intend that the two were like them in every respect, but only in what the context indicated—sternness for Allah’s sake and gentleness for Allah’s sake.

Likewise here, he was in Aaron’s position only in the respect indicated by the context: the Prophet appointed him as his deputy during his absence, just as Moses appointed Aaron. This appointment was not unique to Alī; indeed, it was not even on a par with the Prophet’s other appointments of deputies, much less superior to them. In many campaigns, he appointed as deputies men who were superior to Alī. Yet when Alī remained behind with such a deputy, those appointments did not, in themselves, require the deputy to be given precedence over Alī. How, then, could appointment as a deputy itself require that he be deemed superior to Alī?

Indeed, he appointed more than one person over Medina. Those deputies likewise stood in relation to the Prophet as Aaron stood in relation to Moses, insofar as their appointments were of the same kind as Alī’s. Indeed, those earlier deputies were placed in charge of people more numerous and more eminent than those over whom Alī was placed in charge in the year of Tabūk. There was also a greater need for a deputy, since an enemy attack on Medina was feared.

In the year (1) of the Tabūk campaign, however, the Arabs of the Hijāz had already embraced Islam; Mecca had been conquered; and Islam had become manifest and mighty. For this reason, Allah commanded His Prophet to campaign against the People of the Book in the Levant. Medina had no need of anyone to fight the enemy there. Consequently, the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—left no fighting men with Alī, as he had customarily done in Medina during his other campaigns; instead, he took all the fighting men with him.

His singling Alī out for mention here is a case of nominal implication. Nominal expressions are of two kinds: a generic designation and a designation that functions as a proper name, such as Zayd or “you”; this implication