Then I was Guided

* * * *

" THEN I WAS GUIDED " [Abridged]

Dr Tajani Samawi

[ This is the famous book about the journey of a Sunni teacher's conversion to Shia faith.
He wrote three other books: Be with the truthful; Ask those who know; and, Shias are the real ahlul sunnah. ]

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# Preface:

My book is a modest piece of work. It is a story of a journey... a story of a new discovery, not a technical or natural discovery, but one in the field of religious and philosophical schools. Since any discovery is based primarily on a healthy mind and clear comprehension, which distinguishes human beings from all other creatures, I would like to dedicate this book to every healthy mind.

A mind which puts truth to the test and knows it from the wreck of wrong. A mind which weighs all that has been said in the scale of justice, and always comes out in favor of reason.

A mind which compares words and sayings, and has the ability to distinguish between the logical and the not so logical, and between the strong and the feeble. Allah said: "Those who listen to the saying and follow the best of it, those are guided by and they are the mindful."

To all of those I dedicate this book, hoping that Allah opens our minds before our eyes, to guide us, to enlighten our hearts, to show us clearly the right way so we follow it, and to show us clearly the wrong way so we avoid it, and accepts us with His good servants, for He listens and He answers.

Muhammad al Tijani al Samawi


# THE PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOUSE OF ALLAH

On the ship [of pilgrims] I met an Iraqi Shia man. I told him you people are not Muslims.
You worship Ali ibn Abi Talib, and the
moderates among you worship Allah but do not believe in the message of the prophet
Muhammad. You curse the Archangel Gabriel for betraying what he was entrusted with.
Instead of delivering the message to Ali he gave it to Muhammad."

I continued with this type of anecdote while my companion listened carefully, at times smiling and
at times showing his astonishment.

When I finished talking, he asked me again, "Are you a teacher, teaching students?"

I answered, "Yes."

He said, "If that is what the teachers think, then we cannot
blame the ordinary people who barely have any education."

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "Brother, if we judge the Jews and the Christians through the Holy Quran, they would
not accept the judgement, despite the fact that the Quran is our absolute proof. Therefore, we
should show their mistakes in their books, because then the proof would be stronger, in
accordance to the saying: From among them, there was one who bore witness against them."

His speech fell on my heart like cold water falling on the heart of a thirsty man, and I changed from a bitter critic to someone who is willing to listen and think, because I felt there was a sound logic and a strong proof. So I had to show some modesty and listen to him. I said to him, "So you are one of those who believe in the message of our prophet Muhammad?" He replied, "All Shias like
me believe in it. Brother, you had better investigate the matter yourself, so you do not have any
doubt about your brothers, the Shias because perhaps some doubt is a sin." He added, "If you
really want to know the truth and to see it with your own eyes so you could convince yourself, then
I invite you to visit Iraq, and there you will meet the Ulama of the Shia, as well as the ordinary
people, and then you will recognize the malicious lies."

One night my friend told me that we were going on the next day, if Allah willed, to Najaf. I
asked him, "What is Najaf?" He said,"lt is a centre for learning, also the grave of Ali ibn Abi
Talib is in that city."

My friend took me to a mosque next to the mausoleum, where the floors were covered by carpets,
and around its Mihrab there were some Quranic verses, engraved in beautiful calligraphy.

I noticed a few turbaned youngsters sitting near the Mihrab studying, and each one of them had a
book in his hand. I was impressed by the scene, since I had never seen students of 13-16 wearning turbans,
and what made them look so cute was their costumes. My friend asked them about "al-Sayyid",
so they told him that he was leading the prayer. I did not know what he meant by "al-Sayyid",
and thought he might be one of the Ulama, but later I realized it was "Sayyid al-Khui" the leader of the Shia community.

The students asked me, which countly I came from, I answered. "From Tunisia." They asked, "Have you
got religious schools?"

I answered, "We have universities and schools."

I was bombarded by questions from all sides, and all the questions were sharp and concentrated.

One of the boys asked me, "Which Madhhab (religious school) is followed in
Tunis'?"

I said, "The Maliki madhhab."

And noticed that some of them laughed, but I did not pay
much attention.

He asked me, "Do you not know the Jafari Madhhab?"

I said, "What is this new name? No we only know the four Madhahibs, and apart from that is not within Islam."

He smiled and said, "The Jafari Madhhab is the essence of Islam, do you not know that Imam Abu
Hanifah studied under Imam Jafar Sadiq? And that Abu Hanifah said, "Without those two years
al-Numan would have perished." [i.e. The two year period in which Abu Hanifah al Numan took lessons from Imam Jafar].

I remained silent and did not answer, for I had heard a name that
I had never heard before, but thanked Allah that he - i.e. their Imam Jafar Sadiq - was not a
teacher of Imam Malik, and said that we are Malikis and not Hanafis.

He said, "The four Madhahibs took from each other, Ahmed ibn Hanbal took from Shafi, and Shafi took from
Malik, and Malik took from Abu Hanifah, and Abu Hanifah from Jafar Sadiq, therefore, all of
them were students of Imam Jafar, who was the first to open an Islamic University in the
mosque of his grandfather, the Messenger of Allah. and under him studied no less than four
thousand jurisprudents and specialists in Hadith (prophetic traditions).

I was surprised by the intelligence of that young boy who seemed to have learnt what he was
saying in the same way that one recites a Surah from the Quran. I was even more astonished when
he started telling me some historical references which he knew the number of their volumes and
chapters, and he continued with his discussion as if he was a teacher teaching a student. In fact I
felt weak before him and wished that I had gone with my friend instead of staying with the young
boys. I was not able to answer every question connected with jurisprudence or history that they
asked me.

He asked me, "Which of the Imams I followed?" I said, "Imam Malik."

He said, "How do you follow a corpse that has been dead for fourteen centuries. If you want to ask him a question
about current issues, would he answer you?"

I thought for a little while and then said, "Your Jafar also died fourteen centuries ago, so whom do you follow?"

He and other boys answered me quickly, "We follow Sayyid al-Khui, for he is our Imam."
I did not know who was more knowledgeable, al-Khui or Jafar Sadiq.

I tried my best to change the subject so I kept asking
them questions such as, "What is the population of Najaf?
How far is Najaf from Baghdad?
Did they know other countries beside Iraq ..."

And every time they answered, I prepared another
question for them to prevent them from asking me, for I felt incapable of matching their knowledge.
But I refused to admit it, despite the fact that inside myself, I accepted defeat.

The days of glory and scholarship in Egypt had dissipated here, especially after meeting those youngsters.

I thought the minds of those young boys were greater than the minds of those Shaykhs whom I met
in al-Azhar and the minds of our Shaykhs in Tunisia.

Sayyid al-Khui entered the place, and with him came a group of Ulama who looked
respectable and dignified, and all the boys stood up, and me with them, then each one of them
approached Sayyid [master] to kiss his hand.

After that my friend, who had whispered to Sayyid, pointed to me to get nearer to Sayyid, which I did, and he sat me to his
right.

After we exchanged the greetings my friend said to me, "Tell Sayyid the things you hear in
Tunisia about the Shia."

I said, "Brother, let us forget about the stories we hear from here and
there, and I want to know for myself what the Shia say, so I want frank answers to some questions
that I have."

My friend insisted that I should inform Sayyid about what we thought of Shia. I
said, "We consider the Shia to be harder on Islam than the Christian and Jews, because they
worship Allah and believe in the Message of Musa, may Allah grant him peace, but we hear that
the Shia worship Ali and consider him to be sacred, and there is a sect among them who worship
Allah but put Ali at the same level as the Messenger of Allah." Also I told him the story about how
the angel Gabriel betrayed his charge - as they say - so instead of giving the message to Ali he
gave it to Muhammad.

Sayyid remained silent for a little while, with his head down, then he looked at me and said,

"We believe that there is no other God but Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of
Allah, and that Ali was but a servant of Allah."

He turned to his audience and said, indicating to me:

"Look at these poor people how they have been brain-washed by the false rumours; and
this is not surprising for I heard more than that from other people - God forbid."

Then he turned to me and said, "Have you
read the Quran?"

I answered, "I could recite half of it by heart before I was ten."

He said, "Do you know that all the Islamic groups, regardless of their sects agree on the Quran, for our
Quran is the same as yours?"

I said, "Yes I know that."

He then said, "Have you not read the words of Allah, praise be to Him the Sublime:

"And Muhammad is no more than a messenger, the messengers have already passed away before him",

and also,

"Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those with him are firm of heart against the unbelievers",

and also,

"Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but he is the Messenger of Allah and the last of the Prophets." [3:144;48:29;33:40]

I said, "Yes I know all these Quranic verses."

He said, "Where is Ali then?

If our Quran says that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, so where did this lie come from?"

I remained silent and could not find an answer.

He added, "As for the betrayal of Gabriel, God forbid, it is worse than the first,
because when Allah sent Gabriel unto Muhammad, Muhammad was forty years old then,
and Ali was a lad of six or seven years, so how could Gabriel make a mistake and did not
differentiate between Muhammad the man and Ali the lad?"

He stayed silent for a long time, and I started thinking about what he had said, which
appeared to me as logical reasoning, so that it left a deep impression on me, and I asked myself
why we did not base our analysis on such logical reasoning.

Sayyid Khui added, "I would like to inform you that the Shia is the only group, among all the
Islamic groups, which believe in the infallability of the Prophets and Imams; so if our Imams are infallible,
and they are human beings like us, then how about Gabriel, who is an angel favoured by Allah and He called him "The faithful spirit".

I asked, "Where did all these rumours come from?"

He said, "From the enemies of Islam who want to divide the Muslims into groups that fight each other,
otherwise Muslims are brothers, whether they were Shia or Sunnis, for all of them worship Allah alone and do not associate any
other God with Him, and they have one Quran, one Prophet and one Qiblah (Direction to which
Muslims turn in praying- i.e. Kabaa). The Shia and the Sunnis only differ on issues regarding
jurisprudence, in the same way that the different schools of jurisprudence in the Sunni school differ
among each other; as Malik did not agree all the way with Abu Hanifah who himself did not agree
all the way with Shafi ... and so on."

I said, "Therefore, all the things which have been said about you are just lies?"

He said, "Praise be to Allah, you are a sensible man and could comprehend things, also you have seen Shia
countries and have travelled in their midst; so did you hear or see anything related to these lies?"

I said, "No, I have not seen or heard anything but good things, and I thank Allah for giving me the
opportunity to meet Mr. Munim on the ship, since he was the reason for my presence in Iraq, and
indeed I have learnt many things that I had not known before."

Sayyid said, "Welcome, if you want to study here, then there will be a place for you in this
school."

Everybody welcomed the suggestion, especially my friend Munim whose face was full of joy.

I said, "I am a married man with two boys."

He said, "We will take care of your accommodation and living and whatever you need, but the important thing is learning."

I thanked Sayyid al-Khui for his offer and told him that I would think about the matter seriously
after I came back from Umrah, but I needed some books.

Sayyid said, "Give him the books."

A group of learned people stood up and went to their book cabinets and after a few
minutes each one of them presented me with a book, so I had more than seventy.

Then we went to see Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, the famous religious authority inside Iraq and outside it,

I had many discussions with Sayyid al-Sadr during these days, and I asked him about everything
I had learnt through the friends who talked to me about their beliefs and what they thought about
the Companions of the Prophet, and about Ali and his sons ... beside many other issues that
we used to disagree upon.

I asked Sayyid Sadr about Imam Ali and why they testify for him in the Adhan [the call for
prayers] that he is "Waliy Allah" [the friend of Allah]. He answered me in the following way:

"The Commander of the Believers, Ali, may Allah's blessings be upon him, was one of
those servants of Allah whom He chose and honoured by giving them the
responsibilities of the Message after His Prophet. These servants are the trustees of
the Prophet, since each prophet has a trustee, and Ali ibn Abi Talib is the
trustee of Muhammad.
We favour him above all the Companions of the Prophet because Allah and
the Prophet favoured him, and we have many proofs of that, some of them are
deduced through logical reasoning, others are found in the Quran and Sunnah [the
Tradition of the Prophet Muhammad ], and these proofs cannot be suspect,
because they have been scrutinized, and proven right, by our own learned people
(who wrote many books about the subject) and those of the Sunni Madhahibs. The
Umayyad regime worked very hard to cover this truth and fought Imam Ali and his
sons, whom they killed. They even ordered people, sometimes by force, to curse
him, so his followers - may Allah bless them all started to testify for him as being the
friend of Allah. No Muslim would curse the friend of Allah in defiance of the
oppressive authorities, so that the glory was to Allah, and to His Messenger and to all
the believers. It also became an historical land mark across the generations so that
they know the just cause of Ali and the wrong doing of his enemies. Thus, our
learned people continued to testify that Ali is the friend of Allah in their calls to
prayer, as something which is commendable. There are many commendable things in
the religious rites as well as in ordinary mundane dealings, and the Muslim will be
rewarded for doing them, but not punished for leaving them aside.
For example, it is commendable for the Muslim to say after Shahadah:
And I will testify that Heaven is true and Hell is true, and that Allah will resurrect
people from their graves."

I said: "Our learned people taught us that the priority of the succession was for our master Abu
Bakr Siddiq, then to our master Umar Faruq, then to our master Uthman, then to our master
Ali, may Allah bless them all." Sayyid remained silent for a short while, then answered me,

"Let them say what they want, but it would be impossible for them to prove it on legal
grounds, besides, what they say contradicts their books which state: The best of the
people is Abu Bakr then Uthman, and there is no mention of Ali because they made
him just an ordinary person, however, the later historians started to mention him for
the sake of mentioning the Rightly Guided Caliphs."

After that I asked him about the piece of clay on which they put their foreheads during the prayers
and they call it "al-Turbah al-Husayniyyah". He answered,

"We all prostrate on the dust, but not for the dust, as some people claim that the Shia
do, for the prostration is only for Allah, praise be to Him the Highest. It is well
established among our people, as well as among the Sunnis, that the most favourable
prostration is on earth or on the non-edible produce of the earth, and it is incorrect to
prostrate on anything else. The Messenger of Allah used to sit on the dust, and
he had a piece of clay mixed with straw, on which he used to prostrate. He also
taught his Companions, may Allah bless them all, to prostrate on the earth or on
stones, and forbade them from prostrating on the edges of their shirts. We consider
these acts to be necessary and important.
Imam Zaynalabideen Ali ibn Husayn [may Allah bless them both] took a Turbah
[a piece of clay] from near the grave of his father Abu Abdullah, because the dust
there is blessed and pure, for the blood of the chief martyr was spilt on it. Thus, his
followers continue with that practice up to the present day.
We do not say that prostration is not allowed but on Turbah, rather, we say that
prostration is correct if it is done on any blessed Turbah or stone, also it is correct if it
is done on a mat which is made of palm leaves or similar material."

I asked, "Why do the Shia cry and beat their cheeks and other parts of their bodies until blood is spilt, and this is
prohibited in Islam, for the Prophet said: He who beats the cheeks, tears the pockets and
follows the call of Jahiliyyah is not one of us."

Al-Sayyid replied:

"The saying is correct and there is no doubt about it, but it does not apply to the
obsequies of Abu Abdullah, for he who calls for the avenging of Husayn and
follows his path, his call is not of the Jahiliyyah. Besides, the Shias are only human
beings, among them you find the learned and not so learned, and they have feelings
and emotions. If they are overcome by their emotions during the anniversary of the
martyrdom of Abu Abdullah, and remember what happened to him, his family and his
companions from degradation to captivity and then finally murder, then they will be
rewarded for their good intentions, because all these intentions are for the sake of
Allah. Allah - praise be to Him, the Highest - who rewards people according to their
intentions.
Last week I read the official reports from the Egyptian government about the suicide
incidents that followed the death of Jamal Abdul Nasser. There were eight such
incidents in which people took their lives by jumping from buildings or throwing
themselves under trains, besides them there were many injured people. These are but
some examples in which emotions have overcome the most rational of people, who
happen to be Muslims and who killed themselves because of the death of Jamal
Abdul Nasser, who died of natural causes, therefore, it is not right for us to condemn
the Sunnis and judge them to be wrong.
On the other hand, it is not right for the Sunnis to accuse their brothers the Shia of
being wrong because they cry for the chief martyr. These people have lived and are
still living to this present day the tragedy of Husayn. Even the Messenger of Allah
cried after the death of his son Husayn, and Gabriel cried also."

I asked, "Why do the Shia decorate the graves of their saints with gold and silver, despite the fact
that it is prohibited in Islam?"

Sayyid Sadr replied,

"This is not done just by the Shia, and it is not prohibited. Look at the mosques of our
brothers the Sunnis in Iraq or Egypt or Turkey or anywhere else in the Islamic world,
they are all decorated with gold and silver. Furthermore, the mosque of the
Messenger of Allah in Madinah al-Munawarah and the Kaba, the House of
Allah, in the blessed Mecca is covered every year by a cloth decorated by gold
which costs millions. So such a thing is not exclusive to the Shia."

I asked "The Saudi Ulama say that touching the graves and calling the saints for their blessings is
polytheism, so what is your opinion?"

Al-Sayyid al-Sadr replied:

"If touching the graves and calling the dead is with the understanding that they could
cause harm or render a benefit, then that is polytheism, no doubt about it, the
Muslims are monotheists and they know that Allah alone could cause harm or render
a benefit, but calling the saints and Imams [may Allah bless them all] with the
understanding that they could be an intermediary to Allah, that is not polytheism. All
Muslims, Sunnis and Shias, agreed on this point from the time of the Messenger up to
the present day, except the Wahabiyyah, the Saudi Ulama who contradict all
Muslims with their new creed. They caused considerable disturbances among the
Muslims, they accused them of blasphemy, they spilt their blood and even beat old
pilgrims on their way to the House of Allah in Mecca just because they say "O
Messenger of Allah, may peace be upon you", and they will never let anybody touch
his blessed grave. They had so many debates with our learned people, but they
persisted in their stubbornness and their arrogance.
Sayyid Sharaf al-Din, a famous Shia learned man, went on pilgrimage to the
House of Allah during the time of Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, and he was one of those
Ulama who were invited to the King's palace to celebrate with the King Id al-Adha,
in accordance with the customs there. When his turn came to shake the King'shand,
Sayyid Sharaf al-Din presented him with a leather bound Quran. The King took the
Quran and placed it on his forehead then kissed it. Al Sayyid Sharaf al-Din said, "O
King, why do you kiss and glorify the cover which is only made out of goat's skin?"
The King answered, "I meant to glorify the Holy Quran, not the goat's skin."
Sayyid Sharaf al-Din then said, "Well said, O King. We do the same when we
kiss the window or the door of the Prophet's chamber, we know it is made of
iron and could not harm or render a benefit, but we mean what is behind the iron and
wood, we mean to glorify the Messenger of Allah in the same way as you
meant with the Quran when you kissed its goat's skin cover.
The audience was impressed by Sayyid and said, "You are right." The King was
forced to allow the pilgrims to ask for blessings from the Prophet's relics, until the
order was reversed by the successor of that king. The issue is not that they are afraid
of people associating others with Allah, rather, it is a political issue based on
antagonizing and killing the Muslims in order to consolidate their power and authority
over the Muslims, and history is the witness to what they have done with the Muslim
nation."

I asked him about the Sufi orders, and he answered me briefly:

"There are positive and negative aspects to them. The positive aspects include
self-discipline, austere living, renunciation of worldly pleasures and elevating one's self
to the spiritual world. The negative aspects include isolation, escapism and restricting
the mention of Allah by verbal numbers and various other practices. Islam, as it is
known accepts the positive aspects but rejects the negative ones, and we may say
that all the principles and teachings of Islam are positive."

The answers of Sayyid al-Sadr were clear and convincing, but it was very difficult for a person
like me to comprehend them. Twenty-five years of my life had been based on the idea of glorifying
and respecting the Companions of the Prophet, especially the Rightly Guided Caliphs. The
Messenger of Allah commanded us to follow their teachings, in particular Abu Bakr Siddiq and
Umar Farooq, but I had never heard their names mentioned since I arrived in Iraq. Instead, I
heard strange names that I had never come across before, and that there were twelve Imams, and
a claim that the Messenger of Allah had stated before his death that Imam Ali should be his
successor. How could I believe all that (that all Muslims and the Companions of the Prophet- who
was the best of people -, after the death of the Prophet agreed to stand against Ali - may Allah
honour him) when we had been taught from childhood that the Companions of the Prophet - may
Allah bless them all - respected Ali and knew very well what kind of man he was. They knew that
he was the husband of Fatima al-Zahra and the father of Hasan and Husayn and the gate to
the city of knowledge.

Our Master Ali knew the quality of Abu Bakr Siddiq, who became a Muslim before anybody
else, and accompanied the Prophet to the cave, as is mentioned by Allah, the Mighty, in the
Quran, and whom the Messenger of Allah charged with the leadership of the prayers during his
illness, and said about him, if I was taking a very close friend, I would have chosen Abu Bakr."
Because of all that, the Muslims elected him as their caliph. Imam Ali knew the position of our
master Umar, with whom Allah glorified Islam, and the Messenger of Allah called him Farooq,
he who separates right from wrong. Also Imam Ali knew the position of our master Uthman, in
whose presence the angels of the Merciful felt shy, and who organized al-Usrah's army, and who
was named by the Messenger of Allah as "Dhu al-Nurayn", the man who is endowed with two
lights. How could our brothers Shia ignore or pretend to ignore all that, and make these
personalities just ordinary characters subject to all worldly whims and greed so that they deviated
from the right path and disobeyed the orders of the Messenger after his death. This was
inconceivable since we know that these people used to hasten to execute the orders of the
Messenger; they killed their sons and fathers and members of their tribes for the sake of glorifying
Islam and its ultimate victory. He who would kill his father and son for the sake of Allah and His
Messenger could not be subject to worldly and transitory ambitions such as the position of Caliph,
and ignoring the orders of the Messenger of Allah.

Yes, because of all that I could not believe all the Shia were saying, in spite of the fact that I was
convinced about many things. I remained in a state of doubt and perplexity: doubtful because of
what the Shia learned scholars Ulama said to me, which I found sensible and logical; and perplexed
because I could not believe that the Companions of the Prophet - may Allah bless them all - would
sink to such a low moral stand and become ordinary people like us, neither sharpened by the light
of the Message nor able to be enlightened by Muhammad. O my God, how could that be? Could
the Companions of the Prophet be at the level described by the Shia? The important thing is that
doubt and perplexity were the beginning of weakness and the realization that there were many
hidden issues to be uncovered before reaching the truth.

My friend came, then we travelled to Karbala... I asked him to repeat the
story of the martyrdom of Husayn, for I did not know much about it except the fact that our
religious leaders told us that the enemies of Islam killed our masters Umar, Uthman and Ali, and
that the same enemies killed our master Husayn; and that is all we knew. In fact we used to
celebrate Ashura, as one of the festival days of Islam; alms were distributed and various types of
food were cooked and the young boys went to their elders who gave them money to buy sweets
and toys.

Because of all this, I became doubtful and perplexed after my meeting with the Shia, for who knows, they might be saying the truth! So should I not study and investigate?

Islam, through the Quran and Sunnah ordered me to study, investigate and to compare, and Allah
said: "And (as for) those who strive hard for Us, We will most certainly guide them in Our ways." (29:69).

He also said: "Those who listen to the word, then follow the best of it; these are they whom Allah has guided, and those it is who are the men of understanding." (39:18)

The Messenger of Allah said, Study your religion until it is said that you are mad.

Therefore research and comparison are legal obligations for every responsible person.

Having reached this decision and resolution, I bade my friends farewell, and returned to Tunisia.

I arrived home eager to meet my family and friends. and found them all well.


# THE BEGINNING OF RESEARCH


I started reading the books, so I read "The Beliefs of al-Imamiyya" and "The Origin and Principles
of Shia", and felt that my mind was at ease with the beliefs and ideas of the Shia.

Then I read "al-Murajaat [correspondences]" by Sayyid Sharaf al-Din al-Musawi.

As soon as I read the first few pages, I became engrossed in it and could not leave it unless it was necessary, and even took it with me to the institute. I was surprised at the straight forward clarity of the Shia scholar when he solved problems that appeared complicated to the Sunni scholar from al-Azhar. I found my objective in the book, because it is not like any ordinary book where the author writes whatever he likes without criticism or discussion, for "al-Murajaat" is in the form of a dialogue
between two scholars, who belong to a different creed, and are critical of each other's statement.
Both base their analysis on the two important references for all Muslims: The Holy Quran and Authentic Sunnah found in the Sihah Sittah. I found that there was something common
between myself and the idea of the book: for I was an investigator searching for the truth, and was
willing to accept it wherever it was found. Therefore I found this book immensely useful, and I owe
it a great deal.

I was astonished when I found him talking about the refusal of some of the Companions to comply
with the orders of the Prophet, and he gave many examples, including the incident of "Raziyat
Yawm al-Khamis (The Calamity of Thursday)", for I could not imagine that our master Umar ibn
Khattab had disagreed with the orders of the Messenger of Allah and accused him of
Hajr (talking irrationally), and I thought at the beginning that it was just a story from the Shia
books. However, I was even more astonished when I noticed that the Shia scholar made his
reference to the incident in the "Sahih of Bukhari" and the "Sahih of Muslim".

