The Khilafa of Sayyidina Ali - The Mortal Choice

There'd always been a kind of understanding that there was an informal betrothal between the two of them. It was an obvious thing. They'd grown up together and there was a real affinity and mutual respect.

But Ali, it seems, had always been ashamed formally to ask for her hand because he was really poor. But the Holy Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) brought it about. And there was a wedding feast. The Prophet donated a ram which was sacrificed. Aisha made the house ready.

And then another kind of initiatic moment. The Holy Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) says to Um Ayman, bring some water. And she brings some water in a dish. And he takes some into his mouth and then he spits it back into the water. And then after the marriage has taken place, he calls for Ali.

And Ali sits in front of him. And the Holy Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) takes some of this water and places it on his head and on his chest and on his shoulders. And then he calls Fatima and she comes in. And the hadith even narrates that she was in such awe of her father that she actually trips over her robe as she comes in. But she comes in and she sits down in front of him. And he does the same.

Taking some of the water, placing it on her head and on her chest and on her shoulders. And then he makes a long du'a, a tremendous, momentous prayer for the two of them to be brought together in happiness and in khair, and for their children to be blessed. This is one of the first of the great du'as of Islam for the أهل البيت Ahl al-Bayt

The Mubahala

We also have the famous (مباهلة - Mubahala), which is a curious episode really. There's nothing else quite like it. The mutual imprecation. The delegation from the Christians of Najran has come. And the Holy Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) disputes with them concerning Christology.

Who was (سَيِّدِنَا عِيسَى عليه السلام) Was he all of God crowned into a human being? Or was he a human being who prayed to a God who was greater than himself? And he, the bishop says, he was divine and unique because he was born of a woman that had no father. But then the Holy Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) says, what about Adam? He had neither father nor mother, but he wasn't divine. The bishop becomes angry.

And then in order to resolve it in a kind of direct spiritual way, the Holy Prophet proposes a kind of test of sincerity. And he says, bring your loved ones, and I'll bring my loved ones, and then we'll ask God to curse whoever it is who is lying.

And the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) brings those who are called the (أهْل الْعَبَاء - Ahl al-'Aba), or the (أهْل الْقِسَة - Ahl al-Qisa), the people of the cloak. And these are Ali and Fatima and al-Hassan and al-Husayn. And he puts this cloak over them, and all five of them are underneath this cloak.

And one of the monks looks at them and sees something in their faces and goes to the bishop saying, I don't think we should do this. And, although there's no real explanation given in the biographies, the bishop quietly departs, and the actual mubahala, the mutual imprecation, never takes place.

The Succession to the Khilafah

And then we have the remarkable momentous events that take place following the death of the Prophet, and we've seen how Abu Bakr takes the decisive decision that he's going to forestall the division of the community into the Ansar and the Muhajireen.

"We will have our own leader, you'll have your own leader," which was what some of the Ansar were proposing at the (سقِيفَة بَنِي سَاعِدة - Saqifah of Bani Sa'idah), and he stops it, and he is appointed to be the first Khalifa.

But we saw last time how the second half of the reign of (حَضْرَتِ عُثْمَان - Hazrat Uthman) is troubled. There is a fitna, and the fitna leads to these mysterious people, ruffians, ne'er-do-wells from Egypt and elsewhere, surrounding his house, and even though Ali's sons are outside guarding it, they break in over the roof, and the Khalifa is killed.

That's a terrifying event, because it's not really clear what can happen now. The new Muslim state, the empire, is truly enormous. They're moving into Tunisia in the west, and in Central Asia in the east, but at the centre, there's now a power vacuum. And the big question is, of course, what next? Or, more precisely, who next?

Ali's Reluctant Acceptance

Some of those who are milling around the ruins of Uthman's house are shouting that they want Ali to be the Khalifa. But he refuses. He's kind of thunderstruck, he's horrified by what's happened. And he says, no, but I will be the counsellor, the advisor of whoever becomes Khalifa.

Others are asked, Talha and Zubair are also asked, and these are two of the great Sahaba as well. Nobody wants to do it. And so the rebels, the army is also there, but rebels are in control of these streets in Medina, give everybody a day to decide, and otherwise they're going to take matters into their own hands.

So everybody gathers in the mosque, and very reluctantly, because overwhelmingly, it's clear that Ali is the favoured candidate. He agrees, but it's clearly, given the situation, not something that he is happy. Because in Islam, the principle is that we do not seek authority. And you can see that with all four of the Khalifa. They do not seek it.

The Prophet says, in the famous hadith, do not seek political authority. And he is also like that. At no point has he sought political authority. He's been supporting the Prophet and the established authorities after him.

