The Prophet halted the great mass of pilgrims returning from his last Hajj performance at a place called Ghadir Khumm, telling his companions that he had received a command from God to deliver a message to them. This divine message pertained to the accomplishment of a momentous obligation, one so great that if he did not carry this out, the Prophet would not have performed his duty. As the Qur'an says:
O Messenger, announce that which has been revealed to you from your Lord, and if you do not, then you have not conveyed His message. And Allah will protect you from the people. Indeed, Allah does not guide the disbelieving people. (Sura al-Ma'ida, 5:67)[1]
A pulpit was erected; he stood upon it and then proclaimed: 'Shortly, I shall be answering labbayk ['at Thy service'] to my Lord's call; what will you say of me?'
In reply, the people assembled said: 'We bear witness that you have conveyed unto us the religion of God; you wished only for our well-being, and you exerted yourself to the utmost. May God bestow the best of rewards upon you!
Then he asked: 'Do you testify to the Oneness of God, to my message, and the reality of the Day of Resurrection?'
All those present so testified. Then he said: 'I shall enter the Pool ( al-Kawthar) before you; take care how you treat two precious things that I am leaving behind.'
Someone asked what was meant by the 'two precious things'.
The Prophet replied: 'The one is the Book of God, and the other is my progeny. And God, the Subtle, the Aware, has told me that these two will not be separated until the Day of Judgement, when they shall join me. Do not come too close to these two things, lest you perish; and do not stray too far from them, lest you perish.'
Then he clasped the hand of 'Ali, raising it aloft, so that all could see the two hands together, and spoke as follows: 'O people, who has a greater claim?' [2] over the believers than their own souls?' They replied: 'God and His Messenger know best.' [The Prophet said:] 'Truly God is my master (Mawla) [3] and I am the master (mawla) of the believers, and I have a greater claim over them than their own souls.' Then he said three times: 'For whoever has me as his master (mawla), 'Ali is his master (mawla).'
Then he said: 'My Lord, be the friend of whoever is 'Ali's friend, and the enemy of whoever is 'Ali's enemy; love whoever loves him and hate whoever hates him; help whoever helps him and abandon whoever abandons him, wherever he may be. Let those who are present convey this to those who are absent.'
Then he clasped the hand of 'Ali, raising it aloft, so that all could see the two hands together, and spoke as follows: 'O people, who has a greater claim?' over the believers than their own souls?' They replied: 'God and His Messenger know best.' [The Prophet said:] 'Truly God is my master (Mawla) [3] and I am the master (mawla) of the believers, and I have a greater claim over them than their own souls.' Then he said three times: 'For whoever has me as his master (mawla), 'Ali is his master (mawla).'
The authenticity of the Hadith
The hadith of Ghadir is accounted mutawatir (most authenticated) being related by companions, the followers of the companions, and countless narrators of Hadith down through the ages. A total of 110 companions, 89 of those in the succeeding generation, and 3500 scholars of Hadith have transmitted this hadith, so there can be no question of disputing its authenticity. Also, a group of scholars have written books on this hadith, amongst which the one which brings together most comprehensively all the chains of transmission for the hadith is Sharif al-Ghadir, by 'Allama 'Abd al-Husayn Amini (1320-1390/ 1902-1970).
What is the meaning of Mawla?
At this point, we must address the question of what exactly is meant by the term mawla, in respect both of the Prophet and of 'Ali. There is considerable evidence to show that the meaning of this term is authority and leadership. We allude to some of this evidence below:
1. Upon the occasion of Ghadir, the Prophet halted the caravan of pilgrims at a place that had neither water nor pasture, In the middle of an extremely hot day. The heat was so intense that those present wrapped one part of their cloak over their heads and the other part beneath them, to protect themselves against the heat. In such circumstances, the halt must have signified that the Prophet meant to speak about a matter of the utmost importance for the guidance of the umma; a key address that was to affect the destiny of the community and indeed, what could be more crucial to the destiny of the umma than the issue of determining the successor to the Prophet, an, issue which, properly resolved, would be a source of unity for the Muslims and of the safeguarding of the community?
2. Before expressing 'Ali's status of wilaya, that is, his being made mawla, the Prophet spoke of the three principles of Tawhid; Prophecy and the Afterlife, eliciting from the Muslims acknowledgement that he had indeed conveyed the divine message. By associating his message with the elicited confession by the Muslims of these three principles, he indicated the importance of the message he was about to deliver, the momentous nature of the issue he was to raise; it could not be about something so trivial as a recommendation to be the 'friend' of some person.
Before expressing 'Ali's status of wilaya, that is, his being made mawla, the Prophet spoke of the three principles of Tawhid; Prophecy and the Afterlife, eliciting from the Muslims acknowledgement that he had indeed conveyed the divine message. By associating his message with the elicited confession by the Muslims of these three principles, he indicated the importance of the message he was about to deliver, the momentous nature of the issue he was to raise; it could not be about something so trivial as a recommendation to be the 'friend' of some person.
3. At the beginning of the discourse, the Prophet spoke of his impending death, thus indicating his concern over the state his umma would find itself in after his passing away. What could be more appropriate than providing for his followers a means of charting their course, according to his design, through the dangerous, stormy seas that lay before them?
4. Before conveying the divine message concerning 'Ali, he spoke of his own quality of being a mawla, his mawlawiyya, and his own precedence (awlawiyya), saying: 'God is my Mawla and I am the mawla of the believers, and I am closer to them than they are to their own selves.' This shows that. 'Ali's status as mawla derives from the same root as the mawlawiyya and awlawiyya of the Prophet; it is by divine decree, then, that 'Ali's awlawiyya was confirmed.
5. After conveying the message, the Prophet instructed those present to report it to those who were absent.
1. Scholars of Hadith and Qur'anic commentary have alluded to the descent of this verse after the end of the Prophet's final pilgrimage, on the day of Ghadir. See al-Suyuti, al-Durr al-manthur; vol. 2, p. 298; al¬Shawkani, Fath, al-qadir, vol. 2, p. 5 7, 'Ali b. 'Isa al-Arbali, Kashf al-ghima fi ma'rifat al-a'imma, (Beirut, 1985), p. 94; al-Qanduzi, yanabi' al-muwadda, p. 120; Rashid Rida, Tafsir al-manar, (Cairo, 1954), vol. 6, p. 463; and others.
2. The Arabic word here is awla, which literally means 'closest' but in the present context it is, rather, the sense of 'claim upon' or 'right over' that the author wishes to stress. The Qur'an has the sentence, 'al-nabiyy awla bi'l-muiminin. min anfusihim' (xxxIII:6), which can be translated as 'the Prophet is closer to ( or: has a greater claim upon) the believers than their own selves.'
3. Mawla has a range of connotations, spiritual and temporal, over which much debate and dispute has taken place. The author goes into the question of the meaning of the term below. It is difficult to translate it by one word, since it combines the ideas of 'master' and 'protector' with those of 'nearest' and 'dearest'.
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