy on him, he commented: “Know that the person who was spoken of as confirmed, took upon himself something that is not his affair and thus his lack of knowledge and his incapacity came to light. If he had been one of those who were able to make a right turn, he would not have turned to what he was not good at and was not part of his skill, and to the knowledge of which he did not attain. However, the desires drove their friend. We take refuge in God from being deprived of what promises success, and we ask Him for protection from going astray, and we ask Him for guidance to the path of truth and way of clarity.” After delivering the report about the man with two hands, he wrote: “This is among the isolated reports (Ahad) that do not lead to any knowledge and one is not obligated to follow them, but whoever follows any of them acts out of conjecture. He bases his action on it without certainty, even though God forbade the following of the conjecture.” After a long treatise, he stated: “We do not deny it, that the sleep overwhelms the prophets (s. ) at the times of prayer, until they are overtaken and they make up for it afterwards, but because of this they are not to be faulted and not to be described with flaws, and man cannot free himself from the overtaking of sleep, and the sleeper is not guilty of anything, but it is not so with the forgetting, because it is a flaw of perfection of the human being and a defect, with which the one distinguishes him, that condemns him and it can sometimes come from the act of the forgetting as well as from the act of another, but the sleep does not take place, except through God. So it is not in the power of the servants in that state, and if it were in their power, then all people would associate it with deficiency and flaw because of its general occurrence in its afflicted one, whereas that is not the case with forgetting, because it is possible to guard against it and because we find that the wise people avoid it, We find that the wise people avoid entrusting their wealth and secrets to the one who ignores and forgets, while they do not deny the trust to the sick and the unhealthy, and we find that the prudent people reject what a forgetful person tells in the way of narration, unless it is shared by another who is attentive, skillful, wise and knowledgeable. Thus, through what we mentioned, the difference between forgetfulness and sleep should have become known. If it were permissible for the Messenger of God (s.) to forget in prayer, then it would be equally permissible for him to forget in fasting so that he eats and drinks between his companions during the day in the month of Ramadan, with them watching him and straightening out his mistake and directing his attention to stopping what he is committing, and it would be equally permissible for him to associate with women during the day in the month of Ramadan.” Thereupon, he mentioned many things and said: “This is not what a Muslim nor an extremist nor a monotheist nor an atheist considers permissible, and it is binding on the person who was mentioned, with regard to what he clarified (fatwa) about regarding the forgetfulness of the Prophet (s), and it testifies that he is an imbecile and of poor choice and corrupted ideas.” Hereupon he said: “How astonishing his verdict is that the Prophet (s.) forgot and the forgetfulness of everyone except him was from Satan by the people of his nation, without knowledge of what he claimed and without a proof and without a bogus argument that would ever involve a reasonable person, my dear God! Unless he would claim that he was given a revelation about it and thus it is brought to the attention of all people with insight that he is an imbecile. How astonishing his statement is that the forgetting of the Prophet (s) comes from God and not from Satan, since Satan has no power over the Prophet (s), and he claimed that he has power only over those who are close to him and those who associate through him and those who follow him from those who have gone astray. He then said that this forgetfulness, which came from Satan, would extend to all people in general except the Prophets (s.) and Imams (a.). Thus, they would all be close to Satan and would be apostates because Satan would have power over them and their forgetfulness would come from him and not from the All-Merciful, and whoever is not awakened by this person’s ignorance regarding the subject matter can only be counted among the dead.” With which the treatise of Al-Murtada, God have mercy on him, ended, but the truth is that numerous reports have been narrated that prove what As-Saduq was advocating and it appears to be the strongest position. We already expressed and proved in detail the great matter in our commentary on Tahdhib-ul-Hadith, but since we addressed it here, there is no problem in listing a summary of it. We say: “As for the reviling on the part of our teacher Al-Baha’i, may God have mercy on him, it is altogether attributable to his silliness, his amusements, and