السلام عليكم to all
This is a counter response to br. Hani's response to my initial post that just came to my attention.
The second debate is happening here it seems:
http://www.shiachat.com/forum/topic/235030721-circular-reasoning-of-twelvers/page-2
Truth is, this is incorrect, we refute their interpretation not using the "Sunni understanding" but rather the understanding of the Arabs at the time. For the Arabs at the time, leadership (Imamah) did not mean what the Twelvers define Imamah to be. For the Arabs, leadership had nothing to do with a certain man's progeny aside from the rest of his tribe, nor that the leader is infallible, nor that a man has to be directly connected to god so that he may lead, nor that the leader has absolute religious authority because they had priests and men of religion to take care of that aspect (Those who took care of the Ka`bah).
So al-Hasan's argument falls when it is clear that no Arab in Jahiliyyah shares their view, and we know that this narration was aimed at the Arabs and it addressed the Arabs of that time
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly here so correct me if I didn't.
Nevertheless, are you asserting that the leadership should be understood based on how the Arabs traditionally understood it from their forefathers during the times of Jahliyah? If so, then this is not valid - due to the fact that whatever understanding of leadership that the Arabs before Islam had is irrelevant considering that Islam came to replace many aspects of their lives - including how they should establish the leadership according to Allah's command and not via their way that they traditionally inherited from their forefathers. In other words, Islam came to replace many aspects of the lives of the Arabs who lived in Jahliyah - whether it's on how to correctly eat and drink, worship Allah as well as how to acknowledge leadership from an Islamic perspective. Therefore, if the Khilafah from the Imami perspective(i.e the divine appointment of the Khalif) came to replace the form of leadership that they incorporated during the Jahilyah, then this form they incorporated during Jahiliyah and their understanding of it becomes redundant and insignificant since Islam came to abrogate it.
Moreover, if you instead meant that the understanding of leadership should be based on the Arabs after the coming of Islam, i.e the Sahaba, then this still doesn't all add up to some extent. This is considering that the Ansar at Saqifah initially believed they had a share in the Khilafah despite the fact that those same Ahadith state that the Khulafah of the twelve and the Khilafah in general is only from Quraysh. In other words, if the knowledge on the nature and form of Khalifah was firmly established among the companions - why then did some of the Ansar not consider that the Khilafah is only for Quraysh when they secretly arranged the Saqifa of Banu Sa'idah to appoint Sa'ad b. 'Ubadah as their leader? Otherwise, if you believe that they had knowledge of the leadership being restricted to Quraysh and insist on that, then you would be indirectly implying that they deliberately disobeyed the prophetص on that issue by arranging the Saqifa of Banu Sa'ida to appoint Sa'ad b. 'Ubadah as their leader.
Arabs understood Imamah the way we understand it, they didn't understand the unique Shiite definition of Imamah, heck some tribes asked the Prophet (saw) to grant them leadership after his death and in return they'll believe in his message but he refused, in other words they had no clue about the Shiite version of Immamah
That is correct. Similarly as stated in the Quran, just as Banu Israel initially asked to choose their own King to rule them but Allah corrected their questioning by informing them that only He chooses their leader. Likewise for some of the companions of the prophet who were not as aware on the Nass of the A'immah thought that anyone can have the right to become Khalif and were eventually corrected by the prophet. Also, among those companions who asked him were not even from Quraysh to begin with so clearly they had not been informed on the nature of the Khilafah as of yet from the time they asked the prophet. Not to mention that the Quranic narrative on Khilafah gives an understanding that the Khalif is always appointed by Allah, but never by the people - as I roughly explained on post# 75 of the SC Circular reasoning of Twelvers thread.
When the Prophet (saw) says that after him Islam will be fortified and strong during the rule of twelve chiefs, no Arab will understand what al-Hasan wrote above. Rather, they will think of what resembles a tribal leader
Now to the crux of the points raised by those three articles and specifically this one being the most critical:
http://twelvershia.net/2015/05/12/hadith-of-twelve-caliphs/"Islam will stay in a state of glory until the passing of twelve caliphs"
My issue with the standard Sunni understanding of those specific Ahadith containing the contexts you mentioned and the ones in the article is that arguably - this understanding of the can still be problematic from a Sunni perspective for Sunnis just as they can be for Imamis. In other words, assuming a Sunni viewpoint and considering Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali and Mau'wiyia to be among the 12 - I'm not convinced to believe that during the reign of some of these leaders where wide scales of civil wars occurred between the Muslims was a time of glory for the Muslim Ummah based on the Sunni understanding of what is implied by such glory in the contexts of this report. In fact, any orientalist that examined the historical events which occurred after the death of Uthman will argue that Islam from that point dramatically underwent into decline in it's progress and the affairs of the Muslims was much less in quality than it was during the time of the prophet. Ideally, a state of glory for the Islamic state would not have the first civil wars between Muslims take place in it, companions killing each other during wars(Siffen and Jamal) or one companion establishing his authority in Damascus(Mau'wiyia) while the other in Kufa('Ali) for the reason being that the one in Damascus refuses to give Bay'ah for the one Kufa due to some difference they had.
Nevertheless, it could be argued that a more acceptable understanding of the Hadith can be interpreted to mean that the glory of Islam that started from the time of the prophet will continue to pass down during the reign of those 12 Khulafah where they have passed down this glory by succeeding the prophet in his authority(i.e the glory being them acting as the Hujjah on earth - preserving the deen and passing it down to the succeeding Khalif without it being cut from any external factors where the Sunnah of the passed down completely becomes lost and not accessible for the future generations).
Also for any future responses, I will not be responding to them until after Shahr Ramadhan.
وعليكم السلام
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August 11, 2015, 02:14:26 PM