Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

له ذرية في العراق يبغضون عليا،‏ ومنهم علي بن الجعد.‏ كان يشتم أباه لكونه سماه عليا
His descendants in Iraq despise ʿAlī, amongst who is ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd 1
who would revile his father due to naming him ʿAlī. 2
Ibn Taymiyah has alluded to the presence of the Nawāṣib in Iraq in the
following statement:
كان بالعراق طائفة ناصبة من شيعة عثمان تبغض عليا والحسين
In Iraq there was a group of Nawāṣib who were the partisans of ʿUthmān
and who hated ʿAlī and Ḥusayn. 3
Furthermore, because ʿAlī I had made Kūfah the capital of his Khilāfah,
and he had stayed there for approximately five years, in which many
events occurred, majority of its inhabitants had naturally become his
partisans. 4 Hence it was very rare to find a person who was not a Shīʿī, let
alone coming across a Nāṣibī, as stated by al-Dhahabī:
يندر أن تجد كوفيا إل وهو يتشيع
1 This is the name which appears in the copy of al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah published by Maktabah
al-Maʿārif 2/204 and Dār Hajr 3/228. Probably this is a mistake and the correct name is ʿAlī ibn al-Jahm,
the famous poet. This is for the following reasons: Firstly, ʿAlī ibn al-Jahm was from the children
Sāmah ibn Luʾay, as opposed to ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd who was a client of the Banū Hāshim. See: Tārīkh Baghdād
7/240; al-ʿIbar fī Khabar man Ghabar 1/406; Tawḍīḥ al-Mushtabih 7/301. Secondly, the above quoted text
is in accordance with what Ibn Ḥajr has mentioned in Lisān al-Mīzān 4/210 in the biography of ʿAlī
ibn al-Jahm. Hence he says, “It is said that he would curse his father for naming him ʿAlī. Thirdly, I
have not found any scholar who has mentioned this in the biography of Ibn al-Jaʿd. All that they have
mentioned is that he would at time revile some Ṣaḥābah M like ʿUthmān and Muʿāwiyah L;
and normally a person who reviles them would not revile ʿAlī I. See: Tārīkh Baghdād 11/360; al-
Muntaẓam 11/160.
2 Al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah 2/204.
3 Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah 8/148.
4 Al-Masār al-Fikrī Bayn al-Muʿtazilah wa al-Shīʿah p. 27.
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