Miracle 72: The Knowledge of Imam Ali (a.s.) of the Stars and the Universe

The great scholar Hafiz Rajab Bursi narrates the below incident in his famous book, Mashariq Anwaar al-Yaqeen Fi Asraar-e-Fazaail-e-Ameerul Momineen (a.s.).

An Astrologer, Dahqan al-Farsi tried to caution Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) in these words, ‘know that the omens of the stars have become inauspicious. So, the inauspicious ones have become fortunate, and the fortunate ones have become inauspicious, and mars has begun in the constellation of Taurus, and two stars have opposed in your constellation, and the war isn’t for you in any place’.

Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) replied to him, ‘You are the one who runs the slave girls, and you are judging upon me with the events, and you are transferring these with the minutes and the hours? So, what is the Al-Sarary and what is Al-Zarari? And what is the measurement of the emblem of the arrangement?’ He said, ‘I shall be looking into the astrolabe and inform you’.

He (a.s.) said to him: ‘Do you know due to what the yesterday completed in the face of Libra? And by which star the constellation of cancer has differed?’ And which one of it is an affliction entering upon Al-Zibriqan?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’.

He (a.s.) said: ‘Do you know of a king who transferred from a house to another house in China? And the constellation of Machin transferred, and a lake led into the sea, and the lake.

Harashma has overflowed, and the door of stone has been cut from its ship, and the king of Rome has been overturned by the Romans, and his brother is ruling in his place, and terraces of gold have fallen from Constantinople the great, and a bridge of Sarandeel has collapsed, and a judge of the Jews is lost, and the ants argued in the valley of ants, seventy thousand worlds have ascended, and in each world seventy thousand have been born, and at night similar (number) of them have died?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’.

He (a.s.) said: ‘Are you knowing about the mute meteors and the stars, and the sun with the tail which emerges with the rays, and sets with the pre-dawns?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’.

He (a.s.) said: ‘Are you knowing about the emerged of the two stars which do not emerge except from a scheme and they do not set except from a calamity, and these two were emerging and setting, so Qabeel killed Habeel, and they do not appear except with ruination of the world?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’.

He (a.s.) said: ‘When you were not knowing with the ways of the sky, so I ask you about the near situation. Inform me, what is beneath the right hoof of my horse and the left, from the beneficial and the harmful?’ He said, ‘I am more deficient in the knowledge of the earth than I am regarding the knowledge of the sky’.

He (a.s.) instructed for the digging beneath the right hoof, and a treasure of gold emerged. Then he (a.s.) instructed for digging beneath the left hoof, and a snake emerged. He (a.s.) hung it in the neck of the astrologer. He screamed, ‘Safety, O my master!’

He (a.s.) said: ‘The safety is with the faith. He said, ‘I shall prolong for you, the ruk’u and Sajdahs’. He (a.s.) said: ‘You have heard good, so speak good, ‘I shall perform Sajdah for Allah, the Almighty’ and beseech to Him through me’.

Then he (a.s.) said: ‘O Samarsaqeel! We are the pole stars, and the flags of astronomy, and this is the knowledge no one knows except us, and a household in India’’.¹

Footnotes

1. Behar al-Anwaar, Vol. 41, Chp 114, Trad 57 ↩