The Decision of the People of Badr

And then the historians record this:

Ali sat in his house. People came to him. "Ali is Amir al-Mumineen." And they came into his house. "We want to pledge our allegiance to you." He said, "That is not for you to do."

He doesn't like these ruffians saying he's going to be Khalifa. It's not your place to do that. This is how he resolves it. "Let the people of Badr decide. Anybody who survives, who's still in Medina, who can come, who fought at Badr, they're the uncontroversial, the great ones of Islam. Let them decide."

And every single one of the survivors of Badr who came sought to make bay'ah, sought to pledge allegiance to Ali. But he did not accept. But finally, this is what happens.

And when Ali saw this from them, they all want him to do it. He went to the mosque, and he went up the (منبر - minbar). And the first to pledge allegiance to him was Talha, and then al-Zubayr, and then the other companions of Allah's Messenger.

His First Khutbah

So he's kind of drawn out of his essentially reclusive lifestyle at that point because of the catastrophe of the power vacuum, and he's stepped in.

"Then he descended, and people were doing nothing but discussing the killing of Uthman."

"Some people were saying that he was killed unjustly. Others were saying that he was killed because he had been unjust."

"And when Ali saw that the people were disagreeing about the killing of Uthman," this becomes his first policy decision. This is the issue of the hour. He has to resolve it.

"So he went up the Minbar again as a Khatib."

"He praised God and extolled Him."

And he knows this is going to be a really important speech. Everything hinges on this.

"O people, come to me and listen carefully. Use your ears and use your eyes."

"People are two kinds and three kinds."

"And there's no sixth kind."

So he lists these different kinds of people. It's a very subtle way of doing it. So everybody's thinking, never mind Uthman at this moment, which am I of these five categories? And this is what he says of these five:

"There is an angel flying with its wings."

"Or a prophet who is being led by his hand by Allah."

"Or somebody who is working hard in obedience to Allah."

"Or somebody who is just hoping for Allah's forgiveness."

"Or somebody who is falling short who will go to hell."

"And there's no sixth on the path when Satan restrains, who disciplines this ummah in two ways, with the sword or with the whip."

The sultan has to exercise both.

"So accept Allah's concealment of you and put right that which has befallen you, which has come between you."

It's an interesting kind of khutbah because it's not really doing what everybody wants to hear. Whose fault was it? He's not doing that. Instead he's trying to bring people together. He's asking them to look to see what has to come next. Never mind the past. What matters now is that we stay together.

"Put right that which has divided you."

And think about which of these categories you're in. And if need be, just accept concealment. And accept Allah's concealment because this is something that the believer has the right to.

The Distribution of Wealth

So everybody's kind of quiet and slinking off after this unexpected presentation. What does he do next? Then he gets off the minbar and goes to the (بيت المال - Bayt al-Mal), the treasury.

"And he takes out everything that's in it and he distributes it amongst the Muslims."

So two great initial political decisions. First of all, he's not going to get into the issue of the hour. As such, he's just going to tell people to think about themselves. Which of these spiritual categories are they in? Do they need to make tawbah? What they really need to do is to bring about reconciliation.

And then he satisfies those who are needy or those who are interested in some kind of material support from the khalifa by distributing wealth.

The Trials of Leadership

And then, because not everybody is there, he uses the opportunity for his third great policy decision which is to reach out to some of the other great sahaba for their bay'ah. And this is where things become problematic.

Because what he wants to do is to bring the ummah back together again. And there's people in Iraq who aren't accepting his authority. People in Egypt who are problematic. People in Syria who may be problematic. Others even in Medina. It's a kind of fractured landscape now because of the confusion over the killing of Uthman.

People don't always live happily ever after. Sometimes there is tragedy, people die, relationships don't work. This is the nature of (دُنْيَا - dunya).

And the later khalifat did discover this. And hence, in our literature and in our culture generally, we have this way of venerating and revering Imam Ali as somebody who has these particular spiritual qualities. He is the disinterested, heroic warrior. He is the inward initiate, the one who the Holy Prophet has put his hand on his head and given him this extraordinary blessing. He is the ancestor of the (أهل البيت - Ahl al-Bayt). He has all of these particular qualities. And he's had this close, intimate relationship with the three earlier khalifat. A person of extraordinary fineness, but there's this tragic dimension as well.

And that's actually useful for us to recall. Simple triumphalism, the assumption that things generally work out the way we'd like them to, doesn't help us very much spiritually. Our lives are full of setbacks. And early Islam also, despite the triumphs, also knew setbacks. And that's just part of the way the world exists.

The Balance Between Extremes

Which are of contemporary relevance. Which is the balance that he strikes between extremes. He's killed by an extremist, he's killed by a (خَارِجِي - kharijite). The people who are fanatically hostile to him because of his determination to avoid bloodshed by agreeing to the (تَحْكِيم - tahkim), the arbitration.

