Ghadir Khumm
in the Qur'an, Hadith, History

Books that mention the Event

Transmitters and their Credibility

Meaning and Implication

Blessedness of the day of Ghadir Khumm

Ghadir Khumm Portal

How YOU can help !

A momentous event took place at a place called Ghadir Khumm on the way back from the Last Pilgrimage (hajj) of the Prophet Muhammad [s].  This site attempts to capture the details of what happened there, the sources that record it, the people who narrated it from the time of the Companions of the Prophet [s] to recent times, and the fate of those who knowingly denied it.

Purpose
The Ghadir Khumm site is the result of a project that has been going for over a year, and is still continuing.  It attempts to capture all the detail associated with this historic incident of the designation of Imam 'Ali [a] by the Prophet [s] as his immediate successor -  and to make it easily available to world.  All the sources of this incident in books of Qur'anic commentary (tafsir), tradition (hadith), history (ta'rikh), and other academic books from scholars of Islam will be captured.  As much as possible, each narrator - from the time of the Prophet [s] and his Companions down to our recent times - would be identified and comments about his/her biography and reliability would be made available.  Most of this material would be in Arabic, and we hope to get the essential parts translated into English with your help.

We would like to locate each of the references and make the relevant pages available through the Islamic Sources Repository which would be linked from the relevant parts of the Ghadir Khumm site.  This would allow a researcher to verify the quotation and possibly help him or her to locate the books themselves.  Many narrations are already linked in such a way to the image of their source.  With your help, we aim to locate as many of them as possible, both published works as well as manuscripts, from libraries and private collections throughout the world.

The research that is the basis of this data bank of information has been done by some of our great scholars (see below).  Through this particular endeavour, we hope to make this information 'come alive' and become much easier to access and digest.  We hope that this will help gulf the terrible lack of information that persists among the majority of Muslims regarding this momentous and historic event.

Progress so far

It is difficult to be precise about what percentage work is completed and how much is outstanding.  This is because of the complexity of the project and the range of sources being used.  However, we estimate that about 30-40% of the available narration data has been captured so far.  There is also a lot of biographical information for the transmitters that has not yet been captured.  In addition, a detailed discussion on the meaning and implication of Ghadir Khumm is currently being prepared.

Those who explore this site in detail will be able to see the wide range of sources and contexts that even the 30-40% of data covers.

Acknowledgements
The credit for the wealth of detail contained within this site goes primarily to the works of three great Shi'ah scholars:

Sayyid Hamid Husayn Musawi Lakhnawi (d. 1306 AH)
(author of 'Abaqat al-'Anwar)

The great scholar `Allamah Aqa Buzurg Tehrani, who is the author of al-Dhari`ah ila tasanif al-Shi`ah, wrote about Sayyid Hamid Husayn and his masterpiece 'Abaqat al-'Anwar:

(He is) one of the greatest of Imami theologians (mutakallimun) and one of the greatest and deeply learned of Shi`i scholars who lived in the early part of this century. He was profoundly learned, and had extensive knowledge and mastery over the Islamic traditions and heritage and attained such a station in it that none of his contemporaries or anyone of those who came after him, or even most of the celebrities of the preceding centuries, have been able to attain. He spent his entire noble life in fathoming the mysteries of religiosity and in the defence of Islam and the realm of sincere religion. I don't know of anyone in the latter centuries who waged a jihad like him and sacrificed everything in his possession in the way of everlasting truths. The times, in all ages and periods, will never see a compeer of him in his research, his extensive knowledge, his precision, intelligence, and the immensity of his memory and retention.

Aqa Buzurg Tehrani says about the `Abaqat: "It is the greatest of books compiled on the subject (ie. Imamate) from the outset of the Islamic era to the present." And what he says about the author and his book is perfectly representative of the opinion of leading Shi`i scholars on this matter.

Allamah 'Abd al-Husayn Ahmad al-'Amini al-Najafi (d. 1390 AH)
(author of Al-Ghadir fi al-kitab wa al-sunnah wa al-adab)

Sayyid 'Ali al-Husayni al-Milani (may Allah extend his life)
(author of Khulasat `Abaqat al-'Anwar)

We would also like to thank everyone else who helped realise this project and who are helping in our efforts to improve and perfect it.

The Shi'ah Encyclopedia team takes responsibility for any errors or omissions and we will strive to correct it once we become aware of it.

Shi'a Encyclopedia team
Ahlul Bayt DILP