I travelled to the Capital, and from there I bought the "Sahih of Bukhari", the "Sahih of Muslim",
the "Musnad of Imam Ahmed", the "Sahih of Tirmidhi", the "Muwatta of Imam Malik" and other
famous books. I could not wait to get back to the house and read these books, so throughout the
journey between Tunis and Gafsah I sat in the bus looking through the pages of Bukhari's book
searching for the incident of "The great misfortune of Thursday" and hoping that I would never find
it.

Nevertheless, I found it and read it many times; and there it was, exactly as it has been cited by
al-Sayyid Sharaf al-Din.

I tried to deny the incident in its entirety, and could not believe that our master Umar had played
such a dangerous role; but how could I deny it since it was mentioned in our Sihahs; the Sihahs of
al-Sunnah, in whose contents we are obliged to believe, so if we doubt them or deny some of
them, it means that we abandon all our beliefs. If the Shia scholar had referred to their books, I
would not have believed what he said, but he was referring to the Sihahs of al-Sunnah, which
could not be challenged, because we are committed to believe that they are the most authentic
books after the Book of Allah. Therefore, the issue is a compelling one, because if we doubt these
Sihahs we are left with hardly any of the rules and regulations of Islam to rely on. This is because
the rules and regulations which are mentioned in the Book of Allah take the form of general
concepts rather than details. We are far from the time of the Message, and have thus inherited the
rules of our religion through our fathers and grandfathers with the help of these Sihahs, which
cannot be ignored. As I was about to embark on long and difficult research, I promised myself to
depend only on the correct Hadiths that are agreed by both the Shia and the Sunnah, and that I
would drop all the sayings which are mentioned exclusively by one group or the other. Only
through this just method could I keep myself safe from emotional factors, sectarian fanaticism and
national tendencies. In the meantime I would be able to pass through the road of doubt and reach
the mountain of certainty, and that is the correct path of Allah.


# Sahabas in eyes of Sunnis and Shia

One of the most important studies which I consider to be the cornerstone for all the studies that
lead to the truth is the research into the life of the Companions, their affairs, their deeds and their
beliefs; because they were the foundations of everything, and from them we took the principles of
our religion, and they enlightened our darkness, so that we can see the rules of Allah. Many
Muslim scholars- convinced of the above - embarked on the study of the lives and deeds of the
Companions, among them: "Usd al-Ghabah fi Tamyeez al-Sahabah", and "al-Isabah fi Maarifat
al-Sahabah", and "Mizan al-Itidal" and various other books which look critically and analytically at
the lives of the Companions, but all from the point of view of the Sunnis [ such as Ibn Hajar al Asqalani and Ibn Athir ].

There is a slight problem here, and that is that most of the early scholars wrote in the way which
suited the Umayyad and Abbasid rulers who were well known for their opposition to Ahl al-Bayt
and all their followers. Therefore, it is not fair to depend on their works alone without reference to
the works of the other Muslim scholars who were persecuted and ultimately killed by these
governments simply because they were followers of Ahl al-Bayt and the cause behind the
revolutions against the oppressive and deviant authorities.

The main problem with all that was the Companions themselves, for they disagreed about the wish
of the Messenger of Allah to write them a document which would help them to remain on
the right path until the Day of Judgement. This disagreement deprived the Islamic nation of a unique
virtue, and has thrown it into darkness until it was divided and plagued with internal quarrels and
finally ended up as a spent force.

It was they who disagreed on the issue of the Caliphate [the successorship of the Prophet], and
were divided between a ruling and an opposing party, thus dividing the nation into the followers of
Ali and the followers of Muawiyah. It was they who differed in the interpretations of the Book of
Allah and the sayings of His Messenger, which led to the creation of the various creeds, groups
and subgroups; and from them came many scholars of scholastic theology and schools of thoughts
and philosophies inspired by political ambitions with one aim in mind and that was to obtain power.

The Muslims would not have been divided and in disagreement had it not been for the
Companions, for every disagreement that has been created in the past, or is being created at the
present time is due to their disagreement about the Companions. There is one God, one Quran,
one Messenger and one Qiblah, and they all agree on that, but the disagreement among the
Companions started on the first day after the death of the Messenger, in the Saqifah [house]
of Bani Saidah, and has continued up to the present day, and will continue for as long as Allah wills
it.

Through my discussions with the Shia scholars, I discovered that, in their views, the Companions
were divided into three categories:

The first category included the good Companions who knew Allah and His Messenger truly well,
and they acclaimed him [the Messenger] to the last moments of their lives. They were truly his
friends by words and deeds, and they never abandoned him, but rather stood their ground with
him. Allah praised them in many places in His Holy Book, and the Messenger of
Allah also praised them in many places. This group of Companions are mentioned by the
Shia with reverence and respect, they are also mentioned by the Sunnis with the same reverence
and respect.

The second category were the Companions who embraced Islam and followed the Messenger of
Allah either through choice or through fear, and they always showed their gratitude to the
Messenger of Allah for their Islam. However, they hurt the Messenger of Allah on a
few occasions, and did not always follow his orders, in fact they often challenged him and
challenged the clear text with their points of view, until Allah, through the Holy Quran, had to
intervene by rebuking them or threatening them. Allah exposed them in many Quranic verses, also
the Messenger of Allah warned them in many of his sayings. The Shia mention this group of
Companions only because of their deeds, and without respect or reverence.

The third type of Companions were the hypocrites who accompanied the Messenger of Allah
to deceive him. They pretended to be Muslims but inside themselves they were bent on
blasphemy and on deceiving Islam and the Muslims as a whole. Allah has revealed a complete
Surah in the Quran about them, and mentioned them in many other places, and promised them the
lowest level in Hell. Also the Messenger of Allah mentioned them and issued warnings about
them, and even informed some of his close friends about their names and characteristics. The Shia
and the Sunnis agree in cursing this group of Companions and have nothing to do with them.

There was a special group of Companions who distinguished themselves from the others by being
relatives of the Prophet, in addition to having possessed ethical and spiritual virtues and
personal distinctions from Allah and His Messenger that no one else was honoured with. These
were Ahl al-Bayt (the Prophet's Family) whom Allah cleansed and purified, and ordered us to
pray for them in the same way as he ordered us to pray for His Messenger. He made it obligatory
for us to pay them one fifth of our income, and that every Muslim must love them as a reward for
the Muhammadan Message. They are our leaders and we must obey them; and they are people
firmly rooted in knowledge who know the interpretation of the Holy Quran and they know the
decisive verses of it, as well as those verses which are allegorical.

They are the people of Dhikr whom the Messenger of Allah equated with the Holy Quran in his
saying "the two weighty things" (al-Thaqalayn), and ordered us to adhere to them, He equated them to Noah's Ark: whoever joined it was saved, and whoever left it drowned. The Companions knew the position of Ahl al-Bayt and revered them and respected them.
The Shia follow them and put them above any of the Companions, and to support that they have many clear texts as proofs.

The Sunnis respect and revere the Companions but do not accept the above classification and do
not believe that some of the Companions were hypocrites, rather, they see the Companions as
being the best people after the Messenger of Allah. If they classify the Companions then it would
be according to their seniority and their merits and their services to Islam. They put the Rightly
Guided Caliphs in the first class, then the first six of the ten who were promised with heaven,
according to them. Therefore when they pray for the Prophet and his household they attach
with them all the Companions without exception.

This is what I know from the Sunni scholars, and that is what I heard from the Shia scholars
regarding the classification of the Companions; and that is what made me start my detailed study
with the issue of the Companions. I promised my God - if He led me on the right path - to rid
myself from emotional bias and to be neutral and objective and to listen to what the two sides said,
then to follow what was best, basing my conclusions on two premises:

1. A sound and a logical premise: that is to say that I would only depend upon what everybody is
in agreement with, regarding the commentary on the Book of Allah, and the correct parts of the
honourable Sunnah of the Prophet.

2. The mind: for it is the greatest gift that Allah has given to human beings, and through it He
honoured them and distinguished them from the rest of creation. Thus, when Allah protests about
what His worshippers do, He asks them to use their minds in the best possible way, and He says:
Do they not understand? Do they not comprehend? Do they not see? . . .etc."

Let my Islam primarily be the belief in Allah, His angels, His Books and His messengers; and that
Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger; and that the Religion of Allah is Islam; and that I
will never depend on any of the Companions, regardless of his relation to the Messenger or his
position, for I am neither Umayyad nor Abbasid nor Fatimid, and I am neither Sunni nor Shia, and I
have no enmity towards Abu Bakr or Umar or Uthman or Ali or even Wahshi, the killer of our
master Hamzah, as long as he became a Muslim, and the Messenger of Allah forgave him. Since
I had forced myself into this study in order to reach the truth, and since I had rid myself, sincerely,
from all my previous beliefs, I decided to start, with the blessing of Allah, by considering the
attitudes of the Companions.

# 1: Sahabas behaviour at treaty of Hudaybia

Briefly the story is as follows:

In the sixth year after the Hijrah (emigration of the Prophet from Mecca to Madinah), the
Messenger of Allah with one thousand and four hundred of his Companions marched towards
Mecca to do the Umrah. They camped in "Dhi al-Halifah" where the Prophet ordered his
Companions to put down their arms and wear the Ihram (white gowns worn especially for the
purpose of the pilgrimage and the Umrah), then they dispatched al-Hady (an offering for sacrifice)
to inform Quraysh that he was coming as a visitor to do the Umrah and not as a fighter. But
Quraysh, with all its arrogance, feared that its reputation would be dented if the other Arabs heard
that Muhammad had entered Mecca by force. Therefore, they sent a delegation led by Suhayl ibn
Amr ibn Abd Wadd al-Amiri to see the Prophet and ask him to turn back that year, but said that
they would allow him to visit Mecca for three days the year after. In addition to that, they put
down some harsh conditions, which were accepted by the Messenger of Allah as the
circumstances warranted such acceptance, and as revealed to him by his God, Glory and Might be
to Him.

A few of the Companions did not like the Prophet's action and opposed him very strongly, and
Umar came and said to him, "Are you not truly the Prophet of Allah?" He
answered,"Yes, I am." Umar asked, "Are we not right and our enemy wrong?" The Prophet
answered, "Yes." Umar asked, "Why do we then disgrace our religion?" The Messenger of Allah
said, "I am the Messenger of Allah and I will never disobey Him and He is my support."
Umar asked, "Did you not tell us that we would come to the House of Allah and go around it?"
The Prophet answered, "Yes, and did I tell you that we were coming this year?" Umar answered,
"No." The Prophet said, "Then you are coming to it and going around it." Umar later went to Abu
Bakr and asked him, "O Abu Bakr, is he not truly the Prophet of Allah?" He answered, "Yes."
Umar then asked him the same questions he had asked the Messenger of Allah, and Abu Bakr
answered him with the same answers and added, "O Umar he is the Messenger of Allah, and he
will not disobey his God, Who is his support, so hold on to him."

When the Prophet had finished signing the treaty, he said to his Companions "Go and slaughter
(sacrifices) and shave your heads." And by Allah one of them stood up until he had said it three
times. When nobody obeyed his orders, he went to his quarters, then came out and spoke to no
one, and slaughtered a young camel with his own hands, and then asked his barber to shave his
head. When the Companions saw all that, they went and slaughtered (sacrifices), and shaved one
another, until they nearly killed one another [Bukhari]

This is the summary of the story of peace treaty of Hudaibiyah, which is one of the events
whose details both the Shia and Sunnah agree upon, and it is cited by many historians and
biographers of the Prophet such as Tabari, Ibn Athir, Ibn Saad, Bukhari and Muslim.

I stopped here, for I could not read this kind of material without feeling rather surprised about the
behaviour of those Companions towards their Prophet. Could any sensible man accept some
people's claims that the Companions, may Allah bless them, always obeyed and implemented the
orders of the Messenger of Allah, for these incidents expose their lies, and fall short of what
they want! Could any sensible man imagine that such behaviour towards the Prophet is an easy or
acceptable matter or even an excusable one! Allah, the Almighty, said: "But no! By your God! They do not believe (in reality) until they make you a judge of that which has become a matter of disagreement among them, and then do not and any straightness in their hearts as to what you have decided and submit with entire submission." (4:65)

Did Umar succumb to them and find no difficulty in accepting the order of the
Messenger? Or was he reluctant to accept the order of the Prophet? Especially when he
said, "Are you not truly the Prophet of Allah? Did you not tell us? ..." etc, and did he succumb
after the Messenger of Allah gave him all these convincing answers? No he was not convinced by
his answers, and he went and asked Abu Bakr the same questions. But did he succumb after Abu
Bakr answered him and advised him to hold on to the Prophet? I do not know if he actually
succumbed to all that and was convinced by the answers of the Prophet and Abu Bakr! For
why did he say about himself, "For that I did so many things..". Allah and His Messenger know the
things which were done by Umar.

Furthermore, I do not know the reasons behind the reluctance of the rest of the Companions after
that, when the Messenger of Allah said to him, "Go and slaughter [sacrifices] and shave your
heads." Nobody listened to his orders even when he repeated them three times, and then in vain.

Allah, be praised! I could not believe what I had read. Could the Companions go to that extent in
their treatment of the Messenger. If the story had been told by the Shia alone, I would have
considered it a lie directed towards the honourable Companions. But the story has become so well
known that all the Sunni historians refer to it. As I had committed myself to accept what had been
agreed on by all parties, I found myself resigned and perplexed. What could I say? What excuse
could I find for those Companions who had spent nearly twenty years with the Messenger of
Allah, from the start of the Mission to the day of Hudaibiyah, and had seen all the miracles and
enlightenment of the Prophethood? Furthermore the Quran was teaching them day and night how
they should behave in the presence of the Messenger, and how they should talk to him, to the
extent that Allah had threatened to ruin their deeds if they raised their voices above his voice.

# 2 Sahabas behaviour at writing of last Will.

Briefly the story is as follows:

The Companions were meeting in the Messenger's house, three days before he died. He ordered
them to bring him a bone and an ink pot so that he could write a statement for them which would
prevent them from straying from the right path, but the Companions differed among themselves,
and some of them disobeyed the Prophet and accused him of talking nonsense. The Messenger of
Allah became very angry and ordered them out of his house without issuing any statement.

This is the story in some details:

Ibn Abbas said: Thursday, and what a Thursday that was! The Messenger's pain became very
severe, and he said, "Come here, I will write you a document which will prevent you from straying
from the right path." But Umar said that the Prophet was under the spell of the pain, and that they
had the Quran which was sufficient being the Book of Allah. Ahl al-Bayt then differed and
quarrelled amongst themselves, some of them agreeing with what the Prophet said, while others
supported Umar's view. When the debate became heated and the noise became louder, the
Messenger of Allah said to them, "Leave me alone."

Ibn Abbas said: The disaster was that the disagreement among the Companions prevented the
Messenger from writing that document for them. [Bukhari,Muslim,Ahmed,Tabari,Ibn Athir]

The incident is correct and there is no doubt about its authenticity, for it was cited by the Shia
scholars and their historians in their books, as well as by the Sunni scholars and historians in their
books. As I was committed to consider the incident, I found myself bewildered by Umar's
behaviour regarding the order of the Messenger of Allah. And what an order it was! "To prevent
the nation from going astray", for undoubtedly that statement would have had something new in it
for the Muslims and would have left them without a shadow of doubt.

Now let us leave the points of view of the Shia, that is that the Messenger wanted to write the
name of Ali as his successor, and that Umar realized this, so he prevented it. Perhaps because they do not convince us initially with that hypothesis. But can we find a sensible explanation to this
hurtful incident which angered the Messenger so much that he ordered them to leave, and made
Ibn Abbas cry until he made the stones wet from his tears and called it a "great disaster"? The
Sunnis say that Umar recognized that the Prophet's illness was advancing, so he wanted to comfort
him and relieve him from any pressure.

This type of reasoning would not be accepted by simple-minded people, let alone by the scholars.
I repeatedly tried to find an excuse for Umar. but the circumstances surrounding the incident
prevented me from finding an excuse. Even if I changed the words "He is talking nonsense" - God
forbid - to "the pain has overcome him", I could not find any justification for Umar when he said,
"You have the Quran, and it is sufficient being the Book of Allah." Did he know the Quran better
than the Messenger of Allah, for whom it was revealed? Or was the Messenger of Allah - God
forbid - unaware of what he was? Or did he seek, through his order, to create division and
disagreement among the Companions - God forbid. Even if the Sunni reasoning was right, then the
Messenger of Allah would have realized the good will of Umar and thanked him for that and
perhaps asked him to stay, instead of feeling angry at him and telling them to leave his house. May
I ask why did they abide by his order when he asked them to leave the room and did not say then
that he was "talking nonsense"? Was it because they had succeeded in their plot to prevent the
Prophet from writing the document, so that there was no need for them to stay any longer? Thus,
we find them creating noise and difference in the presence of the Messenger, and divided into two
parties: one agreeing with the Messenger of Allah about writing that document, while the other
agreed with Umar "that he was talking nonsense".

The matter is not just concerned with Umar alone, for if it was so, the Messenger of Allah would
have persuaded him that he could not be talking nonsense and that the pain could not overcome
him in matters of the nation's guidance and of preventing it from going astray. But the situation
became much more serious, and Umar found some supporters who seemingly had a prior
agreement on their stand, and so they created the noise and the disagreement among themselves
and forgot, or perhaps pretended to forget, the words of Allah: "O You who believe! Do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet, and do not speak loud to him as you speak loud to one another, lest your deeds become null while you do not perceive." (49:2)

In this incident they went beyond raising their voices and talking loud to accusing the Messenger of
Allah of talking nonsense - God forbid - then they increased their noise and differences until it
became a battle of words in his presence.

I think the majority of the Companions were with Umar, and that is why the Messenger of Allah
found it useless to write the document, because he knew that they would not respect him and
would not abide by the command of Allah by not raising their voices in his presence, and if they
were rebellious against the command of Allah, then they would never obey the order of His
Messenger.

Thus, the wisdom of the Messenger ruled that he was not to write the document because it had
been attacked during his lifetime, let alone after his death.

The critics would say that he was talking nonsense, and perhaps they would doubt some of the
orders he passed whilst on his death-bed, for they were convinced that he was talking nonsense.

I ask Allah for forgiveness, and renounce what has been said in the presence of the holy
Messenger, for how could I convince myself and my free conscience that Umar was acting spontaneously, whereas his friends and others who were present at the incident cried until their tears wet the stones, and named the incident "the misfortune of the Muslims". I therefore decided to reject all the justifications given to explain the incident, and even tried to deny it so that I could relax and forget about the tragedy, but all the books referred to it and accepted its authenticity but could not provide sound justification for it.

I tend to agree with the Shia point of view in explaining the incident because I find it logical and
very coherent.

I still remember the answer which Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr gave me when I asked him,
"How did our master Umar understand, among all the Companions what the Messenger wanted to
write, namely the appointment of Ali as his successor- as you claim - which shows that he was a
clever man?"

Sayyid al-Sadr said: Umar was not the only one who anticipated what the Messenger was
going to write. In fact most of the people who were present then understood the situation the same
way as Umar did, because the Messenger of Allah had previously indicated the issue when he
said, "I shall leave you with two weighty things: the Book of Allah and the members of my Family
(Ahl al-Bayt) and their descendants, if you follow them, you will never go astray after me." And
during his illness he said to them, "Let me write you a document, if you follow its contents, you will
never go astray." Those who were present, including Umar, understood that the Messenger of
Allah wanted to reiterate, in writing, what he had already said in Ghadir Khum, and that was to
follow the Book of Allah and Ahl al-Bayt and that Ali was the head of it. It was as if the holy
Prophet was saying, "Follow the Quran and Ali." He said similar things on many occasions,
as has been stated by many historians.

The majority of Quraysh did not like Ali because he was young and because he smashed their
arrogance and had killed their heroes; but they did not dare oppose the Messenger of Allah, as
they had done at the "Treaty of Hudaibiyah', and when the Messenger prayed for Abdullah ibn
Abi al-Munafiq, and on many other incidents recorded by history. This incident was one of them,
and you see that the opposition against writing that document during the Prophets illness
encouraged some of those who were present to be insolent and make so much noise in his
presence.

That answer came in accordance with what the saying meant. But Umar's statement, "You have
the Quran, and it is sufficient, being the Book of Allah" was not in accordance with the saying
which ordered them to follow the Book of Allah and the Household [Ahl al-Bayt] together. It
looks as if he meant to say, "We have the Book of Allah, and that is sufficient for us, therefore
there is no need for Ahl al-Bayt." I could not see any other reasonable explanation to the incident
other than this one, unless it was meant to say, 'Obey Allah but not His Messenger." And this
argument is invalid and not sensible. If I put my prejudices and my emotions aside and base my
judgement on a clean and free mind, I would tend towards the first analysis, which stops short of
accusing Umar of being the first one to reject the Prophet's Tradition (Sunnah) when he said, "It
is sufficient for us, being the Book of Allah".

Then if there were some rulers who rejected the Prophet's Traditions claiming that it was
"contradictory", they only followed an earlier example in the history of Islam. However, I do not
want to burden Umar alone with the responsibility for that incident and the subsequent deprivation
of the nation of the guidance. To be fair to him, I suggest that the responsibility should be borne by
him and those Companions who were with him and who supported him in his opposition to the
command of the Messenger of Allah.

I am astonished by those who read this incident and feel as if nothing happened, despite that it was
one of the "great misfortunes" as Ibn Abbas called it. My astonishment is even greater regarding
those who try hard to preserve the honour of a Companion and to correct his mistake, even if at
the cost of the Prophet's dignity and honour and at the cost of Islam and its foundations.

Why do we escape from the truth and try to obliterate it when it is not in accordance with our
whims . . . why do not we accept that the Companions were human like us, and had their own
whims, prejudices and interests, and could commit mistakes or could be right?

But my astonishment fades when I read the Book of Allah in which He tells us the stories of the
prophets- may Allah bless them and grant them peace - and the disobedience they faced from their
people despite all the miracles they produced .. Our God! Make not our hearts to deviate after
thou hast guided us aright, and grant us from Your Mercy; surely You are the Most Liberal Giver.

I began to understand the background to the Shia's attitude towards the second Caliph, whom
they charge with the responsibility for many tragic events in the history of Islam, starting from
"Raziyat Yawm al-Khamis" when the Islamic nation was deprived of the written guidance which
the Messenger wanted to write for them. The inescapable fact is that the sensible man who knew
the truth before he encountered the men seeks an excuse for the Shias in this matter, but there is
nothing we can say to convince those who only judge truth through men.

# 2: Sahabas behaviour during military expidition under Usama

The story in brief is as follows:

The Prophet organized an army to be sent to Asia Minor two days before his death. He
appointed Usamah ibn Zayd ibn Haritha, (who was eighteen years old), as its commander in chief,
then the holy Prophet attached some important men, both Muhajireen and Ansar, to this
expedition, such as Abu Bakr, Umar, Abu Obaydah and other well-known Companions. Some
people criticized the Prophet for appointing Usamah as the commander in chief of that army, and
asked how could he have appointed so young a man as their commander. In fact the same people
had previously criticized the Prophet for appointing Usamah's father as an army commander before
him. They went on criticizing until the Prophet became so angry that he left his bed, feverish and
with his head bandaged, with two men supporting him and his feet barely touching the ground (may
my parents be sacrificed for him). He ascended the pulpit, praised Allah highly then said, "O People! I have been informed that some of you object to my appointing Usamah as commander of the detachment. You now object to my appointing Usamah as commander in chief as you objected to me appointing his father commander in chief before him. By Allah, his father was certainly competent for his appointment as commander in chief and his son is also competent for the appointment. Then he exhorted them to start without further delay and kept saying, "Send the detachment of Usamah; deploy the detachment of Usamah, send forward the detachment of Usamah." He kept repeating the exhortations but the Companions were still sluggish, and camped by Jurf. [Ibn Saad,Ibn Athir,Sirat al Halabiyah,Tabari]

Events like that made me ask, "What is this insolence towards Allah and His Messenger? Why all
that disobedience towards the orders of the blessed Messenger who was so caring and kind to all
the believers?"

I could not imagine, nor indeed could anybody else, an acceptable explanation for all that
disobedience and insolence. As usual, when I read about those events which touch on the integrity
of the Companions, I try to deny or ignore them, but it is impossible to do so when all the
historians and scholars, Shia and Sunnis, agree on their authenticity.

I have promised my God to be fair, and I shall never be biased in favour of my creed, and will
never use anything but the truth as my criterion. But the truth here is so bitter, and the holy Prophet
said, "Say the truth even if it is about yourself, and say the truth even if it is bitter..." The
truth in this case is that the Companions who criticized the appointment of Usamah disobeyed all
the clear texts that could not be doubted or misinterpreted, and there is no excuse for that,
although some people make flimsy excuses in order to preserve the integrity of the Companions
and "the virtuous ancestors". But the free and sensible person would not accept such feeble
excuses, unless he is one of those who cannot comprehend any saying, or is perhaps one of those
who are blinded by their own prejudice to the extent that they cannot differentiate between the
obligatory task that must be obeyed and the prohibition that must be avoided. I thought deeply to
find an acceptable excuse for those people, but without success. I read the points of view of the
Sunnis which provide us with an excuse based on the fact that these people were the elders of
Quraysh, and were among the early followers of Islam, whereas Usamah was a young man who
had not fought in the decisive battles that gave Islam its glory, such as Badr, Uhud and Hunayn;
and that he was a young man with no experience of life when the Messenger of Allah appointed
him military commander. Furthermore, they thought that human nature, by its inclination, makes it
difficult for elderly people to be led by young men, therefore they [i.e. the Companions] criticized
the appointment and wanted the Messenger of Allah to appoint a prominent and respectable
Companion.

