Ghadeer Khumm and the
Orient lists
1. Introduction[31]
The 18th of Dhu 'l-Hijja is
celebrated in the Shí'a world as the 'idd of Ghadir Khumm in which
Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) said about Imam 'Ali: "Whomsoever's master (mawla)
I am, this 'Ali is also his master." This event is of such significance
to the Shí'as that no serious scholar of Islam can ignore it. The
purpose of this paper is to study how the Orientalists handled the event
of Ghadir Khumm. By "orientalists", I mean the Western scholarship of
Islam and also those Easterners who received their entire Islamic
training under such scholars.
Before proceeding further, a brief
narration of the event of Ghadir Khumm would not be out of place. This
will be especially helpful to those who are not familiar with the event.
While returning from his last pilgrimage, the Prophet received the
following command of Allãh: "O the Messenger! Convey what had been
revealed to you from your Lord; if you do not do so, then [it would be
as if] you have not conveyed His message [at all]. Allãh will protect
you from the people." (The Qur'ãn 5:67) Therefore he stopped at Ghadir
Khumm on the 18th of Dhu 'l-Hijja, 10 AH to convey the
message to the pilgrims before they dispersed. At one point, he asked
his followers whether he, Muhammad, had more authority (awla) over the
believers than they had over themselves; the crowd cried out, "Yes, it
is so, O Apostle of Allãh." Then he took 'Ali by the hand and declared:
"Whomsoever's master (mawla) I am, this 'Ali is also his master - man
kuntu mawlahu fa hadha 'Aliyun mawlahu." Then the Prophet also announced
his impending death and charged the believers to remain attached to the
Qur'ãn and to his Ahlul Bayt. This summarizes the important parts of the
event of Ghadir Khumm.
The main body of this paper is divided
as follows: Part II is a brief survey of the approach used by the
Orientalists in studying Shí'ism. Part III deals with the approach used
to study Ghadir Khumm in particular. Part IV is a critical review of
what M.A. Shaban has written about the event in his Islamic History AD
600-750. This will be followed by a conclusion.
2. Study of Shí'ism by the
Orientalists
When the Egyptian writer, Muhammad Qutb,
named his book as Islam: the Misunderstood Religion, he was politely
expressing the Muslim sentiment about the way Orientalists have treated
Islam and Muslims in general. The word "misunderstood" implies that at
least a genuine attempt was made to understand Islam. However, a more
blunt criticism of Orientalism, shared by the majority of Muslims, comes
from Edward Said, "The hardest thing to get most academic experts on
Islam to admit is that what they say and do as scholars is set in a
profoundly and in some ways an offensively political context. Everything
about the study of Islam in the contemporary West is saturated with
political importance, but hardly any writers on Islam, whether expert or
general, admit the fact in what they say. Objectivity is assumed to
inhere in learned discourse about other societies, despite the long
history of political, moral, and religious concern felt in all
societies, Western or Islamic, about the alien, the strange and
different. In Europe, for example, the Orientalist has traditionally
been affiliated directly with colonial offices."[32]
Instead of assuming that objectivity is
inhere in learned discourse, Western scholarship has to realize that
precommitment to a political or religious tradition, on a conscious or
subconscious level, can lead to biased judgement. As Marshall Hudgson
writes, "Bias comes especially in the questions he poses and in the type
of category he uses, where indeed, bias is especially hard to track down
because it is hard to suspect the very terms one uses, which seem so
innocently neutral..."[33] The Muslim
reaction to the image portrayed of them by Western scholarship is
beginning to get its due attention. In 1979, the highly respected
scholar trained in Western academia, Albert Hourani, said, "The voices
of those from the Middle East and North Africa telling us that they do
not recognize themselves in the image we have formed of them are too
numerous and insistent to be explained in terms of academic rivalry or
national pride."[34] This was about Islam
and Muslims vis-à-vis the Orientalists.
When we focus on the study of
Shí'ism by the Orientalists, the word "misunderstood" is not strong
enough; rather it is an understatement. Not only is Shí'ism
misunderstood, it has been ignored, misrepresented and studied mostly
through the heresiographic literature of their opponents. It seems as if
the Shí'ites had no scholars and literature of their own. To borrow an
expression from Marx, "they cannot represent themselves, they must be
represented," and that also by their adversaries!
The reason for this state of affairs
lies in the paths through which Western scholars entered the field of
Islamic studies. Hodgson, in his excellent review of Western
scholarship, writes, "First, there were those who studied the
Ottoman Empire, which played so major a role in modern Europe. They came
to it usually in the first instance from the viewpoint of the European
diplomatic history. Such scholars tended to see the whole of Islamdom
from the political perspective of Istanbul, the Ottoman capital.
