Hmmmmm!

Bismillahi Al-Rahman Al-Raheem

Another proof for the fallacy of wisaya is what Ali -Raa- said to Abu Bakr -Raa- regarding the Bay�a: �"We know well your superiority and what Allah has given you, and we are not jealous of the good that Allah has bestowed upon you, but you did not consult us in the question of the rule and we thought that we have got a right in it because of our near relationship to Allah's Apostle.� One notices that Ali (ra) did not make any reference to the declaration at Ghadeer Khum! He even said: �we thought that we have got a right in it because of our near relationship to Allah's Apostle�; thus rendering the issue of his Khilafa to a supposition. Furthermore, if Abu Bakr�s Khilfa was illegitimate, if he was usurper of Ali�s -Raa- legitimate right to Imamate, then Ali would not refet to Abu Bakr�s -Raa- Khilafa as a �good that Allah has bestowed upon� Abu Bakr. Rather in this case it would be evil. The Prophet pbuh said: �Beware! If ever I give (by error) somebody something of his brother's right then he should not take it as I have only, given him a piece of Fire.� This is with regards to worldly matters; one�s camel or date tree so you could imagine how worse is the case with Khilafa!!

Also, Ali was late in given Bay�a for six months. This is either a correct action or a wrong action. If it was a correct action, then Ali should continue to refrain from giving Bay�a to Abu Bakr as he did in the first six months.

What about Ghadeer Khum?

In the Arabic language the word "mawla" has many different meanings:

Ibn Al-Atheer said: the term "mawla" has been repeatedly used in Hadith. He said: It is a name given to a large group: it is the master, the owner, the sayyid, the one bestowing a favour, the one who has freed a slave, the one who loves , the one who supports in war / disputes ,the neighbour, the follower , the cousin , the one who is part of a pact , the leader , the son in-law, the one freed , and the one whom the favour is bestowed upon. He said: "and all of these have been used in Hadith and the meaning should be used based on the context and every person who takes a responibility is a mawla and wali"

The term mawla has also been mentioned in the Quran:

������� ������� ���� ��������� ����������� ��������� �������������� ���������������� ������ ������ �������


And as you can notice, if we were to define "mawla" as "ameer" then the Believers cannot be the Ameers of the Prophet . Rather it means friends , backers which is opposite to enemy.

Furthermore, the Prophet did not leave any doubt for the meaning of the word mawla in his speech at Ghadeer Khum, for immediately after declaring that Ali as the mawla of the believers , the next phrase in his speech is " O Allah be mawla to his mawla and be enemy to his enemy". And as one might notice the Prophet used mawla in the speech to be the antonym of enemy.

The speech of the Prophet is self explanatory , one need note be an expert in the Arabic language to figure out what the Prophet meant by the word "mawla".

The background behind this statement

Narrated Imran Ibn Husayn (ra) : The Messenger of Allah pbuh sent an expedition and made Ali Ibn Abi Talib (ra) a leader over them. Ali (ra) proceeded in the expedition and took a young woman (i.e from the spoils of the war), so they (i.e people in his army) considered this wrong from him and four of the companions of the Messenger of Allah pbuh agreed to inform the Prophet pbuh of what Ali did.

Imran continued: and whenever Muslims came from a journey they would start with the Messenger of Allah pbuh, they would look at him , greet him and then move to their belongings. When the expedition arrived they greeted the Messenger of Allah pbuh. Then one of the four (companions) said: "O Messenger of Allah! Did you not know that Ali has done such and such?!" So he (i.e the Prophet pbuh) turned away from him. And then the second stood up and said the same thing and he turned away from him, and then the third stood up and said the same thing and he turned away from him , and then the fourth stood and said: " O Messenger of Allah! Did you not know that Ali has done such and such?! The Messenger of Allah pbuh turned towards him with anger in his face and said: "What do you want from Ali?! Ali is from me and I from him. He is the wali (friend) of every believer" [Al-Hakim]

As can be seen by the actions of the Sahaba who showed enmity towards Ali (ra), the Prophet pbuh meant by this wilaya / muwala which is the opposite of enmity. This expedtion took place when the Prophet pbuh used to be in Hajj. The same notion was expressed by the Prophet pbuh after Hajj ,at Ghadeer Khum on his way back to Medina were the people who had shown enmity to Ali (ra) resided. Had the Prophet pbuh entended this to be a declaration of Ali's Imamate he would have certainly declared it at Mount Arafa' infront of the whole pilgrims who came from all over the Arabian penninsula and not have limited it to the inhabitants of Medina.

