3 - The Imam ʿAlī al-Riḍā

Summary

Those who pose questions only want to test [me] and find a path to doubt and misbelief … Don't you and your crowd see that I respond to [your inquiries] when I can remain silent instead?

ʿAlī al-Riḍā, cited by al-Kashshī

Introduction

The Twelver Shiites believe that their Imams represent a tradition of heirship to the Prophet through ʿAlīb. Abī Ṭālib, Muḥammad's cousin, son-in-law, and designated successor. In an oration delivered at Ghadīr Khumm during the last year of his life, the Prophet took ʿAli's hand and announced: “Whoever is my affiliate is ʿAlī's also.” He warned the assembled Muslims that when he died they would be responsible for two legacies he was leaving in their care. The first was the Qurʾān, and the second was the people of his household: his daughter Fāṭima, her husband ʿAlī, and their sons al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn. This speech, attested in Sunni as well as Shiite sources (though not in Ibn Isḥāq's Sīra or al-Tabarī's Taʾrīkh), supported the claim that the Prophet had appointed ʿAlī his successor. In the event, however, the succession took a different path. When Muḥammad died, ʿAlī and Fāṭima remained with his body while the Muslims at the Saqīfa pledged allegiance to Abū Bakr. After being passed over twice more, ʿAlī finally became caliph in 35/656. Five years later he was assassinated, and Muʿāwiya, the governor of Syria, assumed the caliphate for himself and the Umayyads. ʿAlī's son al-Ḥasan made a counter-claim, but abdicated under Umayyad pressure.