Islamic sects

The Islamic Sects

In the time of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and of the two caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar, the Muslims were as one man in heart. They believed in God with intense sincerity and submitted to what the Messenger brought in complete surrender. They had no aim but to establish the truth, to strive in the cause of making Islam victorious, and to carry its call to all people. They knew nothing of disputation and contention over any of the fundamentals of religion; faith filled their hearts with everything revelation brought, without dispute or debate. They moved forward with resolve, steadfastness and a determination that knew no slackness, weakness or faltering, to raise high the Word of God and establish the sovereignty of Islam over the whole world, so that justice and peace might be realised on earth and in the human heart. Then the third caliph, Uthman (may God be pleased with him), was killed. His killing was a shock that dislodged the Muslims from their path and set back their unity and brotherhood, and the prophecy of Uthman (may God be pleased with him) came true of them, made when his besiegers tightened their grip on him: "If they kill me, they will never again pray together, and never again fight an enemy together" (36).

After that, discord began to creep through the ranks of the Muslims, and weakness and feebleness seeped into their hearts. Having been one group, they became groups; having had one word, they came to have many words. Having preserved the religious texts and believed in them with sincerity and complete surrender, and then devoted all their faculties and powers to applying them, they began to embrace strange ideas and principles and then to assail the sacred text, forcing it to say what supported their doctrine and what their souls and whims made attractive to them. Seditions followed one upon another as the events following the martyrdom of Uthman (may God be pleased with him) unfolded. Al-Shahrastani spoke truly when he said: "This was the greatest disagreement; and the greatest disagreement in the community is the disagreement over the imamate, for never was a sword drawn over a religious doctrine as it has been drawn over the imamate in every age" (37).

Following the custom of historians in tracing the signs of disagreement among the Muslims after the death of the Messenger, and their growth and unfolding until they ended in the well-known sects among the Muslims, we must

(36) The previous reference / 118.

(37) Al-Fitna al-Kubra (The Great Sedition), 207 - Taha Husayn.

briefly present the most important of those disagreements. They began over practical matters or independent judgements of opinion that touched no fundamental of religion, but they were later exploited in theological inquiries by the various sects. In our view this is the side that represents the nihla (a claim or doctrine put forward by human beings), the claim, or the word of man, in the Islamic heritage.

First: The Death of the Messenger

Not three months had passed after the Farewell Pilgrimage before the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) fell ill with fever. When the Muslims saw the illness growing severe upon the Messenger, they gathered around the mosque in silent dismay and deep sorrow. He (peace be upon him) came out to them, bearing up despite himself, and delivered his last sermon to them, saying, after praising God and extolling Him:

"O people, I have heard that you fear the death of your Prophet. Has any prophet before me, of those God sent, been made immortal, that I should be made immortal among you? Indeed, I am going to join my Lord, and you will join me. I enjoin you to treat the first Emigrants well, and I enjoin the Emigrants to treat one another well, for God Most High says:

By time, man is surely in loss, except those who believe and do righteous deeds, and urge one another to the truth, and urge one another to patience. (38)

"Matters proceed by the permission of God; let not the slowness of a matter drive you to hasten it, for God, Mighty and Majestic, does not hasten because of anyone's haste. Whoever contends with God, God overcomes him; whoever tries to deceive God, God outwits him. Would you then, if you turned away, spread corruption in the land and sever your ties of kinship? I enjoin you to treat the Ansar well, for they are the ones who settled in the abode and in faith before you; treat them with kindness. Did they not share their fruits with you? Did they not make room for you in their homes? Did they not prefer you over themselves, though they were in need? So whoever is placed in authority to judge between two men, let him accept from the one who does good among them and pardon the one who does wrong. And do not favour yourselves over them. I am going before you, and you will join me. Your meeting place is the Pool. Whoever would love to come to me there tomorrow, let him restrain his tongue except in what is proper" (39).

(38) Al-Milal wa al-Nihal 1/22. (39) See Sirat al-Rasul (The Life of the Messenger) (peace and blessings be upon him) - Ibn Hisham: 4/275-276, Cairo AH 1336.

Only a few days later his pure soul passed to its Creator, after he had conveyed the message and fulfilled the trust in the most complete and finest manner. The Muslims were shaken by his death (peace and blessings be upon him) with a shaking that made them forget God's way with His prophets: that they die as human beings die. Al-Siddiq [Abu Bakr] came hurrying, while Umar was shouting at the people at the door of the Messenger's mosque (peace and blessings be upon him), threatening with his sword anyone who announced to him the death of the Messenger of God. Al-Siddiq paid no attention to anything until he went in to his friend and beloved, uncovered his noble face, and said, with grief wringing his heart: "May my father and mother be your ransom! You were pure in life and in death. With your death there has been cut off what was not cut off by the death of any of the prophets: prophethood. You are too great to be described and too exalted to be wept over. You were singled out until you became a consolation, and you were made general until we all became equal in you. Had your death not been your own choice, we would have given our lives for your death; and had you not forbidden weeping, we would have exhausted on you the springs of our tears. As for what we cannot drive away from ourselves, it is grief and wasting sickness, which alternate and do not depart. O God, convey our greeting to him. Remember us, O Muhammad, before your Lord, and let us be in your mind. Were it not for the tranquillity you left behind, we could not bear the desolation you left behind. O God, convey our greeting to Your Prophet and keep him for us." Then he went out to the people, whom the calamity had made forget themselves, and delivered to them a sermon that rescued them, the defenders of Islam, from the captivity of despair and dejection. By this stand Abu Bakr became the siddiq (the faithful friend) of the Muslims, as he had been the siddiq of the Messenger. He said: "I bear witness that there is no god but God alone, who has no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. I bear witness that the Book is as it was revealed, that the religion is as it was prescribed, that the hadith is as it was narrated, that the word is as he spoke it, and that God is the Manifest Truth. O people, whoever worshipped Muhammad, Muhammad is dead; and whoever worships God, God is living and does not die. Did not God say to His Prophet: [You will die, and they will die]? God has given you His instructions concerning your affairs, so do not abandon them out of anguish. God has chosen for His Prophet what is with Him over what is with you, and has taken him to His reward, leaving among you His Book and the Sunna of His Prophet. Whoever holds to both has known the truth, and whoever separates them has denied it. O you who believe, be steadfast in justice, and let not Satan distract you with the death of your Prophet, nor tempt you away from your religion. Forestall him with what will frustrate him, and do not give him respite, lest he overtake you" (*).

The death of the Prophet was a harsh ordeal and a sedition from whose evil God protected the Muslims, thanks to the resolve of the great siddiq Abu Bakr (may God be pleased with him).

(*) See Sirat al-Rasul (peace and blessings be upon him) - Ibn Hisham: 4/275-276, Cairo AH 1336.

Second: The Caliphate of Abu Bakr

With the death of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) the Muslims faced a grave matter that had not crossed their minds: the matter of government. It seems that they had not prepared themselves for it, for two reasons:

The first: the thought of the Messenger's end had not occurred to any of them for a moment. He (peace and blessings be upon him) was dearer to them than themselves, their children and their wealth, and it is natural that one who loves does not think of the end of the one he loves.

The second: the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not raise the question of his succession, since it is a political question connected with worldly affairs, and the general principle the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) laid down is that Muslims know best the affairs of their world in matters on which no legal ruling has come. Neither the Qur'an nor the Sunna specifies the form of government, beyond the general principle, which is consultation (shura) and governing by what God has sent down.

Thus the problem presented itself suddenly, without preparation to meet it, even though it was a matter on whose handling depended whether the tide of the call would continue or recede. Yet this problem was the occasion that revealed the greatness of the men whom Muhammad had formed and nurtured at the table of the Noble Qur'an.

So the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) died without appointing a successor, or even explaining how a successor should be chosen. Hence the Ansar hurried, before he (peace be upon him) was buried, to hold a meeting at the Saqifa (portico) of Banu Sa'ida to consult on a quick solution to the problem. Abu Bakr, Umar and Abu 'Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah of the Emigrants caught up with them, so that the matter would be one of consultation between the Emigrants and the Ansar. Before long those assembled divided into two opinions.

One opinion held that the caliph should be from the Ansar, on the grounds that they were the supporters and protectors of the call, who had preferred the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and the Emigrants over themselves and their wealth. Through them God had strengthened Islam, until their city became the capital of an Islamic call that imposed its sovereignty on the world through truth and justice; and the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) had died pleased with them and content in them. So they were most entitled to succeed him and more able than others to raise the banner of the call and establish it in the land.

The other opinion held that the caliph must be from the Emigrants, for many reasons, the most important of which are:

1 - A political reason: they were of Quraysh, and the Arabs would submit to none but them. That had been so in the Jahiliyya, and it was all the more fitting in Islam. A caliph who was of Quraysh and among the earliest in Islam would preserve the political unity of the Arabs and confirm the unity of the Islamic community. And if the Ansar had embraced and supported the call, the Emigrants had been its first pioneers, who bore every hardship for the sake of its victory and survival.

