In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful, we have already discussed the principle of wilayat according to some verses of the Quran and its most important dimensions, but there are certain secondary questions about wilayat that are also of great importance for the Islamic community and its direction to reach its sublime goals. As written down in the papers handed to you, there are two issues I discuss today and tomorrow, if God will, I shall talk about these two aspects about wilayat.
We already proved, on the basis of the Quran, that the Islamic umma must keep up and preserve its internal, intimate links and it should reject all forms of external dependence. Now, in order for the umma to carry out these two important duties, it needs to have a strong central authority to administer and lead the society in all its social, political, economic and moral activities. The name of the person invested with such authority is walee which means the governor, the commander and the ruler. This means that all Muslims are inspired by the walee, he is the director and the administrator of the Islamic society in all its ideological and practical affairs. Now the question is raised: who is this walee of the Islamic community? How do we recognize him? Do we have answers to such questions? Yes, we do and I have briefly hinted to these issues in our previous sessions; it is not a very difficult thing to understand, but now I intend to expand the issue in a more logical, natural method.
The simplest answer in this respect is given by the Quran itself: the true walee of the Islamic community is the Almighty God. This is exactly what we learn by monotheism and by prophethood and we shall shortly find out that the principle of wilayat tells us the same thing. In parenthesis I should add that the principles of our school of thought should be the same, that is, all principal issues should be congruent, harmonious and consonant. No school of thought may contain fundamentals that negate or reject its other principles. Unfortunately nowadays certain simple-minded believers infer or deduct certain conclusions from some principles that are in total contradiction with other basic principles.
In an Islamic society the one who has the absolute right to command, to execute laws and to administer all affairs of the society is God, for the Quran says: “…and Allah is the walee of all believers”. According to my own research throughout the Quran the fact that God is the Patron, the Guardian and the Ruler of all humans is an indisputable question. I must clarify the matter a little further; we are not talking about God as the Creator of skies, planets and all there is in the world of existence, this is obvious. Here we are talking about the fact that all social relations among humanity, their individual lives and their laws and regulations should also be inspired by God; the ruler of an Islamic society should, therefore, do his best in the framework of the Islamic system. This is what we always call the Alavite system which operates in the framework of Islam and the Quran. For if there is no administrator or ruler in the Islamic community, despite laws being given by God, there shall be no coherence or congruity in that society; this necessity has been confirmed by Imam Ali (AS) who said that the Islamic community was in need of a virtuous commander or a central body to supervise the affairs of the umma.
Now we ask: who’s that person and what qualities should he have? What kind of person could rule over the human societies? Who could have the practical reigns of a society’s wilayat in his hands? Well, the answers to such questions vary in different schools of thought. Some have said: ‘the kingdom belongs to the one who overcomes’, that is, whoever is more powerful; this is indeed the Law of the Jungle! Some other schools declared: whoever is more popular with the general public; some opined: the ruler should belong to such-and-such- historic dynasty. In short, different opinions have been expressed based on testes, distastes or opposing logics.
The Islamic answer to this question is what we read in verse 55 of Sura Al-Maa’ida: “your true walee is only Allah, His Apostle and those who have believed…”. The person who, on behalf the Creator of the world, practically administers and executes what’s ordained is His Messenger. Indeed when God’s prophets exist in any community, it would be meaningless for others to govern that community. The issue is: what is to be done after the prophet’s demise? The Quran again answers this question as we read in the same verse: “…and those who believe…”. Well it says that the believers are your walees. This apparently requires that we have as many wales as the whole number of believers! Thus we face further questions: who among the believers? What qualities should a believer have to deserve the sublime position of the believers’ walee? This verse of the Quran obviously points to believing persons but at the same time, it does give us the criteria and the signs of the person who could become the walee of the believers so that he could be chosen according to divine, Quranic criteria, that is, chosen by God. The verse says ‘those who have believed; it means those who truly, truthfully believed. The necessity for such faith or belief is to be unshakable, unbounded and continuous, not weak, superficial and incomplete beliefs.
Such truthful believers are those who have proved it throughout their lives by their behaviour and deeds that they are real, true believers. There are other conditions for such believers cited in the same verse: “… those who set up Salaat and pay Zakaat…”. As you see the Quran uses the verb ‘yughimoon’ meaning ‘setting up’ which means ‘help spread Salaat’ and ‘establishing Salaat’, not just ‘doing prayers’; otherwise the Quran would employ the verb ‘yusalloon’ which means ‘doing prayers’. Setting up Salaat in a society means that the real spirit of prayers is revived in that community and that all people will perform their prayers; a prayerful society means that the name of God and the remembrance of God are constantly in the hearts and minds of all people. In such a society no crimes are committed, no treacherous acts are carried out and no real, human values are ignored; in such a society all deeds are done in the name of God, all directions are aimed to reach God and everything people do is for God’s satisfaction.
