What Is the Imāmah Given to Abraham?

Qur’an 2:124 · Al-Baqarah · With other exegetes

وَإِذِ ٱبْتَلَىٰٓ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ رَبُّهُۥ بِكَلِمَٰتٍۢ فَأَتَمَّهُنَّ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّى جَاعِلُكَ لِلنَّاسِ إِمَامًا ۖ قَالَ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِى ۖ قَالَ لَا يَنَالُ عَهْدِى ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ

And when his Lord tested Abraham with certain words, and he fulfilled them, He said, “I am making you the Imam of mankind.” He said, “And from among my descendants?” He said, “My covenant does not extend to the unjust.” (2:124)

The question

When God says I am making you the Imam of mankind, what is the imāmah given to Abraham in his old age, after many years as a prophet?

Views answered: Fakhr al-Rāzī, al-Ālūsī, al-Qurṭubī, al-Ṭabrisī and others · With: ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī

Jawādī Āmulī’s argument

Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī examines five readings. Prophethood, being an exemplar, leadership of the prophets and social and political leadership each fail, mainly for the same two reasons: Abraham already had them, or they belong to every prophet, so they could not be a new gift of his old age; and he asked the same imāmah for his descendants. He adopts his teacher’s reading: imāmah is inner guidance “by Our command”, which brings people to the goal rather than only showing the way, and he answers two objections to it.

Views compared

Each view is given as al-Tasnim reports it, with the exegete or work it cites. Each point opens al-Tasnim at that place.

1. Imāmah as prophethood Read →

Fakhr al-Rāzī, al-Ālūsī and Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān

I am making you an Imam explains how God completed the “words”: by raising Abraham to prophethood.

Jawādī Āmulī

Jāʿil (making) speaks of the present or future, so Abraham would not yet have been a prophet; yet God was speaking to him, and his request for descendants shows this came in his old age, long after his prophethood began.

2. An exemplar for people Read →

al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān (al-Qurṭubī)

The Imam is the one whose beliefs, character and deeds are the model for society.

Jawādī Āmulī

Abraham had been such a model for years before; every infallible prophet is one (4:64). It is not something given to him in old age.

3. Imam of the prophets Read →

Tafsīr al-Furqān

Abraham became the Imam of the prophets, since even the Seal of the Prophets was told to follow his creed (16:123; 22:78).

Jawādī Āmulī

The verse says “of mankind”, not of the prophets; Abraham asked the same imāmah for his descendants, who include the Seal of the Prophets; Abraham is himself counted among Noah’s shīʿah (37:83); and the Prophet followed Abraham’s religion, not Abraham.

4. Social and political leadership Read →

al-Ṭabrisī, Kanz al-Daqāʾiq, Mawāhib al-Raḥmān

Imāmah is government: managing the people’s religious and worldly affairs, which a prophet may not be charged with.

Jawādī Āmulī

Prophethood cannot be separated from leadership, since its laws must be carried out; and this reading would mean Abraham lacked it until old age, and that all his infallible descendants received it. Joseph’s rule in Egypt does not show otherwise.

5. Inner guidance by God’s command Read →

ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī

The Imam guides “by Our command” (21:73): he does not only show the way but brings people to the goal, through the inner, timeless dimension of things. In al-Mizan ↗

Jawādī Āmulī

Agrees: this is “the most prominent meaning” of imāmah in the verse. He answers two objections: that “guiding by Our command” only describes the Imams (cited from Majmaʿ al-Bayān), and that prophets already guide, so the gift would be redundant.

Reading guide

Each step opens al-Tasnim at that point.

1. Imāmah as prophethood, and why the verse rules it out
2. Imāmah as being an exemplar
3. Imāmah over the prophets
4. Imāmah as social and political leadership
5. Its critique: leadership cannot be separated from prophethood
6. Inner guidance by God’s command: ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s reading
7. Two objections answered

The whole commentary on 2:124 → · ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī on 2:124 in al-Mizan ↗