A Sahih Hadith On The Khilafah of Imam Ali (as)

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

In his book, Zilal al-Jannah 2/337 No. 1188, al-Albani records:


عن ابن عباس قال قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم لعلي أنت مني بمنزلة هارون من موسى إلا أنك لست نبيا إنه لا ينبغي أن أذهب إلا وأنت خليفتي في كل مؤمن من بعدي

Ibn Abbas reports that the Messenger of Allah (s) said to Ali: ‘Your status to me is like the status of Harun to Musa except you are not a prophet. It is not right for me to leave without you being my successor (khalifah) over of every believer after me’


Al-Albani says:

Its chain is hasan.

Al-Hakim too has recorded it in his al-Mustadrak 3/133, with this comment:

هذا حديث صحيح الإسناد

This hadith has a sahih chain.

Al-Dhahabi agrees with him in Talkhis.

The version authenticated by both al-Hakim and al-Dhahabi also contains this additional sentence (and al-Albani has also explicitly mentioned this in his commentary of the above hadith):

And you (Ali) are my successor (wali) over every believer after me.

Al-Albani has raised no objection against their authentication of the additional phrase, showing that it is sahih too.

Here, we have an explicit sahih hadith on the khilafah of Imam Ali as.gif. It leaves no way of escape for anyone willing to deny it.

However, there are some people that reject the hadith on account of the criticisms levied against its main narrator, Abu Bilj! It is sufficient here that al-Albani has declared his chain hasan in the above hadith. But, we might still need to dig a bit deeper.


Let us quote the words of our Shaykh Hasan Abdullah here, in his commentary of the hadith:

إن أبا بلج وهو يحيى بن سليم أو أبي سليم، ويقال : يحيى بن أبي الأسود الفزاري، وثقه ابن معين، والدار قطني، والنسائي، وابن سعد، وقال أبو حاتم : (لا بأس به ) ومثل قوله فيه قاله يعقوب بن سفيان الفسوي، وقالوا عنه : ( كان يذكر الله كثيراً ) ، وروى عنه شبعة بن الحجاج، فهو ثقة عنده، لأن شعبة لا يروي عن أحد إلاّ إذا كان ثقة عنده

Abu Bilj is called Yahya ibn Saleem or Abu Saleem, and some call him Yahya ibn Abi al-Aswad al-Fazari. Ibn Ma'een declared him thiqah (trustworthy). Darqutni, al-Nisai and Ibn Sa'd too declared him thiqah. Abu Hatim said about him: "There is no problem with him". This is like what he said about Ya'qub ibn Sufyan al-Fasawi. People said about Abu Bilj: "He used to remember Allah very much". Shu'bah ibn al-Hajjaj narrated from him, and considered him thiqah. This is because Shu'bah did not narrate from anyone unless he considered him thiqah.

Salafi ace hadithist, Shaykh Ahmad Muhammad Shakir too in his Musnad Ahmad 3/331 (Dar al-Hadith, Cairo) in the footnote says about Abu Bilj:

ثقة

Thiqah.

Even al-Juzjani the Kharijite has said about Abu Bilj:

كان ثقة

He was thiqah (trustworthy).
Tahdhib al-Tahdhib 6/316-317

Ibn Adi has narrated through a full chain that Ibn Ma'een declared him thiqah (al-Jarh wa Ta'dil, 9/153).

Once again, this hadith has been declared to have a sahih chain by al-Hakim and al-Dhahabi in his al-Mustadrak 3/143 No. 4652, and by al-Maqdisi by including it in his al-Ahadith al-Mukhtaraat 13/26-29 (and he has stated on 1/18 that he has included only sahih narrations). Shaykh Ahmad Muhammad Shakir too has declared it sahih (Musnad Ahmad 3/331 No. 3062).

A teacher at the Umm ql-Qura University in Makkah, Wasiullah ibn Muhammad Abbas, in his annotation of Fadail al-Sahabah 2/849 No. 1168 has declared its chain hasan. Shaykh Abu Ishaq al-Huwayni al-Athari, annotator of Fadail al-Imam Ali (of Imam al-Nisai) 44 No. 23 has also declared its chain hasan.

This should be enough for the opponents of the hadith.

Plus, it has a clear witness in Hadith al-Wilayah. So, in all ways, it is sahih.