Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Imamate and Leadership

Lessons on Islamic Doctrine, Book 4

Author(s): Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari

Translator(s): Hamid Algar

Publisher(s): Islamic Education Center

www.alhassanain.org/english

Translated by Dr. Hamid Algar, includes leadership in Islam, leadership of the Prophet and appointment of Imam Ali, responsibility of the companions, necessity of Imamate, and interesting accounts of Imam's communication with the unseen including the story of Maitham al-tammar.

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Thiswork is published on behalf of www.alhassanain.org/english

The typing errors are n’t corrected.

Table of Contents

About the Author 6

Lesson 1: The Place of Leadership in Islam 8

Notes 12

Lesson 2: The Position of the Messenger of God with Respect to the Future of Islam 13

Notes 15

Lesson 3: The Proclamation of 'Ali's Leadership by the Prophet 17

Notes 25

Lesson 4: The Objection of 'Ali to the Decision of the Companions 27

Notes 30

Lesson 5: The Rank of 'Ali as Indicated in Other Sayings of the Prophet 31

Notes 39

Lesson 6: The Relationship between the Qur'an and the Progeny of the Prophet 41

Notes 44

Lesson 7: Irresponsible Attitudes of the Companions 45

Notes 50

Lesson 8: Does the Qur'an Provide an Unconditional Guarantee for the Companions? 51

Notes 53

Lesson 9: The Formation of the Caliphate System at the Saqifah 55

Notes 59

Lesson 10: Reliance on Unsound Criteria 60

Notes 66

Lesson 11: Answer to an Objection 67

Noe 70

Lesson 12: Shi'ism in the Course of History 71

Notes 76

Lesson 13: The True Nature of the Holders of Authority 77

Notes 86

Lesson 14: The Guardians of the Frontiers of the Shari'ah and the Realm of Islam 87

Note 90

Lesson 15: The Imamate as a Rational Necessity 91

Notes 95

Lesson 16: Who are Those Capable of Interpreting Divine Law? 96

Notes 100

Lesson 17: The Imamate and Inner Guidance of Man 101

Notes 105

Lesson 18: The Inerrancy of the Imams and the Necessity of Belief in it 106

Note 111

Lesson 19: Confirmation from the Qur'an and the Sunnah 112

Notes 117

Lesson 20: The Imam's Comprehensive Knowledge of the Islamic Sciences 119

Notes 123

Lesson 21: The Sources of the Imam's Knowledge 124

Notes 129

Lesson 22: A Word Concerning the Unseen and the Manifest 131

Notes 137

Lesson 23: The Imam's Communication with the World of the Unseen 138

Notes 146

Lesson 24: The Method of Choosing the Imam or Leader 147

Notes 155

Lesson 25: The Imamate of the Most Excellent 156

Note 156

About the Author

Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari is the son of the late Ayatullah Sayyid Ali Asghar Lari, one of the great religious scholars and social personalities of Iran. His grandfather was the late Ayatullah Hajj Sayyid Abd ul-Husayn Lari, who fought for freedom in the Constitutional Revolution. In the course of his lengthy struggles against the tyrannical government of the time, he attempted to establish an Islamic government and succeeded in doing so for a short time in Larestan.

Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari was born in 1314/1925 in the city of Lar where he completed his primary education and his preliminary Islamic studies. In 1332/1953, he departed for Qum to continue his study of the Islamic sciences, studying under the professors and teachers of the religious institution, including the main authorities in jurisprudence (maraji').

In 1341/1962, he became a collaborator of Maktab-i-lslam, a religious and scientific journal, writing a series of articles on Islamic ethics. These articles were later collected into a book published under the title Ethical and Psychological Problems. Nine editions of the Persian original of this book have been published, and it has also been translated into Arabic and, most recently, English.

In 1342/1963, he travelled to Germany for medical treatment, and returning to Iran after a stay of several months, he wrote a book called The Face of Western Civilization. The book includes a comparative discussion of Western and Islamic civilization, and in it, the author seeks to prove, by way of a comprehensive, reasoned, and exact comparison, the superiority of the comprehensive and multidimensional civilization of Islam to that of the West. This book has recently been reprinted for the seventh time. In 1349/1970, it was translated into English by a British Orientalist, F. G. Goulding, and it aroused much attention in Europe. Articles concerning the book appeared in several Western periodicals, and the BBC arranged an interview with the translator in which the reasons for translating the book and the reception accorded it in England were discussed. The English version of the book has up to now been printed three times in England, five times in Iran, and twice in America.