But there's also people who are fanatically on his side and won't brook anything else. Some people who are so mad with love for Imam Ali that they consider him to be divine. And that has popped up again and again in our history.

The Teaching of Moderation

Now one of the great books which are about him and purport to be by him is the (نهج البلاغة - Nahj al-Balagha), which is one of the masterpieces of Arabic literature. How much of it actually represents authentically his own khutbas and his own statements, it's not clear, but certainly there's a lot of his fragrance about it.

But he says something very interesting in the Nahj al-Balagha. In one of his sermons:

"With regard to me, two groups of people shall be destroyed. Namely, he who loves me to excess so that love takes him away from what is correct, and he who hates me so much that the hatred also takes him away from the truth. The best person with regard to me is he who follows the middle course. So be with him and be with the great majority of Muslims. Because Allah's hand of protection is with the maintenance of unity. You should beware of division. Because the one isolated from the group is a prey to shaitan, just as the one isolated from the flock of sheep is a prey to the wolf. Beware, whoever calls to the course of sectarianism, fight him, even though he may be under this banner of mine."

So here in this great classic, the Nahj al-Balagha, he is specifically saying, "be with the great majority of Muslims." And that's how he was constantly. Because it's all about (إِصْلَاح ذَاتِ الْبَيْنِ - islah dhat al-bayn) - reconciliation.

The Sunni Position

Every one of these painful decisions that he had to take, these tragedies that he was confronting of the difference of opinion amongst the passionate sense of rightness amongst the Sahaba, every one of them was a decision taken in order to unite the Muslims. And when he accepted the Khilafah, he only accepted it when it was clear that it was the consensus, the majority of the Muslims that wanted it. Not some particular caste or class or particular group amongst them, but the generality of the Muslims.

And this is one of the things that he stands for as a man of equality. He was a man of tremendous fairness. And his sword really is about establishing fairness amongst humanity. Absolute equality amongst human beings.

So we have this position. And the Sunni position of course has always been to accept his determination to think well of everybody. We do not get involved in the disputations that happened amongst the Sahaba. We follow the way of Imam Ali and have a positive opinion of everybody. His respect for Aisha, his respect for all of the Sahaba, is what we should be following. And that's one of the most important things that we should be learning.

A Vision of Paradise

There's an amazing dream of one of the very early Hadith scholars, (عمرو ابن شرحبيل - Amr ibn Shurahbil), which always makes me think. This is what he wrote down after he saw the dream:

"I saw it was as though I had entered paradise"

"And I saw domes or tents that had been set up"

"And it was said to me they are for Dhul-Kila and Hawshab" And they were two of the people who had fought and been killed fighting with Muawiyah.

"And I said so where are Ammar and his companions" - (عمار بن ياسر - Ammar ibn Yasir), one of the great Sahaba's who was killed in that battle fighting for the cause of Ali.

"And he said there in front of you"

"And I said they were fighting amongst themselves"

"And it was said when they met Allah, they found that His mercy was of broad and great mercy"

"And then I said what about the people of the river?" That's the Kharijites, the extremists. The narrow- minded literalists. The people who assassinated Ali.

"And it was said they found the fire of hell"

And that really sums up the position of the scholars of Islam. That we draw a veil over what might seem sometimes to us to be strange about intentions that seem to be conflicting with each other. And that we say (كُلُّهُمْ عُدُولٌ - kulluhum udul) - "All of them were upright witnesses."

The Spiritual Way

And there's a tremendous spiritual wisdom in this. And this is why we find that the way of Imam Ali كَرَّمَ الله وَجْهَهُ becomes the way of (فتوة - Futuwa). Not just for his own age but subsequently. And the great spiritual ways of Islam flow from him. All of the (طريقة - tariqa) of Islam with the exception of the (نَقْشَبَنْدِيَّة - Naqshbandiya) go from Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Why should that be? Well even the Naqshbandiya - their (سلسلة - silsila) includes (جَعْفَر الصَّادق - Ja'far al-Sadiq), and they also have the kind of Alid fragrance about them. So why is that?

That requires indications. Why is it that the way followed by (الإمام الغزالي - Imam al-Ghazali) and all of the great ones (الإمام الْجُنَيْدِ - Imam al-Junaid), the great saints of Islam, the spiritual fragrance comes from Imam Ali?

Well the reason is that the practice which he shows in his life, which is to draw a veil over people's misunderstandings and to work for the reconciliation and always to follow the majority of the Muslims, is the basis for true spirituality.

