Hurûfîs claim to come together in the unity of (Muhammad-Alî). Accordingly, the As-hâb-i-kirâm, who are praised and lauded in Qur’ân al-kerîm and in hadîth-i-sherîfs, must have been without this unity. The three Khalîfas, who were blessed with the good news that they would enter Paradise, and all those heroic fighters who spread Islam over three continents must have belonged to other unities. However, the author betrays his own insincerity in his using the term (Muhammad-Alî). For hadrat Alî loved very much the other three Khalîfas and even all the Sahâbîs he fought against. He would acknowledge in the speeches he made as well as during all his conversations that those people were valuable Believers and praised and lauded them. A person honoured with the name Alevî should be so, too. They say that they follow the Ahl-i-Bayt. They use the blessed name Alevî, which is loved by both Sunnites and Alevîs in our country, as a mask for themselves. All their writings and attitudes show, however, that they are not Alevîs. The book Tuhfa, which was written at that time, gives the following information with a view to divulging their inner purposes:
1- Under the pretext of (Muhammad-Alî unity), Hurûfîs hold the Messenger of Allah and hadrat Alî equal.
2- They say that “Everybody who loves hadrat Alî will enter Paradise, be he a Jew or a Christian or a polytheist. On the other hand, those who love the As-hâb-i-kirâm will go to Hell, however good worshippers they may be and even if they love the Ahl-i-Bayt.”
3- “Sinning will not harm those who love Alî,” they allege.
4- They call the Ahl as-sunna, who are the Ummat-i-merhuma (people who have attained Allah’s compassion), the Ummat-i-mel’ûna (people accursed by Allah.).
5- Asserting that Qur’ân al-kerîm was changed by hadrat ’Uthmân ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’, they deny many âyats.
6- Cursing hadrat ’Umar deserves, according to them, more thawâb than dhikring or reading Qur’ân al-kerîm.
7- It is a worship, in their view, to curse the As-hâb-i-kirâm and Zawjât-i-zawil ihtirâm (the blessed and honourable wives of our Prophet). “It is farz to curse these people daily,” they say.
8- “Cursing (hadrat) Abû Bekr or (hadrat) ‘Umar once is equal to seventy worships,” they believe.
9- According to them, hadrat Ruqayya and Umm-i-Ghulthum are not Rasûlullah’s daughters, because they married hadrat ’Uthmân.
10- They say that hadrat Abû Bekr and ’Umar and ’Uthmân ‘radiy-Allâhu anhum’ “were munâfiqs.” Thus they deny the hadîth-i sherîfs praising these three Khalîfas. These hadîth-i-sherîfs are written together with their documents in the book Izâlat-ul-hafâ, by Shâh Waliyyullah Dahlawî.
11- Because hadrat Abû Bekr belonged to the tribe called Temîm and hadrat ’Umar was from the tribe called Adî, they say that Abû Bekr and ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anhumâ’ “worshipped idols secretly.” However, hadrat Alî gave his daughter to hadrat Abû Bekr’s son Muhammad and appointed him as a governor. And he gave his other daughter to hadrat ’Umar. While maintaining on the one hand that “hadrat Alî is free from errors,” they vituperate on the other hand the great religious leaders to whom hadrat Alî gave his daughters and Rasûlullah’s father-in-law and son-in-law, and say that these people were munâfiqs.
12- They think that Sunnite Muslims are inimical towards hadrat Alî and Ahl-i-Bayt. On the contrary, Sunnites love hadrat Alî ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ and the Ahl-i-Bayt very much and say that loving these people will cause one to die in îmân, (as a Believer, that is). Sunnites believe that being a Walî (a person loved by Allâhu ta’âlâ) requires loving these people (hadrat Alî and the Ahl-i-Bayt) and following them.
13- They allege that Sunnites look on Ibni Muljam, hadrat Alî’s ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ murderer, as a just person and that “Bukhârî reports hadîths coming through him.” This allegation is untrue. The book Bukhârî does not contain any hadîths narrated by Ibni Muljam.
14- Because they feel animosity towards the Ahl as-sunna, they curse the word ‘Sunnat’, too.
15- They say that if a person says, “wa ta’âlâ jad-duk,” when performing namâz, his namâz will be annulled.
16- They say that Sunnites ‘rahmatullâhu ta’âlâ alaihim ajma’în’ “are worse and fouler than Jews and Christians.”
17- They claim that all their groups, inimical as they are towards one another, will enter Paradise owing to their love for hadrat Alî.
18- “It is not necessary to do the worships taught by the Ahl as-sunna,” they maintain.
19- When they begin doing something, they curse the three Khalîfas instead of saying the word Basmala. They argue that “a sick person who bears on himself a piece of paper containing a written curse against the first two Khalîfas, or drinks the water in which this paper has been dipped, will recover.”