2 - A psychological reason: the Arabs would be more inclined to have the matter not leave its rightful holders. Choosing the caliph from the Emigrants, the Messenger's people and kin, would convey stability and continuity. But if the caliph were chosen from the Ansar, the tribes might say to themselves: since the matter is not in Quraysh, why should the Ansar, who are of the Aws and the Khazraj, be more entitled to it than the other tribes? And the matter would end in tribal partisanship. As for Quraysh, their right was known and acknowledged by all the Arabs on two counts: first, they were the masters of the Arabs in the Jahiliyya, and the tribes acknowledged no might and strength other than theirs; second, they were the Messenger's people and kin, which added might to their might and strength to their strength. So choosing the caliph from them would be like the continuation of an established order, not the creation of a new one.

Argument and debate went on, each side setting forth its case and presenting the proofs that would tip the balance in its favour and support what it believed to be the upholding of the truth and the strengthening of Islam. To reconcile the two opinions and unite the community, some of the Ansar proposed that rule be a partnership: a commander from them and a commander from the Emigrants. But the Emigrants refused, and they had good reason, for adopting this proposal would have been more dangerous not only to the unity of the Muslims and the strength of the state but also to the Ansar themselves. It would have returned the Ansar to an era whose burdens and evils Islam and its Messenger had had the merit of lifting from their shoulders. For who would the commander of the Ansar be? Would he be from the Khazraj, so that the Aws would begrudge him? Or from the Aws, so that the Khazraj would begrudge him? Thus adopting this proposal would, from my point of view at least, have revived the Jahiliyya feud between the Aws and the Khazraj, besides the weakness it would have caused in the Islamic administration at a time when they most needed swift decision, firmness and strength.

The debate grew heated and the argument escalated until those assembled were on the verge of quarrel and strife. Then the siddiq of the community, Abu Bakr (may God be pleased with him), intervened and addressed the Ansar, saying: "We, the Emigrants, were the first people to embrace Islam, and people follow us. We are the kin of the Messenger of God, and we are, moreover, the most central of the Arabs in lineage; there is no tribe of the Arabs in which Quraysh has not a share of birth. And you,

by God, are those who gave refuge and support. You are our ministers in religion and the ministers of the Messenger of God; you are our brothers in the Book of God Most High and our partners in the religion of God, Mighty and Majestic, and in whatever prosperity and adversity we have known. We have never been in any good but that you were with us in it. I call on you to pledge allegiance to Abu 'Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah or Umar ibn al-Khattab." Voices rose and the clamour grew, but Umar settled the matter by hastening to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr. After him Abu 'Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah pledged allegiance, and then the Emigrants and the Ansar followed one after another in pledging allegiance to him.

The next day Abu Bakr received the general pledge of allegiance in the mosque, after which he delivered an address that is regarded as a constitution of government and state policy. He said: "O people, I have been put in authority over you, though I am not the best of you. If I do well, help me; and if I do wrong, set me right. Truthfulness is a trust and lying is a betrayal. The weak among you is strong in my eyes until I secure his right for him, God willing; and the strong among you is weak in my eyes until I take the right from him, God willing. No people abandons striving in the cause of God but God strikes them with humiliation, and indecency never spreads among a people but God visits them all with affliction. Obey me as long as I obey God and His Messenger; if I disobey God and His Messenger, you owe me no obedience. Rise to your prayer, may God have mercy on you" (*).

Thus Abu Bakr became the first caliph (successor) of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him). None held back from pledging allegiance to him except Ali ibn Abi Talib, who, with some of the Banu Hashim, had been kept from the meeting at the Saqifa by preparing the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for burial. When he learned what had been done, he felt aggrieved against Abu Bakr and those who had pledged allegiance to him for settling the matter without him, disregarding his standing and his right. Many of the Companions reasoned with Ali about his position and urged him to pledge allegiance to ward off sedition and division. Among what Abu 'Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah said to him was: "O cousin, you are young in years, and these are the elders of your people; you do not have their experience and knowledge of affairs." But Ali did not declare his allegiance until after the death of his wife Fatima (may God be pleased with her), who died a few months after her father (peace be upon him).

There has been great controversy between Sunni and Shia historians about the reasons for Ali's holding back from the pledge of allegiance. We, however, turn away from this controversy and resort to Sahih Muslim, which both sides trust, to make clear the truth about Ali's position and its reasons. It relates from Aisha (may God be pleased with her) that she said: "Fatima (may God be pleased with her), daughter of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), sent to Abu Bakr asking him for her inheritance from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), from what God had granted

(*) Mukhtasar Sirat Ibn Hisham (Abridgement of Ibn Hisham's Life of the Prophet) / 315 - Dar al-Nafa'is - Beirut 1981; Ibn Kathir also records it in Al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya (The Beginning and the End), vol. 5 / 448 - Maktabat al-Ma'arif, Beirut 1980.

him as spoils (fay') in Medina and Fadak [one of the villages of Khaybar], and what remained of the fifth of Khaybar. Abu Bakr said: 'The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: We are not inherited from; what we leave is charity. The family of Muhammad only eat from this [meaning the public treasury]. By God, I will not change anything of the charity of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) from the state it was in during the time of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), and I will deal with it only as the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) dealt with it.' So Abu Bakr refused to give Fatima anything, and Fatima was aggrieved with Abu Bakr over that. She shunned him and did not speak to him until she died; she lived six months after the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him). When she died, her husband Ali ibn Abi Talib buried her at night without informing Abu Bakr, and he prayed over her. Ali had standing among the people during Fatima's lifetime; when she died, Ali found the people's faces turned from him, so he sought reconciliation with Abu Bakr and to pledge allegiance to him; Ali had not pledged allegiance during those months. He sent to Abu Bakr: 'Come to us, and let no one come with you,' disliking that Umar ibn al-Khattab should be present. Umar said to Abu Bakr: 'By God, you will not go in to them alone.' Abu Bakr said: 'And what might they do to me? By God, I will go to them.' So Abu Bakr went in to them. Ali ibn Abi Talib pronounced the testimony of faith and then said: 'We know, O Abu Bakr, your merit and what God has given you, and we do not begrudge you any good that God has brought you. But you acted alone in the matter without us [you did not consult us], and we considered that we had a right because of our kinship with the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him).' He kept speaking to Abu Bakr until Abu Bakr's eyes overflowed with tears. When Abu Bakr wept, he said: 'The kin of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) are dearer to me to treat kindly than my own kin. As for the dispute that arose between me and you over this property, I have not fallen short in it of what is right, and I have not left undone anything I saw the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) do.' Ali said to Abu Bakr: 'Your appointment for the pledge of allegiance is this afternoon.' When Abu Bakr had prayed the noon prayer, he mounted the pulpit, pronounced the testimony of faith, and spoke of Ali's case, his holding back from the pledge, and his excuse with which he had excused himself to him. Then he asked God's forgiveness. Ali ibn Abi Talib pronounced the testimony of faith, extolled the standing of Abu Bakr, and said: 'But we considered that we had a right in the matter, and he acted alone in it, so we felt aggrieved.' The Muslims were glad at this and said: 'You have done right, Abu al-Hasan.' And the Muslims drew close to Ali when he returned to what was right" (40).

From all this it becomes clear to us beyond any doubt that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not designate anyone to succeed him, and that there is no indication in the Qur'an assigning anyone to the succession of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Had there been anything of the kind, it would not have been possible for the Companions, whatever the standing of al-Siddiq among them, to pledge allegiance to him and abandon the Messenger's will (peace and blessings be upon him) or what the Qur'an indicates. What remains is that the greatest thing Islam laid down in matters of government is that rule goes according to the general interest of the Muslims, not according to lineage.

(40) Al-Siddiq Abu Bakr (Abu Bakr, the Truthful Friend) - Muhammad Husayn Haykal - Cairo AH 1361.

Third: Fighting Those Who Withheld the Zakat

After Abu Bakr assumed the caliphate, it happened that some Muslims outside Medina refused to pay the zakat. The Companions disagreed about fighting them, and those who refused also had their own point of view; each based his position on a particular interpretation of the religious texts. Abu Bakr insisted on fighting them as apostates are fought, and Umar opposed him, saying: "How can you fight them when the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: 'I have been commanded to fight people until they say there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God; whoever says it has protected his wealth and his blood from me, except by its due right, and their reckoning is with God'?" Abu Bakr replied: "Did he not say, 'except by its due right'? Part of its due right is establishing the prayer and paying the zakat. By God, I will fight whoever separates prayer from zakat. By God, if they withheld from me a hobbling-cord that they used to give to the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), I would fight them over it." And he cried out at Umar: "O son of al-Khattab, I hoped for your support and you have brought me your desertion! Were you a tyrant in the Jahiliyya and a weakling in Islam? Revelation has ceased and the religion is complete; is it to be diminished while I am alive?!"

