Re: matam saterted...
That still doesn't prove you get ajar for it or that it makes Allah happy...
Re: matam saterted...
The issue is not whether you get ajar or not and if something is permitted in islam then if it doesn't make allah happy it certainly doesn't make allah unhappy.
Re: matam saterted...
[QUOTE]
and for how many years did he do matam for the death of the Prophet (saw)????
and what about the rest of the sahaba????
[/QUOTE]
1-"The Holy Prophet (P) returned to Madina and found the whole city gone into mourning. Whenever he went, he heard wailing and lamentation in every house. He was grieved to find that all who fell in the battle had their mourners doing their duty to the memory of their dear ones; but their was none to mourn the death of Humza (ra). Overwhelmed with grief the words that there was none to mourn the loss of Hamza escaped his lips. The Ansaris were touched to the core when the remark came to their ears. They asked their women to go to the house of the Prophet (S) and lament over the death of Humza. The Prophet (p) thanked them for their sympathy, prayed for their well being, but added that it was not permissible to cry lamentations in memory of the dead. (Women in Arabia were used to wailing and lamenting aloud, they would tear off their garments, dig their nails into their cheeks, slap themselves on the face and put up loud screams. This undesirable practice was from that day stopped for future".
Allamah Shibli Numani al Hanafi in his Sirat-un Nabi (Eng translation Volume 2 pg 74)
If Lamenting was haraam why would the Prophet (S) had been saddened that no-one was mourning his slain Uncle?
2- According to Musnad of Imam Ahmad Hanbal Vol. 6, page 274; Aisha mourned the demise of the Holy Prophet (s.a.w) with other women by beating her head.
These Ahadith prove that we can do matam if we feel sorrow.
Re: matam saterted…
Only after the death and not more than three days…And never if it involves a Shaheed…
There are many instances in which things were allowed initially, but were later revoked…
The biggest examples is wine…It was allowed in little quantity initially, then forbidden during prayers then completely considered Haram and a sin later on…
Some Imams of Shia have gone so far as to make the Matam not only Bida’a but a shirk as well by stating that paradise becomes obligatory for those who perform Matam in the name of Hussain 
…
Nowhere in any books do we find an example of any Sahaba weeping, grieving, cobering their faces with dust and mud, ripping their clothes of, hitting their heads or lashing themselves till they faint…Where did this come from? The Imams? What kind of an Imam does something that was not ordained by Allah :swt: or the Holy Prophet :saw:…
And another wonderful thing the Shia scholars have taught their disciples…“We do the Matam, but it hurts the ‘enemies’ of Ahl-e-Bait…”…lol
Hell man…You can beat yourself black and blue for all I care…What hurts us is that people get the impression that this is part of worship in Islam…hehe
http://www.allaahuakbar.net/shiites/maatam.htm
Check out the links at the very bottom of the link…
Re: matam saterted...
[quote]
Nowhere in any books do we find an example of any Sahaba weeping, grieving, cobering their faces with dust and mud, ripping their clothes of, hitting their heads or lashing themselves till they faint...Where did this come from? The Imams? What kind of an Imam does something that was not ordained by Allah or the Holy Prophet ...
[/quote]
Without getting into a big debate, I found this part of your post interesting.
This goes back to the discussion on Saqalain, on the Prophet leaving behind the Quran and the Ahl e Bait vs Quran and the Sunnah, and your argument there was that since the ahl e bait also follow Sunnah, the appropriate meaning would be Quran and Sunnah.
Suppose the Sahaba had done it, would it have been appropriate for you, given that the Prophet (arguably) didnt condone it and that its not mentioned in the Quran?
Re: matam saterted…
The Sahaba never did anything that was not perscribed by the Holy Prophet :saw:…
Many times they would and have done things out of lack of knowledge of Islam regarding something but would be corrected by the Holy Prophet :saw: later on…Either it would be permitted or forbidden…
But I would never resort to an act which was not clearly and distinctly defined by the Holy Prophet :saw: himself or someone he gave permission and a right to do so, e.g. the rightly guided Khalifas which is part of Sunnah…
Apart from them, I reject everything and anything that is out of, contradicts or supercedes the Quran and Sunnah…Which is basically what being a Muslim means…
Obeying Allah :swt: and following the Messenger :saw:…
Re: matam saterted...
you define the Sunnah as including the actions of your rightly guided Khulafa aside from those of the Prophet, we define it as those taught by the Ahl e bayt and imams. This is why saying "quran and ahl e bait" and "quran and sunnah" is not the same thing even if ahl e bait are taking their actions from the rasool's Sunnah. The word Sunnah in itself is meaningless without the source defined.