It is an excuse which is not based on any rational or logical premise, and any Muslim who reads
the Quran and understands its rules must reject such an excuse, because Allah- the Almighty -
says: "Whatever the Messenger gives you, accept it, and from whatever he forbids you, keep
back" (59:7). "And it behooves not a believing man and a believing woman that they should have any choice in their matter when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter; and whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he surely strays off a manifest straying." (33:36)

So what kind of an excuse could any rational person accept after reading all these clear texts, and
what can I say about people who angered the Messenger of Allah, when they knew that the
Messenger's anger is Allah's anger. They accused him of talking "nonsense", and they shouted and
disagreed in his presence when he was ill (may my parents be sacrificed for him), until he ordered
them to leave his room. That did not seem to be enough for them, and instead of returning to the
right path and asking Allah's forgiveness for what they had done to His Messenger, and asking the
Messenger for forgiveness as the Quran taught them, they went on criticizing him, despite all the
care and kindness he had for them. They did not appreciate him or respect him, and two days after
having accused him of talking "nonsense", they criticized him for appointing Usamah as military
commander. They forced him to come out in the appalling condition which the historians describe.
Due to the severity of his illness, he had to walk with the support of two men, then he had to swear
by Allah that Usamah was a competent commander for the army. Furthermore, the Messenger
informed us that they had criticized him previously for appointing his father as a commander, which
indicates that these people had had many previous confrontations with him, and that they were not
willing to obey his orders or accept his judgement, rather, they were prepared to oppose him and
confront him, even if such behaviour went against the rules of Allah and His Messenger.

What leads us to believe that there was open opposition (to the orders of the Prophet), was that in
spite of all the anger shown by the Messenger of Allah, and the fact that he himself tied the flag
with his noble hand to the post and commanded them to march immediately, they were sluggish
and reluctant to move, and did not go until he had died (may my parents be sacrificed for him).
The Prophet died feeling sorry for his unfortunate nation, which he feared would go
backwards and end up in hell, and no one would be saved except a few, and the Messenger of
Allah described them as a handful.

I am surprised that those Companions angered the Prophet on that Thursday and accused him of
talking "nonsense", and said, "It is sufficient for us that we have the Book of Allah", when the Holy
Quran states:"Say if you love Allah, then follow me and Allah will love you." (3:31).
As if they were more knowledgeable about the Book of Allah and its rules than he to whom it had
been revealed. There they were, two days after that great misfortune, and two days before he [the
holy Prophet] went up to meet his High Companion, angering him even more by criticizing him for
appointing Usamah, and not obeying his orders. Whereas he was ill and bed-ridden in the first
misfortune, in the second one he had to come out, with his head bandaged and covered by a
blanket and supported by two men with his feet barely on the ground, and address them from the
top of the pulpit. He started his speech with the profession of the unity of Allah and praised Him in
order to make them feel that he was not talking nonsense, then he informed them about what he
knew regarding their criticism of his orders. Furthermore, he reminded them of an incident which
had occurred four years previously, in which he was criticized by them. After all that, did they
really think that he was talking nonsense or that his illness had overcome him so that he was
unaware of what he was saying?

Praise and thanks be to You, Allah, how did these people dare oppose Your Messenger. They
disagreed with him when he signed the peace treaty, they opposed him very strongly even when he
ordered them to make the sacrifice and shave their heads, and even repeated it three times
although no one cared to obey; and again they pulled him by his shirt to prevent him from praying
for Abdullah ibn Ubay and said to him, "Allah forbade you from praying for the hypocrites!" As if
they were teaching him what had been revealed to him, when You said in Your Holy Quran: "We
have revealed to you the reminder that you may make clear to men what has been revealed to
them." (16:44)

And You said: "We have revealed the Book to you with the truth that you may judge between
people by means of that which Allah has taught you " (4:105)

And You said, and Your saying is the truth: "We have sent among you a messenger from among
you who recites to you Our Verses and purifies you and teaches you the Book and the wisdom
and teaches you that which you did not know." (2:151)

I am astonished at those people who put themselves in a position higher than that of the Prophet.
On one occasion they disobeyed his orders, and on another occasion they accused him of talking
nonsense, and then talked loudly and without respect in his presence. They criticized him for
appointing Zayd ibn Harithah to the military command, and after him his son Usamah. How could
they leave the scholars in any doubt, after all this evidence, that the Shia are right when they put a
question mark on the position of some of the Companions, and show their resentment towards
these positions purely out of respect and love for the Messenger and the members of his
Household.

I have mentioned only four or five of these controversial issues to be brief and to use them as
examples, but the Shia scholars could recount hundreds of situations in which the Companions
contradicted the clear texts. In all this the Shia refer to sources written in books by Sunni scholars.

When I look at a number of positions taken by a few of the Companions with regard to the
Messenger of Allah, I stand astonished; not because of the attitudes of those Companions alone,
but because of the position of the Sunni scholars who gave us the impression that the Companions
were always right and could not be criticized. Thus they prevented any researcher from reaching
the truth and left him puzzled in the midst of all these contradictions.

In addition to the examples that I have mentioned above, I will bring some more in order to
establish a better picture of those Companions, so that we may understand the position of the Shia
towards them.

According to Bukhari:

Al-Amash told us that he heard Shaqiq saying that Abdullah told him: Once the Holy Prophet
divided something among a group of men, as he used to do, when one man from Ansar stood
up and said, "This division is not for the sake of Allah." I said, "For my part, I shall have a word
with the Prophet." So I went to see him, and I found him with his Companions. I explained
my grievances, and the Prophet's face changed and showed signs of anger, and I wished that I had
not told him, then he said: "Moses was hurt more than that but he was patient."

Bukhari writes: Anas ibn Malik was heard saying: I was walking with the Messenger of
Allah who was wearing a Najrani cloak with a rather thin edge to it, and suddenly a man
approached him and pulled harshly at his cloak. Anas continued: I looked at the side of the
Prophet and noticed that as a result of that harsh pull, the edge of the cloak went up to his
shoulder, then the man said, 'O Muhammad, give me some of what you have from Allah's wealth!"
The Prophet turned to him and laughed, then he ordered his Companions to pay him something.

Bukhari writes: Aisha said that the Prophet did something and made it permissible,
but no one followed what the Prophet did.
The Prophet happened to hear about it, so he decided to address the people. He first thanked
Allah then said: "What is the matter with people who refrain from the thing I did? By Allah, I know
more than any of them about Allah, and I fear Him most... !"

When we look deeply at incidents like those above we find that the Companions put themselves
on a higher level than the Prophet, and thought that he was wrong and they were right.
Furthermore, there were some historians who deliberately corrected the position of the
Companions, even if that contradicted the action taken by the Prophet, and showed them at a level
of knowledge and piety higher than that of the Prophet. As is the case when they judge the
Prophet wrong in the case of the Prisoners of War at the battle of Badr, so it appears that Umar ibn Khattab was right. They also tell wrong stories, such as the following saying attributed to the people: If Allah decided to inflict a disaster on us, no one will escape except Ibn Khattab. In other words, they were saying, "If it was not for Umar, the Prophet would have perished." God protect us from such a corrupt and shameful belief, and he who adheres to this kind of belief is surely far from Islam, and ought to review his thinking or rid himself of the devil.

Allah said: "Have you considered him who takes his low desire for his God, and Allah has made him err having knowledge and has set a seal upon his hear and his heart and put a covering upon his eye. Who can then guide him after Allah? Will not they be mindful?" (45:23)

I believe that those who think that the Prophet was subject to his emotions to the extent
that he deviated from the right path and made a judgement not for the cause of Allah, or those who
refrained from doing things which were done by the Messenger of Allah thinking that they were
more knowledgeable and more pious than the Messenger, do not deserve any respect or
appreciation from the Muslims. They were put at the same level as the angels, as the best people in
the whole of creation after the Messenger of Allah, so that Muslims are obliged to follow them and
take them as an example, just because they were the Companions of the Messenger of Allah.

That contradicts the belief of Ahl al-Sunnah, who pray for Muhammad and his family, and then
add all the Companions. If Allah appreciated them and put
them in their correct position and ordered them to pray for His Messenger and the purified
members of his family, they should have submitted and known their place with Allah. Why should
we then put them in a position which is higher than they deserve. and equate them with those
people whom Allah has elevated and preferred above all people?

Let me then conclude that the Umayyads and the Abbasids, who opposed-Ahl al-Bayt and exiled
them and killed them with their followers, got the gist of that distinguished position and recognized
its danger for them. For if Allah - praise be to Him - would not accept the prayers of a Muslim
unless he prays for them (Ahl al-Bayt): how could they justify their opposition to them. Therefore,
they attached the Companions to Ahl al-Bayt in order to give the impression to the public that they
are equal.

Especially when we know that their masters and dignitaries were Companions who bought some
other Companions known to have weak personalities and asked them to distribute fabricated
sayings (of the Prophet) in praise of the Companions and the next generation, and in particular
those who reached the position of Caliphs (i.e. the Umayyad and Abbasid) and they were the
direct reason behind them attaining this position and becoming rulers over all the Muslims. History
is the best witness to what I am saying: Umar, who was well known for his strictness towards his governors whom used to dismiss them on mere suspicions, was quite gentle towards Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan and never disciplined him. Muawiyah was appointed by Abu Bakr and confirmed by Umar throughout his life, who never even rebuked him or blamed him, despite the fact that many people complained about Muawiyah and reported him for wearing silk and gold, which was prohibited to men by the Messenger of Allah. Umar used to answer these complaints by saying, "Let him be, he is the Kisra (king) of the Arabs." Muawiyah continued in the governorship for more than twenty years without being touched or criticized, and when Uthman succeeded to the caliphate of the Muslims, he added to his authority further districts and regions, which enabled him to a mass great wealth from the Islamic nation and to raise armies to rebel against the Imam (Leader) of the nation and subsequently take the full power by force and intimidation. Thus he became the sole ruler of all Muslims, and later forced them to vote for his corrupt and alcohol drinking son Yazid, as his heir and successor.

This is a long story so I will not go into its details in this book, but the important thing is that we
should understand the mentality of those Companions who reached the position of caliph and
facilitated the establishment of the Umayyad state in a direct way, so as to please Quraysh which
did not want to see both the Prophethood and the caliphate in the House of Bani Hashim. The
Umayyad state had the right, or indeed was obliged to thank those who had facilitated its
establishment, most of all the "story tellers" whom it hired to tell tales about the virtues of their
masters. In the meantime it elevated them to a higher place than that of their enemies, Ahl al-Bayt,
simply by inventing virtues and merits, which if (may Allah witness) examined under the light of
logical and legal evidence mostly disappear, unless there is something wrong with our minds or we
have started believing in contradictions.

For example, we hear so much about Umar's justice which the "story-tellers" attributed to him. It
was even said about him "You ruled with justice, therefore you can sleep." It has also been said
that Umar was buried in a standing position so that justice would not die with him, . . . and you
could go on and on talking about Umar's justice. However, the correct history tells us that when
Umar ordered that grants should be distributed among the people during the twentieth year of
Hijrah, he did not follow the tradition of the Messenger of Allah, nor did he confine himself to its
rules. The Prophet distributed the grants on an equal basis among all Muslims and did not
differentiate between one person and another, and Abu Bakr did the same throughout his
caliphate. But Umar introduced a new method. He preferred the early converts to Islam to those
who came later. He preferred Muhajireen (immigrants from Mecca to Medinah) from Quraysh
to other Muhajireen. He preferred all the Muhajireen to Ansar (followers of Prophet
Muhammad in Medinah who granted him refuge after the Hijra). He preferred the Arabs to the
non-Arabs. He preferred the freeman to the slave. He preferred (the tribe of) Mudar to (the
tribe of) Rabia for he gave three hundred to the former and two hundred to the latter. He also
preferred Aws to Khazraj.

Where is the justice in all this differentiation, O people who have minds?

We also hear so much about Umar's knowledge, to the extent he was described as the most
knowledgeable Companion, and it has been said about him that he agreed with his God on many
ideas that were revealed in various Quranic verses, and that he disagreed with the Prophet about
them. But the correct history tells us that Umar did not agree with the Quran, even after it had
been revealed. When one of the Companions asked him one day during his caliphate, "O
Commander of the Believers, I am unclean, but I cannot find water to wash." Umar answered, "Do
not pray." Then Ammar ibn Yasir had to remind him about Tayammum [ritual cleaning with earth],
but Umar was not convinced, and said to Ammar, "You are responsible only for the duties which
have been assigned to you"

Where is Umar's knowledge regarding the Tayammum verse which had been revealed in the Book
of Allah, and where is Umar's knowledge of the Tradition of the Prophet who taught them
how to do Tayammum as well as Wudu [ritual ablution]. Umar himself confessed on many
occasions that he was not a scholar, and that all people, even women were more knowledgeable
than him, and he was heard saying many times, "If it was not for Ali, Umar would have perished."
And throughout his life he did not know the rule of al-Kalalah [relatives of the dead excluding the
son and the father], although he passed various different judgements about it, as history witnesses.

We also hear a great deal about the courage and physical strength of Umar, and it has been said
that Quraysh feared the day when Umar became a Muslim, and that Islam became even stronger
when he entered the religion. It has also been said that Allah glorified Islam with Umar, and that the Messenger of Allah did not call for Islam openly until after Umar had become a Muslim.

But the correct historical references do not seem to indicate that courage, and history does not
mention one famous or even ordinary person who has been killed by Umar in a dual or a battle like
Badr and Uhud or Khandaq. In fact the correct historical references tell us exactly the opposite;
they tell us that he escaped with the fugitives in Uhud, and escaped on the day of Hunayn, and that
when the Messenger of Allah sent him to take the city of Khayber he returned defeated. He was
never even the leader in the military detachments in which he served, and in the last one (that of
Usamah) he was put under the charge of young Usamah ibn Zayd. So where is all that courage
compared to these historical facts ... O people who have minds?

We also hear about Umar's piety and his great fear of Allah, to the extent of crying. It has been
said that he was afraid of being accountable before Allah if a mule tumbled in Iraq because he did
not pave the road for it. But the correct historical sources tell us that he was a rough man who
lacked piety and did not hesitate to beat a man until he bled because he asked him about a
Quranic verse, and even that women used to miscarry their babies out of fear when they saw him.
Why did he not fear Allah when he raised his sword and threatened anybody who said that
Muhammad had died, and he swore by Allah that he had not died, rather, he had gone to talk to
his God in the same way as Moses did. Then he threatened to kill whoever said that Muhammad
was dead.

Why did he not fear Allah when he threatened to burn Fatimah al-Zahra's house if those who
refrained from voting for the successorship of the caliphate did not come out? It has been said
that when he was told that Fatimah was inside, he answered, "So what!" He violated the Book of
Allah and the Tradition of the Prophet and passed rules and judgements during his caliphate which
contradicted the texts of the Holy Quran and the noble Tradition of the Prophet.

So where was all that piety and fear of Allah in all these bitter and sad historical facts, O good
worshippers of Allah? I took this great and famous Companion as an example, and I have
summarized a great deal to avoid prolongation, but if I wanted to talk in some detail, I could have
filled many volumes. But as I said I have mentioned these historical references as examples and not for specific reasons.

What I have mentioned is a small amount, but it gives us a clear indication as to the mentalities of
the Companions and the contradictory attitudes of the Sunni scholars and historians. For on the
one hand they forbid people from criticizing them or doubting their intentions, but on the other hand
they write in their books things that make people doubt their deeds and criticize them.

I wish the Sunni scholars had not written about these matters in such a way that it clearly sullies the dignity of the Companions and ruins their integrity. If they had not we would have been spared all that confusion.

I still remember meeting a scholar from Najaf whose name was Asad Hayder (author of
"Al-lmam al-Sadiq wa al-Madhahib al-Arbaah") and as we were talking about the Sunnis and the
Shia he told me a story about his father. He (i.e. the father) had met a Tunisian scholar from
al-Zaytunah during the pilgrimage season some fifty years ago, and started a debate about the
Imamate of Ali - may Allah's peace be upon him - and his eligibility to the succession for the
caliphate. The Tunisian scholar listened attentively as the other man mentioned four or five reasons.
When he had finished, the scholar from al-Zaytunah asked him, "Have you got any other reasons?"
The man answered, "No." Then the Tunisian scholar said, "Get your rosary out and start counting,
then he listed some hundred reasons that my father had not known before.

Shaykh Asad Hayder added, "If the Sunnis read what is in their books, then they would say similar
things to what we are saying and we would not have any differences between us for a long time."

By my life! It is the inevitable truth, if only man would liberate himself from his blind prejudice and
his arrogance and submit to the clear proof.


# Sahabas in Quran and Hadith


# Quran on Sahabas

First of all, I must say that Allah commended in many places in
His Holy Book, the Companions of the Messenger of Allah who loved. obeyed and followed the
Messenger without personal greed and without opposition or arrogance, and only wanted the
acceptance of Allah and His Messenger; those Companions have pleased Allah and He pleased
them, and that is the way for those who fear Allah.

This group of the Companions are appreciated by the Muslims because of their attitudes towards
the Prophet and their works with him, therefore they are liked and respected by all Muslims,
and they are appreciated whenever people mention their names.

My study does not concern itself with this group of Companions who are respected by both the
Sunnis and the Shia, nor is it concerned, with those who were well known for their hypocrisy, and
who are cursed by all Muslims, Shia and Sunnis, whenever their names are mentioned.

However, my study is concerned with the group of Companions about whom the Muslims have
expressed different views. There are verses in the Holy Quran where they are rebuked and
threatened because of their attitudes in certain positions, and the Messenger of Allah warned
them on many occasions, and warned other people about them.

The outstanding differences between the Shia and the Sunnis is concerned with this group of
Companions, because the Shia criticize their sayings and deeds and complain about their justice,
whereas they are respected by the Sunnis, in spite of their contradictions. My study is concerned
with this group of the Companions because through it I will be able to reach the truth, or part of it.
I say that, so that no one may think that I have neglected the Quranic verses which commend the
Companions to the Messenger of Allah, and that I exposed the verses which criticize them. In fact
through my research I discovered that some verses contain praise for the Companions, but if you
read in between the lines you find that they contain criticism of them, and vice versa.

I shall not write here about all the hard work that I have done in the past three years in preparing
this study, but I will confine myself to some Quranic verses as examples, and not for any specific
reason. For those who want to go further, I advise them to research and compare, as I did, in
order that they may find the Right Faith by themselves, and through their own work. That is what
Allah wants for everybody, and that is what the conscience of each individual wants. Thus, one
would achieve an absolute conviction that will not be shaken by any storm. After all, the divine
guidance which results from personal conviction is far better than that which comes as a result of
external factors.

Allah says in praise of His Prophet: "And found you unable to see [the way] then He showed you the way." [93:7] That is He found you searching for the truth, so He led you to it.

He also said: "And those who strive hard for Us, We will guide them in Our ways." [29:69]

# 1: Verse about turning back on heels

Allah says in His Glorious Book: "And Muhammad is no more than a
messenger, the messengers have already passed away before him, if then he dies or is killed, will
you turn back upon your heels? And whoever turns back upon his heels, he will by no means do
harm to Allah in the least, and Allah will reward the grateful." Allah, the Great, has told the truth. [3:144]

This Quranic verse is clear about how the Companions will turn back upon their heels, and only a
few will stand their ground, as the above Quranic verse indicated in the expression of Allah about
them. Those who stand their ground and do not turn back are the grateful, for the grateful are only
a small minority, as in the words of Allah: "And very few of My servants are
grateful." [34:13]

Also there are many sayings of the Holy Prophet which explain the "turning back", and we
will refer to some of them, and even if Allah did not specify the punishment of
those who turned back on their heels in this Quranic verse: He glorified the grateful who deserve
His reward. However, it is important to know that those who turned back on their heels do not
deserve the reward of Allah and His forgiveness, as has been emphasized by the Messenger of
Allah in many of his sayings, some of we will discuss - if Allah wills - in the course of this
book. We could not explain the Quranic verse with reference to Tulayha, Sujah and al-Aswad
al-Ansi, out of respect for the Companions, because the above-mentioned Companions have
turned back and abandoned Islam, and even claimed the prophecy during the lifetime of the
Messenger of Allahs who fought them and finally defeated them. Nor indeed can we explain the
Quranic verse with reference to Malik Ibn Nuwayrah and his followers, who refused to pay Zakat
(alms) in the time of the caliph Abu Bakr, for many reasons. They refused to pay Zakat (alms)
and give it to Abu Bakr because they wanted to wait and see what happened, for they had
accompanied the Messenger of Allah on his farewell pilgrimage, and voted for Imam Ali ibn Abi
Talib at Ghadir Khum after the Messenger of Allah appointed him as Caliph after him, and indeed
Abu Bakr himself voted for Ali. Therefore, they were astonished when a messenger from the
caliph came to tell them the news of the holy Prophet's death and at the same time asked them to
pay Zakat in the name the new caliph, Abu Bakr. It is a case in which history does not want to go
too deep, for the sake of the Companion's honour. Furthermore, Malik and his followers were
Muslims according to the testimony of Umar and Abu Bakr themselves and other Companions
who disapproved of Khalid ibn Walid's killing of Malik. History testifies that Abu Bakr paid
compensation for Malik's death to his brother Mutammem out of the Muslim's treasury, and
apologized for his killing. It is well established that the apostate must be killed, and no
compensation be paid out of the Muslim's treasury for his killing, and no apologies issued for killing
him.

The important thing is that the "turning back" verse refers to the Companions who lived with the
Messenger of Allah in Medinah al-Munawwarah, and indicates the immediate "turning back"
after the Prophet's death. The Prophet's sayings explain all these things in such a clear way, that no one could doubt it. We shall deal with these matters soon, if Allah wills. History also testifies for
the "turning back" that happened after the death of the Messenger of Allah, and when we view the
events which took place among the ranks of the Companions we notice that only a few managed
to come out unscathed.

# 2: Verse about Jihad

Allah said: "O You who believe, what (excuse) have you that when it is said to
you: Go forth in Allah 's way, you should incline heavily to earth; are you contented with this
world's life instead of the Hereafter? But the provision of this world's life compared with the
Hereafter is but little. If you do not go forth, He will chastise you with a painful chastisement and
bring in your place a people other than you, and you will do Him no harm; and Allah has power
over all things." (9:38-39)

This Quranic verse is clear about the reluctance of the Companions to go and fight in the Holy
War [Jihad], and how they chose to be content with the life on earth, in spite of their knowledge of
its short duration. Their action warranted a rebuke and a threat from Allah - the Almighty - that a
terrible torture was awaiting them, and that He would change them for others who were true
believers.

The threat to change them came in many Quranic verses which indicate clearly that they showed
their reluctance to fight in Jihad- Holy War - more than once, and Allah says:
"And if you turn back He will bring in your place another people, they will not be like you." (47:38)

Also the Almighty says: "O You who believe! Whoever from among you turns back from his
religion, then Allah will bring a people, He shall love them and they shall love Him, lowly before the
believers, mighty against the unbelievers, they shall strive hard in Allah's way and shall not fear the
censure of any censurer, this is Allah's grace, He gives it to whom He pleases, and Allah is
Ample-giving, Knowing." (5:54)

If we want to investigate the Quranic verses which emphasize this issue and talk about the
classification of the Companions, which the Shia advocate, then we would need a special book for
it. The Holy Quran expressed all that in the most direct and eloquent way: "Let there arise out of
you a nation, inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong, and
these it is that shall be successful."

"And be not like those who became divided and disagreed after receiving clear signs, and these it is
that shall have a grievous chastisement."

"On the day, some faces will be white (lit up) and some faces will be black (in the gloom), to those
whose faces will be black (will be said): Did you reject the faith after accepting it? Taste then the
chastisement for rejecting the faith. But those whose faces will be white, they will be in Allah's
mercy, therein to dwell." (3:106-107)

These Quranic verses, as every intelligent scholar knows, are addressing the Companions, and
warning them of the division and disagreement among themselves after they have already been
shown the Right Path. They also tell them that a great torture is awaiting them, and divide them in
two groups: The first group: when they will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement, everyone of
them would have a white face, and those are the grateful who deserve the mercy of Allah. The
second group: when they will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement, everyone of them would
have a black face, and those are the apostates, whom Allah - the Almighty - promised the great
torture.

It is well-known that the Companions were divided after the death of the Messenger of Allah.
They disagreed among themselves to such an extent that they fought each other bloody wars which
led to the regression and the backwardness of the Muslims and made them easy target for their
enemies. The above Quranic verse could not be interpreted in any other way except that which is
readily accepted by people.

# 3: Verse on submission

Allah said: "Has not the time yet come for those who believe that their hearts
should be submissive for the remembrance of Allah and what has come down of the truth? And
[that] they should not be like those who were given the book before, but the time became
prolonged to them, so their hearts hardened, and most of them are transgressors". (57:16)

Suyuti writes: When the Companions of the
Messenger of Allah came to Medinah and started to enjoy a higher standard of living after
having lived through many hardships, they seemed to slow down, so they were punished for that,
and hence the verse "Has not the time yet come for those who believe" was revealed. Another
version of the story, which came from the Prophet, was that Allah found
some reluctance in the Muhajereen seventeen years after the first revelation of the Holy Quran,
and therefore Allah revealed the verse "Has not the time yet come for those who believe". If those
Companions - who are the best people according to the Sunnis - did not feel humble before the
name of Allah or His right revelation of seventeen years, so that Allah found them slowing down,
and rebuked and warned them for their hardened hearts which were leading them to corruption,
we cannot blame the people of Quraysh who only entered Islam in the seventh Hijri year after the
conquest of Makkah.