About three years after the publication of the English translation, Rudolf Singler, a German university professor, translated it into German, and the version he produced proved influential in Germany. One of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party informed the translator in a letter that the book had left a profound impression upon him, causing him to change his views of Islam, and that he would recommend the book to his friends The German translation has now been reprinted three times.

The English and German versions of the book were reprinted by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance for wide distribution abroad through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Islamic Students' Associations abroad.

At the same time that the first printing of the German translation was published, an Indian Muslim scholar by the name of Maulana Raushan Ali translated it into Urdu for distribution in India and Pakistan. This Urdu translation has now been reprinted five times.

Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari has also written a pamphlet on tauhid (divine unity), which was translated in England and published several times in America.

In 1343/1964, he established a charitable organization in Lar with the purposes of propagating Islam, teaching Islam to rural youth, and helping the needy. This organization remained active until 1346/1967. Its main accomplishments were the dispatch of students of the religious sciences to the countryside to teach Islam to children and young people; providing thousands of school children with clothing, books and writing equipment; building a number of mosques, schools, and clinics in towns and villages; and the provision of miscellaneous services.

Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari pursued his interest in Islamic ethics, writing new articles on the subject. In 1353/1974, a collection of these articles, revised and supplemented, appeared in book form under the title, The Function of Ethics in Human Development. This book has now been reprinted six times.

In 1357/1978, he travelled to America at the invitation of an Islamic organization in that country. He then went to England and France and after returning to Iran began writing a series of articles on Islamic ideology for the magazine Soroush. These articles were later collected in a four volume book on the fundamental beliefs of Islam (tauhid, divine justice, prophethood, imamate, and resurrection) under the title The Foundations of Islamic Doctrine.

This four volume work has been translated into Arabic, some parts of it having already been printed three times. The English translation of the first volume of this work forms the present book; the remaining volumes will also be translated and published. Urdu, Hindi and French translations are also underway; two volumes of the French translation have already appeared.

In 1359/1980, Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari established an organization in Qum called Office for the Diffusion of Islamic Culture Abroad. It dispatches free copies of his translated works to interested persons throughout the world. It has also undertaken the printing of a Quran for free distribution among Muslim individuals, institutions and religious schools in Africa.

Lesson 1: The Place of Leadership in Islam

The Place of Leadership1 in Islam

The Imam is, with respect to the masses composing the ummah, the leader and exemplar from whose intellectual power and insight those travelling toward God benefit, whose conduct and mode of life they imitate, and to whose commands they submit.

Imamate has a broad and comprehensive sense that includes both intellectual authority and political leadership. After the death of the Prophet, the Imam was entrusted with the guardianship of his accomplishments and the continuation of his leadership, in order to teach men the truths of the Qur'an and religion and ordinances concerning society; in short, he was to guide them in all dimensions of their existence.

Such leadership, exercised in its true and proper form, is nothing other than the realization of the goals of Islam and the implementation of its precepts, precepts established by the Messenger of God; it bestows objective existence on the ideal of forming a community and codifying a law for its governance. Imamate and leadership are sometimes understood in a restricted sense to refer to the person who is entrusted with exclusively social or political leadership.

However, the spiritual dimension of man is connected intimately with the mission of religion, and the true and veritable Imam is that exalted person who combines in himself intellectual authority and political leadership; who stands at the head of Islamic society, being enabled thereby both of convey to men the divine laws that exist in every sphere and to implement them; and who preserves the collective identity and the human dignity of the Muslims from decline and corruption.

In addition, the Imam is one whose personality, already in this world, has a divine aspect; his dealings with God and man, his implementation of all the devotional, ethical and social precepts of God's religion, furnish a complete pattern and model for imitation. It is the Imam who guides the movement of men toward perfection. It is therefore incumbent on all believers to follow him in all matters, for he is a living exemplar for the development of the self and of society, and his mode of life is the best specimen of virtue for the Islamic community.