Yet although each held fast to his position, no discord or rancour resulted from it, for theirs was an independent striving in pursuit of the truth and for the sake of the truth. That is why we see Umar yield with love and sincerity to the caliph's command, saying: "By God, it was nothing but that I saw that God had opened Abu Bakr's breast to fighting, and I knew that it was the truth."

As for those who withheld the zakat, they had another point of view, based on a particular interpretation of the religious texts. They believed in zakat as a religious duty, but did not recognise its being paid to anyone other than the Messenger; since the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) had died, it was not obligatory to pay it to anyone else. They cited the words of God Most High:

Take from their wealth a charity by which you purify them and cause them to grow, and pray for them; your prayer is a reassurance for them. And God is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. (41)

They said: "So we will pay our zakat only to the one whose prayer is a reassurance for us."

(41) Al-Tawba: 103. And see the previous reference - Al-Siddiq Abu Bakr.

Fourth: The Killing of Uthman (may God be pleased with him)

When Umar (may God be pleased with him) was stabbed by the treacherous hand of Abu Lu'lu'a as the result of a Saba'ite conspiracy (42), he was preoccupied with the affairs of the community rather than with his own pain. He hastily summoned Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf and offered him the caliphate, but he declined, fearing for himself, and he and some of the Companions advised Umar to appoint his son Abdullah as his successor. Umar said: "Two men of the line of al-Khattab shall not hold it; I will not bear it both living and dead. If I do not name a successor, one better than I [meaning the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him)] left it so; and if I name a successor, one better than I [meaning Abu Bakr (may God be pleased with him)] named one. The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) died pleased with these six of Quraysh: Ali, Uthman, Sa'd, al-Zubayr, Talha and Abd al-Rahman, and I have decided to make it a matter of consultation (shura) among them, so that they may choose one of themselves." Then he sent for them, and when they had gathered before him he said: "O company of the first Emigrants, I have looked into the affairs of the people and found among them neither discord nor hypocrisy; if there is to be discord and hypocrisy after me, it will be among you. I do not fear for you if you keep to the straight path, but I fear for you your disagreeing among yourselves, so that the people disagree." He then ordered them to meet after his death to consult on the matter of the caliphate, with Abdullah ibn Umar present as an adviser who would have no share in the matter, and the fourth day was not to come without their having a commander from among themselves. He then ordered Abu Talha al-Ansari to surround the place of the meeting at the head of fifty men of the Ansar: if five agreed on a man and one refused, he was to be killed; if four agreed and two refused, the two were to be killed; and if three chose one man and three another, they were to take Abdullah ibn Umar as arbiter, and whichever side he decided for, the commander was to be from them; if they did not accept his decision, they were to side with the three among whom was Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, and the rest were to be killed. Umar lived only three days after this testament before he passed on to his Lord, and no sooner had the Muslims finished burying him than they hastened to carry out what he had enjoined.

The six whom Umar had named met under the guard of Abu Talha al-Ansari, but they did not reach agreement. Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf then proposed that one of them withdraw and undertake to choose one of the remaining five, on condition that he swear by God to prefer what was right and not follow his own inclination. When no one withdrew, Abd al-Rahman removed himself, swore by God to prefer what was right, and they swore to him that they would accept whomever he chose.

(42) On this see the author's Al-Saba'iyyun: Manhajan wa Ghayah (The Saba'ites: Method and Aim), Dar al-Qalam, Kuwait, 1985.

Abd al-Rahman began his consultations at once. He took Ali aside and said to him: "If you were not among those in the consultation, whom would you choose?" He said: "Uthman." He took Uthman aside and put the same question to him, and his answer was: "Ali." Then he asked al-Zubayr, Sa'd and Talha, and they chose Uthman. Then he went round the senior Companions and the leaders of the army, and he did not take a man aside but that he pointed to Uthman. At the end of the term that Umar had set, Abd al-Rahman called the Muslims to the mosque, and when the people had gathered he said to them: "I have seen that the people do not hold anyone equal to these two men, Ali and Uthman." Then he called Ali and said to him: "Will you pledge allegiance on the Book of God, the Sunna of His Messenger, and the practice of Abu Bakr and Umar?" Ali said: "I hope to do so, and to act to the extent of my knowledge and ability." Then he called Uthman and said the same to him, and he said: "Yes," with nothing more. Abd al-Rahman repeated the question to Uthman and to Ali three times, and each time Ali offered his effort and ability while Uthman offered his firm resolve. After that, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf announced his pledge of allegiance to Uthman, the people followed him in the pledge, and so Uthman ibn Affan became the third caliph after the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) (43).

Here we must pause before a unique example of the genius that Islam produced in three of the Companions of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), namely Umar, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf and Ali ibn Abi Talib, an Islamic genius that showed itself in the way they handled the matter of government and the caliphate.

As for Umar: the ideal ruler is one in whom good character and strength combine, for good character without strength tempts the subjects against the ruler, and strength without good character tempts the ruler against the subjects. Since these two conditions were not found in any one person in the way they had been found in Abu Bakr and Umar, Umar sought, by making the matter a consultation among a fixed number of Companions, to secure both conditions together. Those he named possessed good character by the testimony of revelation, which had given them the glad tidings of Paradise, and the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) died pleased with them; and whomever revelation has vouched for, the people accept. As for the condition of strength, when they chose one of themselves, the rest would be a strength to him and would make up whatever shortfall he might have in that condition, and their obedience to him would be a firm guarantee of the obedience of the subjects and of unity around him. This, in our view, is the explanation of Umar's order to Abu Talha al-Ansari to kill the one against the five and the two against the four: to guarantee the factor of strength to the one chosen by the five or the four, preserving the unity of the community and cutting off the root of sedition.

(43) See Tarikh al-Islam (The History of Islam) 1/254-257.

As for Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf: first, he perceived with the discernment of a believer that the age of the hero around whom the people gather had passed, and that the matter had become one of parity in character and strength. So he removed himself, sacrificing his own chance of the caliphate, so that he himself might be the one to tip the balance of strength in favour of the man he would choose, after he had secured the support of the others for that choice.

Second, he chose Uthman, who offered his resolve to follow the precedent, rather than Ali, who offered his capacity in knowledge and independent reasoning (ijtihad), in order to close a door that had been left ajar in his day, namely the claim of the sanctity of Ali and the Family of the House. He did not turn the matter away from Ali to belittle his standing, but out of fear that the Muslims would be led into sedition through him. Independent reasoning from anyone other than Ali the people would take as an opinion that may be right or wrong; but from Ali, the people, or some of them, might take it as law that must be carried out. Abd al-Rahman feared that under Ali's rule there might be something that would lead people astray in their religion and that what is not in the law would be added to it. That is on one side; on the other, he may have wished to affirm a general principle in Islam, namely that government rests on consultation and the public good of the Muslims, not on lineage or inheritance.

As for Ali, he preferred what was right to the office of caliph when he offered his ability rather than his resolve. He wished to root the ruling of the law that government belongs to the affairs of worldly politics and is a field for opinion and independent reasoning wherever there is no divine ruling, and he would not offer his resolve, even by way of manoeuvre, so that he might affirm to the people what he held to be right.

Thus Umar, Abd al-Rahman and Ali were geniuses all directed toward a single goal: the good of Islam and the Muslims.

The eminent Companion Uthman ibn Affan (may God be pleased with him) took up the caliphate after Umar ibn al-Khattab, when he was past seventy years of age, by the agreement and consensus of the Muslims. He governed the people with the finest character and the wisest management, the tide of the Islamic call continued to surge forward, conquests multiplied and the treasury filled. Uthman (may God be pleased with him) was gentle in manner and open-handed, which led some of his relatives of the Banu Umayya to profit from his position to the utmost. Their conduct stirred what had lain dormant of the call of the Jahiliyya and the traditional rivalry between the Banu Hashim and the Banu Umayya before Islam, and secret societies spread calling for Uthman to be deposed and someone else installed. Among the chief instigators of the sedition was a man called Abdullah ibn Saba', "who had been a Jew from the people of Yemen." He professed Islam and moved among the garrison cities of Islam spreading his sedition and saying that there had been

for every prophet an appointed heir (wasi), and that Ali was the heir of Muhammad, so who could be more wrongful than one who did not honour the testament of the Messenger of God and seized upon his heir? Thus the forces of evil combined, ending in the shedding of Uthman's pure blood unjustly and in aggression, and shattering for good the unity of the Muslims. Around this event three principal parties formed:

The first party: supporters of the killers

Their argument was that the foundation of government is justice and carrying out what God has commanded; whoever deviates may rightly be deposed, and if he refuses and persists in his injustice he is an unbeliever and may rightly be killed, interpreting the words of the Exalted:

Whoever does not judge by what God has sent down, those are the unbelievers. (44)

In their view Uthman had deviated from the truth and the law, so he was an unbeliever and his killing was lawful. This party was the basis of the sect of the Kharijites later on.

