Episode Four: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SHIISM

In addition to Khawarij, there appeared Shia in the history of Islam.

1: What is famously believed by the masses is that Shiites are those people who supported Ali bn Abi Taalib during the caliphate of Mu’aawiyah bn Abu Sufyan. Accordingly, this means that those who supported Ali are Shiites while those who supported Mu’aawiyah are non-shiites. The clear truth that those upon the sunnah of the Prophet (The Sunnis) are upon as regard the dispute which occurred between these two Sahaabah is that Ali was on the right side, while Mu’aawiyah was wrong. How then could we regard the supporters of Ali as Shiites (non Sunnis?) Such a notion of this has never been proven or accepted by any scholar in the entire Islamic history.

Moreover, doctrines and ideologies held by Shia are entirely different from those held by Ali absolutely. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that the rise of Shia was at that era.

2: Some historians say that the rise of Shia was after Al-Hussein (radiya Allahu anhu) was martyred in Karbala. This opinion sounds to be more logical. I have written an article about the death of Hussein. Titled “THE MASSACRE OF KARBALA”

3: Yazeed bn Mu’aawiyah bn Abi Sufyaan was illegitimately appointed to be the Caliph by his father Mu’aawiyah in violation of a peace agreement made by himself and Al-Hasan bin Ali; Al-Hasan being the rightful Caliph after his father’s martyrdom. One narrative of the treaty is that Mu’aawiyah was to allow the Muslims to make Shuraa as to who was to be the Caliph after him. Another is that Mu’aawiyah was to transfer the khalifah back to Al-Hasan or Al-Hussein upon his death. In either case, it is clear that the written agreement was broken upon appointing Yazeed to be Caliph, which started the trend within Bani Umayyah of appointing kings, whom were all unjust except for the just khalifah Umar bin Abdil Aziz (radiya Allahu anhu).

Hence, a clear reason for Al-Hussein refusal for giving Yazeed allegiance was based upon a broken trust, which was violated upon the Ummah.

4: It is clearer that a reason for Yazeed having been unfit was his action of terrorizing the People of Al-Madinah when seeking allegiance from them through Walid bin Uqbah. Sahabah and their children were killed in the process. And the Prophet has said, “Whosoever spreads injustice and frightens the People of Al-Madinah, may the curse of Allah, His Angels and all the people be upon such a person.” This hadith is narrated by Imam Ahmad bn Hanbal in his Musnad and Ibn Kathir in Al-Bidayah wan Nihayah.

Imam Ahmad found Yazeed to be of such low moral character that he refused to write down any hadith narrated through him.

Ibn Al-Qayyim clearly said that it is from the sunnah not to love Yazeed. Such was reported by other scholars such as Ibn Hajar and Imam As-Suyuti.

5: After Hussein refused to give an allegiance to Yazeed, he rebelled against his rule, and therefore headed to Iraq after his followers there had promised to back him. Though some Sahaabah warned Hussein not to embark on his journey to Iraq, and we cannot conclude that his stubbornness got him killed because he was warned.

His death eventually was not due to stubbornness but fulfilling a prophecy; the prophecy of the Prophet that Hussein will die as a Martyr and that whosoever is alive then should assist Hussein.

Imam Ibn Hajar Asqalani in his book “Al Isabah” on the biographies of Sahabah had narrated a hadith whereby the Prophet had Pre- informed that Hussein shall be killed as a Martyr (in Karbala) and he enjoined those who will be alive to assist Hussein. That was why the companion Anas bn AlHarith accompanied Hussein to the battle field and he was also martyred. And several other ahadeeth on Hussein being a Shahid. He cannot be wrong in his actions and the Prophet referred to him as Shahid.

6: The fulfilment of a Prophecy is applicable to those on the legitimate cause of action. Hussein’s action was legitimate, likewise Ammar bn Yasir; so it is theological wrong to insinuate or suppose that Mu’aawiyah was fulfilling a Prophecy.