Most Sunni scholars are of the opinion that Caliphate (khilafah) and Imamate (imamah) are synonymous, both signifying the heavy social and political responsibility bestowed on the caliph, who attains his position of guardianship for the affairs of the Muslims by election. The caliph both solves the religious problems of the people and assures public security and guards the frontiers of the country through the exercise of military power. The caliph (or Imam) is therefore at one and the same time a leader of conventional type and a ruler concerned with the welfare of society, whose ultimate aim is the establishment of justice and guarding the frontiers of the country, it is for the sake of these aims that he is elected.

According to this concept, the qualifications for leadership are governmental competence and capacity for rule. On the one hand, the leader must punish errant and corrupt individuals by implementing the penalties God has decreed; hold in check those who would transgress against the rights of others; and repress rebellious and anarchic ruffians. On the other hand, by acquiring the necessary military equipment and organizing a powerful army, he must both protect the frontiers of the Islamic state against all aggression, and also confront, with jihad and armed struggle, various forms of shirk and corruption and factors of ignorance and unbelief if they prevent the progress or the implementation of true religion and the dissemination of tawhid by way of propagation and guidance powers proves impossible.

In this view of things, it does not present a major problem if the leader or ruler has no background of erudition with respect to God's ordinances, or even if he has strayed beyond the boundaries of piety and polluted himself with sin. Anyone can lay claim to the title of successor (khalifah) to the Prophet who undertakes the tasks he used to fulfil. It is not offensive if some oppressive tyrant establishes his dominance over Islamic society by trampling the rights of the people, shedding their blood and exercising military force, calling himself the leader of the Muslims; or if some two-faced politician assumes the office of successor to the Prophet, and then proceeds to rule over people, despite his lack of spiritual and moral qualities, canceling all notion of justice and equity. Indeed, not only is it impermissible to oppose him; it is necessary to obey him.

It is on the basis of this view of the matter that one of the great Sunni scholars expressed himself as follows concerning the caliph:

“The caliph cannot be removed from office on account of contravening God's laws and commands, transgressing against the property of individuals or killing them, or suspending the laws God has decreed. In such a case, it is the duty of the Islamic community to set his misdeeds aright and to draw him onto the path of true guidance.”2

However, if such an atmosphere predominates in the institution of the caliphate, with the caliph leaving no sense of responsibility, based on his own religiosity, toward Muslim society, how can those who wish to reform the situation constantly watch over the deeds of a corrupt leadership, evince the appropriate reaction on every occasion, and purge Islam of deviation? Can rulers be persuaded by mere advice to change their ways?

If God had wished to entrust the destinies of the community to unworthy rulers, to impious and selfish oppressors, it would not have been necessary for him to bestow messenger hood on the Prophet or to reveal the ordinances needed for the stability of society. Did those caring, self-sacrificing and noble souls who throughout the centuries rebelled against evil and oppressive rulers act contrary to God's will?

Dr. Abd al-'Aziz al-Duri, a Sunni scholar, writes as follows:

“At the time the sovereignty of the caliphate was being established, the political theory of the Sunnis with respect to this institution was not based simply on Qur'an and hadith. Rather it rested on the principle that Qur'an and hadith must be understood and explicated in accordance with whatever events subsequently occurred. Thus every generation left its mark on the theory of the caliphate, because that theory assumed a new shape with each new occurrence and was colored by it. An obvious example is the case of Qadi Abu 'l-Hasan al-Mawardi, who served as chief judge under the caliph. When writing his book al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyyah he kept the concerns of the caliph in mind, at a time when the caliphate was at its most degenerate. He employed all his mental powers to reconcile the views of earlier jurists with the situation existing in his own time and the developments that were occurring then. His sole talent was in eschewing any kind of free and original thought. He wrote:

“'It is permissible for an unfit individual to be the leader even if a fit individual is also to be found. Once someone has been chosen, he cannot be removed simply because there is someone better and more fitted available.'

“He admits and vindicates this principle in order to justify rule by numerous unfit caliphs. It is possible, too, that he wished to refute Shi'i views on the subject. The theological and credence view he puts forth serves no other purpose for the Sunnis but to justify the political developments of the day. The only aim was to justify whatever might be grouped under the heading of ijma' (consensus).”3

Such are the intellectual foundations of those who regard themselves as followers of the Sunnah of the Prophet and the guardians of religion and the shari'ah. They denounce as rejecters and traitors to the Sunnah of God's Messenger a whole host of Islamic thinkers and social reformers, followers of the Imams of justice, the proofs of God and the guides of mankind.

