Former Shia Scholar Testimony

Musa al Musawi is a former Shia scholar who presents several differences between Tashayyu and present day Shiaism in his book al-Shi’a wa-l-tashih: al-Sira’ bayn al-shi’a wa-l-tashayyu’(the struggle between Shia and Shiism) which serves as a refutation of present day Shiaism. Rainer Brunner does an excellent job at providing a commentary on Musawi's views:


"It is made clear by this that al-Musawi thus starts from the assumption that there are two kinds of Shiism, a pure and true early one, and a distorted later version that continues to exist up to the present day. At first glance, one may feel reminded of Ali Shariati's famous distinction between what he once called Alid Shiism and Safawid Shiism: Tashayyo-e- alawi wa tashayyo-e safawi. For him, Alid Shiism was the pure form, Safawid Shiism the distortion. 

The Shia, he states, distorted the meaning of tashayyu from love and veneration of Ali and the Ahl Al-Bayt to hatred and abuse of the khulafa al-rashidin. Shiism, one may surmise, is upright piety and righteousness, Shia is equivalent to fanaticism and diatribe. The transition from Shiism to Shia was the main reason for all further deviations that have taken place since the great ghayba. 

This attitude, al-Musawi asserts is particularly reprehensible as it is a one-sided hatred, because the Sunnites in turn do not depreciate the Ahl Al-Bayt, but hold them in great reverence....he nevertheless vigorously denies the existence of any divine order designating Ali and his offpsrings as the legitimate successors of the Prophet (pbuh). Rather the traditions in which the so-called nass ilahi in favor of Ali was maintained, were invented only after the occultation of the twelth imam. By this step the issue of the imamate was added to the fundamentals of the religion (usul al-din), and as a kind of safeguard the doctrines of the sinlessness of the imams (isma) and the taqiyya were invented at the same time. 

It is characteristic of his approach that he deals with the central question of the sinlessness of the imams in the chapter that is dedicated to religious extremism and exaggeration (ghuluww) in general. According to al-Musawi, this doctrine forms what he calls "theoretical" exaggeration (al-ghuluww al-nazari) and is on par with "practical" ghuluww that consists in the worship of the tombs of the imams. Exempting the imams from sin means in reality belittling them, because it deprives them of their free will, he maintains. Yet at the same time, the alleged infallibility as well as the belief in their esoteric knowledge exceed even the attributes of the Prophet (pbuh) and therefore run counter to the fact that there cannot ben any miracle after Muhammad (pbuh). Since this certainity is testified by the Quran-Verse 5:3 reads: "Today I have perfected your religion for you"-, the doctrine of isma is ultimately contrary to the Holy Book. Needless to say, the imams rejected these false beliefs and the doctrines in question were only due to hadiths that were fabricated during the occultation. 

One more, it is the Shiite jurists, the fuqaha, who are guilty in their books of having embedded the exaggerations in theminds of the believers. Al-Musawi explicitly includes the so-called "four books" (al-kutub al-arba'a) written by the founding-fathers of the Twelver Shiite theology after the occultation of the twelfth imam, but also highly esteemed works of later generations, e.g. Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi's Bihar al-anwar. This is, of course, tantamount to declaring the very cornerstone of Shiite piety, the belief in super-human nature of the imams a gigantic superstition-and it is no doubt deliberate. This attack is all the more a slap in the ulama's face as they too, in the course of the 20th century, did not grow tired of dissociating themselves from anything that smacked of ghuluww, especially when discussing the prospects of rapprochment between Sunnism and Shiism. Again, al-Musawi demands the critical revision of Twelver Shiite literature and the discarding of all traditions on which ghuluww is based. "

In fact, Shia scholar of Hadith Muhammad Baqir al-Behbudi writes in "Ma`rifat al-Hadith" pg.172:

على انك عرفت في بحث الشذوذ عن نظام الامامة ان الأحاديث المروية في النصوص على الأئمة جملة من خبر اللوح وغيره كلها مصنوعة في عهد الغيبة والحيرة وقبلها بقليل فلو كانت هذه النصوص المتوافرة موجوده عند الشيعة اللإمامية لما اختلفوا في معرفة الأئمة هذا الاختلاف الفاضح ولما وقعت الحيرة لأساطين المذهب واركان الحديث سنوات عديدة وكانوا في غنى ان يتسرعوا في تأليف الكتب في اثبات الغيبة وكشف الحيرة عن قلوب الامة بهذه الكثرة

[And you (reader) now know after the research on "al-Shudhudh `an Nizam al-Imamah" that the narrations about the general identity of the Imams such as the narration of the Tablet (1) and others, are all fabricated during the time of al-Ghaybah (2) and al-Hayrah (3) and some short time before it. For if these narrations were available with the Imami Shia, they would not have disagreed so openly and greatly about the identity of the Imams, nor would the biggest personalities and narrators of Hadith have faced much confusion for long years, nor would they have needed to quickly write books proving the Ghaybah to unveil the confusion from the hearts of the nation in such great numbers.] 

Thank you brother Hani for providing the above reference.