The main reason for oppression and injustice, thefts and burglaries, all social vices and deviations and even tolerating oppressive rules is rooted in forgetting God Almighty. But people in a society where the remembrance of God is prevalent, a society ruled, say, by Ali-bin-Abi Taalib (AS) never commits any unjust act. In such a society, a person like Abu-Dzar who is the victim of oppressive acts and, though he is threatened, beaten and exiled, does not submit to injustice; this should be the example of a society in which Salaat is properly observed. So one of the signs for the believers to be worthy of the position of walee is the setting up of Salaat throughout the society. The second important point is ‘to pay Zakaat’. Well, all believers are supposed to pay their Zakaat. Here as I mentioned earlier, the issue goes further than simply paying up one’s individual Zakaat. But the person of walee is the one who does make this practice and all other kinds of alms and aids most common in the society and in fact executes some form of redistribution of wealth throughout the Islamic community.
The verse then goes on: “…which bowing down…”, that is while praying to God. I know how some interpreters say about this Quranic phrase: they believe the verse is saying that such great believers are always kneeling down and that it does not refer to any particular person. But the original Arabic is quite clear; it says paying Zakaat even when they are bowing down and praying to God. The reports say that Imam Ali (AS) did give away his ring to a needy person while bowing down. Well, he did not wait to finish his prayers and then help the person in need. He sees a needy person begging, he cannot tolerate that, so he gives away the only thing he has on him. This incident has been authentically reported. After this event, the relevant, Quranic verse was revealed. Thus he has been chosen by such delicate references. This is unlike the practice of Muawia who says categorically: ‘this is my son, Yazeed, he will be my successor and you must all obey him!’ God Almighty does not do as Muawia! The divine verse refers to the qualities of the walee after the holy Prophet, because all necessary criteria are resplendent in him: perfect faith in God, the spreading of Salaat, absolute devotion to helping the poor and dedicated to establishing equality and justice in the Islamic world. Thus the Quranic verses shed light on the philosophy of khalifate and wilayat and the man possessing such qualities and suited to the Quranic criteria should be the successor to the holy Prophet, therefore he is in fact chosen by God because no man on earth has the right to rule over others without God’s sanction.
The only One Who has the right to govern humanity is God and certainly God has the power to transfer this right to a man according to the interest and the good of the society. We do know that whatever God does, is directed at the good, happiness and final salvation of humanity, He is the One Who chooses the Prophet and after his worldly life ends, He describes the criteria, the attributes and the qualities in the future leaders or imams of the umma. Thus after the pure Imams of the Prophet’s Household, whoever possesses those qualities could be the walee of the Islamic umma. There are more Quranic verses in this respect than the one I quoted; some are written down in the papers landed to you and you may yourselves look through the Quran and find some more.
In fact what has been emphasized on in Islam is to prevent the reign of government falling into the hands of some elements who would lead people into Hell. We have witnessed this in the history of Islam after the glorious early periods when the administration fell into wrong hands. A great amount of poisonous propaganda was fed into the minds and souls of the people by unjust oppressive rulers. In such atmosphere people could not distinguish right from wrong or black from white. When you read the history of Islam in the second and third centuries A.H., you are awfully amazed at the extent of the disastrous actions by the khalifs and people in power in the name of Islam! You could then ask yourself: were the people in these centuries the descendants of the same Muslims who could not be patient even with Uthman; they surrounded his house and finally murdered him in an ugly, ruthless way. Now these Muslims tolerate an Abbasid Khalif who spends great sums of money extravagantly at his wedding evening, the money belonging to the common treasury that could help thousands of the needy people. These believers witnessed such atrocious deeds and never uttered a word of protest!
