The banquet at which Muhammad...

The banquet at which Muhammad, the Messenger of God, declared Ali to be his successor, is famous in history as “the banquet of Dhul-‘Asheera.” This name comes from Al-Qur’an al-Majid itself. (3) Strangely, Sir William Muir has called this historic event “apocryphal.” But what is “apocryphal” or so improbable about it?

Could anything be more logical for the Messenger of God than to begin his work of propagating Islam at his own home, and with members of his own family and his own clan, especially after being expressly commanded by God towarn his nearest kinsmen? The feast of Dhul-‘Asheera at which Muhammad, the Apostle of God, designated Ali ibn Abi Talib, as his successor, is a historical event, and its authenticity has been affirmed, among others, by the Arab historians.

(4) Sir William Muir His (Mohammed’s) cousin, Ali, now 13 or 14 years of age, already gave tokens of the wisdom and judgment which distinguished him in after life. Though possessed of indomitable courage, he lacked the stirring energy which would have rendered him an effective propagator of Islam. He grew up from a child in the faith of Mohammed, and his earliest associations strengthened the convictions of maturer years.

(5) We have many reservations about Sir William Muir’s statement that Ali “lacked the stirring energy that would have made him an effective propagator of Islam.” Ali did not lack energy or anything else. In all the crises of Islam, he was selected to carry out the most dangerous missions, and he invariably accomplished them. As a missionary also, Ali was peerless. There was no one among all the companions of the Prophet who was a more effective propagator of Islam than he.

He promulgated the first 40 verses of the Surah Bara’a (Immunity), the Ninth chapter of Al-Qur’an al-Majid, to the pagans at Mecca, as the first missionary of Islam, and as one representing the Apostle of God himself. And it was Ali who brought all the tribes of Yemen into the fold of Islam. Muhammad, the Messenger of God, had brought up Ali as his own child, and if the latter had lacked anything, he would have known it.

He declared Ali to be his wazir, his successor and his vicegerent at a time when no one could have foreseen the future of Islam. This only points up the unbounded confidence that the Prophet of Islam had in this stripling of fourteen years. Ali symbolized the hopes and aspirations of Islam.