20- According to them, cursing hadrat Âisha and hadrat Hafsa ‘radiy-Allâhu anhumâ’ five times daily “is farz.”
21- They say that the Messenger of Allah “gave proxy to divorce his wives. So Alî divorced Âisha (from Rasûlullah) by proxyy.” On the contrary, âyat-i-kerîmas did not even give the right to end a marriage to anyone, be it the Messenger of Allah.
22- They say that “Prophets would not have been created had it not been for Alî.” They cannot think that a person who says that “a non-Prophet is higher than a Prophet” becomes a disbeliever.
23- They say that “on the rising day everything will depend on Muhammad and Alî’s decision.”
24- According to them, when ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ was slain, “angels did not record sins for anybody for three days.”
25- They say that the stones thrown on Minâ during every hajj are actually thrown towards Abû Bekr and ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu anhumâ’.
26- “The âyat about Dâbbat-ul-ard was intended to inform that hadrat Alî will come back to earth,” they maintain.
27- According to them, and it is at the same time the twenty-second article in their false credo, it is a very thawâb-deserving act for the host to offer his wife and daughters to another Hurûfî who visits him. In Iran the Hurûfî fathers pay visits as they wish, and the families they visit offer them women to choose as they wish. Thus, they believe, the children conceived on Friday nights (nights between Thursdays and Fridays) are (called) Persian Sayyeds. Therefore the so called Sayyeds are abundant in Iran.
28- The eighteenth of Zilhijja (month) is their greatest day of celebration. It is the day when hadrat ’Uthmân was martyred.
29- Another day they celebrate is the ninth of Rebî’ul-awwal, the day when hadrat ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ was martyred.
30- Another day they hold sacred is the Nevrûz Day, which is actually a day celebrated by Magians.
31- According to them, prayers of namâz except those which are farz can be performed in any direction. For instance, when they visit Imâm-i-Alî Ridâ’s tomb in Mashhad they perform namâz towards the grave on whichever corner of the grave they are. It is stated as follows in the three hundredth page of the summary of Tuhfa: “They perform namâz with their faces towards the graves of imâms, without even considering that they may be turning their backs to the qibla (Ka’ba) by doing so.”
32- They say that namâz can always be performed naked as you are. It is written in a frank language in their book Minhâj-us-sâlihîn that according to them no part of one’s body, with the exception of the saw’atayn (the two private parts, the urinatory and the excretory organs), is awrat (parts of the body one has to cover). Fifteenth edition of the book was published in Nejef (or Najaf) in 1386 [A.D. 1966].
33- They maintain that eating and drinking (during namâz) will not abrogate the namâz.
34- It is written in the two hundred and eighteenth page (of the book cited above, i.e. Tuhfa) that they do not perform Friday prayer and that they perform early and late afternoon, evening and night prayers all at the same time.
35- Their seventeenth credal tenet is that things touched by the innocent imâm are thousands of times as valuable as Ka’ba.
36- “Immersing oneself in water will nullify one’s fasting,” they say.
37- On the tenth of Muharram they fast until afternoon.
38- “Jihâd is not a worship, nor is it permissible,” they say.
39- They call it Mut’a Nikâh to cohabit with a woman for a certain period of time in return for money. According to them, this kind of nikâh (marriage) causes much thawâb. It is written in the two hundred and twenty-seventh page that life in brothels, which they call ‘Mut’a-i-dawriyya (devriyye)’, is permissible.
40- “It is sahîh (acceptable canonically) to hand over a jâriya to other men,” they say.
41- It is stated as follows in the three hundred and twenty-fifth page of the Arabic book Muhtasar-i-Tuhfa-i-Isnâ-ashariyya, which was prepared by Sayyed Mahmûd Shukru Alûsî in (the hijrî year) 1302 and printed in Cairo in 1373: According to these people, “Meat or any similar kind of food cooked in water that has been used for cleaning after stool is edible and permissible to eat.” It is written in their book Minhâj that water used in istinjâ (cleaning oneself canonically) is clean. Likewise, they say that “Water that has been used by a number of people for cleaning themselves or into which a dog has urinated is clean; it is permissible to drink it or to cook something in it. So is the case with water half of which is blood or urine.”
42-“It is permissible for a hungry person to kill another person who has bread enough but will not give him any,” they say.
43- Their seventy-fifth stratagem, which is written in the second chapter of the book, (Tuhfa) is their saying that “Prostration in namâz must be done on earthen sun-dried bricks. Sunnites are like devils because they do not do their prostrations on earth.”
44- It is stated as follows in the two hundred and ninety-ninth page of the abridged version of Tuhfa: “As Christians forge pictures of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and hadrat Maryam (Mary) and prostrate themselves in front of these pictures in churches, so Hurûfîs draw or paint imaginary pictures of imâms and venerate, and even prostrate themselves in front of, these pictures.” It is still observed in Iran and Iraq today that they hang forged pictures of bearded people wearing turbans on walls in mosques, in their homes and shops and worship them, saying that they are pictures of hadrat Alî.
