The Verse of Wilayah: how Sunni and Shia scholars read it

This verse of Al-Ma'idah is among the most asked-about between the two schools, because the disagreement does not stop at the meaning of one word; it reaches the question of whom the verse is about. This article settles nothing. It sets out what each school says, so that a reader meets the positions from their own sources rather than from the descriptions of their opponents.

The verse

Your ally is none but Allah and [therefore] His Messenger and those who have believed - those who establish prayer and give zakah, and they bow [in worship].

Read the verse in the mushaf — Al-Ma'idah 55

And the verse that follows it:

And whoever is an ally of Allah and His Messenger and those who have believed - indeed, the party of Allah - they will be the predominant.

Al-Ma'idah 56

The context

Four verses earlier comes a plain prohibition: "O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies" (Al-Ma'idah 51). Then this verse restricts the wali — with innama, "none but" — to God, His Messenger and "those who have believed", and describes the last of these three ways, ending with "and they bow".

The translation above renders wali as "ally", which is already one side of the question. The argument turns on three things: whether the verse continues the subject of the verses before it; what wali means here; and whether "and they bow" describes the state in which the zakah is given, or a general humility.

The reading among Sunni scholars

The commentaries quoted below are in Arabic; the renderings are mine, and the originals sit on this verse's page in Arabic.

In al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, published by the King Fahd Complex, the wali is the helper, "those who have believed" are the believers at large, and bowing is submission: your helper, O believers, is God, His Messenger, and the believers who keep the obligatory prayer, pay zakah willingly, "and are humble before God." On the next verse it says that whoever trusts in God and takes God, His Messenger and the believers as allies is of God's party, and God's party are the victorious.

The grounds are that the verses before it forbid alliance with those outside the faith, so this verse names who is to be taken as an ally instead; and that "those who have believed" is a plural and so covers the believers generally.

On the occasion of revelation there was never a single Sunni position. Some of their commentators, al-Tabari among them, transmit reports that it was revealed about Ali ibn Abi Talib when he gave in charity while bowing; others, Ibn Kathir among them, transmit those reports and judge their chains weak; others read the verse as general without naming an occasion.

The reading among Shia scholars

Tafsir al-Safi of Fayd Kashani transmits from al-Kafi, from Imam al-Sadiq, that wali here means the one with more right over you and your affairs than you have over yourselves and your property — and that "those who have believed" means Ali and the Imams among his descendants. After setting out the reports, Kashani adds that those transmitted by both Sunni and Shia sources on the verse being revealed about Ali are very many, and that al-Tabrisi's Majma' al-Bayan attributes that view to most commentators: that it came down when Ali gave his ring in charity while bowing.

Tafsir al-Mizan of Allama Tabataba'i argues that wherever the Quran ascribes wilayah to the Prophet, it means authority over the believers' affairs, or love — not help in the sense of alliance. He holds that these two verses do not share the subject of those before them, and that the reports, which he says are numerous in both Shia and Sunni transmission, make the verses particular rather than general.

Al-Mizan then answers two objections. To the objection that the verse speaks in the plural, he distinguishes using a plural to mean one person from stating a general rule in the plural that, in the event, only one person fits. To the objection that a ring given in charity is not "zakah", he argues that the word covers any spending in God's way, and that its narrower technical sense came later.

Points of agreement

• The text of the verse and its place in Al-Ma'idah are not in dispute.
• God and His Messenger are the wali of the believers by the verse's own words, and keeping the prayer and giving zakah are named in praise.
• The prohibition in the verses before it, on taking the Jews and the Christians as allies, stands in both schools.
• The report of the ring given while bowing is found in the books of both schools; the dispute is over its strength and what it implies, not over whether it was transmitted.

Points of difference

• What wali means: helper and friend, or the one with authority over the believers' affairs?
• Who "those who have believed" are: the believers at large, or the one about whom the verse was revealed?
• "And they bow": humility before God, or the state in which the zakah was given?
• The context: does the verse continue the subject of alliance, or stand on its own?
• The occasion of revelation: is it established by the reports, and does it make the verse particular if it is?

Sources

Everything above is drawn from the commentaries themselves as this site serves them:

• Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar — King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran.
• Tafsir al-Safi — Mulla Muhsin Fayd Kashani, transmitting from al-Kafi.
• Tafsir al-Mizan — Allama Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i.

All three are on the page for this verse, each in its own words and under its author's name. Read them and judge for yourself.