If rulers who are strangers to the spirit of Islam and trample underfoot the laws of God, have the right to rule over the believers; and if the ummah of Islam is obliged to obey such rulers, being forbidden to take them to task in order to reform the caliphate or to disobey their orders what then becomes of the religion of God?

Can the Islamic conscience accept this as a proper form of loyalty to the shari'ah of the Prophet? Is not the inevitable result of this mode of thought the granting of unlimited rights to the powerful and oppressive tyrants that have ruled throughout history?

By contrast, the Imamate in the view of the Shi'ah is a form of divine governance, an office depending on appointment just like prophethood, something God bestows on exalted persons. The difference is that the Prophet is the founder of the religion and the school of thought that proceeds from it, whereas the Imam has the function of guarding and protecting God's religion, in the sense that people have the duty of following in all dimensions of their life the spiritual values and mode of conduct of the Imams.

After the Messenger of God, the Islamic ummah stood in need of a worthy personage who would be endowed with the knowledge derived from revelation, exempt from sin and impurity, and capable of perpetuating the path of the founder of the shari'ah. Only such a personage would be able not only to watch over the political developments of the time and to protect society from its deviant elements, but also to provide people with the extensive religious knowledge which spring from the fountainhead of revelation and derive from the general principles of the shari'ah. The laws derived from revelation would thus be preserved, and the torch of truth and justice held high.

Imamate and caliphate are inseparable, in just the same way that the governmental functions of the Messenger of God cannot be separated from his prophetic office. Spiritual Islam and political Islam are two parts of a single whole. However, in the course of Islamic history, political power did become separated from the spiritual Imamate, and the political dimension of religion was separated from its spiritual dimension.

If Islamic society is not headed by a worthy, just, God fearing person, one unsullied by moral impurity, whose deeds and words serve as a model for people; if, on the contrary, the ruler of society himself violates the law and turns his back on the principles of justice there will be no environment capable of receiving justice, and it will not be possible neither for virtue and piety to grow and ascend, nor for the aim of Islamic government to be accomplished, which is none other than orienting men to the Supreme Principle and creating a sound environment for the dissemination of spiritual values and the implementation of a law based on divine revelation. The moral conduct of the ruler and the role of government have so profound and powerful an effect on society that 'Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be upon him, regarded it as more influential than the educative role of the father within the household. He thus said: “With respect to their morals, people resemble their rulers more than they resemble their fathers.”4

Since there is a particular connection and affinity between the aims of a given government and the attributes and characteristics of its leader, attaining the ideals of Islamic government is dependent on the existence of a leader in whom are crystallized the special qualities of a perfected human being.

In addition, the need of a society moving forward toward its own perfection for leadership and governance is a natural and innate need, and in just the same way that Islam has made provision for the individual and collective needs of man, material and moral, by codifying and ordering a coherent system of law, it must also pay heed to the natural need for leadership in a fashion that accords with man's essential disposition.

God has provided every existent being with all the tools and instruments it needs to transcend the limitations of weakness and lack and advance toward its own perfection. Is it then possible that man who is also nurtured in the embrace of nature would somehow be excepted from the operation of this inviolable rule and be deprived of the means of spiritual ascent?

Could it be said that a Creator Who has lavished generosity on man for the sake of his bodily development might deprive him of the most basic means needed for his spiritual elevation, that He might grudge him this bounty?

At the time of the death of the Messenger of God, the Islamic nation had not reached the cultural or intellectual level that would have permitted it to continue its development toward perfection without guardianship and oversight. The program that Islam had established for the development and elevation of man would have remained soulless and incomplete unless the principle of Imamate had been joined to it; Islam would have been unable to play its precious role in the liberation of man and the blossoming of his talents.

Fundamental Islamic texts proclaim that if the principle of Imamate is subtracted from Islam, the spirit of the laws of Islam and the progressive, monotheistic society based on them would be lost; nothing would remain but a lifeless form.