These were some examples which I have selected from the Glorious Book of Allah which give us
clear indications that not all the Companions were right, as the Sunnis believe.

If we study the sayings of the Prophet, then we will find many more examples, but just to be
brief, I shall refer to some of those examples and the interested reader may further his own
knowledge if he so wishes.


# Sahabas in the eyes on Prophet

# 1: Hadith about pool on day of judgement

The Messenger of Allah said: As I was standing, there came a group of people whom I
recognized, and a man stood between the group and myself, then said: "Let us go." I said, "Where
to?" He said, "To Hell, by Allah!" I asked, "What have they done?" He answered, "They turned
back after you had departed, and I expect only a few will reach salvation." [Bukhari,Muslim]

The Messenger of Allah also said:

I shall arrive at the pool before you, and he who passes by me will drink, and whoever drinks from
it will never feel thirsty. There will come to me people that I know and they know me, but we shall
be separated, then I shall say, "My companions." An answer shall come, "You do not know what
they did after you left." Then I shall say, "Away with those who changed after me."

When we look deeply at the various sayings that have been referred to by the Sunnis in their
books, we will have no doubt that most of the Companions changed or even became apostates
after the departure of the Messenger of Allah, except a few who were considered to be the
minority. The above sayings could not be applied to the third type [of Companions], for they were
the hypocrites, and the text states: I shall say, "My companions."

These sayings confirm and explain the Holy Quranic verses that we mentioned earlier on, which
talked about their retreat and their apostasy and the terrible torture awaiting them.

# 2: Hadith about Sahabas worldy pursuits

The Messenger of Allah said:

I lead you and am your witness, and by Allah I now look at my pool and have been given the keys
to the treasures of the earth [for the earth's keys], and by Allah I am not worried that you become
polythiest after me, but I am worried that you will compete for it" [Bukhari]

The Messenger of Allah was right. They competed for this world to the extent that they
fought against each other, and each party accused the other of blasphemy. Some of the famous
Companions were eager to collect gold and silver, and historians such as Masudi in Muruj
al-Dhahab" and Tabari and others stated that the wealth of Zubayr on its own came to fifty
thousand Dinars and a thousand horses with one thousand slaves and many holdings in Basra,
Kufa, Egypt and many other places.

The agricultural products from Iraq alone brought Talhah one thousand Dinars every day, and
perhaps more than that.

Abdul Rahman ibn Awf had one hundred horses, one thousand camels and ten thousand sheep.
After his death, quarter of his wealth which was divided among his wives came to eighty four
thousand Dinars.

Uthman ibn Affan left on the day of his death one hundred and fifty thousand Dinars apart from an
enormous wealth of land, cattle and villages.

Zayd ibn Thabit left an amount of gold and silver that had to be broken by hammers! Apart from
money and agricultural holdings which came to one hundred thousand Dinars.

These were just a few historical examples. since we do not want to go into detailed analysis of
their importance at the moment, we only mentions them as a proof and support of the sayings, that
they [these companions] were more interested in the present life.


# Sahabas in the eyes of Sahabas


# 1: Sahabas testify they change Prophet's Sunnah

Abu Saeed Khudari said: On the first days of Id al-Fitr [breaking the fast of Ramadan] and Id
al-Adha [celebrating the end of the Pilgrimage], the first thing the Messenger of Allah used
to do was to say his prayers in the mosque, then he went to see the people, who sat in rows in
front of him, and then he started to deliver advice or orders or even finalize outstanding issues, and
after all that he would leave. Abu Saeed added: The situation continued to be like that, until one
day, either Fitr or Adha, I went with Marwan, who was the governor of Medinah. When we
arrived at the mosque, which had a new pulpit built by Kathir ibn Salt, Marwan headed for the
pulpit (before praying), so I pulled him by his clothes, but he pushed me and went up on to the
pulpit. He addressed the people before he prayed, so I said to him, "By Allah you have changed
it." He replied, "O Abu Saeed, what you know has gone." I said, "By Allah, what I know is better
than what I do not know." Marwan then said, "People did not sit for us after the prayers, so I put
[it] before the prayers". [Bukhari]

I looked for the reasons which led those Companions to change the Sunnah [the tradition] of the
Messenger of Allah, and found that the Umayyads (and most of them were Companions of
the Prophet) and Muawiah ibn Abi Sufian (writer of the revelation, as he was called) in particular
used to force people to swear at Ali ibn Abi Talib and curse him from the pulpits of the mosques,
as most of the historians have mentioned in their books.

Sahih Muslim has the following:
Muawiah ordered his governors everywhere to take the curse [of Ali ibn Abi Talib] as tradition,
and that all the speakers must include it in their speeches. When some of the Companions
protested very strongly against such a rule, Muawiah ordered their killing and burning. Among the
famous Companions who were killed at the order of Muawiah were Hijr ibn Adi al-Kindi and his
followers, because they protested and refused to curse Ali, and some of them were buried alive.

Mawdudi wrote in his book "Caliphate and Kingdom": Abu al-Hasan al-Basri said:
Muawiah had four features, and if he had only one of them, it would have been considered a great
sin:

1.Making decisions without consulting the Companions, who were the light of virtues.
2.Designating his son as his successor. His son was a drunkard, corrupt and wore silk.
3.He claimed Ziyad [as his son], and the Messenger of Allah said, "There is offspring for the
honourable woman, but there is nothing for the whore."
4.His killing of Hijr and his followers. Woe unto him from Hijr and the followers of Hijr.

There were some good Companions who used to dash out of the mosque immediately after the
prayers so that they did not have to listen to the speeches which always ended with the cursing of
Ali. For that reason the Umayyads changed the tradition of the Messenger of Allah. They put the
speech before the prayers, so that people listened to it against their will.

What kind of Companions were these people! They were not afraid of changing the tradition of the
Messenger of Allah, or even the laws of Allah, in order to reach their wicked and low objectives
and to satisfy their sinister desires. They cursed a man whom Allah had kept cleansed and purified,
and made it obligatory for people to pray for him in the same way as they prayed for His
Messenger. Furthermore, Allah and His Messenger made it obligatory for people to love him, and
the Prophet said, "Loving Ali is believing, and hating him is hypocrisy" [Sahih Muslim]

But these Companions changed the rules and said, "We heard, but we disobey." And instead of
loving him, praying for him and obeying him, they swore at him and cursed him for sixty years, as
has been mentioned in the history books.

Whereas the Companions of Moses plotted against Aaron and tried to kill him, some of the
Companions of Muhammad killed his Aaron and pursued his sons and followers everywhere. They
removed their names from the Diwan (account books of the treasury) and prohibited anyone to be
named after them. As if that was not enough for them, they cursed him and forced the faithful
Companions to do so unjustly and by force.

By Allah! I stand astonished and perplexed when I read in our Sihahs how much the Messenger of
Allah loved his "brother" and cousin Ali and how he put him above all the Companions, and even
he said, "You are to me as Aaron was to Moses, but there will be no prophet after me."

He also said the following things about Ali:

"You are from me, and I am from you"

"Loving Ali is believing, and hating him is hypocrisy"

"I am the city of knowledge, and Ali is its gate"

"Ali is the master of all the believers after me"

"Whoever accepted me as his master, then he should also accept Ali as his master. O Allah be
friendly with his friends, and be enemy to his enemy"

[Bukhari,Muslim,Hakim,Tirmidhi,Ibn Majah,Nasai,Ahmed]


If we study all the virtues that the Prophet attributed to Ali, which have been mentioned and
approved by our scholars in their books, then we would need to write a whole book.

So, how did the Companions ignore all these texts, swear at him, plot against him, curse him from
the pulpits of the mosques and then fight against him and finally kill him?

I tried in vain to find a reason for the behaviour of those people, but found nothing except the love
of this life and the competition for it, in addition to the tendency to apostatize and turn back on
their heels. I have also tried to attach the responsibility to a group of bad Companions and some
hypocrites, but regrettably those were only a few among the famous and the important. The first
who threatened to burn his house - with its inhabitants - was Umar ibn Khattab, and the first
who fought him were Talhah, Zubayr, Aishah bint Abi Bakr - Umm al-Mumineen, Muawiah ibn
Abi Sufian, Amr ibn al-Aas and many others.

I am astonished, and my astonishment will never end, and any responsible free thinker would agree
with me, as to how the Sunni scholars agree on the righteousness of all the Companions and ask
for the blessings of Allah to be upon them and pray for all of them without exception, although
some of them say: "Curse Yazid, and no further." But where is Yazid amongst all these tragedies
which no religion or logic could approve? I appeal to the Sunni people, if they truly follow the
Prophet's tradition, to ask themselves how they could accept somebody to be righteous when the
laws of the Holy Quran and the Prophetic tradition judge him as being corrupt, an apostate and an
unbeliever. The Messenger of Allah said, "He who insults Ali, insults me. He who insults me,
insults Allah. And he who insults Allah, Allah will throw him into Hell". If that is the
punishment for those who insult Ali, one wonders about the punishment of those who fought him
and ultimately killed him. What are our scholars' opinions regarding all these facts, or are their
hearts locked solid?! Say, O God please protect us from the tricks of the devil. [Hakim,Ahmed,Suyuti]

# 2: Sahabas altered Salah

Anas ibn Malik said: I knew nothing during the lifetime of the Prophet better than the prayer.
He said: Have you not lost what you have lost in it? Zuhri said: I went to see Anas ibn Malik in
Damascus, and found him crying, I asked him, "What is making you cry?" He answered, "I have
known nothing but these prayers, and they have been lost." [Bukhari]

I would like to make it clear that it was not the followers who implemented the changes after all the
intrigues and civil wars, rather it was the caliph Uthman who first made changed in the Prophet's
tradition regarding the prayers.

Also Umm al-Mumineen Aishah was involved in these changes. Bukhari and Muslim, both
stated in their books that the Messenger of Allah performed two prayers at Mina, and Abu
Bakr after him, then Umar and Uthman who later performed four prayers.

Muslim also stated in his book that Zuhri asked Urwah, "Why did Aishah complete her prayers
during the journey?" He answered, "She improvised in the same way as Uthman did."

Umar used to improvise and interpret the clear texts of the Prophet's tradition, and even the Holy
Quranic texts. Like he used to say: two pleasures were allowed during the life of the Messenger of
Allah, but now I disallow them and punish those who commit them, I tell the person who is in a
state of ritual impurity, or cannot find water not to pray. That was in spite of the words of Allah
in Surat Maidah: "If you do not find water, then use clean sand."

Bukhari stated: I heard Shaqiq ibn Salmah saying:
I was with Abdullah and Abu Musa, and Abu Musa asked, "What do you say
about a man who is unclean but cannot find water?" Abdullah answered, "He should not pray until
he finds water." Abu Musa then asked, "What do you think about what the Prophet said to
Ammar [regarding the issue of impurity] when Ammar asked him?" Abdullah said, "For that reason
Umar was not satisfied with [that]." Abu Musa said, "Forget about what Ammar said, but what do
you say about the Quranic verse?" Abdullah did not know what to say, but he justified his stance
by saying, "If we let them do that, then whenever the water becomes cold, they avoid using it to
clean themselves, and instead they use sand. I said to Shaqiq, "Abdullah is most certainly hated for
that." He said, "Yes".

# 3: Sahabas testufy against each other

Anas ibn Malik said that the Messenger of Allah said to Ansar: You will notice after me
some great selfishness, but be patient until you meet Allah and His Messenger by the pool. Anas
said: We were not patient.

Al-Ala ibn al-Musayyab heard his father saying: I met al-Bara ibn Azib - may Allah honour them
both - and said to him, "Bless you, you accompanied the Prophet and you voted for him
under the tree." He said, "My son, you do not know what we have done after him" [Bukhari]

This early Companion, who was one of those who voted for the Prophet under the tree, and who
received the blessing of Allah, for Allah knew what was in their hearts, testifies against himself and
his companions that they did not keep the tradition. This testimony is confirmation of what the
Prophet talked about and predicted in that his Companions would break with his tradition
and fall back on their heels.

How could any sensible person, after all this evidence, believe in the righteousness of all the
Companions, as the Sunnis do?

He who believes that, is definitely reversing the order of logic and scholarship, and there will be no
intellectual criteria for the researcher to use in his quest for the truth.

# 4: Abu Bakr and Umar testify against themselves

Bukhari reports: "When Umar was stabbed he felt great pain and Ibn Abbas wanted to comfort him, so he said to him, "O
Commander of the Believers, you accompanied the Messenger of Allah and you were a good
companion to him, and when he left you, he was very pleased with you. Then you accompanied
Abu Bakr, and you were a good companion to him, and when he left you, he was pleased with
you. Then you accompanied their companions and you were a good companion to them, and if
you left them, they would remember you well." He said, "As for the companionship of the
Messenger of Allah and his satisfaction with me, that is a gift that Allah has
granted to me. As for the companionship of Abu Bakr and his satisfaction with me, that is a gift
that Allah - Glory be to Him - has granted to me. But the reason you see me in pain is for you and
your companions. By Allah, if I had all the gold on earth I would use it to ransom myself from the
torture of Allah - Glory and Majesty be to Him - before I saw Him.

He has also been quoted as saying the following, "I wish I was my family's sheep. They would
have fattened me up to the maximum. When they were visited by friends, they would have killed
me and roasted part of me, and made qadid (meat cut into strips and dried) from the other part of
it, then they would have eaten me, and lastly, they would have relieved me with their bowle
evacuation ... I wish I had been all that, rather than a human being."

Abu Bakr apparently said a similar thing to the above. He looked at a bird on a tree, then said,
"Well done bird ... You eat the fruits, you stand on the trees and you are not accountable to
anybody nor indeed can anybody punish you. I wish I was a tree by the road, and that a camel
would come along and eat me. then relieve me with his bowel evacuation ... I wish that I had been
all that, rather than a human being." [Tabari]

He also said, I wish that my mother had not given birth to me ... I wish I was a straw in the mud.
These are some texts that I used just as examples and not for any specific reason.

And this is the Book of Allah which gives the good news to the worshippers of Allah who believe
in Him: "Now surely the friends of Allah - they shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve. Those who
believe and fear (Allah). They shall have good news in this world's life and in the Hereafter, there is
no changing in the words of Allah; that is the great achievement." (10:62-64)

Allah also says: "(As for) those who say, our Lord is Allah, then continue in the right way, the
angels descend upon them, saying, "Fear not, nor be grieved, and receive good news of the garden
which you were promised. We are your guardians in this world's life and in the Hereafter, and you
shall have therein what your souls desire and you shall have therein what you ask for. An
entertainment by the Forgiving, the Merciful." (41:30-32)

How could the two Shaykhs. Abu Bakr and Umar, wish that they were not from the human race,
which Allah honoured and put it above all His creation? Even the ordinary believer, who keeps on
the straight path during his lifetime, receives the angels to tell him about his place in heaven, and
that he should not fear the torture of Allah, nor be depressed about his legacy in life, and that he
has the good news while he is in this life before reaching the life Hereafter. Then how could the
great Companions, who are the best of creation after the Messenger of Allah (so we have been
taught), wish they were excrement or a hair or a straw when the angels had given them the good
news that they would go to heaven? They could not have wished to have all the gold on earth to
ransom themselves from the torture of Allah before meeting Him.

Allah said: "And if every soul that has done injustice had all that is in the earth, it
would offer it for ransom, and they will manifestly regret when they see the chastisement and the
matter shall be decided between them with justice and they shall not be dealt unjustly." (10:54)

Allah also said: "And had those who are unjust all that is in the earth and the like of with it, they
would certainly offer it as ransom (to be saved) from the evil of the punishment on the day of
resurrection; and what they never thought of shall become plain to them from Allah. And the evil
(consequences) of what they wrought shall become plain to them, and the very thing they mocked
at shall beset them." (39:47-48)

I wish sincerely that these Quranic verses did not involve great Companions like Abu Bakr
Siddiq and Umar al-Faruq ... But I often pause when I read these texts so that I can look at
some interesting aspects of their relations with the Messenger of Allah, and how that relation
went through many turmoils. They disobeyed his orders and refused him his wishes, even in the last
moments of his blessed and honourable life, which made him so angry that he ordered them all to
leave his house and to leave him. I also recall the chain of events that took place after the death of
the Messenger of Allah, and the hurt and lack of recognition that afflicted his daughter al-Zahra.
The Messenger of Allah said, "Fatimah is part of me, he who angers her angers me" [Bukhari]

Fatimah said to Abu Bakr and Umar: I ask you in the name of Allah did you not
hear the Messenger of Allah saying, "The satisfaction of Fatimah is my satisfaction, and the
anger of Fatimah is my anger, he who loves my daughter Fatimah loves me, and he who satisfies
Fatimah satisfies me, and he who angers Fatimah angers me?" They said, "Yes, we heard it from
the Messenger of Allah." Then she said, "Therefore, I testify before Allah and the angels that
you have angered me and did not please me, and if I meet the Prophet I will complain to him about
you."

Let us leave this tragic story for the time being, but Ibn Qutaybah, who is considered to be one of
the great Sunni scholars, and was an expert in many disciplines and wrote many books on Quranic
commentary. Hadith Linguistics, grammar and history might well have been converted to Shiaism, as somebody I know once claimed when I showed him Ibn Qutaybah's book "History of the
Caliphs".

This is the type of propaganda that some of our scholars use when they lose the argument.
Similarly Tabari was a Shia, and Nisai, who wrote a book about the various aspects of
Imam Ali, was a Shia, and Taha Husayn, a contemporary scholar who wrote "Al-Fitnah
al-Kubra" and other facts, was also a Shia!

The fact is that all of these were not Shias, and when they talked about the Shia, they said all
sorts of dishonourable things about them, and they defended the fairness of the Companions with
all their might. But the fact is that whenever a person mentions the virtues of Ali ibn Abi Talib, and
admits to the mistakes that were committed by the famous Companions, we say that he has
become a Shia. And if you say in front of them, when you mention the Prophet, "May Allah bless
him and his Family" or say, "Ali, may Allah's peace be upon him" then you are branded a Shia.
According to that premise, one day, during a debate, I asked one of our scholars, "What do you
think of Bukhari?" He said, "He is one of the leading authorities in Hadith (the Prophetic
tradition) and we consider his book to be the most correct book after the Book of Allah, as all our
scholars agree." I said to him, "He is a Shia." He laughed and said, "God forbid that Imam
Bukhari be a Shia." I said, "Did you not say that whoever says Ali, may Allah's peace be upon
him, is Shia?" He answered, "Yes." Then I showed him and those who were with him Bukhari's
book, and in many places when Ali's name appears, he put "May Allah's peace be upon him" as
well as the names of Fatimah and Husayn. The man did not know what to say. [Bukhari]

Let us return to the incident mentioned by Ibn Qutaybah in which Fatimah allegedly was angered
by Abu Bakr and Umar. If I doubt the authenticity of that story, then I could not doubt the
authenticity of Bukhari's book, which we consider to be the most correct book after the Book
of Allah. As we have committed ourselves to the fact that it is correct, then the Shias have the
right to use it in their protestation against us and force us to keep to our commitment, as is only fair
for sensible people. In his book, Bukhari writes in a chapter entitled "The virtues of the relatives
of the Messenger of Allah": The Messenger of Allah said, "Fatimah is part of
me, and whoever angers her angers me." Also, in a chapter about "The Khaybar Raid" he wrote:
According to Aishah, Fatimah, may Allah's peace be upon her, daughter of the Prophet, sent a
message to Abu Bakr asking him for her share of the inheritance of the Messenger of Allah, but he
refused to pay Fatimah anything of it. Fatimah became so angry at Abu Bakr that she left him and
never spoke to him before her death.

The final result is one, Bukhari mentioned it briefly and Ibn Qutaybah talked about it in some
detail, and that is: the Messenger of Allah is angry when Fatimah is angry, and he is satisfied
when Fatimah is satisfied, and that she died while she was still angry with Abu Bakr and Umar.

Bukhari said: She died while she was still angry at Abu Bakr, and did not speak to him before
she died, then the end result is quite clear. If Fatimah is "the leading lady among all the ladies" as
Bukhari declared in the section al-Istidhan, and if Fatimah is the only lady in this nation whom
Allah kept clean and pure, then her anger could not be but just, therefore Allah and His Messenger
get angry for her anger. Because of that Abu Bakr said, "May Allah save me
from His anger and Fatimah's anger." Then he cried very bitterly when she said, "By Allah, I will
curse you in every prayer that I do." He came out crying and said, "I do not need your pledge of
allegiance and discharge me from my duties."

Many of our historians and scholars admit that Fatimah - may Allah's peace be upon her -
challenged Abu Bakr in many cases such as the donations, the inheritance and the shares of the
relatives, but her challenge was dismissed, and she died angry at him. However, our scholars seem
to pass over these incidents without having the will to talk about them in some detail, so that they
could as usual, preserve the integrity of Abu Bakr. One of the strange things that I have read
regarding this subject, is what one of the writers said after he had mentioned the incident in some
detail: God forbid that Fatimah should claim something that does not rightly belong to her, and God
forbid that Abu Bakr denied her rights.

The writer thought that through this weak reasoning, he would be able to solve the problem and
convince the researchers. He appears to be saying something similar to the following: God forbid
that the Holy Quran should say anything but the truth, and God forbid that the sons of Israel
should worship the calf. We have been plagued with scholars who say things that they cannot
comprehend, and believe in the object and its antithesis, simultaneously. The point is that Fatimah
claimed and Abu Bakr dismissed her claim, so she was either a liar - God forbid - or Abu Bakr
treated her unjustly. There could be no third solution for the case, as some of our scholars would
wish.

If one refuses to accept the logical reasoning that the leading lady among all ladies is a liar because her father, the Messenger of Allah, said, "Fatimah is part of me, and who- ever hurts her hurts me."
And by intuition one accepts that a person who lies does not deserve such a saying from the
Messenger of Allah. Therefore, the saying itself is a clear indication of her infallibility. The
purification verse from the Holy Quran is another indication of her infallibility, and it was revealed
in her honour and the honour of her husband and her two sons, as Aishah herself testified.
Hence, there is nothing left for sensible people but to accept the fact that she was unjustly treated,
and that she was easy to be branded a liar by somebody who was willing to let her burn unless the
remaining people in her house came out to vote for him.

Because of all that, she - may Allah's peace be upon her - refused entry to Abu Bakr and Umar
when they asked her permission. Even when Ali allowed them to enter, she turned her face to the
wall and refused to look at them. Furthermore, before she died, she asked to be buried
secretly, and at night, so that none of them could be present at her funeral, and to this day, the
grave of the Prophet's daughter is unknown.

I would like to ask why our scholars remain silent about these facts, and are reluctant to look into
them, or even to mention them. They give us the impression that the Companions are like angels,
infallible and sinless, and when you ask them why the caliph of the Muslim's Uthman was
murdered, they would say: It was the Egyptians - and they were not believers - who came and
killed him, thus ends the subject with two words.

When I had the opportunity to carry out research into history, I found that the main figures behind
the killing of Uthman were the Companions themselves, and that Aishah led them, calling for his
death publicly and saying: "Kill Nathal (the old fool), for he was not a believer."

Also we know that Talhah, Zubayr, Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr and other famous Companions
besieged him in his house and prevented him from having a drink of water, so that they could force
him to resign. Furthermore, the historians inform us that they did not allow his corpse to be buried
in a Muslim cemetery, and that he was finally buried in "Hashsh Kawkab" without washing the
corpse and without a shroud.

O Allah, praise be to You, how could they tell us that he was unjustly killed, and that those who
killed him were not Muslims. This is another case similar to that of Fatimah and Abu Bakr: Uthman
was either unjustly treated, therefore we may pass judgement on those Companions who killed him
or those who participated in his killing that they were criminal murderers because they unlawfully
killed the caliph of the Muslims, and threw stones at his funeral, and humiliated him when he was
alive and then when he was dead; or that the Companions killed him because he committed certain
deeds which were not compatible with Islam, as the historical sources tell us.

There is no third option, unless we dismiss the historical facts and accept the distorted picture that
the Egyptians, who were not believers, killed Uthman. In both cases there is a definite rejection of
the common belief that all the Companions were right and just, without exception, for either
Uthman was unjust or his killers were not just, but all of them were Companions, and hence our
proposition becomes void. Therefore we are left with the proposition of the followers of Ahl
al-Bayt, and that is that some of the Companions were right and some others were wrong.

