The objection:

“How can the leadership of someone who seeks his subjects’ assistance in setting him straight be legitimate, when those subjects themselves need him?”

applies equally to any two people who cooperate or work in partnership, each needing the other—even partners in commerce and crafts. The prayer leader occupies the same position: those praying behind him need him, and he assumes responsibility for their lapses due to forgetfulness, as well as for recitation according to the majority of scholars. Yet he also seeks their assistance if he forgets, for they alert him to his lapse and set him straight. If he were to deviate in the prayer (1) and thereby depart from the prayer prescribed by Islamic law, they would not follow him in that. There are many analogous cases.

It may further be said:

Ali’s reliance upon his subjects and his need for them were greater than Abū Bakr’s reliance upon his subjects. Abū Bakr was also more effective than Ali in setting his subjects straight, and they were more obedient to him. Whenever they disputed with Abū Bakr, he established the proof against them until they returned to his position, just as he established the proof against Umar concerning fighting those who withheld zakat, among other matters.

Whenever he commanded them, they obeyed him. When Ali—may Allah be pleased with him—mentioned his position concerning slave women who had borne their masters’ children, and that (2) he and Umar had agreed that they were not to be sold, but he later came to hold that they should be sold, his judge, Ubaydah al-Salmānī, said to him:

“Your opinion alongside Umar’s, when you were united, is dearer to us than your opinion alone in division.”

Ali would also say:

“Continue to judge as you used to judge, for I dislike disagreement, until the people become united or I die as my companions died.”

His subjects frequently disobeyed him, and they would recommend to him a course of action on which