How the Shi'a came into existence

We now know how Shi'ism came into existence, but how did theShi'a emerge and how did the schism of the Ummah developfrom this? This is a question which we shall now answer.When we follow the first stage of the life of the Muslim Ummahduring the lifetime of the Prophet we find that there were twodifferent principal trends accompanying the development of theUmmah and the beginning of the Islamic experience from theearliest years, which co-existed within the embryonic Ummahestablished by the guiding Prophet. This difference between thetwo trends led to an ideological schism immediately after thedeath of the Prophet which divided the Ummah into twosections, one of which was destined to rule and extend itsinfluence so as to include the majority of the Muslims, while theother section was forced further from power and was destined toexist as an opposing minority within the framework of thegreater Muslim Ummah. This minority was in fact the Shi'a.The two principal trends which accompanied the developmentof the Ummah during the lifetime of the Prophet from thebeginning were:i) The trend which believed in devotion to Islam and itsarbitration, and in total submission to the religious texts in everysphere of life.ii) The trend which believed that belief in Islam did notnecessitate devotion except in the special scope of religiousobservances and metaphysics, and believed in the possibility ofijtihad (independent judgement), and the permissibility of makingjudgements on this basis with changes and modifications in thereligious texts according to their interests in matters other thanthe above in the sphere of life.Although the sahaba, as the believing and enlightened vanguardof Islam, were the most perfect and most important seeds for itsreligious development to the extent that there has never in thecourse of history been an ideological generation moremagnificent, purer or more nobler than that established by theProphet, we find that it is necessary to accept the existence of alarge trend, from the very lifetime of the Prophet who inclinedtowards proposing the use of ijtihad and circumstantial considerationsin determining their interests, above strict adherence tothe religious texts. Similarly, there was another trend whichbelieved in religious arbitration and in submission and devotionthereto concerning all religious texts and all areas of life.One of the factors contributing to the spread of the second trend(al-ijtihad) amongst the Muslim ranks was its coherence withman's natural tendency towards making judgements and accordingto its interests, as he understands them, rather than accordingto a decision whose significance he does not understand.This trend was represented by a daring group of importantsahaba like, Umar ibn al-Khattab, who disputed with theMessenger and made judgements contradicting the texts inmany subjects, believing that they had the right to do so. In thisrespect we can cite Umar's attitude towards the Treaty of al-Hudaybiyyaand his objection thereto, his attitude towards theadhan: (call to prayer) and his decision to exclude, 'Hayy 'alakhayr al-'amal,' his attitude towards the Prophet regarding theMutia'a 'l-Hajj, and other examples of his attitude towards theuse of ijtihad.Both these trends were reflected in the presence of the Messengerduring the last days of his life. In his Sahih, Al-Bukhari quoteson the authority of Ibn Abbas:'When the Messenger of Allah was about to die there were mengathered in the house, amongst whom was Umar ibn al-Khattab. The Prophet said, "Come I shall give you a documentafter which none shall go astray." But Umar said, "The Prophethas been overcome by pain and he has already given us theQur'an, and the Book of Allah is sufficient for us." Whereuponthe people gathered together in the house disagreed, and one ofthem argued, saying, "Come near! The Prophet is going to giveus a document after which none shall go astray." While anothersaid the same as Umar. And when the nonsensical speech anddisagreement became too much for the Prophet he told them,"Depart!"'This incident alone serves to prove the deep-seated attitudes ofthe two trends, and the extent of the disagreement and strugglebetween them.In order to illustrate the deep-seated attitudes of the trend whobelieved in such judgement, we can add an account of thecontroversy and disagreement between the sahaba whichsurrounded the appointment of Usama ibn Zayd over the army,in spite of the fact that there was a clear prophetical designationto that effect.

This controversy continued until the Messenger ofAllah, who was ill, came out to the people and spoke to themsaying: '0 people, what is this that I have heard concerning theattitude of some of you to the appointment of Usama? If youoppose the appointment of Usama you should have opposed theappointment of his father before him. I swear by Allah that hewas worthy of the appointment and that his son is worthy of itafter him!'The struggle between these two trends, which was visible duringthe lifetime of the Prophet, was also reflected in the attitude ofthe Muslims to Imam Ali's designation as leader of the da'wahafter the death of the Prophet. Those who represented thedevotional trend (AI-Ittijad at-Ta'abbudi) found it necessary toaccept this designation without hesitation or modification,whereas the second trend thought that they could reject thisdesignation of the Prophet when their independent judgementled them to one which was more in keeping with their understandingof the circumstances.Thus we can see that the Shi'a appeared immediately after thedeath of the Prophet and was represented by those Muslimswho actually accepted his designation of Imam Ali as the leader,whose leadership had been stipulated by the Prophet whichshould have been realized immediately upon the Prophet'sdeath.