the clearing of the point of view, which is yet to proceed, and as for Al-Murtada, may he rest in peace, as for him, even if he went over the top in reviling him, it was not out of ignorance of the sublime greatness of As-Saduq or because he would believe in it and mean it, that what he uttered about him would correspond to reality.” Yes, our scholars, may God be pleased with them, already took a harsh tone towards each other in troublesome matters and opposed the one who went to one of the judgments and spoke against it and denounced him and rebuked him and attributed a confused mind and clarification (fatwa) to him, So that no one joins him in this judgment and considers the same as he does as obligatory and made an exception with him in matters of slander and allowed it with him, whereby this matter touches the foundations (Usul), so how should they not denounce in it the one who opposes them in it and even if not,so Al-Murtada and those who joined him in reviling, like our teacher Al-Mufid, God exalt his rank, relied on As-Saduq, God have mercy on him, regarding the reports and judgments and narrated from him and relied on what he narrates. So how could they have accepted that if they attributed to him the apostacy in the religion? So it is not to be considered otherwise than as we mentioned and as already testified by our teachers who are most reliable, most pious, most God-fearing and most removed from any interests and rivalry. As for his statement: “This one belongs to the isolated reports (Ahad) which do not lead to any knowledge and which one is not obliged to follow.” So the answer to this is, that it is first about the strengthening of the judgments of those times and what has preceded them to him and it is so that Al-Murtada, God rest his soul, lived close to the times of his pure grandfathers (a.) and the 400 original works and 5,000 books were all there and between him and Imam Musa Ibn Ja’far (a.) there was a period of time like between our master of the time (a. ) and between Imam Musa (a.) from the Fathers and it would have been possible for him to distinguish the isolated reports (Ahad) from the consecutive ones (Mutawatir) and the books and original works were preserved in this state until the time of Ibn Idris, God have mercy on him, but when his time dawned, the original works and books were lost for various reasons. Among these is that some of them got into the locked rooms of the rulers from which it did not come out and some unjust rulers and their (false) Imams burned some of them and when the followers (of the twelve Imams) saw the four original works written down which were ordered and easier to be retrieved than those original works and books, they neglected to resort to them and copy them in advance for the sake of their preservation, until the condition came to an end with us and we found nothing at that time except about thirty original books, so that we had to rely entirely on isolated reports (Ahad) and we already accepted the report of As-Sakuni and An-Nawfali and that of their ilk. Secondly, the event of forgetting the Prophet (s) has been reported through about twenty chains of traditions that bring forth exaggeration and rejection towards the one who rejects it as it is reported by Abu As-Salt Al-Harawi who said to Imam Ar-Rida (a): “O son of the Messenger of God, among the crowd of Kufa are people who claim that the Prophet (s.) was never affected by forgetfulness in his prayer.” He said: “They have lied, may God curse them! He who does not forget is God, besides Whom there is no deity.” So, overall, this content has been reported both through the chains of tradition that are authentic (Sahih), good (Hasan) and trustworthy (Muwaththaq), and unknown (Majhul) and weak (Da’if), and therefore it is sensitive to reject it. As for his statement: “We do not deny it that sleep overwhelms the prophets (s.) at the times of prayer.” So one answers him that if he acknowledges that, he is also obliged to acknowledge the contrary in it and that on the one hand from the aspect of tradition because the reports that prove the happening of forgetting are more numerous than the reports that prove the happening of sleeping and making up for the prayer and on the other hand from the aspect of reason, Because the denial of the defect regarding the overpowering of sleep and its confirmation regarding forgetting contradicts the framework of reason and norm, because just as it is possible to beware of too much sleep that results in catching up on prayer, it is much more possible with forgetting, because a person like the Prophet (s. ) can be too much careful about overpowering sleep at the time of prayer, such as heavy effort or staying awake until the last part of the night or the like, appoint a person to wake him up at that time, because he had numerous helpers and soldiers when he slept in that valley, in which he was in need of catching up on prayer, quite the opposite of forgetting, because there is no special time for a person to be mindful