The second party: the opposite of this

It held that the pledge of allegiance had been concluded for Uthman by the consensus of the Muslims, so he was a lawful imam owed obedience and compliance, interpreting the words of the Exalted:

O you who believe, obey God and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. (45)

So rebellion against him was rebellion against God and His Messenger. Added to this was what was known of Uthman's precedence in Islam and his striving; he was among those with whom the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) was pleased when he died, and one of the ten given the glad tidings of Paradise. So Uthman was killed through transgression and aggression, and his killers were sinners, if not unbelievers.

The third party: it held back and withdrew from the sedition

This position is expressed by the eminent Companion Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, who said:

(44) Al-Ma'ida 5:44 [the source gives 43].

(45) Al-Nisa' 4:59.

"The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded me, when the people fall into dispute, to go out with my sword and strike it against the side of Uhud, and when it broke, to come to my house and remain there without leaving it until a sinning hand or a decreed death should come to me."

Fifth: The Dispute over Ali (may God be pleased with him)

The Muslims had scarcely finished burying Uthman (may God be pleased with him) when some of the Companions hurried to Ali to offer him the caliphate. Ali said: "I have no need of your affair; whomever you choose, I shall accept. Leave me and seek someone else, for we are facing a matter of many faces and colours, before which hearts cannot stand firm and minds cannot hold steady. If you leave me, I am as one of you, and perhaps the most attentive and obedient of you to whomever you put in charge of your affairs; and my being your minister is better for you than my being your commander." But under the insistence of the Companions he accepted the caliphate.

In truth Ali (may God be pleased with him) was far-sighted. He perceived that the bond of the Muslims had come apart with the killing of Uthman (may God be pleased with him), and that seditions had raised their wicked heads everywhere. He had hardly taken up the caliphate before he found himself in an unenviable position. Talha and al-Zubayr (may God be pleased with them), who only yesterday had been at the head of those coming to him with the caliphate, had today become, together with the Mother of the Believers A'isha (may God be pleased with her), among his fiercest opponents, demanding that he exact retribution from Uthman's killers. Mu'awiya, with Syria under him, was raising Uthman's shirt stained with his pure blood and holding Ali responsible for the blood of this noble martyr. As for Ali's own partisans, their situation was no better than that of his adversaries, for among them were Uthman's killers, who belonged to most of the tribes, and retribution would mean Ali standing alone as a caliph without subjects. Thus the future was, as Ali (may God be pleased with him) had put it, of many faces and colours. Ali stood between two courses. The first was to exact retribution from Uthman's killers, even though they were in his own camp, and despite the doubt they had in their favour that might avert the prescribed penalty from them, since they had killed him on the basis of an interpretation. Retribution, even supposing he were able to carry it out, would mean the scattering of his supporters and backers, and perhaps the matter would end not in retribution but in his deposition from the caliphate; affairs would fall into chaos, ending in the break-up of the state and of the Islamic community into factions killing one another, and things would return to the way they had been before Islam. In this lay loss not only for the Muslims but a threat to the Islamic call itself.

The second course Ali had to choose from was to hold fast to the pledge given to him as the lawful commander of all the Muslims, and to work for the unity and stability of the state, even if that led to fighting those who rebelled against his authority. This was the safer choice, since the unity of

the community is the foundation of the strength of the Islamic call, and for that goal every sacrifice and every drop of blood shed in its cause is a small price. So Ali made up his mind and took up his sword for the unity and stability of the community.

But did Ali achieve what he wanted? Unfortunately, nothing of the kind came to pass. Ali was a man who lacked neither faith, nor sincerity, nor courage, but he lacked political shrewdness. He described himself rightly when they offered him the caliphate, saying: "Know that if I answer you, I will lead you by what I know, and will not listen to the words of anyone who speaks or the reproach of anyone who reproaches; and if you leave me, I am as one of you, and perhaps the most attentive and obedient of you to whomever you put in charge of your affairs; and my being your minister is better than my being your commander." Yes, he was better as a minister than as a commander, because in his character and temperament he was nearer to being a knight than a ruler or commander. This was also Umar's judgement (may God be pleased with him): when the people wanted him to name his successor and some of them proposed Ali, he said: "He is worthy of it, except that he is a man with a playful streak (du'aba)." Ibn Abbas was asked what Umar meant by describing Ali as playful, and he said: "Ali held that there was nothing he would seek and fail to attain, and that he was capable of everything he sought." Remarkably, the very first act Ali performed as caliph was living proof of the accuracy of Umar's discernment and a practical example of the knightly character in Ali. No sooner had allegiance been pledged to him than he hastened to dismiss all of Uthman's governors, headed by Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, paying no heed to the counsel of two of his most loyal supporters, men of judgement and political astuteness: al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba and Ibn Abbas. Ibn Abbas said: "I came to Ali after the killing of Uthman and met al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba coming out from him. I said to Ali: 'What did this man say to you?' He said: 'He came to me earlier and said to me: You are owed obedience and sincere counsel, and you are what remains of the people; my opinion is that you confirm Mu'awiya, Ibn Amir and Uthman's governors in their posts until their pledges of allegiance reach you and the people calm down; then dismiss whomever you wish. I refused him this and said: I will not compromise in my religion nor accept humiliation in my affairs. He said: If you refuse, then remove whomever you wish but leave Mu'awiya, for he is bold and the people of Syria obey him more readily than his own fingers, and you have an argument for keeping him, since Umar ibn al-Khattab appointed him. I said to him: By God, I will not employ Mu'awiya for two days. So he left, and I could tell that he would like me to be in the wrong. Then today he came back affirming that my view was right and his was wrong!' I said to Ali: 'The first time he gave you sincere counsel; the second time he deceived you!' He said: 'And why?' I said: 'Because Mu'awiya and his companions are people of this world; whenever you confirm them they do not care who holds authority, and whenever you dismiss them they will say: He took this office without consultation, and they will accuse you of the killing of Uthman and stir people up against you, so that Syria and the people of Iraq will rise against you. Besides, I do not trust Talha and al-Zubayr not to turn against you. My advice

to you is to confirm Mu'awiya; if he pledges allegiance to you, then it is on me to remove him from his position.' Ali said: 'By God, I will give him nothing but the sword!' I said: 'O Commander of the Faithful, you are a brave man, but you are no man of counsel in war. Have you not heard the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) say: War is deception?' He said: 'O Ibn Abbas, I have nothing to do with your little stratagems or Mu'awiya's little stratagems.'" (46)

Thus the dispute over Ali began from the first day of his caliphate. After he had assumed the caliphate by the agreement of the Companions of sound judgement, Talha, al-Zubayr and the Lady A'isha (may God be pleased with them all) soon rose against him, accusing him of forsaking Uthman and of slackness in exacting retribution from his killers. The dispute developed into fighting at the Battle of the Camel, which ended with the killing of Talha and al-Zubayr and ten thousand Muslims of the best of the Companions, and with A'isha, the Mother of the Believers, retreating from her position. This is considered the first fighting among Muslims in Islam. On the other side, the Umayyads, led by Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, rose against him demanding vengeance for Uthman, and the matter developed into fighting at the Battle of Siffin, with Ali's camp splitting into the first two sects in Islam: the Kharijites, who turned against Ali for accepting arbitration, and the Shia, who remained in support of him. The two sides traded accusations until they declared one another unbelievers and fighting broke out between them. Strangely, each side relied for its position on its own interpretation of the religious texts, construing them to serve its viewpoint and its claim.

In this stormy and stifling atmosphere a question inspired by the sedition was on every tongue: what, in the eyes of the law, is the ruling on these people who are killing one another, which is the greatest of the major sins? Is this a decree and destiny that has befallen the Islamic community and struck its unity? And then what is the responsibility of these people before God for all this?

Thus began the inquiry into the relation of works to faith, and into the relation of man to God: is man free to choose, or is he driven? What are the limits and the value of human responsibility? Then the inquiry gathered pace as the seditions gathered pace, or the seditions and division gathered pace as the inquiry and disputation over matters of religion and sacred beliefs gathered pace. The Muslims lost the clarity of their minds and the security of their hearts; faith moved from their hearts to their minds, and they subjected the sacred texts to their whims and purposes. Where once they had raced one another, with pride and honour, to submit, yield and obey all that revelation pointed to ("and for that let the competitors compete"), they became, as we have become, sheep wandering in a forest inhabited by rabid wolves.

(46) Al-Tarikh al-Islami (Islamic History) 1, p. 349.