We may ask a few questions about the war of Jamal, which was instigated by Umm
al-Mumineen Aishah, who played an important role in it. How could Umm al-Mumineen Aishah
leave her house in which Allah had ordered her to stay: "And stay in your
houses and do not display your finery like the displaying of the ignorance of yours." (33:33)

We may also ask, how could Aishah allow herself to declare war on the caliph of the Muslims, Ali
ibn Abi Talib, who was the master of all Muslims? As usual, our scholars, with some simplicity,
answer us that she did not like Imam Ali because he advised the Messenger of Allah to divorce her
in the incident of al-Ifk. Seemingly these people are trying to convince us that that incident - if it
was true - namely Ali's advice to the Prophet to divorce Aishah, was sufficient for her to disobey
the orders of her God and her husband, the Messenger of Allah. She rode a camel that the
Messenger of Allah forbade her from riding and warned her about the barking of al-Hawab's dogs,
she travelled long distances from Medinah to Mekka then to Basrah, she permitted the
killing of innocent people and started a war against the commander of the believers and the
Companions who voted for him, and she caused the deaths of thousands of Muslims, according to
the historians. She did all that because she did not like Ali who advised the Prophet to
divorce her. Nevertheless the Prophet did not divorce her so why all this hatred towards Imam
Ali? History has recorded some aggressive stances against Ali that could not be explained and
these are some of them. When she was on her way back from Mekka Aishah was informed that
Uthman was killed, so she was delighted, but when she learnt that people had voted for Ali to
succeed him she became very angry and said, "I wish the sky would collapse on the earth before
Ibn Abi Talib succeeds to the caliphate." Then she said, "Take me back." Thus she started the civil
war against Ali, whose name she never liked to mention, as many historians agree.

Had Aishah heard the saying of the Messenger of Allah: Loving Ali is believing, and hating
him is hypocrisy?. To the extent that some of the Companions used to say, "We recognized
the hypocrites by their hatred of Ali." Had Aishah not heard the saying of the Prophet: Whoever
accepts me as his master, then Ali is his master? Undoubtedly she heard all that, but she did not
like it, and she did not like mentioning his name, and when she learnt of his death she knelt and
thanked Allah.

Let us move on, for I do not want to discuss the life of Umm al-Mumineen Aishah, but I have tried
to show how many of the Companions violated the principles of Islam and disobeyed the orders of
the Messenger of Allah, and it suffices to mention the following incident which happened to
Aishah during the civil war, and on which all historians tend to agree. It has been said that when
Aishah passed by the waters of al-Hawab and heard the dogs barking, she remembered the
warning of her husband, the Messenger of Allah, and how he prevented her from being the
instigator of "al-Jamal" war. She cried, then she said, "Take me back . take me back!" But Talhah
and Zubayr brought fifty men and bribed them, then made them testify that these waters were
not al-Hawab's waters. Later she continued her journey until she reached Basrah. Many historians
believe that those fifty men gave the first falsified testimony in the history of Islam.

O Muslims! You who have enlightened minds ... assist us in solving this problem. Were these truly
the honourable Companions, of whom we were always led to believe in their righteousness, and
that they were the best people after the Messenger of Allah! How could they give a falsified
testimony when the Messenger of Allah considered it to be one of the great sins, whose
punishment is Hell.

The same question crops up again. Who was right and who was wrong? Either Ali and his
followers were wrong, or Aishah and her followers and Talhah and Zubayr and their followers
were wrong. There is no third possibility. But I have no doubt that the fair researcher would take
Ali's side and dismiss Aishah and her followers who instigated the civil war that devastated the
nation and left its tragic marks to the present day.

For the sake of further clarification, and for the sake of my own satisfaction I mention here what
Bukhari had to say in his book about the civil war. When Talhah, Zubayr and Aishah
travelled to Basrah, Ali sent Ammar ibn Yasir and Hasan ibn Ali to Kufah. On their arrival,
they went to the mosque and addressed the congregation, and we heard Ammar saying, "Aishah
had gone to Basrah ... and by Allah she is the wife of your Prophet in this life and the life hereafter,
but Allah is testing you to know whom you obey: Him or her."

Also, Bukhari wrote in his book a chapter about what went on in the houses of the Prophet's
wives: Once the Prophet was giving a speech, and he indicated the house where Aishah was
living, then said, "There is the trouble ... there is the trouble ... there is the trouble ... from where
the devil's horns come out..."

Bukhari wrote many strange things in his book about Aishah and her bad manners towards the
Prophet to the extent that her father had to beat her until she bled. He also wrote about her
pretention towards the Prophet until Allah threatened her with divorce... and there are many other
stories but we are limited by space.

After all that I ask how did Aishah deserve all that respect from the Sunnis; is it because she was
the Prophet's wife? But he had so many wives, and some of them were better than Aishah, as the
Prophet himself declared. Or perhaps because she was Abu Bakr's daughter! Or maybe
because she played an important role in the denial of the Prophet's will for Ali, and when she was
told that the Prophet recommended Ali, she said, "Who said that?
I was with the Prophet supporting his head on my chest, then he asked me to bring the washbowl, as I bent down he died,
so I cannot see how he recommended Ali. Or is it because she fought a total war against him
and his sons after him, and even intercepted the funeral procession of Hasan - Leader of the
Heaven's youth - and prevented his burial beside his grandfather, the Messenger of Allah, and said
"Do not allow anybody that I do not like to enter my house."

She forgot, or maybe ignored the Messenger of Allah's sayings about him and his brother, "Allah
loves those who love them, and Allah hates those who hate them," Or his saying, "I am at war with
those who fight against you, and I am at peace with those who appease you." And there are many
other sayings in their honour. No wonder, for they were so dear to him!

She heard many more sayings in honour of Ali, but despite the Prophet's warning, she was
determined to fight him and agitate the people against him and deny all his virtues. Because of that,
the Umayyads loved her and put her in a high position and filled the books with her virtues and
made her the great authority for the Islamic nation because she had half of the religion.

Perhaps they assigned the second half of the religion to Abu Hurayrah, who told them what they
wanted to hear, so they bestowed on him various honours: they gave him the governorship of
Medinah, they gave him al-Aqiq palace and gave him the title of "Rawiat al-lslam" - the
transmitter of Islam. He made it easy for the Umayyads to create a completely new religion which
took whatever pleased them and supported their interests and power from the Holy Quran and
the tradition of the Prophet. Inevitably, such a religion lacked any seriousness and became full of
contradictions and myths, hence most of the facts were buried and replaced by lies. Then they
forced the people to believe in these lies so that the religion of Allah became a mere joke, and no
one feared Allah as much as they feared Muawiah. When we ask some of our scholars about
Muawiah's war against Ali, who had been acknowledged by Muhajireen and Ansar, a war
which led to the division of Islam into Sunnis and Shias and left it scarred to this very day, they
simply answer by saying, "Ali and Muawiah were both good Companions, and both of them
interpreted Islam in his own way. However, Ali was right, therefore he deserves two rewards, but
Muawiah got it wrong, therefore, he deserves one reward. It is not within our right to judge for
them or against them, Allah said: "This is a people that have passed away, they
shall have what they earned and you shall have what you earn, and you shall not be called upon to
answer for what they did." (2:134)

Regrettably, we provide such weak answers that neither a sensible mind nor a religion, nor indeed
a law would accept. O Allah, I am innocent of idle talk and of deviant whims. I beg You to protect
me from the devil's touch.

How could a sensible mind accept that Muawiah had worked hard to interpret Islam and give him
one reward for his war against the leader of all Muslims, and for his killing of thousands of innocent
believers, in addition to all the crimes that he committed? He was known among the historians for
killing his opponents through feeding them poisoned honey, and he used to say, "Allah has soldiers
made of honey."

How could these people judge him as a man who worked hard to promote Islam and give him a
reward for that, when he was the leader of a wrong faction? There is a well known Hadith of the
Prophet, and most of the scholars agree its authenticity, "Woe unto Ammar .. he will be killed by
the wrong faction." And he was killed by Muawiah and his followers.

How could they judge him as a promoter of Islam when he killed Hijr Ibn Adi and his companions
and buried them in Marj Adhra in the Syrian desert because they refused to curse Ali ibn Abi
Talib?

How could they judge him a just Companion when he killed Hasan, leader of the Heaven's
youth, by poisoning him?

How could they judge him as being correct after he had forced the nation to acknowledge him as a
caliph and to accept his corrupt son Yazid as his successor, and to change the Shurah
[consultative] system to a hereditary one?

How could they judge him as a man who had worked hard to promote Islam and to reward him,
after he forced the people to curse Ali and Ahl al-Bayt, the Family of the chosen Prophet, and
killed those Companions who refused to do so, and made the act of cursing Ali a tradition? There
is no power but in Allah.

The question crops up over and over again. Which faction was right, and which faction was
wrong? Either Ali and his followers were wrong, or Muawiah and his followers were wrong, and
the Messenger of Allah explained everything.

In both cases, the proposition of the righteousness of all the Companions does not hold ground
and is incompatible with logic. There are many examples for all these subjects. and if I want to
study them in detail and discuss them for all their aspects, then I would need volumes. But I
wanted to be brief in this study so I mentioned a few examples, but thank Allah, for they have been
enough to refute the claims of my people who froze my mind for a period of time, and prevented
me from looking at the Hadith (prophetic tradition) and the historical events with an analytical view,
using the intellect and the legal yard-sticks which the Holy Quran and the honourable Prophet's
tradition taught us to do.

Therefore, I shall rebel against myself and rid myself of the dust of prejudice with which they
engulfed me. I shall free myself from all the chains and fetters that I have been tied with for more
than twenty years, and say, "I wish my people knew that Allah has granted me forgiveness and
made me among the honourable people. I wish my people could discover the world they know
nothing about. but nevertheless oppose."


# THE BEGINNING OF THE CHANGE

I stayed unsettled and perplexed for three months, even when I was asleep, my mind was
overwhelmed by doubts and fears about myself regarding the Companions whose lives I was
researching. I found many astonishing contradictions in their behaviour, because throughout my life
I had received an education based on the respect and the veneration of those sages who would
hurt anybody that spoke badly about them or disrespected them in their absence, even if they were
dead.

I had read once in "Hayat al-Haywan al-Kubra" by Damiri: There was a man riding in a
Caravan with his friend, and during the journey he kept insulting Umar, and his friend tried to
prevent him from doing so. When he was in the toilet, a black snake bit him, and he died
immediately. When they dug his grave, they found a black snake inside it; they dug another one,
and the same thing happened. Every time they dug a new grave, they found a snake inside it. Then
a learned man told them, "Bury him anywhere you wish, even if you dig the whole earth, you will
find a black snake. This is because Allah wants to chastise him in this life before the hereafter, for
insulting our master Umar."

Thus, while I was forcing myself through this difficult research, I felt fearful and confused,
especially as I had learnt in al-Zaytuna that the best caliphs were Abu Bakr Siddiq then Umar
ibn Khattab al-Farooq, whom Allah will use to divide right from wrong. After that comes
Uthman ibn Affan Dhul-Noorayn, from whom the angels of the Merciful felt shy, and after him
comes Ali ibn Abi Talib, the gate to the city of knowledge. After these four come the remaining six
of the ten who were promised Paradise, and they are Talhah, Zubayr, Saad, Saeed,
Abdul-Rahman, and Abu Ubaydah. After them come all the Companions, and after we were
recommended of the Holy Quranic verse "We do not differentiate between any of His
messengers" as a premise on which we should base the assumption that we should not differentiate in our respect for all the Companions.

Because of that I feared for myself, and asked my Lord for forgiveness on many occasions, and
indeed I wanted to leave the issues that made me doubtful about the Companions of the
Messenger of Allah, and then made me doubtful about my own religion.

During that period, and throughout my conversations with a few learned people, I found many
contradictions that could not be accepted by sensible people, and then they started to warn me
that if I continued with my research about the Companions, Allah would take His grace from me
and finish me off.

Their continuous stubbornness and their denial of whatever I said, coupled with my scientific mind
and eagerness to reach the truth, forced me to resume the research, because I felt an inner force
urging me to do so.

I said to one of our scholars: When Muawiah killed the innocent and disgraced the honourable,
you judge him as being an interpreter of Islam who got it wrong, and therefore has one reward.
When Yazid killed the descendants of the Messenger and authorized the sacking of Medinah
al-Munawwarah by his army, you judge him as an interpreter of Islam who got it wrong, and
therefore has one reward. Some of you even said about him that "Husayn was killed by the
sword of his grandfather." Why should I not then interpret Islam through this study, which is forcing
me to doubt the intentions of the Companions and to blow the cover of some of them. which
would not be equated with killings done by Muawiah and Yazid of the Prophet's family? If I am
right I deserve two rewards, and if I am wrong, I would have only one reward. However, my
criticism of the Companions is not for the sake of insulting them or cursing them, but it is a means
through which I hope to reach the truth. Who is the right group, and who is the wrong group. This
is my duty and the duty of each Muslim, and Allah - praise be to Him - knows what is inside
ourselves. The scholar then answered me, ' O my son, Ijtihad (the interpretation of Islamic religion)
has not been allowed for some time.'

l asked, "Who disallowed it?"

He said, "The four Imams."

I said liberally, "Thanks be to Allah! Since neither Allah disallowed it, nor His Messenger or the
rightly guided caliphs, whom we are ordered to follow, then there are no restrictions on me to
interpret Islam, as they did.

He said, "You may not interpret Islam unless you know seventeen disciplines, among them: Tafsir
[commentary on the Holy Quran], Linguistics, Grammar, Sarf [Morphology], Rhetoric, Hadiths [
Prophetic traditions], History and others."

I interjected by saying, "My Ijtihad is not to show the people the rules of the Quran and the
Prophet's tradition, or to be a religious leader of a new creed. Nay! All that I want to know is who
is right and who is wrong. For example, to know whether Imam Ali was right or Muawiah, I do
not need to master seventeen disciplines. All I need to do is to study the life and works of each
one of them to know the truth.

He said, "Why do you want to know all that?" "This is a people that have passed away; they shall
have what they earned and you shall have what you earn, and you shall not be called upon to
answer for what they did." [2:134]

I asked, "Do you read Tusaloon [the Arabic word for Questioned] with Dammah [the vowel point
upon the letter ta] or with Tasaloon with Fathah [the vowel] point a]?"

He said, "Tusaloon, with Dammah."

I said, Thanks be to Allah, if it was with Fathah, then there would be no research. As it is written
with Dammah, then it means that Allah - praise be to Him - will not make us accountable for what
they have done, similarly, He said,: "Each soul is pledged to what ever it has
earned." [74:38]

Also He said: "There is nothing for man except what he has strived for." [53:39]

And the Holy Quran urged us to know about the earlier nations and to learn lessons from their
histories. Also, Allah told us about the Pharaohs, Haman, Nimrod, Quaroon, and about the early
prophets and their nations, not for the sake of pleasure, but to show us what is right and what is
wrong. As for your question as to why I want to know all that? Because it is important for me to
know all that. Firstly, to know who is the friend of Allah. so that I may befriend him, and to know
who is the enemy of Allah, so that I may oppose him, and that is what the Quran asked me, or
indeed, ordered me to do.

Secondly, it is important for me to know how I should worship Allah and draw near to Him by
obeying His commands, in the way He - the Majesty - wants them to be, not as Malik or Abu
Hanifah or any other interpreter of Islam wants them to be.

I found that Malik does not prefer the saying of "In the name of Allah the most Merciful and the
most Compassionate" during the prayers, whereas Abu Hanifah considers it a "must". Others say
that the prayers are not valid without them. Because prayers are a pillar of Islam, if accepted other
deeds would be accepted; but if they were rejected. other deeds would be rejected. Therefore, I
do not want my prayers to be invalid. The Shias say that during the ablution we must rub our feet
with wet hands, whereas the Sunnis say that we must wash them. But when we read the Holy
Quran we find "rub your hands and feet" which is clear about the rubbing. So how do you expect
any sensible Muslim to accept this and reject the other without research and analysis?"

He said, "You can take what you like from each creed, because all of them are Islamic creeds, and
all of them came from the Messenger of Allah."

I said, l am afraid that I may become one of those about whom Allah said:

"Have you then considered him who takes his low desire for his god and Allah has made him err
having knowledge and has set a seal upon his ear and his heart and put a covering upon his eye.
Who can then guide him after Allah? Will you not then be mindful?" [45:23]

Sir, I do not think that all the four lslamic religious schools (Madhahib) are correct, as long as one
of them allows something while the other forbids it; and it does not seem logical for one thing to be
allowed and frobidden simultaneously. The Messenger of Allah did not question the rules of
the Holy Quran because they are revelation: "And if it were from any other than Allah, they would have found in it many a discrepancy." [4:82]

Because of the vast differences between the four religious Islamic schools, they cannot be from
Allah or from His Messenger, for the Messenger did not contradict the Holy Quran.

When the scholarly Shaykh found my argument logical and sound, he said, "I advise you, for the
sake of Allah, that no matter how doubtful you may be, do not doubt the rightly guided caliphs,
because they are the four pillars of Islam, if one of them collapses, the whole building will
collapse."

I said, "God forbid Sir, but what about the Messenger of Allah if those people were the pillars of
Islam?"

He said, "The Messenger of Allah is that building He is the whole of Islam."

I smiled when I heard his analysis, and said, "I ask Allah for forgiveness, yet again! Sir, you are
saying, indirectly, that the Messenger of Allah would not be able to stand without the
support of those four, whereas Allah says: "He it is Who sent His messenger with
guidance and a true religion that He may make it prevail over all the religions; and Allah is enough
for a witness." [48:28]

He sent Muhammad with the Message and did not involve any of the other four, or anybody else,
and Allah said with regard to this: "We have sent among you a messenger from among you who
recites to you Our communications and purifes you and teaches you the Book and the wisdom and
teaches you that which you did not know." [2:151]

He said, "That is what we have learnt from our religious leaders and teachers, and we did not
argue about what they taught us, as you the new generation do today. You doubt everything, even
the religion itself. This is one sign of the nearness of the Hour - that is the Day of Judgement - and
the Messenger of Allah said: the Hour will come as a result of the evil in people."

I said, "Sir, why all this exaggeration? God forbid if I doubt the religion, I believe in Allah, Who is
unique and Has no partner. I believe in His angels, Books and Messengers. I believe in our master
Muhammad as His servant and Messenger, and that he is the best of all the prophets and the last
of the messengers, and that I am one of the Muslims. So how could you accuse me of all that?"

He said, "I accuse you of more than that, because you doubt our masters Abu Bakr and Umar,
and the holy Prophet said: If the faith of my nation and the belief of Abu Bakr were put on a
balance, the faith of Abu Bakr would have weighed heavier. The holy Prophet also said in honour
of Umar: I was shown my nation, and each one of them was wearing a shirt that came to the chest,
and I was shown Umar and he was pulling his shirt. They said: O Messenger of Allah! How do
you interpret this? He said: The Religion.

And you come today, in the fourteenth century (Hijri) and doubt the righteousness of the
Companions and especially Abu Bakr and Umar. Don't you know that the people of Iraq are the
people of disunity, blasphemy and hypocrisy!"

What could I say to this man who claimed knowledge and scholarship, and who became so
arrogant that he changed a well structured dialogue into a disordered talk full of lies and
propaganda. He said it in front of people who admired him, and I noticed that their faces lit up with
excitement and evil.

I quickly went home and brought back two books, "Muwatta of Imam Malik" and "The Sahih
of Bukhari". Then said, "Sir, what made me doubt Abu Bakr was the Messenger of Allah
himself." I opened Muwatta and read: He said to the martyrs of Uhud, "Those, I bear witness
against." Abu Bakr then said, "O Messenger of Allah, are we not their brothers? Did we not
become Muslims as they did? Did we not fight as they did?"

The Messenger replied, "Yes, but I do not know what you are going to do after me."

On hearing that, Abu Bakr cried bitterly and said, "We are going to alter many things after your
departure."

After that I opened the "Sahih" of Bukhari and read: Once Umar came to Hafsah
and found with her Asma bint Umays. When he saw her, he asked, "Who is she?" Hafsah
answered, "Asma bint Umays." Umar said, "Is she that Ethiopian?" Asma replied, "Yes." He said,
"We emigrated [that is to say from Mecca to Medinah] before you, so we are more entitled to the
Messenger of Allah than you." She became very angry, then she said, "No, by Allah, you were
with the Messenger of Allah, who fed your hungry people and advised the ignorant among you;
whereas we were in a foreign land, in Abyssinia, for the sake of Allah and His Messenger, and
whenever I ate or drank anything, I remembered the Messenger of Allah and we were hurt,
and we were frightened. By Allah I will mention this to the Prophet without Iying, adding anything
or deviating from the subject." When the Prophet came, she said, "O Prophet of Allah, Umar said
such and such." He asked, "What did you say to him?" She answered, "Such and such." He said,
"I am not more entitled to him than to you." He and his companions had one emigration, but you,
people of the ship, had two emigrations." She said, "I found Abu Musa and the people of the ship
coming to me in groups and asking me about the Hadith, very much delighted with what the
Prophet had said to them."

After having read the Hadiths, the looks on the faces of the scholarly Shaykh and that of the
audience changed. They looked at each other and waited for the scholar, who was too shocked at
what he had heard, to reply. All he did was to raise his eye brows, as a sign of astonishment and
then said, "O my God grant me more knowledge."

I said, "If the Messenger of Allah was the first to doubt Abu Bakr, and did not bear witness
against him, because the Messenger did not know what would happen after him; and if the
Messenger of Allah did not approve of the preference of Umar over Asma bint Umays, but indeed
preferred her to him; then it is within my right to doubt and not to have a preference for anybody
until I know the truth. Evidently, these Hadiths contradict and nullify all the known Hadiths in
favour of Abu Bakr and Umar, because they are more realistic than these which mention their
alleged virtues."

The audience said, "How could that be?" I said, "The Messenger of Allah did not bear
witness against Abu Bakr and said: I do not know what they will do after me! This sounds very
reasonable. History has proved that, and the Holy Quran and history bear witness that they did
change after him. Because of that Abu Bakr cried for he changed and angered Fatimah al-Zahra,
daughter of the Messenger as we explained before, and he changed until he repented and wished
that he was not a human being. As for the Hadith: If the faith of my nation and the faith of Abu
Bakr were put on balance, the faith of Abu Bakr would weigh heavier", it is invalid and
implausible. It is not possible for the faith of a man, who spent forty years of his life believing in
polytheism and worshipping idols, to be greater than the faith of the entire nation of Muhammad,
which has many God-fearing and pious people and martyrs and Imams, who spent all their lives
fighting for the sake of Allah.

How could Abu Bakr fit into this Hadith? If it was true, he would not, in later life have finished that
he was not a human being. Further, if his faith was greater than the faith of the entire nation of
Muhammad, Fatimah, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah and the leading lady, would not have
been angry at him or asked Allah to punish him in each prayer she prayed."

The scholar did not say anything, but some of the men said, "By Allah! This Hadith made us
doubtful". Then the scholar said to me, "Is that what you wanted? You have made these people
doubt their religion." It sufficed me that a man from the audience replied by saying, "No, he is right.
we have not read a whole book in our life, we followed you blindly and without any argument, and
now it appears to us that what Hajj has been saying is right, and it is our duty to read and
research!" Other people agreed with him, and that was a victory for truth and justice. It was not
victory by force, but by logical deduction and proof. Allah says: "Say, bring your proof, if you are
telling the truth." [27:64]

That is what encouraged me to undertake the study and opened the door for me, so I entered it in
the name of Allah by Allah and tracing the footsteps of the followers of the Messenger of Allah. I
hope that Allah grants me success and enlightenment, for He
promised to enlighten anyone who searches for the truth, and He does not break His promises.

The study went on for three years, because I often re-read the books, right from the first page to
the last.

I read "al-Murajaat" by Imam Sharaf al-Din several times, since it opened new horizons for me
and enlightened me and pleased me for the love and the fellowship of Ahl al-Bayt.

I read "al-Ghadeer" by Shaykh al-Amini three times because of the clear cut facts it contained. I
also read "Fadak in History" by Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and "al-Saqifah" by Shaykh
Muhammad Rida Muzaffar, which explained so many vague issues.

I read "al-Nass wal Ijtihad" - the Text and the Interpretation - and became more convinced. Then
I read "Abu Hurayra" by Sharaf al-Din and "Shaykh al-Mudira" by Shaykh Mahmud Abu Rayyah
al-Misri, and learnt that the Companions who changed after the departure of the Messenger of
Allah were two types. The first, changed the rules. because of its power and authority. The
second, changed the rules by attributing false Hadiths to the Messenger of Allah.

I read "lmam Sadiq and the four Madhhabs" by Asad Haydar and learnt about the differences
between gifted knowledge and acquired knowledge. I also learnt about the differences between
Allahs wisdom which He grants to whom He pleases, and the intrusion on knowledge and the
belief of personal interpretation (of Islam) which kept the nation away from the spirit of Islam.

I read more books by Sayyid Jafar Murtada al-Amili, and Sayyid Murtada Askari,
and Sayyid al-Khusi,and Sayyid Tabatabai, and Shaykh Muhammad Amin Zain al-Din, and
al-Fayroozabadi, and Ibn Abi Hadid al-Mutazili in his commentary on "Nahj al-Balagha", and
Taha Husayn's "al-Fitna al-Kubra".

From the history books I read the following Annals written by Tabari, Ibn Athir, Masudi
and Yaqubi. And I read more, until I became convinced that the Shia Imamiyya were right.

Thus, with the help of Allah, I boarded Ahl al-Bayt's ship and sought their fellowship, because I
found - thanks be to Allah - the alternative to the Companions, who, to the best of my knowledge,
regressed and only a few of them were saved.

I exchanged them for the Imams of Ahl al-Bayt, the Prophet's Family, whom Allah cleansed and
purified and made it our duty to seek their fellowship.

The Shias are not, as some of our religious scholars claim, the Persians and the Magus whose
power and glory were destroyed by Umar in al-Qadisiyyah war, and that is why they hate them!

