In the Footsteps of Martyrs 181Pinault, “We do matam not just to commemorate Husayn but as a way
of saying we are Shi‘ites.”
Most of the Sunni world condemns such acts of ritual devotion as
bid‘a, or “religious innovation,” something strenuously opposed by all
orthodox schools. But the Sunni are less offended by what the Muhar-
ram participants do than by what the rituals suggest: that paradise is
awarded, according to the sixteenth-century Quranic scholar al-
Kashifi, “to anyone who weeps for Husayn or who laments in com-
pany with those who weep for Husayn.” The Shi‘ah believe that
salvation requires the intercession of Muhammad, his son-in-law Ali,
his grandsons Hasan and Husayn, and the rest of the Prophet’s legiti-
mate successors, the Imams, who not only serve as humanity’s inter-
cessors on the Last Days, but who further function as the eternal
executors (wali) of the divine Revelation.
The word Imam has multiple connotations. In Sunni Islam, the Imam
is the person who stands at the head of the mosque and leads the con-
gregation in prayer. While the Shi‘ah sometimes employ this defini-
tion for their religious leaders as well, they also recognize a “fixed”
number of Imams—the number of whom depends on the sect of
Shi‘ism—who, as the Prophet’s legitimate successors, bear the respon-
sibility of guarding and preserving Muhammad’s divine message.
Unlike the Caliph, who is a political leader designated, at least theo-
retically, by the consensus of the Muslim community, the Imam repre-
sents the spiritual authority of the Prophet Muhammad and is
designated by God through the fact of his birth. While the Sunni
Caliph can only claim to be Muhammad’s vice-regent on earth, the
Shi‘ite Imam, though lacking any real political power, is endowed
with the living spirit of the Prophet and, as such, is thought to possess
a spiritual authority that sets him above any earthly ruler.
The existence of the Imam is essential, according to the preemi-
nent Shi‘ite theologian, Allamah Tabataba‘i, because human beings
need the divine message to be elucidated for them—and not just eluci-
dated, but preserved and renewed. Because human beings do not have
the capacity to attain knowledge of God on their own, the Imam
becomes a continuous necessity for all societies and in every era. So in
addition to the “fixed” number of Imams who succeeded Muham-