Second, there were those, normally British, who entered Islamic
studies in India so as to master Persian as good civil servants, or at
least they were inspired by Indian interest. For them, the imperial
transition of Delhi tended to be the culmination of Islamicate history.
Third, there were the Semitists, often interested primarily in
Hebrew studies, who were lured into Arabic. For them, headquarters
tended to be Cairo, the most vital of Arabic-using cities in the
nineteenth century, though some turned to Syria or the Maghrib. They
were commonly philologians rather than historians, and they learned to
see Islamicate culture through the eyes of the late Egyptian and Syrian
Sunni writers most in vogue in Cairo. Other paths-that of the Spaniards
and some Frenchmen who focused on the Muslims in Medieval Spain, that of
the Russians who focused on the northern Muslims-were generally less
important."[35]
It is quite obvious that none of these
paths would have led Western scholars to the centres of Shí'a learning
or literature. The majority of what they studied about Shí'ism was
channelled through the non-Shí'i sources. Hudgson, who deserves our
highest praise for noticing this point, says, "All paths were at one in
paying relatively little attention to the central areas of the Fertile
Crescent and Iran, with their tendency towards Shí'ism; areas that
tended to be most remote from western penetration."[36]
And after the First World War, "the Cairene path to Islamic studies
became the Islamicist's path par excellence, while other paths to
Islamic studies came to be looked on as of more local relevance."[37]
Therefore, whenever an Orientalist
stuided Shí'ism through Ottoman, Cairene or Indian paths, it was quite
natural for him to be biased against Shí'a Islam. "The Muslim historians
of doctrine [who are mostly Sunni] always tried to show that all other
schools of thought other than their own were not only false but, if
possible, less than truly Muslim. Their work described innumerable 'firqahs'
in terms which readily misled modern scholars into supposing they were
referring to so many 'heretical sects'."[38]
And so we see that until very recently, Western scholars easily
described Sunni'ism as 'orthodox Islam' and Shí'ism as a 'heretical
sect'. After categorizing Shí'ism as a heretical sect of Islam, it
became "innocently neutral" for Western scholars to absorb the Sunni
scepticism concerning the early Shí'a literature. Even the concept of
taqiyyah (dissimulation when one's life is in danger) was blown out of
proportion and it was assumed that every statement of a Shí'a scholar
had a hidden meaning. And, consequently, whenever an Orientalist studied
Shí'ism, his precommitment to Judeo-Christian tradition of the West was
compounded with the Sunni bias against Shí'ism.
One of the best examples of this
compounded bias is found in the way the event of Ghadir Khumm was
studied by the Orientalists, an issue that forms the main purpose of
this paper.
3. Ghadír Khumm: From Oblivion to
Recognition
The event of Ghadir Khumm is a very
good example to trace the Sunni bias that found its way into the mental
state of Orientalists. Those who are well-versed with the polemic
writings of Sunnis know that whenever the Shí'as present a hadíth or a
historical evidence in support of their view, a Sunni polemicist would
respond in the following manner:
Firstly, he will outright deny
the existence of any such hadíth or historical event.
Secondly, when confronted with hard
evidence from his own sources, he will cast doubt on the
reliability of the transmitters of that hadíth or event.
Thirdly, when he is shown that all
the transmitters are reliable by Sunni standards, he will give an
interpretation to the hadíth or the event that will be quite
different from that of the Shí'as.
These three levels form the classical
response of the Sunni polemicists in dealing with the arguments of the
Shí'as. A quotation from Rosenthal's translation of Ibn Khaldun's The
Muqaddimah would suffice to prove my point. (Ibn Khaldun is quoting the
following part from al-Milal wa 'n-Nihal, a heresiographic work of ash-Shahristãni.)
According to Ibn Khaldun, the Shí'as believe that
'Ali is the one whom Muhammad
appointed. The (Shí'ah) transmit texts (of traditions) in support of
(this belief)...The authority on the Sunnah and the transmitters of
the religious law do not know these texts. [1]
Most of them are supposititious, or [2]
some of their transmitters are suspect, or [3]
their (true) interpretation is very different from the wicked
interpretation that (the Shí'ah) give to them.[39]
Interestingly, the event of Ghadir
Khumm has suffered the same fate at the hands of Orientalists. With the
limited time and resources available to me at this moment, I was
surprised to see that most works on Islam have ignored the event of
Ghadir Khumm, indicating, by its very absence, that the Orientalists
believed this event to be 'supposititious' and an invention of the
Shí'as. Margoliouth's Muhammad and the Rise of Islam (1905),
Brockelmann's History of the Islamic People (1939), Arnold and
Guillaume's The Legacy of Islam (1931), Guillaume's Islam (1954), von
Grunebaum's Classical Islam (1963), Arnold's The Caliphate (1965), and
The Cambridge History of Islam (1970) have completely ignored the event
of Ghadir Khumm.