Even if one was to ignore the context of the Prophet�s pbuh speech the interpretation of mawla as leader is nonsense. How can the Prophet pbuh declare that �Whoever I am his leader then Ali is his leader� , and every Muslim knows that in the lifetime of the Prophet pbuh he was the one and only leader of Muslims and nobody else was the leader of Muslims!! The Khilafa of Ali , whether a Muslim says he deserved immediately or after some time, happened only after the death of the Prophet pbuh.

Also if the Prophet�s pbuh intended Khilafa by saying �whoever I am a mawla of his, then Ali is (also) a mawla of his�, then this will be known to all people especially the Ansar. Those who narrated this hadith from amongst the Ansar are many: Anas , Abu Saeed, Zayd Ibn Arqam, Abu Ayub, and Al-Bara. At the beginning, the Ansar were not in agreement with the Muhajirs in the selection of a Khalif after the Prophet�s pbuh death, they have gathered in Saqifa to make Baya to Saad Ibn Ubada. If one would accept the ill-minded thinking of the 12ers and think bad of the Sahaba, then one would say that the Ansars ignored this hadith which declares Ali�s Imamate to favour an Ansari leader. Since this did not happen and the Khilafa shifted to the Muhajirs, there is no reason for the Ansars to deny Ali�s Khilafa, if this is really what is meant by mawla in this hadith. Ansars made refuge for the Prophet pbuh in hi lifetime, they have fought all the surrounding Arab tribes for his sake, they have fought their allies of Jahiliya , the Jews, for his sake. They have spent their wealth, their lives for his sake. They have endangered their city, their families, their properties, their wealth, and their children for the sake of defending the Prophet pbuh. What stops them from doing the same for the sake of his wasi, his legitimate successor?! This is impossible. Hence, the word �mawla� in this hadith can only mean friendship / support / help which is the opposite of enmity.

Al-Razi said regarding tafseer of the verse: �This day are those who disbelieve in despair of (ever harming) your religion; so fear them not, fear Me! This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed My favour unto you, and have chosen for you as religion Al-Islam�:

�Our friends said: This verse is a proof for the invalidity of the Rafidites saying. This is because He � tala � has made it clear that the Kafirs are in despair of changing the religion. The emphasis is made in His saying (so fear them not, fear Me!). If the Imamate of Ali (ra) was explicitly dictated by Allah � tala � and by His Messenger pbuh through an explicit statement that is obligatory for everybody to follow, then the one wishing to change it or hide it would be in despair according to this verse. This means that none of the Sahabah would be able to deny this explicit statement nor would a report or tradition be known of it. So we know that the claim for the existence of such an explicit statement is a lie and that Ali Ibn Abi Talib (ra) was not explicitly declared as an Imam�

Your asking for reference as if you can check them. But i will help you little and quote some of the authentic references and you will see in which context the prophet said  "man kuntu mawlah fa ali mawlah". Shia always quote fabricated and manipulated versions about ghader.

Imran ibn Hasin related a genuine tradition He said: "The Messenger of Allah raised and sent
  an army under the command of Ali b. Abi Talib. From the
  khums (one fifth of the share) received by him, Ali set
  aside a slave girl for himself. This was distasteful to
  some of his men and four of them decided to complain of
  this to the Prophet, Allah's blessing and peace be upon
  him and his posterity. On their return they approached
  the Prophet (pbuh&hf) and one of them stood up and said:
  O Messenger of Allah! Do you not see that Ali did so
  and so? The Prophet (pbuh&hf) turned away his face from
  him. Still another man stood up and repeated what his
  two colleagues had said and met the same reaction. Then
  the fourth man stood up and spoke like his predecessors.
  The Prophet, Allah's blessings and peace be upon him and
  his posterity, then turned to them with the signs of
  anger of his face and said: What do you want me to do
  with 'Ali? Surely, Ali is from me and I am from him, and
  after me he is the master of all the faithful. "-Musnad, Ahmad Hanbal, vol. 4 p. 438 Caption

similar tradition to the above are found in 1)Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, p. 650. 2)Tabari, The Last Years of the Prophet, IX, p. 111. 3) Mustadrak, Hakim, vol. 11 p. 11, and al Dhahabi in his. Talkhis al Mustadrak, admits its genuiness according to the
  standard set by Muslim.

Salaam

I was waiting to have a little more time in order to go through Ali Zaki's posts. So let us see what we have got here....

Ali Zaki says:

Please read your own books and you will find that some of the companions were good, and some of them were evil.

