Firstly, let no one entertain any unworthy idea, doubt or misgiving about Hazrat Ali and his descendants, particularly Imam Jafar Sadiq and Imam Baqar on reading the aforementioned reports and traditions appertaining to Ghadir-i-Khumm (or any other of a similar kind reproduced earlier) in which highly deplorable and shameless remarks and statements have been attributed to those virtuous men concerning Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Omar and other leading Companions (to the extent of condemning them as wretched, sinful, and vicious and apostates, and infidels, and damned to Hell, and guilty of insolence and treachery against the holy Prophet). All these narratives are pure slander and vilification, and an attempt to blacken the character of the first two or three Caliphs and other distinguished Companions by the narrators thereof whose sole aim and mission was to create discord and dissension in the Ummat and to destroy Islam. Otherwise, it is an incontrovertible fact of history that, along with the Companions in general,the Mahajirs and Ansars, Hazrat Ali, too, had pledged his fealty to Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Omar as the Caliphs and successors of the sacred Prophet, and he was among their most trusted advisers (or ministers in the modern parlance). He never expressed his disagreement in that regard before any group or body of men nor laid claim, against them, to Caliphate and Imamate by recalling what is said in these reports to have happened at Ghadir-i-Khum. According to an overwhelming majority of Muslims, and non-Muslim historians as well, the conduct of Hazrat Ali was based wholly on sincerity and had nothing to do with Taqaiyya or hypocrisy as the Shias assert. Its most obvious proof is that he married away his daughter, Umm-Kulsum, to Hazrat Omar and made him his son-in-law in the same way as the holy Prophet had made Hazrat Ali his son-in-law.
But, enough for the present. We will return to it later. Secondly, in some books of the Traditions of Ahl-e-Sunnat, too, the holy Prophet’s sermon on the occasion of the Farewell Haj is mentioned in which he had observed that “Ali is the Maula of whom I am the Maula”. But it had nothing to do whatsoever with the question of Caliphate or Imamate. The fact of the matter is that seven or eight months before the Last Pilgrimage, the sacred Prophet had sent Hazrat Ali with about 300 men to Yemen. They had come from Yemen to join the Prophet in the Farewell Haj. During their stay in Yemen, some of Hazrat All’s companions had disagreed with him on certain matters. These persons, also, had come with Hazrat Ali to take part in the Last Pilgrimage, and during the Haj they spoke about the differences they had with some of the steps taken by Hazrat Ali. It was, undoubtedly, a mistake on their part. and the Devil is always on the lookout for such an opportunity to sow the seeds of rancour and animosity in the hearts of men. When the holy Prophet came to know of it, he felt that the circumstances demanded that he publicly declared what place of acceptance and liking Hazrat Ali did enjoy from the side of God. With that object, he gave the sermon in which he said, “Ali is the Maula of whom I am the Maula. 0 God! Have friendship towards those who have friendship for Ali, and have enmity towards those who have enmity for Ali”. In Arabic the word Maula has a wide range of meaning. It denotes ‘master’, ‘slave’, ‘emancipated slave’, ‘helper’, ‘friend’ and‘loved one’. In the holy Prophet’s pronouncement it has been used in the sense of a friend and a loved one, as is evident from the prayer that follows it. What the above saying of the Prophet conveys, in sum, is that ‘he who holds me dear holds Ali dear as well. Hence, whoever loves me should, also. love Ali.”
Anyway, the tradition is not even remotely related to the question of Caliphate or Imamate.
source : http://www.discoveringislam.org