Why did these and many other Western
scholars ignore the event of Ghadir Khumm? Since Western scholars mostly
relied on anti-Shí'a works, they naturally ignored the event of Ghadir
Khumm. L. Veccia Vaglieri, one of the contributors to the second edition
of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (1953), writes:
Most of those sources which form the
basis of our knowledge of the life of Prophet (Ibn Hishãm, al-Tabari,
Ibn Sa'd, etc.) pass in silence over Muhammad's stop at Ghadir Khumm,
or, if they mention it, say nothing of his discourse (the writers
evidently feared to attract the hostility of the Sunnis, who were in
power, by providing material for the polemic of the Shí'is who used
these words to support their thesis of 'Ali's right to the caliphate).
Consequently, the western biographers of Muhammad, whose work is based
on these sources, equally make no reference to what happened at Ghadir
Khumm.[40]
Then we come to those few Western
scholars who mention the hadíth or the event of Ghadir Khumm but express
their scepticism about its authority-the second stage in the classical
response of the Sunni polemicists.
The first example of such scholars is
Ignaz Goldziher, a highly respected German Orientalist of the nineteenth
century. He discusses the hadíth of Ghadir Khumm in his Muhammedanische
Studien (1889-1890) translated into English as Muslim Studies
(1966-1971) under the chapter entitled as "The Hadíth in its Relation to
the Conflicts of the Parties of Islam." Coming to the Shí'as, Goldziher
writes:
A stronger argument in their [Shí'as']
favour...was their conviction that the Prophet had expressly
designated and appointed 'Ali as his successor before his
death...Therefore the 'Alid adherents were concerned with inventing
and authorizing traditions which prove 'Ali's installation by direct
order of the Prophet. The most widely known tradition (the authority
of which is not denied even by orthodox authorities though they
deprive it of its intention by a different interpretation) is the
tradition of Khumm, which came into being for this purpose and is one
of the firmest foundation of the theses of the 'Alid party.[41]
One would expect such a renowned
scholar to prove how the Shí'as "were concerned with inventing"
traditions to support their theses, but nowhere does Goldziher provide
any evidence. After citing at-Tirmidhi and al-Nasã'i in the footnote as
the source for hadíth of Ghadir Khumm, he says, "Al-Nasã'i had, as is
well known, pro-'Alid inclinations, and also at-Tirmidhi included in his
collection tendentious traditions favouring 'Ali, e.g., the tayr
tradition."[42] This is again the same old
classical response of the Sunni polemicists-discredit the transmitters
as unreliable or adamantly accuse the Shí'as of inventing the
traditions.
Another example is the first edition of
the Encyclopaedia of Islam (1911-1938) which has a short entry under "Ghadir
Khumm" by F. Bhul, a Danish Orientalist who wrote a biography of the
Prophet. Bhul writes, "The place has become famous through a tradition
which had its origin among the Shi'is but is also found among Sunnis,
viz., the Prophet on journey back from Hudaibiya (according to others
from the farewell pilgrimage) here said of 'Ali: Whomsoever I am lord
of, his lord is 'Ali also!"[43] Bhul makes
sure to emphasize that the hadíth of Ghadir has "its origin among the
Shí'is!"
Another striking example of the
Orientalists' ignorance about Shí'ism is A Dictionary of Islam (1965) by
Thomas Hughes. Under the entry of Ghadir, he writes, "A festival of the
Shi'ahs on the 18th of the month of Zu 'l-Hijjah, when three
images of dough filled with honey are made to represent Abu Bakr, 'Umar,
and 'Uthmãn, which are struck with knives, and the honey is sipped as
typical of the blood of the usurping Khalifahs. The festival is named
for Ghadir, 'a pool,' and the festival commemorates, it is said,
Muhammad having declared 'Ali his successor at Ghadir Khum, a watering
place midway between Makkah and al-Madinah."[44]
Coming from a Shí'a family that traces its ancestory back to the Prophet
himself, having studied in Iran for ten years and lived among the Shí'as
of Africa and North America, I have yet to see, hear or read about the
dough and honey ritual of Ghadir! I was more surprised to see that even
Vaglieri, in the second edition of the Encyclopaedia, has incorporated
that nonsense into her fairly excellent article on Ghadir Khumm. She
adds at the end that, "This feast also holds an important place among
the Nusayris." It is quite possible that the dough and honey ritual is
observed by the Nusayris; it has nothing to do with the Shí'as. But do
all Orientalists know the difference between the Shí'as and the Nusayris?
I very much doubt so.