Hardly had the battle at Siffin quietened when a battle broke out that was fiercer and more deadly to the Muslims: the battle of the theological sects, which, as the historians say, numbered more than seventy sects. We give below a summary account of the most important of these sects and their principles, as an example to distinguish between milla (religion as God revealed it) and nihla (a claim or doctrine put forward by human beings), or between religion and opinion, in the Islamic heritage.

But attention must be drawn here to an essential difference between the role of the sects in the three religions. While it may be said that the sects of the Jews and the Christians played a prominent role in building Judaism and Christianity in their present form, in such a way that we cannot, relying on their religious documents, distinguish milla from nihla in them, the matter is different for the Islamic sects. Their views can easily be criticised, and milla distinguished from nihla in their beliefs and doctrines, along with how far they are from, or near to, religion as revelation brought it down, which is represented for us today by the Qur'an and the authentic hadiths alone, by the agreement of all the Islamic sects.

That is to say: the Jews and the Christians have no objective standard they agree upon for criticising their sects and distinguishing milla from nihla in their doctrines, other than the documents that the sects acknowledge, documents on which they differ as to agreement or acceptance; whereas the Noble Qur'an represents the overarching standard on which all the Islamic sects agree, as the sole standard that has guardianship and authority over their views and doctrines, and on which the Muslims rely in distinguishing milla from nihla in the views and doctrines of those sects.

The Islamic sects do not have the infallibility or sanctity that the Jewish and Christian sects have among their followers, nor did they play the role that those sects played in building their religion in a form that may differ entirely from the form in which it was revealed. On the contrary, most Muslim scholars regard the Islamic sects and their differences as a principal cause of the weakness of the Muslims and the retreat of the Islamic call.

The Kharijites

They were the first sect to appear in Islamic history with a doctrine and a particular interpretation of matters of belief.

The name Kharijites (Khawarij) came from their having gone out (kharaju) against Ali, though some Kharijites derive the name from going out in the way of God, taking it from the words of the Exalted:

Whoever goes out from his home as an emigrant to God and His Messenger, and death then overtakes him, his reward falls upon God. (47)

Some of them called themselves al-Shurat, that is, those who have sold themselves to God, taking it from the words of the Exalted:

And among the people is he who sells himself seeking the pleasure of God, and God is kind to His servants. (48)

These interpretations show us that the Kharijites sought support for their position from the Qur'an, interpreting it in a way that backed their claim.

Ali fought them in a famous battle known as the Battle of al-Nahrawan, defeated them and destroyed a great number of them, but he did not wipe them out entirely; indeed, they succeeded in assassinating him at the hand of one of their men called Abd al-Rahman ibn Muljam in AH 40. After the Battle of al-Nahrawan the Kharijites divided into two branches:

(47) Al-Nisa' 4:100.

(48) Al-Baqara 2:207.

The first was in Iraq and its surroundings, and they took al-Bata'ih near Basra as their centre. They seized Kirman and Fars and threatened Basra. Among their best-known men were Nafi' ibn al-Azraq and Qatari ibn al-Fuja'a.

The second was in the Arabian Peninsula; they seized al-Yamama, Hadramawt, Yemen and al-Ta'if. Among their best-known leaders were Abu Talut, Najda ibn Amir and Abu Fudayk.

What the Kharijites agree on

The Kharijites, for all the differences among their sects, agree on two things:
First: the imamate is not one of the fundamentals of religion but a worldly matter, established by free choice of the one in whom is seen the ability to look after the public interest of the Muslims. Once the imam has been chosen, it is not permissible to depose him unless he departs from the law and from acting by it; if he deviates from the straight path he is deposed, and if he refuses, killing him is lawful. For this reason they disown Uthman and Ali, because in their view the two departed from judging by what God has sent down; they likewise declare unbelievers the people of the Camel, Mu'awiya and his companions, and every Muslim who disagrees with them.

Second: the one who commits a major sin is an unbeliever, because Islam is realised only by the combination of three things: affirmation with the tongue, assent with the heart, and works. Works are a pillar of Islam, so whoever contravenes a command or a prohibition of the law is an unbeliever.

The Kharijites consumed much of the effort and blood of the Muslims. It is to be noted that their views revolve essentially around practical matters: the major sin remained the axis around which their ideas turned, and it was the cause of their splitting among themselves into numerous sects that declared one another unbelievers. They also split over the flimsiest of reasons, which confirms their Bedouin character and the shallowness of their scholarly or intellectual heritage. This was the reason for their swift extinction and for their making no contribution worth mentioning to the movement of Islamic thought (49).

(49) See Al-Milal wa al-Nihal (Religions and Sects), vol. 1.

The Shia

If the word Shia (shi'a) is taken in its general sense, which is support or agreement, it is a description that includes everyone who supported Ali, whether before his caliphate or after it, from the generality of the Muslims and the Companions. But if it is meant to denote those who held a particular view and belief about the person of Ali and his caliphate, and religious views on the imamate, which is what we mean here, then it is a title given to a particular group of Ali's supporters who held a particular view and belief, which they called for by argument and by the sword, and likewise defended by argument and by the sword.

Shi'ism, as a school or party for Ali, was joined by different kinds of people with different purposes:

• Some sided with Ali because they believed in his greater right to the caliphate, not because it was a religious or divine matter, but because of qualities they saw in him that made him more entitled than others to hold this momentous office.

• Some sided with him not out of love for him nor enthusiasm for his ability, but out of hatred of the Umayyads and the Abbasids.

• Some sided with Ali influenced by a particular belief about government and its foundations, such as those Persians who embraced Islam. They had been raised to venerate, revere and sanctify the royal house, and when they entered Islam they looked upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and the people of his house with a Chosroean eye: when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) died, the most entitled to succeed him were the people of his house.

• Some sided with Ali not out of love for him but out of hatred of Islam and its people. They made Ali and his sons a mount for achieving their wicked aims and spreading the spirit of division and schism among the Muslims and breaking up their unity, by confusing their beliefs and corrupting their religion until they could be destroyed.

Shi'ism, as a theological sect with particular views and beliefs about Ali and his caliphate, or one that took Ali as a tool for spreading certain ideas and claims, split into numerous sects that fill

the books of history and of the historians, though the causes of these splits can be reduced to two:

First: difference in belief and opinion

Among them is the extremist who goes to excess, who takes the question of the imamate as a path to achieving aims destructive of Islam and the Muslims and to spreading beliefs alien to Islam.

And among them is the moderate, whose teachings revolve around the question of the imamate alone and his belief in Ali's greater right and his precedence in it over all others, without declaring unbelievers those who disagree with them. They do not go beyond this question to establish other beliefs as the first group does; outside the question of the imamate they largely agree in religious matters with the rest of the generality of the Muslims.

Second: difference over the designation of the imams

Ali and his sons left many descendants, and the Shia differed among themselves over the designation of the imams from Ali's progeny and the course of the imamate among them. Some stop at a particular imam and hold that he will return; some pass it down through his descendants; some pass it to his brothers, and so on.

The books of the historians, such as al-Shahrastani in Al-Milal wa al-Nihal (Religions and Sects), al-Baghdadi in Al-Farq bayn al-Firaq (The Difference between the Sects) and Ibn Hazm in Al-Fasl fi al-Milal wa al-Ahwa' wa al-Nihal (The Decisive Word on Religions, Heresies and Sects), are full of details on this, and whoever wishes may refer to them. Our concern here is to mention the two most important sects that carry weight in the history of Shi'ism, and which also represent both tendencies, I mean the extremists and the moderates. They are:

The Imamiyya, representing the extremist tendency;
and the Zaydiyya, representing the moderate tendency.

The Imamiyya

They were given this name because they made the question of the imamate the pivot for spreading all their teachings, which went far beyond consideration of the imamate and its conditions to the spreading of principles and beliefs alien to Islam. Their head was Abdullah ibn Saba'. He had been a Jew, then announced his Islam in the time of Uthman, and went to excess about Ali, to the point of claiming that God had become incarnate in him. He began to proclaim that Ali had the greater right to the caliphate and attacked Uthman, who banished him. He went to Basra and spread his sedition there and was expelled from it; he went to Kufa and spread his call, and many of the common and ignorant people believed him, and when the danger he posed grew great he was banished from it. He went to Damascus, but found no echo for his call there, so he went to Egypt, where he recruited helpers and propagandists for his sedition, which ended in the killing of Uthman (may God be pleased with him) (50).

The basis of his call was that the imamate is a divine matter: every messenger or imam must designate his successor, and the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) had designated Ali for the caliphate, but Abu Bakr, Umar and other Companions conspired to conceal the texts that affirm Ali's right to the caliphate. Therefore they were, first, usurpers of Ali's right to the imamate; and second, which was the real aim of his call, falsifiers in religion, not trustworthy with it, so that no one may take anything of his religion from them. And since it was they who collected the Qur'an and transmitted many of the hadiths of the Messenger, the conclusion Ibn Saba' sought to reach was to make the Muslims doubt the original sources of their religion.

