Documents of the Right Word

disliking the three Khalîfas; it does not mean feeling hostility
against them. Shi’ah means jamâ’at, community, group, party.
People belonging to this party are called Shi'îs. Qisâs-i-enbiyâ
gives the following information:
The first inventor of the fitna of bearing hostility against the
Ahl as-Sunna is a Jew of Yemen named Abdullah bin Saba’. This
Jew pretended to be a Muslim. First he went to Basra, where he
began to spew his venomous malices, which can be outlined as “Îsâ
(Jesus) ‘alaihis-salâm’ will return to earth. Why should it not be
possible for Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ to do so, too. He also will
come back. He and Alî will rescue the world from disbelief.
Caliphate belonged to Alî by rights. The three Khalîfas used force
to deprive him of his rights.” He was deported from Basra. He
went to Kûfa and began to mislead the people. Then, being
deported from Kûfa, too, he went to Damascus. The Sahâbîs in
Damascus would not tolerate him. So he fled to Egypt, where he
managed to gather a number of ignoble and eccentric bandits
around himself, such as Khâlid bin Muljim, Sûdan bin Hamrân,
Ghâfikî bin Harb and Kinâna bin Bishr. He presented himself as a
lover of the Ahl-i-Bayt. The first step he took to deceive people
around him was to advise them to “Love hadrat Alî and bear
animosity towards people who are opposed to him.” When people
began to believe him, he would go a step further and say that
“Hadrat Alî is the highest man after Prophets. He is the Prophet’s
protector, brother, and son-in-law.” He would convince these
people by giving wrong meanings to âyat-i-kerîmas and fabricating
hadîth-i-sherîfs. People who do so are called Zindiq. And the final
step he took with people who went on believing him would be to
convince them that “The Prophet commanded that hadrat Alî
should be Khalîfa after him. The Sahâba disobeyed the Prophet.
They deprived Alî of his right. They traded their faith for worldly
advantages.” While doing all these, he was cautious enough to
warn his adherents not to reveal these secrets to strangers for his
purpose was “not to make fame, but to guide people to the right
way.” Thus he caused hadrat ’Uthmân’s martyrdom. Then he tried
to spread feelings of animosity against the three Khalîfas among
hadrat Alî’s army. He was successful in this, too. People who
believed him were called Saba’iyya, [and later, they began to be
called Hurûfîs]. Upon hearing about the rumours, hadrat Alî
mounted the menber and castigated the slanderers of the three
Khalîfas in a heavy language. He threatened some of them with
flogging. Seeing his own success, Ibni Saba’ managed to exploit
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