My answer to these who are ignorant is that following the creed of the Prophet's Family is not
restricted to the Persians, for there are Shias in Iraq, Hijaz, Syria, Lebanon, and all of them are
Arabs. In addition to that, there are Shias in Pakistan, India, Africa, America, and all of those are
neither Arabs nor Persians.

If we confine ourselves to the Shias of Iran, the issue becomes clearers because I found that the
Persians believe in the leadership of the twelve Imams, all of whom were Arabs from Quraysh
from Bani Hashim, the family of the Prophet. If the Persians were prejudiced and hated the
Arabs, as some people claim, they would have been taken Salman Farisi as their Imam, for he
was a great Companion and respected by both Shias and Sunnis. On the other hand I found that
most of the leading Sunni Imams were Persians, such as Abu Hanifah, Nisai, Tirmidhi,
Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Maja, Ghazali, Ibn Sina, Farabi and many others. If the Shias were
all Persians who rejected Umar because he destroyed their power, then how can
we explain the rejection of the Arabs who were not Persians? Therefore, this is an illogical claim.
These people refused Umar because of his role in excluding the Commander of the Believers, Ali
ibn Abi Talib, from the caliphate after the departure of the Messenger of Allah, and because of the
tragic civil wars and decline of this nation. It is high time that the truth was unveiled to everv
free-thinking scholar so that he may refute the allegation without any prior animosity. It is true that
the Shias, whether they were Arabs or Persians or any other nationality, followed closely the
Quranic Texts and the tradition of the Messenger of Allah and his Family, and refused to accept
the alternative despite the oppressive policies of the Umayyads and later the Abbasids for seven
centuries. During that period, they pursued the Shias everywhere; they killed them, they made
them homeless, they denied them their rightful grants. they removed their cultural and intellectual
heritage and they spread all sorts of rumours about them in order to keep people away from them.
The legacy of these policies is still felt up to the present day.

However, the Shias stood their ground, remained patient and took the blame for their
commitment to Allah and they are paying the price of their defiance to this very day. I challenge
any of our religious scholars to enter a debate with their religious scholars without coming out of it
overwhelmed by their enlightened way.

Yes, I found the alternative, and thanks be to Allah Who guided me to this. because I would not
he there without His Guidance. Thanks and praise be to Allah Who led me to the saved group, for
which I was eagerly searching.

I have no doubt that the commitment to Ali and Ahl al-Bayt is the commitment to the unbroken link
- the link to Allah. There are many sayings by the Messenger of Allah agreed by all Muslims,
which bear witness to that. The sensible mind is, perhaps, the best proof for anybody who is
prepared to listen. Ali was the most knowledgeable companion and certainly the bravest, as the
entire nation testified. This is a sufficient condition to support the lawful claim of Ali, alone and no
one else, to the succession of the caliphate.

Allah said: 'And their prophet said to them, "Surely Allah has raised Talut to be a
king over you. " They said, "How can he hold kingship over us while we have a greater right to
kingship than him, and he has not been granted an abundance of wealth?" He said, "Surely Allah
has chosen him in preference to you, and He has increased him abundantly in knowledge and
physique, and Allah grants His kingdom to whom He pleases, and Allah is Ample giving,
knowing." [2:247]

And the Messenger of Allah said. "Ali is from me, and I am from Ali, and he is the master of every
believer after me." [Tirmidhi]

Zamakhshari said in some of his poetry:

Doubt and differences have increased. Every one claims that he is the right way. But I have
committed myself to: there is no other god but Allah. and my love to Ahmed (Muhammad) and Ali.
A dog won the love of the companions of the cave, how could I be ever distressed with the love of
the Prophet's Family.

Yes I found the alternative, praise be to Allah. and I became a follower of - after the Messenger of
Allah - The Commander of the Believers, master of all guardians, leader of the chosen elite, the
victorious lion of Allah Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib; and the two masters of Heaven's youth, and the
Prophet's two followers, Imam Hasan, and Imam Husayn; and the daughter of al-Mustafa (Muhammad), mother of the Imams. the essence of the Message, she, for whom Allah feels angry if she is angered. the most honourable lady Fatimah al-Zahra.

I have changed Imam Malik for the leader of all Imams, and teacher of the nation, Imam Jafar Sadiq.

I have committed myself to the nine infallible men from the posterity of Husayn, Imams of all
Muslims and the good friends of Allah. I have changed the Companions who turned back on their
heels, like Muawiah, Amr ibn al-As, Mughira ibn Shuba, Abu Hurayra, Ikrima, Kab al-Ahbar
and others, for the grateful Companions who never broke the promise they gave to the Prophet,
like Ammar ibn Yasir, Salman Farisi, Abu Dharr Ghifari, Miqdad ibn Aswad.
Khuzayma ibn Thabit - Dhu al-Shahadetain - and others, and praise be to Allah for this
enlightenment.

I have changed the religious leaders of my people, who discouraged us from thinking and whose
majority followed the rules and the sultans, throughout time. I changed them for the devoted
religious leaders of the Shia who never closed the opportunity for studying and interpreting Islam,
and who neither rose to oppose nor submitted to the oppressive rulers.

Yes, I changed dogmatic beliefs, full of contradictions for new enlightened and liberal ones based
on logical deductions and reasoning.

As they say now a days "I have washed my brain" of the dirt that had accumulated over thirty
years; lies of the Umayyads. I purified it with the ideology of the infallibles, those whom Allah
cleansed and purified. I have done that for the remainder of my life.

O Allah ... please let us live our lives following their footsteps, and let our nation follow their
tradition, and gather us with them, for Your Prophet said: Man is placed together with those
whom he loves.

Thus I have returned to my origin. For my father and uncles used to talk to us about our family
tree. and often told us that we were from al-Sada (plural of Sayyid: a descendant of the Prophet)
who escaped from Iraq under Abbasid pressure and found refuge in North Africa until they settled
in Tunisia where their marks remain up to the present day. There are many people like us in North
Africa who are descendants from the purified posterity, and are called "Sada", but they went
astray through the oppression of the Umayyads and the Ahbasids, and now they have nothing of
the truth except the people's respect for them. Priase be to Allah for his guidance ... and praise be
to Allah for my enlightment and for opening my eyes to see the truth.



# MY REASONS FOR ACCEPTING SHIA ISLAM


The reasons behind my conversion to Shiaism are many, but I shall only mention a few of them here:

# 1. Texts on Ali's succession to Prophet

I have committed myself, before embarking on this study, to never depending on any reference
unless it is considered authentic by the two parties, and to discarding those references that are
solely referred to by only one of the parties.

Thus, I shall investigate the idea regarding the preference between Abu Bakr and Ali ibn Abi Talib,
and that the succession of the caliphate was by written text [Dictate] for Ali, as the Shias claim,
and not by election and Shura [consultation] as the Sunnis claim.

Any researcher in this subject, if he considers nothing but the truth, will find that the text in support
of Ali is very clear, like the following saying by the Messenger of Allah: Whoever considers me his
master, then Ali is his master. He said it at the end of the Farewell Pilgrimage, when it was
confirmed that Ali would succeed, and many people congratulated him on that, including Abu Bakr
and Umar who were among the well-wishers, and who were quoted as having said to the Imam,
Well done, Ibn Abi Talib, overnight you have become a master of all the believers." [Ahmed]

This text has been agreed on by both Shias and Sunnis, and in fact I have only referred in this
study to some Sunni references. and not to all of them, for they are so many.

If the reader wants more information, he may read "al-Ghadir" by Amini (thirteen Volumes) in
which the writer classifies the sayings of the Prophet according to the Sunnis.

As for the alleged popular election of Abu Bakr on "The Day of Saqifah" and his subsequent
acclamation in the mosque; it seems that it was just an allegation without foundation. How could it
be by popular agreement when so many people were absent during the acclamation? People like:
Ali, Abbas, most of the house of Bani Hashim, Usama ibn Zayd, Zubayr, Salman Farisi,
Abu Dharr Ghifari, Miqdad ibn Aswad, Ammar ibn Yasir, Hudhayfa ibn Yaman,
Khuzayma ibn Thabit, Abu Burayd al-Aslami, Bura ibn Azib, Abu Kab, Sahl ibn Hanif, Saad
ibn Ubada, Qays ibn Saad, Abu Ayyub Ansari, Jabir ibn Saad, Khalid ibn Saad, and many
others.

So where was that alleged popular agreement? The absence of Ali alone from the acclamation is
sufficient to criticize that meeting because he was the only candidate for the caliphate, nominated
by the Messenger of Allah, on the assumption that there was no direct text regarding such a
nomination.

The acclamation of Abu Bakr was without consultation, in fact it took the people by surprise,
especially when the men in charge of the Muslim affairs were busy preparing for the funeral of the
Messenger of Allah. The citizens of Medinah were shocked by the death of their Prophet, and
then they forced the acclamation on the people. and even threatened to burn the house of
Fatima if those who were absent from the acclamation refused to leave it. So how could we say
that the acclamation was implemented through consultation and popular agreement?

Umar himself testified that that acclamation was a mistake - may Allah protect the
Muslims from its evil -, and that whoever repeated it should be killed, or he might have said that if
someone called for a similar action there would he no acclamation for him or for those who
acclaimed him. [Bukhari]

Imam Ali said about that acclamation: By Allah, Ibn Abi Quhafa has got it! And he knows that my
position [regarding the caliphate] is like that of the pole in relation to the millstone! The torrent
flows from me, and the bird will never reach me!

Saad ibn Ubada, a prominent man from Ansar, attacked Abu Bakr and Umar on the day of
"Saqifah", and tried hard to keep them away from the caliphate, but could not sustain his efforts,
for he was ill and unable to stand, and after Ansar paid homage to Abu Bakr, Saad said: "By
Allah I shall never pay homage to you until I cast my last arrow at you, and pierce you with my
lance, and attack you with my sword, with all the power in my hand, and fight you with all the
members of my family and clan. By Allah, even if all the Jinns [invisible beings] and the human
beings gathered to support you, I will never acclaim you, until I meet my God." He never prayed
with them, he never sat in their company, he never performed the pilgrimage with them, and if he
found a group of people willing to fight them, he would give them all his support, and if somebody
acclaimed him to fight them, he would have fought them. He remained thus until he died in Syria
during the caliphate of Umar.

If that was a mistake (may Allah protect the Muslims from its evil) as Umar put it (and he was one
of its architects, and knew what happened to the Muslims as a result of it), and if that succession to the caliphate was illegal (as Imam Ali described it when he said that he was the lawful nominee for it), and if that acclamation was unjust (as according to Saad ibn Ubada the leader of Ansar who
left Jamaah because of it), and if that acclamation was unlawful due to the absence of the leading
figures of the Companions, including Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet, so what is the evidence
and proof which supports the legality of the Abu Bakr's succession to the caliphate?

The answer, is that there is no evidence or proof with the Sunnis and Jamaah.

Therefore, what the Shias say regarding this issue is right, because it has been established that the
Sunnis have the text which proves the succession of Ali to the caliphate, but they deliberately
misinterpret it to maintain the Companion's honour. Thus, the just and fair person has no choice but
to accept the text, especially if he knows the circumstances that surrounded the case.

# 2. Fatima's anger with Abu Bakr

This subject is agreed upon by the two parties, and the fair and sensible person has no choice but
to judge Abu Bakr as being wrong, that is if he did not admit his injustice and bad treatment of the
leading lady.

Anyone who cares to follow the events of that tragedy and studies its various facts will recognize
that Abu Bakr deliberately hurt al-Zahra and denied her argument so that she could not protest
against him - supported by the texts of Ghadir and others - regarding the lawful right for her
husband and cousin to the succession of the caliphate. There are many indications that have been
mentioned by historians which lead us to believe in accounts of these events, this is one of them:

Al-Zahra - may Allah's peace be upon her - went around the meeting places of Ansar, asking
for support for her cousin and husband and they said, "O daughter of the Messenger of Allah, we
have already acclaimed that man, and if your husband and cousin had approached us before him,
we would have supported him." Ali - may Allah honour his face - said, "Would I leave the
Messenger of Allah in his house unburied and go to argue with people about his authority?"
Fatimah said, "Abu al-Hasan did what was expected from him, and for what they did Allah will
hold them responsible and accountable."

If Abu Bakr was wrong, either unintentionally or through good-will, Fatimah al-Zahra would have
persuaded him; but she was angry with him, because he refused to accept her argument and
rejected her testimony and the testimony of her husband. She became so angry, she even
prevented him in her will from being present at her funeral. When she died, her husband buried her
secretly during the night. [Bukhari,Muslim]

As for her secret burial during the night, it is worth mentioning here, that during my years of
research and investigation, I went to Medinah to check for myself certain points, then I
discovered the following:

Firstly, the grave of al-Zahra is unknown and nobody knows exactly where it is; some say it is in
the Prophet's chamber, others say it is in her house opposite the Prophet's chamber, and there are
people who think that it might be in Baqi cemetery, in the midst of Ahl al-Bayt's graves.

This is the first fact that I deduced: al-Zahra (on her be peace) wanted the Muslims, through generations to come, to know why she asked her husband to bury her secretly during the night, and that not one of them attend her funeral ! Thus, every Muslim could reach certain interesting facts when
researching into historical events.

Secondly, I discovered that the visitor who wants to visit Uthman ibn Affan's grave has to go a
long way until he reaches the end of Baqi, and there he finds it by a wall. By contrast, he will
find the burial places of most of the Companions at the beginning of Baqi, near the entry. Even
Malik ibn Anas, the famous jurist, who was a follower of the Followers, is buried near the burial
places of the Messenger's wives. It became clear to me what the historians meant when they said
that he was buried in "Hash Kawkab". which was Jewish land, because the Muslims refused to
bury him in the Baqi of the Messenger of Allah. When Muawiya seized power, he bought that land
from the Jews and included it in Baqi, so that it contains the grave of his cousin Uthman. He
who visits Baqi today will see this fact very clearly.

It is astonishing to know that Fatimah al-Zahra was the first of the Prophet's children to die
after him, and at the most there were six months between the departure of the father and his
daughter, and despite that, she was not buried beside her father.

Fatimah al-Zahra, as I mentioned earlier, stated in her will that she should be buried secretly,
therefore, she was not buried beside her father. But what about her son, Hasan, why was he not
buried beside his grandfather? Aisha (Umm al-Mumineen) prevented that. When Husayn
brought his brother to bury him by his grandfather, the Messenger of Allah, Aisha rode a mule and
went around saying, "Do not bury someone I do not love in my house." Then, the houses of Bani
Umayya and Hashim stood opposite each other ready to fight, but Husayn told her that he
would only take the coffin of his brother around the grave of their grandfather then he would bury
him in Baqi. That was because Imam Hasan requested from his brother, that no blood should
be shed for his sake. Ibn Abbas said a few verses regarding this event:

"She rode a camel, she rode a mule, if she had lived longer, she would have ridden an
elephant, you have the ninth of the eighth, and you took everything."

[References to Aisha mounting the camel during the Battle of the Camel; and,
her mounting the mule on the day when she prevented the burial of Hasan next to his grandfather.]

This is another interesting fact: How could Aisha inherit everything, when the Prophet had nine
wives? Ibn Abbas transmitted to us: If the Prophet was not to leave any inheritance, and Abu Bakr
bore witness to that and prevented al-Zahra from inheriting anything from her father, how then
could Aisha? Is there any text which states that the wife could inherit, but not the daughter? Or
was it perhaps politics that changed everything, so it denied the daughter everything, and gave the
wife everything?

It is worth mentioning here a story related to the subject of inheritance that has been cited by many
historians:

Ibn Abi al-Hadid al-Mutazili said in his commentary on Nahj al-Balagha: Aisha and Hafsa came to
see Uthman, during his caliphate, and asked him to give them their shares of what they had
inherited from the Messenger of Allah. Uthman was stretched on the sofa, so he sat up and
said to Aisha: You and that woman sitting next to you brought a man who cleansed himself with his
urine and testified that the Messenger of Allah said, "We, the prophets, do not leave an
inheritance." If the Prophet truly did not leave any inheritance, why do you ask for it now, and if he
left an inheritance, why did you deprive Fatimah of her legal share? After that, she left him feeling
very angry and said: Kill Nathal, for he has become an unbeliever.

# 3. ALI was more entitled to be the caliph

One of the reasons which led to my enlightenment and ultimately made me leave the tradition
[Sunna] of my forefathers was the comparison between the positions of Ali ibn Abi Talib and that
of Abu Bakr, based on logical deductions and historical references.

As I stated in earlier parts of this book, I only included in my research the references which have
been agreed on by both, the Shias and the Sunnis.

I searched in the books of both parties and found that only Ali received total support, and both
Shias and Sunnis agreed on his leadership in accordance with the texts they approved of.
However there is neither support nor agreement on the leadership of Abu Bakr except by a small
group of Muslims, and we have mentioned what Umar said about his succession to the caliphate.
Furthermore. there are many virtues and good deeds attributed to Ali ibn Abi Talib by the Shias
and cited as authentic references in the Sunni books. The sayings are full of the virtues of Ali, more
than any other Companion ever received, and even Ahmed ibn Hanbal said: No one among the
Companions of the Messenger of Allah had more virtues than Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Qadi Ismail, Nasai and Abu Ali al-Naisaburi said: No Companion had as many virtues
attributed to him as Ali.

We notice that the Umayyads tried hard to force people to curse him and insult him and not to
mention any of his virtues, and even they prevented anybody from being named after him, but
despite all that hatred, his virtues and good deeds continued to spread.

Regarding that Imam Shafi says: I am surprised about a man whose virtues were kept secret by
his enemies, out of envy, and were kept secret by his followers, out of fear, but nevertheless, an
enormous amount of them spread."

As for Abu Bakr, I searched in the books of the two parties, and found that the virtues attributed
to him by the Sunnis were much less than that attributed to Ali. The virtues of Abu Bakr that have
been mentioned in historical books were narrated either by his daughter Aisha, whose position
vis-a-vis Ali is well documented, and she tried hard to support her father, even by fabricating
sayings, or by Abdullah ibn Umar, who was never close to Ali, and he was one of those who
refused to pay homage to Ali despite the popular support he had received. Abdullah ibn Umar
used to say that the best people after the Prophet were Abu Bakr then Uthman, and after that
everybody was equal. Thus, he made Imam Ali like any other ordinary person, without
preferences or virtues.

What was Abdullah ibn Umar's attitude towards the facts that had been mentioned by the leading
personalities of the nation that "No companion had as many virtues attributed to him as Ali". Had
Abdullah ibn Umar not heard about even one of Ali's virtues? Yes, by Allah, he had heard and
understood, but political intrigues tend to distort the facts.

The virtues of Abu Bakr were also mentioned by Amr ibn al-As, Abu Hurayrah, Urwa and
Ikrima, and all of them hated Ali and fought him either with arms or by plotting against him and
attributing virtues to his enemies.

Ahmed ibn Hanbal said, "Ali had many enemies who searched hard to find a fault attributable to
him, but they could not, so they brought a man whom Ali had-fought and battled with, and praised
him because of their hatred towards Ali." [79]. But Allah said: "Surely they will make a scheme,
and I too will make a scheme so give the unbelievers a respite: let them alone for a while." [86:15-17]

It is a miracle from Allah - praise be to Him - that the virtues of Imam Ali spread after six centuries
of oppression and injustice against him and Ahl al-Bayt, and the Abbasids were not less evil than
their predecessor the Umayyads in their treatment of Ahl al-Bayt. The poet Abu Firas al-Hamdani
wrote the following verses:

What Banu Harb have done to them is nothing in comparison to what you did to them,

How many times have you clearly violated the Religion?

And how much of the Prophet's [family's] blood Has been spilt by you?

You pretend to be his followers, but on your hands Is the blood of his purified sons.

After having finished with all these sayings, and having came out from the darkness, I leave the last
judgement to Allah, and there will be no more excuses from the people after all that.

Despite the fact that Abu Bakr was the first caliph, and had all the power and authority, despite the
bribes and gifts that the Umayyads gave to every one who praised Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman,
and despite all the alleged virtues and good deeds that they invented for Abu Bakr, which filled
many books ... despite all that, they did not amount to a fraction of the true virtues of Imam Ali.

Furthermore, if we analyze the alleged sayings that were in favour of Abu Bakr, we find them
incompatible with the historical facts, and no sensible man or creed could accept them. Earlier on
we explained the saying attributed to the Prophet: "If the faith of Abu Bakr and the faith of my
nation is put on the balance, the faith of Abu Bakr will be heavier".

If the Messenger of Allah was aware of this high degree of faith in Abu Bakr, he would not have
appointed Usama to command the army; nor would he have refused to bear witness for him as he
did for the martyrs of Uhud, and then said to him that he did not know what he was going to do
after him", so that Abu Bakr cried. In addition to that, the Prophet would not have sent Ali ibn
Abi Talib to take "Surat Baraa" from him and prevented him from transmitting it.

Nor would the Prophet have said in Khayber while presenting the flag: "Tomorrow I will give my
flag to a man who loves Allah and His Messenger, ever going forward and never retreating, Allah
had tested his heart with the faith" then he gave it to Ali and no one else. [Sahih Muslim]

If Allah knew that Abu Bakr had such a high degree of faith, and that his faith exceeded the faith of
all Muslims, Allah - praise be upon Him - would not have had to threaten him that He would spoil
his work when he raised his voice above the Prophet's voice. [Bukhari]

If Ali and the Companions who followed him knew that Abu Bakr had this high degree of faith,
they would not have hesitated to pay homage to him. If Fatimah al-Zahra, the leading lady, knew
that Abu Bakr had this high degree of faith, she would not have been angry with him, nor would
she have refused to talk to him or return his greetings, or cursed him in her prayers, and even
banned him - according to her will - from attending her funeral.

He who had such a degree of faith, and whose faith was greater than the faith of all Muslims.
would not have regretted, in the last moments of his life, his attitude towards Fatimah, and his
burning of al-Fujaah al-Salami and his succession to the caliphate [85]. Also, he would not have
wished not to be a human being but to be a hair or animal droppings. Is this man's faith equal to, or
even greater than the faith of the entire Islamic nation?

Let us consider the saying: If I was taking a close companion, I would have chosen Abu Bakr.
This saying is like the previous one. Where was Abu Bakr on the day of the small Brotherhood" in
Mecca before the Hijra, and on the day of the great Brotherhood" in Medinah after the Hijra;
when in both of them the Messenger of Allah chose Ali as his brother then said to him, You
are my brother in this life and in the Hereafter" [86] and did not turn to Abu Bakr, thus depriving
him of the brotherhood in the Hereafter and from the close companionship. I do not wish to go on
about this subject, and it is sufficient to bring the above mentioned examples which I have found in
the Sunni books. As for the Shias, they do not recognize these sayings at all, and they have their
own clear proof that they were invented some time after the death of Abu Bakr.

If we leave the virtues aside and concentrate on the sins, we will never find a single sin committed
by Ali that has been mentioned in historical books (both Shia and Sunni), whereas we find that
many other people have committed sins and were mentioned in the Sunni books such as al-Sihah,
the various books Sirah and annals.

Thus, we find total agreement from both parties regarding Ali alone, also historical facts point out
that the correct acclamation was for Ali alone.

He abstained, but the Muhajireen and Ansar insisted on his acclamation; then when he was finally
nominated, some people refused to pay homage to him, but he never forced them to change their
minds.

On the other hand we find that the acclamation of Abu Bakr was a "mistake" - as Umar put it -
"may Allah protect the Muslims from its evil." The acclamation of Umar was
based on a promise given to him by Abu Bakr. The acclamation of Uthman was a historical
comedy: Umar nominated six people for the caliphate and told them to choose one candidate, and
said if four agreed and two disagreed, then the two should be killed, however, if the six were
divided into two equal camps, then the camp which was supported by Abdul Rahman ibn Awf
should be considered. but if after a certain time passed and no agreement had been reached, the
whole six should be killed. The story is long and rather strange, but the important thing is that
Abdul Rahman ibn Awf chose Ali on the condition that he should rule in accordance with the Book
of Allah [the Quran] and the tradition of His Messenger and the tradition of the two Shaykhs: Abu
Bakr and Umar. Ali refused these conditions but Uthman accepted them, so he became caliph. Ali
came out from the conference of the acclamation and knew in advance the result, and talked about
it in his famous speech known as al-Shaqshaqiyya.

After Ali, Muawiya took over the caliphate and changed it to a hereditary system within Bani
Umayya, and after them came Bani Abbas where the caliphs succeeded one after the other
either by personal nomination [from the previous caliph] or by means of force and seizure of
power. From the beginning of the Islamic era until Kamal Ataturk - who abolished the Islamic
caliphate - there has been no correct acclamation except that for the Commander of the
Believers Ali ibn Abi Talib.

# 4. Hadith say Ali must be followed

The prophetic traditions which persuaded me to follow Imam Ali were those I have read in the
Sihahs (authentic books) of the Sunnis and were approved by the Shias, and they have many more. But as usual, I only referred to the prophetic traditions that have been agreed on by both parties, and here are some of them:

# A: Hadith: "I am the city of Knowledge and Ali is its gate."

This tradition alone should be sufficient to indicate the example that has to he followed after
the Messenger of Allah because the educated man ought to be followed.


Allah said: "Say: Are those who know and those who do not know alike?" [39:9]. He also said: "Is He then Who guides to the truth more worthy to be followed, or he who himself does not go aright unless he is guided? What then is the matter with you; how do you judge?" [10:35]

History has recorded many facts telling us that Ali was the most knowledgeable man among all the
Companions and they used to consult him on every important matter, and we do not know of any
event in which he declined to give his advice.

