III. The Event of Ghadir Khum: From Oblivion to Recognition

The event of Ghadir Khum is a very good example to trace theSunni bias which found its way into the mental state of theorientalists. Those who are well-versed with the polemic writingsof Sunnis know that whenever the Shi'as present a hadith or ahistorical evidence in support of their view, a Sunni polemicistwould respond in the following manner:Firstly, he will outright deny the existence of any such hadith orhistorical event.Secondly, when confronted with hard evidence from his ownsources, he will cast doubt on the reliability of the transmitters ofthat hadith or event.Thirdly, when he is shown that all the transmitters are reliableby Sunni standards, he will give an interpretation to the hadithor the event which will be quite different from that of the Shi 'as.These three levels form the classical response of the Sunnipolemicists in dealing with the arguments of the Shi'as. Aquotation from Rosenthal's translation of Ibn Khaldun's TheMuqadlimah would suffice to prove my point. (Ibn Khaldun isquoting the following part from Al-Milal wa al-Nihal, aheresiographic work of Ash-Sharistani.) According to lbnKhaldun, the Shi'as believe that:'Ali is the one whom Muhammad appointed. The (Shi'a)transmit texts (of traditions) in support of (this belief)...Theauthority of the Sunnah and the transmitters of the religious lawdo not know these texts [1]. Most of them arc suppositions, or[2] some of their transmitters are suspect, or [3] their (true)interpretation is very different from the wicked interpretationthat (the Shi'a) give to them.' 8 )

Interestingly, the event of Ghadir Khum has suffered the samefate at the hands of the orientalists. With the limited time andsources available to me at this moment, I was surprised to seethat most works on Islam have ignored the event of GhadirKhum, indicating, by its very absence, that the orientalistsbelieved this event to be 'supposititious' and an invention of theShi'as. Margoliouth's Muhammad & the Rise of Islam (1905),Brockelmann's History of the Islamic People (1939), Arnold andGuillaume's The Legacy of Islam (1931), Guillaume's Islam(1954), von Grunebaum's Classical Islam (1963), Arnold's TheCaliphate (1965) and The Cambridge History of Islam (1970)have completely ignored the event of Ghadir Khum. Why didthese and many other western scholars ignore the event ofGhadir Khum? Since western scholars mostly relied on anti-Shi'iworks, they naturally ignored the event of Ghadir Khum.L Veccia Vaglieri, one of the contributors to the second editionof the Encyclopaedia of Islam (1953), writes:'Most of the sources which form the basis of our [orientalists']knowledge of the life of the Prophet (Ibn Hisham, Al- Tabari,Ibn Sa'd, etc) pass in silence over Muhammad's stop at GhadirKhum, or, if they mention it, say nothing of his discourse (thewriters evidently feared to attract the hostility of the Sunnis,who were in power, by providing material for the polemic of theShi'as who used these words to support their thesis of Ali's rightto the caliphate). Consequently, the western biographers ofMuhammad, whose work is based on these sources, equally makeno reference to what happened at Ghadir Khum.' 9 )

Then we come to those few orientalists who mention the hadithor the event of Ghadir Khum but express their scepticism aboutits authenticity -- the second stage in the classical response ofthe Sunni polemicists.The first example of such scholars is Ignaz Goldziher, a highlyrespected German orientalist of the nineteenth century. Hediscusses the hadith of Ghadir Khum in his MuhammedanischeStudien (1889-1890) translated in English as Muslim Studies(1966-1971) under the chapter entitled 'The Hadith in itsRelation to the Conflicts of the Parties of Islam.' Coming to theShi'as, Goldziher writes:'A stronger argument in their [Shi'a'sJ favour. ..was theirconviction that the Prophet had expressly designated andappointed Ali as his successor before his death...Therefore the'Alid adherents were concerned with inventing and authorizingtraditions which prove Ali's installation by the direct order ofthe Prophet. The most widely-known tradition (the authority ofwhich is not denied even by orthodox authorities though theydeprive it of its intention by a different interpretation) is thetradition of Khum, which came into being for this purpose and isone of the firmest foundations of the theses of the 'Alid party.' 10 )

One would expect such a renowned scholar to prove how theShi'as 'were concerned with inventing' traditions to supporttheir theses, but nowhere does Goldziher provide any evidence.After citing AI-Tirmidhi and Al-Nasa'i in the footnote as thesources of hadith for Ghadir, he says: 'AI-Nasa'i had, as is wellknown,pro-'Alid inclinations, and also AI-Tirmidhi included inhis collection tendentious traditions favouring Ali, e.g., the tayrtradition.' 11 )

