Shia Standpoint

All Shia scholars strongly believe that The Holy Prophet (sws) had clearly mentioned about his successor in major public meetings. There is a long list of recorded events in history which reveal that Prophet did declare the name of his successor.
Thus, from Shia standpoint, if anyone rejects or doesn’t recognize the legitimate successor of the Holy Prophet, then it is an open challenge to the authority of the Prophet and a clear defiance of Divine law. This is definitely a grave sin. If someone does it knowingly and deliberately, then he will be ousted from the Muslim community on account of committing Kufr.

Is it rational to believe that Prophet did not say anything about his succession ?
Now let’s analyze sincerely and rationally the Sunni’s standpoint that the Prophet did not say anything about his succession.

• Argument

Did the Holy Prophet, who had given the Muslim world a written constitution of an ideal government, a perfect curriculum of education, a comprehensive program of dynamic life,ignore the most consequential issue - the issue of succession ?

Did the Holy Prophet not envisage the inevitable crises of leaving a newly established Muslim community, composed of different tribes - Bani Hashim, Bani Umayyaah, Adiyya, Taym, Aws and Khazraj, without a leader?

A man of rational thinking can not digest the Sunni’s viewpoint that the Prophet who was preparing his Ummah to deal with confidence all the minor and major problems which they might face in future after his death until the day of Qiyamat, will leave the most impor tant and immediate question of succession untouched and without some prominent guidelines.

It is absolutely impossible and beyond imagination that the Prophet who was telling his people all about the events that will happen after their deaths, did not realize himself what would happen after his death if he would not appoint any person as his rightful successor.

History reveals that Hazrat Abu Bakr, who was appointed by his people as the First Khalifa, did not leave the Muslims without clearly mentioning about his successor. It has been reported that while he was on his deathbed, he dictated his will about his successor in clear words which were as follows.

“I appoint Umar bin al-Khattab as commander and ruler over you; pay heed to his words and obey him”.

Hazrat Umar, who was appointed by Hazrat Abu Bakr as the second Khalifa, did the same thing before his death. When Umar was fatally stabbed by a person, and he realized that he can not survive, he quickly made a committee of six members and gave them full guidelines about the issue of succession in order to make a successor of his choice.

These two well recorded cases of history reveal that none of the Khalifa allowed the Muslim Ummah to appoint anyone of their choice as Khalifa to rule over them.

If this is the case in which historians have no dispute, then why the Holy Prophet (sws), who was the most responsible person, left a suffocating vacuum after him and didn’t appoint anyone and even did not say anything about his successor.

The issue of immediate take over of the government after the death of the Head of State is so important that all countries have a complete guidelines for this to use if it happens.

For exapmle, when President Kennedy was shot dead during his state visit in Texas, Vice President Johnson, who was with him, took the oath of the office of the president before the Kennedy’s dead body arrived at the airport of Texas from the hospital. At I.00 Kennedy’s death was officially declared and at 2.39 p.m., US District Judge Sarah T. Hughes arrived at the Texas airport by a special flight to administrate the oath of office to the new President. President Johnson took the oath as the new President of the United States in the airplane before take off to Washington.

Thus, it would be impossible to give any acceptable explanation by Sunni scholars to justify their standpoint rationally.

On the contrary, the fact [as Shia believe] is that, the Holy Prophet took the matter of succession as seriously as it was demanded on Divine standard. He informed the Ummah about his plan of succession at many occasions, both formally, and informally, in words and by action, leaving no room for any kind of confusion, or misinterpretation.