Introduction

'When he (the Prophet) had completed its (Hajj) ceremonies, he
left for Medina accompanied by the multitudes previously
mentioned. He arrived at the pool of Khum (Ghadir Khum) in
al-Juhfa, where the roads of the people of Medina, the people of
Egypt and the people of Iraq cross. That was on Thursday,
Dhil-Hijjah 18 [when] Jibreel (Gabriel), the faithful, brought
down Allah's revelation saying: "0 Messenger! Deliver that
which has been sent down to thee from thy Lord" (5:67). And
he commanded him to point out Ali to the people and proclaim
to them the revelation concerning him about the wilaya and the
obligation of obedience upon everyone. Those of the people
who were in front were near al-Juhfa. The Prophet of Allah
commanded that those who advanced should be halted at that
place. He forbade them to sit down under five gum acacia trees
(sumurat) which were close to each other. When the summons to
prayer was given for the noon prayers, he went towards them
(the trees) and prayed at the head of the people under them...
When he had completed his prayers, he stood delivering a
speech in the middle of the people, on the saddles of the camels.
He made them all hear, raising his voice, saying:

"...0 people, the Kind, the Knower, informed me that a Prophet
has not lived but half the age of his predecessor and that I am
about to be recalled and I responded. I am to be interrogated
and you are to be interrogated. What will you say?" The people
said, "We bear witness that you have proclaimed the message
and that you have given the advice and that you have made the
endeavour, may Allah reward you!" He said, "Would you not
bear witness that there Is no deity but Allah and that Muhammad
is His Servant and His Messenger; that His Garden is true; that
His Fire is true; that death is true; that the hour comes of which
there is no doubt; and that Allah will resurrect those in the
graves?" They said, "Yes. We hear witness to that." Then he
said, "0 Allah, bear witness [to that]," [and he continued], "0
people! Do you hear?" They said, "Yes." He said, "I am
preceding you to the Pond (al-Hawd) and you will rejoin me at
the Pond... See to it how you will look after the Two Treasures
(ath-Thaqalayn) after me." A caller called out, "What are the
Two Treasures, 0 Messenger of Allah?" He said, "The Bigger
Treasure (ath-Thaqlu'l-Akbar) is the Book of Allah, one end of it
is in the Hand of Allah and one end is in your hands. If you
adhere to it you will not go astray. The Smaller Treasure (ath-Thaqlu'l
-Asghar) is my Family ('Itrati). The Kind, the Knower,
informed me that they will not separate until they rejoin me at
the Pond. I wished that from Allah for them. Do not precede
them so that you may not perish. Do not fail to reach them so
that you may not succumb." Then he held the hand of Ali and
raised it until the white of the armpit could be seen and all the
people recognized him. He said, "0 people, who is more worthy
('awla) [in the eyes of] the believers than their ownselves?" They
said, "Allah and His Messenger know better." He said, "Allah
is my Master and I am the master of the believers and I am
worthier in their eyes than their ownselves. Whoever has me for
his master has Ali for his master." He said it thrice, and
according to Ahmad, the imam of the Hanbalis, four times." 1

The above proclamation at Ghadir Khum regarding the wilaya
of Imam Ali occurred in the last year of the Prophet's life (10
AH/632 AD). Fourteen centuries have passed since then, and
looking at the number of books and studies written on the
subject of wilaya, both by the proponents as well as opponents,
the proclamation at Ghadir Khum proved to be one of the most
pivotal events for the determination of the direction of the
political-religious history of Islam. Questions about the
historicity of that event, whether raised by the Sunni scholars or
by their western counterparts, who, more than often, followed
the Sunni sources in their conclusions about the early history of
Islam, have overlooked the political-religious implications of
Ghadir Khum on the subsequent conceptualization of Islamic
leadership (imama) among Muslims in general. The event at
al-Juhfa, moreover, unfolded the Qur'anic presupposition in the
matter of the direction that human society must follow in order
to attain the final goal for which it has been created. On
studying the Qur'an in its entirety the following general view
emerges about human society which directly affects the question
of leadership (imama) of that society.

