Ibadhism, The Cinderella of Islam (Chapter2)

CHAPTER 2

Caliph Ali bin Abi Talib

          Imam Ali was the fourth and last of the rightly guided Caliphs. He was a close companion of the Holy Prophet as well as his cousin and son-in law. He was brought up by the Prophet (Peace be upon him) and was one of the first to convert to Islam. On the death of Uthman, Seyyidna Ali was proclaimed his successor in the year 35AH (656 CE). His tenure of office which lasted four years only was clouded with tension and crisis. He had many enemies and the Khawarij were certainly not the only ones.

          The crisis, which had erupted during the Caliphate of Uthman, spilt over to his successor and prolonged until Seyyidna Ali was murdered. At the beginning of his rule, the Muslim community was divided into two main groups; one, the supporters of Uthman (Uthmaniyyun) led by Muawiya (a distant cousin of Uthman) who wanted to avenge his murder, and the other, the supporters of Ali. For the first time, Muslims fought each other on three occasions.

          The first battle was fought in Basra in December 656 CE, six months after Ali was proclaimed Caliph. This was known as the battle of the Camel, so called because Seyyida Aisha (the Prophet’s widow) was riding on a camel watching the conduct of the war. She and the Companions Talha and Al Zubair were on the side of the avengers, but the latter two were killed during the fighting. Seyyidna Ali won the battle and there was no split among his supporters.

          But the ghost of Uthman was still haunting the two parties to the conflict, and so the following year another battle flared up at Siffiin. When Muawiya felt he was going to lose the battle he proposed a truce. Among Ali’s supporters were some in favour of it and some against. Seyyidna Ali was at first hesitant but eventually agreed to it. Those who opposed the truce and subsequent arbitration came to be known as the Khawarij. Under the terms of the truce, an arbitration committee was formed comprising two arbitrators, one nominated by each side to settle the question of who should be the Caliph between the two contenders — Seyyidna Ali or Muawiya.

          Muawiya nominated Amr bin Al’Aas, the former Governor of Egypt to represent him in the arbitration proceedings, and Abu Musa Ash’ari was appointed to represent Seyyidna Ali; Abu Musa was the former Governor of Kufa. The two arbitrators met at Tabuk towards the end of 657 CE; they met in private to discuss the issue when Abu Musa, Ali’s representative, hinted on deposing both claimants and holding fresh elections, to which Amr in Al’Aas agreed. When the formal session was held in the presence of a large crowd of followers of both sides, Abu Musa rose to say that in order to end the conflict among the Ummah (the nation) over the question of the Caliphate it was agreed to depose his principal Ali. Thereupon Amr bin A1-Aas took the stage, and said that since Ali was deposed, the only claimant left in the field was Muawiyah, and as such the verdict of the arbitrators implied that, as Muawiyah was the only candidate for the office, he was now the Caliph.

          This was a fraud and betrayal pure and simple, and the meeting ended in great uproar. Here it can be clearly seen that the so-called Khawarij were right in dissociating themselves from the arbitration and truce. As with all historical records it is difficult to know the exact truth because there were several contradictory versions about the detailed events, each depending on the doctrinal disposition of the historian and the time it was written.

          When Seyyidna Ali came to know of the results of arbitration proceedings, he repudiated them as a sheer betrayal. He accordingly decided to go to war against the people of Sham. Ali apprised the Khawarij of his decision, and wanted them to join his forces, but they refused to participate on the ground that the war was for worldly ends. But despite the defection of the Khawarij, Ali mustered a considerable force. These preparations took a few months, but when Seyyidna Ali was on the point of ordering a march to Syria, the army generals advised him to eliminate the menace of the Khawarij. Therefore he first directed a campaign against them in December 658 CE when he led his forces to Nahrawan. The Khawarij were heavily outnumbered and practically wiped out. So Ali won the victory in the battle of Nahrawan but that was not the end of the struggle.

          After Nahrawan, Ali wanted to march to Syria but the army, strangely enough, insisted to go back to Kufa to take some rest. Back in Kufa, he faced another crisis. Most of the people killed in Nahrawan were from Kufa and many of their relatives were there, and so there was a general atmosphere of grief, which made people pause and wonder what they were fighting for and shedding so much blood among themselves. And so the expedition to Sham (or Syria) was abandoned because of lack of support. There again the Khawarij were right when they refused to go to Syria and fight because they said the war was for materialistic interests. It was not a war of ‘Jihad’ any more. They were right, as they were right before when they repudiated arbitration because it turned out to be a deceit. Seyyidna Ali was betrayed twice, first by his representative Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari in the arbitration committee, and secondly by his army generals who advised him to fight the Khawarij first but after defeating them, they refused to go and fight in Syria on the pretext that they wanted to go back and rest in Kufa.

