ʿIlm al-Kalām Archive · Quranic Verses · Q 5:67
O Messenger, convey what has been sent down to you from your Lord — and if you do not, you have not conveyed His message. And God will protect you from the people.
The verse opens with yā ayyuhā al-rasūl — "O Messenger" — using the title of prophetic function rather than the personal name Muḥammad. This is significant: the command is addressed to the rasūl qua rasūl, i.e., in his capacity as the bearer of divine revelation. Whatever is about to be commanded belongs to the core of the prophetic mission, not to a supplementary instruction.
The conditional clause — wa-in lam tafʿal fa-mā ballaghta risālatah — is the decisive statement. Its logical structure: if P is not done, then the entire mission (risāla) is incomplete. The entire prophetic mission — tawḥīd, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, zakāt, all that had been revealed over twenty-three years — is declared to hinge on this single remaining act. Ṭabāṭabāʾī's al-Mīzān: no interpreter can coherently argue that a minor or supplementary matter was the subject of this clause. The conditional construction places this tablīgh at the apex of the entire risāla.
Ḥadīth al-Ghadīr — Musnad Aḥmad · al-Tirmidhī · al-Nasāʾī · al-Ḥākim (ṣaḥīḥ) — narrated by 110 Companions
The shān al-nuzūl is preserved in both Imami and Sunni sources: on 18 Dhū al-Ḥijja, 10 AH, returning from the Farewell Pilgrimage, the Prophet ﷺ halted the caravans at Ghadīr Khumm — a crossroads where routes to Medina, Mecca, Yemen, and Iraq diverged. Q 5:67 descended commanding the declaration. The Prophet ﷺ delivered the sermon, asked: a-lastu awlā bi-kum min anfusikum? ("Am I not more entitled over you than your own selves?" — Q 33:6), and then declared: man kuntu mawlāhu fa-hādhā ʿAlī mawlāhu. Immediately after, Q 5:3 descended: al-yawma akmaltu lakum dīnakum — "Today I have completed your religion for you."
The clause wa-Allāhu yaʿṣimuka min al-nās — "God will protect you from the people" — is the Quran's own acknowledgment of the political sensitivity of what was commanded. Divine protection is promised against a specific threat: the people's reaction. Had the declaration concerned a minor matter or a already-known fact (that ʿAlī was beloved), such a promise would be structurally vacant. The protection clause confirms that the declaration was politically consequential — it was the announcement of Imam ʿAlī's succession as walī over the community.
Sūrat al-Māʾida contains three verses that together constitute the Quran's complete statement on walāya: Q 5:55 defines the walī (the believer who gives zakāt in rukūʿ — Imam ʿAlī); Q 5:67 commands the formal declaration of that walāya; Q 5:3 announces the completion of the religion upon the declaration's fulfilment. The sequence is causal: definition (5:55) → command to declare (5:67) → confirmation of completion (5:3). The religion was not complete before Ghadīr — this is the Quran's own testimony: al-yawma akmaltu lakum dīnakum was revealed after the declaration, not before.
The Convergence — Walāya as the Completion of the Prophetic Arc
Both Imami and Akbarian traditions converge: the prophetic mission is incomplete without the formal establishment of walāya as its living continuation. The Imami term is naṣṣ — the explicit divine designation; Ibn ʿArabī's term is tablīgh al-walāya kawniyya — the formal transmission of cosmic governance. The Ḥadīth al-Ghadīr is mutawātir (narrated by 110 Companions, recorded by Aḥmad, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī, al-Ḥākim) — the event itself is beyond historical dispute; the dispute is only over the meaning of mawlā. The context — the prior question (a-lastu awlā bi-kum / Q 33:6), the divine protection clause, and the descent of Q 5:3 immediately after — settles the meaning: mawlā here is awlā bi-al-taṣarruf, not mere affection.
Propositions and Cross-References