Abu Bakr said, "May Allah never put me in a predicament that Abu al-Hasan cannot solve. " And
Umar said, "If it was not for Ali, Umar would have perished."

And Ibn Abbas said, "My knowledge and the knowledge of the Companions of Muhammad is but a drop in seven seas if compared with Ali's knowledge."

And this is what Imam Ali said about himself, "Ask me before you lose me. By Allah, if you ask
me about anything that could happen up to the Day of Judgement, I will tell you about it. Ask me
about the Book of Allah, because by Allah there is no [Quranic] verse that I do not know whether
it was revealed during the night or the day, or whether it was revealed on a plain or on a
mountain."

Abu Bakr was once asked about the meaning of the word "Abb" [herbage] in the words of Allah:
"And fruits and herbage, A provision for you and for your cattle." [80:31-32]

Abu Bakr replied, "Which sky would give me shade, and which land would carry me if I say
something I do not know about the Book of Allah." And this is Umar saying. "All people are more
knowledgeable than I am, even women." He was once asked about the meaning of a Quranic
verse, and his reaction was to rebuke the man and beat him until he bled, then he said, "Do not ask
about matters which may appear bad to you."

Also he was asked about "al-Kalalah" but he did not know what it meant.

In his "commentary", Tabari stated that Umar once said the following, "My knowledge of
al-Kalalah is more valuable to me than owning a palace similar to those in Syria."

In one of his books, Ibn Maja quoted Umar as saying "There are three things, if they were
explained by the Messenger of Allah, I would have loved them more dearly than anything in the
world: Al-Kalalah, usury and the caliphate." God forbid that the Messenger of Allah stayed silent
on these subjects!

# B: Hadith: "O Ali! You hold in relation to me the same position as Haroon held in relation to Moses, except that there shall be no prophet after me."

This tradition, as should be apparent to every sensible person, shows the special quality of the
Commander of the Believers, Ali, which made him the right person to be the supporter, the
guardian and the deputy [or successor] of the Messenger of Allah as Haroon was the supporter,
guardian and deputy of Moses when he went to meet his God. There is also the position of Ali
vis-a-vis the Prophet which is absolutely equal to the relation between Haroon and Moses, except
for the prophethood, which was excluded in the same tradition.

Furthermore, we find in the tradition the fact that Imam Ali was the best Companion, who only
came second after the Messenger of Allah.

# C:
Hadith: "Ali is the master of all those of whom I am master. O Allah! Love him who loves him and hate him who hates him, help him who helps him, forsake him who forsakes him, and turn justice with him wherever he turns."

This tradition alone is sufficient to reply to the allegations concerning the seniority of Abu Bakr,
Umar and Uthman to Ali, who was appointed by the Messenger of Allah as the guardian after him
of all the faithful. It is of no consequence for whoever tried to interpret the saying as the friend or
the support in order to divert it from its original meaning so that the integrity of the Companions
may be kept intact. The Messenger of Allah stood up in the terrible heat addressing the people,
saying, "Do you witness that I have a prior right to and superior authority over all the faithful?"
They replied, "Yes, O Messenger of Allah. " Thereupon he said, "Ali is the master of all those
whom I am a master. . . etc." This is a clear text indicating that the Messenger of Allah had
appointed Ali as his successor to lead the nation [of Islam], and the fair and sensible person could
not but accept this interpretation and refuse that of the others, thus preserving the integrity of the
Messenger of Allah before preserving the integrity of the Companions. Those who give an
alternative interpretation to the saying are in fact ridiculing the wisdom of the Messenger of Allah,
who gathered the multitude of people, in that unbearable heat, to tell them that Ali was the friend
and supporter of the faithful. And what do those, who misinterpret the text in order to preserve the
integrity of their masters, say about the procession of congratulation that the Messenger of Allah
organised for Ali? It started with the wives of the Messenger, the mothers of the faithful, then Abu
Bakr and Umar came and said to him, "Well done Ibn Abi Talib, Overnight you became the
guardian [master] of all the faithful."

In fact all the historical evidence gives clear indications that those who misinterpret the above
tradition are liars. Woe to those who wrote what they wrote, and woe to them for what they are
writing. Allah said. "...a party of them most surely conceal the truth while they
know it." [2:146]

# D: Hadith: "Ali is from me and I am from Ali and no one can discharge my duty except myself or Ali."

This honourable tradition is another clear indication that Imam Ali was only one whom the
Messenger authorized to discharge his duties. The Messenger said it on the day of the great
pilgrimage when he sent Ali with Surat Baraa instead of Abu Bakr, who came crying and asked,
"O Messenger of Allah ! Reveal something for me." The Messenger answered, "My Lord ordered
me that nobody can discharge my duty except myself or Ali." [Ibn Majah,Tirmidhi]

There is another supporting tradition that the Messenger of Allah, said on another occasion in
honour of Ali, "O Ali! You will show them the right path when there will be dissension among them
after me." If nobody could discharge the Messenger of Allah's duty except Ali, and if he was
the one who would show them the right path after dissension appeared among them after him; then
how could a person who did not know the meaning of "al-Abb" and "Kalalah" be more senior to
Ali? This is sadly one of the tragedies that have been inflicted on our nation and prevented it from
doing the duties that Allah has chosen for it. We could not blame Allah or the Messenger of Allah
or the Commander of the Believers Ali ibn Abi Talib for that, but the blame falls squarely on those
who rebelled and changed, and Allah said: "And when it is said to them, "Come
to what Allah has revealed and to the Messenger. They say, "That on which we found our fathers
is sufficient for us. " What! Even though their fathers knew nothing and did not follow the right
way." [5:104]


# E: Hadith of Invitation to his family

The Prophet of Allah said, indicating Ali. This is my brother, my trustee and my deputy
[caliph] after me, so listen to him and obey him."

This is yet another correct tradition cited by many historians at the beginning of the prophetic
mission, and considered as one of the Prophet's miracles. However, political intrigues distorted the
facts. Then there is no wonder that the oppression which took place then is coming back again in
our lifetime. For example, Muhammad Husayn Haykal reproduced the saying in its entirety in his
book "The Life of Muhammad", (Page 104, First Edition 1334 Hijri). From the Second Edition
onward, the part of the tradition where the Prophet says, "He is my trustee, my deputy [caliph]
after me" has been removed.

Also, in Tabari's commentary [Tafsir], Volume 19. Page 121, when the Prophet says "My
trustee and my deputy [caliph]" was changed to "This is my brother etc. etc", but they failed to
recognize that Tabari had cited the tradition in its entirety in his Annals Volume 2, Page 319.
Look how they change the words and distort the facts ... they want to put out the light of Allah
with their mouths, but Allah is spreading His light.

During my investigation I wanted to see the truth, so I searched for the first edition of "The Life of
Muhammad". and after some hard work - praise be to Allah - found it, although it cost me
considerably. The important thing is that I looked at the distortion and became convinced that the
evil people are trying the best they can do to remove the facts. because there is strong evidence in
the hands of their "enemies".

When the fair investigator comes across such a blatant distortion, he will no doubt begin to keep
away from them and become convinced that they have no evidence except lies and distorted facts.
They hire writers to whom they give money, titles and false university degrees in order to write for
them books and articles through which they insult the Shias and accuse them of blasphemy, while
at the same time they defend the position, even if it is unjust, of some of the Companions who
turned on their heels and exchanged right for wrong after the departure of the Messenger of Allah.

Allah says: "Even thus said those before them, the like of what they say; their hearts are all alike.
Indeed We have made the verses clear for a people who are sure." [2:118]

# G: Authentic Hadith indicating it is compulsary to follow his Ahl Al Bayt


# 1. Hadith of two great legacies

The messenger of Allah said,

O People, I leave amongst you two things which if you follow, you will never go astray. They are
the Book of Allah and my Ahl al-Bayt [family].

He also said: The messenger of my God is about to come to me and I shall answer. I am leaving
with you the two weighty things: The first is the Book of Allah, in which you find guidance and
enlightenment, and the people of my household. I remind you, by Allah, of the people of my
household... I remind you by Allah of the people of my household." [Tirmidhi,Muslim,Ahmed]

If we examine with some care this honourable tradition, which has been cited by the Sihahs of the
Sunnis and Jamaah, we will find that the Shias alone followed the two weighty things: "The
Book of Allah and honourable members of the Prophet's Household". On the other hand, the
Sunnis and Jamaah followed the saying of Umar "The Book of Allah is sufficient for us", but I
wish they had followed the Book of Allah without interpreting it in their own ways. If Umar himself
did not understand the meaning of al-Kalalah and did not know the Quranic verse regarding the
Tayammum and other rules, so how about those who came later and followed him without the
ability to interpret the Quranic texts?

Naturally they will answer me with their own quoted saying, and that is: "I have left with you the
Book of Allah and my tradition [Sunnah]."

[This hadith [with broken chain of narrators] is cited by Nisai, Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah and Abu Dawood]

This tradition, if it were correct - and it is correct in its general meaning - would correspond to the
tradition of the two weighty things, because when the Prophet talked about his Household
(Ahl al-Bayt) he meant that they should be consulted for two reasons. Firstly, to teach the
tradition [Sunnah], or to transmit to people the correct tradition because they are cleared from
telling any lies, and because Allah - praise be to Him - made them infallible in the purification verse.
Secondly, to explain and interpret the meanings and aims of the tradition, because the Book of
Allah is not enough for guidance. There are many parties who claim to follow the Quran but in
actual fact they have gone astray, and the Messenger of Allah said, "How many are the readers of
the Quran whom the Quran curses!. The Book of Allah is silent and could be interpreted in
various ways, and it contains what is vague and what is similar, and to understand it we have to
refer to those who are well endowed with knowledge as regards the Quran, and to Ahl al-Bayt,
as regards to the Prophet's traditions.

The Shias referred everything to the infallible Imams of Ahl al-Bayt [the Prophet's Household],
and they did not interpret anything unless it had a supporting text.

We refer in every case to the Companions, whether it concerns Quranic commentary or the
confirmation of the Sunnah and its explanation, and we know about the Companions and their
interpretations and their personal opinions vis-a-vis the clear texts, and there are hundreds of them,
so we cannot rely upon them after what they have done.

If we ask our religious leaders, "Which Sunnah do you follow?" They answer categorically, "The
Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah!"

But the historical facts are incompatible with that, for they claim that the Messenger of Allah said,
"Take my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs after me. Hold firmly to it." But
the Sunnah they follow is often the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and even the
Messenger's Sunnah which they claim to follow is in fact transmitted by those people.

However, we read in our Sihahs that the Messenger of Allah prevented them from writing his
Sunnah so that it was not confused with the Quran. Abu Bakr and Umar did the same thing during
their caliphate, we therefore have no proof for the saying, "I left you my Sunnah"

[Note: The hadith where words of the Messenger are "Kitab Allah wa Itraty" [ Book of God and my Progeny], is reported with a sound chain of authorities, while the hadith in which the Arabic term "Sunnaty" [my Sunnah] does NOT appear in all the six sihahs. It appears in Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas, without a full link in narration going back to the Prophet, and so some of the subsequent writers, such as Tabari and Ibn Hisham also referred to this broken saying from Muawatta of Malik.]

The examples that I have cited in this study - besides many that I have not mentioned - are enough
to refute this saying, because there are elements in the Sunnah of Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman
which contradict and negate the Prophet's Sunnah, as is so apparent.

The first incident that took place immediately after the death of the Messenger of Allah, which the
Sunnis as well as the historians recorded, was the argument between Fatimah al-Zahra and Abu
Bakr regarding the alleged saying, "We, the prophets, do not leave an inheritance, all that we leave
behind should go to charity."

Fatimah denied and refuted this saying, with the support of the Book of Allah, and protested
against Abu Bakr's allegation and said that her father, the Messenger of Allah, could not contradict
the Book of Allah which was revealed to him, for Allah said: "Allah enjoins you concerning your children. The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females ... " (4:11)

This Quranic verse is general and is applicable to prophets and non-prophets alike.

She also protested with the following words of Allah: "And Sulaiman was Dawood's heir"
(27:16), and both of them were prophets.

Allah - Glory be to Him - also said: "... Grant me from Thyself an heir, who should inherit from me
and inherit from the children of Yaqub, and make him, my Lord, one with whom You are well
pleased." (19:5-6)

The second incident that involved Abu Bakr during the early days of his caliphate, which the Sunni
historians recorded, was his disagreement with the nearest of all people to him, Umar. The incident evolves around Abu Bakr's decision to fight those who refused to pay
Zakat [alms] and kill them, but Umar protested and advised him not to fight them because he had
heard the Messenger of Allah saying: I have been ordered to fight the people until they say, "There
is no other god but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." And he who says it can
keep his wealth to himself and I have no right to his [blood], and he is accountable to Allah.

This is a text cited by Muslim in his Sahih: "The Messenger of Allah gave the flag to Ali on
the Day of Khayber, and Ali said, "O Messenger of Allah, what am I fighting them for?" The
Messenger of Allah replied, "Fight them until they testify that there is no other god but Allah and
that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and if they do that then they will prevent you from
killing them and taking their wealth, except by justice, and they will be accountable to Allah."

But Abu Bakr was not satisfied with this tradition and said, "By Allah, I will fight those who
differentiate between the prayers and Zakat because Zakat is justly charged on wealth." And also
said, "By Allah if they refuse me a rope which they used to give to the Messenger of Allah. I will
fight them for it." After that Umar was satisfied and said, "As soon as I saw Abu
Bakr determined I felt very pleased. "

I do not know how Allah could please somebody who is preventing the tradition of the Prophet.
This interpretation was used to justify their fight against Muslims although Allah had prohibited
making war against them, and Allah said in His Glorious Book:

O You who believe! When you go to war in Allah's way, make investigation, and do not say to
any one who offers you peace, "You are not a believer." Do you seek the goods of this world's
life? But with Allah there are abundant gains, you too were such before, then Allah conferred a
benefit on you; therefore make investigation surely Allah is aware of what you do." (4:94)

Those who refused to give Abu Bakr their Zakat did not deny its necessity, but they only delayed
it to investigate the matter. The Shias say that these people were surprised by the succession of
Abu Bakr, and some of them had been present with the Messenger of Allah at the Farewell
Pilgrimage and had heard the text in which he mentioned Ali ibn Abi Talib. Therefore they decided
to wait for a while until they obtained a clarification as to what had happened, but Abu Bakr
wanted to silence them lest they spoke the truth. Because I do not reason with nor protest against
what the Shias say, I will leave this issue to somebody who is interested in it.

However, I should not forget to note here that the Messenger of Allah had an encounter
with Thaalabah who asked him repeatedly to pray for him to be rich and he promised Allah to
give alms. The Messenger of Allah prayed for him and Thaalabah became so rich that his sheep
and camels filled Medinah, and he started to neglect his duties and stopped attending the Friday
Prayers. When the Messenger of Allah sent some officials to collect the Zakat, he refused to give
them anything saying that it was a Jiziah [head tax on free non-Muslims under Muslim rule] or
similar to it, but the Messenger of Allah did not fight him nor did he order his killing, and Allah
revealed the following verse about him:

"And there are those of them who made a covenant with Allah. If He gives us out of His Grace,
we will certainly give alms and we will certainly be of the good. But when He gave them out of His
Grace, they became niggardly of it and they turned back and they withdrew." (9:75-76)

After the revelation of the above Quranic verse. Thaalabah came to the Messenger of Allah crying
and asked him to accept his Zakat, but the Messenger of Allah refused to accept it, according to
the story.

If Abu Bakr and Umar were following the tradition of the Messenger why did they allow the killing
of all these innocent Muslims just because they refused to pay the Zakat?

As for those apologists who were trying to correct Abu Bakr's mistake when he interpreted the
Zakat as a just tax on wealth, there is no excuse for them nor for Abu Bakr after considering the
story of Thaalabah who with held the Zakat and thought of it as "Jiziah". Who knows, perhaps
Abu Bakr persuaded his friend Umar to kill those who refused to pay the Zakat because otherwise
their call would have spread throughout the Islamic world to revive Ghadir's text in which Ali
was confirmed as successor [to the Messenger of Allah]. Thus Umar wanted to
fight them, and it was he who threatened to kill and burn those who remained in Fatimah's house in
order to extract the acclamation from them for his friend.

The third incident which took place during the early days of Abu Bakr's caliphate in which he
found himself in disagreement with Umar, and for which certain Quranic and Prophetic texts were
interpreted, was that of Khalid ibn Walid who killed Malik ibn Nuwayrah and took his wife and
married her on the same day. Umar said to Khalid, O enemy of Allah, you killed a Muslim man,
then you took his wife ... by Allah, I will stone you."

But Abu Bakr defended Khalid, and said, "O Umar, forgive him, he made a mistake, but do not
rebuke him."

This is another scandal that history has recorded for a prominent Companion, and when we talk
about him, we talk with respect and reverence, we even gave him the title 'The ever drawn sword
of Allah." What can I say about a Companion who did all that? Who killed Malik ibn Nuwayrah,
the honourable Companion, leader of Bani Tamin and Bani Yarbu, famous for his courage and
generosity, and furthermore the historians tell us that Khalid killed Malik and his followers after
they put down their arms and stood together to pray. They were tied by ropes and with them was
Leyla bint al-Minhal, wife of Malik, who was considered to be one of the most beautiful Arab
ladies of her time, and Khalid was captured by her beauty. Malik said, "O Khalid, send us to Abu
Bakr and he will be our judge."And Abdullah ibn Umar together with Abu Qutadah al-Ansari
intervened and urged Khalid to send them to Abu Bakr, but he refused and said, "Allah will never
forgive me if I do not kill him."

Malik then turned to his wife Leyla and said, "This is the one who will kill me." After that Khalid
ordered his execution and took his wife Leyla and married her that very night.

What can I say about those Companions who trespassed on what Allah deemed to be forbidden;
they killed Muslims because of personal whims and permitted themselves to have women that
Allah had forbidden us to have. In Islam, a widow cannot be wed by another man before a definite
period of time had elapsed, and this period of time has been specified by Allah in His Glorious
Book. But Khalid followed his whims and debased himself, for what would this period of time
[Iddah] mean to him after he had already killed her husband and his followers despite the fact that
they were Muslims. Abdullah ibn Umar and Abu Qutadah have testified to this, and the latter
became so angry about Khalid's behaviour that he returned to Medinah and swore that he
would never serve in an army led by Khalid ibn Walid.

As we are talking about this famous incident, it is worth looking at what Haykal said in his book
"al-Siddiq Abu Bakr" in a chapter entitled "The opinion of Umar and his reasoning on the subject
matter": Umar, who was an ideal example of firm justice, saw that Khalid had dealt unjustly with
another Muslim man and took his widow before the end of her [Iddah], therefore he should not
stay in command of the army. So that no such incident would be repeated again and spoil the
affairs of the Muslims and give them a bad name amongst the Arabs, he said, "It is not right to
leave him unpunished after his affair with Leyla."

Let us suppose that it was right that he passed a judgement on Malik but got it wrong, which was
something Umar would not permit, what he had done with his widow alone would have meant that
he had to be brought to justice. Furthermore, being the "sword of Allah" and the commander of the
victorious army, did not give him the right to do what he had done, otherwise people like Khalid
would abuse the law. Worse still, they would be bad examples for all Muslims on how to respect
the Book of Allah. Thus Umar kept the pressure on Abu Bakr until he recalled Khalid and
rebuked him."

May we ask Mr. Haykel and his like from our scholars, who would compromise in order to
preserve the honour of the Companions: Why did Abu Bakr not bring Khalid to justice? And if
Umar was an ideal example of firm justice, as Haykel puts it, why did he only remove him from the
command of the army, and not bring him to justice so that he would not be a bad example for all
Muslims of how to respect the Book of Allah, as he said. And did they respect the Book of Allah
and discharge the laws of Allah? Nay! It was politics! It does wonders, it changes the truth and
throws the Quranic texts over the wall.

Some of our scholars tell us in their books that the Messenger of Allah once became very
angry when Usamah tried to mediate on behalf of an honourable woman accused of stealing, and
the Messenger said, "Woe unto you! Do you mediate about one of the laws of Allah? By Allah if it
was Fatimah the daughter of Muhammad, I would cut her hand. He destroyed those before you
because they would let the thief go if he was an honourable person, but would bring him to justice
if he was a weak one." How could they be silent about the killing of the innocent Muslims, and the
marriage of their widows on the same night despite the tragic loss of their husbands? I wish they
had remained silent ! But they try to justify Khalid's misdeed by inventing various virtues for him,
they even called him "The ever drawn sword of Allah" I remember being surprised by a friend of
mine, who used to like joking and changing the meaning of the words, when I mentioned the
virtues of Khalid ibn Walid during my days of ignorance and called him "The ever drawn sword
of Allah". He replied, "He is the crippled sword of the devil!"

I was surprised then, but after my research, Allah has opened my eyes and helped me to know the
true value of those who seized the caliphate, changed the laws of Allah and violated the boundaries
of Allah.

There is a famous story about Khalid which happened during the lifetime of the Prophet who sent
him on a mission to Bani Judhaymah to call them to Islam, but did not order him to fight them. But
they did not declare their Islam very well, instead they said, "We are turning to... we are turning [to
Islam]". As a result Khalid started to kill them and took prisoners from them, and pushed them
towards his friends whom he ordered to kill those prisoners. But some of his friends refused to do
what they were told because they realized that these people had been truly converted to Islam, and
they went back and told the Prophet what had happened. He said. "O Allah I am innocent of
Khalid's deed." He said it twice, then sent Ali ibn Abi Talib to Bani Judhaymah with money
to pay compensation for their dead and for the loss of their wealth, even down to a dog. The
Messenger of allah stood up and faced the Qiblah [the direction of Kaba] and raised his hands
to the sky then said, 'O Allah, I am innocent of Khalid's deed three times".

May we ask where the alleged fairness of the Companions, which these people claim to have had
is ? If Khalid ibn Walid who is considered to be one of our greatest military leaders was the
sword of Allah, does that mean that Allah drew his sword to kill the innocent Muslims and to
violate the integrity of people? There is a clear contradiction here, because Allah forbids the killing
of human beings and prohibits the committing of vile deeds, but Khalid seems to have drawn the
sword of injustice to kill innocent Muslims and to confiscate their wealth and to take their women.

There is a blatant lie and a clear deception. Praise and thanks he upon You, our God ... Blessed
be You the Most High ... Praise be upon You, You did not create the skies and the earth and
what is in between them unjustly. These are the doubts of those who blaspheme. Woe to those
who committed blasphemy, for Hell is awaiting them. How did Abu Bakr, who was the caliph of
the Muslims, allow himself to listen to all these crimes and be silent about them? Moreover he
asked Umar to stop attacking Khalid and was very angry at Abu Qutadah because he protested
strongly about Khalid's action. Was he convinced that Khalid had passed a judgement but got it
wrong? What excuse could be given to those corrupt criminals who violated human integrity and
claimed to have passed judgement. I do not think that Abu Bakr was trying to pass judgement on
Khalid who Umar called "The enemy of Allah". Umar thought that Khalid should be
killed because he had killed an innocent Muslim, or be subjected to a hell of stones because he
had committed adultery with Leyla, the widow of Malik. But nothing like that happened to Khalid,
rather he defeated Umar because he had the full support of Abu Bakr who knew the whole truth
about Khalid more than anybody else. Historians have recorded that after this terrible misdeed,
Abu Bakr sent Khalid on a mission to Yamamah, from which he came out victorious and
subsequently married a girl from there in the same way as he had Leyla, before the blood of those
innocent Muslims and the blood of the followers of Musaylama had dried. Later, Abu Bakr
rebuked him about what he had done and used stronger words than those he used during the affair
of Leyla. Undoubtedly, this girl's husband was killed by Khalid who took her for himself, in
the same way as he had Leyla, the widow of Malik. It must have been so, otherwise Abu Bakr
would not have rebuked him using stronger words than the previous event. The historians mention
the text of the letter which Abu Bakr sent to Khalid ibn Walid in which he said, "O Ibn Umm
Khalid. Upon my life you are doing nothing but marrying women, and in the yard of your house
there is the blood of one thousand two hundred Muslims yet to dry!". When Khalid read the
letter, he commented, "This must be the work of al-Asar" meaning Umar ibn Khattab.

These are the strong facts that made me shun these types of Companions, and their followers who
support them and defend them eagerly and invent various texts and stories to justify the deeds of
Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Khalid ibn Walid, Muawiyah, Amr ibn al-As and their brethren. O
Allah! I am innocent of the deeds and the sayings of those people who opposed Your rules,
violated Your prohibitions and trespassed on Your territories. I am innocent of their followers and
their supporters despite their full knowledge of the latter's misdeeds. Forgive me for my previous
support for them because I was ignorant and Your Messenger said, "He who does not know [the
ignorant] cannot be excused for his ignorance."

O Allah! Our leaders have led us astray and veiled the truth from us and presented us with
distorted pictures of those renegade Companions and led us to believe that they were the best
people after Your Messenger. There is no doubt that our forefathers were victims of the deception
and the intrigues of the Umayyads and later the Abbasids.

O Allah! Forgive them and forgive us hecause You know what is in our inner souls. They loved
and respected those Companions out of goodwill assuming that they were supporters of Your
Messenger, may Your blessings and peace be upon him and upon those who love him. You know,
my Lord their and our love for the purified family, the Imams whom You cleansed and purified.
and at their head. the master of all Muslims. the Commander of the Believers, chief of the singularly
radiant, Imam of all those who fear Allah. our lord Ali ibn Abi Talib.

