The Event of the Day of Warning
One of these events relates to the Day of warning, a name taken from the Qur’anic verse revealed in the early days of Islam:
"Warn your close relatives" The Holy Qur’an (Surah 26, Surah al-Shu’ara (The Poets), verse214).
Till then the Holy Prophet had not begun to propagate Islam openly. As we know, at that time Imam Ali was still a boy, and lived in the Holy Prophet’s house. That is itself an event. The Holy Prophet asked Imam Ali to arrange some food and invite the descendants of Hashim and Abdul Muttalib to it. Imam Ali prepared a meal of meat and arranged some milk as a dessert. After the guests had taken food, the Holy Prophet said:
"I am a Prophet of Allah, raised by Him as such. If you accept what I say, you will be happy in this world and the Hereafter."
As soon as the Holy Prophet’s uncle, Abu Lahab heard these words, he was enraged, and said:
"Have you invited us to tell us all this nonsense?"
Abu Lahab raised so much hue and cry that the meeting ended in a fiasco.
The Holy Prophet asked Imam Ali to arrange another meeting. Imam Ali himself says that the number of the persons who attended the second meeting was more or less forty. The Prophet said to the audience:
"Whosoever of you accepts my call first; he will be my legatee, vizir and successor."
He made this announcement several times, but nobody responded. At last Imam Ali rose from his place and accepted the offer. The Holy Prophet said: "You will be my legatee, vizir and caliph after me."
Meeting of the Head of a Tribe with the Holy Prophet
This is another event found in the Sirah Ibn Hisham. It is still more significant. The Holy Prophet was still in Mecca. The Quraysh were not allowing him to propagate Islam. The situation was very tense. Anyhow, during the sacred months31 the Quraysh stopped harassing the Holy Prophet or at least did not harass him to the extent of inflicting any bodily injury, although even during these months they did not allow him to pursue any activity connected with the propagation of Islam. Anyhow the Holy Prophet always took advantage of this temporary truce. He called upon various tribes who assembled at the 'Ukaz fair and at Arafat, (The pre-Islamic Arabs also performed Hajj, although they had their own style of it.) and invited them to Islam. While the Holy Prophet went round the tribes, Abu Lahab chased him, and contradicted and belied him. The head of a tribe was very shrewd. He talked with the Holy Prophet for a little while and they said to his people:
"Had this man been of my tribe, I would have devoured the Arabs with his help."
What he meant was that the Holy Prophet was so multi-talented that with his help all the Arabs could be subdued. Then that man turned to the Holy Prophet and said:
"I and my people are ready to have faith in you provided you give us your word to appoint me or one of my people to be your successor."
The Holy Prophet said: "It is not up to me to say who would succeed me. It is with Allah."
This is an event mentioned in the books of the Sunnis.
From the book: Imamate and Khilafat
Author: Sheikh Murtada Mutaharri
Other links: Scholastic Study of Imamate (Definition of Imamate)
Rational Argument of the Shi’ah (Imamate is the Basis of Islam)
Imam Means an Expert in Religious Matters
Divine Designation
The Qualification Of Holy Imam (A.S)
