The Book of Occultation

Translator’s Word

All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, and may He bless His Beloved Prophet our Master and the Master of all Creation, Muhammad, and his Divinely Ordained Heirs, specially so their first one the Prince of the Believers and their Last one the Caliph of the All Merciful and the Personification of the Virtues of Qur’ān our Master al-Imam al-Mahdi.  Thousands of greetings of peace and love and devotion be unto them and their followers and devotees.

The oceans of light and seas of illumination that is the Bihār al-Anwār of the greatest ‘Allamah of all ages Muhammad Bāqir Ibn Muhammad Taqi al-Majlisi is a book of unparalleled worth and value in Islamic literature.  The thirteenth volume of this reputable ocean of wisdom and trustworthy arc of salvation—titled by its author as Kitāb al-Ghaiba, that is, the Book of Occultation—is devoted to accounts about the Last Hujja of Allah the Imam of the Age, may Allah hasten his appearance.  In the contemporary prints, this volume has been divided into three volumes, which span from the fifty first to fifty third of the total one hundred and sixteen volumes.

In your hands is the translation of the first of these three volumes, namely, the fifty first, which I translated in times of great stress and duress and lack of access to books and mentors.  All thanks and gratitude is due to Allah, in the beginning and in the end, in private and in public, for His blessings as well as His trials.  We thank Him from the depths of our souls and the bottom of our hearts.

It must be noted that not seeing much need or benefit in translating chapter eleven, which chronicles the predictions of fortunetellers and writings found on rocks, and chapter fourteen, which recounts the stories of the individuals who have lived enormously long lives, these two sections are not included in this translation.  As I have brought the Arabic version of the traditions, I did not see any need for

mentioning the long names in the chains of narrations, as they can be easily seen in the each opposite page in Arabic.  Many a time, the honorable author has commentaries about certain narrations, which sometimes only explain literary and grammatical points of a given tradition, rendering it into simpler Arabic, which can be of great value only to an Arabic reader.  Such commentaries were not translated either. 

I hope the kind reader forgives my shortcomings and goes through these pages with magnanimity.  I confess my knowledge is scant and my writing skills are poor.  My fond prayer is that Allah benefits me and my brothers and sisters in faith through this work. 

I would like to extend my special thanks to Brother Kāzim Mamdāni and Brother Feroze Karimbhoy for their help in this work.