The Prophet of Islam, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, said: “Whosoever dies without recognizing the Imam of his time dies the death of the Jahiliyyah.”5

The reason for this is that during the Jahiliyyah pre-Islamic era of ignorance the people were polytheists; they knew nothing of either monotheism or of prophethood. This categorical declaration by the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, shows the importance that he assigned to the Imamate, to the degree that if someone fails to place his spiritual life beneath the protective cover of a perfected ruler he is equivalent to one whose whole life was spent in the Jahiliyyah and then went unredeemed to his death.

Notes

1. By 'leadership' here is implied the conception of Imamate. An Imam is an infallible person designated by the prophet as his successor by God's command.

2. Baqillani, al-Tamhid, p. 186.

3. al-Duri, al-Nuzum al-Islamiyyah, Vol. I, pp. 72-84.

4. al-Majlisi, Biharal-Anwar, Vol, XVII, p. 129.

5. Ahmad b. Hanbal, al-Musnad, p. 96.

Lesson 2: The Position of the Messenger of God with Respect to the Future of Islam

The Most Noble Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, was well aware that after he had departed for the proximity of his Exalted Lord, the community would lose its unifying foundation, fall into a whirlpool of division and dissent, and be full of struggle and disorder.

The newly established Islamic community was composed of the migrants - including the Bani Hashim, the Bani Umayyah, Adiyy and Taym - on the one hand, and the Helpers (ansar) - subdivided into the Aws and Khazraj tribes - on the other. Once the matchless leader that was the Prophet had departed, ambitions arose on every hand, and instead of being concerned with the interests of Islam, men sought to capture leadership and rule for themselves, wishing to transform divine leadership into tribal rule. The varying aspirations and tendencies that arose heft no firm, unifying bond in place among people, a profound tragedy that the Prophet had foreseen and to which he had alerted his followers: “My ummah will divide into seventy three factions, only one of which will attain salvation, the other factions being destined for hellfire.”1

The greatest blow that was struck against the unity of Islam after the death of its founder, sowing the seeds of dissension among Muslims, was the difference of opinion relating to the question of rule and leadership. It led to wars, rebellions and bloody struggles, sundering the unity of the Muslims and scattering their unified ranks.

If indeed the Prophet had not made some provision for the painful situation - a situation he foresaw - if he had not attempted to prevent the emergence of the vacuum that would have threatened the very existence of Islamic society, quitting this worldly stage without any plan for safeguarding his ummah from misguidance, would this not have created great problems with respect to government and the administration of affairs? The gravity of future problems was, moreover, apparent even without the receipt of communication from the Origin of Revelation and unseen agents.

How is it possible to imagine that Most Noble Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, should have neglected nothing in the proclamation of his message but paid no attention to the future course of Islam and its culture, to the guardianship of the truth, and the preservation of both religion and society, entrusting all this simply to the hand of fate and whatever circumstances might later arise? Was it possible that he should not select a captain to steer the ship of the ummah away from the dangerous waves of dissension that he expected it to encounter?

Those who say that the Prophet did not delineate any form of government to succeed him, remaining silent on the subject and leaving his crisis-stricken ummah at a loss what to do - how can they attribute such inappropriate silence and such irresponsible laxity to one whom we know as the Universal Intelligence? It must also be borne in mind that his death did not come suddenly. he realized in advance that he was about to leave the world, In his sermon of the Farewell Pilgrimage (hijjatu 'l-wada') he had proclaimed to the people that he was about to depart from their midst, and that he would not be standing with them at the same place the following year.

Islam was then young, and a long path lay ahead of it if it was to come to fruition. The standard bearer of its movement had committed himself to uprooting all traces of the Jahiliyyah, and to erasing from the hearts and souls of the people any of its residue that might persist He was threatened on two fronts.

Internally he was threatened by the Hypocrites who had penetrated the ranks of the Muslims through outwardly ranging themselves beneath the banner of prophethood and were striving repeatedly to defeat the Prophet. In the ninth year of the Hijrah, when he had departed on the Tabuk campaign, he became anxious on account of their intrigues and plotting, and in order to prevent the occurrence of any untoward event he named 'Ali, peace be upon him, as his deputy in Madinah. Externally he was threatened by the two great empires, Byzantium and Persia, and there was the constant fear that at any moment either of those great powers might attack the center of the Islamic movement.

