Documents of the Right Word

When a Prophet passes away, the property he leaves behind is
not inherited by anybody. This fact is written in Shiite books as
well. It would have been irrational to make a will on uninheritable
property. Consequently, it would be wrong to say that Rasûlullah
‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ bequeathed the orchard called Fedek
to hadrat Fâtima. For Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’
would not have done something which would have been wrong. It
is stated in a hadîth-i-sherîf, “What we leave behind is to become
alms.” The so-called allegation of will could not be true in spite of
this hadîth-i-sherîf. If there had been such a will and hadrat Abû
Bekr had not heard about it, he would have been held excusable
unless it had been proven by testimony. If there had been such a
will and hadrat Alî had known about it, it would have been
necessary and permissible for him to fulfil it during his caliphate.
However, he followed hadrat Abû Bekr’s example and dealt the
property out to poor, destitute and stranded people. If it should be
maintained that he dealt out his share, then why did he deprive
hadrat Hasan and Huseyn ‘radiy-Allâhu anhumâ’ of the property
they were to inherit from their blessed mother? Shiites answer this
question in four different ways:
1) “Members of the Ahl-i-Bayt will not resume property
usurped from them. As a matter of fact, when Rasûlullah ‘sall-
Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ conquered Mekka, he did not take his
home back from the Meccans who had usurped it from him,” they
say.
This answer of theirs is not sound. ’Umar bin Abd-ul-’azîz,
during his caliphate, gave the orchard called Fedek to Imâm
Muhammad Bâqir, who accepted it, so that it was possessed by
the Imâms until it was seized by Abbasid Khalîfas. Then, in the
two hundred and third year of the Hegira, Khalîfa Me’mûn wrote
to his official Qusam bin Ja’fer and thus the orchard was given
again to one of the Imâms, namely to Imâm Alî Ridâ, and upon
his death the same year, it was given to Yahyâ, a grandson of
Zeyd, who was hadrat Huseyn’s grandson. This person should not
be mistaken for his namesake, Zeyd, who was hadrat Sayyidat
Nefîsa’s grandfather and at the same time hadrat Hasan’s son.
The orchard was usurped again by Khalîfa Mutawakkil, who was
Me’mûn’s grandson. Later on Mu’tadid gave it back again. If
members of the Ahl-i-Bayt would not take back their usurped
property, why did these Imâms, (who were members of the Ahl-i-
Bayt), take the orchard back? By the same token, it is asserted
that hadrat Abû Bekr usurped the office of caliphate which
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