Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

of Ijtihād (application of oneself and knowledge in reaching a plausible
conclusion) in which the people of al-Andalus unwittingly agreed with the
Nawāṣib. In other words, it was narrated regarding many of the Umayyad
rulers of al-Andalus and its preachers that they would not concede the
Khilāfah of ʿAlī I, but would rather consider Muʿāwiyah I to be the
fourth Khalīfah. 1
Hence when the judge Mundhir ibn Saʿīd 2 studied a book in which was
contained a poem of Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihī, 3 which detailed the Khulafāʾ and
deemed Muʿāwiyah I the fourth of them, he was enraged. He thus
wrote the following verses in the footnotes:
أوما علي ل برحت ملعنا يابن الخبيثة عندكم بإمام
رب الكساء وخير آل محمد داني الولء مقدم اإلسالم
1 Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah 4/162, 401.
2 Mundhir ibn Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Balūṭī, Abū al-Ḥakam al-Andalusī. The supreme judge of
Qurṭubah. He was born in 265 A.H. He was a brilliant debater, a prolific orator, and an excellent poet.
He was inclined toward the school of the Ẓāhiriyyah (the literalist) and was a person who always
proclaimed the truth. Throughout his tenure not one case of oppression is recorded against him.
He passed away in 355 A.H. He has written: Kitāb al-Aḥkām and al-Nāsikh wa al-Mansūkh. See: Tārīkh
al-ʿUlamāʾ bi Al-Andalus 2/142; Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ 16/173; al-Bulghah of al-Fīroz Ābādī p. 226; Nafḥ
al-Ṭīb 1/372.
3 Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Rabbihī ibn Ḥabīb al-Umawī, their client, Abū ʿUmar al-Qurṭubī.
One of the great masters of literature of Andalus and its historians. He was born in 246 A.H. Ibn Kathīr
has said the following regarding him, “Much of his statements suggest that he had Shīʿī tendencies
and the propensity to denigrate the Banū Umayyah. He passed away in 328 A.H. Some of his books are:
al-ʿIqd al-Farīd, al-Lubāb fī Maʿrifah al-ʿIlm wa al-ʾᾹdāb, Akhbār Fuqahāʾ al-Qurṭubah. See: Tārīkh al-ʿUlamāʾ bi
Al-Andalus 1/49, Wafayāt al-Aʿyān 1/110, Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ 15/283; al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah 11/193.
Note: What Ibn Kathīr has stated is indeed strange. For the incident of al-Mundhir ibn Saʿīd suggests
the complete opposite. Yes a person who reads al-ʿIqd al-Farīd will surely find basis to what Ibn Kathīr
has said in terms of him denigrating the Umayyads in general and Muʿāwiyah I in specific. Hence,
ostensibly, he would just collect all the reports without verifying them, as was the wont of many of the
historians and masters of literature, without intentionally intending to denigrate anyone. For more
details see: al-Dawlah al-Umawiyyah al-Muftarā ʿAlayhā p. 74.
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