A fourth example from the contemporary
scholars who have treaded the same path is Philip Hitti in his History
of the Arabs (1964). After mentioning that the Buyids established "the
rejoicing on that [day] of the Prophet's alleged appointment of 'Ali as
his successor at Ghadir Khumm," he describes the location of Ghadir
Khumm in the footnote as "a spring between Makkah and al-Madinah where
Shí'ite tradition asserts the Prophet declared, 'Whomsoever I am lord
of, his lord is 'Ali also'."[45] Although
this scholar mentions the issue of Ghadir in a passing manner, he
classifies the hadíth of Ghadir is a "Shí'ite tradition".
To these scholars who, consciously or
unconsciously, have absorbed the Sunni bias against Shí'ism and insist
on the Shí'ite origin or invention of the hadíth of Ghadir, I would just
repeat what Vaglieri has said in the Encyclopaedia of Islam about Ghadir
Khumm:
It is, however, certain that Muhammad
did speak in this place and utter the famous sentence, for the account
of this event has been preserved, either in a concise form or in
detail, not only by al-Ya'kubi, whose sympathy for the 'Alid cause is
well known, but also in the collection of traditions which are
considered canonical, especially in the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal; and the
hadiths are so numerous and so well attested by the different isnãds
that it does not seem possible to reject them.[46]
Vaglieri continues, "Several of these
hadiths are cited in the bibliography, but it does not include the
hadíth which, although reporting the sentence, omit to name Ghadir
Khumm, or those which state that the sentence was pronounced at al-Hudaybiya.
The complete documentation will be facilitated when the Concordance of
Wensinck have been completely published. In order to have an idea of how
numerous these hadiths are, it is enough to glance at the pages in which
Ibn Kathir has collected a great number of them with their isnads."
It is time the Western scholarship made
itself familiar with the Shí'ite literature of the early days as well as
of the contemporary period. The Shí'a scholars have produced great works
on the issue of Ghadir Khumm. Here I will just mention two of those:
1. The first is 'Abaqãtu 'l-Anwãr in
eleven bulky volumes written in Persian by Mir Hãmid Husayn al-Musawi
(d. 1306 AH) of India. 'Allãmah Mir Hãmid Husayn has devoted three bulky
volumes (consisting of about 1080 pages) on the isnãd, tawãtur and
meaning of the hadíth of Ghadir. An abridged version of this work in
Arabic translation entitled as Nafahãtu 'l-Azhãr fi Khulãsati 'Abaqãti
'l-Anwãr by Sayyid 'Ali al-Milãni has been published in twelve volumes
by now; and four volumes of these (with modern type-setting and
printing) are dedicated to the hadíth of Ghadír.
2. The second work is al-Ghadír in
eleven volumes in Arabic by 'Abdul Husayn Ahmad al-Amini (d. 1970) of
Iraq. 'Allãmah Amini has given with full references the names of 110
companions of the Prophet and also the names of 84 tãbi'ín (disciples of
the companions) who have narrated the hadíth of Ghadir. He has also
chronologically given the names of the historians, traditionalists,
exegetists and poets who have mentioned the hadíth of Ghadir from the
first till the fourteenth Islamic century.
The late Sayyid 'Abdu 'l-'Azíz at-Tabãtabã'í
has stated that there probably is not a single hadíth that has been
narrated by so many companions as the number we see (120) in the hadíth
of Ghadír. However, comparing that number to the total number of people
who were present in Ghadír Khumm, he states that 120 is just ten percent
of the total audience. And so he rightly gave the following title to his
paper: "Hadíth Ghadír: Ruwãtuhu Kathíruna lil-Ghãyah...Qalíluna
lil-Ghãyah - Its Narrators are Very Many...Very Few".[47]
4. Shaban & His New Interpretation
Among the latest work by Western
scholarship on the history of Islam is M.A. Shaban's Islamic History AD
600-750 subtitled as "A New Interpretation" in which the author claims
not only to use newly discovered material but also to re-examine and
re-interpret material which has been known to us for many decades.
Shaban, a lecturer of Arabic at SOAS of the University of London, is not
prepared to even consider the event of Ghadir Khumm. He writes, "The
famous Shí'ite tradition that he [the Prophet] desginated 'Ali as his
successor at Ghadir Khumm should not be taken seriously."
Shaban gives two 'new' reasons for not
taking the event of Ghadir seriously:
"Such an event is inherently
improbable considering the Arabs' traditional reluctance to entrust
young and untried men with great responsibility. Furthermore, at no
point do our sources show the Madinan community behaving as if they
had heard of this designation."[48]
Let us critically examine each of these
reasons given by Shaban.
1.
The traditional reluctance of the Arabs to entrust young men with
great responsibility.
First of all, had not the Prophet
introduced many things to which the Arabs were traditionally reluctant?
