Persian Shia scholar Sheikh Sadooq to be commemorated today

May 5 is marked as the commemoration day for the Persian Shia Islamic scholar Abu Ja’far Mohammad ibn Ali ibn Babawayh alqomi, renowned as Sheikh Sadooq.

He was born in 917 CE in a pious, scientist family from Qom. (Some had also reported 918 or 919 as his birth year.)

His father Ali ibn Babawayh Qomi first married his cousin, but she was unable to bear a child. Thus in a letter he asked Hossein bin Rouh, Imam Mahdi’s representative, to contact the Imam and pray so that God blesses him with pious, righteous children. After a while, he received a letter from Imam: “You won’t have any child from your wife, but it’s soon that you’ll be a bondmaid from Daylam. Marry her and she will deliver two pious sons for you.”

Sheikh Sadooq had written about his birth in his book Kamal ad-din: “Whenever Abu Ja’far Mohammad bin al-aswad saw me going to school, he told me: ‘There must be no surprise you’re highly interested in science and knowledge; you’ve been born by Imam Mahdi’s consideration and pray’.”

Living close to Holy Imams’ era, he served a great deal to Islam and Shia by collecting the quotes of Infallible Imams (PBUT) and compiling valuable books.

Sheikh Tousi describes Sheikh Sadooq as: “He was a respected man of knowledge; great criticizer of hadith, peerless in memorizing Hadith among great clergies of Qom was and majority of fields of knowledge. He compiled more than 300 works.