From here we can say that the theory of the imamate is a theory alien to Islamic thought, slipped into it with the aim of corrupting the beliefs of the Muslims, destroying their unity and then destroying them.

(50) See Tarikh al-Tabari (The History of al-Tabari) 3/378-379, Matba'at al-Istiqama, Cairo, 1939; Al-Fasl fi al-Milal wa al-Nihal 2/11, Dar al-Muthanna, Baghdad.

First: the infallibility of the imams and the duty to follow them

The imams are protected from error and from committing abominations, open or hidden, because they are appointed by God and His Messenger to guide the people; they are therefore sacred and infallible. The imam receives his knowledge by way of revelation, and God prepares him in a special way from the time he is a drop of semen, guarding him and protecting him from sins small and great. He makes him heir to the knowledge of the prophets and messengers and acquaints him with the unseen, what has been and what will be until the end of time. He is the sole authority for knowing truth from falsehood, so believing in him, following him and knowing him are part of faith; indeed, they are the whole of faith. No sin harms alongside knowledge of him, just as no obedience profits alongside ignorance of him: prayer, fasting, almsgiving and pilgrimage are of no benefit without knowing and obeying him, because he is the authority in word and deed. For the imams are not appointed by the people; it is God and His Messenger who appoint them, by naming them one after another, so obeying them is obligatory, as proved by the words of the Exalted:

O you who believe, obey God and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. (51)

They say that this verse was revealed concerning Ali, al-Hasan and al-Husayn, and they cite his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): "Whoever I am his patron (mawla), Ali is his patron."

And many other texts which they interpret in a forced way to serve their doctrine (52).

The angels enter the houses of the imams, tread upon their carpets, bring them news and present to them the deeds of the people. Nothing of the truth in the people's hands is true except what has come from the imams, and everything that has not come from them is false, because the whole earth is the property of the imam, interpreting the words of the Exalted:

(51) Al-Nisa' 4:59.

(52) See Zad al-Ma'ad (Provision for the Hereafter) 2/3-3 [as given], Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Dar al-Fikr, Beirut, 1972, where the hadith scholars cast doubt on it.

So the people of the House are the heirs and the God-fearing, and they are the ones who distribute the good things of the earth for the purposes they see fit. They are also the ones who hold intercession: whoever affirms their imamate and their infallibility deserves their intercession on the Day of Resurrection, because belief in the imam suffices to wipe out evil deeds and raise one's rank. That is, the measure of faith, reward and punishment is knowing the imam, affirming him and obeying him, and whoever reaches this degree is released from religious obligations and rulings.

Second: the claim that religious texts have an outward and an inner meaning

The outward meaning is not intended for its own sake or to be acted upon; it is only a means of training people in obedience and in receiving the secrets and hidden aims that lie beneath these outward forms, which none but the imams know. These are the original purpose of religion, so a person does not believe until he knows them, and he can know them only from the imam. Faith in its essence is thus knowing the imam and obeying him.

Third: dissimulation (taqiyya)

It means that a person shows other than what he conceals if he fears for his life, his property or his honour. Among the Imami Shia, taqiyya is an integral part of their teachings; they enjoined it on one another as a principal tenet of their call, and it is the reason for the obscurity and contradiction into which historians fall concerning them. By this principle they were able to explain many of the positions of the imams. They said, for example, that Ali's silence (may God be pleased with him) over Abu Bakr and Umar's usurpation of his right to the caliphate was taqiyya, the concealment of some of the imams was taqiyya, the making of speech to have an outward and an inner meaning was taqiyya, and so on.

This is the summary of the principles on which the Imamiyya agree, for all the differences among their sects. We have taken them from their most reliable sources, which they themselves acknowledge, and from the most reliable of those who have written their history, such as al-Shahrastani in Al-Milal wa al-Nihal, al-Baghdadi in Al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, al-Ghazali in Fada'ih al-Batiniyya (The Scandals of the Esotericists), Ibn Khaldun in his Muqaddima (Introduction), and Ahmad Amin in Fajr al-Islam (The Dawn of Islam), vol. 3.

The Zaydiyya

They are the moderate wing of the Shia, and we shall present them through the life of Imam Zayd himself, because the criterion in presenting the Shi'i sects ought to be the doctrine itself. This means that the sects that ascribe themselves to the Zaydiyya but hold what the Imamiyya hold are, in our view, Imami sects in principle and doctrine. Let us give an example of this:

Al-Shahrastani, for instance, mentions some sects as Zaydi sects, even though he says of them: "Most of the Zaydiyya afterwards turned away from holding the imamate of the less excellent, and attacked the Companions as the Imamiyya attack them. They are of three kinds: the Jarudiyya, the Sulaymaniyya and the Butriyya" (54). These sects are, in our view, Imami sects, since they hold the Imami doctrine, for what counts is belief, not affiliation. This is the method by which we present the Shi'i sects.

The Zaydiyya are the followers of Zayd ibn Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib, may God be pleased with the believers among them all. Zayd was distinguished by character and learning, and he strove to master both the principles (usul) and the branches (furu') until he reached the utmost in them. He studied the principles under Wasil ibn Ata', the head of the Mu'tazila, and that is why you find the Zaydiyya professing the Mu'tazili doctrine in matters of belief. Most of the Shia rose against him because he did not disown Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman and held that their caliphate was valid.

His call

The call of Zayd (may God be pleased with him) rested on two principles:

First: vengeance on the Umayyads, the killers of his grandfather al-Husayn.

Second: his greater right to the caliphate than his adversaries the Umayyads, who had usurped the right of his ancestor Ali ibn Abi Talib to it.

(54) Al-Milal wa al-Nihal 1/140.

For this reason he went out to fight Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad caliph, despite the advice of those close to him and their fear that he would be killed as his grandfather al-Husayn had been. But he paid them no heed, and sent propagandists to the people of Iraq who encouraged him and resented Umayyad rule. The text of the pledge of allegiance he took from the people was as follows: "We call you to the Book of God and the Sunna of His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), to striving against the wrongdoers, defending the oppressed, giving to the believers, dividing the spoils (fay') equally among those entitled to them, redressing wrongs, and helping us, the people of the House, against those who set themselves against us and denied our right. Do you pledge allegiance on that?" When they said, "Yes," he placed his hand on theirs.

This pledge sums up Zayd's thought and belief and his reforming aim.

After he had secured the pledge from his followers and was reassured of their great number and full readiness, he ordered the rising to fight the Umayyads. But when the battle began most of his followers deserted him, and he fought with those who remained until he fell a martyr (may God be pleased with him), and his head was carried to Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in AH 122.

Their teachings

We present them as al-Shahrastani set them out in Al-Milal wa al-Nihal, where he says:

• The followers of Zayd ibn Ali confined the imamate to the children of Fatima and did not allow the imamate to be established in anyone else (that is, Ali's descendants from his other wives).

• They allowed that every descendant of Fatima who is learned, ascetic, brave and generous, and who rises to claim the imamate, is an imam who must be obeyed, whether he is of the children of al-Hasan or of the children of al-Husayn.

• They allowed two imams possessing these qualities to rise in two different lands, each of whom has the right to obedience.

• It was part of his (that is, Zayd's) doctrine that the imamate of the less excellent is permissible while the more excellent is present. He said: Ali ibn Abi Talib (may God be pleased with him) was the most excellent of the Companions, but the caliphate was entrusted to Abu Bakr for a benefit they saw and a religious principle they observed: calming the flare of sedition and soothing the hearts of the common people. For the time of the wars fought in the days of prophethood was recent, the sword of the Commander of the Faithful Ali was not yet dry of the blood of the polytheists of Quraysh and others, and the rancour in people's breasts, seeking vengeance, was as it had been, so hearts did not incline wholly to him. The benefit lay in the one taking charge of this matter being someone they knew for gentleness and deliberation,

for seniority in age, precedence in Islam and closeness to the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him). Do you not see that when he (meaning Abu Bakr), in the illness of which he died, wished to entrust the matter to Umar ibn al-Khattab, the people cried out and said: "You have set over us a harsh, hard man"? They would not accept the Commander of the Faithful Umar ibn al-Khattab because of his severity, his firmness and sternness in religion and his harshness toward enemies, until Abu Bakr calmed them by saying: "If my Lord asks me, I shall say: I have set over them the best of them for them" (55).

• From this statement of Zayd one sees his reverence and respect for Abu Bakr and Umar. Although he held that Ali was more excellent, the public interest must be taken into account in appointing the imam, and Zayd made no reference to divine or spiritual rights by which Ali deserved the caliphate.

