In the name of Allah,
Salam
Essential introduction: Does it make sense for the Prophet [saw] to appoint anyone, and is the timing of Ghadeer in coherence with this?
The noble Sahabi of the Messenger of Allah (saw), Salman al-Farsi (Radiyallahu anhu) once was involved in the following exchange with a polytheist:
عَنْ سَلْمَانَ قَالَ قَالَ لَنَا الْمُشْرِكُونَ إِنِّي أَرَى صَاحِبَكُمْ يُعَلِّمُكُمْ حَتَّى يُعَلِّمَكُمْ الْخِرَاءَةَ فَقَالَ أَجَلْ إِنَّهُ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ نَهَانَا أَنْ يَسْتَنْجِيَ أَحَدُنَا بِيَمِينِهِ أَوْ يَسْتَقْبِلَ الْقِبْلَةَ وَنَهَى عَنْ الرَّوْثِ وَالْعِظَامِ وَقَالَ لَا يَسْتَنْجِي أَحَدُكُمْ بِدُونِ ثَلَاثَةِ أَحْجَارٍ
“Salman reported: The idolaters said, “Indeed, your companion teaches you everything, even he teaches you how to defecate!” Salman said, “It is so. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, prohibited us from removing excrement using the right hand, or while facing the direction of prayer. The Prophet prohibited us from using dung or bones to do so, and he said not to use less than three stones.” [Saheeh Muslim]
If the Messenger of Allah did not neglect even teaching the Muslims how many stones to use after answering the call of nature, would he have completely ignored the very pertinent issue of who was to occupy the enormous religious, political and social power vacuum he was to leave behind to a fairly young and nascent Muslim community?
If we look to the countries and their political systems in the modern day and age, we find extreme care and diligence pertaining to smooth transition of power. In America, the next president is chosen while the current one remains in power. The president themselves have a vice president (VP), who is to take power in the event the president dies. If the both the president and his VP die, there is a clear line of succession in place. It doesn’t end here, and contingencies are in place to such an extent, that if the president, his VP and every individual in the line of succession were to die, an individual known as the ‘designated president’ assumes power temporarily, and this person is not allowed to be gathered in the same place as the others when they are gathered together, but is placed in a secure physical location. Consider the care given here to ensure the country does not remain without a president.
The Prophet [saw] knew full well of the perils of dying without addressing the issue of leadership after him. Indeed, he was aware that many tribes had not truly embraced Islam, some not doing so at all, and hypocrites were prevalent in Mecca and even Medina itself seeking to use his death as an opportunity to rebel, apostate and cause rebellion. So much was the Prophet [saw] concerned about insuring there was always a system of order that he left Ali ibn Abi Talib behind in charge of Medina when he made for the battle of Tabouk at the very end of his life, so as to ensure there would be order and the hypocrites would not take advantage of the death of Muhammed [saw]. No-one can deny that Muhammed [saw] constantly grieved for his Ummah and pondered over how to solve the many issues that plagued it. He was so stringent in even neglecting small matters, that it is not befitting on him to claim he ignored one of the most pertinent issues of all – which is leadership after him. Would he not have thus been mindful of ensuring that he dealt with the matter of who would replace him?
For sake of argument, even if he did not need to appoint a person himself and rather wanted some among the muslims to do so under a Shurah, would it not make sense for him to set out the conditions for this consultation and possibly also have it done during his own life time, so that the muslims could choose and receive his blessing and know full well who would be the one to lead after him? Perhaps he could define the members to be allowed in the Shurah – as Umar ibn Al Khattab did, and set key conditions which Umar ibn Al Khattab had done.
It is pertinent here to note that the declaration of Ghadeer took place shortly before the death of the Prophet [saw]. If there was ever a time to make an absolute declaration of this manner pertaining to leadership and successorship, what better time then to do it before he was about to pass away?
Context – Part one
[1] Did the Prophet [saw] not deliver his message to the ‘majority’ of muslims who were from the regions of Mecca or were south of Mecca in T’aif, or Yemen, as well as Oman, Najran, Bahrain or Kufa who would thus have not travelled northwards on the way to Medina after the completion of Hajj?
