Day 5

The lesson

1. Asked by Abu Hashim al-Ja'fari about the verse The sights do not apprehend Him (6:103), he rejected the claim that God can be seen with the eyes: the imaginings of the heart are finer than sight, and if they cannot grasp Him, the eyes cannot see Him (al-Kafi). He also disowned the exaggerators (ghulat), such as Abu l-Khattab and his followers (Ikhtiyar Ma'rifat al-Rijal of al-Kashshi).
2. His title al-Jawad, the generous, is tied to his giving (Hayat al-Imam Muhammad al-Jawad of al-Qarashi). From Khurasan Imam al-Rida wrote telling him not to leave by a side door to avoid those who came asking, but to carry gold and silver and give before anyone asked (al-Kafi).
3. Under the watch of the government he reached the Shia mostly through agents and letters. He had agents in Baghdad, Kufa, Ahvaz, Basra, Hamadan, Qom, Rey, Sistan and Bust, among them Ali ibn Mahziyar, Zakariyya ibn Adam al-Qummi and Safwan ibn Yahya (al-Ghayba of al-Tusi; Rijal al-Najashi); much of his teaching survives in his written answers to their questions.

Questions

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Questions are written by AI from the lesson’s facts, and each answer was checked against its fact.