Did not the Meccans accept Islam itself very reluctantly? Was not the
issue of marrying a divorced wife of one's adopted son a taboo among the
Arabs? This 'traditional reluctance,' instead of being an argument
against the designation of 'Ali, is actually part of the argument used
by the Shí'as. They agree that the Arabs (in particular, the Quraysh)
were reluctant to accept 'Ali as the Prophet's successor not only
because of his young age but also because he had killed their leaders in
the early battles of Islam. According to the Shí'as, Allãh also knew
about this reluctance and that is why after ordering the Prophet to
proclaim 'Ali as his successor ("O the Messenger! Convey what had been
revealed to you..."), He reassured His Messenger by saying that, "Allãh
will protect you from the people." (5:67) The Prophet was commissioned
to convey the message of Allãh, no matter whether the Arabs liked it or
not.
Moreover, this 'traditional reluctance'
was not an irrevocable custom of the Arab society as Shaban wants us to
believe. Jafri, in The Origin and Early Development of Shí'a Islam,
says, "[O]ur sources do not fail to point out that, though the 'Senate'
(Nadwa) of pre-Islamic Mecca was generally a council of elders only, the
sons of the chieftain Qusayy were privileged to be exempted from this
age restriction and were admitted to the council despite their youth. In
later times more liberal concessions seems to have been in vogue; Abu
Jahl was admitted despite his youth, and Hakim b. Hazm was admitted when
he was only fifteen or twenty years old." Then Jafri quotes Ibn 'Abd
Rabbih, "There are no monarchic king over the Arabs of Mecca in the
Jahiliya. So whenever there was a war, they took a ballot among
chieftains and elected one as 'King', were he a minor or a grown man.
Thus on the day of Fijar, it was the turn of the Banu Hashim, and as a
result of the ballot Al-'Abbãs, who was then a mere child, was elected,
and they seated him on the shield."[49]
Thirdly, we have an example in the
Prophet's own decisions during the last days of his life when he
entrusted the command of the army to Usãmah bin Zayd, a young man who
was hardly twenty years of age.[50] He was
appointed over the elder members of the Muhãjirín (the Quraysh) and the
Ansãr; and, indeed, many of the elders resented this decision of the
Prophet.[51] If the Prophet of Islam could
appoint the young and untried Usãmah bin Zayd over the elders of the
Quraysh and Ansãr, then why should it be "inherently improbable" to
think that the Prophet had designated 'Ali as his successor?
2.
The traditional reluctance to entrust untried men with great
responsibility.
Apart from the young age of 'Ali,
Shaban also refers to the reluctance of the Arabs in entrusting "untried
men with great responsibility." This implies that the Arabs selected Abu
Bakr because he had been "tried with great responsibilities." I doubt
whether Mr. Shaban would be able to substantiate the implication of his
claim from Islamic history. One will find more instances where 'Ali was
entrusted by the Prophet with greater responsibilities than was Abu
Bakr. 'Ali was left behind in Mecca during the Prophet's migration to
mislead the enemies and also to return the properties of various people
which were given in trust to the Prophet. 'Ali was tried with greater
responsibilities during the early battles of Islam in which he was
always successful. When the ultimatum (barã'at) against the pagan Arabs
of Mecca was revealed, first Abu Bakr was assigned to convey it to the
Meccans; but later on this great responsibility was taken away from him
and entrusted to 'Ali. 'Ali was entrusted with safety of the city and
citizens of Medina while the Prophet had gone on the expedition to Tabûk.
'Ali was appointed the leader of the expedition to Yemen. These are just
the few examples that come to mind at random. Therefore, on a
comparative level, 'Ali bin Abu Tãlib was a person who had been tried
and entrusted with greater responsibilities more than Abu Bakr.
3.
The behaviour of the Madinan community about declaration of Ghadir
Khumm.
Firstly, if an event can be proved true
by the accepted standard of hadíth criticism (of the Sunnis, of course),
then the reaction of the people to the credibility of that event is
immaterial.
Secondly, the same 'traditional
reluctance' used by Shaban to discredit the declaration of Ghadir can be
used here against his scepticism towards the event of Ghadir. This
traditional reluctance, besides other factors that are beyond the scope
of this paper,[52] can be used to explain
the behaviour of the Madinan community.
Thirdly, although the Madinan community
was silent during the events which kept 'Ali away from caliphate, there
were many among them who had witnessed the declaration of Ghadir Khumm.
On quite a few occasions, Imam 'Ali implored the companions of the
Prophet to bear witness to the declaration of Ghadir. Here I will just
mention one instance that took place in Kufa during the reign of Imam
'Ali, about 25 years after the Prophet's death.