One of the key contentions used against the Shia perspective of the declaration of Ghadeer Khumm being an appointment of Ali ibn Abi Talib as the successor of Muhammed [saw] is that it was done in the absence of many of the muslims who either resided in Makkah, or were south of Makkah in T’aif, or Yemen, Oman, Najran, and Kufa among other places. They therefore contend that if the Shia narrative were to be true, the Prophet ought to have made the declaration in Makkah where all the Muslims were gathered before dispersing. While the ones travelling north of Mecca may well have followed the Prophet [saw] , this would not be the case for those from Yemen, T’aif, or Oman.
In order to address this, we must first gain a holistic understanding of the geographical and historical realities surrounding the various regions of Arabia.
Yemen with districts such as [San’aa, Ma’rib, Al-Jund, Hamdhaan, Zama, Zabeed, Jarsh, Hadramaut, As-Sakaasik and As-Sukoon]
The Messenger of Allah [saw] has sent Khalid ibn Walid to Yemen in order to try to bring order to it and invite them towards Islam. Khalid ibn Walid had failed in his attempt to try to gain victory in Yemen and Ali ibn Abi Talib was instead sent in his place to try to secure a victory [which he did] and then immediately join the Prophet [saw] for Hajj. Thus, those in Yemen would have been very freshly converted , almost immediately before the Hajj season.
During the life of Muhammed [saw] himself, one of the first regions to apostate was Yemen, led by the dominant tribe in the region known as the Ans, whose leader was the self-proclaimed prophet ‘Al-Aswad’. In fact, when they had heard of his death, there were further rebellions from Yemen. While there may well have been many genuine converts from Yemen, they would have had a very limited representation in the Hajj -if at all- given the fact they had only just converted immediately before the Hajj season as well as harboured many hypocrite tribes who were dominant in the region who may only have converted for their own safety and political motivations. Yemen was also one of the last regions during the life time of the Prophet [saw] to have rebelled and resisted Islam.
T’aif
Another major location south of Mecca is the region of T’aif. This was also one of the very last regions to be conquered , and the inhabitants of this city have a particularly poignant history with the Prophet [saw]. It was in T’aif where the prophet [saw] had sought to find a better place to spread Islam after the hostility he faced in Mecca, and was met there with ridicule and pelted with stones and chased away. Furthermore, among those who fought the Prophet [saw] at Hunayn, one of his last major batles, were warriors of the Saqif tribe in Ta’if. After the loss in Hunayn, they had fled back to their land and built strong forts and protections to repel any attack from the muslims. If one studies what occurred in the battle of T’aif they will see that the enemies managed to inflict damage on the muslims, and that despite some success, there was no conclusive victory here.
Ibn Hisham states:“As the Muslims camp was just within the range of arrows shot from the rampart of Taif, the Prophet (peace be upon him) transferred it to another side of the city. The siege continued for some twenty-five to thirty nights during which the two opponents fought tooth and nail to get the better of one another as they traded a barrage of arrows. The Prophet , used for the first time catapults in the siege of Taif whose ingress and egress were completely blocked. The arrows shot by the enemy took its toll on the lives of several Muslims.” (Ibn Hisham, Vol. II, pp. 478-83) Thus, at the very end of the life of the Prophet [saw], T’aif still remained a region which harboured those who hated Islam, and the Prophet [saw], who had expelled him during his early years and sent soldiers to fight him in Hunayn. The conclusion was a inconclusive battle at T’aif not long before the last pilgrimage. Thus, T’aif was far from a region containing a stronghold of muslims like in Medina, which by far contained the most of any city.
Najran
It is due to a lack of geopolitical and historical context that one assumes it had any sizeable muslim following, at least during the period of the farewell Hajj. Najran is a region south of Mecca and Yemen, and was the home to a christian community who famously had almost entered into a Mubahila with the Prophet [saw] in the very last year of his life, and a short period before the farewell hajj. They had decided not to go through with the Mubahila [mutual invocation of Gods curse on the wrongdoers]. Upon seeing the Prophet [saw] bringing Ali ibn Abi Talib, Fatima, Hasan and Hussain and instead the region submitted to the Prophet [saw] and paid the Jizya tax and were thus now under the protection of the muslims. This christian dominant region would not have had many muslims at this time in any sense.
