Uswat Al-Aarifeen: A Look at the Life of Ayatullah Bahjat

Introduction

Praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. Praise to Allah Who sent, from the gardens of His Mercy, trustees: messengers to guide people to the straight path. Then He made Imamate and Wilayat a fountainhead from which thirsty souls drink. Then He granted, from the mountain of His generosity, abundance of fiqh after the absence of His greatest wali (as) so the righteous remnant from among the seekers of the truth may quench their thirst from it.

Since that day, hundreds of years have passed. During them, many divine theologians came and went by; each one of them was like a torch that lit the path for those who tread it. Some of them earned fame; their name became prominent, whereas some of them remained unknown across these centuries. As regarding the creed's faqihs, they had another pull when they mixed biographies in the fiqh-related views with the conduct in the worlds of the unknown.

Our contemporary faqih, Ayatullah Bahjat, is one of those described by Imam Ali (as) in these words: "Great is the Creator in their hearts, so everything besides Him is in their eyes small." He is a great wise man. The light of his presence glitters in the gathering of the Gnostics, and the souls in his revered audience shine.

His student, mentor Riďa Baqi Zadeh, author of Bergi az Daftar Aftab, says the following in the introduction to this book: "Since the day when breezes from the loved One blew upon me, when the flower of existence opened, and I was guided to the full truth in the self, where success is achieved through pulls of the Lord, I realized that reaching the real loved One cannot be achieved except through guidance from one who is familiar with the path.

I, therefore, resorted to the Imams (as) so I could uphold them and plead to them. It is then that this sacred tradition met me on the road: 'Keep company with those whose company reminds you of Allah and whose logic increases your knowledge.'

And thus it was. I upheld the fact that the adored One does not leave those who seek His path alone or lets them rely on themselves. The earth is never without divine guides. I was looking for a role model that guides me to the path of the loved One during the absence of the sun of the Household of Inspiration (as) so I could, through seeing him, polish the dust away from the heart and fuse myself through remembrance of the loved One into all existence.

During this time, I saw all of that and more. I saw it manifesting itself in the personality of one who is unique in his time, a wise Gnostic, one who drowns his soul into the remembrance of the loved One, who is the light of the hearts of the seekers, the joy of the Gnostics, the perfect Gnostic, the Salman of the time, the one who is truly loyal to the greatest Ayatullah, the Commander of the Faithful Ali ibn Abu Talib (as) in his knowledge and practice, namely Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi Bahjat, may Allah prolong his wide shade.

I knew that the truth Gnostic is not known except by Allah or by a Gnostic like him, so I kept earnestly looking for everyone who could have breathed a fragrance of his holy breath, and about any written text from which the fragrance of his holy soul emanates, hence this book that is in your hands, dear reader, my final merchandise, having braved many hardships. I present it to those who seek the role model in the pure branches of knowledge.

So, the study of biographies of such great men can instill hope for lighting the minds of men of virtue, scholars, students, professors of the hawza (religious seminary), universities and the sons of the nation. The book in your hands, dear reader, is the summary of what has been written and said about this great divine Gnostic.

In it, I try to acquaint the Arab reader with this Islamic personality that mixed between the pursuit of knowledge and disseminating it as well as walking along the path of Allah. He is described by Imam Khomeini as one "… who enjoys the ability for 'death by choice'; in other words, he can extract his soul from his body then returns it any time he wants. This is regarded as one of the lofty stations the Gnostics can reach along the trip to the path and the Gnostic conduct."