The Two Options

We have two options when we see things that we don't understand happening between people. Either we can allocate blame and we can say he killed him and he's on his side and feel superior, and the نفس (nafs) loves that. Or we can say Allah is forgiving and all of them were following a (نية - niyyah) which we presume to be good.

There's that second option which becomes the option of the great (عُلَمَاء - ulama) of Islam, which is necessary for any sound spirituality. You can't base a spiritual life on suspiciousness and cursing and allocating blame. It's impossible.

The first rule of spirituality is to give other people the benefit of the doubt and to blame yourself. That's what that two pointed sword represents. It means if you're going to try and establish uprightness in the world, make sure that you've established it in yourself.

Conclusion: The Principle of Unity

This is one of the great lessons that we learn from the four خُلَفَاء (khulafa). The necessity of the جَمَاعَة (jama'ah):

"The one who isolates himself from the jama'ah, the congregation, the greater number, goes into hellfire."

"And whoever goes on his own in a small group goes into hellfire. You cannot operate a successful spirituality unless you have this principle of giving people the benefit of the doubt and forgiving and including."

The moment you start to point the finger of blame and to allocate blame, then the gates of Allah's رَحْمَة (rahmah) are closed to you because of the state that you're in. So that's a very important lesson for us to learn. And Imam Ali is a great example of that.

Final Thoughts

A few things just to close. We've spoken of the spiritual merit of Imam Ali. In the famous hadith:

"I heard Allah's Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم say about Ali رضي الله عنه :"

"Allah has adorned you with an adornment which He has never adorned any of His servants with any adornment more beloved to Him than it"

"Which is the adornment of the saints, the good ones in the sight of Allah"

"Doing without the things of this world"

"And he made you somebody who is not relying on anything in the world, and the world does not have any dependence upon you. And he bestowed upon you the gift of love for the poor, made you to be happy that they are your followers, and that they are happy to have you as their imam."

And this is the important principle of political authority in Islam. It is to do with ideas such as إمارة (imarah) or إمامة (imamah) or خِلَافَة (khilafah). But another term that is sometimes used in connection not so much with political authority, although it can be, but that's the less obvious implication, but ولاية (wilayah) means inward authority. It means closeness to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى

"Where those actions follow one another in conformity to the sunnah," that is the وَلي (wali).

And in the famous hadith in Nawafil which is the most famous hadith of Islam:

(Sahih al-Bukhari - Hadith Qudsi)

"Whoever harms a wali, a friend, a saint of mine, I declare war on him"

And it goes on to explain what that is. It's somebody who progresses through obligatory acts, through voluntary acts, until they reach the state of love for Allah سُبْحَانَهُ تَعَالَى

So in the prophetic vocabulary ولاية (wilayah) or being وَلِيّ (wali) is to do with this inward closeness to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى. And we find a number of important hadiths, very important hadiths, which explain the whole subsequent spiritual landscape of the religion, in which this particular type of ولاية (wilayah) is associated with Sayyidina Ali.

Of course ولاية (wilayah), sainthood, is the way of the sahabah generally. But the hadith of غدير خُمّ (Ghadeer Khum) for instance is very important. Regularly cited by the ulama in this context. It's a sound hadith that the holy prophet takes his hand رضي الله عنه and says:

"Whoever has me as his mawla, then Ali is his mawla" (Sunan al-Tirmidhi)

(مَوْلى - Mawla) is related to (وَلِيّ - wali). In other words it's to do with spiritual excellence. It's to do with the authority of a spiritual guide.

And this is if we're looking at the particular fragrance or signature tune as it were of each of the great caliphate. This is what Imam Ali has bequeathed. This kind of inward knowledge and this inward wisdom. It's the city of knowledge.

"I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate" (Sunan al-Tirmidhi)

And this is not to say in some superficial way that again we can easily, although many of the ulama have attempted to do this, rank them in (فَضْل - fadl). My teachers are always sceptical of that. There are certain formulaic ways in which one can arrange them in descending order of merit from Abu Bakr رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ And given the prophetic teachings, you can see how that works.

But essentially what we're looking at in the case of each of them is a particular type of greatness. And each one is so great that it's hard really to compare them. And this inward richness which has flowed out through the ulama of Sunni Islam down the centuries is something that comes specifically through the inward gate of the city of knowledge, which is the way of Imam Ali.

And of course his (فَتْوَى - fatwa) is very important in the four canonical (مَذاهب - madhabs).

May Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى accept our intentions and accept our determination to learn. And give us love for all of His (أَوْلِيَاء - awliya) and give us what he gave the early Muslims in terms of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. A passion for the truth. A passion for justice. And also a longing that the أُمَّة of Islam should be one and should be united.

بَارَكَ اللهُ فِيكُمْ

وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