To begin with, the Qur'an states more than once that Islam is
not a new religion but the culmination of Allah's spiritual and
temporal commands made known throughout human history
through the mediatorship of divinely appointed prophets like
Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus), and the other
prophets, the last in that line being Muhammad, peace be upon
him. Thus, the prophet is the bearer of divine revelation that
puts forth the divine commands for the guidance of humanity.
This guidance lays the foundation of human social organization
by providing a set of laws and rules by which the believers
manage their affairs and through which their public order is
governed or should govern itself. Accordingly, the divine
guidance forms the basis for relations between man and Allah,
on the one hand, and, between all people, whether Muslim or
non-Muslim, as well as between man and all aspects of the
creation, on the other. Furthermore, the divine guidance also
contains rational principles which should help human intellect
to infer detailed rules to organize the Muslim society and proffer
the means to resolve conflicts between individuals and between
individuals and the public order which has taken upon itself to
implement the essential elements of the divine directives.

It is relevant to point out that unlike any other legal-political-social
system, Islamic revelation clearly points toward an
integrated concept of life based on the intricate relationship
between this world and the hereafter. It regulates the conduct of
the public order and of the individual in all aspects of human
concern, linking the mundane and transcendental concerns in
an inseparable whole. In this linkage, the will of Allah is decisive
in guiding the inter-relationship of humans, and of man and his
Creator. 2 The Qur'an regards the knowledge of the All-Knowing
and All-Powerful Creator a priori through the precise creation
of the innate disposition (fitra) in humanity, which, if it heeds to
the call of the divine guidance, would attain 'prosperity' (al-falah).

These preliminary considerations about the Qur'anic view of
divine guidance explain the inter-relationship of the Islamic
norms provided in the Shari'ah, that divine scale of justice and
equity, and the leader (imam) who exercises the divinely invested
authority in him to lead the Muslim community to the prescribed
goal of creating an ethical order on earth. The Shari'ah norms
and the divinely appointed leadership fulfill humanity's need for
the authoritative guidance based upon spiritual values giving
man the existential meaning of his position in the universal
context of Islamic revelation. The interdependency between the
divine norms and the divinely appointed authority to attain the
Qur'anic prosperity rejects the notion of separation between
temporal and spiritual spheres of human activity. Moreover, the
connection between divine guidance and the creation of the
Islamic world order, as a consequence, marked the inevitable
interdependency between the religious and the political in Islam.

The entire question of wilaya and its ramifications for the
qualified leadership (imama) to further the divine plan and to
enable Allah's religion to succeed must be seen from the
perspective of the Islamic promise of the creation of an ethically
just order on earth. More importantly, the belief in the wilaya of
Imam Ali gave rise to the group of dedicated individuals among
the associates of the Prophet who formed the nucleus of the
early Shi'a. These early followers of Imam Ali represented the
growth of discontent among the Muslims who refused to
acknowledge and regard as legitimate the rule of those whom
they considered usurpers of a position of leadership that
rightfully belonged to Ali ibn Abi Talib and his descendants. The
period also caused the predicament of the Muslim community
precipitated by the Muslim political power under the khilafah
which led to revolutions and rebellions as well as to discussions
and deliberations. This is depicted in the early Islamic fiqh
(theology cum jurisprudence) 3 literature that emerged toward
the end of the second/eighth century. Early fiqh wove together
the various threads of Islamic legal practice with the doctrinal
underpinnings of early Muslim groupings. Consequently, the
juridical opinions in the early fiqh works were formulated by
taking into consideration whether certain legal or political
injunctions affected the legitimacy of one or the other leader
among the associates of the Prophet favoured by each faction.
In other words, the legitimacy of a leader allowed him to be
used as a valid legal-religious precedent required to establish the
authoritativeness of Islamic practices. Thus, even when a
particular ruling went against explicitly textual evidence provided
by the Qur'an, the overriding consideration for the early Muslim
scholars was the preservation and legitimation of the authority
in power, a consideration that came to be justified under the
rubric of aI-masalih aI-'amma (the general welfare of the Muslim
community).

The most important issue throughout Shi'i history has been
access to the right guidance as an important consequence of the
acknowledgement of the wilaya of Imam Ali. For the Shi'as, the
right guidance had continuously been available to the Ummah
even though the Imams, except for the short period of Imams
Ali and Hasan's khilafah, were not invested with political
authority and were living under the political power exercised by
the de facto governments. The possession of the wilaya (not-
withstanding the Imam's lack of political power, he still had the
right to demand obedience from his followers) was clearly seen
in the Imam's ability to provide religious leadership by inter-
preting divine revelation authoritatively. What was decided by
him through interpretation and elaboration was binding on the
believers.