Oman
Oman is a region that is to the south-east of Mecca and again one of the very last regions to have submitted to Islam. Furthermore, very shortly after the death of the Prophet [saw] Oman , dominated by the tribe of Azd, rebelled under their chief Laqeet bin Malik . This is hardly compelling evidence for the piety, spread, and strength of Islam in this region. Like Yemen and T’aif, it had only succumbed during the very last year or so of the life of the Prophet [saw], and additionally contained either very newly converted muslims or dominant groups of hypocrites and those that politically submitted but certainly not religiously owing to the large hypocrite rebellion by the main tribes.
Kufa, Syria and other locations
Though many Sunni’s writing on this matter have rightly pointed out that Kufa did not embrace Islam until after the death of the Prophet [saw], suffice to say many have also added this region in. Unfortunately, this is an error on part of many refutations on Ghadeer – they often do not fully appreciate the geographic and historical contexts.
Conclusion for part I
It has been clearly demonstrated that the regions of Yemen, Oman, T’aif and Najran only submitted very shortly after the farewell Hajj, and staunchly opposed the Prophet [saw], and even then only surrendered as a last resort. Most of not all of these regions contained a large number of continuing hostile tribes many of whom rebelled after his death. As for Kufa [though it is not south], Islam had not yet touched that region. Thus, those muslims who were anywhere south of Mecca would have only comprised of a small fraction of the total present during the farewell Hajj rather than being a large percentage. A number of that fraction may also have contained hypocrites. A special section has been devoted specifically for Mecca, as it is a region which requires an deeper analysis which will be covered later, inshAllah as well as analysing the role of the hypocrites during Hajj and why the Messenger of Allah [saw] may have opted not to deliver it in Makkah.
[II] What was the rank and role of these later converts to Islam [From Mecca , T’aif, Yemen, Oman, and other regions] in preserving the Sunnah?
The companions according to an authoritative view are graded into several ranks otherwise known as Tabaqat and the sunni scholar Al-Hakim has graded the Sahaba into twelve ranks – his opinion being taken as the correct one. The highest rank given are those who entered Islam in Makkah itself, and the ones in-between consist of the companions who converted before the migration, or reached him before he entered Medina, followed by the Ansaar among other ranks. The penultimate rank is given to those who embraced Islam on the day of the conquest of Mecca and the lowest rank to those who embraced Islam after the Arab conquests in the last year or so of the life of the Prophet [saw]. Thus, when it comes to rank and closeness, as well as companionship to the prophet [saw] those who accepted islam and were from Yemen, Oman, T’aif would be included in the lowest ranks.
This is not to claim they are not respected by Sunni’s, rather this focuses on their impact on their contribution to preserving the traditions of the Prophet [saw]. In recognition that these later converts to Islam generally had a much lower impact and a far less influential role than the Muhajiroon and the Ansaar [Those of Medina] a term has been given for these later converts who converted after the conquest of Mecca as well as the Arab conquests which subsequently followed it which was termed “Mu’alafati Quloobuhum” . The sunni scholar Al-Saghani [d.650] compiled a list of narrations and their number according to Ibn Hazm for each of the members who have narrated a tradition from the “Mu’alafati Quloobuhum.” Of the 42 narrators of hadith listed, only four of them narrated more than one tradition, some narrated one and the majority narrated none at all.
Therefore it is clearly evident those who converted at the conquest of Makkah and the Arab conquests after had seen the Prophet [saw] far less, and had almost little to no direct influence in transmitting his Sunnah as far as allegedly reporting for him goes. The importance of this will be expanded in the following section regarding the converts of Makkah.
[III] Should the Prophet [saw] have given the declaration in Makkah?
Following on from analysing the contention as to why the declaration of Ghadeer Khumm was not delivered at Hajj when all the muslims could be present, but rather when he had made his way out of Mecca and in-between Mecca and Medina, a very revealing tradition on this matter can be found in the Saheeh of Imam Bukhari.
