Imamzada: Difference between revisions

In Mafatih al-janan (p. 562), the best known contemporary manual of Shiʿite devotions, Shaykh ʿAbbas Qomi (d. 1319 /1940) rhapsodically describes Imamzadas as “sites where divine favor and blessing occur, where mercy and grace descend; they are a refuge for the distressed, a shelter for the despondent, a haven for the oppressed, and a place of consolation for weary hearts, and will ever remain so until resurrection.” This listing of functions corresponds, no doubt, to the actual experience of Shiʿite believers in Persia, and it is therefore remarkable that no general injunction to visit Imamzadas has been attributed to any of the Twelve Imams. There are, however, traditions concerning some of the most frequented Imamzadas, which might be taken to imply the general advisability of the practice. Thus, Imam [[Jaʿfar al-Sadeq]] is said to have foretold the death and burial at Qom of Fatima Maʿsuma, daughter of Imam [[Musa al-Kazem]] and to have promised paradise to all who should visit her tomb; Imams [[ʿAli al-Reza]] and [[Muhammad al-Taqi]] also placed great emphasis on the meritoriousness of such pilgrimage (Majlesi, Behar CII, pp. 265-67; idem, Tohfa, pp. 418-20; Qomi, p. 562). Furthermore, when [[Imam ʿAli al-Naqi]] (or [[Imam Hasan al-ʿAskari]], according to Majlesi in Behar CII, p. 269) was informed by an inhabitant of Ray that he had just returned from a pilgrimage to the shrine of [[Imam Husayn]] at [[Karbala]], he told him that he might equally well have visited the tomb of Shah ʿAbd-al-ʿAzim (q.v.), a descendant of [[Imam Hasan]] in the fourth generation, at Ray, thus saving himself the hardships of travel, an indication that considerations of distance might make it permissible to substitute an Imamzada for the shrine of an [[Imam]] as a goal of pilgrimage (Majlesi, Tohfa, p. 421; Qomī, p. 565). This is confirmed by a recommendation from [[Imam Musa al-Kazem]] that those unable to visit the tombs of the Imams should make pilgrimage to “the righteous among our followers,” a term that may be taken to include descendants of the Imams, in order to gain the same merit (Majlesi, Tohfa, p. 422).

It was but natural that such polemics should resurface when the Safavids imposed the profession of [[Shiʿism]] on most of Persia. The degree to which the cult of the Imamzada was promoted by rulers and religious scholars of the [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/safavids Safavid] period should not, however, be exaggerated. Most of the more important shrines had already existed for several centuries before the Safavid accession to power; such was the case with the tombs of Fatima Maʿsuma (Qomī, pp. 191 ff.); Shah ʿAbd-al-ʿAzim and Sayyed Hamza, a son of Imam Musa al-Kazem, at Ray; Sultan-’Ali, a son of [[Imam Muhammad al-Baqer]], near Kashan; Abu ʿAbd-Allah Husayn, a son of [[Imam ‘Ali al-Riza]] at Qazvin; Fazl and Solayman, both sons of Imam Musa al-Kazem, at Ava near Sava; Qasim b. Musa al-Kazem at Shusha, a village near Hella in Iraq (Qazvini, p. 588; Yaqut, Boldan, Beirut, III, p. 372); and Ahmad, popularly known as Shah(-e) Cheraq, another son of Imam Musa al-Kazem, in Shiraz (Ebn Battuta, I, p. 212). Further Imamzadas were no doubt established, and certain cases of misidentification occurred: the tomb in Qazvin of the Sufi Ahmad Gazali (d. 520/1126) was transformed into the Imamzada Ahmad (Lambton, p. 1170) and that of a certain Abu Hamed Tabrizi near Sorkhab became erroneously known as an Imamzada (Ebn al-Karbalai, I, p. 176). There is, however, no reason to assume that a wholesale and deliberate appropriation of Sufi or other tombs took place. The great Safavid scholar, Molla Muhammad-Baqer Majlesi (d. 1111/1700), despite the indiscriminate fervor often attributed to him, warned against the automatic validation of every tomb reputed to be an Imamzada (Tohfa, p. 421; he cast doubt specifically on the tombs of ‘Ali b. Jaʿfar and Muḥammad b. Musa in Qom).  

In 1216/1801, adherents of the [[Wahhabi]] sect of Najd attacked and plundered the [[shrine]] of Imam Husayn at Karbala, claiming thereby to have destroyed a manifestation of polytheism (sherk), and when the conquest of the Hejaz by the Saʿudi family in 1343/1924 led to an imposition of Wahhabi doctrine across the Arabian peninsula, tombs of several of the Imams and their descendants in the Baqiʿ cemetery facing the Prophet’s mosque in Medina were leveled to the ground.  

Other important features of major astanas are gold- and silver-covered doors and steel grilles. They have been made since the Safavid period, especially during the Qajar period and the last few decades, by Persian, especially Esfahani, craftsmen. Floral designs or nastaʿliq inscriptions embossed on gold or silver plates are masterpieces. Doors with enameled decorations in cartouches can be seen at Astan-e qods-e razawi, Karbala, Najaf, Shahzada Husayn in Qazvin, Shah-e Cheraq, and Shah ʿAbd-al-ʿAzim, south of Tehran. In a very few instances, e.g., Astan-e qods from the Fath-’Ali Shah period, the doors were studded with jewels.