When his father closed his eyes and his soul went high to the better world, he came to tell the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) of the sad news. The Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) instructed him of what to do. He washed his father’s body (did the ghusl), embalmed it and enshrouded it and then he escorted his father towards the tomb as the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) had ordered him to do.
Would these things have been done for other than the Muslims? I don’t know what to say...!
One day Imam Ali (a.s.) was in the yard of the Mosque surrounded by the people, when a man of those, who had heard the fabricated traditions until he became confused between the truthfulness and the falseness, came to him and said: “O AmeerulMo’mineen! You are in this high position, which Allah (s.w.t.) has put you in, while your father has been tortured in Hell ...?”
Imam Ali (a.s.)’s face reddened with anger about what lies the Umayyads had been fabricating. He answered the man: “Hush up! May Allah (s.w.t.) shut your mouth! By Allah (s.w.t.), who had sent Muhammad as Prophet, if my father would intercede for every guilty on the earth, Allah (s.w.t.) would respond to his intercession!
Has my father been tortured in hell whereas his son is the diviner between (the people of) Paradise and Hell? The light of Hazrat Abu Talib (as), in the Day of Resurrection, will put out the lights of all the creatures except five lights ...
(Al-Hujja, p. 15, TazkeratulKhawaas, p. 11, SheikhulAbtah, p. 32, al-Ghadeer, vol. 7, p. 388)
Once again Imam Ali (a.s.) said: “By Allah (s.w.t.)! Neither my father nor my grandfathers Abdul Muttalib, Hashem or AbdManaf had worshiped an idol at all. They offered prayers towards the House (the Kaaba) according to the religion of Prophet Abraham (a.s.), to whose beliefs they had kept.”
(Al-Ghadeer, vol. 7, p. 388, al-Abbas, p. 18, Mo’jamulQoboor, vol. 1, p. 200)
Abut-TufaylAamir bin Wa’ila narrated a tradition that Imam Ali (a.s.) had said: “When my father was dying, the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) was with him. Then the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) told me of something about my father that was better to me than this worldly life and all what it has.”
(Al-Hujja, p. 23, al-Ghadeer, vol. 7, p. 388)
At another place he said: “Hazrat Abu Talib (as) didn’t die until he made the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) pleased with him.”
(Al-Ghadeer, vol. 7, p. 370, 389, Al-Hujja, p. 23, Aayaan ash-Shia, vol. 39, p. 136)