{"id":16727,"date":"2022-07-06T04:22:28","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T03:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/?p=16727"},"modified":"2022-07-06T04:22:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T03:22:28","slug":"sunnis-believe-event-ghadir-khumm-can-explain-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/16727\/sunnis-believe-event-ghadir-khumm-can-explain-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Sunni&#8217;s believe in the event of Ghadir Khumm? And can you explain that event?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Sunni tradition fully confirms the event of Ghadir Khumm\u00a0and no Sunni scholar to my knowledge has ever entirely\u00a0denied it.<\/p>\n<p>The Sunni masses, on the other hand, are largely unaware of this hugely important event. When known, it is considered one of many Prophetic\u00a0merit narrations in favour of &#8216;Ali and the other Companions and not anything specific to succession of &#8216;Ali after the Prophet (a).<\/p>\n<p>The differences come down to the details of what happened in that event and its context\u00a0and, therefore, implication for the succession to the Prophet Muhammad (s).<\/p>\n<p><b>SHI&#8217;A UNDERSTANDING<\/b><\/p>\n<p>You should first read the entire event here &#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.al-islam.org\/ghadir\/incident.htm\">https:\/\/www.al-islam.org\/ghadir\/incident.htm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Shi&#8217;a believe that on the day of Ghadir Khumm<em>,<\/em>\u00a0the Prophet Muhammad (s) was commanded to announce the\u00a0<em>system\u00a0<\/em>of his succession and introduce to his followers the first\u00a0<em>person\u00a0<\/em>who will immediately succeed him in that system.<\/p>\n<p>So the system was declared through a segment of his speech that is famously referred to as the\u00a0<em>Hadith al-Thaqalayn.<\/em>\u00a0In that narration he stated that he was leaving behind the Qur&#8217;an and his Ahl al-Bayt, and if the people were to adhere to them\u00a0both\u00a0they would never go astray after him.<\/p>\n<p>The person as well as the true nature of succession was introduced through the words\u00a0<em>man kuntu\u00a0mawlahu fa &#8216;Aliyyun mawlahu<\/em>. It translates to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For whomsover I am master, &#8216;Ali is his master.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>UNAMBIGUOUS DESIGNATION<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The word used\u00a0<em>mawla<\/em>\u00a0was the perfect term to use for the comprehensive authority,\u00a0<em>walaya<\/em>, that was possessed by the Prophet (s) and that was\u00a0being vested in &#8216;Ali as the first member of the chosen Ahl al-Bayt.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Ali was not simply being made a Caliph nor just an Imam. Each of these labels are open to many interpretations of scope, geography, and timeframe. If designated a\u00a0<em>khalifa<\/em>\u00a0at Ghadir Khumm instead of\u00a0<em>mawla<\/em>\u00a0people could have accepted him as the first one but only for the years he ruled, and only for the area he ruled. If just called an\u00a0<em>imam<\/em>, he could have been considered simply a prayer leader in a mosque!<\/p>\n<p>People can get very creative when they want to derail a system, or if they have to explain away a derailed system from history.<\/p>\n<p>So with Divine inspiration the Prophet (s) made clear the scope of the authority that was being vested in &#8216;Ali in multiple ways. He\u00a0repeated\u00a0the portion of\u00a0Qur&#8217;anic\u00a0verse 33:6 as a question and got the public to acknowledge that he was closer to them and had more authority over them than their own souls. The\u00a0<em>man kuntu mawlahu<\/em>\u00a0designation itself tightly coupled his own\u00a0<em>walaya<\/em>\u00a0to that of &#8216;Ali. And the Qur&#8217;anic verse\u00a05:3 of\u00a0<em>ikmal\u00a0<\/em>that was revealed immediately thereafter announced the completion and perfection of religion as a result of that declaration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SOURCES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Every single fact mentioned above is attested by Sunni sources of\u00a0<em>tafsir<\/em>,\u00a0<em>hadith<\/em>, and history. In all, 110 Companions of the Prophet (s) are documented to have narrated this event in varying levels of detail. And that makes Ghadir Khumm the most widely narrated\u00a0<em>hadith<\/em>\u00a0of the Prophet Muhammad (s) on any topic whatsoever in\u00a0Sunni sources!<\/p>\n<p>This is quite remarkable given that it was about an issue that divided the Muslim community. Its level of attestation despite that fact is certainly something to think about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SUNNI MISUNDERSTANDING<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This raises the question of how the Sunni scholars understand the Ghadir Khumm event.\u00a0 Clearly, and by the very definition of being Sunni, they acknowledge the legitimacy of the caliphate of Abu Bakr. And so, for them, Ghadir Khumm was not about authority but about\u00a0love and friendship\u00a0towards &#8216;Ali. This was based on taking an alternative meaning for\u00a0<em>mawla<\/em>\u00a0in the context of the event.<\/p>\n<p>And for that context, it was considered to be unhappy soldiers from Yemen who had complained about &#8216;Ali to the Prophet (s). But this theory is full of holes and cannot be reconciled with the full details of the event as documented on the link given earlier in this response.<\/p>\n<p>As just one example, consider the fact that out of 110 Companions who narrated Ghadir Khumm, only 1 Companion &#8211;\u00a0Burayda b. al-Husayb &#8211; mentions Yemen as the context. None of the other Companions mention Yemen or the unhappy soldiers as the context for the event.<\/p>\n<p>And he was a Companion who was himself upset at &#8216;Ali and was complaining to the Prophet (s) about him and thereby angered him (s) &#8211; all according to his own report!<\/p>\n<p>There are many other holes in this\u00a0Yemeni red herring narrative, feel free to ask another question about them and I can elaborate further, God-willing.<\/p>\n<p>source:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.al-islam.org\/ask\/do-sunnis-believe-in-the-event-of-ghadir-khumm-and-can-you-explain-that-event\">al-islam<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Sunni tradition fully confirms the event of Ghadir Khumm\u00a0and no Sunni scholar to my knowledge has ever entirely\u00a0denied it. The Sunni masses, on the other hand, are largely unaware of this hugely important event. When known, it is considered one of many Prophetic\u00a0merit narrations in favour of &#8216;Ali and the other Companions and not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":16728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7568],"tags":[13763,8154,14551,9546,19669],"class_list":["post-16727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ghadir-based-discussion-among-religions","tag-ahl-al-bayt-a-s","tag-allah","tag-ethics","tag-islam","tag-shia-studies-world-assembly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shiastudies.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}