This is not an allegation that can only be leveled against us Sunnis. In the case of Shias, there are so many evidences of the majority of the followers of the Imaams in some cases not even being aware of the basic tenets of Shiaism, even though such issues should have been ingrained in the minds of the followers of the Imaams.

Also, the Shia see no problem in reporting whichever Hadeeth even from the "evil Companions" if it is favor of their arguments. So we need to know exactly what is the problem with an "evil Companion" if his statements are taken as true evidence ???

Besides the Shia allegation is not that "some of the Companions were good and some were bad" but that the overwhelming majority of them were bad save for 10 or 15 of them (and even in these cases, if we look at Shia scholars claims about some of these 10 or 15, still there would be some problems with them).

SEE ALSO

http://www.al-islam.org/ask/ (written by a former Sunni scholar)

Mister Tijani Samawi could not have been a "Sunni scholar" by any stretch of the imagination. My sister, at the age of 11, already knew things about Islaam that Tijani found out only after "ardous research". There are many examples of this in his other books, but it is obvious that his conversion is not really much different from that of other people to Shiism. His claim to have been a "Sunni scholar" is laughable, to say the very least.

OR, if you have a little time, this will certainly be sufficient

http://al-islam.org/murajaat/index.htm

Another farce. There is absolutely no way that 112 letters could have changed hands between Egypt and Syria in the space of 180 days in the years 1910-1911, simply because the mailing service was not so fast, nor is it so fast even today. There was no MSN Messenger or Paltalk back then, so I do not know how this discussion could have taken place in the time frame as claimed.

The following Ayat, which was the last Ayat of the Quran was revealed immediately after the decleration of Ghadir.

" Today I have perfected for you your religion, completed for you My bounty, and chosen Islam for you as religion. (5:3)"

According to Shia Aalims, this portion of Verse 5:3 was not the last Ayat of the Quran, but other Ayats were also revealed after this. ( I am not saying this is the

Sunni view, but since Ali Zaki is a Shia, I am going along with his scholars).

As we know, the hadith of Ghadir includes the statement that,

" O you people! Know it well that Jibril came down to me several times bringing me orders from the Lord, the Merciful, that I should halt at this place and inform every man, white and black, that 'Ali, the son of Abu Talib, is my brother and my wasiyy (successor) and my caliph".

If the statement is correct and Jibril came to the Prophet "several times" ordering him to stop before the Prophet actually did, then by logic we would have to admit that the Prophet disobeyed Allah "several times"  before Allah warned him of the consequences if he did not obey. This is simply not acceptable to the Sunni mind, since no Companion should be made a vehicle for blaming the Prophet of point-blank disobeying Allah on "several occasions".

Besides, the hadith of Ghadeer as seen by the Shias is quite different than the hadeeth of Ghadeer as reported in Sunni sources. Ali Zaki gave us 19 Sunni traditionists and tried to show us that they have authenticated the same lenghty Ghadeer Hadeeth as reported by Shias. Since Ali Zaki has brought forward the books where these

Sunni traditionists have authenticated this Hadeeth, perhaps he can show us the page numbers and the exact comments these Sunni scholars used in saying this Hadeeth is Saheeh. If such is not the case, then perhaps Ali Zaki can show us what portion of the Ghadeer Hadeeth was accepted by them, so that we can in all fairness know exactly what these Sunni scholars said.

I don't understand your statement " If the prophet(saw) wanted to declare Ali as caliph he could have done that during the Hajj on the day of Arafa and not after."

The reason for us to make this statement is clear: The Shia claim that Ghadeer was the place where the Prophet could have a chance to address all the Muslims and inform them of his nomination of Ali as his succesor. This is wrong on many accounts:

1. Ghadeer was not a place where all Muslims would pass through, but only the portion of them that would take the road to the north of Makkah. There is absolutely no reason why the Muslims living in Makkah, or Yemen, or the areas to the south and east of Makkah, or closer than the 210 km distance between Ghadeer Khum and Makkah (such as the Muslims in Taif), would have to travel 6 days in the direction opposite to their destination, only to come back later along the same trail, a brainless act that would make them waste 11-12 days of their supplies.

2. The congregation of all Muslims for Hajj happens in Makkah, not in Ghadeer Khumm or any other place. It is more than obvious that any leader who wants to make an important statement about himself, his movement, etc., would choose the moment and place where all his followers are able to listen to his words. Ghadeer is not this place by a longshot, and it is obviously not almost 6 days after the Hajj is finished and many people are already back in their homes.

Putting aside further academic research, doesn't it seem to be logical that "Today" is refering to the day and the perfection, bounty and completion are the descriptive adjective refering to the important event that occured on the day which is referenced.

