Two Sons, One Mother, One Teacher

Mahdawiyyah, Part 21 · The Architecture of Guidance, Part 5 · The Brothers of Baghdad, Part 1 of 4 A woman came to a scholar in his sleep and told him to teach her sons. He woke, walked to the mosque, and found them waiting. Shaykh al-Mufid dreamed of Sayyedah Fatimah al-Zahra, peace be upon her, holding the hands of two boys and saying: take these two, my sons, and teach them jurisprudence. In the morning he walked to the mosque of al-Karkh and found a mother waiting there with her two young sons, and wept. Those boys, born four years apart, entered one of the most exposed households in fourth-century Baghdad. Their father held the office of Naqib al-Talibiyin — the state-registered guardian of every descendant of the Prophet's family in the capital, trusted enough to mediate between caliph and Buyid prince — seven separate times across his life. Their mother was granddaughter to al-Hasan al-Atrush, an Alid scholar and poet who had died decades earlier founding an independent state on the Caspian coast. Their father named them from a single Arabic root meaning divine pleasure: al-Radi, "the one who is pleased", and al-Murtada, "the one chosen" — a prayer, spoken at their naming, for what these two boys, carrying the heaviest lineage in Islam, would become. What does a household have to become, to raise men like this? What the evening covers The father. Naqib al-Talibiyin seven times over — the office that made him mediator between the caliph and the princes who really ruled. The mother's line. Granddaughter of an Alid warrior-scholar who died founding a state on the Caspian coast. The names. Al-Murtada and al-Radi — one root, two meanings, a father's prayer for his sons. The dream. Sayyedah Fatimah al-Zahra's words to Shaykh al-Mufid, and the morning that followed them.

In this session

Full session

Full Video on YouTube

Play

Sermon: Two Sons, One Mother, One Teacher

Play Read

Nohe: The Princess of Qom

Read

Ziyarah: Ziyarat Aal-e-Yasin

Play