The Zaydiyya, then, are in their teachings closer to the people of the Sunna and the community of the Muslims, because in matters of belief they hold nothing that departs from the other theological sects such as the Mu'tazila and others. We may say that their view of the imamate is political rather than a fundamental religious one as the extremists among the Shia would have it. They do not hold the infallibility of the imam, nor do they declare unbelievers or disown those who disagree with them. They also require of the imam the ability to exercise independent reasoning on the basis of the Book and the authentic Sunna; for this reason independent reasoning flourished among them, their legal opinions were many, and many of them excelled in the principles and the branches.

The Murji'a

The Murji'a are regarded as a middle school that arose as a fruit of the conflict between the Shia, who declared unbelievers all others who did not believe in the imamate, and the Kharijites, who declared the committer of a major sin an unbeliever and declared unbelievers all others. In this atmosphere arose the doctrine of deferment (irja'), meaning that judgement on the sinful Muslim who affirms the two testimonies of faith is left to God the Exalted: if He wills He punishes him, and if He wills He forgives him. This view then developed into a school with its own theological principles, summed up in this sentence: "No sin harms alongside faith, just as no obedience profits alongside unbelief."

For all the differences among their sects, their principles revolve around the concept of faith and its relation to works, and around their agreement not to declare the committer of a major sin an unbeliever, as the Kharijites held, nor to consign such people to the Fire forever, as the Mu'tazila held.

Although the Murji'a are considered the most tolerant of the schools, their thought betrays shallowness, and for this reason they had no great standing in the intellectual movement of the Muslims⁽⁵⁶⁾.

(56) See vol. 1, pp. 125-130.

The Mu'tazila

They were the first to inquire philosophically into God and His attributes and into man's responsibility before God, in what is known as the problem of predestination (qadar). Al-Shahrastani says: "As for the differences on the fundamentals, there arose in the last days of the Companions the innovation of Ma'bad al-Juhani, Ghaylan al-Dimashqi and Yunus al-Aswari in holding the doctrine of qadar and denying that good and evil are to be ascribed to predestination. Wasil ibn Ata' al-Ghazzal, who was a pupil of al-Hasan al-Basri, followed in their footsteps. Then the masters of the Mu'tazila later studied the books of the philosophers when they were spread abroad in the days of al-Ma'mun, and mixed their methods with the methods of theology (kalam)" (57).

The Mu'tazila were thus the first sect in Islam to inquire into beliefs in a philosophical, rational way. Their best-known sects are:

First: the Wasiliyya

They are the followers of Wasil ibn Ata' al-Ghazzal, the head of the Mu'tazila, who died in AH 131.

Their teachings:

1. Denial of attributes additional to the essence:

That is, God's attributes, such as life, power, knowledge, will and others, "are only negative attributes that entail nothing additional to the essence: knowledge means the negation of ignorance from His essence, the Exalted; power means the negation of incapacity from His essence, the Exalted; and so on with the remaining attributes."

2. The doctrine of qadar:

Its meaning is "not ascribing the good or evil that issues from man to predestination; it is man who creates his voluntary acts, and he is responsible for them."

(57) Al-Milal wa al-Nihal 1/35-36.

3. The doctrine of the intermediate position between the two positions:

This is their view of the one who commits a grave sin. The first to hold it was Wasil ibn Ata, when his teacher al-Hasan al-Basri was asked for a ruling on the one who commits a grave sin. Before al-Hasan could answer, Wasil said: "I do not say that the grave sinner is a believer absolutely, nor an unbeliever absolutely; rather he is in a position between the two." Then he withdrew to a corner of the mosque to set out his doctrine.

Al-Hasan said: "Wasil has withdrawn from us (i'tazalana)." This is the best-known account of why they were named the Mu'tazila.

4. He says of the parties to the Battle of the Camel and Siffin that one of them was in the wrong, though which one is not determined:

One of the two parties is without doubt sinful, just as one of two parties who swear mutual imprecation is without doubt sinful, though which one is not determined. Hence the Wasiliyya reject the testimony of all of them, and do not accept the hadiths of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) that they narrate.

Second: The Hudhayliyya:

They are the followers of Abu al-Hudhayl Hamdan ibn al-Hudhayl al-Allaf, head of the Mu'tazila in his time. He was the first to mix the principles of the Mu'tazila with Greek philosophy. He died in AH 235. He differed from the Wasiliyya in several doctrines, the most important of which are:

1. That the people of Paradise and of Hell come to a state of permanent stillness.

2. That the earth is never without a group who are the friends of God, protected from error, who do not lie; they are the authority in legal rulings and religion is taken from them. As for mass transmission (tawatur), it is not a reliable source, since a group, however many they are, may lie if they are not friends of God whom He has protected from error. This view is close to the doctrine of the Imamiyya.

Third: The Nazzamiyya:

They are the followers of Ibrahim ibn Sayyar ibn Hani al-Nazzam of Basra. He was a pupil of al-Allaf, then broke away from him and formed a doctrine of his own. He lived in Baghdad, where he died young in AH 221.

His teachings:

1. To the doctrine of free will (qadar) he added the claim that God Most High cannot be described as having power over evils and sins; His power extends only to what is good for His servants, and He has no power to do what is not good for them. In this view al-Nazzam was influenced by Greek philosophy, which held that the generous one may not hold anything back without doing it; so what He originated and brought into being is what lay within His power, and had there been in His knowledge anything better than what He originated and brought into being, He would have done it.

2. He agreed with the philosophers in denying the indivisible part (the atom), a question long debated in Greek philosophy, which the theologians (mutakallimun) in Islam took as a foundation on which they built their doctrinal edifice.

3. Like the Imami Shia, he rejected consensus (ijma') as one of the sources of legal rulings, denying its legal authority, and likewise analogy (qiyas). For him the authority is the infallible Imam alone. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had explicitly designated Ali as caliph after him, but Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman concealed these texts in order to usurp Ali's right to the caliphate.

4. The doctrine of rational good and evil: the good is what reason deems good, and the evil is what reason deems evil. Revelation (shar') comes only to confirm the judgement of reason concerning things and acts. On this view, moral obligation rests on reason, not on revelation, so a human being is obliged to believe in God even before any command of revelation to do so has come.

Fourth: The Khabitiyya and the Hadathiyya:

They are the followers of two of al-Nazzam's pupils, the first called Ahmad ibn Khabit and the second al-Fadl al-Hadathi. Like their teacher they were influenced by Greek philosophy, and they differed from him in three doctrines:

1. They said of Jesus what the Christians say: that it is he who will judge creation in the Hereafter.

2. The doctrine of transmigration of souls. For God created people sound in mind, lavished His blessings on them, outward and inward, and then charged them with thanking and obeying Him. Whoever obeyed Him in all that He commanded is in Paradise, abiding there forever; whoever disobeyed Him in every command has Hell as his abode, abiding there forever. As for one who was in

between, he will remain in this world, dying and living again, his soul tormented by passing between human and animal bodies according to the measure of his sins.

3. The denial of the vision of God Most High. They interpret the texts that speak of the vision and refer them back to the saying of God Most High:

Sight does not reach Him, yet He reaches all sight; He is the Subtle, the All-Aware.

Fifth: The Bishriyya:

They are the followers of Bishr ibn al-Mu'tamir, founder of the Mu'tazilite school in Baghdad, who died in AH 210.

The most important thing he added was the theory of generation (tawallud), meaning the effect generated by an act.

The Mu'tazila, as we have seen, hold that the human being is the creator of his voluntary acts. This raised a question about outcomes that are not the act of the servant himself but the result or effect of his acts. For example, if one person strikes another, the striking is without doubt the act of the striker, but the pain that follows from the blow is not his act; it is generated from the act. Is the striker then held to account for the pain generated by the blow or not?

Bishr held that all generated effects are fruits of the human being's act and his creation, so he is responsible for them as he is responsible for the original act.

Sixth: The Thumamiyya:

They are the followers of Thumama ibn Ashras al-Numayri, a contemporary of al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun. Al-Shahrastani says of him: "He combined flimsiness in religion with dissoluteness of soul." (58)

(58) Al-Milal wa al-Nihal (Religions and Sects) 1/68.

The most important things he added were two doctrines:

1. He opposed Bishr ibn al-Mu'tamir on the theory of generation, holding that generated effects have no agent, since they cannot be attributed to the agent of their causes. If a man performs an act and dies, and something is then generated from his act after his death, it cannot be attributed to him nor can he be held to account for it. Nor can it be attributed to God Most High, since that would lead to ascribing evil to Him, which is false and impossible. It remains, then, that generated effects have no agent.

2. Unbelievers and those not subject to moral obligation will turn to dust on the Day of Resurrection. This amounts to denying their resurrection and their punishment in Hell.

Seventh: The Murdariyya:

They are the followers of Isa ibn Subayh, nicknamed al-Murdar. He was a pupil of Bishr ibn al-Mu'tamir and differed from him in several doctrines, the most important of which are:

1. People are able to produce the like of the Qur'an. Its inimitability arises from the fact that God created the Qur'an in the Preserved Tablet, and the Qur'an we have in our hands is a reproduction of it.

