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Imāmah
This page gathers what Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī teaches about imāmah across al-Tasnim: on Abraham’s imāmah (2:124), “those vested with authority” (4:59), the guardian (5:55), the verse of mubāhala (3:61), vicegerency (2:30) and the Introduction. Each answer is a short summary of his words, with links that open the passage in al-Tasnim.
What imāmah is
What is the imāmah that God gave Abraham?
When God said I am making you the Imam of mankind (2:124), He was not making Abraham a prophet, nor only a model for others; he had been both for years. The imāmah meant here is inner, celestial guidance: the Imam guides people “by Our command” (21:73; 32:24). He does not only show the way, as every prophet and even a believing scholar does; he brings people to the goal.
Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī takes this, with his teacher ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī, as the most prominent meaning of imāmah in the verse. “God’s command” is the fixed, timeless dimension of things, the malakūt: the Imam’s guidance is joined to it, and through it he reaches people’s hearts.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · Examining the Possible Meanings of Imāma · Verse 2:124 · Selected Exegesis
See also: Key Debate: What Is the Imāmah Given to Abraham?
How is imāmah different from prophethood?
Prophethood already includes leadership of society and being an example, so these cannot be what Abraham received later. A narration from Imam al-Ṣādiq describes four levels of prophets: some had an Imam over them, as Abraham was over Lot, and “Abraham was a prophet but not an Imām” until God made him one.
So imāmah in its highest sense is not the spreading of teachings or laws, which belonged to his prophethood. It is the inner leadership of hearts, which goes beyond the outward side of prophethood.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · A Study of the Narrations · Verse 2:124 · Examining the Possible Meanings of Imāma
Why was it given to Abraham only in his old age?
His request and from my descendants shows the conversation came in his old age, after many years of prophethood. A narration from Imam al-Bāqir gives the order: God took Abraham as a servant before a prophet, as a prophet before a messenger, as a messenger before an intimate friend (khalīl), and as a friend before an Imam. Imāmah came only after he had passed through every one of these stages, and after the great trials he fulfilled.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · A Study of the Narrations · Verse 2:124 · Selected Exegesis
Is the Imam a ruler over people?
The verse says an Imam for mankind, using “for” (li), not “over” (ʿalā). A guardian (walī) is marked by closeness, care and the good of those in his charge; a ruler is often marked by privilege and superiority. The imāmah God wants is guardianship (wilāyah), not rulership.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · The Bestowed Status of Imāmate
How does the Imam guide others?
To guide by God’s command, the Imam must himself be guided by it: only one who has travelled the path and reached the goal can lead others there. Because he guides inwardly, he must know people’s inner states; the believers who “see your deeds” (9:105) are, in the words of Imam al-Riḍā, the Imams.
In the narrations, the Imams’ hearts are “vessels for the will of God”: what God wills to do in the world passes through the Imam’s heart, and every spiritual grace reaches others through his mediation.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · Subtleties and Allusions · Verse 2:124 · Subtleties and Allusions
How one becomes an Imam
Can imāmah be earned by effort?
No. Learning, piety and justice can be acquired; imāmah, like prophethood and messengership, is a divine gift: God calls it My covenant (2:124), and God knows best where to place His message (6:124). One can strive for the infallibility that imāmah requires, but the station itself is bestowed.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · The Bestowed Status of Imāmate
How is an Imam known: by text or by election?
Since infallibility, the condition of imāmah, is a hidden secret known only to God, an Imam can be established only by a valid text (naṣṣ). It is never in the power of an individual or a society to give this station to someone. The Qur’an separates God’s appointments from matters left to people, which are settled by consultation among themselves (42:38); imāmah belongs to the first.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · The Bestowed Status of Imāmate · Verse 2:124 · The Bestowed Status of Imāmate
Which of Abraham’s descendants received it?
The Qur’an divides his descendants into doers of good and those clearly unjust to themselves (37:113). Since the covenant does not reach the wrongdoers, it reaches the doers of good: all the infallible prophets and saints of his line, from Ishmael and Isaac to the Master of the Age. This includes Moses, Jesus and the Prophet Muḥammad, though the Qur’an does not name their imāmah.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · All the Righteous Children of Abraham Attaining Imāma
The condition: no wrongdoer
What does “My covenant does not extend to the wrongdoers” require?
Every sin is a wrong (2:229), and polytheism the greatest (31:13). Since both “covenant” and “wrongdoers” are unqualified, no divine covenant reaches any wrongdoer: not prophethood, messengership, imāmah, guardianship or succession. So the Imam must be infallible.
The verse proves his infallibility from sin and wrongdoing. His freedom from forgetfulness and oversight, a higher level of infallibility, has to be shown from other evidence.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · Infallibility: The Condition for Attaining All Divine Covenants · Verse 2:124 · All the Righteous Children of Abraham Attaining Imāma
Can someone who once did wrong, and then repented, become an Imam?
