Section Six: The Meaning of the Two Rams and Their Bearing the Killing

The Two Opposites are the Two Rams, may Ali the Compeller curse them

In this chapter, we will address scattered incidents pointing to the Two Opposites (The Two Rams), and the occurrence of killing and mutilation upon them as a form of punishment. Torment befalls them and their partisans in the state of Musukhiyya (metamorphosis) just as they made the Believers taste the evil of torment in the human state. Thus, Musukhiyya is the lifting of the veil from them and the falling of punishment upon them—may Allah curse them and curse their partisans.

Allah the Exalted said: {Until, when death comes to one of them, he says, "My Lord, send me back * That I might do righteousness in that which I left behind." No! It is only a word he is saying; and behind them is a barrier until the Day they are resurrected.}¹

They desire to return to the human state because of the torment they are about to encounter in the forms of Musukhiyya—may Allah make them ugly. In the Hadith of the Seventy, there is a sufficient explanation of the reality of this speech, and we will present it at the end of the chapter, Allah willing. In the beginning, we will address the subject from the books of the exoteric (Al-Zahir).

Abu Khadijah said: A man from Kindah, who was the executioner for the Banu Abbas, said: "When Abu al-Dawaniq brought Abu Abd Allah and Ismail (may the glory of both be exalted), he ordered their killing. They were imprisoned in a house. He came to Abu Abd Allah at night, brought him out, and struck him with his sword until he killed him. Then he took Ismail to kill him; he hesitated for an hour, then killed him. Then he came to him [Abu al-Dawaniq] and said: 'What have you done?' He said: 'I have killed them both and relieved you of them.' When morning came, behold, Abu Abd Allah and Ismail were sitting. They asked for permission to enter. Abu al-Dawaniq said to the man: 'Did you not claim that you killed them?' He said: 'Yes! I recognized them just as I recognize you.'