2. Declaring an unbeliever whoever says that the acts of servants are created by God, since this ascribes evil to God Most High, and that is unbelief.

3. Declaring an unbeliever whoever says that the vision of God is possible, since this implies corporeality, and God is far above corporeality and all that goes with it.

The Murdariyya went so far in exalting the principles of the Mu'tazila that they declared unbelievers all who disagreed with them. In this they are exactly like the Kharijites: the measure of unbelief for them is disagreement with the Mu'tazila more than disagreement with Islam, because they believe that Islam is what they themselves hold, and no one else.

Eighth: The Jahiziyya:

They are the followers of Amr ibn Bahr Abu Uthman al-Jahiz. He was a pupil of al-Nazzam and a continuation of his method and philosophy. He died in AH 255.

His teachings:

1. All knowledge is necessary (involuntary). That is, a person, for example, opens his eyes by his own will, and this is his acquisition; but the colours and shapes he sees with them fall upon his sight by nature and compulsion.

2. From this doctrine al-Jahiz drew the conclusion that one whom the call (of Islam) has not reached, or whom it has reached but who was unable to grasp the truth in it, is excused and bears no sin, and so is not an unbeliever.

3. Whoever knows Islam as the Mu'tazila understand it is truly a believer. Whoever knows it and rejects it, holding anthropomorphism or predestination, is truly a polytheist. And whoever has not looked into any of this and believes in God and His Messenger is a believer with nothing held against him.

Thus we find al-Jahiz declaring the other theological sects unbelievers, though he is less extreme than al-Murdar, since he made knowledge of the Mu'tazilite doctrine followed by its rejection a condition of unbelief.

The Ash'arites

We have seen that the first question to occupy Islamic thought was that of the one who commits a grave sin. The debate over it developed into an inquiry into the kind of responsibility a human being bears for his acts and its cause, in what is known as the question of predestination (qadar). There appeared the theory of compulsion (jabr), which strips the human being of freedom and choice in his acts and consequently exempts him wholly from responsibility. And an opposing view appeared, holding that the human being is independent, free, able to choose, and possessed of an inherent power to create his acts; on this view human responsibility is valid, and so are reward and punishment. Each of the two views erred, one by falling short and the other by going too far.

If the first view sacrificed the human will for the sake of the Creator's greatness and His sole right to create and choose, it nevertheless turned moral obligation, the sending of messengers and God's ways in His creation into a farce and a vanity far beneath the station of divinity.

And if the second view sacrificed the divine will and volition for the sake of affirming God's justice and wisdom, it nevertheless cast doubt on the comprehensiveness of God's power and on His being the sole Creator, glory be to Him, Most High.

Both parties looked at the problem with one eye, noticing one matter while others escaped them. This only confirms the failure and bewilderment of reason when it takes up a matter beyond its capacity. Then the circle of debate widened to include matters concerning the Creator and His attributes. There were those who held anthropomorphism and corporealism, taking the verses in their outward sense without referring them back to the basic principle, which is "There is nothing like unto Him":

There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing. (59)

And there were those who opposed this view and sank so deep into interpretation (ta'wil) that they divested God of many attributes with which He described Himself, like the Mu'tazila, who went so far as to deny to God Most High the attributes of hearing, sight and speech.

(59) Al-Shura/11.

Thus the dispute went on between those who stopped at the outward sense and those who went to extremes in interpretation, until it became the bloody conflict known as the question of the createdness of the Qur'an. That question may be taken as a model of the consequences that follow when the threads of milla become tangled with nihla, and the word of revelation is mixed with the word of man. Out of the midst of this fierce conflict the Ash'arites appeared as a middle way, bringing together two far-apart sides that the conflict had worn out.

But was it a successful solution, one that brought the Muslims back to unity and true monotheism (tawhid)? This we greatly doubt, because it was a solution founded on nihla, and nihla by its very nature cannot be a cause of unity and tawhid.

This sect is named after its founder, Shaykh Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari, who died in AH 324. He was a pupil of Abu Ali al-Jubba'i, one of the masters of the Mu'tazila, but he parted from him over a discussion similar to the one for which Wasil ibn Ata withdrew from the circle of al-Hasan al-Basri. He formed an independent school with which to oppose the Mu'tazila, and his pupils followed his path after him. Their effort was directed to explaining his views and theories and calling people to them, without any additions worth mentioning to the foundations al-Ash'ari had laid.

The Ash'arite doctrine has been the most widespread in the Islamic world from the sixth century AH until now.

Its teachings:

Here we shall confine ourselves to presenting al-Ash'ari's most important views, since, as I have said, they are the principles from which his followers did not depart much, except by way of explanation, support, and argument for and against them.

First: The problem of the attributes:

Al-Shahrastani says: "Abu al-Hasan said: The Creator Most High is knowing by knowledge, powerful by power, living by life, willing by will, speaking by speech, hearing by hearing, seeing by sight. These attributes are eternal and subsist in His essence, Most High; it is not said that they are He, nor that they are other than He; nor that they are not He, nor not other than He." (60)

But how can the attributes be neither He nor other than He? This statement suggests a contradiction. If the attributes are the essence, they cannot be

(60) Al-Milal wa al-Nihal 1/78.

other than it; and if they are other than it, they cannot be it. To say that they are neither it nor other than it is either a contradiction or an obscurity too subtle for the ordinary mind, and indeed for the extraordinary mind, to grasp.

Second: The problem of voluntary acts:

Al-Shahrastani relates that al-Ash'ari says: "Originated (created) power has no effect on events; rather, God Most High has made it His custom to create, following the originated power, or beneath it, or together with it, the act that comes about when the servant wills it and devotes himself to it. This act is called acquisition (kasb); it is thus a creation from God Most High, as origination and bringing into being, and an acquisition by the servant, as something that comes about under his power." (61)

This statement is as obscure as the one before it. When al-Ash'ari makes God's power an instrument for carrying out the human will, he is caught between two alternatives:

• Either he concedes that the human will is created by God Most High, because creation and power are all-encompassing, in which case its existence is the same as its non-existence, and this is compulsion (jabr) itself.

• Or he concedes that it is the creation of man, in which case there would occur in God's dominion something He did not create, which he does not hold.

Our remark should not be understood as affirming a particular view on this problem. I wished only to point out that what is built by argument can be demolished by argument in matters that do not lend themselves to argument or to rational definition of their manner, such as matters of the unseen.

Third: The problem of the vision (of God):

We know that the Mu'tazila deny the vision of God. Al-Ash'ari agreed with the salaf that the vision is possible. But whereas the salaf left the manner of that vision to God, al-Ash'ari explained it rationally, saying: "Everything that exists can rightly be seen, for what makes seeing possible is existence itself." (62)

This is an unsound argument. If what is meant is visual sight, which is what al-Ash'ari asserts, then many existing things are not seen: the mind exists and is not seen, the soul

(61) Ibid. 1/88-89.

(62) Ibid. 1/91.

exists and is not seen, pain exists and is not seen, pleasure exists and is not seen. All abstract meanings exist, yet they are not seen.

But if we go on to find out what al-Ash'ari means by vision, we find that he explains it in a way that comes very close to the view of the Mu'tazila, for he says: "It is not permissible that vision should attach to Him by way of direction, place, form, facing, or the meeting of a ray, or by way of impression, for all of that is impossible."

Since visual sight is precisely that in which all these conditions come together, and their absence takes vision out of being visual, the vision al-Ash'ari means is an intellectual vision, or a kind of knowledge. And that is what the Mu'tazila say.

Fourth: The one who commits a grave sin:

Al-Ash'ari says: "Faith is assent in the heart. As for profession with the tongue and acting with the limbs, these are its branches. Whoever assents with the heart, that is, affirms the oneness of God Most High and acknowledges His messengers, assenting in the heart to what they brought from God Most High, his faith is valid, and he does not leave faith except by denying something of that. As for the grave sinner who departs this world without repenting, his judgement rests with God Most High." (63)

This statement of his is close to the view of the Murji'a, as was said earlier.

Fifth: The promise and the threat:

He says: "It is not obligatory upon God, as the Mu'tazila said, to reward the obedient or to punish the disobedient. Rather God does what He wills and decrees what He wishes. Were He to admit all creatures to Paradise, it would be no injustice; and were He to admit them to Hell, it would be no wrong, since wrongdoing is disposing of what the one who disposes does not own, or putting a thing in other than its proper place, and He is the absolute Owner." (64)

This statement of al-Ash'ari's is not in keeping with the majesty of God, glory be to Him, Most High, and it is not fitting to state it openly, because it can raise this question: is putting a thing in its proper place to reward the evildoer and punish the doer of good?!

(63) Ibid. 1/92.

(64) Ibid. 1/93.