ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Fifty Lessons on Principles of Belief for Youths Lesson 34: Who has to Select the Imam? A group of Muslims (Sunnis) believe that the Prophet of Islam (S) died not having selected his successor and they believe that this responsibility belongs to Muslims themselves to select their leader. They undertake this act through Ijma (consensus) which is one of the reasons given in the Divine Law.

They add that this program was implemented the first time for the first caliph who was selected with the consensus of the Ummah. And he selected the second caliph and introduced him as such. And the second caliph selected a council of six people to select the person who should succeed him. This Council consisted of: Imam ‘Ali, peace be upon him, Uthman, Abdal Rahman ibn Awf, Talha, Zubayr and Sa’d bin Abi Waqas.

This Council, with a majority of Sa’d ibn Waqas, Abdal Rahman and Talha voted for Uthman. (The second caliph had directed that if the Council should be divided three to three, the side that Abdal Rahman ibn Awf (‘Uthman’s son-in-law) was on would be the person selected). Towards the end of Uthman’s reign, the people arose against him for several reasons and before he had a chance to select his successor or select a Council, he was killed.

At this time, the majority of the people turned to ‘Ali, peace be upon him, and selected him as their caliph. They pledged their allegiance to him as the successor of the Prophet, other than Mu’awiyah who was the governor of Damascus and who was certain that Imam ‘Ali would not support him. He then raised the flag of opposition which was the beginning of disgraceful events in the history of Islam and caused the shedding of the blood of a great many innocent people.

Here, in order to intellectually and historically clarify what happened, several questions arise, a few of which will be mentioned here below. Can the Ummah select the successor to the Prophet? The answer to this question is that if we take the meaning of imamate to be external leadership of an Islamic society, the selection of a leader on behalf of society with the vote of the people is possible.

But if we take imamate to mean that which we have previously mentioned and as the Holy Qur’an has described, doubtlessly, no one other than God can chose the Imam and the caliph.