          Hadhrat Ali came to be overwhelmed with troubles from all quarters and the painful tragedy was that they came from friends. So in January 661 CE he was mortally wounded by one Abdul Rahman Muljam in revenge for the massacre of the relatives of his wife at the battle of Nahrawan.

          The above account is a summarized version of the events during the short rule of Seyyidna Ali until his death as given by Prof. Masud-ul-Hassan in his book, The History of Islam. The professor adds the following comments: -

“The battle of Siffin صفين)) gave birth to an unhappy secession movement among the men who had originally supported Hadhrat Ali, and had fought for him. These men came to be known as the Khawarij — the seceders. It was under their pressure that Hadhrat Ali had agreed to arbitration proceedings. After the conclusion of the truce, these men assembled at Haraura near Kufa and elected their leader”.

          Ibadhi sources do not accept that Seyyidna Ali agreed to arbitration under their pressure, for Dr. Amr Khalifa Ennami of Libya in his Studies of Ibadhism (p.255) comments as follows (quoting from Muhammad bin Mahbub Sirah, MS): -

“According to the Ibadhis, Muawiya and his supporters were the rebellious party and Ali had to fight them till they reverted to God’s commandment, that is, the rule of the legal Caliph. The acceptance of arbitration by Ali meant his deposition from the Caliphate, a fact which displeased a group of Muslims and obliged them to choose a new Imam, Abdullah bin Wahb Al-Rasbi. The Ibadhis hold that the people of Nahrawan were right, and Ali bin Abi Talib was wrong for accepting arbitration in the first place, and secondly for fighting the people of Nahrawan.”

As regards Muawiya bin Abi Sufyan, Abdullah bin Ibadh described him in the following words: -

“We do not know anyone of the people who were more callous (i.e. insensitive) to the distribution of wealth according to the laws laid down by God than he, nor anyone more indifferent towards the commandment of God than he, nor anyone blood-shedding than he”.

                                            (Studies in Ibadhism, p.256).

          The periods of the Caliphates of Uthman and Ali were critical in the history of Islam. From the times of the Holy Prophet, Abu Bakar, Umar and up to the first six years of Uthman, the Islamic State was solidly united. With the expansion of the Islamic empire, more countries were conquered, and more wealth was acquired but its distribution was less equitable. Corruption of public property was rampant as was the allocation of high public offices to relatives and friends. Cracks in the Islamic unity began to appear in the last six years of his rule and, after his murder, they widened to a point of no return. Those who had been supporters of Uthman headed by Muawiya became deadly opponents of Ali, the new Khalifa.

          The so-called Khawarij fought on the side of Imam Ali in the battles of the Camel and Siffin against the forces of Muawiyah. When the victory was in sight and in favour of Ali, Muawiya proposed a truce and arbitration. The Khawarij turned down the proposal but Ali accepted it. When the arbitration was held the results turned against him because of a trick devised by Muawiya’s representative in the arbitration committee. Bearing in mind that Ali was the lawful Khalifa appointed and accepted by the people, then who was the rebel or Khariji who broke away from the Islamic State?

1.    Was it not Muawiya the real Khariji and rebel who refused from the beginning to recognize Ali as the lawful Khalifa?

2.    Were it not Muawiya and the Uthmaniyun the real Khawarij who fought against the lawful Khalifa Ali bin Abi Talib at the battle of the Camel and Siffin in which thousands of Muslims lost their lives?

3.    Were it not Muawiya and Amr bin Al’Aas the real Kharijis who manipulated the arbitration to depose Ali from the office of Caliphate?

4.    Was it not Muawiya the real Khariji who bribed Hassan bin Ali bin Abi Talib to renounce the Caliphate?

5.    Was it not Muawiya the real Khariji who created an innovation by making his son Yazid his successor? The office of Khalifa had for the first time become a hereditary one and had ceased to be a religious establishment.

          The readers will only be able to find the correct answers if they review the historical facts objectively and without bias and ignore whatever biased information told to them by their parents, school teachers and lmams in the mosques about the so-called Khawarij. If Muawiya had not rebelled against the lawful Khalifa, the Islamic state would have remained intact and division would have been avoided at least during Ali’s tenure of office. Muawiya was the usurper of the office of Khalifa and secured allegiance of the people of Makkah and Medina by force of arms. And so his successors and followers the Uthmaniyyun were the real Khawarij.