The interpretation of the divine revelation by the Imam, only
because of his position as the wali of Allah, was regarded as the
right guidance needed by the people at all times. It was,
moreover, the divine guidance that theologically justified the
superstructures erected on the two doctrines of Imami Shi'ism:
the justice of Allah and the designation of the Imam, free from
error and sinful deviations, in order to make Allah's will known
to humanity. The belief in divine justice demanded that Allah
do what was best for humanity; and the belief in divine
truthfulness generated the confidence that Allah's promise
would be fulfilled. The proof that Allah was doing what had
been promised was provided by the divinely created institutions
of the prophethood (nubuwwa) and the imamate (through the
wilaya) to guide humanity toward the creation of an ideal public
order. In response to the dilemma created by the end of the
manifest leadership of the Imams through the occultation of the
Twelfth Imam, and the continued need of the community to
their guidance, the Shi'i leaders expounded the theological and
legal content of the Islamic revelation through meticulous study
of the Qur'an and elaborated upon the teachings of the Imams,
in which a prominent place was given to the faculty of reasoning
(aI-'Aql).

The importance of reason in the exposition of the fundamental
tenets of Islam was in accord with the Imami Shi'i rational
theology, in which reason was prior to both sources of revelation,
the Qur'an and the Sunnah. This does not mean that the
revelation was not regarded as all-comprehensive. However, it
was reason that acknowledged the comprehensiveness of the
revelation by engaging in its interpretation and discovering all
the principles that the believers needed to know. In addition,
there was recognition of a fundamental need of interpretation of
the revelation by reason, all the more so when the authority
invested with divine knowledge was in occultation. At any rate,
the decisive responsibility to guide the community by interpreting
revelation rationally needed authorization from a divine source,
a sort of designation to assume the wilaya similar to that which
was initiated at Ohadir Khum that could guarantee to Muslims
the availability of right guidance based on Islamic revelation.
Ostensibly, only such an authorized person could assume the
authority that accrued to the Imam as the rightful successor to
the Prophet. Moreover, only the investiture of the wilaya (which
reserved the right to demand obedience, depending on legal-rational
circumstances) and the assuming of political power
(qudra or saltana), which could exact or enforce obedience)
could establish the rule of justice and equity on earth, as
promised by the Islamic revelation.

In light of the above, the central position of the event at Ghadir
Khum for Islam becomes evident. The proclamation by the
Prophet on that occasion gave rise to the tension between the
ideal leadership promoted through the wilaya of Ali ibn Abi
Talib and the real one precipitated by human forces to suppress
the purposes of Allah on earth. The acknowledgement of the
validity of the declaration about the wilaya at Ghadir Khum, in
some sense, became the yardstick for measuring the true faith in
the divine promise for humanity. Consequently, the entire
theological question of qualified leadership to further the divine
plan and to enable Allah's religion to succeed must be seen from
the perspective of the Islamic promise of the creation of an
ethically just order on earth by the rightful possessor of the
wilaya. The relationship of the leadership (imama) and the
possession of the wilaya make it impossible to conceive an ideal
public order in Islam without this leadership being invested in
the person in whom the wilaya functions as a divine designation.
It was for this reason that in Imami Shi'ism the concept of
wilaya assumed a pivotal status as a precondition to the
establishment of the ideal public order based on the divine scale
of justice. However, it was important for the Imami theologians
to secure the Qur'anic origins of the doctrine of wilaya and
connect it with the notion of human obligation, the fulfillment
of which was regarded as necessary to attain prosperity in this
and the next world. At this point, let us turn our attention to the
tradition that was to become the cornerstone of the Imami
theory of political authority.

1 Abd al-Husayn Ahmad  al-Amini  al-Najafi, Al-Ghadir fi al-Kitab wa
al-Sunna wa al-Adab, vol 1, Beirut, 1967, P 9-11, and all the Sunni
and Shi'i sources cited therein. 
2 This is the meaning of the word the Qur'an applies so often to 
indicate the divine purpose in endowing humanity with guidance,
 namely, al-falah. Usually translated as 'prosperity,' falah signifies 
the good of both this and the next world for those who have
responded to the divine guidance.
3 fiqh in its early usage was not limited to legal jurisprudence. 
It dealt with doctrinal and credal matters connected with basic
Islamic beliefs, including the subject of Muslim authority after 
the Prophet's death. This early trend in fiqh writing continued
much later as is evidenced in many works of fiqh that were
written in the sixth/twelfth-thirteenth century which began with
a prologue on the main tenets of Islam. See article, Fiqh in 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition; also Introduction to my 
work: The Just Ruler in Shi'ite Islam: The Comprehensive
Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence, New York: 
Oxford University Press, 1988.