The 3rd and final of the major claimed “naṣṣ xafī” proofs used by the Šīʿah is Ħadīþ al-Manzilah. This is another authentic and mutawātir ħadīþ, and the text is as follows: 

خَرَجَ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم إِلَى تَبُوكَ، وَاسْتَخْلَفَ عَلِيًّا فَقَالَ أَتُخَلِّفُنِي فِي الصِّبْيَانِ وَالنِّسَاءِ قَالَ ‏ “‏ أَلاَ تَرْضَى أَنْ تَكُونَ مِنِّي بِمَنْزِلَةِ هَارُونَ مِنْ مُوسَى إِلاَّ أَنَّهُ لَيْسَ نَبِيٌّ بَعْدِي ‏”‏‏.

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم left ʿAlī رضي الله عنه in charge of al-Madīnah before going to Tabūk, and ʿAlī رضي الله عنه asked, “Are you leaving me behind with the women and children?” The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم  then said: “Are you not pleased to be in relation to me as Hārūn was to Mūsā, except that there is no prophet after me?” 

The Šīʿah argue that this indicates that every position that Hārūn had in relation to Mūsā عليهما السلام must also apply to ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, except for what was explicitly excluded, which is prophethood, and what is known by necessity to be excluded, which is brotherhood in lineage, arguing that stating any exceptions requires generality of the statement. Since Hārūn was the successor of Mūsā عليهما السلام in his absence, they said that this indicates he also would have succeeded him had Mūsā died before Hārūn عليهما السلام, meaning that ʿAlī رضي الله عنه also deserved to be the successor to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم after his death. They also said that Hārūn عليه السلام was obligatory to obey due to his sharing in prophethood, and this position would not change even if he remained after Mūsā عليه السلام. They then said that this must also apply for ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, since it is possible for someone to be obligatory to obey without being a prophet. 

We say in response: 

The statement is not necessarily general for all the positions of Hārūn عليه السلام, and excluding prophethood does not require the inclusion of positions other than it. This exclusion is also suitable for precluding prophethood from being the single position that is referred to. Such usage would fall under what is known in the Arabic language as al-istiþnāʾ al-munqaṭiʿ,¹ and despite not being the default usage of exclusion by the word (إلا), it is not very uncommon. 

The apparent meaning of the ħadīþ is that ʿAlī رضي الله عنه is only being placed as the successor over Tabūk in the absence of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, the same way Hārūn was made to lead in the place of Mūsā عليهما السلام in his absence. The ħadīþ indicates that ʿAlī رضي الله عنه was initially unhappy with being left behind, and felt that it was a deficiency and not an appropriate position for him, due to the slanders and insults of the hypocrites against him surrounding this incident. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم then responded to alleviate his concern and show that it was not a punishment or detraction, by comparing it to Hārūn عليه السلام being placed as the one in charge of the people in the absence of Mūsā عليه السلام when he left to go to the mountain and said { اَ۟خْلُفْنِے فِے قَوْمِے وَأَصْلِحْ } “Take my place among my people and keep things right.” (7:142) 

The statement of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم remains true even if it is only this one manzilah (position) that is being intended. We cannot make a conclusive judgement on affirming or denying any other positions without evidence, and since such evidence is not present in the wording or context of the ħadīþ, judgement must be withheld on the inclusion or exclusion of any other positions. 

Regarding the statement (إِلَّا أَنه لَا نَبِي بعدِي) “except that there is no prophet after me”, then “after me” here means after the prophethood of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, rather than after his death. Hārūn عليه السلام was not a prophet after the death of Mūsā عليه السلام, but rather during his life. If the statement here meant “after my death,” then it would be affirming prophethood for ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, since the statement was during the life of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, and this very obviously goes against its purpose. Furthermore, the prophet ʿĪsā عليه السلام will return when the Day of Judgment nears, also indicating that the statement does not refer to death. This statement thus provides no indication that the ħadīþ is affirming a position after the death of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, so this cannot be used to argue for its generality. 

The act in the ħadīþ also does not indicate that ʿAlī رضي الله عنه is the most worthy of Xilāfah out of all his contemporaries or that he received a permanent status of Xilāfah, but rather only indicates that he is among those who are worthy of it, and Sunnīs affirm this. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم appointed many others in positions of authority in his absence in other cases, such as ʾAbū Bakr, ʿUmar, Zayd ibn Ħāriþah, ʾUsāmah ibn Zayd, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, ʾAbū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrāħ, Xālid ibn al-Walīd, Muʿāð, ʾAbū Mūsā al-ʾAšʿarī, ʿAmr ibn Ħazm, and Ibn ʾUmm Maktūm رضي الله عنهم,² and this did not indicate that they were most worthy of Xilāfah after the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, or that they were receiving any permanent position. 

