As Muslims, we believe in the finality of Prophethood and the finality of the Holy Books. Prophet Muhammad (صلّى الله عليه وآله وسلّم) was the final Prophet. The Quran was the final Holy Book of Allah.
The Shia reject both of these central tenets of Islam. They extend the Prophethood through their Imams, who are considered by them to be superior to Prophets (other than Prophet Muhammad). The Shia also believe in holy books after the Quran, including the Mushaf Fatima (Book of Fatima), Al-Jamia, and Al-Jafr (The Parchment). According to the Shia, these are books divinely inspired from Allah. There are many Shia Hadith which refer to these three holy books, and we shall herein reference them.
The Shia believe that this book, Al-Jamia, contains “all the lawful and unlawful” as well as “all matters that people need.” It is considered to be more complete than the Quran, and it is also much larger than the Quran, apparently the size of the leg of a huge camel.
The Shia will sometimes defend themselves by saying that these holy books are not extensions of the Quran because they do not dictate religious law. But the reality is that Al-Jamia supposedly contains the complete Shariah, or religious law! It has the Shariah compensation for even the scratch caused by a person. It is thus quite literally a “better” Quran.
Let us examine the Shia Hadith from Al-Kafi in regards to al-Jamia:
Hadith 635, Ch. 40, h 1
The Imam (a.s.) then said, “O abu Muhammad, with us there is al-Jami’a. What do they know what al-Jami is?” I then asked, “May Allah take my soul in service for your cause, what is al-Jami’a?” The Imam (a.s.) said, “it is a parchment seventy yards by the yards of the Messenger of Allah long that contains his dictations that is engraved in to with the right hand writing of Ali (a.s.). It contains all the lawful and unlawful and all matters that people need, even the law of compensation…[even for] a scratch caused to a person.” He then stretched his hand to me and asked, “May I, O abu Muhammad?” I then replied, “May Allah take my soul in service for your cause, I am all at your disposal.” He pinched me with his hand and said, “Even there is the law of compensation for this.”
(Source: Al-Shia.com,
http://www.al-shia.com/html/eng/books/hadith/al-kafi/part4/part4-ch40.htm)
Hadith 639, Ch. 40, h 5
Then they asked the Imam (a.s.) about al-Jami’a. The Imam (a.s.) replied, “It is a parchment that is seventy yards long with a width of hide like that of the leg of a huge camel. It contains all that people may need. There is no case for there is a rule in it. In it there is the law to settle the compensation for a scratch caused to a person.”
(Source: Al-Shia.com,
http://www.al-shia.com/html/eng/books/hadith/al-kafi/part4/part4-ch40.htm)
Hadith 640, Ch. 40, h 6
“With us there are such things that because of which we do not need people [but] instead people need us. With us there is a book that the Messenger of Allah had dictated and Ali (a.s.) had written it down. It is a book. In it there are all laws of lawful and unlawful matters.”
(Source: Al-Shia.com,
http://www.al-shia.com/html/eng/books/hadith/al-kafi/part4/part4-ch40.htm)
Another Shia holy book includes “Al-Jafr” which is a parchment that contains the knowledge of not only Prophet Muhammad (
صلّى الله عليه وآله وسلّم), but also of the past Prophets and Infallible Imams. Al-Islam.org says:
“…al-Jafr, on the other hand, is a book which Imam ‘Ali inherited from the Prophet. It contains knowledge of past and future events.”
(source: Al-Islam.org,
http://www.al-islam.org/organizations/AalimNetwork/msg00357.html)
Not only this, but it would contain knowledge of the future including the names of every king who would rule on earth. Such knowledge is of course not contained in the Quran, so we see that the Shia belief in such a lofty book really decreases the signfiicance of our Quran. We find the following Shia Hadith in Al-Kafi:
Hadith 635, Ch. 40, h 1
The Imams (a.s.) remained silent for a while and then said, “With us there is al-Jafr (the parchment). What do they know what al-Jafr is?” I then asked, “What is al-Jafr (the parchment or a container) ?” The Imams (a.s.) said, “It is a container made of skin that contains the knowledge of the prophets and the executors of their wills and the knowledge of the scholars in the past from the Israelites.”
(Source: Al-Shia.com,
http://www.al-shia.com/html/eng/books/hadith/al-kafi/part4/part4-ch40.htm)
H 639, Ch. 40, h 5
The Imam (a.s.) said: “It [Al-Jafr] is the skin of a bull which is full of knowledge.”
(Source: Al-Shia.com,
http://www.al-shia.com/html/eng/books/hadith/al-kafi/part4/part4-ch40.htm)
Hadith 641, Ch. 40, h 7
The Imam (a.s.) said, “I swear by Allah that with me there are two books in which there is the name of every prophet and the name of every king that would rule on earth.”
