What is the status of hadīth-e ghadir? Is it true or not as many authentic hadīth books consider it to be true. Secondly in that hadīth one point is confusing that prophet (sws) took Ali’s hand in air and said: “All my friends and allies are friends of Ali”. According to the sunni version: “Everyone whose master is Muhammad, Ali is his master”. My question is that we must consider the fact that all the pilgrims were returning from Makkah and Ghadir is the place from where all were going to depart. At this place and at this moment when most of the pilgrims were there from all the tribes the Prophet must have had something important to tell about Ali and his status. Merely taking it to mean that he wanted to tell that Ali was his friend does not apparently seem to be the purpose. Does it sound proper from the Prophet to stop the people and tell them with great care that Ali was his friend? I think it must have a more important significance.
Answer
Hadith of Ghadeer is a reliable Hadith since it has reached us through a number of sources and narrators. Of course there are versions of it that are not reliable however the narration of the main story is a reliable one.
Your question is based on a number of assumptions that to me are not true:
1. The place that the Prophet (pbuh) gave the Khutba was in fact far from Mecca. Most of people who were in Hajj where not there simply because many remained in Mecca and many went to other directions. Ghadeer Khum was in fact a place where people of Madina and surrounding areas were separated. It seems like the Prophet (pbuh) left this message about Ali (ra) to this point simply because it was related to the issue that had raised in the army that was led by Ali (ra). The army consisted of people from Madina and surrounding. If we assume that what the Prophet (pbuh) said had a very important implication for all Muslims, then it would only make sense that the Prophet (pbuh) say it in Mecca and during the Hajj, where he had the most population of Muslims around him.
2. The Khutba that the Prophet gave was not just about Ali (ra). It was a longer Khutba and near the end the Prophet (pbuh) also said that wonderful sentence about Ali (ra).
3. The degree of importance of a message that comes from the Prophet (pbuh) for his followers can only be assessed by looking at whether this message has been also given in the Qur’an or not. It is only obvious that if a message of the Prophet (pbuh) carried so much fundamental importance and added a significant substance to the corpus of religion then it had to be included in the Qur’an, that is Furqan and Mizan. This of course is not to say that what the Prophet (pbuh) said was not important! However the issue is, whether it had implications as important as some Muslims believe it had.
4. The implication of the Hadith of Ghadeer is not depending on the meaning of the work Maula. Maula can be interpreted as friend or master, but what makes us understand the implication of the Hadith is first, whether the issue is also addressed in the Qur’an (see point 3 above) and second what the background of this Hadith was (see point 1 above).
5. One of the best ways of understanding the implications of this saying of the Prophet (pbuh) is to see (through reliable narrations) whether Ali (ra) himself interpreted the Hadith of Ghadeer the way that some Muslims interpret it. As far as I have seen, there is no such reliable narration from Ali (ra) about this, which makes me conclude that even Ali (ra) had not seen Ghadeer the way that some Muslims see it today.