An example of such corrupt extravaganza was the occasion of the wedding of Ja’far Barmaki, Haroun-al-Rashid’s favorite vizier. He was then about 29 years of age (Haroun had him murdered 7 years later!) Anyway, at his wedding-night Haroun had ordered the making of hundreds of small bunches of gold. He then ordered that, instead of the customary sugar-plums, these small bunches be dropped over the heads of the wedding couple which would be picked up by anybody present at the wedding ceremony. When people opened the small bunches or boxes they found some wrapped-up thin papers inside them. These papers were actually the ownership documents of many villages, cultural areas and the like! One may imagine what happens next to the poor peasants, villagers and labourers working or residing in these areas. But the khalif doesn’t care about the people. At this very time Yahya Alavi, a descendant of Ali (AS) is trying to gather people around him and recruit warriors in the mountains of Tabaristan, northern Iran, to fight the oppressive Khalif. He and his wife lived in very poor conditions but were dedicated to fight the oppressor; this was a brilliant case of rising against oppressive rulers by a member of the Prophet’s Household.
Now my comment does not concern Haroun; if Haroun did not do what he did, he wouldn’t have been the oppressive, evil Haroun that he was! Haroun is a member of the ruling class who did not care about the common people. I am concerned with the majority of the people who had lost their sense of justice and zeal for equality that Muslims did possess in the early stages of Islam’s progress. They did not feel any responsibility and they did not think that they had any obligations vis-à-vis the prevailing state of affairs. Why had the people changed so drastically? The answer to this question lies in the intense publicity and propaganda by the oppressive regimes and their agents for many years which had influenced the minds and hearts of the people in evil ways. So we notice, again and again, the importance of having just, virtuous persons as the rulers of the Islamic umma.
Now let us pay attention to the Quranic verse we already cited; it says “You who have believed, obey God, obey His Messenger and those with Authority among you…”. Well, the Arabic phrase ‘ulul-amri minkum’ means those entrusted with authority among you or those in command. We may then ask: who is this person with authority or command? Some ignorant Muslims suppose that anyone who is more powerful and could order others to follow him is the ulul-amr as God has said! If we are supposed to obey and follow anyone who has more power, then, as an example, we should obey a rough, ruthless highway robber who has temporal domination over a mountainous area as an ulul-amr in his position! Another funny example in this respect was an edict by one of the Safavid kings, I don’t know how authentic the report is; but he had presumably ordered men not to visit shops and bazaars for three days; these three days were for women to go out without their brothers, husbands and sons accompanying them. He pretended that he wanted women to comfortably do their shopping without men bothering them. But on those three days and evening allocated to women, only the king’s male courtiers, commanders and officials in high positions could join the women and mingle with them!! Well, is such a king a divine ulul-amr too?! Is his edict a God-inspired one?
The kind of walee that Shi’ism believes in is the one who has his wilayat through God, directly or indirectly, by name or by authentic signs and symbols. Yes, the walee is one from amongst you but he must have been appointed by God one way or the other. Every wilayat should originate from God. Now let’s take a look at Haroun-al-Rashid once again. He was guilty of murdering many prominent Muslims, he dealt with the common treasury of Muslims as his own, the famed Ja’far Barmaki, his closest friend and vizier, together with most of his dynasty members, were put to the sword within a few days, and the ruthless, atrocious , anti-Islamic things he committed cannot be counted. But then Abu-Hanifa, the famous, Islamic jurisprudent objects to the adverse opinion of Imam Ja’far Saadiq (AS) and says: Why do you oppose ‘the ulul-amr’ of the time?! Haroun is the divine ulul-amr in the sight of Abu-Hanifa!
The logic of Shi’ism about this question is an exact one. We do infer from the Quran that walee is an appointee of God but, at the same time, we do clarify the signs and the criteria for this most important position among the Islamic umma so that people are not deceived by some empty, superficial arguments. Some people have said: well, we do approve of Ali (AS) as our walee, but now Haroun is his successor; he is a member of Bani-Abbas and the Bani-Abbas go back to the family of the holy Prophet and Imam Ali (AS)! The Abbasid Mansour used to say: we accept Imam Hassan (AS) as Khalif but he has sold his right to Khalifate! He continuous: and we took the Khalifate back by force from those to whom it was sold. This is the peculiar logic of Mansour! This kind of reasoning is in fact saying: we respect the right of Ali (AS) to Khalifate but there is no distinction or contradiction between the khalifate or wilayat of Ali (AS) and that of the Abbasid Haroun!
The Shi’a school says: no, this is absolutely wrong, because when you approve the Khalifate of Ali (AS), then you should necessarily respect his criteria, qualities and deeds in his wilayat or his Khalifate. Ali (AS) was chosen as walee or ulul-amr because he possessed all those necessary criteria and qualities; so if a person lacks those qualities and does not possess the necessary criteria, he could obviously not be the walee of the believers. In fact some of those later Khalifs not only lacked the necessary criteria but possessed qualities that contradicted those criteria. This was the first point of our discussion today.