Re: matam saterted…
Give me one example where the Holy Prophet :saw: condoned doing something for the Sahabas but never did himself?
And are you following the Sahabas or the Holy Prophet :saw:? And if beating your chest and head and hitting yourself with chains and knives is concerned, can you tell me where the Holy Prophet :saw: did that?
Remember, Quran and Sunnah…If the Holy Prophet :saw: did that, it becomes Sunnah…Then if you practice it regularly, it is fine and accepted…
Re: matam saterted…
Is there a hadith that explicitly says that no more than three days?? Or is this a restriction imposed on us by our own interpretation? Is there a hadith that revoked this act which was initially appreciated by Propeht “Indeed Owais (someone who extracted his own teeth after hearing that prophet lost his teeth in Ohad) is our devoted friend.”)
Yes there were ayats revealed which forbid it, or in other cases there were explicit ahadith forbidding it. Is there such a hadith which states that matam which was allowed uptill a certain point in islam was declared unacceptable.
If that was true what would that make those imam?? Why is it that majority of your renowned scholars have stated that all the imams of shias were very respectable and revered personalities of their time?
The reference posted in this thread were not sufficent for you? Is Owais-e-qarani, Hz Bilal and wife of holy prophet Hz Ayesha not reliable personalities for you? What kind of wife of propeht (ummahath ul momineen) performed somethint that was not ordained by Allah??
Ofcourse you don’t care what hz Bilil did? How he felt on demise of Rasool Allah, What Hz Ayesha did is of no importance to you? Or maybe she was wrong as well in doning something that was not ordained by Allah.
Problem is you keep raising same issues over and over again, wihtout acknowledging the incidents clearly stated in various posts in this thread. If you really want to carry on this discussion please state why those incidents are not acceptable only then can we gain something from this discussion.
It is apparent from your above statement that following sahabas is not sufficent as they can commit acts which are not allowed in islam and prone to mistakes, you would agree that because of this very same reason we should not take ahadith from these same people as they are prone to mistakes and hence not look at such people as rightly guided caliphs as the rightly guided caliphs were merly sahabas during rasool allah’s time. Would you then agree to accept all the above and denounce the khilafat of khulafa-e-rashadeen??
There are a lot of things that you take from these ashabs for all the ahadith in Bukhari either came from the wife or ashabs.
Re: matam saterted...
so without self mutilating i cannot show my affection/loss of someone, very interesting point of view. but sorry to say don't agree to it.
fine with me if you want to do it, but what are you gaining by doing it?
Re: matam saterted...
fine with me if you want to do it, but what are you gaining by doing it?
So where did you get the impression that wihtout it you can not show your affection?? Its a choice, no body is forced to participate.
The fact that you are not gaining anything from it and still perform it proves that you are doing it purely out of love, where as majority (if not all) of an individuals acts (including ibaadat) are performed out of fear of jahanum or desire of jannat.
Re: matam saterted...
im a shia and im against this sort of matam. as are a lot of Marajii although I know there is still no consensus on this, since a minority of important marajii support it including Sistani.
Even if something is done out of love, when a practice is the cause of disease spreading in the community through the transmission of blood borne diseases such as HepC (a very serious problem in Pakistan)..not just to those doing it but to passers-by and theres deaths every year from some idiot putting a sword on a toddlers head, you have to call a spade a spade and recognise that the practice is by no means a valid expression of love.
I know someone who suffered for years after doing zanjeer ka matam and eventually suffered liver failure (from HepC). Im sure his wife and children dont need love expressed this way. Pointless risk.
it is a practice sustained by tradition rather than reason, and thankfully is dying out in important shia centers like Iran and I believe Iraq too.
Re: matam saterted…
**The Holy Prophet :saw: declared, " He who slaps his cheeks, tears his clothes, and cries out in the manner of jahiliyyah is not of us." (Reported by al-Bukhari.)
**
Umm Habeebah and Zaynab bint Jahsh, both of whom were wives of the Prophet (peace be on him), that at the time of the deaths of Umm Habeebah’s father Abu Sufyan bin Harb, and Zaynab’s brother, each of them perfumed herself, saying By Allah, I am not in need of perfume, but I heard Allah s Messenger (peace be on him) say, It is haram for a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to mourn for a deceased person for more than three nights, except for the husband (for whom the period of mourning is) four months and ten days. (Reported in the Book of “Funerals” in al-Bukhari’s Sahih.)
