 A great scholar once said all the secrets of the oneness of Allah, the hidden aspects of prophethood, resurrection and imamah, the practical laws of Islam, the core of the teachings of 124,000 prophets and all of creations are founded within the spirit of Imam Ja'far bin Muhammad al-Sadaq, peace and blessings be upon him, respected viewers, brothers and sisters in Islam, peace and blessings be upon you. Welcome to a new episode of The Teacher of Mankind with me, your host Ahmad Ali. Now the show is dedicated towards analyzing and examining the life of the sixth imam, 8th infallible. The one who has contributed so much to our lives and its contributions did not only affect our lives as Shia Muslims, the lives of Muslims in general, but the lives of every single human living on this planet. A prime example of the major contributions of Imam al-Sadaq, peace be upon him, in our modern fields of sciences, take for example, biology, astronomy, physics, literature, Gnosticism, philosophy, astrophysics, mathematics, chemistry, Islamic law, the spirit of the Quranic commentary. All of these were taught by Imam al-Sadaq, peace be upon him. If you were looking at Gnosticism, the laws of Islam, Islamic law, al-Mufadal and Safan were the students and were taught by Imam al-Sadaq, peace and blessings be upon him. If you're thinking about chemistry and mathematics, we'll look at Jabir bin Hayyan who was a prominent student of Imam al-Sadaq and he's considered today as the father of modern-day chemistry. And through the guidance of Imam al-Sadaq, peace be upon him, Jabir bin Hayyan was able to write 400 books on various topics. If you're looking at their students, you can go look for Zarara and Muhammad bin Muslim who were the students of Imam al-Sadaq and were taught along with 4000 students in the Majid of Kufa. So if you looked at the life of Imam al-Sadaq, peace be upon him, contribution after contribution, major events happened during the life of Imam al-Sadaq, peace be upon him, which we're going to touch upon today or in the next episode. Abu Hanifa, who is considered by many Sunnis as the greatest scholar and the founder of the Hanafi school of thought, was also a student of Imam al-Sadaq, peace be upon him. Now today, over 35% of the Muslim population across the world follow the Hanafi school of thought. And if you were to ask anyone, any Hanafi, who was the teacher of Abu Hanifa? A simple question. Their answer will either be various teachers. I heard one narration say he had 4000 teachers and one of them was Ja'far al-Sadaq, peace be upon him. Now we don't want to get into the authentication of this narration, but if you were to ask this question, who was the teacher of Abu Hanifa? Many of their scholars will not say Ja'far al-Sadaq because they don't want to give any credit, fearing of giving any credit to Ja'far al-Sadaq. And if they do, they're just admitting to the knowledge of Ja'far al-Sadaq. Why would you follow the students and not follow the teacher? Simple. Why would people, if they really knew who Imam Ja'far al-Sadaq, peace and blessings be upon him, why don't they follow the students and forget about the teachers? One of the biggest contributions of our sixth Imam, Imam al-Sadaq, peace be upon him, was in the field of monotheism, Tawheed. One day, an atheist by the name of Abdullah, a very common name in the Arabian Peninsula. But for an atheist, Abdullah is kind of weird because you're the servant of Allah and you're an atheist. However, we don't want to get into the name. This Abdullah, an atheist, came across Hisham al-Hakam who was one of the closest companions to Imam Ja'far al-Sadaq, peace and blessings be upon him. And he asked Hisham, he says, do you believe in God? Hisham with certainty, he said, of course. He says, do you believe that he is the Almighty? Hisham replied by saying, of course he is the Almighty and all powerful and all knowing. The atheist asked Hisham, he says, can he, referring to God, put the whole world inside of an egg without enlarging the size of the egg or diminishing the volume of the world? Hisham was puzzled, what kind of question is this? For the atheists, they have these kind of questions to play with the minds of certain individuals. However, so Hisham said, give me some time so I can think this man, this atheist said, you have from now until the end of the year to give me the answer. Although I know you don't have an answer to that, but I'll give you from today till the end of the year. After that, Hisham ran to Imam al-Sadaq, peace and blessings be upon him. And he narrated, he said, an atheist man came up to me and he asked me this question and I don't have the answer to. And I know out of everyone, you're the one that has the answer to that. Imam al-Sadaq, peace and blessings be upon him, replied to him. He says, how many organs, sense organs do you have? How many senses do you have? He says, Yabna Rasulullah, have five. He says, okay, name them. He says, I have