After the four khulafā' al-rāshidīn [rightly-guided Caliphs]...

After the four khulafā' al-rāshidīn [rightly-guided Caliphs], the Caliphate ceased to have the connotation of sovereignty and, in fact, to admit the sense of effective authority.

This can be seen clearly with Mu'āwiyyah, the founder of the Ummayad dynasty, who considered himself the “first king [ malik ]” of Islām.[^3] He is responsible for losing the effective [spiritual] authority of the Caliphate and diminishing the meaning of many titles which, in the early days, were exclusive Caliphal prerogatives.

This includes the very term khalīf which, upon entering the common language, became so diluted that any governor of Islām could claim to be the Caliph of his own dominion.

Among some Sunnī commentators and misinformed Orientalists, there are those who believe that when 'Alī became the Fourth Caliph, according to the temporal and political precedence more than the spiritual, he was implicitly accepting the authority and the method of election of the previous Caliphs in that they accomplished similar political and social functions as governors and elders of the Islāmic community.[^4]From a Shī'ite perspective, it is clear that 'Alī never accepted the Caliphate in the sense that the three Caliphs who preceded him did.

On the contrary, as Imām–in the Shī'ite sense of spiritual and political regency as well as ta'ālīm , the esoteric faculty of perfectly interpreting the intertexual mysteries of the Qur'ān and the sharī'ah –'Alī was the legitimate spiritual heir and political successor of the Prophet, something which he and his successors always insisted upon.

As he explains explicitly in his letters and sermons, 'Alī accepted the function of Caliph–in the Sunnī sense of governor and legal administrator–to avoid schism while preserving the function of wilāyah for himself. As Nasr says, this is how 'Alī can simultaneously be seeing as Caliph and Imām, by both Sunnis and Shī'ites, in accord with the different perspectives on the issue (see Nasr's preface to Tabātabā'ī's Shī'ite Islām 10-12).

The wilāyah inherently implies certain legal and political faculties. The Imām, as we have said, exercises the spiritual magistrate and the esoteric guidance of the wilāyah . He also performs the function of administrator of the sharī'ah , fully interpreting its legal code and legitimately dispensing justice through his role as perfect monarch, by the fact that he embodies spiritual authority and temporal power.