(Source: Al-Shia.com,
http://www.al-shia.com/html/eng/books/hadith/al-kafi/part4/part4-ch40.htm)
Perhaps the most important of the Shia holy books after the Quran is the “Mushaf Fatima,” or the “Book of Fatima.” What is extremely troubling is that the Shia believe that after the Prophet (
صلّى الله عليه وآله وسلّم) died, Fatima (
رضّى الله عنها) took over the role of Prophethood by recieving divine inspiration. Fatima (
رضّى الله عنها) supposedly recieved divine inspiration, and she would then narrate these divine revelations to Ali (
رضّى الله عنه) who would write it down. It should be noted that this is slander against Fatima (
رضّى الله عنها), and the Shia are accusing her of creating a holy book after the Quran and thereby acting as a
Dajjal, or false prophet.
The Shia narrations boast about how much greater the Mushaf Fatima is than the Quran, declaring that it was “three times bigger than your Quran.” The Shia will deny that this is the “Shia Quran” and they will try to cogitate that there is no comparison between the Quran and the Mushaf Fatima. Then, we wonder: why is their own Imam making such a comparison in the Hadith? Logically, since the Shia Hadith is comparing the Mushaf Fatima to the Quran, the unbiased person must come to the conclusion that the Shia believe them to be on a similar level.
The Mushaf Fatima actually contains information in it that is not in the Quran, including knowledge of future events. The Shia believe that Mushaf Fatima, along with Al-Jamia and Al-Jafr, are books that were restricted to the eyes of the Infallible Imams and nobody else. It was these books which supposedly gave the Imams their immense knowledge.
Let us see Shia Hadith from Al-Kafi on this matter:
Hadith 635, Ch. 40, h 1
The Imams (a.s.) remained silent for a while and then said, “With us there is the book (Mushaf) of Fatima, (a.s.) What do they know what Mushaf of Fatima is?” The Imam (a.s.) said, “Mushaf of Fatima is three times bigger than your Quran. There is not even a single letter therein from your Quran.”
(source: Al-Islam.org,
http://www.al-islam.org/organizations/AalimNetwork/msg00357.html)
Hadith 636, Ch. 40, h 2
“The heretics will appear in the year one hundred twenty eight (745/746AD) because I have found it in the Mushaf of Fatima (a.s.).” The narrator has said that he asked the Imams (a.s.), “What is Mushaf of Fatima?” The Imams (a.s.) said, “When Allah took the Holy Prophet (s.a.) from this world, it caused such a degree of grief to Fatima (a.s.) that only Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, knows its extent. Allah then sent an angel to her to offer solace and speak to her. She complained about it to Amir al-Mu’minin Ali (a.s.) who asked her to inform him whenever she would find the angel speak to her. She then informed him when the angel came to speak. Amir al-Mu’minin Ali (a.s.) then would write down all that he would hear of the conversations of the angel so much so that his notes took the shape of a whole book.”
(source: Al-Islam.org,
http://www.al-islam.org/organizations/AalimNetwork/msg00357.html)
Hadith 639, Ch. 40, h 5
The narrator has said that he asked the Imams (a.s.), “What is Mushaf of Fatima?”The Imam (a.s.) waited for quite a while. Then he said, “You ask about what you really mean and what you do not mean. Fatima (a.s.) lived after the Messenger of Allah for seventy-five days. She was severely depressed because of the death of her father. Jibril (a.s.) would come to provide her solace because of the death of her father. Jibril would comfort her soul. Jibril would inform her about her father and his place and of the future events and about what will happen to her children. At the same time Ali (a.s.) would write all of them down and thus is Mushaf of Fatima (a.s.).”
(source: Al-Islam.org,
http://www.al-islam.org/organizations/AalimNetwork/msg00357.html)
How can the Shia then claim to be Muslim when they believe in holy books after the Quran? We do not believe that people of the
Bahai faith are Muslim, simply because they follow another holy book after the Quran! Truly, such beliefs constitute
Kufr Akbar (Major Disbelief).
Another oddity is that the Shia Imams supposedly possessed books of immense knowledge and yet they hid them from the world, according to the Shia. These Imams did not share these books with their Shia followers. Today, we do not find any Shia who has ever seen these three mysterious holy books. Indeed, the Shia believe that the Hidden Imam has also hidden these books with himself. Imams are meant to guide, so why would they possibly hide books of knowledge? The Prophet (
صلّى الله عليه وآله وسلّم) was given the Quran, but he did not hide this holy book from the people. Instead, he shared it with the world and told everyone to spread it so that people be guided.
It would be childish of the Imams to say “this book is mine…stay away!” In fact, in the Shia Hadith, one of the Infallible Imams of the Shia says:
“With us there are such things [i.e. Jafr Al-Jami] that because of which we do not need people [but] instead people need us.”
(Source: Al-Shia.com,
http://www.al-shia.com/html/eng/books/hadith/al-kafi/part4/part4-ch40.htm)
It is a bit odd that the Imam would be boasting about this. The only explanation as to why the Shia Imams hid their holy books is that these books simply did not exist and are a figment of the Shia imagination.
The truth is that the fundamentals of the Shia faith–in particular the institution of Imamah (which is the major difference between the Ahlus Sunnah and the Shia)–are simply not in the Quran. Thus, the Shia are forced to find the tenets of their faith in another book. On the other hand, the rightly guided Ahlus Sunnah will continue to reject any holy books after the Quran, and instead vehemently defends the absolute finality of the Quran and the Islamic message.
Article Written By:
Ibn al-Hashimi