Imam 'Ali heard that some people were
doubting his claim of precedence over the previous caliphs, therefore,
he came to a gathering at the mosque and implored the eyewitnesses of
the event of Ghadir Khumm to verify the truth of the Prophet's
declaration about his being the lord and master of all the believers.
Many companions of the Prophet stood up and verified the claim of 'Ali.
We have the names of twenty-four of those who testified on behalf of
'Ali, although other sources like Musnad of Hanbal and Majma' az-Zawã'id
of Hãfidh al-Haythami put that number at thirty. Also bear in mind that
this incident took place 25 years after the event of Ghadir Khumm, and
during this period hundreds of eye witnesses had died naturally or in
the battles fought during the first two caliphs' rule. Add to this the
fact that this incident took place in Kufa which was far from the centre
of the companions, Medina. This incident that took place in Kufa in the
year 35 AH has itself been narrated by four companions and fourteen
tãbi'in and has been recorded in most books of history and tradition.[53]
In conclusion, the behaviour of the
Madinan community after the death of the Prophet does not automatically
make the declaration of Ghadir Khumm improbable. I think this will
suffice to make Mr. Shaban realize that his is not a 'new'
interpretation; rather it exemplifies, in my view, the first stage of
the classical response of the Sunni polemicists-an outright denial of
the existence of an event or a hadíth which supports the Shí'a
view-which has been absorbed by the majority of Western scholars of
Islam.
5. The Meaning of "Mawla"
The last argument in the strategy of
the Sunni polemicists in their response to an event or a hadíth
presented by the Shí'as is to give it an interpretation that would
safeguard their beliefs. They exploit the fact that the word "mawla" has
various meanings: master, lord, slave, benefactor, beneficiery,
protector, patron, client, friend, charge, neighbour, guest, partner,
son, uncle, cousin, nephew, son-in-law, leader, follower. The Sunnis say
that the word "mawla" uttered by the Prophet in Ghadir does not mean
"master or lord", it means "friend".
On the issue of the hadíth of Ghadír,
this is the stage where the Western scholarship of Islam has arrived.
While explaining the context of the statement uttered by the Prophet in
Ghadir Khumm, L. Veccia Vaglieri follows the Sunni interpretation. She
writes:
On this point, Ibn Kathír shows
himself yet again to be percipient historian: he connects the affair
of Ghadir Khumm with episodes which took place during the expedition
to the Yemen, which was led by 'Ali in 10/631-2, and which had
returned to Mecca just in time to meet the Prophet there during his
Farewell Pilgrimage. 'Ali had been very strict in the sharing out of
the booty and his behaviour had aroused protests; doubt was cast on
his rectitude, he was reproached with avarice and accused of misuse of
authority. Thus it is quite possible that, in order to put an end to
all these accusations, Muhammad wished to demonstrate publicly his
esteem and love for 'Ali. Ibn Kathir must have arrived at the same
conclusion, for he does not forget to add that the Prophet's words put
an end to the murmuring against Ali.[54]
Whenever a word has more than one
meaning, it is indeed a common practice to look at the context of the
statement and the event to understand the intent of the speaker. Ibn
Kathir and other Sunni writers have connected the event of Ghadir Khumm
to the incident of the expedition to Yemen. But why go so far back to
understand the meaning of "mawla", why not look at the whole sermon that
the Prophet gave at Ghadir Khumm itself? Isn't it a common practice to
look at the immediate context of the statement, rather than look at
remote events, in time and space?
When we look at the immediate context
of the statement uttered by the Holy Prophet in Ghadir Khumm, we find
the following:
1. The question that the Prophet asked
just before the declaration. He asked, "Do I not have more authority
upon you (awla bi kum) than you have yourselves?" When the people
replied, "Yes, surely," then the Prophet declared: "Whosoever's mawla am
I, this 'Ali is his mawla." Surely the word "mawla", in this context,
has the same meaning as the word "awla: have more authority".[55]
2. After the declaration, the Prophet
uttered the following prayer: "O Allãh! Love him who loves 'Ali, and be
enemy of the enemy of 'Ali; help him who helps 'Ali, and forsake him who
forsakes 'Ali." This prayer itself shows that 'Ali, on that day, was
being entrusted with a position that would make some people his enemies
and that he would need supporters in carrying out his responsibilities.
This could not be anything but the position of the mawla in the sense of
ruler, master and lord. Are helpers ever needed to carry on a
'friendship'?
3. The statement of the Prophet in
Ghadir that: "It seems imminent that I will be called away (by Allãh)
and I will answer the call." It was clear that the Prophet was making
arrangements for the leadership of the Muslims after his death.
4. The companions of the Prophet
congratulated 'Ali by addressing him as "Amirul Mumineen - Leader of the
Believers". This leaves no room for doubt concerning the meaning of
mawla.
