Generous Protection and The Fortress of Faith

Imamah, Part 20 · Imam al-Jawad, Part 2 of 2 While the ruler seethed against him, the Imam sat down and wrote a shield — not for himself, but for a frightened friend. Fear was a daily condition of Shia life in the capital. One day, his heart heavy with the ruler's anger, Imam Muhammad al-Jawad, peace be upon him, wrote a short prayer for a companion to carry, sealed in a silver tube: "O Light, O Proof, O Manifest, O Illuminating… suffice me against the evils and calamities of time." It became known as the Hirz — literally, a fortress — and has been carried by believers ever since. Some have mistaken it for a talisman with power of its own. The evening argues otherwise, from the Qur'an itself: when Jacob pressed his son Joseph's shirt to his face and regained his sight, the cloth held no magic — it was a means through which God chose to act. The Hirz works the same way, standing in a tradition that already includes reciting Ayat al-Kursi in fear. The Imam would be martyred by poison at twenty-five, but the fortress he wrote outlived him. Can a piece of paper be a shield without becoming an idol? What the evening covers A gift written in anger's shadow. How the Hirz came to be written, and what it asks of God. Tawhid, not talisman. The case, from the Qur'an and the story of Joseph's shirt, for why carrying it is monotheism, not superstition. Words as fortresses. Why believers reach for Ayat al-Kursi in fear, and how the Hirz stands in that line. A household of two marriages. The political marriage that produced no heir, and the one through which the Imamate continued.

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Ziyarah: Ziyarat Aal-e-Yasin

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