Introduction

The caravan returning from the Hujjatul- Widdah (the FinalPilgrimage) of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him andhis progeny, was halted unexpectedly.

The archangel Jibreel(Gabriel) had come with the message from Allah: '0 Apostle!Deliver what has been revealed to you from your Lord, and ifyou do not, then you have not delivered His message, and Allahwill protect you from the people' (Qur'an 5:67).The place where the Muslims had stopped was at Ghadir Khum.The Prophet delivered a sermon and appointed Imam Ali, peacebe upon him, as his successor.

His words were: '0 Muslims!Who is more worthy [in the eyes of] the believers than theirownselves?' The audience replied: 'Allah and His Messengerknow better.' Hearing this, the Prophet declared: 'I am theMaster (Mawla) of the faithful and I have rights over them evenmore than what they have over themselves. Therefore ofwhomever I am the Mawla, (this) Ali is his Mawla.'The first to congratulate Imam Ali was Umar ibn al-Khattabwho said: 'Excellent! How fortunate you are 0 Abul Hasan!Now you have become my master as well as of all the Muslims.'This all happened 1,400 years ago.

But alas! The eventsfollowing the death of the Prophet took a different turn andImam Ali was by-passed as the mawla or the leader of theMuslims.Various reasons have been given for this, including:1. By mawla the Prophet meant 'friend.' It is difficult to acceptthis. Would the Prophet have stopped the whole caravan todeclare his friendship with Imam Ali and to make friendship toImam Ali obligatory?2 The Prophet did not appoint anyone and expected theUmmah to make a decision for itself.

How can this be? Did theperson who foresaw the fall of Khusrow and Caesar not see theplight of his Ummah after he was gone and not appoint asuccessor? And what of the occasions when he said: 'Whoeverhelps me today will be my successor' and 'Tomorrow I will givethe standard of the army to the one who will be my successor'?There is far too much evidence to show that the Prophet didindeed appoint his successor. However, history took its owncourse and what happened cannot be undone now.

As a result,we have two major schools of thought - Sunnis and Shi'as. Thefollowers of the two schools of thought are Muslims and thiscannot be denied or challenged.

The ways and means of Co-existence have to be identified. There has to be a healthydiscussion between the two schools of thought with a view toincreasing understanding between them. The declaration of kufrdoes not help the cause of understanding. The Muslims have fartoo many enemies. let us make sure that our enemies do not useour differences, such as they are, to thwart our unity.The event of Ghadir has to be looked at from a positiveperspective. Ghadir should provide a means of uniting theMuslim Ummah and teach us lessons in leadership which areessential if Muslims are to once again achieve the position ofeminence.

let the Eid of Ghadir, that we so enthusiastically celebrate theworld over, be our pivot towards Islamic unity and leadership.let our Sunni brethren present their viewpoints keeping in mmdthe two principles of Islamic unity and leadership.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr AbdulazizSachedina, Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi and Brother HuseinKhimjee for their contributions. We would also like to thankAl-Tawhid Institute for allowing us to reprint the translation ofA Study on the Question of AI-Wllaya by As-Shahid AyatullahMuhammad Baqir al-Sadr.

Ghulam Abbas SajanPresidentIslamic Shi'a Ithna-AsheriJama'at of TorontoJuly 11, 1990