This is an accepted version of this page The Ghadīr Khumm (Arabic: غَدِير خُم) was a gathering of Muslims to attend a sermon delivered by the Islamic prophet Muhammad on 16 March 632 CE.

'valley') of Khumm, located near the then settlement of al-Juhfa on the path between Mecca and Medina, where Muhammad halted the large caravan of Muslims who had accompanied him in the Farewell Pilgrimage, his only Hajj ritual.

[1] The pond was located near the settlement of al-Juhfa,[2] a strategic trijunction where routes from Medina, Egypt, and Iraq intersected.

[3] The word khumm (Arabic: خُم) has been translated as 'deceiver', and the valley was so named because the water of its pond was saline and unfit for consumption.

[5] In Shia sources, the harsh environment of Ghadir Khumm is seen as emphasizing the urgency of Muhammad's divine task as he sought the largest audience for his address before the pilgrims parted ways.

[7] In a sermon in Mecca (at Arafat),[8] and possibly again at the Ghadir Khumm,[1][9][10] Muhammad alerted Muslims about his impending death.

The announcement at the Ghadir Khumm took place during the return journey among a congregation of these Muslims,[2] possibly numbering in the tens of thousands.

[11] At Ghadir Khumm, Muhammad called the Muslim caravan to a halt ahead of the noon congregational prayer, before the pilgrims parted their ways,[2] and then asked for a dais to be raised.

[1] After the prayer,[12] Muhammad delivered a sermon to a large number of Muslims in which he emphasized the importance of the Qur'an and his ahl al-bayt (Arabic: أهل البیت, lit.

'saying of the two treasures'), Muhammad might have repeated this statement on multiple occasions,[13][15] and indeed several similar variants of this hadith can be found in Sunni and Shia sources alike.

[13] For instance, the version that appears in al-Sunan al-kubra, another canonical Sunni source, also includes the warning, "Be careful how you treat the two [treasures] after me.

"[23][1][24] The historicity of the Ghadir Khumm is rarely disputed within the Muslim community,[1][25][26][27] as its recorded tradition is "among the most extensively acknowledged and substantiated (Arabic: تواتر, romanized: tawatur)" in classical Islamic sources.

[1] The narrative of the Ghadir Khumm is, for instance, preserved in Chronology of Ancient Nations by the Sunni polymath al-Biruni (d. c. 1050), which survives in an early fourteenth-century Ilkhanid copy by Ibn al-Kutbi.

The Islamicist Maria M. Dakake thus suggests that al-Tabari deliberately replaced the Ghadir Khumm tradition with another one that praised Ali but lacked any spiritual and legitimist implications in favor of Shia.

[36] Alternatively, in the ninth-century Baghdad, some among the Sunni group Ahl al-Hadith apparently denied the event,[18] which may have prompted al-Tabari to refute their claims in his nonextant book al-Walaya,[18][36] or in his unfinished Kitab al-Fada'il.

[40]Revealed before the Ghadir Khumm, according to the Shi'a, this verse spurred Muhammad to deliver his announcement about 'Ali, which he had delayed fearing the reaction of some of his companions.

[41] Nevertheless, the verse of tabligh is highly likely linked to the events that followed the Farewell Pilgrimage, including the Ghadir Khumm, because chapter (sura) five of the Qur'an is often associated with Muhammad's final years in Medina.

[1][49][9] The earliest such instance is a disputed poem attributed to Hassan ibn Thabit (d. 674),[1][31] who accompanied Muhammad during the pilgrimage.

"[18][24][51] In regards to its authenticity, Mohammad A. Amir-Moezzi, another expert, does not find this attribution problematic,[9] while Jafri considers it highly improbable that these events would have passed unrecorded by Ibn Thabit, who was the "official poet-reporter of Muhammad.

[61][62][49] Before the Islamic era, the term may have applied to any form of tribal association,[63] whereas, in the Qur'an and hadith literature, the word mawla and its cognate wali can mean 'Lord', 'master', 'trustee', 'guardian', 'helper', 'protecting friend', 'freed slave', and (spiritual or material) 'heir'.

[74][75] Shia accounts describe how Umar and other companions visited Ali after the sermon to congratulate and pledge their allegiance to him, even addressing him as amir al-mu'minin (Arabic: أَمِيْر ٱلْمُؤْمِنِيْن, lit.

[1] For Sunnis, it is also unimaginable that most companions would act wrongly and ignore a clear appointment of Ali at the Ghadir Khumm.