Was there anything else that may have occured on that day which would meet all these qualification (i.e., perfection, bounty and completion of the religion)?

To further support this

Ibn Jarir, on the authority of Qubaysah ibn Abi Dhu'ayb that he said: Ka'b said: "Had this verse been revealed on other than this community, they would have taken

the day of its revelation as a feast in which they meet."! Then 'Umar said: O Ka'b, which verse you mean? He replied: "This day have I perfected your religion for you

." 'Umar said: I know the day and place in which it was revealed... that was on Friday, on 'Arafat Day, and both of them are celebrated by us as a feast, thanks to Allah.

As I had mentioned before Arafat Day is the 9th of Dhul-Hijjah, while the Shia claim that this Verse was revealed on the 18th of Dhul-Hijja. Thus this report, if taken as correct, is actually in total contradiction to the entire story of Ghadeer as presented by the Shia, and would destroy the Shia arguments right from the beginning. The "today" would be a different day, and the occasion would obviously be a different occasion. Also, do note that according to Shia Imami belief, the Imaams have every authority to override and legally change what Prophet Muhammad had said (because they are maasoms and they are Prophets all but in name), so I do not know how the religion can be "perfected and completed" while the duties of Prophethood are being performed by people after the Muhammad's death.

I appreciate your feedback, however, you have not answered any of my questions.

About the issue of Haroon and Musa, I had already said that Haroon was not Musa's succesor after his death. As a matter of fact, Haroon died before Musa, so the issue never came up anyway. If the Prophet repeatedly mentioned this Hadeeth of "Haroon and Musa" without being aware of this, then the Shia are accusing the Prophet that he was not aware that the most obvious and important similitude to be proved by way of this statement never took place at all.

If the assertion is that Haroon was Musa's deputy while Musa was absent, then this is correct, but in those cases Musa was still the "Imaam" over his people, because he had not died yet. And in such cases, we would have to see each and every single person the Prophet had appointed as a leader for an expedition, or in his absence, or for a military campaign, etc. (all the cases when the Prophet was not present with a group of Muslims).

If you saw that 'mawla' means something else, then what? If you believe that the prophet was masoom (sinless), then he could not declare something that would only be a source of confusion and discord (namely that both the prophet (a.s.) and Imam Ali (a.s.) were concurrent Imams).

If the purpose of the verse was to convey some limited authority given to Imam Ali (a.s), would not the time limit for that authority have been specified?

Well, we are working with what has been reported from the Prophet. If "mawla" means "Imaam", then the conclusion is that both the Prophet and Ali were concurrent Imaams, because of the way the phrase was uttered. Just to make it simple, let us substitute "mawla" with "Imaam", then we have: "man kuntu Imaaman fa Ali Imaamun", and the phrase would be extremely clear, that both are Imaams at the same time.

This also comes into account on view of no time limit being specified, since there is no "after me" or any other statement as far as this Hadeeth is concerned, and considering that the Prophet is maasom, he surely knew what choice of words he was making. If Umar's and Abu Bakr's congratulation is meant to mean that they recognized him as the "Imaam of the time", then we have a huge problem in here as far as Imami Shia theology is concerned.

By the way, if 'mawla' does not mean 'imam', how about 'Amir al Mumminin' (which is what Omar and Abu Bakr called Imam Ali (a.s.) after the decleration).

Ali Zaki had showed us the previous Hadeeth, where Abu Bakr and Umar congratulated Ali. The title "Amir ul Muminin" did not occur there. Perhaps Ali Zaki can give us the Arabic text for us to see whether Umar, etc. used the title "Amir ul Muminin" in this case.

I am sure that Ali Zaki will object to many of the things presented here. Insha Allah we can further see into it as necessary.

ONE MORE POINT, AND THEN I HAVE TO GET BACK TO WORK!

"The Shia see no problem in reporting whichever Hadeeth even from the "evil Companions" if it is favor of their arguments. "

If the Shia were to quote only hadith from those sources they consider reliable, then there would be no basis for dialogue. The reason is we would each spend all our time criticizing the line of transmission and saying "we don't accept him as reliable" and the other would say "We don't accept him.", etc.

The Shia are quoting from your sources so that the traditions (hadith) quoted will be acceptable to you, not because the narrators are considered reliable to the Shia. Although, of couse, their are many narrators that are accepted by both Sunni and Shia, and the tradions (hadith) themselves are considered to be true by both sources.

Salam alakum wa rahmatullah hewah barakatuh