(Arabic; lit.: ‘the pond of Khumm’): Name of a pool (or marsh) located in an area called Khumm between Mecca and Medina, in present-day Saudi Arabia. Ghadīr Khumm is famous in Muslim history as the location where the Prophet Muhammad, while returning to Medina from his farewell pilgrimage to Mecca in 632 CE, stopped to deliver a sermon during which he uttered the famous words declaring Imam ʿAlī as the mawlā (lit. patron, lord, master) of the believers. These words are preserved in hadith collections as: ‘He whose mawlā I am, ʿAlī is his mawlā’. This event, which falls on 18th of Dhū’l-Ḥijja in the Muslim lunar calendar, is commemorated by all Shi‘a Muslims as Eid (ʿĪd) al-Ghadīr.