Seyyidna Ali had many enemies and the Khawarij were certainly not the only ones: -

1.    First, the supporters of Seyyidna Uthman including members of the Umayyad clan who wanted to avenge his murder.

2.    The companions Talha and Al Zubair had taken the oath of allegiance to Seyyidna Ali as Khalifa, but fought against him in the battle of the Camel. Hadhrat Aisha joined the two Companions.

3.    After the battle of Nahrawan, the victorious army also betrayed him and refused to fight the Syrians.

4.    In the arbitration proceedings, the person who was appointed as his representative (Abu Musa Al Ash’ari) betrayed him and became a party to the plot to depose him from the Caliphate.

5.    Abdullah bin Abbas, his cousin, whom he had appointed Governor of Basra left him and escaped to Makkah

6.    Even his real brother Aqil fought on the side of Muawiya.

          The main cause of fierce opposition to Seyyidna Ali was his failure or reluctance to punish the culprits, including his stepson Muhammad bin Abi Bakar who were directly involved in the assassination of Uthman. Seyyidna Ali married his (Muh’d’s) mother (Asma) after the death of Abu Bakar. So there was a marriage relationship between Seyyidna Ali and Muhammad bin Abi Bakar, although, as we have seen Muharmnad bin Abi Bakar did not actually kill Uthman, he aided and abetted the crime when he led the assassins to his room and so he was also an accessoiy before the fact of murder. What might have strengthened people’s suspicion was that Seyyidna Ali appointed Muhammad bin Abi Bakar Govemor of Egypt, which his opponents might have interpreted rightly or wrongly as a reward for ‘what he had done.

          With regard to the death of Seyyidna Ali, Jalalu Din Assuyuti in his book, The History of the Caliphs gives the following summarized translated account as narrated by Ibn Sa’d (p.156): -

“Three members of the Khawarij met in Mecca and agreed to kill Seyyidna Ali, Muawiya and Amr bin Al’Aas in order that the country might rest in peace. It fell upon Abdul Rahman bin Muljam Al Murady to kill Seyyidna Ali. So he proceeded to Kufa (Iraq) where he met his fellow Khawarij and confided in them. As Seyyidna Ali was announcing Fajr prayers, Ibn Muljam struck him on the head with a sword and Ali died two days later”.

          According to Prof. Masud-ul-Hassan, Ibn Muljam, an extreme Khawarij fanatic, from whom his beloved wife (Qataam) had demanded the head of Hadhrat Ali as a vengeance for the massacre of the Khawarij at the battle of Nahrawan, struck at him and mortally wounded him. Seyyidna Ali died in January 661 CE. It should be noted that there were no Ibadhis at this time.

After Seyyidna Ali’s death the Islamic ummah was divided into three factions:-

1.    Seyyidna Ali’s followers (The Shias).

2.    Muawiya and his followers (Uthmaniyyun) - The Khawarij No.1.

3.    The so-called Khawarij (The Khawarij No.2).

But these factions were political, not religious because they appeared as a result of a political struggle between Seyyidna Ali and Muawiya for leadership of the Islamic state. It had nothing to do with religion. In this connection it is worth quoting Professor Masud again from his book, The History of Islam (p.l92, 1^st Edition):-

“It may be borne in mind that the Caliphate is not a religious office. It is a political office only. This is because both the Qur’an and the Sunnah have no injunction on the point… …  for any objective view of the matter, it is necessary that we should not make the matter a religious, but should let it remain a political issue”.

Dr. Majid Ali Khan in his book, The Pious Caliphs, published by Islamic Book Publishers in Kuwait said the same thing about the Khawarij (p.209):-

“The Khawarij were more a political group than theological. They accepted the authority of Hadhrat Abu Bakr and Umar but denounced Hadhrat Uthman, Ali and Muawiya”.

          With regard to the denunciation of Uthman there were no Khawarij during his time, and in the case of Seyyidna Ali, the Khawarij fought on his side in two battles- the battle of the Camel and the battle of Siffin; as for Muawiya he was indeed their mortal enemy and they denounced him vehemently. When the Khawarij “denounced” Uthman they were merely echoing the grievances which a group of Companions (Sahabas) who lived during his lifetime were expressing against his administration.

