Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

slave who was falsely attributed to ʿAbd Shams. Subsequently they targeted Hind
bint ʿUtbah and alleged that she was initially a concubine and thereafter they
claimed that she took up prostitution as an occupation, wherefrom Muʿāwiyah
was born. And lastly they attacked Yazīd and stated that he was an illegitimate
child born out of wedlock. 1
They have likewise quoted one of their Imāms as saying:
اقتلوا الوزغ فإنها مسوخ بني أمية
Kill the lizards for they are the disfigured forms of the Banū Umayyah. 2
They have also narrated that once a lizard came in front of one of their Imāms
dangling its tongue, so the Imām said to the person with him, “Do you know what
it is saying?” He said, “I have no knowledge of what it is saying.” The Imām said
that it is saying:
والله لئن ذكرت عثمان لسبن عليا أبدا حتى تقوم من ها هنا
By Allah if you make mention of ʿUthmān, I will revile ʿAlī till you stand up
and go away from here.
Thereafter the Imām told him that whenever any individual of the Umayyads
dies he is disfigured into a lizard. He also added that ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān
was disfigured into a lizard so his son had to place a date palm in his place in his
winding sheet, i.e. so that the reality is not disclosed before the people. 3
There is doubt that this narration and others of its like are patent lies, and that
they disclose the inner animosity the Shīʿah bore against the Umayyads. This
indeed makes much of what they have narrated regarding the household of ʿAlī
I dubious at least.
1 Al-Ṭarāʾif p. 501; Nahj al-Ḥaqq wa Kashf al-Ṣidq p. 307; al-Tusturī: Iḥqāq al-Ḥaqq p. 249, 263; Ilzām al-
Nawāṣib p. 169; Kashf al-Ghiṭāʾ 1/19; Khafāyā Umawiyyah p. 80.
2 Mashāriq Anwār al-Yaqīn p. 135; al-Taʿārīf 1/655.
3 Baṣāʾir al-Darajāt p. 373; al-Kāfī 8/232; Mustadrak al-Wasāʾil 16/167; Biḥār al-Anwār 62/225.
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