[The Author’s Opening Address]
In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
Praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May Allah bless our master, the Seal of the Prophets, his family, and all his Companions, and grant them abundant peace.
The imam and qāḍī, Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Khalaf al-Farrāʾ, may Allah be pleased with him, said:
Praise belongs to Allah as He truly deserves to be praised. May blessings and peace be upon His Prophet, his family, and his Companions. To proceed:
I had previously compiled a book on the imamate and discussed it in the course of al-Muʿtamad. In it, I explained the positions of the theologians, their arguments, our proofs, and the responses to the arguments they advanced. I have now decided to produce a separate book on the imamate, omitting what I mentioned there together with the disagreements and proofs, while adding other chapters concerning what the imam may lawfully undertake with regard to offices of authority and other matters. I ask Allah, the Generous, to grant me assistance in this endeavor and, if He wills, to make it beneficial.
Chapters on the Imamate
The appointment of an imam is obligatory. Aḥmad said—according to a report transmitted by Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf ibn Sufyān al-Ḥimṣī—“There will be turmoil if there is no one to administer the affairs of the people.”
The basis for this is that when the Companions differed at the Saqīfah, the Anṣār said, “One leader from us and one leader from you.” Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with them, refuted them and said, “The Arabs will submit only to this clan of Quraysh.” They cited reports to this effect. Had the imamate not been obligatory, such an exchange and debate over it would not have been appropriate; someone could simply have said, “It is not obligatory, whether for Quraysh or for anyone else.”
The obligation of the imamate is established by revelation, not by reason, for the reasons we have explained elsewhere: reason cannot by itself determine that anything is obligatory or permissible, nor that anything is lawful or unlawful.
It is a communal obligation, addressed to two groups of people. The first is those qualified to exercise independent legal reasoning, until they choose the imam. The second is those who possess the qualifications for the imamate, until one of them assumes the office.
As for those empowered to choose, three conditions are required of them. The first is justice. The second is the knowledge by which they can identify who is entitled to the imamate. The third is that they possess the sound judgment and administrative ability necessary to choose the person best suited to the imamate.
No one residing in a particular city has an advantage over people in other cities that would entitle him to precedence. Rather, the reason those associated with the imam’s city are entrusted with concluding the imamate contract is that they are the first to learn of his death, and because those generally qualified for the caliphate are present in his city.