So the Shi'i trend took form in the first instance because of theprevention of Imam Ali's assumption of the leadership at as-Saqifaand the entrusting of the authority to someone else.

In AI-ihtijaj At-Tabarsi says, on the authority of Iban ibnTaghlib:

'I told Ja'far ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq, peace be upon him,"May I be your ransom. Did any of the sahaba of the Messengerof Allah deny the appointment of Abu Bakr?" He said, "Yes.Twelve of the Muhajirun denied it: Khalid ibn Sa'id ibn Abi'I-As, Salman al-Farsi, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, AI-Miqdad ibnal-Aswad, Ammar ibn Yasir, and Barida 'l-Aslami; as did thefollowing Ansar: Abu 'l-Haytham ibn at-Tayhan, Uthman ibnHunayf, Khuzayma ibn Thabit Dhu sh'Shihadatayn, Ubayy ibnKa'b and Abu Ayyub al-Ansari".'You may say that if the Shi'i trend represented close adherenceto the text while the other trend represented independentjudgement this implies that the Shi'a refuted the concept ofijtihad and did not permit themselves to apply it, whereas weknow that the Shi'a have always practised the use of ijtihad inmatters concerning Islamic law (ash-Shari'ah).The answer to this is that the ijtihad employed by the Shi'a is thederivation of a ruling from the legal texts, which they believe notonly to be permissible, but obligatory for a section of theUmmah, not the ijtihad which is to reject the legal texts or tosubject the legal text to the personal view of the mujtahid, or tosome resultant benefit, for this is impermissible and the Shi'atrend refutes any such use of ijtihad.When we talk of the development of these two trends from theorigins of Islam onwards, one of which followed the texts closelywhile the other employed ijtihad, we mean by ijtihad the makingof judgements in contradiction to the text or the acceptance ofsuch a judgement. The appearance of these two trends wouldhave been natural in the case of any radical and reformatoryreligion which attempted to change a corrupt reality from itsvery roots upwards, although the extent of their influence wouldhave differed according to the strength of the residue of previousideas, the extent of the individual's identification with theprinciples of the new religion, and of his devotion thereto. We ofcourse know that the trend which represented the closeadherence to the texts identified with Islam and devotedthemselves totally to it; and did not reject the use of ijtihadwithin the framework of the religious texts and in extractinglegal rulings from these texts. It is also important that we shouldpoint out that this adherence to the texts does not implyossification and rigidity, which would be incompatible with theproblems imposed by progress and by the many differentmodernizing factors which are part of man's life.

As weunderstand it, adherence to the text is adherence to Islam andthe total acceptance thereof, for Islam carries within itself all theflexibility and capacity necessary to adapt to the needs of anyparticular time and all the elements of modernization andprogress included therein.

Thus, adherence to Islam and its textsis also adherence to all these elements, and to their capacity fororiginal creation and modernization.This is a general sketch to explain Shi'ism as a naturalphenomenon within the framework of Islam and the appearanceof the Shi'a as an answer to this natural phenomenon.Before ending, I would like to mention a point which I believe tobe very important.

Some scholars have tried to distinguishbetween two different aspects of Shi'ism: the first is spiritualShi'ism and the second is political Shi'ism. Moreover, theybelieved that spiritual Shi'ism is older than its political counterpart,and that the Imami Imams from the lineage of ImamHusayn, peace be upon him, retired from the political sceneafter the massacre at Karbala, moved their attention to spiritualguidance and ritual acts, and withdrew from the world.However, the truth is that Shi'ism has never been solely a purelyspiritual trend from its earliest beginnings, and indeed originatedat the very heart of Islam as a movement dedicated to assistingImam Ali to achieve his rightful position as the sole ideologicalleader of Islam after the death of the Prophet as we previouslyexplained in our examination of the circumstances which led tothe birth of Shi'ism.It is not in fact possible, in view of the circumstances which wehave examined, to divorce the spiritual side from the social inany representation of Shi'ism, just as it is impossible to divorceone from the other in Islam itself. Thus Shi'ism can only bedivided when it loses its significance as an attempt to safeguardthe future of the da'wah after the death of the Prophet, a futurewhich required a combination of both ideological authority andsocial leadership.There was a great deal of support for Imam Ali among theMuslim ranks who believed that he was the person capable ofmaintaining the type of leadership initiated by the three khulafah,and it was this which brought him to power after the murder ofUthman. But this mere support is not Shi'ism, neither spiritualnor political, because the Shi'a believe Imam Ali should haveruled instead of these three khulafah, and should have assumedthe khilafah immediately after the Prophet. Thus the widesupport for Imam Ali amongst the Muslim ranks extendedbeyond the scope of true Shi'ism, so that the supposed spiritualand political wings of Shi'ism were actually an element withinthis greater support, and we can hardly claim this case as anexample of divided Shi'ism.Similarly, the spiritual and ideological support which the Imamenjoyed from some of the important sahaba during the reigns ofAbu Bakr and Umar (such as Salman, Abu Dharr, Ammar andothers) does not indicate a spiritual Shi'ism divorced from itspolitical side. On the contrary, it expresses the fact that thesesahaba believed ideologically and politically in the rights ofImam Ali to the leadership of the da'wah after the death of theProphet and that their ideological belief in his leadership wasreflected in their previous spiritual support, while their politicalbelief in his leadership was reflected in their opposition to thekhilafah of Abu Bakr and to the trend which turned theauthority from the Imam in favour of another.In fact, there was never any such division between spiritualShi'ism and social Shi'ism, and such an idea only presented itselfto the Shi'i believer after he succumbed to the reality of thesituation, and after the fire of Shi'ism in its limited meaning as amovement towards truly Islamic leadership within the Urnmahand the accomplishment of the radical, reformatory task undertakenby the Great Messenger had been extinguished in hisheart, and had turned into a purely religious belief which theindividual bore within his heart, or from which he derived hisconduct and aspirations.

