In adhān [call to prayer], why do you say, “Ashhadu anna ‘aliyyan waliyyullāh” [“I bear witness that ‘Alī is Walī of Allah”] and give testimony to the wilāyah [guardianship] of ‘Alī (‘a)?

Reply: In order to reply to this question, let us consider the following points:

1. In their books on jurisprudence, all the Shī‘ah jurists [fuqahā] stress that to say: “I bear witness to the wilāyah of ‘Alī (‘a)” is not part of adhān or iqāmah, and no one has the right to say that it is part of any of the two.

2. From the viewpoint of the Qur’an, ‘Alī (‘a) is one of the awliyā’, and the following verse explicitly points to his wilāyah over the Muslims:

﴿ إِنَّمَا وَلِيُّكُمُ اللّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ الَّذِينَ يُقِيمُونَ الصَّلاَةَ وَيُؤْتُونَ الزَّكَاةَ وَهُمْ رَاكِعُونَ ﴾

“Your guardian is only Allah, His Apostle, and the faithful who maintain the prayer and give the zakāt while bowing down.”[1]

The Sunnī Ṣaḥīḥs and Musnads include narrations that highlight the fact that the noble verse was revealed to praise ‘Alī (‘a) who, while doing rukū‘ [bowing down in prayer], gave his ring to a poor person.[2] When this verse which refers to ‘Alī (‘a) was revealed, Ḥassān ibn Thābit versified this event in the following paean:

راكع أنْتَ إِذْ أعْطَيْتَ الّذي فأنْتَ

راكِع خَيرَ يا القَومِ نَفُوسُ فَدَتْكَ

وِلايَةٍ خَيرَ الله فِيكَ فَأنْزَلَ

الشَّرايِع مُحْكَماتِ في و بينها

You are the one who donated, while doing rukū‘. May the souls of the folk be sacrificed to you, O the best of those who bow down!

Thus, God has sent down the best wilāyah to you, and explained it through the decrees of the Sharī‘ah.

3. The Holy Prophet (ṣ) said:

.بالنّيات الأعمال إنَّما

“Verily, actions are (judged) by intention.”

Since the wilāyah of ‘Alī (‘a) is one of the principles stipulated in the Qur’an, and the said phrase is not regarded as part of the adhān (or iqāmah), what is wrong about uttering it alongside the testimony to the apostleship of the Prophet (ṣ)?

Here, it is necessary to mention that if due to adding a sentence to adhān, the Shī‘ah must be castigated, how could the following two cases be justified?

1. Authentic historical references confirm that the following phrase:

الْعَمَلِ خَيرِ عَلىٰ حيّ

Ḥayya ‘alā khayr al-‘amal

“Come to the best of deeds”

was part of adhān,[3] but during the caliphate of the second caliph, this phrase was omitted under the pretext that when people hear the words “the best of deeds” they will think that praying is better than jihād and cease taking part in jihād. And things remained as such.[4]

2. The sentence,

النّومِ مِنَ خَيْرٌ ألصّلوة

Aṣ-ṣalātu khayrun mina ’n-nawm

“Prayer is better than sleeping”

was not part of the adhān during the time of the Holy Prophet (ṣ) but has been included therein later on,[5] and as such, in the book, Al-Umm, Imām ash-Shāfi‘ī says:

“.يذكره لم مَحْذورة أبا لأنَّ النَّوم من خيرٌ الصَّلوة الاذان في أكره”

It is not pleasing for me that we say in the adhān: ‘aṣ-ṣalātu khayrun mina ’n-nawm’ because Abū Maḥdhūrah (one of the narrators and muḥaddithūn) has not included it (in his compilation of hadīths).[6] ?