Notes
1. Abd al-Husayn Ahmad al-Amini al-Najafi, Al-Ghadir fi al-Kitab wa al-Sunna wa al-Adab, vol 1, Beirut, 1967, P 9-11, and all the Sunni and Shi'i sources cited therein.
2. This is the meaning of the word the Qur'an applies so often to indicate the divine purpose in endowing humanity with guidance, namely, al-falah. Usually translated as 'prosperity,' falah signifies the good of both this and the next world for those who have responded to the divine guidance.
3. Fiqh in its early usage was not limited to legal jurisprudence. It dealt with doctrinal and credal matters connected with basic Islamic beliefs, including the subject of Muslim authority after the Prophet's death. This early trend in fiqh writing continued much later as is evidenced in many works of fiqh that were written in the sixth/twelfth-thirteenth century which began with a prologue on the main tenets of Islam. See article, Fiqh in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition; also Introduction to my work: The Just Ruler in Shi'ite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
4. Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi, Al-Masa'il al-Ha'iriyat, Najaf, 1969, pp 3I2-313.
5. Tusi, Tafsir al-Tibyan, Najaf, 1957, 8/368.
6. See also, Al-Fadl ibn al-Husayn al-Tabarsi, Majma' al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qu'ran, Beirut, 1379, 8/373-374; Zamakhshari, Al-Kashshaf, 3/276-277.
7. Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, Al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an, Beirut, 1960,6/10ff.
8. John Wansborough, The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History. Oxford, 1978, has discussed the development of the practical application of the Qur'an during the process of community formation. In his section dealing with authority he describes the Islamic concept of authority as 'apostolic.' The charismatic figure of the Prophet is depicted therein in an essentially public posture in the emergence of Islamic polity. See especially pp 70-71.
9. However, in the composition of Islamic salvation history, it was in Shi'ism that the wilaya of the Prophet, as I have elaborated in this paper, was repeatedly and consistently expressed by Shi'i scholars; whereas in Sunnism the wilaya (authority in the form of exemplum [imam]) of the Prophet, in the absence of the charismatic authority following the death of the Prophet, came to be located in the Sunnah, which became the imam of the community. See: Wansborough, Sectarian Milieu, pp 70ff.
10. See Tusi, Tibyan, 3/559
11. Tusi, Tibyan, 3/561; Muhammad ibn Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kulayni, AI-Usul min al-Kafi, Tehran, 1964, 2/402, hadith 77; Tabataba'i, Mizan, 6/ 1ff. 'Abd al-Husayn Sharaf al-Din Musawi, Al-Murji'at, Beirut, 1963, p 180.
12. See, for example, Tabari, Tafsir, 6/186ff; Zamakhshari, Kashshaf, 1/623-624; Baydawi, Anwar, p 154
13. Tusi, Tibyan, 3/559
14. See, for example, the Qur'an, 47:7, 7:157, 59:8. See also Tabataba'i. Mizan, 6/13; Tusi, Tibyan, 3/565, alludes to this.
15. Tabari Ta'rikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, Cairo, 1962, 5/402. See also 5/357, where instead of awla, ahaqq is used to signify the same conclusion of being 'more entitled to tasrruf.' (16 ) Awla in this verse has been translated by A J Arberry and others as 'nearer' and 'closer'.'
But, taking into consideration the Prophet's speech on the occasion of theFarewell pilgrimage, where the same verse of the qur'an occurs in the form of a question by the Prophet to the Muslims, the implication is in the sense of being 'more entitled.' The Prophet asked the assembled pilgrims: 'who is more worthy [in the eyes of] the believers than their ownselves?' see: fn 1.
16. Among the early works, besides the Qur'anic exegesis where wilaya occurs in themeaning of wilayat al-tasarruf, one can cite the Ikhtiyar ma'rifat al-rijal of Abu 'AmrUmar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Kashshi, especially where he mentions the wilaya of Abu al-Khattab, which was denounced by Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq. See Rijal, Mashhad, 1348/1964, 296,523. Also Tabataba'i's Mizan, 6/12-14.
17. Kulayni, Kufi 2/368, hadith 02
18. Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas'udi Muruj al-Dhahab wa Ma'adin al-Jawaher, Beirut 1966. 3/ 193ff. In a more explicit speech, Imam Husayn, on his way to Iraq, reminds the soldiers
of the Umayyad commander who had come to arrest him that the Prophet had required the Muslims to challenge a sultan who had ruled unjustly, breaking all laws of Allah and opposing the Sunnah of the Prophet. see Tabari, Ta'rikh, 5,403.
19. Al-Mirza Muhammad Husayn al-Na'ini, Tanbih al-Umma wa Tanzih al-Milla, Tehran, 1955, p 15.