Also, Matam is a grievous sin against Allah :swt:, for when someone dies, Muslims declare, “From Allah we came and to Him is our return…”, meaning it was the Will of Allah :swt: and it came to pass…By unceremoniously wailing and lameting we are showing disapproval of Allah :swt:'s Divine Decree…
Death for a Muslim is not an end of a life it is the beginning of a new one…True, there is the tragic sense of loss, but not to a point of going ape against the Divine Decree by mourning again and again and again…
And mourning the death of a Shaheed? Absolutely forbidden…When it is in the Quran that Shuhada sit in Allah (swt)'s favour in unimaginable joy and bliss, then why mourn a Shaheed? You can mourn the dead…I would mourn the dead too…But I would never mourn someone alive for as a Muslim, I am commanded to know that Shuhada are alive…Not dead…
The quoted Ahadith above are proof enough…But they come from Sunni sources, so I doubt they’ll have much meaning for you…
But for any person, those Ahadith clearly define the limits of grief for a dead one…
In Sunni sources, there are a couple of occasions in which people lost control of their senses over grief…Couple of them I am sure you know about, that of Bibi Ayesha (razi) and Bilal (razi)…Even then, you must realize that it happened for whom? For what personality? And when?
Even then, that was it…Excessive mourning and ritualising it never appeared again and never appeared before…
I have no doubts about that…Question arises, who institutionalised Matam…Was it even an Imam who did that?
And whose Sunnah are you proposing to follow? On one hand you consider the three Rightly Guided Khalifas as misguided and hypocrites (Nauzubillah) and then propose to follow the Sunnah of someone who had not even seen the Holy Prophet (saw)…
Quran and Sunnah friend, Quran and Sunnah…I am not concerned with what Hz. Owais Qarni (razi) did…I am more interested in, did the Holy Prophet (saw) do it? Did he openly declare it to be OK?
If not, then it does not fall under Sunnah and hence it’s a Bida’a and Bida’a leads out of the favour of Allah (swt) no matter how lofty, noble and praiseworthy your intentions were…
You are right…I don’t care what Hz. Bilal (razi) or Bibi Ayesha (razi) did because they did it after the demise of the Holy Prophet (saw)…And you should keep in mind over whose death they did it…And I see no proof of them ever repeating it again and again and again…
Who knows?..In her moment of grief Bibi Ayesha (razi) may have done something momentarily, which is to display her emotions which she could not control at that instant…But that was it…We never hear it happening again…
She lost not only her beloved husband, the one who loved and adored the most but also her Prophet, her guide, her mentor, her guardian and her protector…She was not infallible…No one is except the Prophets (pbut)…
I explained above why they are not acceptable to me…Beacause they are neither in the Quran or the Sunnah…The two things from which Sunnis follow Islam…
lolz…
I would have to be an idiot to not be able to differentiate between Islamic acts and personal acts…And if personal acts were any mark of following or not following Sahaba are concerned, then no doubt, many Sahabas before becoming Muslims must not have been very proud of their actions…
Bibi Ayesha (razi) and Hz. Bilal (razi) mourning is a personal act…It had nothing to do with Islam…Their incredible Islamic acts documented cannot be washed over for an act which they did when overcome with grief…
Don’t the Shia Imams practice and condone Tabarra (lying or hiding faith) when overcome with ominous emotions? Should their words then be taken as words of guidance when they condone lying to save your life when Hz. Hussain (razi) didn’t? I don’t hear of any Sahaba practicing Tabarra…Or maybe I am not aware…They would gladly have given their lives rather than lie…
So don’t mix personal acts with Islamic acts…No one is perfect except those that Allah (swt) makes perfect…
And I would never denounce the Khilafat of the Khulafa-e-Rashideen and whatever they said and did because they were not only ordained by the Holy Prophet (saw) but by Allah (swt) Himself…And to follow them and owing my allegiance to them is part of me being Sunni and following the Quran and Sunnah…
True…Those which were recorded when the Holy Prophet (saw) was alive or those ordained by him to be followed…
Re: matam saterted…
yes such traditions are not hujjah on Shias but for those who gladly adhere to such traditions and deem the mourner to be among the people of Jaahilyah then they should abruptly throw same edict to the popular personalities who did matam, without any IFs and BUts. You are not allowed to bring one excuse and another for the matam Ayesha did, due to the fact the hadith you people happily throw for the extreme consequence of the mourner itself doesn’t gives any excuses or tells us certain ways out!
Like I just saw written in this thread that it was just the personal act of Ayesha etc etc. Does the hadith you people usually cite show such excemptions?