Mūsā عليه السلام never appointed Hārūn عليه السلام as his successor for after his death, and Xilāfah (succession) in the general sense is not even one of the positions of Hārūn عليه السلام in relation to Mūsā عليه السلام. If the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم had intended succession after his death, it would have been more fitting to mention Yūšaʿ ibn Nūn instead of Hārūn عليهما السلام. There is no need to take the statement { اَ۟خْلُفْنِے فِے قَوْمِے وَأَصْلِحْ } “take my place among my people and keep things right” (7:142) to even be appointing Hārūn عليه السلام for any new position; rather, this can simply be seen as pointing out the existing reality, since Hārūn’s عليه السلام status of prophethood would entail that he would be in charge of the people in the absence of Mūsā عليه السلام regardless of whether this statement was made or not. 

If the statement were somehow taken as an appointment to a position of Xilāfah, then it would be apparent that the Xilāfah is specifically referring to that event, since there is nothing at all indicating generality or repetition in its wording, and the norm for such an appointment would be that it is in specific reference to the event in which it occurred. Even if we were to grant for the sake of argument that Hārūn عليه السلام did receive some sort of wider status of Xilāfah through that statement and event, then there is no reason to believe he kept that status; this is because losing such a status would not be a deficiency for him, since he would return to sharing in prophetic authority with Mūsā عليه السلام, which is a higher position than being a deputy. He would have then become an independent messenger and not a deputy if he had lived after Mūsā عليه السلام, which is also a much higher status. It would have also been possible for a new prophet to come after the death of Mūsā عليه السلام and take leadership instead, even if Hārūn عليه السلام had lived. Thus, there is no reason at all to assume that Xilāfah after Mūsā عليه السلام is one of the positions of Hārūn عليه السلام. 

Now as for the positions of Hārūn عليه السلام that are entailed by his status as a prophet and messenger, such as obedience being obligatory to him, then the status of prophethood has been negated here, so what comes as a result of it must also not apply. Similarly, the lack of blood brotherhood also entails negation of the rulings derived from it, which is why ʿAlī رضي الله عنه could marry the daughter of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, despite prohibition of marriage also being possible for reasons other than their familial relation. The Šīʿah argued that positions such as obligation of obedience can be present without prophethood, and that they must therefore apply to ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, but closer consideration and inspection on this reasoning further reveals its invalidity. 

We can split the possible areas in which Hārūn عليه السلام would be obligatory to obey into three: the matters which he conveys from Allāh, matters which he conveys from Mūsā عليه السلام, and the direct implementation of judgements and laws. The first is identical to the role of prophethood, whereas the other two would not necessarily be the case. For the 2nd, Hārūn عليه السلام as an independent messenger would not be conveying the judgements of Mūsā عليه السلام; furthermore, any judgement reliably conveyed from a prophet is always obligatory to obey, irrespective of who conveys it. On the 3rd area, it is entirely possible for a prophet to be responsible for conveying rulings from Allāh while the one responsible for implementing them is someone else, as was the case with Dāwūd and Ṭālūt عليهما السلام. Indeed, Hārūn عليه السلام was not generally responsible for implementation of laws during the lifetime of Mūsā عليه السلام, otherwise it would be meaningless to appoint him to a position of Xilāfah as the Šīʿah claim Mūsā عليه السلام did, and there is no reason to assume he would have been responsible for this had he lived after Mūsā عليه السلام. 

Indeed, even if we were to suppose that Hārūn عليه السلام would have been implementing laws and rulings if he had lived after Mūsā عليه السلام, there is no doubt that he did not become responsible for this due to his death. If that assumed manzilah of Hārūn عليه السلام necessitated the ʾImāmah of ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, then the manzilah of death of Hārūn before Mūsā عليهما السلام would by the same reasoning necessitate the opposite, so this would entail contradiction. ʿAlī رضي الله عنه not dying before the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم cannot negate this point, and that can be shown with the following reasoning: It is either the case here that absence of a manzilah of Hārūn عليه السلام in ʿAlī رضي الله عنه entails absence of the manāzil of Hārūn عليه السلام resulting from that one for ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, or that it does not. If it does, then due to the fact that prophethood was negated for ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, all of the positions that Hārūn عليه السلام had as a result of prophethood, such as being obligatory to obey, would thus be negated for ʿAlī رضي الله عنه. If it does not, then since Hārūn عليه السلام not succeeding Mūsā عليه السلام was due to his death before that of Mūsā عليه السلام, it would follow that ʿAlī رضي الله عنه not dying before the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم does not remove the entailments of the death of Hārūn before Mūsā عليهما السلام, making the original contradiction remain. It cannot be said that not succeeding the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is not a valid manzilah due to it being a negation, since the term manzilah is inclusive of everything that is part of the state of Hārūn relative to Mūsā عليهما السلام and of ʿAlī رضي الله عنه relative to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. Nor can it be said that the statement being intended as a praise prevents negative positions from being included, since a statement of praise can still include or entail the negation of some extraneous forms of praise, and the ħadīþ already explicitly mentions the negation of prophethood for ʿAlī رضي الله عنه.

