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CHAPTER FIVE

AGAINST ARBITRARY SUBMISSION TO AUTHORITY

46 In the preceding chapters of this book, we have already cited the word of God in the Qurʾan conveying His command to follow His Book and the Practice of His Messenger, and to refer to the Ones in Authority and to consult the People of Knowledge. If we were to repeat the quotations of the Qurʾan in this and the following chapters whenever there is need to cite such evidence as an argument, the book would grow too long, so let what has been mentioned above concerning this point suffice as effective proof and delivery of the message for readers endowed with perception.

47 God commanded that, after the passing of His Messenger, no one be regarded as an ultimate authority or accepted as a point of reference by the ignorant with regard to their ignorance except the Ones in Authority, whom He established after the Messenger to be heeded and obeyed in his place, and whom He appointed, one after the other, in every age and epoch, to explain the obligations and rulings of His faith that perplex the members of the nation, to undertake their leadership, and to act as a witness among them. Whoever refers matters to someone whom God did not command be consulted as a reference, and whoever accepts as an authority someone whom God did not permit to be accepted as such, following him, professing his opinions, holding them to be part of his faith, and claiming that they are the truth which God commanded, has adopted a god other than Him and attributed a partner to God the Exalted. For God said, «They adopted their rabbis and their monks as lords instead of God!»⁸⁴ They have related that ʿAdī ibn Ḥātim recounted, “When I converted to Islam, I came before the Prophet, God bless him, and he saw a cross of gold on my neck. He said to me, ‘Cast off that idol from your neck.’ Then he began reciting the Sūrah of the Ultimatum⁸⁵ and continued until he reached God’s word, «They adopted their rabbis and their monks as lords instead of God.»⁸⁶ I broke in, ‘O Messenger of God, we did not worship them.’ He posed the question, ‘Did they not declare things permitted for you or forbidden to you, and did you not consider what they had permitted or forbidden to be so?’ ‘Yes, certainly,’ I responded. ‘So that was worshiping them,’ he said.”⁸⁷ Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad, God’s blessings be upon him, recited this verse, then said, “The Jews and Christians did not pray to them, nor did they fast for them, but the rabbis and monks made forbidden things lawful for them, and they considered them lawful, and made lawful things forbidden for them, and they considered them forbidden, so that, in this way, they became their lords.” Among such reports, and similar to them, is the statement of the Prophet, “Indeed you will tread the path of the nations before you, as much as one horseshose resembles its mate, or an arrow-feather its match. Even if they entered a lizard’s lair, likewise you too would enter it.” It has been related from ʿAlī, God’s blessings upon him, that he said, “The least thing by which a man may be a polytheist is that he adopt something as his faith and claim that God commanded it, when God did not command it, but rather another besides God commanded it. He would then be worshiping the one who claims that God commanded this, who is other than God and thus would be attributing a partner to God.” Then ʿAlī, peace be upon him, said, “Polytheism can be even harder to see than a black speck on a black surface on a dark night,” and he recited God’s word, «Most of them do not believe in God without attributing partners to Him.»⁸⁸

48 In more than one passage of His Book and utterance of His Messenger, God explicitly condemned the adoption as an authority of anyone other than those to whom He imposed obedience, commanding that their rulings be adopted and their opinions be accepted. God said, «When they are told: Come to what God revealed and to the Messenger, they say, “Enough for us are the ways we found our forefathers following”»;⁸⁹ «He who is guided is guided for his own soul, and he who goes astray goes astray on account of his own soul. No soul may bear another’s burden»;⁹⁰ «On a day when the oppressor will bite his hand and say, “Would that I had followed the path with the Messenger. Woe is me! Would that I had not adopted So-and-so as a companion. He led me astray from the Message after it came to me”»;⁹¹ and «When those who were followed disavow those who followed them and see the torment, and the ties between them are severed, those who followed them will say, “If only we could return once again! We would then disavow them, just as they have disavowed us.” Thus will God show them their deeds as anguish for them, and they will not emerge from the Fire.»⁹² Quoting the speech of those who adopted others as authorities, God said, «They said, “Our Lord! We obeyed our masters and our leaders, but they led us astray from the right path.”»⁹³ And there are many other such verses in which He censures those who adopt as authorities those whom He did not command to be so adopted and commands that one follow those whom He did command be followed.

