Imam Mahdi (aj) – Etiquette towards the 12th Imam
Lots of practical ideas that we can apply with our children…
*As shared on WhatsApp*
Etiquette Towards the 12th Imam (a.s)
Sheikh Jaffer H. Jaffer – 15th Shaban 1439
10 Etiquettes that we can do daily in our life that can create a bond between us and our Imam.
1. Say Salaam to our Imam every single day. As soon as you wake up say salaam to him. Or for example in sheikh Jaffer’ s house they set an alarm every single day at 3:13 pm and when the alarm goes on the entire family says salaam to Imam Mahdi (a.s). We need to accustom our children and ourselves to say Salaam to him.
2. Every good deed that we do, we make intention to Allah( s.w.a) that we send 51% of the thawaab to the Imam of our time. The Imam should be getting more then what we are getting. We can be more generous then this if we want to. We don’t have to keep it at 51% . You can say for example I am sending 90% or 99%. That’s how we can gift to our Imam.
3. Whenever we go to Mosque, as we leave the house we need to send an invitation to the Imam that: “ Oh Imam come and join us to the program today”. Every act of sadness( wafaat) or happiness ( khushali), we want to be participating with our Imam thus we send him an invitation to join us.
4. Our homes need to be prepared for the coming of our Imam. That means nothing haram or questionable is happening in our house. Our house need to be ready all the time. It can’t be like if Imam knocks on our door and we are like give us 5 mins. Some cool things that people do to prepare for the Imam is for example on the dining table there is always a spot empty where no one sits and they say this is the Imam’s spot. When he comes, he will sit there.
5. We need to take out sadaqa all the time for the protection of our Imam and for his speedy return. We should be taking out sadaqa as often as possible specially if we are broke because we will get 10 fold if not more, back. The niyyat can be: “Oh Allah I am taking out sadaqa for the protection of my Imam and my family Qurbatan illallah”.
6. When in times of difficulty, call out the Imam, reach out to him. We sometimes forget him. We call out to Allah(s.w.a), we will say Ya Ali madad ect.. All these things are great but call out our Imam too: “Yaa Sahibaz Zamaan adrikni, help me”.
7. Visit places that he would visit and avoid places that he would avoid. We know the Imam would visit cemeteries so we go there too. We know the Imam would visit mosques, so we go to mosques. We can watch a mosque program online but our Imam might be at mosque so we need to go there to spend time with him. We might not recognize him but he is there. The Imam would visit sick people so we visit sick people. The Imam would go for ziarrat so we go for ziarrat. All with the desire to be in places where Imam would be. We should also avoid places where he would not be there. Do you see the Imam walking on the beach with everybody half dressed ? Do you see your Imam walking in places where people are not dress appropriately? So then we avoid those places too. If we look in Fiqh it says that we are allowed to go to restaurants that serve alcohol but serve halal meat – let’s elevate that: would my Imam go to that restaurant? No. Then why should I go to that restaurant?
8. Ask Allah in every single Salaat to give you an opportunity to meet the Imam. We should have the desire to meet the Imam and should ask Allah for that opportunity.
9. We need to constantly purify our hearts. All our moral vices that we have, we need to clean them out so that our hearts can recognize our Imam when he comes. The Ulamas of deen tell us that we have two pairs of eyes. The physical pair of eyes and the eyes of the heart. The eyes of the heart when they become purified it is those eyes that will recognize the Imam. It’s not the physical eyes that will recognize him because we have never seen him so how will we recognize him? It’s like talking to a person on the phone and having an image of them and then when you meet them they look totally different from what you had imagined. Same thing with the Imam we picture him this way or that way. But the eyes of the heart will actually be able to recognize him.
10. We need to reflect each and every day if we are any closer of being the servant of the Imam. To help us reflect on ourselves, we can look into the Hadith of our 6 th Imam(a.s) who, when asked by the people why he was constantly talking about Salman Farsi, said not to call him Salman Farsi but refer to him as Salman e Muhammadi . He said to them: “Do you know why I remember him so often?Because he had 3 traits: 1. Salman preferred the desire of Imam Ali over his own desires. 2. He loved poor people and preferred them over those who had wealth and riches. 3. Due to his love for knowledge and love towards those who possessed knowledge like ulemaas. He would always attach himself with those who had knowledge. These are the 3 Characteristics that makes me talk about Salman all the time”. Imagine what that means; If we had those characteristics then the Imam would talk about us all the time:)