          Unfortunately exactly the opposite happened. The conflict was interpreted as a religious one by later Islamic scholars. The only plausible explanation is that the Khawarij No.1 (The Uthmaniyyun) emerged out of the conflict as rulers whereas the Khawarij No.2 and Shias as rebels, and so throughout Islamic history there was confrontation between the two sides. By making the difference appear religious it was easier for the Umayyad rulers and later the Abbasids to get the support of the people. At this juncture it is interesting to see how an Islamic scholar like Ibn Taymiya was caught in the propaganda of the rulers of his time. He said:-

كان أول من فارق جماعة المسلمين من أهل البدع الخوارج المارقون وهم أول من كفر أهل القبلة بالذنوب, بل بما يرونه من الذنوب واستحلوا دماء أهل القبلة بذلك.

“The first to leave the Islamic community among the heretics are the Khawarij the defectors. And they are the first to accuse Muslims of sins, but what they considered as sins, and made it lawful to shed the blood of Muslims for that”.

          With all due respect to Ibn Taymiya, the above is not the correct picture. The first to leave the Islamic community was Muawiya (and his followers, the Uthmaniyyun) who refused to declare his allegiance to Seyyidna Ali, the legitimate Khalifa while the so-called Khawarij supported him all along until after the battle of Siffiin. Then he goes on to say that the Khawarij were the first to accuse Muslims of sins and to justify the shedding of their blood. On the contrary the people who justified shedding the blood of Muslims were a group of Muslims from Egypt and Iraq in collusion with the people of Medina including some Sahabas who murdered Seyyidna Uthman. The Khawarij did not even exist then.

          When the so-called Khawarij defected from Seyyidna Ali and his army, they did not fight him. It was his army which went to fight them in the battle of Nahrawan. So the innocent Khawarij were neither the first nor the second nor the third to shed the blood of Muslims.

          The followers of Ibn Taymiya accuse the so-called Khawarij of declaring open hostilities and hatred against Seyyidna Ali and his people. This again is not true. Those who declared open hostilities against him were Muawiya, Talha, Al-Zubair and Seyyida Aisha when they fought him at the battle of the Camel. The one who declared hatred against Seyyidna Ali was again Muawiya, and according to Prof. Masud (p. l 77):-

Hadhrat Muawiya had introduced the practice of abusing Hadhrat Ali on Friday sermons. Umar bin Abdul-Aziz abolished this practice "when he became Khalifa.

          There have been attempts to present the conflict as a religious one by categorizing the Islamic ummah at that time into four factions, the fourth one being:-

Ahli Sunnah wal Jamaa (Dr. Majid Ali Khan p.208).

          The first three groups listed before in this chapter included Seyyidn Aisha, Muawiya, ‘Amr bin A’as, Abu Musa al Ash’ari, Al-Zubair, Talha and hundreds of other Sahabas who were split among all the three groups in the conflict. Were they not Ahli Sunnah wal Jamaa? Of course, they were. So to say there was a fourth group is a misrepresentation of early Islamic history.

          As in the case of Seyyidna Uthman, the Ibadhis have no quarrel with Seyyidna Ali in the matter of religion, and so in the Musnad of Imam Rabii (which the Ibadhis mainly rely on for the Prophet’s Hadiths) are to be found a number of Traditions narrated by Imam Ali. Here are some examples:-

الحديث رقم 124: جابر بن زيد قال: بلغني عن علي بن أبي طالب أنه أنكسر إحدى زنديه فسأل النبي صل الله عليه وسلم (أن يمسح على الجبائر فقال له: نعم)

Hadith No.l24

Jabir bin Zeid said:-

“have been informed that Ali bin Abi Talib broke one of his forearms and asked the Prophet (Peace be upon him) if he can wipe the splint. (The Prophet) said, ‘yes”

* * *

الحديث 220 جابر بن زيد قال: بلغني عن علي بن أبي طالب قال: قال رسول الله صل الله عليه وسلم: (تحريم الصلاة التكبير وتحليلها التسليم)

Hadith No.220

Jabir bin Zeid said:-

“I have been informed that Ali bin Abi Talib said: The Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: “The consecration of prayer begins with ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ends with ‘Assalamu Alaikum’.

The above are only examples but there are several other Hadiths narrated by Seyyidna Ali on theological issues. These have been mentioned in Part III of the Musnad.

          One final point on the four rightly-guided Caliphs should be mentioned. The Uthmaniyyun (Khawarij No.1) accuse the Shias for not acknowledging the first three Caliphs, Abu Bakar, Umar and Uthman and they make a big issue out of it, forgetting that they themselves never recognized the Caliphate of Seyyidna Ali. They fought him and continued to oppose him until his death. The Khawarij No.2 was the only Islamic sect to have recognized all the four Khalifas. They later criticized Seyyidna Uthman’s administration when it went astray but they did not kill him. They pledged allegiance to Seyyidna Ali and fought with him against the Uthmaniyyun in the battle of the Camel and at Siffiin but abandoned him when he accepted arbitration. The results of the arbitration proved the correct stand of the Khawarij No.2. He also made a wrong decision when he accepted the advice of his army generals to fight the Khawarij No.2 at Nahrawan.