People always raise questions (though sometimes well intented) about the reason to mourn for the martytrs of Karbala. The reason behind this is same which was given by the Prophet of Allah [s] for His [s] lamentation for the martyred Jafar ibn Tayar [ra]:
Ibn Ishaq narrates that on the day when Hadhrat Jafar ibn Abi Talib was martyred in Ghazwa-e-Moutah; Holy Prophet (s) called upon Hadhrat Abdullah bin Jafar and made him sit on his lap and started kissing his forehead and eyes, while tears were flowing from his own Holy eyes.
The Sahaba inquired: “O Prophet of Allah! Is it so that some grieving news has come about Jafar that has made your tears flow?”
The Holy Prophet (s) replied: “Yes, Today Jafar has been martyred there, but the troubles and the plight that he went through before being martyred is very grieving.”
Tarikh Ibn Kathir.
So its the calamities confronted to the Shuhdah before their deaths for which we lament.
Also for those who deem that lamentation/mourning/hurting one ownself in grief (in any way) is against Islamic injunctions then I would like to ask the edict of such people against Prophet Yaqub [as] who cried so much in his giref for his lost son that he damaged his eyes in the end!Yet we see Quran calling him among patient ones.
Re: matam saterted…
So many replies but no answers for my simple questions 
Anyone care to answer these?
Please let Shias answer them.
Re: matam saterted...
Anyone care to answer these?
Please let Shias answer them.
sure, I will try to answer them to the best I can.
[quote]
What kind of chains do they use? Chromium or Steel?
[/quote]
I am not aware of the difference b/w Steel or Chromium but it seems to me that its steel cuz it gets rust if put vain for a longer period.
[quote]
What is the recommended age to start Zanjeer Zani?
[/quote]
It isnt integral part of faith like salat, fasting etc for which there are certain rules and procedures, therefore it can be started at any age but obviosuly one would start when one would know the what he is doing and for what reason means when he is mentaly grown up.
[quote]
Is there any pain in the process?
[/quote]
Of course, that is one of the foremost reasons doing of Zanjeer Zani or any other form of mourning i.e. to feel an iota of the pain the shuhda e Karbala had felt.
[quote]
How much sawab or love for Shuhada-e-Karbala does it increase?
[/quote]
As I said that it isnt a integral part of faith therefore there arent certain terms and conditions and rewards/results for it . Mourning is done to show ones affiliation with Ahlulbayt [as], with their grief, to show that our love is not verbal hence its just a small pratical example of what we say from our tongue. As we know that love of Ahlulbayt [as] is wajib (verse 42:23) therefore there may be a reward on adhering to what has been said wajib by Allah [swt], so He [swt] knows better.
[quote]
How many sins can it wash?
[/quote]
It isnt done to wash the sins , but nevertheless I feel this question is the part of the above one.
[quote]
When did zanjeer zani started first and which Imam recommended it?
[/quote]
The certain way of men hitting their back with knives/chains i.e Zanjeer Zani might have been started afterwords but an incident of letting out ones blood in the giref of Imam Hussain [as] is said to have first happened when Bibi Zainab [as] hit her forehead with the steel bars on watching the detached head of Imam [as], the living Imam of time i.e Imam Zain ul Abdeen [as] was also present at that time and there was no condemnation of that act rather it was said by him that she was a knowledgable scholar. (something on those lines).
Re: matam saterted...
thanks boy-nice...Bibi Zainab (a.s.) and Imam Zain ul Abdeen (a.s.) went through so much after the death of Imam Hussain (a.s.) ..it is just too painful to hear it every time
Re: matam saterted...
Matam is forbidden in Islam. And to morn on someone's death is allowed for 3 days only.
Re: matam saterted...
Could you please quote a source that is accepted by sunnis and shias?
Last time I read the Quran, performing symbolic matam in which no harm is caused (lightly tapping your chest while listening to the events of Kerbala - which is what I do) was not condemed.
Whether or not it is mustahab, mukruh, haraam etc etc is open to discussion though.
WaSalaam
Re: matam saterted...
The certain way of men hitting their back with knives/chains i.e Zanjeer Zani might have been started afterwords but an incident of letting out ones blood in the giref of Imam Hussain [as] is said to have first happened when Bibi Zainab [as] hit her forehead with the steel bars on watching the detached head of Imam [as], the living Imam of time i.e Imam Zain ul Abdeen [as] was also present at that time and there was no condemnation of that act rather it was said by him that she was a knowledgable scholar. (something on those lines).
So why do you guys ride in cars? The prophet (saww) and ahl-e-bait used camels. How can you follow act so religiously and ignore the others?
**
sadiqhassa**n you are doing something which the Quran forbids you to do(harm yourself) just to follow a tradition.