49 They have related from Ibn ʿUmar that he said, “I heard the Messenger of God say, ‘Knowledge lies in three things: an unequivocal verse, a just obligation, and a practice upheld. Everything but these is miscreance.’”⁹⁴ The Messenger also stated, “I have left among you two things which, if you hold fast to them, you will not go astray: the Book of God and my Practice”; and “I fear three things that may afflict my nation when I am gone: the rule of a tyrant, the slip of a scholar, and the whim of a leader with followers.”⁹⁵ These are examples of the reports they have related that contain the most substantial argument against those among them who have accepted the authority of their predecessors.

50 It is established as soundly transmitted that the Prophet stated, “I have left among you two things which, as long as you hold fast to them, you will not go astray after me: the Book of God and my progeny, the People of my House. They will not separate until they come to the Heavenly Pool, like these two”—and he held the index fingers of his two hands together, even with each other. He continued, “I do not say like these two”—and he held the index finger and middle finger from his right hand together, with one sticking out farther than the other. “These are the two weighty matters. You will remain in a good state as long as you hold fast to them.” They have related from the Messenger of God that he said, “What an unsturdy mount for man is mere assertion!” along with many other similar reports. Perspicacious readers will find a sufficient communication of the point in those reports that we have cited, together with the unequivocal text of the Book.

51 We have mentioned above the Sunnis’ doctrine concerning submission to the authority of the Companions and avoidance of abandoning their opinions in favor of others, and the fact that a certain Sunni denounced them for their adoption of the Companions as authorities, which the common people among them, out of their ignorance, consider a tremendous matter and see as tantamount to leaving the Muslim nation, as they conceive of it. This is true to such an extent that one of them who rejected submission to such illegitimate authorities did not explicitly state his refutation and denunciation of their adoption of their predecessors as authorities, but did so only by means of allusion and indirect references. If his statements were but understood, they would constitute the gravest denunciation of them in their submission to authorities whom God did not command to be followed. They, however, are an ignorant rabble: what they first became accustomed to has grown great in their hearts and has taken the place of the truth with them.

52 The strongest proof they have cited for their submission to the authority of the Companions is an oral report which they claim to have transmitted from the Messenger of God, in which he said, “My Companions are like the stars. No matter which of them you follow, you will be led aright.”⁹⁶ They claimed that everyone who accompanied the Messenger of God should be emulated in everything which he said and did, commanded and forbade. Thus, they made it obligatory to follow all the Companions and to adopt the positions they espoused regarding what they claim is not addressed in the Book of God or in the Practice of their Prophet. Yet we have found that those who they claimed were the Companions of the Messenger of God devolved into factions and differed among themselves after his demise, disputing, fighting, and even killing each other. The text of the Prophetic report that they cited as proof expressly denies that they would do this to each other, and yet declares it permissible for them to kill others and spill their blood. It would be an enormity if Islamic legal rulings were based on the logical implications of this report.

53 What prohibits them from disagreeing—together with God’s censure of disagreement and its proponents that we have cited and quoted in the course of our discussion above—is the principle that when one Companion performs an act, someone else, whether a Companion or otherwise, must not contradict him in that, since the Messenger of God commanded that one emulate each Companion’s behavior. So, in their disunity they violated the command of the Messenger of God. If we set out to discuss all their disagreements and disputes, we would exceed the bounds of this book, because of their great number and the lengthy narratives required to explain them. One example of their disagreements was their first, over the Imamate: the Allies at first sought to assume it for themselves, desiring to appoint one of their own number to the position, but the Emigrants opposed them and refused to allow them this privilege.⁹⁷ It should have been obligatory for the Emigrants, on the grounds of the plain meaning of the Prophetic report, not to oppose the Allies, but rather to emulate them, especially since this disagreement of theirs was over a tremendous and fundamental principle of the faith. A full discussion of their disagreement over this matter would take too long.