No. Those who say otherwise argue that a word like “wrongdoer” applies only while a person is doing wrong. Jawādī Āmulī gives three answers. Wise people do not entrust great responsibilities to those with bad records; repentance brings forgiveness (8:38), not fitness for leadership. The verse is unqualified. And Abraham, who disowned the wrongdoers, would not have asked imāmah for those who were wrongdoers all their lives or became so; his request was for the others, and of them God excluded those who had once done wrong. Only those just and infallible all their lives received it.
A narration from Imam al-Ṣādiq puts it in the past tense: “Whoever worships an idol or image cannot be an Imām.”
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · The Deprivation of Non-Infallibles from the Divine Covenant · Verse 2:124 · The Deprivation of Non-Infallibles from the Divine Covenant · Verse 2:124 · A Study of the Narrations
See also: Key Debate: The Covenant and the Repentant Wrongdoer
Who the Imams are
Who are “those vested with authority” in 4:59?
They are the infallible Imams. They are joined to the Messenger without the verb obey being repeated, so obedience to them is unconditional, like obedience to him. Unconditional obedience is due only to one who is protected from error, inadvertence and sin; no ruler, scholar or elite can be meant. And since infallibility is known only to God, they can only be appointed by Him and made known through the Messenger.
In the narrations, the Prophet tells Jābir they are “my successors, … the first of them is ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib”; the reliable traditions put their number at twelve.
Read in al-Tasnim: Key Verse 4:59 · Key Verse 4:59
See also: Key Debate: Those Vested with Authority
What is the guardianship in 5:55, and who is meant?
Your guardian is only Allah, His Messenger, and the faithful who maintain the prayer and give the zakāt while bowing down (5:55). “Only” (innamā) restricts this guardianship, and it runs one way, from the guardians to the rest. So it is not the love and alliance all believers share (9:71) but authority to act: leadership and governance.
“While bowing down” describes a single act, so the verse’s concrete instance is ʿAlī alone, who gave his ring in charity while bowing. The other eleven Imams are shown by other narrations.
Read in al-Tasnim: Key Verse 5:55 · Key Verse 5:55
See also: Key Debate: The Guardian and Fakhr al-Rāzī · Key Debate: Alms While Bowing
Why does the verse of mubāhala call ʿAlī “ourselves”?
In let us call our sons and your sons, our women and your women, ourselves and yourselves (3:61), “ourselves” cannot be the Prophet, since one does not call oneself. It must be someone closer to him than sons and daughters, like his own soul, as he said of ʿAlī: “you are from me like my own self”. So after the Messenger of God, no one is higher than the Commander of the Faithful.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 3:61 · The Referent of “Ourselves”
See also: Key Debate: Who Is “Ourselves”?
Can there be two Imams at the same time?
No. Just as the world can have only one God (21:22), society needs one guardian: two Imams ruling at once would each have their own way, and there would be no way to guide and purify society. One must be the Imam, and all others follow him.
Read in al-Tasnim: Key Verse 5:55
Imāmah and vicegerency
Are the Imams God’s vicegerents?
Yes. All the prophets, messengers and infallible Imams are perfect human beings and God’s vicegerents (khalīfahs); vicegerency, like prophethood and imāmah, comes in degrees. A narration counts ʿAlī as the fourth named vicegerent after Adam, David and Aaron. As Aaron was Moses’ successor by God’s appointment, ʿAlī and the other Imams are successors of the Prophet by God’s appointment, and so God’s vicegerents.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:30 · Discussion of the Narrations
See also: Key Debate: Who Is the Vicegerent? · Key Debate: Whom Does the Vicegerent Succeed?
The Imams and the Qur’an
Why are the Qur’an and the Imams inseparable?
In the ḥadīth of the Two Weighty Things, the Prophet left the Book of God and his Household, which “shall never be separated until they meet me at the Pond”. That they never separate means an infallible Imam must be present until the Day of Judgment. It is not about an Imam carrying the Qur’an: the Imams are its foremost explainers, and the Qur’an in turn directs believers to them.
The two are one proof, but not equals: the Qur’an is the principal, the text; the Sunnah of the Infallibles is subsidiary, its commentary.
Read in al-Tasnim: Introduction · The Inseparable Link Between the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Family · Introduction · The Interdependence of the Weighty Things
See also: Glimpse: The Inseparable Link Between the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Family
Do the Imams make laws?
No. A narration from Imam al-Bāqir says God placed the Imams “in the positions of the Prophets, except they do not make things lawful or unlawful”. Legislation belongs to God and His Messenger; the infallible Imams are the guardians of the Messenger’s Sunnah, who explain it and keep God’s bounds.
Read in al-Tasnim: Key Verse 4:59