From Talk:Ali/Archive4[edit]

Was Ali interested in Rulership?[edit]

Zora, The sentence "Ali had a strong claim to the leadership, both as one of Muhammad's closest assistants and as his cousin and son-in-law. " implies that his claim for leadership was because of his closeness to Muhammad. This is against the Shia belief. He was not a FOND OF POWER AND RULERSHIP. But this sentence implies that he was. Moreover, in the other part of the article we read : " Ali at first refused. He is said to have been horrified by the assassination of Uthman, and did not wish to appear to be profiting from the situation. But his supporters persevered, and Ali finally allowed himself to be proclaimed caliph." This suggests that the only reason he didn't want to accept rullership was his fearing of appearing as being profiting by the assassination of Uthman. I think both these two sentences should be revised. My reasons of why Ali was not a fond of power:

1. Ali’s response to the people of Medina beseeched him to accept the mantle of Calipha: "I swear by the Creator of this Universe that had they not sworn unconditional allegiance to me; had they not manifested profound gratitude for my accepting their rulership; had not the presence of helpers and supporters made it incumbent upon me to defend the faith; and had Allah, the Almighty not taken a promise from the learned to put a check upon the luxurious and vicious lives of Oppressors and tyrants as well as to try to reduce the pangs of poverty and starvation of the oppressed and downtrodden, and had He not made it incumbent upon them to secure back the usurped rights of the weak from the mighty and powerful oppressors, I would even now have left the rulership of this State as I did earlier and would have allowed it to sink into anarchy and chaos. Then you would have seen that in my view the glamour of a vicious life of your world is no better than the sneezing of a goat". (Sermon—7, Peak of Eloquence)

2. Ibn Abbas says: "Once when I visited Imam Ali, he was mending his shoes. The Holy Imam asked me, 'What do you think will be the price of this shoe?' I said, 'It has no value at all'. The Holy Imam then said, 'By Allah! To my mind this torn shoe is more valuable than my ruling over the people provided I enforce truthfulness and eradicate the untruth".

3. When Imam Ali after assuming the authority of ruling over the people visited a city, he said, "I have come down to your city in my old dress, with this asset and this horse. If after a few days you find that I depart from your city in different clothes you should conclude that I misappropriated the public property".

ALSO, I have added something to the part "Was Muhammad an imam?". Please have a look at it.

But that's YOUR belief about Ali, that he's a perfect divine being with no human passions. It would be quite possible to use the existing historical evidence to depict Ali in an extremely unflattering light, as a conniver after power. I'm not particularly interested in doing so, but I see ample indications in the literature that he was human, fallible, and not at all divine. This article is an encyclopedia article; it is not Shi'a devotional literature. I don't see the passages you cite as particularly unflattering to Ali. They are unflattering ONLY if you start from the standpoint that he didn't have normal human emotions ... and historians CAN'T start from that supernaturalist standpoint. We're having similar problems with the contention that he never converted to Islam because he was a Muslim already. That's not anything found in the earliest historical accounts, not anything found in academic histories -- it's just Shi'a doctrine, that he could not have converted because that would have been to be imperfect BEFORE the conversion, and Ali must not be shown to be imperfect. We can put the "no amibition" into the article as a separate viewpoint (as we did with the "no conversion" POV) but we can't promote it as the only viewpoint. Zora 12:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Zora, I agree that not only Ali but Muhammad also was human and fallible. I only think that they had a connection with God in a PARTICULAR sense (which does not make them divine at all). The reference I added in the part "Was Muhammad an imam?" was only to show that “Imam” is not a mere title applied to 12 people; it has nothing to do with what we are talking here. There, I just wanted to mention that according to shia, being Imam is a position that some people can attain and not a title for a particular group of 12 people. It is all the matter of definition. According to the Shia definition Muhammad was an Imam. It is clearly true due to the way Imam is defined.

Anyway, here I have another argument. Let’s assume Ali was a perfectly human being. Isn’t it possible for a "human being" not to have interests in power and rulership? Isn’t it possible for a "human being" to disregard the worldly things? I think it is POSSIBLE.

Now we have a sentence:

“Ali had a strong claim to the leadership”

We both agree on it.

Your theory for its reason is the following: “both as one of Muhammad's closest assistants and as his cousin and son-in-law.” My theory is this: “He was not interested in the worldly part of leadership. He FELT a responsibility because he FELT Muhammad has set him as his successor. He felt the responsibility to preserve the society from straying from the Islamic values, to enforce truthfulness and to eradicate the untruth“

These are two theories. Either we mention both theories in the article; or we provide evidences for the both sides. The one with more weight is picked to appear in the article. Is that fair? We never know which theory is true but we can provide evidences for each of them. If you agree, could you please provide reliable evidences for the first theory?