We now come to the claim that the Imams of the Ahl al-Baytfrom the progeny of Imam Husayn withdrew from politics andcut themselves off from the world. In fact it is worth noting thatShi'ism, as we understand it, was a means towards the continuationof truly Islamic leadership. Islamic leaderhip, however,simply means the continuation of the type of leadership initiatedby the Noble Messenger towards the total establishment of anUmmah on the basis of Islam, and it is thus impossible toimagine a way in which the Imams could have withdrawn fromsocial affairs without withdrawing also from Shi'ism. However,the Imams' decision not to take up arms against the contemporarygovernments helped to spread the belief that theyhad in fact abdicated their social interest in the leadership. Yetwe possess many texts transmitted on the authority of theImams which show that each Imam was always ready toundertake military action if he was sure that he had thenecessary followers and strength to achieve the Islamic aims.If we follow the path of the Shi'i movement we find that theShi'i leadership, which was represented by the Imams of the Ahlal-Bayt, believed that the achievement of authority was not initself sufficient for the fulfillment of the Islamic reformatoryprocess, unless this authority was supported by ideological,popular bases which were aware of the aims of this government,strove to guard it and explain its attitudes to the populace, andstood firm in times of hardship.In the middle of the first century after the death of the Prophetthe Shi'i leadership was still continually trying to regain controlof the Ummah by means which they believed in, in spite of thedistance between them and the government, because theybelieved that they had strong, popular support from theMuhajirun, Ansar, and Tabi'un: (next generation) who wereaware, or semi-aware, of their rights to authority. However, halfa century later, after all noticeable signs of this popular supporthad vanished and new generations had grown up under insidiousinfluences, it became clear that any achievement of this controlby the Shi'i movement would not lead to its lofty goal, becausethe popular support, which would have assisted them andsacrificed themselves for them because of their awareness oftheir rights to power, no longer existed.In view of this there were only two possible courses of action:firstly, an attempt to reestablish these conscious popular bases,which could prepare the ground for the eventual achievement ofpower; and secondly, to shake the consciousness of the MuslimUmmah, so as to maintain the life and vigour of the Islamicconsciousness and the Ummah, and protect the Ummah againstthe total abdication of its identity and nobility to deviant rulers.The first course of action was actually adopted by the Imamsthemselves, while the second was adopted by the 'Alidrevolutionaries who tried to protect the conscience and free willof the Muslim Ummah by their courageous self-sacrifice.

Thoseof the revolutionaries who were sincere enjoyed the support ofthe Imams.Imam Ali ibn Musa ar-Ridha, peace be upon him, told Al-Ma'mun,when he discussed the martyred Zayd ibn Ali:'He was one of the scholars (ulama) of the Ahl al-Bayt whobecame angry on Allah's behalf and fought His enemies until hewas killed fighting in His path. My father, Musa ibn Ja'far,peace be upon him, told me that he used to hear his father,Ja'far, say, "May Allah have mercy on my Uncle Zayd, whoencouraged the people to support the most suitable leader fromthe Al-Muhammad. For had he been victorious, he would havefulfilled his promise to Allah, because he used to say, 'I amcalling you to support the most suitable leader from the familyof Muhammad'."'Thus the fact that the Imams abandoned the idea of directmilitary action against deviant rulers does not mean that theyset aside the political aspect of their leadership and turned alltheir attention to prayers only. On the contrary, it demonstrateshow their different forms of political policy were shaped bycontemporary circumstances and by their profound awarenessof the exact nature of their radical policy and of the best meansto its fulfillment.And Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.