O Allah ! Let me be one of their followers who have committed themselves to their cause amd
followed their path. Let me be on their ship and help me to hold on to their strong link. Let me
enter their doors and assist me in dedication to their love, help me to follow their words and their
deeds, and let me be grateful to their virtues. O Allah! Let me be with them, for Your Prophet said, "Man is assembled together [on the day of Judgement] with those whom he loves."

# 2. Hadith of safina, Noah's ship.

The Messenger of Allah said,

Behold! My Ahl al-Bayt are like the Ark of Noah, whoever embarked in it was saved, and
whoever turned away from it was drowned.

He also said,

My Ahl al-Bayt are like the Gate of Repentance of the children of Israel; whoever entered therein
was forgiven.

Ibn Hajar cited the above tradition in his book "Al-Sawaiq al-Mahriqa" and gave the following
commentary: The idea behind comparing them with the Ark [ship] is to say that whoever loves
them and reveres them as a sign of his gratitude for their graces, and whoever is guided by their
learned people, will be saved from the darkness of contradictions. On the other hand whoever
decides to stay behind, will sink in the sea of ingratitude and will be destroyed in the wilderness of
tyranny. The reason for comparing Ahl al-Bayt with the Gate of Repentance is that Allah
made the Gate of Repentance [the Gate of Jericho or Jerusalem] a sign of His
forgiveness. Similarly, Ahl al-Bayt are the means of Repentance for this nation.

I wish I could ask Ibn Hajar if he was one of those who went on board the ship and entered the
door and was guided by the religious leaders [Ulama], or was he one of those who order what
they do not do in practice. and contradict their belief. There are many of those unfair people when
I ask them or argue with them they say. "We are in a more favourable situation vis-a-vis Ahl
al-Bayt and lmam Ali than others, we respect and appreciate Ahl al Bayt and nobody can deny
their graces and their virtues."

Yes, they say with their tongues what is not in their hearts, or they respect them and appreciate
them but follow and imitate their enemies who fought them and contradicted them, or even perhaps
on many occasions do not know who Ahl al-Bayt are, and if you ask them who Ahl al-Bayt are,
they answer you immediately, "they are the Prophet's wives from whom Allah kept the dirt away
and purified them." When I addressed the question to one of those people, he solved the puzzle by
giving me the following answer, "All the Sunni people and Jamah follow Ahl al-Bayt." I was
surprised and said, "How could that be?" He answered, "The Messenger of Allah said that we
should take half of our religion from this Humayra, meaning Aisha, therefore we took half of the
religion from Ahl al-Bayt."

On this basis one could understand their respect and appreciation for Ahl al-Bayt, but when you
ask them about the twelve Imams they would only know Ali, Hasan and Husayn from them,
and they would not accept the Imamate of Hasan nor Husayn. Besides, they respect
Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan who poisoned Hasan and killed him [they call Muawiyah "The writer
of the Revelations"], and they also respect Amr ibn al-As in the same way as they respect Imam
Ali.

This is nothing but contradictions and confusion and an attempt to cover the right with the wrong
and the light with darkness. For how could the heart of the believer contain the love of Allah and
the devil at the same time, and Allah said in His Glorious Book: "You shall not find a people who
believe in Allah and the Latter day befriending those who act in opposition to Allah and His
Messenger, even though they were their (own) fathers, or their sons or their brothers or their
kinsfolk; these are they into whose hearts He has impressed faith and whom He has strengthened
with an inspiration from Him: and He will cause them to enter gardens beneath which rivers flow
abiding therein; Allah is well-pleased with them and they are well-pleased with Him; these are
Allah's party: now surely the party of Allah are the succesful ones." (58:22)

Allah also said: "O You who believe! Do not take My enemy and your enemy for friends. Would
you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of truth?" (60:1)

3: Hadith "He who wishes to live like me..."

The Messenger of Allah said: "Who ever wishes to live and die like me, and to abide in the
Garden of Eden after death should acknowledge Ali as his patron and follow Ahl al-Bayt after me,
for they are my Ahl al-Bayt and they have been created out of the same knowledge and
understanding as myself. Woe unto those followers of mine who will deny the Ahl al-Bayt their
distinctions and who will disregard their relationship and affinity with me. May Allah never let them
benefit from my intercession."

As you can see, the above tradition is one of those clear sayings which do not require any
interpretation, nor indeed gives any scope for the Muslims to choose, rather, it eliminates any
excuse. If he does not follow Ali and acknowledge Ahl al-Bayt, the Prophet's Family he will be
deprived of the mediation of their grandfather, the Messenger of Allah. It is worth noting
here that at the early stage of my research, I felt doubtful about the authenticity of this tradition and
I thought it carried a great threat to those who are not in agreement with Ali and Ahl al-Bayt,
especially when the tradition does not allow any scope for interpretation. I became rather worried
when I read the book "Al-lsabah" in which Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani gives the following commentary
on the tradition: ". . .I based the tradition on what Yahya ibn Yala al-Muharibi had said, and he is
feeble." In fact Ibn Hajar removed some of the doubt that remained in my minds for I thought that
Yahya ibn Yala al-Muharihi fabricated the tradition and could not be a reliable transmitter. But
Allah wanted to show me the whole truth. I read a hook
entitled Ideological discussions on the writings of Ibrahim al-Jabhan. This book clarified the
situation and it became apparent to me that Yahya ibn Yala al-Muharibi was a reliable transmitter
of Hadith and the two Shaykhs [Muslim and Bukhari] depended on what he transmitted. I
myself followed his case and found that Bukhari and Muslim cited a few traditions. Even
Dhahabi, with all his restrictions, considered him a reliable transmitter, together with the Imams
of al-Jurh and al-Tadeel (criteria applied to Hadiths to find out the reliable and unreliable
transmitter), and of course both used him as a reliable reference.
So why all this intrigue, falsification and deception about a man who was considered to
be a reliable transmitter by the authors of Sihah? Is it because he told the truth regarding the
necessity to follow Ahl al-Bayt, and was therefore branded by Ibn Hajar as feeble and weak?

It seems that Ibn Hajar was unaware of the fact that his writings would become subject to the
security of some highly dedicated scholars and that he would be accountable to them for all what
he had written. These scholars were able to uncover his prejudice and ignorance because they
were guided by the light of the Prophet and Ahl al-Bayt.

I realized later that some of our scholars try hard to cover the truth so that the affairs of the
Companions and the caliphs, who were considered to be their leaders and mentors, remain
unknown. We see them trying to interpret the correct tradition in their own ways and give them
different meanings, or they deny the traditions that contradict their creed, even if they were
mentioned in their own books and Sahiha. At times they remove half or one-third of the prophetic
tradition to replace it with something else! Or they may throw doubts about the reliable narrators
[of the tradition] because they raise issues that are not to their liking, and on a few occasions they
publish them in the first edition [of a book] but remove it from the subsequent editions without
giving any indication to justify their action, in spite of the full knowledge of the intelligent readers as
to why the saying has been removed!

I have become aware of all these things after conducting meticulous research and investigation, and
I have convincing proof to support what I am saying. I wish they would stop giving me all these
excuses to justify the actions of those Companions who turned back on their heels, because their
views seem to contradict each other and contradict the historical fact. I wish they would follow the
just path, even if it was a bitter one, then they would leave their minds and the minds of others in
peace.

They claim that some of the early Companions were not reliable transmitters of the Prophet's
tradition, therefore they removed what they did not like, especially if these traditions included some
of the last instructions of the Messenger of Allah before his death.

Bukhari and Muslim both write about the fact that the Messenger of Allah advised three things
on his death-bed:

Remove all the polytheists from the Arabian Peninsula. Reward the delegation in the same way as I have done and the narrator then said, "I forgot the third."

It is possible that those Companions who were present at the death-bed and heard the three
instructions forgot the third one, when we know that they used to learn by heart a whole epic after
hearing it once? No. It is politics that forced them to forget it and not to mention it again. This is
indeed another of those comedies organized by the Companions, because there is no doubt vhat
the first instruction of the Messenger of Allah was to appoint Ali as his successor, but the narrator
did not recite it.

The person who is involved with the investigation about this issue will inevitably sense the
undoubtable recommendation for the succession of Ali despite all the attempts to cover it or to
remove it. Bukhari cited it in his Sahih in a chapter entitled "Al-Wasaya" [The Legacies or the
Recommendations], Muslim also cited it in his Sahih and said that the Prophet recommended Ali
for the succession in the presence of Aisha. Look how Allah shows His light even if the
oppressors try to cover it.

I repeat here what I said before; if those Companions were not reliable enough to transmit the
recommendations of the Messenger of Allah, then we cannot blame the followers and those who
came after them.

If Aisha, the mother of the faithful, could not bear mentioning the name of Ali and could not wish
him any good - as Ibn Sad writes in his Tabaqat, and Bukhari in his Sahih in a chapter
entitled "The illness of the Prophet and his death", and if she prostrated herself to thank Allah when
she heard the news of Ali's death, then how can we expect her to mention the recommendation in
favour of Ali, when she was known, publicly and privately, for her animosity and hatred towards
Ali and his sons and towards all the Family of the Prophet. Behold! There is no might or power
except Allah.

# OUR MISFORTUNE REGARDING IJTIHAD AGAINST THE TEXTS

I gathered through my research that the misfortune which has befallen the Islamic nation has been
due to the Companions' interpretation of Islam against the clear texts. Thus they violated the
ordinances of Allah and obliterated the Tradition, and the religious scholars and leaders who
followed their example often contradicted the Prophetic Texts if they did not comply with what one
of the Companions had done before them. At times they even contradicted the Quranic Texts, and
I am not exaggerating here, and I mentioned earlier in this book the case concerning the
"al-Tayammum" verse. Despite the fact that there is a clear text in the Book of Allah as well as in
the Messenger's tradition about Tayammum, they still took the liberty of interpreting it, and said
that one should abandon the prayers if there was no water. Abdullah ibn Umar justified this
interpretation in the way we have encountered elsewhere in this hook.

One of the first Companions to open the door of Ijtihad [interpretation] was the second Caliph
who used his discretion vis-a-vis the Quranic Texts after the death of the Messenger of Allah
to stop the shares of those whose hearts inclined (to truth), although Allah had made its
payment compulsory out of the Zakat, and said, "We do not need you."

As for his interpretation of the Prophetic texts, they are numerous, and on many occasions he
contradicted the Prophet himself when he was alive. We have indicated in another chapter his
opposition during the peace treaty of Hudaybiah, and how strongly he opposed the writing of
the Messenger's last recommendation and said that the Book of Allah was sufficient. There is
another incident involving the Messenger of Allah and Umar which shows clearly the latter's
mentality and how he allowed himself to argue and oppose the Messenger. The incident was about
spreading the good news of Heavens. The Messenger of Allah sent Abu Hurayrah with the
instruction that whenever he met a man who is absolutely convinced that "There is no other god but
Allah" he was to give him the good news that he would end up in Heaven. Abu Hurayrah duly
went out to spread the good news until he met Umar who prevented him from continuing his
mission and beat him as he lay on the ground. Abu Hurayrah went back crying to the Messenger
of Allah and told him about his encounter with Umar, so the Messenger asked Umar, "What made
you do that?" Umar replied by asking the question,"Did you send him to spread the good news of
Heaven to whoever convincingly believes that there is no other god but Allah!" The Messenger of
Allah said, "Yes." Umar then said, "Do not do that, because I fear that all the people will rely on
there is no other god but Allah."

We also have his son Abdullah ibn Umar who feared that people would rely on Tayammum, so
he ordered them to abandon the prayers. I wish they had left the texts as they are and that they
had not changed them with their futile interpretations which could only lead to the eradication of the
Islamic laws, the violation of Allah's sanctity and the division of this nation into various creeds and
warring factions.

Looking at the various stances that Umar took regarding the Messenger of Allah and his Tradition
we could deduce that he never believed in the infallibility of the Messenger; and he thought of him
as any other man subject to right or wrong. Thus came the opinion adopted by the Sunni scholars
and Jamaah that the Messenger of Allah was infallible as regards the transmitting the Holy
Quran, but that apart from that he was like any other human being, sometimes wrong and
sometimes right.

Some ignorant people claim that the Messenger of Allah accepted the temptations of the
devil in his home. Once he was lying on his back surrounded by women playing their tambourines
and the devil sat joyfully next to him until Umar came, then the devil ran away and the women hid
their tambourines under their seats. The Prophet said to Umar, "As soon as the devil saw you, he
left by a different way from the way you came in."

It is not therefore surprising that Umar has his own views on the religion and allowed himself to
argue with the Messenger of Allah about political issues as well as religious ones, as we explained
before regarding the good news about Heaven. From the idea of Ijtihad and using one's own
opinion vis-a-vis the texts, a group of Companions, led by Umar, started gathering
force, and we saw on "The Day of Misfortune" how they supported Umar's point of view rather
than the clear text. We can then also deduce that it was the same group that did not accept the
"al-Ghadir" text in which the Prophet made it clear that Ali would be his caliph [successor]
over all the Muslims, and that they waited for the right opportunity to reject it when the Prophet
died. The meeting at "Saqeefah" and the subsequent election of Abu Bakr was a result of that
Ijtihad, and when they completed their control over the affairs, people started to forget about the
Prophetic texts regarding the succession to the caliphate and started to interpret everything. They
challenged the Book of Allah, they violated the boundaries and changed the rules. There was the
tragedy of Fatimah al-Zahra after the tragedy of her husband and his removal from the caliphate.
There was also the tragedy in the payment of Zakat and the interpretation of that case despite the
clear texts. Then came the succession of Umar to the caliphate which was an inevitable result of
Ijtihad, because Abu Bakr implemented his own interpretation of the situation and dropped the
Shura [the consultative council] which always used to help him with the running of the caliphate's
affairs. After that Umar came and made things even worse, he permitted things which were
forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and forbade what Allah and His Messenger had
permitted.

When Uthman came to power after Umar, he went a long way in Ijtihad, and did more than any
on his predecessors had done, until his opinions started to affect political and religious life
generally, thus leading to the revolution, and he paid with his life as a price for his Ijtihad.

When Imam Ali took charge of the Muslims' affairs he encountered great difficulties in trying to
persuade people to go back to the honourable Prophetic Tradition and the Holy Quran, and tried
his best to rid Islam from all the new innovations, but some people shouted loudly, "Behold!
Umar's Tradition!"

I am convinced that those who fought and contradicted Imam Ali did so because he forced
them to go back to the correct texts. Thus he eradicated all the new innovations and interpretations
that had been attached to the religion for the previous quarter of a century to which people had
become accustomed, especially those who had their own whims and greeds and who used the
wealth of Allah and the people for their own ends, and deprived the ordinary folks of the basic
rights of Islam.

We always find that self-opinionated individuals tend to favour Ijtihad because it allows them to
reach their end by any means to hand, and the texts appear as barriers in their way and prevent
them from achieving their goals.

It is worth noting here that Ijtihad may have its followers among the ordinary people, at any time
and at any place simply because it is easy to implement and has no firm commitments .

Because the text demands commitments and lacks freedom, politicians tend to call it theocracy,
which means the rule of Allah; but Ijtihad, with its freedom and its lack of commitment, is called
democracy, meaning the rule of people. The men who met in Saqeefah after the death of the
Prophet decided to abolish the theocratic government which was established by the
Messenger of Allah on the basis of the Quranic texts, and changed it to a democratic government
chosen by the people. However, these Companions were not aware of the word "democracy", for
it is not an Arabic word, but they knew the "Shura" system.

[In fact such thing doesn't happen even in this type of election, because those who are elected are not entitled to represent any nation, in any form.]

Those who do not at present accept the text regarding the succession to the caliphate are the
proud supporters of "democracy", claiming that Islam was the first to adopt such a system, and
they are the supporters of Ijtihad and reforms, and today they are considered to be the nearest
possible thing to the western system, and that is why the western governments glorify them and call
them the progressive and tolerant Muslims.

The Shias, who support theocracy or the government of Allah, refuse Ijtihad vis-a-vis the text,
and differentiate between the rule of Allah and the Shura. They do not see any connection between
the Shura and the Texts, but their main concern is about Ijtihad and the Shura in issues that do not
have texts.

We see that Allah - praise be to Him - chose His Messenger Muhammad but He still said to him:
"And consult them about the matter." (3:159)

As for the choice of the leaders of the people, Allah said: "And your Lord creates and chooses
whom He pleases, to choose is not theirs" (28:68). When the Shias advocate for the
succession of Ali to the caliphate after the Messenger of Allah, they are actually committing
themselves to the text, and when they discredit some of the Companions, they do it with regard to
a few who replaced the text with Ijtihad and thus lost the rule of Allah and His Messenger and
opened a wound in Islam that has not yet healed.

As a result we find the western governments and their thinkers despise the Shias and call them
religious fanatics and reactionaries because they want to go back to the Quran which rules that the
thief should have his hands cut off, and the adulterer should be stoned, and urge people to go and
fight in the name of Allah, but all that is haughtiness and barbarism, as far as they are concerned.

Throughout this study I started to comprehend the reason why some of the religious leaders of the
Sunni tradition and Jamaah closed the gate of Ijtihad as far back as the second Hijri century.
Perhaps they predicted the repercussions of Ijtihad on the Islamic nation from misfortunes to
bloody civil wars, and how it would change a nation, about which Allah said, "You are the best
nation that has come out to the people" to a nation of warring factions where anarchy rules and
eventually turns from Islam to the Jahiliya [pre-Islamic period].

Ijtihad continued with the Shias, as long as the texts remained intact and nobody could change
them, and what helped them in that was the Twelve Imams who inherited their grandfather's
knowledge, and used to say that there was no problem that did not have Allah as its judge and that
the Messenger of Allah had made it clear.

We also understand that when the Sunni traditionists and Jamaah followed the Companions who
undertook Ijtihad and prevented the writing of the prophetic tradition found themselves compelled,
due to the absence of the texts, to use personal interpretation, Qiyas [analogy], Istishab
[association], as well as closing the field of Dharai [pretext] and many other measures.

We also understand that the Shias gathered around Imam Ali, who was the gate to the city of
knowledge, and he used to say to them, "Ask me about anything, for the Messenger of Allah
taught me about one thousand [doors] of knowledge, each one of which opens one thousand more
doors.". But the non-Shias gathered around Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan who knew little about
the Prophetic Tradition.

After the death of Imam Ali. the leader of the unjust faction became the commander of the
believers, and he abused Islam through the implementation of his own personal opinions, which
caused more damage to Islam than anybody else before him. But the Sunni traditionists and
Jamaah say that he was "The writer of the Revelations", and that he was one of the outstanding
scholars in the interpretation of Islam. How could they judge him like that when he was the one
who poisoned Hasan ibn Ali, leader of Heaven's youth? Perhaps they say, "This was an aspect
of his Ijtihad [interpretation], but he got it wrong!"

How could they judge his Ijtihad, when he was the one who took the nation's acclamation for
himself by force, then gave it to his son Yazid after him, and changed the Shura system to a
hereditary one?

How could they judge his Ijtihad and give him a reward, when he was the one who forced people
to curse Ali and Ahl al-Bayt, the offspring of the Prophet, in every mosque, so that it became a
followed tradition for sixty years?

And how could they call him "The writer of the Revelations" since the revelation came upon the
Messenger of Allah for twenty-three years, and Muawiyah was a polytheist for the first
eleven years of them, and later, when he was converted to Islam, did not live in Medina (for we
could not find any historical reference to support that), whereas the Messenger of Allah did
not live in Mecca after al-Fath [the conquest of Mecca by the Muslims]? So how could Muawiya
manage to write the Revelation?

Behold! There is no power except in Allah. And the question comes
back, yet again: which group was right and which one was wrong? Either Ali and his followers
were wrong or Muawiyah and his followers were wrong.

The Messenger of Allah explained everything. but some of those who claim to follow the
tradition got it wrong, for it has become apparent to me through the research that the people who
defend Muawiyah could only be the followers of Muawiyah and the Umayyads and not, as they
claim, the followers of the Prophetic Tradition [Sunnah]. If we observe their positions, we find that
they hate the followers of Ali, and celebrate the Day of Ashura as being a festival and defend the
Companions who hurt the Messenger of Allah during his lifetime and after his death, and always
correct their mistakes and find justifications for their actions.

How could you love Ali and Ahl al-Bayt and at the same time you bless their enemies and their
killers? How could you love Allah and His Messenger and at the same time defend those who
changed the rules of Allah and His Messenger and interpret these rules in their own way?

How could you respect those who did not respect the Messenger of Allah and accused him of
Hajr and criticized his leadership?

How could you follow religious leaders that have been appointed by the Umayyads and the
Abbasids for political reasons, and leave other religious leaders although the Messenger of Allah
pointed out their number and their names.

How could you follow somebody who did not know the Prophet very well and leave the gate to
the city of knowledge, whose relation to the Messenger was the same as the position of Harun to
Musa?

Who was the first to use the term Ahl al-Sunnah [Sunni Traditions] and Jamaah? I have
searched through the history books and found that they agreed to call the year in which Muawiyah
seized power "the year of Jamaah". It was called thus because the nation became divided into
two factions after the death of Uthman: The Shia of Ali and the followers of Muawiyah. When
Imam Ali was martyred and Muawiyah seized power after his pact with Imam Hasan which
enabled him to become commander of the believers the years was then called "Jamaah".
Therefore the name Ahl al-Sunnah [Sunnah Traditionists], and Jamaah indicates the Sunnah
[tradition] of Muawiyah, and the agreement on his leadership, and does not mean the followers of
the Sunnah [tradition] of the Messenger of Allah.

The Imams and other members of Ahl al-Bayt, who are the descendants of the Messenger of
Allah, know more than anybody else about the Sunnah [tradition] of their grandfather and what it
entails, for as the proverb goes. The people of Mecca know its paths better than anyone else. But
we opposed the Twelve Imams whom the Messenger of Allah mentioned in his sayings and
followed their enemies. Despite our acknowledgement of the tradition in which the Messenger of
Allah mentioned twelve caliphs, all of them from Quraysh, we always stop at the four caliphs.
Perhaps it was Muawiyah who called us Ahl al-Sunnah and Jamaah, meaning the agreement on
his Sunnah [tradition] in which he made it compulsory to curse Ali and Ahl al-Bayt. This continued
for sixty years until Umar ibn Abdul Aziz - may Allah be pleased with him - stopped it. Some
historians inform us that the Umayyads themselves plotted to kill Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, and he was
one of them, because he killed the Sunnah, which was the cursing of Ali ibn Abi Talib. [ Pub. note: The affect these sixty years had on the people was that they began to consider the cursing of Imam Ali as a religious duty, and that to such as extant that even is they missed their salah prayers they never forgot their abuses on Ali.]

O my people! Let us go - guided by Allah - and search for the truth and rid
ourselves from that blind prejudice, because we are the victims of the Abbasids and the victims of
the dark history and the intellectual barrenness which we have been subjected to for a long time.
Undoubtedly we are the victims of the cunning and the shrewdness of people like Muawiyah, Amr
ibn al-As, al-Mughirah ibn Shubah and others. Research into our Islamic history in order to reach
the absolute truth and Allah will reward you twice. Let us hope that we can unite this nation which
was stricken by the death of its Prophet and then became divided into seventy-three factions.

Let us unite this nation under the banner of "There is no other god but Allah, and Muhammad is the
Messenger of Allah" and to follow Ahl al-Bayt, whom the Messenger of Allah commanded us to
follows and said, "Do not be in front of them, for you will perish, and do not keep away from
them, for you will perish, and do not teach them, for they know more than you do?"

If we do that, Allah will lift His anger from us, and He will change our fear to peace and tranquillity.
and will enable us to rule on this earth, and will make His friend Imam Mahdi - may peace be
upon him - appear to us, since the Messenger of Allah promised us with his re-appearance to fill
the earth with peace and justice after it had been filled with injustice and oppression ... thus Allah
will complete, through him, the enlightment of the whole world.



# AN INVITATION TO FRIENDS TO JOIN THE RESEARCH


The change was the beginning of a spiritual happiness for me, and I sensed an inner silence with great joy for the right creed that I had discovered, and had no doubt that it was the true Islam. I felt ecstatic and proud of myself for what Allah had granted me from His guidance and direction. I could not bear the silence and the secrecy about what was going on inside me, and I said to myself, "I have got to tell the truth to people." "Talk about the graces of your Lord", and it is one of the greatest graces, or indeed, it is the greatest grace in this world and the life hereafter, and "he who keeps silent about the truth is a dumb devil" and "after the truth there is nothing to go astray "

What made me convinced that I should spread this truth was the innocence of those Sunni traditionists and Jamaah who love the Messenger of Allah and Ahl al-Bayt, and all what needs to be done is to remove that mist which was made by history and then they would follow the right path, and that is what happened to me personally.

Allah said, "You too were such before, then Allah conferred on you a benefit." (4:94)

Within a month we finished the book, and the three friends were enlightened and I supported them and helped them along the way and gave them all that I had accumulated from experience and knowledge during the years of investigation. I started to taste the sweetness of guidance and became very hopeful about the future.

Our last word is to say: Thanks be to Allah, Lord Of Creation, and may Allah bless our master Muhammad and his purified Household.

Muhammad Tijani Samawi

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