I think that you're over-analyzing the "he had a strong claim" sentence. When I read it -- and I think that I may have written it, but I'm not sure -- it reads to me as if it were describing his merits in the eyes of the rest of the Muslims. That is, he was a possible leader because he had been intimately associated with Muhammad for many years, was one of his closest relatives, AND had been one of Muhammad's most trusted lieutenants. These were all the sorts of reasons that would weigh with tribesmen choosing a leader. That doesn't mean that Ali believed that these were his only qualifications, or that he didn't believe that he had a responsibility to carry out Muhammad's wishes -- or God's wishes -- in keeping Islam a religion rather than just an excuse for worldly rule. You're so far INSIDE the view of Ali's position as divinely ordained, and Ali as accepting it as a duty, that you can't see how it would look to someone who didn't hold these views -- as, clearly, most of the Muslims didn't. Zora 02:06, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Zora for your comment. The reason that I really do care about it is that I have seen many Christians criticizing Islam because of the political disagreements after death of Muhammad. They say that if Muhammad was really a true prophet, then he was at least able to train his followers to disregard worldly power. As you know, Jesus was not interested in worldly power. They say that Muslims were so much greedy of power that after death of Muhammad, they started fighting for power. They say that the main reason for these disagreements is that the only thing Muslims were looking at was “power”. This is what they say. I just want to put a hint in the article regarding Ali, that at least there were people with the view that: the glamour of a vicious life of the world is no better than the sneezing of a goat. Wasn’t I aware of that criticism of Christians, I wouldn’t stress on changing some of the sentences.

Well, I added a sentence to the article saying that Shi'a believe that Ali was acting out of a sense of duty, not out of desire for power. Also, I wouldn't be too worried about criticism from Christians. It's not as if they weren't killing each other for power as soon as the Christians had any. The record after Constantine's conversion is dismal. Since I'm a Buddhist, I should probably add that Buddhists in power have killed with abandon too. It's a human thing, alas. I think one of my online friends came up with a "law" something like, "There is no belief so pure or so rational that it can't be degraded into utter nonsense by fuggheaded supporters". Zora 02:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Although the controversy appears mostly resolved, I think the term "strong claim" has a legalistic connotation and should not be used here because there was no rule of succession to Muhammad's position, and in fact, no rule that dictated that there should be any successor at all, under which Ali could have made any "claim."

My revision, I think, more simply states the situation as it stood: many believed that Ali should succeed Muhammad. However, there was, objectively speaking, no rule, or a body of law, under which one could make a claim of him being a legitimate successor.Saltyseaweed 18:30, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pepsidranka, the past tense was used merely because the particular topic of discussion was what was happening during the succession struggle--it was meant to say at that moment, many Muslims believed Ali should succeeed. It is not meant to deny that many Shi'a still believe that; hopefully, the last revision will clarify that.

The sentence became a bit verbose to clarify who "he" is, between Muhammad and Ali. I think the last revision will make it clear. Saltyseaweed 19:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It currently reads: "After the death of Muhammad, many Muslims believed that Ali should succeed Muhammad, as Ali was one of Muhammad's closest assistants, his cousin and son-in-law, and a powerful leader on own merit." I still think it seems awkward for it to be "believed", then "should succeed" and then "was". It goes from past to present to past. Pepsidrinka 19:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about "After the death of Muhammad, many Muslims believed that Ali should have succeeded Muhammad, ...". Pepsidrinka 19:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's awkward, because we are discussing what the Muslims believed after Muhammad died but before Umar assumed the leadership. Remember, "should" is a past tense of "shall" and I think its usage in past-tense sentences is acceptable, much like how the word "would" is used. If we take your version, that would be from the point of view of the past, but after Umar assumed the leadership.

Any proofreader want to make a judgment? Zora? Or why don't we change "should" to "must" or "would"? But the meaning changes. Saltyseaweed 00:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the sentence to "Many of the early Muslims believed that Ali should have succeeded ..." Does that make it any clearer? Maybe there's a better phrase for early Muslims, meaning the Muslims of 632 CE? Zora 00:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so Zora, "the early Muslim" is, I think, an ill-defined term. How about "immediately after Muhammad's death"? Does that narrow the timeline enough? Also, your revision of the preceding sentence muddles things up, because in your rendition, both Muhammad and Ali are referred to in 3rd person male pronoun (he/his).

I also have problem with "should have" past perfect tense. By using the past perfect tense here, it preempts the following narration. To me, ". . . believed that Ali should succeed" sounds right, as "should" is the past tense of "shall." Nothing's wrong with " . . . believed that Ali would succeed" so what's wrong with should? Saltyseaweed 03:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]