SPIRITUAL GUARDIANSHIP and POLITICAL GUARDIANSHIP The

CHAPTER TWELVE

SPIRITUAL GUARDIANSHIP AND POLITICAL GUARDIANSHIP

Th e occasion of Ghadir Khumm1 marked the start of profound and important developments in the world of Islam. It had an acute impact both on the theological theories and the social destiny of Muslims, and it ultimately turned into a factor that forged the greatest and most lasting rift in their ranks. It, moreover, contributed to the development of the seminal concept of “guardianship” (wilayat), which can easily be described as the most potent and most problematic idea and concept ever to have occurred in the world of Islam. Th is is why examining this seminal concept and that important incident is among our theological and social duties, and I will try to raise a few points in this respect here.

Ghadir and Some of Its Consequences

As I said, the Ghadir incident had a lasting impact on the Prophet’s people both theologically and politically. Th e secret to this lay in the fact that Muslims disagreed over their reading of the incident and came up with at least two fundamental and notable interpretations, which have endured to this day, with neither abandoning the fi eld in favour of the other. Reliable historical accounts and mutawatir hadiths2 tell

1 Ghadir Khumm is the name of a location between Mecca and Medina where on his way back from his last Hajj pilgrimage, shortly before his death, Prophet Muhammad stopped to address a large gathering of Muslim pilgrims. Th ere he delivered a sermon whose content along with a Qurʾanic verse (5: 67) have been the main source of Shiʿi’s claim of Ali’s right to succeed the Prophet. [Ed.] 2 Hadiths, Prophetic Traditions, are classifi ed in diff erent categories according to the level of their authenticity and the soundness of the chain of their transmitters. Th e highest value is given to mutawatir hadith, which had been transmitted by numer- ous reliable narrators at diff erent stage that the possibility of its being fabricated is excluded. [Ed.] 246 chapter twelve us that, on the Day of Ghadir, the noble Prophet of Islam presented Ali to Muslims and said: . . . Anyone of whom I am the mawla, Ali, too, is his mawla. O God, be a friend to those who befriend him and an enemy to those who show hostility to him, support those who support him and abandon those who desert him. Th is much of the Prophet’s sermon is mutawatir and accepted by both branches of Islam, Shiʿis and Sunnis.3 Some Shiʿi historians and chroni- clers of the Prophet’s life have recounted a very long sermon delivered by him on the Day of Ghadir which is entirely Shiʿi in content and totally conforms to the beliefs that Shiʿis were later to insist upon and to use to diff erentiate themselves from other Islamic sects.4 At any rate, no signifi cant dispute arose over the event itself nor over the Prophet’s words. Th e disputes began rather over their interpretations. Th at is to say, the question arose as to what the Prophet had meant in saying these words in those circumstances. What exactly does “mawla” mean and what position was Ali being appointed to and in what way did Muslims become duty-bound towards Ali as a result of the words spoken by the Prophet? Is it the case, as Shiʿis claimed later on, that, on the Day of Ghadir, the Prophet established and imparted the notion of the Imamate? Did the Prophet appoint a specifi c person by the name of Ali (and his children thereaft er) to this position, thereby establishing a new article of faith for Muslims? We are familiar with the historical and unresolved disputes between Shiʿis and Sunnis in this respect and there is no need to rehearse them again here.5 Nonetheless we are concerned with other aspects of the subject now and are not seeking to prove or disprove either the Shiʿi or Sunni position. As I said, in view of the Day of Ghadir and the phrase used by the Prophet on the occasion, the important concept of “guardianship”

3 For Shiʿi sources see for instance: Allameh Abdulhossein Amini, Al-Ghadir; Muhammad Baqir Majlesi, Behar al-Anwar. Th is event is recorded several times in diff erent Sunni Tradition literature as well. See for instance its transmission by Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, the great Sunni traditionist. Reference to this incident and the Prophet’s statement can also be found in other Islamic literature. Jalal al-Din Rumi, for instance, who was not a Shiʿi, has referred to this incident and elucidated the meaning of “mawla” in the Mathnawi (Vol. 6, verses 4538–4542). 4 See for instance Majelsi’s Behar al-Anwar. 5 See for instance: Abdulhossein Amini, Al-Ghadir (Tehran: Dar al-Kutub al-Islami- yah, 1952); or the more thorough book which is the product of a Shiʿi and a Sunni theologians’ correspondence: Abdulhossein Sharaf al-Din ʿAmeli, al-Murajeʿat.