Imam Ali al-Naqi al-Hadi Had Hard Time in His Struggles

Imam Hadi, you had very hard time in your struggles against the cruel and unjust rulers of your time.

Nasr bin Ali Jahzami was lashed a thousand times due to his poem about the greatness of Imam Ali and Fatima and Imam Hassan and Hussein. Motawakel did not release him until some people bore witness that he did not follow Ali and his descendents.¹

Hence, you had to hide your connections with your followers to protect them against any harm by the rulers of your time.

Muhammad Ben Davud Qomi and Muhammad Talhi say “we carried some property from Qom and suburbs including quint (one-fifth of surplus income as religious tax – khoms), donations, gifts, and jewelry for Imam Hadi (a.s.). A messenger from Imam told us to return from midway. Situation was not ready to deliver the properties. We retuned and kept what we had. After a while Imam ordered us to load them on camels and send them without shepherd. We did as we were told. After sometimes when we met the Imam, he said look at what you have sent! And we saw the property was there in his house².

You organized a connection network with your appointed delegates to answer common problems and questions while protecting the secrecy of connections with the Shias and more importantly preparing them for the occultation period of Imam Mahdi (a.s.).

An example was your letter to your two delegates:

“O Ayub bin Nuh! I recommend you to limit your connections with Abu Ali and each of you should discharge your own duties in your respective land so that you would need no connection to me. I also recommend you not to accept the gifts from the people of Madaien and Bagdad and not to make them appointments to meet me. If someone out of your territory comes to you, you must send them to my representatives in their respective lands. Each of you must accept and act upon these recommendations”‌.

* Translated by: Sadroddin Musawi

^{1- History of Baqdad vol. 13 p.289
2- Bahar al-Anvar vol. 50 p. 185}