This is again the same old classical response of theSunni polemicists -- discredit the transmitters as unreliable oradamantly accuse the Shi'as of inventing the traditions.Another example is the first edition of the Encyclopaedia ofIslam (1911-1938), which has a short entry under 'GhadirKhum' by F Bhul, a Danish orientalist who wrote a biographyof the Prophet. Bhul writes: 'The place has become famousthrough a tradition which had its origin among the Shi'as but isalso found among the Sunnis, viz., the Prophet on journey backfrom Hudaybiyya (according to others from the FarewellPilgrimage) here said of Ali: 'Whomsoever I am lord of, his lordis Ali also!' 12 )

Bhul makes sure to emphasize that the hadith andthe event of Ghadir has 'its origins among the Shi'as'!Another striking example of the orientalists' ignorance aboutShi'ism is A Dictionary of Islam (1965) by Thomas Hughes.Under the entry of Ghadir, he writes: 'A festival of the Shi'as onthe 18th of the month of Zu 'l-Hijjah, when three images ofdough filled with honey are made to represent Abu Bakr, Umarand Usman, which are stuck with knives, and the honey issipped as typical of the blood of the usurping khalifahs. Thefestival is named Ghadir, 'a pool,' and the festival commemorates,if is said, Muhammad having declared Ali his successor atGhadir Khum, a watering place midway between Makkah andal-Madinah.' 13 )

. Coming from a Shi'i background of India,having studied in Iran for 10 years and lived among the Shi'a ofAfrica and North America, I have yet to see, hear or read aboutthe dough and honey ritual of Ghadir!! I was more surprised tosee that even Vaglieri, in the second edition of the Encyclopaediaof Islam, has incorporated this rubbish into his fairly excellentarticle on Ghadir Khum. He adds at the end: 'This feast alsoholds an important role among the Nusayris.' It is quite possiblethat the dough and honey ritual is observed by the Nusayris; ithas nothing to do with the Shi'as. But do all orientalists knowthe difference between the Shi'as and the Nusayris? I very muchdoubt so.A fourth example from the contemporary scholars who havetreaded the same path is Philip Hitti in his History of the Arabs(1964). Alter mentioning that the Buyids established 'the rejoic-ing on that [day] of the Prophet's alleged appointment of Ali ashis successor at Ghadir Khum,' he describes the location ofGhadir Khum in the footnote as 'a spring between Makkah andal-Madinah where Shi'ite tradition asserts the Prophet declared,"Whosoever I am lord of, his lord is Ali also". 14 )

  Athough thisscholar mentions the issue of Ghadir in a passing manner, stillhe wants to leave his readers with the impression that the hadithof Ghadir is a 'Shi'ite tradition.'To these scholars who, consciously or unconsciously, haveabsorbed the Sunni bias against Shi'ism and insist on the Shi'iorigin or invention of the hadith of Ghadir, I would just repeatwhat Vaglieri has said in the Encyclopaedia of Islam aboutGhadir Khum:'It is, however, certain that Muhammad did speak in this placeand utter the famous sentence, for the account of this event hasbeen preserved, either in a concise form or in detail, not only by Al-Ya'kubi, whose sympathy for the 'Alid cause is well-known,but also in the collection of traditions which are considered ascanonical, especially in the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal; and thehadiths are so numerous and so well attested by the different isnads that it does not seem possible to reject them.' 15 )

Vaglieri continues: 'Several of these hadith are cited in thebibliography, but it does not include the hadith which, althoughreporting the sentence, omit to name Ghadir Khum, or thosewhich state that the sentence was pronounced at al-Hudaybiyya.The complete documentation will be facilitated when theConcordance of Wensinck has been completely published. Inorder to have an idea of how numerous these hadiths are, it isenough to glance at the pages in which Ibn Kathir has collecteda great number of them with their isnads.'It is time the western scholarship made itself familiar with theShi'i literature of the early days as well as of the contemporaryperiod. There is no need to wait for Wensinck's Concordance.The Shi'i scholars have produced great works on the issue ofGhadir Khum. Here I will just mention two of those. The first is 'Abaqat al-Anwar written in Persian by Allama Mir HamidHusayn al-Musawi (d 1304 AH) of India. Allama Mir HamidHusayn has devoted two bulky volumes (consisting of about1,080 pages) on the isnad, tawatur and meaning of the hadith ofGhadir. The second is Al- Ghadir in 11 volumes in Arabic byAllama Abdul Husayn al-Amini where he gives with fullreferences the names of 110 sahaba of the Prophet and also 84tabi'un (disciples of the sahaba) who have narrated the hadith of Ohadir. He has also chronologically given the names of thehistorians, traditionalists, exegetists and poets who havementioned the hadith of Ghadir from the first until the fourteenthIslamic century.