From Bidʿa to Sunna: The Wilāya of ʿAlī in the Shīʿī Adhān

Although the wilāya of Alī b. Abī Tālib-the attestation of his spiritual and temporal authority-has always been professed by the Shīa and has appeared in their ritual and other practices (such as coinage) in various forms, its inclusion in the adhān (call to prayer) was once generally rejected by Shīī scholars. It is now, however, a distinctive feature of the adhān in use among the Twelver Shīa. This paper traces and explains how this change came about and how it was eventually justified by the leading scholarly authorities of the community, especially from the Safavid era and later.