It is evident that confronted with such grave problems the Prophet was bound to place responsibility for the preservation of the ummah in the hands of a person or persons who had the capacity for it, in order that the Islamic call might remain firm and protected.

The first caliph felt a sense of responsibility for the future of the Islamic state and was unwilling for it to be threatened by a vacuum in the leadership. He did not leave the ummah to its own devices, and while on his deathbed instructed the people as follows: “I appoint 'Umar b. al-Khattab as commander and ruler over you; pay heed to his words and obey him.”2 The caliph thus regarded it as his right to designate his own successor and to enjoin obedience to him on the people.

The second caliph likewise realized the need to act quickly once he had been fatally stabbed. He ordered a six-man council to be convened, which implies that he did not grant the Muslims the right of appointing the caliph themselves, otherwise he would not have assigned the task to this council.

The Commander of the Faithful, 'Ali, peace be upon him, accepted the responsibility of the caliphate under extraordinarily complicated and disturbed circumstances, for he was fearful that popular disorder might lead to a wholesale relapse into Jahiliyyah.

Taking all this into consideration, is it at all possible that the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, should have overlooked the depth of the danger or the sensitiveness of the situation, despite the fact that society had only just emerged from Jahiliyyah, and that he should not have drawn up a plan to confront the dangers he anticipated after his death?

It would indeed be impossible to find any acceptable explanation for a failure on the part of the Prophet to concern himself with this matter. Likewise, it is unimaginable that he should have shown no concern for the future of the summons he had launched, not caring what might become of it after his death.

On the contrary even on his deathbed and while sorely vexed by the pains of sickness, the Prophet was concerned for the ummah and full of anxiety for its future, to the degree that it completely preoccupied his whole being.

During those sensitive and critical moments, when everyone was in a state of shock and bewilderment and some of the Companions (sahabah) including 'Umar b. al-Khattab were gathered around his bed, the Prophet said: “Bring me paper and an inkpot; I wish to write instructions for you so that you never go astray.”3

This effort of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, preserved in a tradition on the authenticity of which are agreed, is clear testimony to the fact that the Messenger of God, precisely at the time that he was spending the last moments of his luminous life, was concerned for the future of Islam and was giving thought to the dangers that would arise after his death. He wished to lay down a path for the future in order to preserve the ummah from deviation and society from degeneration, for he understood these matters better and more profoundly than anyone.

A matter that. deserves particular attention is the question of successorship in heavenly religions and laws, for all the prophets of God selected deputies and successors in accordance with revelation. For example, Adam, Ibrahim (Abraham), Ya'qub (Jacob), Musa (Moses) and 'Isa (Jesus), peace be on them all, selected their successors, all of whom are known to us by name.4

The Most Noble Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, said:

“Every prophet has a legatee (wasiyy) and an heir (warith), and 'Ali is my legatee and heir.”5

Since according to the Qur'an the norms of God are fixed and unchanging, it follows that the Prophet of Islam must also act in accordance with this immutable divine norm by presenting his own deputy and successor to the Islamic ummah. This indeed is what happened. In conformity with God's command and as required by prophethood and the need to perpetuate the message of Islam and implement its goals, he selected his legatee, thus making its duty clear to the ummah. All of this represents a belief that originates in the Book of God.

Muslims are unanimous in believing that the Prophet of Islam, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, never made any mention of Abu Bakr or the two caliphs that followed Abu Bakr as his caliphs and successors, nor is there any indication of their caliphate in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. The caliphate of Abu Bakr is thus a simple historical event, not an indisputable religious belief, so that every Muslim has the right to express an opinion on the matter in accordance with his own understanding, as simple logic requires.

Notes

1. Ibn Majah, al-Sunan, “Bab al-Fitan.”

2. al-Ya'qubi, al-Tarikh, Vol. II, pp. 126-7.

3. Ahmad b. Hanbal, al-Musnad, Vol. I, p. 344; Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat, Vol. II, p.242; al-Bukhari, al-Sahih; Vol. I, p. 22; al-Tabari, Tarikh, Vol. II, p.436.

4. al-Mas'udi, Ithbat al-Wasiyyah; al-Ya'qubi, al-Tarikh.

5. Ibn , Asakir, al-Tarikh, Vol. III, p. 5; Riyad al-Nadirah, Vol. II, p. 178.