What does rightly guided caliph mean, and did Muawiya see Ali as one?

disbelieve in all these other gods so we just go that one god further and say the god of Abraham but that's not true because the concept ultimately was the same. It was just God. So I I think that was a point that really needs to be explained because it's mis it's a misleading argument. I kind of like cleaning.

I'm winning arguments in my head. Right. Uh, Mahmood Abdul Baki, you're doing it with the super chat. I just lost it. Let me go back up. See if I can find it. Nope, it's gone. Uh, let me see if I can find it here. Um, nope, I can't see it.

Right, let's go back to the question I was asked earlier on. What does this mean? This is a name given obviously the didn't refer to themselves as obviously means like the kind of rightly guided we use it as in rightly guided but the kind of um it means those of guidance rashid okay those who had rushed and rushed also kind of means

it can mean kind insight or maturity. It can mean these things as well. But here it's being used more as a spiritual insight that those of spiritual and rushed. Okay. Now um all right. So what are

when the question was did think of Ali as I don't think these terms were being used in Muawi's time because he is from the same time as them he's also from the Sahabah um so in their time they wouldn't have said those were the um this would have been used more by people much after.

So this t this term may have come about maybe in the abbisid era I'm assuming the early abid era. So maybe um the like Imm Abu Hanifh's time, IM Malik's time, that kind of time, maybe they used these terms to refer to their uh pious predecessors, but it wouldn't have been used in Omar or Ali's time.

And as to Muawia, I think Muawia would have thought that Ali is uh spiritually or religiously more superior than him. If that if that if I can make that statement, I would have thought that. In fact, there's a statement from Muawa that is transmitted, I believe, in Sah Muslim where he says that I don't deny him being more virtuous than me.

Because somebody asks Mua, you know, can you actually claim, do you claim, look, Ali was one of the first people to become Muslim? He's the prophet's cousin. He's the prophet's son-in-law. He did this, he did this, you know, he fought all the early battles of Islam. He do you really consider yourself on religiously speaking to be on the same platform? And he says in that narration, no, I don't.

So I I I would accept that kind of an understanding. I don't think Muawia would have thought that religiously speaking him and Ali or him and Omar or him and Abu Bakr are on the same plateau. No, he would have recognized that he came much after. But from a political perspective, I think Muawia would have thought that he can run the show better than Ali.

That's my assessment of what he would have thought. Okay? Because that's pretty much what he says or he acts out anyway. And and then it's a a matter of debate that would have he I mean to be fair, you know, I I think gets a lot of slack uh from people.

Um I I don't really agree with the slack. I I do feel that he I mean obviously people will say look he did a lot of this he did a lot of that and I'm I'm sure he did do you know some of that but I think it is true that from a um governance perspective a political perspective he was incredibly skillful at his job because during his rule there was never a successful rebellion ever and he ruled for uh 20 years as a caiff and 20 years prior to that as a governor.

So wherever he ruled there was never an uprising against him. Now there must be something about that leader that you you got to admit that you know for people to not you know to have pe people pledge such loyalty to you there must be something you know the guy you know think about it I mean even couldn't get that kind of loyalty not because he wasn't more pious he was more pious but then you see there's this debate that or a discussion that you know pious society it isn't like ruling people isn't about

being a pious person and I think this is one of the problems that we assume that oh the more pious you are somehow you will be better at people management but they don't go hand in hand necessarily I mean they may be a one-off case I would in fact argue they are opposites or not opposite but they're often uh qualities found in separate people.

So we have this impression that by somebody who prays a lot and fasts a lot and gives a lot of charity this person should be a leader. But you see managing people is sometimes requires um it requires a lot of diplomacy like you've got to kind of you know be mellow and be this and sometimes you have to be you've got to word your words in certain ways to keep everybody kind of mellow and to keep and that's not necessarily something that people you know highest

people necessarily would do. I mean maybe so and I feel one of the problems has been the rulership of Omar. You see Omar's rulership was an exception but it became the blueprint ideal and I think everybody kind of yearned for it because he was not diplomatic and he wasn't diplomatic but for some reason he pulled it off and this was an exception but people started to assume that should be the norm.

So every pious person should be able to pull it off. But the norm is that pious people usually don't work very well with people because their way of seeing things because you see because most people are not pious. So if the leader is not from amongst the if he doesn't think the way most people think it doesn't resonate you but it can still work on many occasions but yeah and this is one of the problems Plato found you see because Plato's his whole thing about the republic was about the ruler

should be a philosopher but then the problem is that the common people are not philosophers so they can't resonate with him and for so what happens is the ruler is often from the mob because this is how uh Plato writes about it. But yeah, I hope that answers that question.