hearing, tasting, smelling, seeing and touching. He says, what's the smallest sense you have? What are we used to look at? It's our eyes, but specifically our retina. The smallest sense that we have is the retina, which we look at people with. So, Imam al-Sadaq, peace and blessings be upon him, says, look around. What do you see? Hisham looked around. He says, I see the sky. I see the huge mansions. I see houses. I see basically everything. He says, the one who has placed all of this into your eye, into your small pupil, he cannot fit the entire world into an egg without enlarging the egg or without diminishing the size of the earth. He says, the creator, what an answer. Let's repeat that answer. He says, if you can fit this entire scene in front of you, the person goes on a very high mountain and looks down at the earth. He sees it so small. He sees the house is so small. Yet all of that, when he gets close to it, they're so huge, but all of that are fitted within the small pupil of the person's eye. He says, if that creator has created you with that sense of putting this entire world into that small pupil, now they've reached the moon and you can look at the earth and see how big it is. And when you're looking at it, you're looking at almost all the earth and you're looking at it with such a small eye. So he's saying, the creator who put that into your eye, he can't put the world into an egg. It's a metaphor. But at the end of the day, the atheist got his answer. But the story, the discussion goes on between Hisham, the atheist. And Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi s-salam. And if you want to continue reading the story, you can refer back to Al-Kafi Volume 3, Chapter 1, Page 159, and you can read the entire story. But hence, we see Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi s-salam, at the end of the day. We have to admit to this. Ahl al-Bayt and specifically Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi s-salam taught in every and contributed to every field of modern sciences today. Because his students taught other students. And each one that was taught opened a new gateway to a new knowledge. InshaAllah, after the break, we will get to touch upon various other contributions of the Imam. But why did I focus on the first part of today's episode? Why did I focus on monotheism? Because Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi s-salam, through the traditions that were transmitted through him, we can find that Imam Al-Sadaq wanted to educate his community because he knew the corruption. He knew that an era of deviation will occur after the Imams. So he wanted to put this through to us. So when a person asks us, we don't just sit there and not know what the answer is. So we can learn and hopefully by the end of today's episode, we can grasp some knowledge through the life of Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi s-salam. So we can get to develop our life and enhance our abilities of knowledge. But we'll continue our discussion, but after the short break, so do stay tuned. I hope that the viewers, brothers and sisters in Islam, hope you, inshaAllah, enjoyed that short report. Although we are commemorating the tragic martyrdom of our sixth Imam, eighth infallible Imam Al-Sadaq, peace and blessings be upon him now. Before the break, we touched upon various aspects and various contributions of the Imam. We talked about the dialogue that went on between an atheist, Hisham Ninhakam was a close companion of Al-Sadaq and Imam Al-Sadaq, where he proved the power of Allah SWT to an atheist who did not acknowledge God and the presence of God. However, Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi s-salam, if we were to examine his life, many questions arise because the knowledge that he disseminated during his time is enormous. You can't just teach 4,000 students and not a single tyrant of the time noticing it. If we looked at the lives of the Imam before Imam Al-Sadaq, we find Imam Al-Baqir was persecuted. Imam Al-Sajjad was persecuted. Imam Al-Hussein was persecuted and beheaded. Imam Al-Hasan was persecuted. Imam An-Talib was persecuted. Farun al-Zahra was persecuted by Allah and Prophet Muhammad. So how did Imam Al-Sadaq disseminate the enormous amounts of knowledge he did? And above all, where did he get his knowledge from? Now overlooking, some people would say that the Imams do not receive divine revelation. I don't want to get into an argument with that. But forget about the fact that Imam Al-Sadaq received revelation. Imam Al-Sadaq, his first from the age of 1 to 11 or 14, he was under the guidance and he was nurtured by his grandfather, Imam Al-Sajjad, alaihi salam. And we all heard of the torture that Imam Al-Sajjad had to go through. And then the remaining 23 years, or the next 23 years after the age of 11 or 14, he was under the guidance of his father, Imam Al-Baqir, alaihi salam. Both of the Imams disseminated knowledge, Imam Al-Sajjad and Imam Al-Baqir. But