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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Principles of the Shi’ite Creed Lesson 13: Imam’s Traits Imam and the leader of the Muslims who is to succeed the great Prophet assuming the management of the mundane and religious affairs of people must have certain distinctions. He must be free from errors and mistakes to be able to lead the society toward prosperity because an impure person won’t be able to clean up peoples’ contamination.

Imam must be in touch with the Unseen and enjoy boundless divine knowledge to be able to explain the Islamic facts, concepts and edicts to Muslims, because if he were to speculate or merely possess ordinary human learning like other people, then his remarks would not be compelling and people won’t appreciate the truth of the Islamic teachings.

Imam must be appointed by the great Prophet or his predecessor on behalf of God, because none except God and His Prophet could determine the infallibility of others and people are also unable to be certain about anyone’s future.

Therefore, it is not appropriate to hand over the appointment of Imams to people because, although people might regard someone as innocent and pure, in actuality, he may be the contrary or people might confirm someone’s integrity in the light of present circumstances but he may lapse into error and impurity in the future.

It is only and merely God who is aware of the present and future and within as well as the without and knows who to choose to lead the society and assume the management after the great Prophet. The great Qur’an says, “God knows better to whom He should turn over the religious and mundane leadership of the people.” [^1] Who has been appointed as the successor of the Prophet?

At the command of God, the Prophet of Islam has introduced all of his successors and has explicitly named them, one by one, and has recurrently reminded people of ‘Ali’s right to succession. An examination of history and books will reveal that the Prophet over the twenty-three years of his prophetic mission has raised the subject of the succession of Imam ‘Ali on any propitious occasion.

Here, we will only refer to two cases, the first took place at the onset of the prophetic mission and the second occurred during the last year of his life.