Theologically, a wrong cause of action could not be said to be a fulfilment of Prophecy. A layman committing atrocity does not have any specific prophecy to justify his atrocities. Rather the Prophecy regarding atrocities is that hell fire is the abode of the perpetrator. Hussein, Ammar bn Yasir were doing the right and legitimate thing. Prophecy is a legitimate cause of action that has been pre-informed by the Prophet before it happened.

7: The followers of Hussein in Iraq who has promised to back him were later intercepted by the army of Yazeed; However they let him down at the critical time, which led to the martyrdom of Al-Hussein at Karbala.

8: The group of people who invited Hussein and failed to support him regretted doing so and decided to expiate their sin through rebelling against the Umayyad state. They actually did so and a large number of them were killed and thus called Shi’ah.

This might explain why we notice that Shia are more attached to Al-Hussein than to Ali bin Abu Talib himself.

9: You should note vividly that this Sect only rose as a political one opposing the rule of the Umayyad dynasty and backed any attempts to rebel against it. Until that time, they did not hold theological or jurisprudential principles different from those of Sunnis. You will even come to know that earlier leaders whom Shiites claim to be their earlier Shia Imams were only Sunni men adopting doctrines and principles of Sunnis.

10: The situation continued to be calm for months after the martyrdom of Al-Hussein (radiya Allahu anhu). At this period, Ali Zainul-Abideen bn Al- Hussein who was one of the most righteous personalities and great ascetic scholars was alive. He has never been reported to have any beliefs different from those held by Companions and later generations.

11: Ali Zainul-Abideen had two sons of a high level of piety and purity, Muhammad Al-Baqir and Zaid, both of whom completely believed in beliefs held by Sunni scholars including Sahaabah and Taabi’oon.

But Zaid bn Ali had the view that Ali bin Abi Talib was worthier of assuming caliphate than Abu Bakr. This opinion however conflicts with the Ummah’s consensus and contradicts many ahadeeth that explicitly held Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman in a higher rank than Ali.

12: While Zaid viewed that Ali was the best, he however, admitted the high rank of the first three caliphs. He also believed in the permissibility of one less in rank assuming imamate despite the existence of those higher in rank. Accordingly, he did not deny the imamate of Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman.

Apart from this view, he concurred with Sunnis in theology, principles and Fiqh.

13: Here, you should note that the Shiites from amongst the time of Ali, Hassan, Hussein, Zayn-Abideen, Zaid,….all have no doctrinal, Jurisprudence, or theology differences from that of the mainstream Sahaabah and Taabi’oon. They were all upon the pristine sunnah of the Prophet. The differences, civil wars between the Sahaabah and later Taabi’oon were caused by political differences.

14: Repeating the attempt of his grandfather Hussein, Zaid bn Ali also rebelled against the Umayyad caliph Hisham bn Abdul-Malik, which ended up with him being killed in 122 A.H.

His followers then founded a sect/movement based on his ideas, known as Zaydiyyah, named after his name Zaid bn Ali.

Though considered to be a Shia-based sect, Zaydiyyah agrees with Sunnis in everything except in holding Ali in a higher position than the first three Caliphs. The followers of this sect are still mainly in Yemen and they are the nearest Shia sects to Sunnis – even one can hardly distinguish them from Sunnis in most respects.

The likes of Imam Shawkaaniy, Imam San’aaniy (the author of Subulu Salaam) were Zaydiyyah scholars.

15: A group of the followers of Zaid bn Ali asked him about his opinion on Abu Bakr and Umar. In reply, he supplicated Allah to show mercy to both of them, but those who asked him refused to do the same and seceded from his sect. Therefore, they were known in the history as Rafidah. This Rafidites rejected the caliphate of Abu Bakr and Umar on one hand, and rejected Zaid’s opinion on the other.

The excessiveness in adoring Ali and abuse of some Sahaabah drifted them to become Rafidah. They turn their heroes into deities and considered them infallible. All due to Guluw.

16: Subsequent generations of such a group founded a sect which was later known as Ithna Ashriyyah (Imamiyyah) to turn into Shia’s largest faction.