          It is interesting to quote a Hadith of the Holy Prophet reported by Imam Ahmed as follows:-

قال رسول الله صل الله عليه وسلم: (الخلافة ثلاثون عاما, ثم يكون بعد ذلك الملك)

 “The Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: (The office of) Caliphate will last for thirty years and afterwards there will be kingship”.

If we count the total number of years that the four Caliphs and Imam Hassan ruled, we find that the total period tallies exactly with the Holy Messenger’s prophesy:-

Abu Bakar	2 years - 3 months
Umar bin Khattab	10 years
Uthman bin Affan	12 years
Ali bin Abi Talib	4 years - 9 months
Hassan bin Ali	1 year
Total -	30 years

How right was the Prophet (Peace be upon him) as he had always been!

          History shows that those who ruled the Islamic state after Seyyidna Hassan were indeed not Caliphs but kings, many of whom were tyrants. The Khawarij No.2 were therefore right in breaking away from them and refusing to recognize their authority. This strengthens further the Khawarij’s stand that the breakaway was political, not religious. Until this time there were no Madh-habs, there were only political allegiances - the Uthmaniyyun supporting the Umayyad rulers, the Shias pledging their allegiance to Seyyidna Ali’s descendants and the third independent group appointing their own separate Imams (whom their opponents called the Khawarij).

          A few years ago there was a television programme in which a fanatic Muslim preacher in some neighbouring country was shown addressing a large congregation of worshippers in a mosque forbidding them to pray behind a Khariji Imam. As we all know there are no more Khariji sects today; they have all disappeared and Ibadhis broke away from them many centuries back because of their extremist views towards other Muslims**. As we shall see, not only did Ibadhis dissociate themselves from the Khawarij but fought them on several occasions. The reason for this prohibition is that they allegedly killed Seyyidna "Ali (and criticized Seyyidna Uthman). Ibadhis refute the allegation because the killer, Ibn Muljam acted alone to avenge the brutal massacre of the people of Nahrawan. The identity of Ibn Muljam as a Khariji is doubtful but even assuming that he was, what has it got to do with the Ibadhis of today. At that time the Ibadhis did not even exist.

          Nowadays every time there is a terrorist activity in the West, the public immediate reaction, there, is to point an accusing finger, sometimes accompanied by violent incidents, at Muslims in general and, Arabs in particular. In other words they accuse a whole community of law-abiding residents or citizens for reckless acts of few individuals and what is more distressing, investigations sometimes later reveal that the culprits were neither Arabs nor Muslims. And yet the so-called Muslim scholars who have no fear of God (taqwa) convict a whole section of a Muslim Ummah of a crime which was committed by an individual about 1340 years ago. As Muslims resent the irrational reaction of the public in the West in such circumstances, so the Ibadhis likewise reject the unfounded allegations made against them by some sectarian extremists. Fortunately here in Oman, Muslims of all denominations pray together regardless of whether the Imam is an Ibadhi or belongs to some other sect, which is a slap in the face of the enemies of Islamic unity.

>>>>>> (To be Continued)

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** "If individuals or groups happen to agree on one particular point, it does not necessarily follow that they should agree on each and every other point. When this simple thing is forgotten, unfounded suspicion gives rise to the claim of some people that Ibadis belong with khawarij, or with other Muslim sects. The reason is that Ibadis criticized the decision to arbitrate and considered Ali to have erred in accepting it, and in making his right to the caliphacy a matter of dispute between himself and Mu'awiyah. Moreover, he accepted the arbitration, even though the two arbiters removed him from office and he was wrong to fight Abdullah b. Wahb al-Rasibi and the people of al-Nahr. This opinion was not confined to the Ibadis or Khawarij but shared by many prominent Companions and Successors. The fact that Ibadis shared it with the Khawarij does not make them Khawarij, just as it does not make the Khawarij Ibadis." [Comment added by: Bint Ibadh, Reference: Ibadism in History, Volume I: The Emergence of the Ibadi School, By Ali Yahya Mu'ammar].

Reference:

Ibadhism, The Cinderella of Islam, by Soud H. Al Ma'awaly, pg: 22-33