5. The occasion, place and time.
Imagine the Prophet breaking his journey in mid-day and detaining nearly
one hundred thousand travellers under the burning sun of the Arabian
desert, making them sit in a thorny place on the burning sand, and
making a pulpit of camel saddles, and then imagine him delivering a long
sermon and at the end of all those preparations, he comes out with an
announcement that "Whosoever considers me a friend, 'Ali is also his
friend!" Why? Because some (not all the hundred thousand people who had
gathered there) were upset with 'Ali in the way he handled the
distribution of the booty among his companions on the expedition to
Yemen! Isn't that a ridiculous thought?
Another way of finding the meaning in
which the Prophet used the word "mawla" for 'Ali is to see how the
people in Ghadir Khumm understood it. Did they take the word "mawla" in
the sense of "friend" or in the meaning of "master, leader"?
Hassãn ibn Thãbit, the famous poet of
the Prophet, composed a poem on the event of Ghadir Khumm on the same
day. He says:
He then said to him: "Stand up, O 'Ali,
for
I am pleased to make you Imam & Guide after me.
In this line, Hassãn ibn Thãbit has
understood the term "mawla" in the meaning of "Imam and Guide" which
clearly proves that the Prophet was talking about his successor, and
that he was not introducing 'Ali as a "friend" but as a "leader".
Even the words of 'Umar ibn al-Khattãb
are interesting. He congratulated Imam 'Ali in these words:
"Congratulations, O son of Abu Tãlib, this morning you became mawla of
every believing man and woman."[56] If "mawla"
meant "friend" then why the congratulations? Was 'Ali an 'enemy' of all
believing men and women before the day of Ghadir?
These immediate contexts make it very
clear that the Prophet was talking about a comprehensive authority that
'Ali has over the Muslims comparable to his own authority over them.
They prove that the meaning of the term "mawla" in hadíth of Ghadír is
not "friend" but "master, patron, lord, or leader".[57]
Finally, even if we accept that the
Prophet uttered the words "Whomsoever's mawla I am, this 'Ali is his
mawla" in relation to the incident of the expedition to Yemen, even then
"mawla" would not mean "friend". The reports of the expedition, in Sunni
sources, say that 'Ali had reserved for himself the best part of the
booty that had come under the Muslims' control. This caused some
resentment among those who were under his command. On meeting the
Prophet, one of them complained that since the booty was the property of
the Muslims, 'Ali had no right to keep that item for himself. The
Prophet was silent; then the second person came with the same complaint.
The Prophet did not respond again. Then the third person came with the
same complaint. That is when the Prophet became angry and said, "What do
you want with 'Ali? He indeed is the waliy after me."[58]
What does this statement prove? It says
that just as the Prophet, according to verse 33:6, had more right (awla)
over the lives and properties of the believers, similarly, 'Ali as the
waliy, had more right over the lives and properties of the believers.
The Prophet clearly puts 'Ali on the highest levels of authority (wilãyat)
after the Prophet himself. That is why the author of al-Jãmi'u 's-Saghír
comments, "This is indeed the highest praise for 'Ali."
6. Conclusion
In this brief survey, I have shown that
the event of Ghadir Khumm is a historical fact that cannot be rejected;
that in studying Shí'ism, the precommitment to Judeo-Christian tradition
of the Orientalists was compounded with the Sunni bias against Shí'ism.
Consequently, the event of Ghadir Khumm was ignored by most Western
scholars and emerged from oblivion only to be handled with scepticism
and re-interpretation.
I hope this one example will convince
at least some Western scholars to re-examine their methodology in
studying Shí'ism; instead of approaching it largely through the works of
heresiographers like ash-Shahristãni, Ibn Hazm, al-Maqrizi and al-Baghdãdi
who present the Shí'as as a heretical sect of Islam, they should turn to
more objective works of both the Shí'as as well as the Sunnis.
The Shí'as are tired, and rightfully
so, of being portrayed as a heretical sect that emerged because of
political circumstances of the early Islamic period. They demand to
represent themselves instead of being represented by their adversaries.
* * *
Peace be upon you,
O my Master, Amiru 'l-Mu'minin!
O the trustee of Allãh
in His earth,
His representative among
His creatures,
and His convincing proof
for His servants...
Peace be upon you,
O the upright religion
of Allãh and His straight path.
Peace be upon you, O the
great news about whom they disputed and about whom they will be
questioned.
I bear witness, O Amiru
'l-Mu'minin,
that the person who
doubts about you
has not believed in the
trustworthy Messenger;
and one who equates you
to others has astrayed
from the upright
religion which
the Lord of the universe
has chosen for us and
which He has perfected
through your wilãyat
on the day of Ghadir.