17: Muhammad Al-Baqir, Zaid bn Ali’s brother, died eight years before his brother (in 114 A.H.) leaving behind a son who became the reverend scholar Ja’far Al-Sadiq. The latter was a prominent scholar and a proficient Faqih (Jurisprudent) who held the same theology believed in by the Sahaabah, Taabi’oon, and Muslim scholars in general.

18: Late at the era of the Umayyad caliphate, the Abbasid movement started activities aiming at rallying people against the Umayyad caliphate. The movement collaborated with the groups which seceded (rafada رفض) from Zaid bn Ali and both toppled the Umayyad caliphate in 132 A.H.

19: The Abbasid caliphate came to power headed by the founder Abul-Abbas Al-Saffah and his successor Abu Ja’far Al-Mansur. Those Rafidites who collaborated with this movement felt disappointed as they sought to establish a caliphate ruled by one of Ali bn Abi Talib’s grandchildren. Therefore, those people formed a group called Al-Talibiyyun (lit. proponents of Ali bn Abu Talib) compared to Abbasids who are named after Al-Abbas bn Abdul-Muttalib) with the aim of staging a coup against the Abbasid caliphate.

20: Until this era, there were no essential theological or jurisprudential violations except that of the criticism of Abu Bakr and Umar; actually, some of them who seceded from Zaid bn Ali rejected them and would even curse them in public.

21: Jafar Al-Sadik died in 148 A.H. leaving behind a son called Musa Al-Kazeem, who was also a scholar but less in rank than his father. He died in 183 A.H. leaving behind some sons including Ali bn Musa Al-Rida.

It happened that the Abbasid caliph al Ma’mun sought to contain the rebellion of Al-Talibiyyun who claimed the caliphate for the descendants of Ali bn Abi Talib rather than those of Al-Abbas. Thus, he nominated Ali bn Musa Al-Rida as the crown prince, which fueled a fierce controversy among Abbasids. However, Ali bin Musa Al-Rida suddenly died in 203 A.H., but Al-Talibiyyun accused Al-Ma’mun of killing him and once again staged successive revolutions against Abbasids just as they did with Umayyads.

22: Passage of years gave room for revolutions to relatively calm down. Until that time, Shia had not yet adopted an independent religious school of thought to be called Shia. Rather, there were only political movements aiming at assuming power and opposing rulers due to many reasons which did not include such theological reasons as those held by Shia now.

23: As for the Al-Talibiyyun, we can see that after the death of Ali Al-Rida whom Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma’mun nominated as the crown prince, he was succeeded by his son Mohammed Al-Jawad who died in 220 A.H. The latter was also succeeded by his son Ali bn Muhammad Al-Hadi who died in 254 A.H. Finally, the latter was succeeded by Al-Hassan bn Ali called Al-Askary who also died suddenly in 260 A.H. leaving behind a young 5-year-old son, Muhammad.

24: Throughout previous years, separatist movements, which consisted of some of the Prophet’s Household, would swear allegiance to the elder son of Al-Talibiyyun’s leader, starting with Ali Al-Rida and ending with Al-Hassan Al-Askary.

Concerning the ascendants of Ali Al-Rida, such as his father Musa Al-Kazim or his grandfather Ja’far Al-Sadik or his grandfather’s father Mohammed Al-Baqir, they did not assume the revolutionary leadership against Umayyad or Abbasid rule.

25: However, after Al-Hassan Al-Askary had died in 260 A.H., revolutionists got totally confused as to who is to assume leadership when Al-Hassan Al-Askary left behind a young son. They even got more confused after the sudden death of that young son. This resulted in dividing such revolutionary groups into many sects each different from the other in terms of principles and ideas as well as even in laws and beliefs.

26: The most famous among such factions is Ithna Ashriyyah (Imamiyyah). Now prevailing in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. It is the biggest Shiite faction at present.

The leaders of this Sect started to add to Islam ideas that would work best for situations they are exposed to currently and that may ensure the continuation of their sect despite the absence of their leader.

27: They added many serious Bid’ah (innovations in religion) to the religion of Islam, claiming them to be part and parcel of Islam. Thus, such Bid’ah, with the passage of time, became a key component of their ideology and thought.