“I used to teach (the Qur’an to) some people of the Muhajirln (emigrants), among whom there was `Abdur Rahman bin `Auf. While I was in his house at Mina, and he was with `Umar bin Al-Khattab during `Umar’s last Hajj, `Abdur-Rahman came to me and said, “Would that you had seen the man who came today to the Chief of the Believers (`Umar), saying, ‘O Chief of the Believers! What do you think about so-and-so who says, ‘If `Umar should die, I will give the pledge of allegiance to such-and such person, as by Allah, the pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr was nothing but a prompt sudden action which got established afterwards.’ `Umar became angry and then said, ‘Allah willing, I will stand before the people tonight and warn them against those people who want to deprive the others of their rights (the question of rulership). `Abdur-Rahman said, “I said, ‘O Chief of the believers! Do not do that, for the season of Hajj gathers the riff-raff and the rubble, and it will be they who will gather around you when you stand to address the people. And I am afraid that you will get up and say something, and some people will spread your statement and may not say what you have actually said and may not understand its meaning, and may interpret it incorrectly, so you should wait till you reach Medina, as it is the place of emigration and the place of Prophet’s Traditions, and there you can come in touch with the learned and noble people, and tell them your ideas with confidence; and the learned people will understand your statement and put it in its proper place.’ On that, `Umar said, ‘By Allah! Allah willing, I will do this in the first speech I will deliver before the people in Medina.”
The above tradition is so remarkably similar to the situation the Prophet [saw] was in. The caliph of the time, Umar ibn Al Khattab, wishes to make a declaration regarding successorship and warning people about an issue pertaining to it in the Hajj season itself. Rather than giving the speech at Hajj, he is advised by Abdur Rahman bin Auf that the Hajj will gather people from all around Arabia and the other conquered lands, and that rather, he should make this important statement in Medina, where the prophets traditions were preserved and were Islam had gain a true stronghold. Furthermore he warned that people at Hajj from different regions were far weaker with regards to understanding, comprehending, and upholding the true meanings and intentions of the Sunnah and putting statements in their proper place. Umar ibn Al Khattab seemed to accept and agree with this advice, and waited only until Medina to give his very important speech.
Abdur Rahman bin Auf was also correct in his assertion, given that the “Mu’alafati Quloobuhum’ who converted at the day of the conquest of Mecca and after had very little if at all any contribution to reporting from the Prophet [saw] and having the same role in the traditions of the Prophet and an understanding of the religion.
Furthermore one must also consider that by the time of Umar ibn Al Khattab, many of the apostate tribes of Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, T’aif and other regions had been dealt with in the Ridda wars. Furthermore, Islam had been in these lands for at least a decade, if not more than this. Despite this, Umar ibn Al Khattab is still worried about hypocrites from Mecca and those of surrounding regions in Arabia not putting his statement in its proper place and misinterpreting it and causing mischief. Undoubtedly, the situation was far more grave at the time of the Prophet [saw] where Mecca had barely just been taken, and the neighbouring regions of Yemen,Ta’if and other such places had only just been conquered or had been fought with to submission, still harbouring hypocrites who would en-masse apostate.
If Umar Ibn Al Khattab and other senior companions such as Abdurahman Ibn Awf could recognise the problematic nature of making certain proclamations in Mecca during the Hajj season when all had gathered, pertaining to the issue of leadership itself, at a time when Islam had more time to grow in these lands and hypocrites had been generally dealt with, why could the Prophet [saw] also not desire and seek to to likewise, at a time when the situation was far graver?
In fact, we find in Saheeh Shia narrations that the Prophet [saw] indeed was worried about those who were hypocrites, or those who would claim he is lying, or turn away. Though this is of no value to sunni’s, it merely confirms that Shia’s have original and reliable sources which confirm rational sense, historical context, and the very same worry is echoed in Sahhih Bukhari by Abdurahman ibn Awf and agreed upon by Umar ibn Al Khattab. The following is from Al Kafi and is a Saheeh [Authentic] hadith:
“Allāh commanded Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم) that he explains to them al-Wilāyah like he has explained to them al-Salāh, al-Zakāh, al-Sawm, al-Hajj. So when this came to him from Allāh, He tightened with that the Messenger of Allāh’s (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم) chest, and he became frightened that people will apostate from their religion and they would (accuse) him of lying, and his chest became tightened, and he (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم) returned to his Lord (عَزَّ وَ جَلَّ), and Allāh (عَزَّ وَ جَلَّ) revealed (wahy) to him – ‘O Messenger, convey what is revealed to you from your Lord. If you do not do so, it will be as though you have not conveyed My message. Allāh protects you from men.’ (5:67). So he (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم) executed the command of Allāh (تعالى), and he mentioned and established the wilāyah of `Alī (عليه السلام) on the day of Ghadīr, and he called for a congregational salāh and commanded the people to convey what they witnessed to the absentees (i.e. convey the news of Wilāyah of `Alī to those who are not present)”
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September 21, 2014, 11:12:03 PM