The second point is written down in your papers together with the relevant, Quranic verse. One may ask: what is God’s wilayat for? If one asks this question and says: for what reason do you say that wilayat is with God? The answer is that this is due to a natural philosophy in Islamic ideology. In the Islamic world-outlook everything in the world as in the infinite cosmos has its origin in the power of God, as a Quranic verse says: “all beings in the space of Nights and Days are His, and He’s the One who hears and knows.” Well, when all created beings, their movements and their destinations are with God, then clearly the social laws and laws for humanity and the administration of jurisprudence should also be with Him; this is inevitable.
Now I try to quickly go over the verses quoted in your papers, to translate them and explain them briefly. These are the verses 58 to 60 of the Sura Al-Nisaa: “God certainly commands you to give back your trust unto their rightful owners and that to judge with fairness when passing judgments on men and women…”. God commands you about what is in trust with you and being careful in returning them to their proper owners, and even more careful in judgments that decide between right and wrong among people. The verse goes on: “…excellent is the counsel God is giving unto you all, for God’s All-Hearing, Ever-Seeing”. Most beautiful is God’s advice because whatever He commands you to do is based on his perfect, infinite knowledge, because He even Hears your most internal, intimate needs and because He gives and grants to you whatever you really and truly need.
Well, that was verse 58. The content of this verse was about all kinds of trust and their returning to their rightful owners. Trust has a more general meaning than you owing me one Tuman and paying it back to me. All God’s bounties granted to us are trusts. Obedience to God and obeying His laws means obeying God’s injunctions and avoiding what He has forbidden. This verse is in fact an introduction to the verse that follows: “Obey God, and obey His messenger and the ulul-amr among you…”. Here we notice that the Islamic thesis differs from what some other schools of thought believe in. the Islamic thesis does not announce that government and public administration may not be necessary at all in the future! Some schools of thought believe that once we reach the ideal society, then there will be no rulers and no administrative apparatus. No, Islam does not predict such a society.
The Khawaarij declared ‘laa hukma illa li-Allah’, that is, only God is to rule us. And Ali (AS), in response to them uttered his famous statement: ‘A truthful word intended to serve evil and falsehood’. Certainly our true ruler is God Almighty who has given us laws and injunctions for rightful ways of living. But who is to carry out God’s laws? The holy Prophet and the ulul-amr after him. So when Khawaarij said that God was their only ruler, they intended to rule out the most important aspect of Islamic rule, that is, they did not want anyone to execute God’s laws! Ali (AS) also adds: ‘All human societies are in need of rulers as administrators.’ This is absolutely correct because the existence of laws is not enough and human by nature, may not obey the laws. We do need administrators to supervise their proper execution. The divine ruler or administrator should be a most virtuous person. You couldn’t have two rulers or two ulul-amrs who are not in agreement with each other. There have been rulers in the Islamic world who did not possess the criteria set by God and the Quran, and the common sense of ordinary Muslims rejected them. Are such people also God’s ulul-amrs? Here is exactly where we differ with our Sunni brothers. What is apparently reported of their schools of thought is that, in their opinion, anyone who seizes power is God’s ulul-amr.
Let’s read out the rest of the verses “…should you quarrel about a thing, refer it unto Allah and unto His Messenger, if you believe in God and the Last Day; this is the best and it will settle things finally with truth.” This is another instance where the Quran draws our attention to the good result when you have divine-inspired rulers and warn us about the consequences of following evil rulers. This point is more clearly expressed in the next verse of Sura Al-Nisaa, verse 60; it says: “Mark the people who claim that they do believe in Revelations sent to you and in what was revealed before you, yet, in their disputes, they seek to settle things through the judgment of taaghoot (Satanic powers, evil authorities), though they were ordered to deny them all; indeed Satan intends that they should go astray, very far away from the right way.” God tells His prophet to look at the people who suppose or pretend to be true believers but they take their disputes to taaghoot or to evil, ungodly authorities for judgment! They take their inspiration from such authorities in their actual day-to-day affairs. And Satan takes the opportunity of their deviations to lead them so far from the path of God that it would be almost impossible for them to go back and repent.
We do now notice that obeying God, His messenger and the ulul-amr or walee of the umma has a clear, natural outlook in the philosophy of Islam because everything there is belongs to God. Tomorrow, if God will, I’ll discuss some other, important aspects of wilayat.