Here, we should be careful of propaganda by their adversaries. We shouldn’t because of our theological differences believe some myths or lies told about them. We should make sure the bid’ah we want to ascribe to them are really founded in them and Constituted by the larger part of the Sect, as well as documented in their respective books. All groups have her extremists she is dealing with.

28: Among their famous bid’ah relate to the issue of Imamate (caliphate); and their belief of infallibility of their Imams. As some of their fiqh rulings are based upon the statements of their Imams regardless whether authentic or wrong. Which the pristine Islamic opinion as it that no one is infallible except the Prophet, Muhammad solla Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

Consequently, they do not acknowledge any Sunni scholars and all the authentic Hadith books, such as Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Al-Tirmidhi and Al-Nasa’i. They also deny the authority of Abu Hanifah, Malik, Al-Shaafi’i and Ibn Hanbal. They also do not admit the excellence of Khalid bin Al-Walid or Sa’d bin Abi Waqqas, Umar bn Abdul-Azeez…

29: Among their bid’ah is also building of shrines in Mosques, Wiping of the feet in ablution (without socks).

All (bid’ah) that I have mentioned so far is only a part of the ideology of Ithna Ashriyyah. However, there are several other sects that rose during the same period in history, especially during the period known in history as the period of “Shia Bewilderment”, which started as early as the middle of the third century A.H. following the death of Al-Hassan Al-Askary (the twelfth and last Imam according to them).

From this period on, literature and books that plant their ideology and doctrines were composed. If you are to refute them, take from their books and keep refutation honest.

Among their famous topic of discussion is likewise the issue of the appearance of Mahdi. I have explained this in 2 volumes of articles; likewise another article I wrote titled “THE 1979 REVOLUTION” exposing some ideologies of the Shia movement.

30: Those called Shiites are basically called Ahlu Bayt (household of the Prophet). This means those who are directly related by blood to the Prophet. Ali bn Abi Taalib was a cousin of the Prophet, then those who related to Ali down to where it lies.

And there are ahadith with varying narrations whereby the Prophet said he left behind the Qur’an and the Sunnah; some other narrations added Ahl Bait (my household)
ﺗﺮﻛﺖُ ﻓﻴﻜﻢ ﻣﺎ ﺇﻥْ ﺃﺧﺬﺗُﻢ ﺑﻪ ﻟﻦ ﺗﻀﻠُّﻮﺍ : ﻛﺘﺎﺏَ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ، ﺳﺒﺒُﻪ ﺑﻴﺪﻩ ﻭﺳﺒﺒُﻪ ﺑﺄﻳﺪﻳﻜﻢ، ﻭﺃﻫﻞَ ﺑَﻴﺘﻲ.

The status of Ahlul bayt (household of the Prophet) for the (Sunni) Muslims is proclaimed with genuine love for the entire blessed clan. Abu Bakr radiya Allahu anhu would say: “I swear by Allah that I would rather be kind and generous to Ahlul Bayt than my own family.”

And there are also some Quranic as well as ahadeeth verses that mentioned the word Shia شيعة. Perhaps the word Shia is adopted through the hadith whereby Ali bn Abi Taalib asked the Prophet of the best of created beings, and the Prophet responded: أنت و وشيعتك “you and your disciples”.

The word Shia linguistically may mean faction, group, disciple, followers, adherents.. Until when Shiism started having their own self laid principles and doctrines, those who adopted this doctrine are now being referred to as Ahlul bayt/Shiites.

31: Also as regard the issue of abusing the Sahaabah of the Prophet, they do claim there is no Shi’i authentic hadith where any of the Imams commanded that any Sahabi for that matter should be abused or cursed.

But they do not deny there are documents of some Shi’i past scholars, in their books, where they abused, cursed and even declared certain Sahabah as kuffar.

Shia generally believed the Sahabah were classified into the best, the good, the bad and the worse. Hence, the righteous Sahabah and the munafiqoon. Prayers and praises are usually sent to the righteous Sahabah and castigation (to the point of cursing by some) on the munafiqoon amongst the Sahabah.

