Then I was Guided

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The success of this book has been phenomenal which resulted in it being translated into many languages including English. To date no rebuttal of it has been penned in the English language.

Note: Allamah Ayatollah Seyyed Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei, who passed away recently, was one of the scholars and philosophers of Shi’a Islam. He is known for many contributions to Islamic scholarship, including _Tafsir al-Mizan_. This is the summary of the story of peace treaty of al-Hudaibiyah, which is one of the events whose details both the Shi’a and Sunnah agree upon, and it is cited by many historians and biographers of the Prophet such as al-Tabari, Ibn al-Athir, Ibn Saad, al-Bukhari and Muslim. May these blessings and greetings be upon his honorable companions who supported him, honored him and sacrificed themselves for him and for the victory of Islam. They knew the truth, so they pledged allegiance to him with conviction and stayed on the right path without changing it and were thankful. May Allah reward them for their services to Islam and the Muslims. May these blessings and greetings be upon their followers and upon those who kept on their path and were guided by their light to the Day of Judgment.O my God, why should I be so arrogant and stubborn, for he gave me a tangible reasoning, based on one of our most reliable books, and al-Bukhari was not Shi'i at all, in fact he was a Sunni Imam and scholar.

I interjected by saying, "My Ijtihad is not to show the people the rules of the Qur'an and the Prophet's tradition, or to be a religious leader of a new creed. Nay! All that I want to know is who is right and who is wrong. For example, to know whether Imam ‘Ali was right or Muawiah, I do not need to master seventeen disciplines. All I need to do is to study the life and works of each one of them to know the truth.” Well, in which book will I find the truth? Every writer, every group and every creed claims to be the right one. Really, I cannot hide my interest and pride in the charisma that I have seen and am still seeing by the virtue of the Ahlul Bayt (peace be on them).This is evidence that “people are on the religion of their kings” that if the kings believe, people believe, if they disbelieve, people disbelieve, and if they become polytheists, people become polytheists too. They took me through the streets of our town chanting and cheering, and every time we passed a mosque I was stopped for a short time whilst people, especially the old folk, came to congratulate me with tears in their eyes longing to see the House of Allah and to visit the Prophet's grave. People looked at me as if they have not seen a young pilgrim (Hajj) of my age in Gafsa before.

If the Shi’a scholar had referred to their books, I would not have believed what he said, but he was referring to the Sihahs of al-Sunnah, which could not be challenged, because we are committed to believe that they are the most authentic books after the Book of Allah. Therefore, the issue is a compelling one, because if we doubt these Sihahs we are left with hardly any of the rules and regulations of Islam to rely on. The main point which I have mentioned in this chapter is that I started feeling big and somehow over confident, and I thought I had actually become learned. Why should I not feel so when there were a number of Ulama from al-Azhar who attested for me, some of them even told me that my place was there, i.e. at al-Azhar. What really made me proud of myself was the fact that I was allowed to see some of the Great Prophet's (s.a.w.) relics.Every time I felt the weakness of the soul and the meaningless of life, these memories come to me to elevate me to a spiritual level and light in my conscience the flame of belief so that I can carry the responsibility. The responsibility which was given to me by my father, or more appropriately by my tutor, to lead the group in prayers at an early age made me feel as if I was not doing enough, or at least not up to the standard which was expected from me. The first book is of a Sunni brother who was exposed to the Shi’a for the first time, after studying several Sunni madhabs, including Sufism.