A Critical Assessment of Ibn Taymiyyah's Opinion Concerning the Hadith "He is the master of every believer after me."

Ibn Taymiyyah denies, in many cases, the authenticity of the traditions that have been reported concerning the position and status of the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (AS). One of the traditions rejected by Ibn Taymiyyah is a well-known hadit from the Prophet (S) about the rank and status of Imam Ali (AS) where he says: "And he is the master of every believer after me." Ibn Taymiyyah argues that, in this tradition, the term 'wali' refers to the Prophet's friendship with Ali (AS) in which case there had been no need for this tradition because everybody knows that they were friends and if it meant emirate of the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (AS), then instead of the term wali, another word such as wāli (governor) should have been used. Contrary to what Ibn Taymiyyah has claimed, this hadith has been narrated by numerous accredited Sunni scholars and hadith experts, and the chain of transmission of the hadith includes narrators who are trustworthy in their opinion. As well, Sunni etymologists and exegetes have used the term 'wali' in the sense of a governor in the position of a subject which rejects Ibn Taymiyyah's weak claim about the falseness of the above tradition.