[Section: The Rāfidī’s argument concerning the second ground for Alī’s imamate—namely, that the imam must be explicitly designated—and the response to it]

Section

The Rāfidī (1) said:

“The second ground (2) is that the imam must be explicitly designated, because we have shown that selection is invalid; that a candidate from among those selected (3) by one part of the community has no greater claim than the other candidate selected by another part (4); and that selection leads to contention (5) and strife. Appointing the imam would thus lead to the gravest forms of corruption (6), even though we deemed his appointment obligatory in order to eliminate lesser forms of that very corruption. By consensus, no imam of theirs other than Alī (7) was explicitly designated. It therefore follows that he must be the imam.”

The response is to reject (8) both premises here as well. The dispute concerning the second premise, however, is more evident and manifest, for many groups among the earlier and later generations—including scholars of hadith, jurisprudence, and speculative theology—held that Abū Bakr had been explicitly designated. A group of the Rāfidah likewise held that al-Abbās had been explicitly designated.