and this is obviously not to be hidden, whereas the statement of As-Saduq that God blessed him only follows the reports that He who made the Messenger of God (s. ) forget is God, and thus there is no difference between sleeping and forgetting, since both are the deeds of God that He performed on His Prophet (s.) in individual cases. As for his statement: “Because we find that the wise people avoid entrusting their wealth and secrets to Him who disregards and forgets.” The answer to this is that the wise people avoid entrusting only to the one who forgets a lot, and in the same way the wise people avoid entrusting only to the one who forgets most of the time and not to the one who forgets in a single case, and the one who made him forget in that case was the wise one who gave him His trust. As for his statement: “If it were permissible for the Messenger (s.) to forget in prayer, then it would be equally permissible for him to forget in fasting.” Thus, the answer is that we consider its forgetting in fasting and what has been mentioned in examples permissible if it is out of a mercy to the nation, but it is merely permissible and not an actual event. However, if it is not a mercy to the nation, whereby it involves a defect, we do not consider it permissible, especially in the giving of judgment, for in the forgetting therein there is a manifest defect and a removal of trustworthiness with respect to what he has promised and threatened. As for his statement: “How astonishing, after all, is his judgment.”Thus, there is no reason to be astonished about it after the reports of the matter have been narrated which are authentic (Sahih) and As-Saduq is far from venturing this great matter without basing it on something solid. As for his last expressed astonishment, it does not remain hidden what it is about it and it is so that As-Saduq, God have mercy on him, intended the copying of the verse or it was a report whose wording he transmitted without intending the explanation of the copied meaning and the meaning of it is that the obedience to Satan is done in that which he instills whispers into one and who is it then who would be absolved from it except the infallible (a. )? As for those, who through him associate and go astray, these are other groups besides the believers, as if to say that Satan has power over the believers and others besides them. As for the believers, it is through his inspirations of whispers and what resembles that and as for others besides them, it is taking them out of the light into darkness, in which we disagree with As-Saduq except in what the text announced which is authentic (Sahih) and this is that God made the Messenger (s.) forget regarding prayer. So if you have realized this, then know that the Companions, may God be pleased with them, proceeded to reject it for three reasons.The first reason is the consensus they reported, the second is their statement: “If reason and what is narrated contradict each other, then reason takes precedence and what is narrated is interpreted to be adapted and if not, discarded.” And the third is what the scholar At-Tusi, may God cover him in His mercy, transmitted with a chain of tradition to Ibn Bukair of Zurarah, who asked Muhammad Al-Baqir (a.): “Did the Messenger of God (s.) ever prostrate twice out of forgetfulness?” He said: “No, even a man of understanding (Faqih) does not perform prostration twice.” The answer to the first reason (the consensus) is that it is not permissible, because As-Saduq and his teacher Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan ibn Al-Walid clearly disagreed with it, and obviously numerous traditional scholars also took this stance, as they narrated the traditional reports on the subject of forgetting without rejecting it, so that it should be taken by them as a silent agreement, and as for the companions at those times, of them the expert Al-Kashi and some efforting scholars of Iraq took this stance. As for the second reason, this statement has already been dealt with and stated that the proof of the mind is not of an absolute nature. Rather, one grants him the priority if he affirms what has been transmitted. So this would be the case with regard to an actual contradiction of two transmitted matters. But if this is not so, then the evidence of the mind would not be fully established for itself and especially in establishing judgments in legislation. As for the third reason, in which the narrator of it is Ibn Bukair, whose condition should be widely known, it does not contradict the reports that are authentic (Sahih), in which the claim of the outward aspect of it is equal to the inward one, and in which the interpretation of it is acceptable, that it may mean that he never performed the two prostrations with the frequency of other people or that it would end at the whispering of Satan, because the forgetfulness comes from the All-merciful, so at this point consider in an appropriate way the broader sense. ” [Al-Anwar-un-Nu’maniyyah, Vol. 4, pp. 27 – 31]