Yaumul Ghadeer: The Justice We Were Offered, The Justice We Lost

Ali (as) through the lens of George Jordaq’s “The Voice of Human Justice”

By Dr. Sabiu Adamu, FPCPharm

In a few days the Islamic calendar will reach 18th Zul Hajj. For many, it is Yaumul Ghadeer — the day Prophet Muhammad (S) paused a caravan of over 100,000 pilgrims at Ghadir Khum, raised the hand of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (as), and said: “For whoever I am his master, Ali (as) is his master.” History tells us what followed. Political calculations, tribal loyalties, and fear of change pushed that moment to the margins. But George Jordaq, a Lebanese Christian poet who spent years studying Imam Ali (as), invites us to look past the politics and ask a more painful question: What did humanity lose when it set Imam Ali (as) aside?

Jordaq answered that question in his seven-volume work Ali: The Voice of Human Justice. He did not write as a sectarian defender. He wrote as a man stunned by a personality that seemed impossible: a ruler who could have everything, yet chose to live with nothing. Through Jordaq’s eyes, Ali (as) emerges not as a figure locked in 7th century Arabia, but as a model of leadership the modern world still lacks.

The first quality Jordaq draws is justice without exceptions. Ali (as)’s justice did not bend for family, tribe, or political cost. As Caliph, he sent a sharp rebuke to his own governor for dining with the rich while the poor were kept out. When his brother Aqeel asked for extra money from the public treasury, Ali (as) held a piece of hot iron near his hand and told him that if he could not bear that small fire, he should not ask Ali (as) to bear the fire of God’s wrath. For Jordaq, this was Ali (as)’s core teaching: justice is either complete, or it is not justice at all.

The second quality is economic justice. In a letter to his governor Malik al-Ashtar, Ali (as) outlined principles that sound strikingly modern. He ordered that the needs of the poor be set aside from the treasury first, that farmers be treated as the foundation of society, and that hoarding food during famine be treated as a crime. Ali (as) himself enforced this by going into the markets of Kufa and forcing merchants to sell grain at fair prices. While he ruled an empire, he ate bread with salt and wore a shirt patched many times, saying he did it so the poor would not feel ashamed to sit with him. Jordaq calls this religion as dynamite, not opium. It does not tell the worker to accept hunger. It tells the ruler that wealth is a trust and that wages must be paid before sweat dries.

The third quality is humility combined with power. Ali (as) governed from Egypt to Persia, yet he slept on the floor of a mosque and mended his own sandals. Other rulers of his time built palaces and filled their courts with ceremony. Ali (as) refused to build a house. Jordaq argues that this was not performance. It was policy. A leader who lives like the poorest citizen cannot easily design a system that crushes them.

The fourth quality is focused leadership. Every decision Ali (as) made was measured against one standard: does it bring justice closer? Before a major battle, his advisors urged him to use money from the treasury to buy the loyalty of wavering tribes. He refused, saying he would rather lose with justice than win with bribery. He lost the battle, but Jordaq insists that the loss revealed his greatness. For Ali (as), leadership was not about holding power at all costs. It was about keeping power aligned with principle.

When Ali (as) was set aside after Ghadir, the loss was not only personal. The Ummah and the wider world lost a model. Justice became negotiable. Leaders began to be judged by their ability to maintain empires rather than by their commitment to fairness. The public treasury slowly turned from a trust for the people into property of the ruling family. The image of a leader patching his own clothes faded and was replaced by majesty, guards, and palaces. Politics shifted from the pursuit of principle to the management of interests. Religion, which Ali (as) used to challenge injustice, was often reduced to blessing whoever held the throne.

The result is visible today. Muslim lands possess vast resources, yet poverty remains widespread. Farmers, whom Ali (as) called the foundation of society, are still neglected. Corruption is explained away as political necessity. Leaders measure success by motorcades and marble, not by proximity to the poorest citizen. Jordaq, writing in the 1960s, saw this clearly in Lebanon. It is even clearer now across the globe.

Yaumul Ghadeer, then, is not only a day of remembrance. It is a question. Do we still want the model that was presented at Ghadir? Do we want leaders who fear God more than they love power? Do we want an economy that budgets for orphans before it builds palaces? Do we want justice that does not pause for tribe or wealth?

George Jordaq, a Christian, closed his book with a sentence that Muslims should carry forward: “I did not find in the dictionary of mankind a word more beautiful than Ali (as). Because when you say Ali (as), you mean justice.” Ali (as) was denied the position for political reasons, but his model cannot be denied by politics. It remains, in his letters and in his life, a blueprint for human dignity.

This Ghadir, the task is not only to recall what happened at a desert pond fourteen centuries ago. The task is to revive what was offered there. The world did not just lose Ali (as). The world lost justice. And justice, like Ali (as), is worth bringing back?