the knowledge and the amounts of knowledge that Imam Al-Sadaq disseminated was different. Why? And some may say or some may ask the question, was Imam Al-Sadaq better than the rest of the Imams? Because he disseminated so many knowledge and the Imams didn't have the knowledge? No, of course not. The foundation was not laid for the other Imams to disseminate the same knowledge. They had different duties. If you looked at Prophet Muhammad, the duty of bringing Islam. Imam Ali-Ratali, they had the duty of keeping the Muslims together. Same with Imam Al-Hasan. Imam Al-Hasan had to make a stand. Imam Zain al-Abrin had to teach us how to worship Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Until the time of Imam Al-Baqir, where through his name we understand why he's named Al-Baqir, because he splits the knowledge, goes to its deep core and examines it and gives us a solution to questions that really no one can bring answers to. This is the father of Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi salam. And you wonder where he gets his knowledge from. His dad is the splitter of knowledge and people are still asking how did Imam Al-Sadaq get his knowledge? So hence we can see Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi salam, playing a huge role within the era of Islam or within the religion of Islam as a whole. After the 23 years of guidance and nurture by Imam Al-Baqir, alaihi salam, Imam Al-Sadaq witnessed his father lay the foundation stone of establishing the first school of thought and introducing, a lot of people have this misconception that they think that Imam Al-Sadaq is the first one to establish the first school of thought. It was Imam Al-Baqir. But due to the persecution that Imam Al-Baqir was under, Imam Al-Sadaq continued that. So he witnessed his father establish the first school of thought and introducing the terms of such as jurisprudence and Quranic commentary. A lot of people, a lot of Muslims at that era, they knew how to read the Quran but they did not know the meaning of the verses. When the Quran talks about astronomy, when the Quran talks about how the universe is formed and how the planets orbit and the suns orbit, it's difficult for them back then to understand. Now you can just Google it, Wikipedia has everything. But back then the people did not know, so what did they do? They went to the people of knowledge. Ahlul Bayt, alaihi salam. So through that, Imam Al-Baqir began to disseminate his knowledge. Imam Al-Sadaq learned from his father. After the demise of his father, the martyrdom of Imam Al-Baqir, Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi salam, took on the responsibility of Imam Al-Sadaq. He began to teach, he began to disseminate knowledge and to take the knowledge from his forefathers and dissect it even more and bringing proofs to the existence of God, to the oneness of God. Teaching in chemistry as we mentioned, in physics. At the age of 11 or 12, Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi salam, refuted and rejected the idea of Aristotle, the four elements theory of Aristotle. And he says, how can a man say that this planet has only four elements? Earth, water, fire and air. He says, earth by itself, every single metal within earth is an element alone. Water, air and fire, all of them are a mixture of elements. For a thousand years, up until now, until they have proved that it's different. But for a thousand years, people believed in the four elements theory. They thought that these were the only four elements. Yet Imam Al-Sadaq, at the age of 12, was able to give us which elements formed water, which elements formed fire, what kind of elements, what kind of metals are found within the earth and what kind of elements are within the air that we breathe. At the age of 12, some people refute the idea. But if you go back to the books of tradition, to the narrations, historical books, you will find how Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi salam, at that small age, was able to prove that. And up until now, people are starting to understand what Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi salam, was saying. At the end of the day, if we looked at how Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi salam, refuted and rejected that theory, and how air is a mixture of elements, and those elements give us the ability to breathe. It's astonishing. At the same time, it's disturbing not to see how a lot of people have shifted away from the Najib, alaihi salam, have not really taken the responsibility and learning the lives of each of the Imam Al-Sadaq, alaihi salam. Hopefully, through such episodes, we can raise awareness across the world and bring people closer to the Ahl al-Bayt, alaihi salam, and teach them the ways that Ahl al-Bayt, alaihi salam, taught their companions, and so on, and so forth, until we got the knowledge today. Thank you very much for tuning in. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.