99% of the leading Shi’i scholars of this age actually declared abusing and cursing any Sahabi (no matter what he did) as Haram. Their point is that Sunni held the entire Sahabah in high esteem without exception. So abusing their icon even with justifications will always lead to chaos and fight and even killings amongst the Muslims which widen the unity of the Muslim world. Hence they declare it haram.

32: As regard the claim that the Shiites do weep themselves with swords and knives on all 10th of Muharram, this action called Tatbir and known as body flagellation has been declared a myth by modern Shiites scholars, and cannot be traced to any Shiites source. Rather, the reliable sources have it that 99.9% Shia leading scholars (dead or alive) had declared such act haram. It is not among their ideal principles and they do consider it extremism.

Tatbir is a cultural practice of mourning that was smuggled into religion by the extremists.

To be honest with any movement, you have to take their ideal principles/constitutions from their resource books and not from the books/sources of the antagonists or fake extremist members. No group is free from extremists as members.

Even Islam as a whole is facing extremism problem and the world sometimes is judging Islam based on the practices of the extremists. We should always keep refutation honest despite differences.

33: Both the Sunnis and Shiites respect and love Ali. Let’s all take a lesson from the way Ali handled the case of the Khawarij then. He sent the scholar Abdullah Ibn Abbas to them to debate them and explain their wrong theology to them. At the end of this debate, one-third of the Khawarij left their theology and returned back to Ali. Ali sent a message to the remaining 2/3 telling them that “if you decide to stay upon your aqeedah, we have no right to force you otherwise, that’s your business, but as long as you don’t harm us, we won’t harm you or allow any Muslim harm you”

Let’s imbibe this philosophy of Ali in dealing with the Khawarij. If you perceive a Muslim has a wrong theology, invite him to a knowledge base debate and help him and yourself; not to start creating nuisance or backbiting. Likewise no harm must come from you to other Muslim all in the name of being passionate about your theology.

I have personally interacted with people of various tendencies with the Islamic thoughts and I realize that every tendencies has semblance of truth and error, it is just extremism that leads to deviation.

34: Let it be known to everyone of us that the Prophet never sanctioned physcial violence against someone of an opposing view or Aqeedah. Yet, either Muslim or non – Muslim, we must not grow hatred to human beings who do not hurt us. Let us learn from the way the Prophet lived peacefully and related with the Kuffar.

35: Let me be more explicit. I am not a Shiite member and I don’t subscribe to all of their explanations and ideologies that go against the pristine Islam; but yet, I’ll never preach violence against any Shii’i or permit a Shii’i to be blown up or physically harassed. Nor their mosques and shrines. It is haram.

Anyone who wishes to force terrorism ideology upon people should be spoken up against. You shouldn’t by the stick, gun, bomb or any terrorism means preach violence and hatred towards those with theological differences with you. Believe what u want to believe; allow the freedom of somebody else to believe as they want to. Hence, Saudi Arabia bombing Yemenis, Iranians, Syrians, all in the name of religious defence, fighting Shiism is total FORBIDDEN and should be condemned by everyone of us.

36: Scholars should also realize that, by fanning the fuel of hatred, by smearing, by generalizing, these scholars of hate might not have guns in their hands, but their followers will be inspired to hate fellow Muslims, and to kill fellow Muslims whenever they have the means.

We must understand that Islam commands us to cooperate with anyone when it comes to something positive and good in the society.
و تعاونوا على البر و التقوى، و لا تعاونوا على الإثم و العدوان

No matter how ultra-conservative you are, no matter your aqeedah and manhaj, we must understand that there are some areas where we should and must come together and cooperate on. Cooperating with one another in one area does not mean we should cooperate in all areas. Eg: if the government of a land is banning Hijab; the issue of boycott and blasphemy; societal and sociological affairs. We need to understand that there’s a time and a place to come together and show unity.

We have to understand the proximity of enemies to Islam. I wrote an article titled “Al Barrau (enmity) of Muslims!” which explains this point better.

May Allah protect us from the evils of arrogance and grant us all jannah.