(Excerpts from Ziyãrat
of the Day of Ghadír)
Notes:
[1]
These writers represent the Salafi/Wahhمbi camp, and their anti-Shي'a
works has been distributed world-wide with the courtesy of the petro-dollars
of certain Middle-Eastern countries, especially after the Sunni masses
started getting inspiration by the revolution of Iran which was led by
Shي'a 'ulamم'.
[2]
Fajru 'l-Islمm, p. 33 as quoted and then refuted by Muhammad Husayn
Kمshiful 'l-Ghitم', Aslu 'sh-Shي'a wa Usûluhم (Qum: Mu'assasa al-Imam
'Ali, 1415) p. 140, 142; also see the latter's English translation, The
Shي'a Origin and Faith (Karachi: Islamic Seminary, 1982).
[3]
Fazlur Rahman, Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) p.
171-172.
[31]
This is a revised and expanded version of a paper first published
simultaneously in the bi-monthly The Light (June 1990) magazine and in
Ghadir (Toronto: ISIJ & NASIMCO, July 1990) under the title of "Orientalists
& the Event of Ghadir Khumm".
[32]
Said, E.W., Covering Islam (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981) p. xvii.
[33]
Hodgson, M.G.S., The Venture of Islam, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1974) p. 27.
[34]
Hourani, A. "Islamic History, Middle Eastern History, Modern History,"
in Kerr, M.H. (ed) Islamic Studies: A Tradition and Its Problems
(California: Undena Publications, 1979) p. 10.
[35]
Hodgson, op. cit., p. 39-40.
[36]
Ibid.
[37]
Ibid.
[38]
Hodgson, op. cit., p. 66-67.
[39]
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, tr. Franz Rosenthal, vol. 1 (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1958) p. 403. In original Arabic, see vol. 1 (Beirut:
Maktabatul Madrasah, 1961) p. 348.
[40]
EI2, p. 993 under "Ghadir Khumm".
[41]
Goldziher, Muslim Studies, tr. Barber and Stern, vol. 2 (Chicago: Aldine
Inc., 1971) pp. 112-113.
[42]
Ibid.
[43]
EI1, p. 134-135 under "Ghadir Khumm".
[44]
Hughes, Thomas P., A Dictionary of Islam (New Jersey: Reference Book
Publishers, 1965) p. 138.
[45]
Hitti, P.K., History of the Arabs (London: Macmillan & Co., 1964) p.
471.
[46]
EI2, p. 993 under "Ghadir Khumm".
[47]
At-Tabمtabم'ي, 'Abdu 'l-'Azيz, al-Ghadيr fi 't-Turمthi 'l-Islمmi (Qum:
Nashr al-Hمdi, 1415) p. 7-8.
[48]
Shaban, Islamic History AD 600-750 (Cambridge: University of Press,
1971) p. 16.
[49]
Jafri, S.H.M., The Origin and Early Developments of Shي'a Islam, p. 22.
[50]
Haykal, M.H., Hayمt Muhammad (2nd edition) p. 478; also see its
translation, The Life of Muhammad, tr. al-Fمruqi (n.p.: American Trust
Publications, 1976) p. 492.
[51]
See Ibn Sa'd's at-Tabaqمt and other major works on sirah.
[52]
For more details, see Rizvi, S.S.A.,
Imمmate,
p. 120-121.
[53]
For full references, see al-Amini, al-Ghadيr, vol. 1 (Tehran:
Mu'assasatu 'l-Muwahhidi, 1976) p. 166-186.
[Also see section on
Reminders by Imam 'Ali [a] in Ghadir Khumm: Appointment of Imam
'Ali in the Qur'an, Hadith, History]
[54]
EI2 p. 993-994 under "Ghadir Khumm".
[55]
Al-Amini gives the names of 64 Sunni traditionalists who have quoted the
preceding question, included among them are Ahmad bin Hanbal, Ibn Mمjah,
an-Nasم'i, and at-Tirmidhi. See al-Ghadيr, vol. 1, p. 370-371.
[Also see section on
Acknowledgement of Authority in Ghadir Khumm: Appointment of Imam
'Ali in the Qur'an, Hadith, History]
[56]
See al-Amini, al-Ghadيr, vol. 1, pp. 270-283 for references from Sunni
sources.
[Also see section on
Oath of Allegiance in Ghadir Khumm: Appointment of Imam 'Ali in
the Qur'an, Hadith, History]
[57]
These contexts are from al-Amini's al-Ghadîr as summarized in Rizvi,
Imمmate: the
Vicegerency of the Prophet.
[58]
See an-Nasم'ي, Khasم'is 'Ali bin Abi Tمlib, p. 92-93; at-Tirmidhi, Sahيh,
vol. 5, p. 632 (hadيth # 3712), and al-Jمmi'u 's-Saghيr. |