Hātib’s sin. How, then, could Alī be made the foremost of those addressed and blamed for this sin?

Allah Most High also said:

“O you who believe, when you go forth in the way of Allah, ascertain the truth, and do not say to someone who offers you a greeting of peace, ‘You are not a believer,’ seeking the fleeting gains of worldly life.”

[Surah al-Nisā: 94]

This verse was revealed concerning those who found a man with a small flock of sheep. He said, “I am a Muslim,” but they did not believe him and took his sheep. Allah—glorified and exalted is He—therefore commanded them to verify and ascertain the truth, and forbade them from rejecting someone’s profession of Islam out of greed for his worldly possessions. Alī—may Allah be pleased with him—was innocent of their sin, so how can it be said that he was their leader? There are many such examples in the Quran.

Fourth: He was among those encompassed by the wording of the address, even though he was not the occasion for it. There is no doubt that the wording included him just as it includes (1) others. The wording of the verse draws no distinction between one believer and another.

Fifth: To say of one of the Companions that he is the chief of the verses, their commander, their noblest figure, and their master is an assertion with no basis in reality. If what is meant is that he was the first person addressed by them, that is not so, for the address applies equally to all those addressed; none of them takes precedence over another in how it applies to them.

If it is said that he was the first to act upon them, that is also not so, for some of these verses had been acted upon before Alī, while there are other verses upon which Alī had no need to act.

If it is said that their application to others, or others’ acting upon them, was contingent upon him—as with the imam in the Friday prayer—that is not so, for the address’s inclusion of some of them is not contingent