If we were to assume for the sake of argument not only that the wording of the ħadīþ is general, but even the far-fetched proposition that the positions the Šīʿah claim truly are applicable, it would be a ʿām maxṣūṣ (specified generality), since the positions of brotherhood (by lineage, and all that it entails) and prophethood are excluded. The scholars of ʾUṣūl al-Fiqh differed between the ʿām maxṣūṣ either not being an evidence at all for the rest of what it contains, or the majority view of it being a relatively weak ð̣annī evidence.³ Considering this, there is no way that this could possibly be a definitive proof for ʿAlī رضي الله عنه succeeding the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. Such a generality could be specified by the proofs establishing the Xilāfah of ʾAbū Bakr رضي الله عنه, which are definitive and more than sufficient, far exceeding the tawātur and strength of Ħadīþ al-Manzilah. For that matter, based on such evidence we could even grant the inclusion of Xilāfah as a position of ʿAlī رضي الله عنه from the ħadīþ, and exclude the time period of the Xilāfah of the first three Xulafāʾ from being included in the application. 

On this ħadīþ, the Šīʿah attempted to use some obscure versions of it to further argue for their claim. One aspect of this is to argue that the statement was also made in other events unrelated to the Battle of Tabūk, but none of the narrations that would support this are even remotely close to being reliable, and the sole reliable example brought only has the statement (أنت مني وأنا منك) “You are from me and I am from you,” and does not contain the wording of Ħadīþ al-Manzilah.⁴ The other method is to argue that some of the Tabūk versions have wordings supporting their claim, but these either consist of completely fabricated narrations like “al-Madīnah is not in good condition except with me or with you,”⁵ narrations where the text does not give any support to their claim like “I have left you as my successor for my family,”⁶ or “Either I must stay or you must stay,”⁷ or narrations that fall somewhere in between. An example of the last type is the narration of ʾAbū Balj, which as noted before, has a chain with a disputed narrator and probable hidden weakness,⁸ but also does not clearly support their claim with the wording “It is not fitting for me to leave without you as my successor,” since such a statement is obviously not generalizable judging by the fact that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم appointed many other temporary successors in his absence, and the addition saying “for every believer after me” is only present in a single chain, the wording of which even indicates that this phrase is a comment from one of the narrators and not part of the ħadīþ.⁹ 

When asked about the interpretation of Ħadīþ al-Manzilah, the Zaydī ʾImām al-Qāsim ar-Rassī responded, “He (the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم) says that you (ʿAlī) are sufficient for me just as [Hārūn عليه السلام] was sufficient for Mūsā عليه السلام among his people when he left them, and thus you are [sufficient] in what I made you a successor over after I left my people, and the land of my Hijrah (migration), and this was only said when he left to Tabūk.” 

1.  البحر المحيط للزركشي – مسألة الاستثناء من الجنس ومن غير الجنس 
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2.  سنن أبي داود – حديث #2931 , سنن أبي داود – حديث #595 
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3.  البحر المحيط للزركشي – مسألة العام إذا خص , سلاسل الذهب للزركشي – ص244 
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4.  خصائص علي للنسائي – ص88 
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5.  المستدرك للحاكم – حديث #3333 
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6.  المعجم الأوسط للطبراني – حديث #4248 
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7.  طبقات ابن سعد – ج3 ص17 
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8.   شرح علل الترمذي لابن رجب – ص821-822 
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9.  خصاص علي للنسائي – ص50 
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Transliteration Index

ء = ʾ

ا = Ā ā

ب = B b

ت = T t

ث = Þ þ

ج = J j

ح = Ħ ħ

خ = X x

د = D d

ذ = Ð ð

ر = R r

ز = Z z

س = S s

ش = Š š

ص = Ṣ ṣ

ض = Λ̣ λ̣

ط = Ṭ ṭ

ظ = Ð̣ ð̣

ع = ʿ

غ = Ğ ğ

ف = F f

ق = Q q

ك = K k

ل = L l

م = M m

ن = N n

ه = H h

و = W w, Ū ū

ي = Y y, Ī ī