45-It is stated in the fourteenth page of the abridged version of Tuhfa that the most excessive groups of Hurûfîs say that hadrat Alî is a god. These excessive groups have been broken into twenty-four sub-groups. The twentieth group says that “God has entered Alî and his children. Alî is a god.” People belonging to this group are mostly in Damascus, Aleppo, and Lazkiyya. Votaries of this group do not exist in Turkey.
The book Tuhfa-i-Isnâ-ashariyya gives a detailed account of the Hurûfî beliefs explained shortly in the forty-five paragraphs above, names of the books in which most of these beliefs are recorded, and proves through corroboratory documents that each and every one of these beliefs is wrong and aberrant. Alevîs, who are aware of hadrat Alî’s honour and value and the services he rendered to Islam, are Muslims who love that lion of Allah in a manner advised by our master, the Prophet. On the other hand, we Sunnite Muslims are Alevîs, too, because we love hadrat Alî in this manner. We love other Alevîs who share this same love. We know them as our brothers. It should be our debt of conscience to cooperate and love one another on these lands, which offer us freedom of worship and peace.
It has been explained in the lines above that one of the groups of religion reformers who endeavour to demolish Islam from within, and perhaps the most dangerous one, is the group called Hurûfîs. These people are not Shiites. Being a Shiite means disliking the three Khalîfas; it does not mean feeling hostility against them. Shi’ah means jamâ’at, community, group, party. People belonging to this party are called Shi'îs. Qisâs-i-enbiyâ gives the following information:
The first inventor of the fitna of bearing hostility against the Ahl as-Sunna is a Jew of Yemen named Abdullah bin Saba’. This Jew pretended to be a Muslim. First he went to Basra, where he began to spew his venomous malices, which can be outlined as “Îsâ (Jesus) ‘alaihis-salâm’ will return to earth. Why should it not be possible for Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ to do so, too. He also will come back. He and Alî will rescue the world from disbelief. Caliphate belonged to Alî by rights. The three Khalîfas used force to deprive him of his rights.” He was deported from Basra. He went to Kûfa and began to mislead the people. Then, being deported from Kûfa, too, he went to Damascus. The Sahâbîs in Damascus would not tolerate him. So he fled to Egypt, where he managed to gather a number of ignoble and eccentric bandits around himself, such as Khâlid bin Muljim, Sûdan bin Hamrân, Ghâfikî bin Harb and Kinâna bin Bishr. He presented himself as a lover of the Ahl-i-Bayt. The first step he took to deceive people around him was to advise them to “Love hadrat Alî and bear animosity towards people who are opposed to him.” When people began to believe him, he would go a step further and say that “Hadrat Alî is the highest man after Prophets. He is the Prophet’s protector, brother, and son-in-law.” He would convince these people by giving wrong meanings to âyat-i-kerîmas and fabricating hadîth-i-sherîfs. People who do so are called Zindiq. And the final step he took with people who went on believing him would be to convince them that “The Prophet commanded that hadrat Alî should be Khalîfa after him. The Sahâba disobeyed the Prophet. They deprived Alî of his right. They traded their faith for worldly advantages.” While doing all these, he was cautious enough to warn his adherents not to reveal these secrets to strangers for his purpose was “not to make fame, but to guide people to the right way.” Thus he caused hadrat ’Uthmân’s martyrdom. Then he tried to spread feelings of animosity against the three Khalîfas among hadrat Alî’s army. He was successful in this, too. People who believed him were called Saba’iyya, [and later, they began to be called Hurûfîs]. Upon hearing about the rumours, hadrat Alî mounted the menber and castigated the slanderers of the three Khalîfas in a heavy language. He threatened some of them with flogging. Seeing his own success, Ibni Saba’ managed to exploit this situation, too. He secretly intimated hadrat Alî’s miracles to people he chose, interpreting “these extraordinary accomplishments (of hadrat Alî’s)” as symtoms of “the fact that he is a god” and putting forward the words which hadrat Alî uttered when he was in an ecstacy called Sekr-i-tarîqât as evidences. Hadrat Alî was wise to this, too. He declared that he would burn Ibni Saba’ and his believers. He exiled them to the city of Medâyn. Ibni Saba’ would not give up there, either. Sending his men forth to Iraq and Azerbaijân, he promulgated enmity against the Ashâb-i-kirâm. Hadrat Alî was too busy fighting Damascene rebels to struggle against these people or to carry out his administrative duties as the Khalîfa.
9- Question: If hadrat Alî had made an agreement with the Sahâbîs who were against him in the events of Camel and Siffîn, if he had not made war against them, if he had united and cooperated with those beloved Muslim brothers of his and together they had fought the disbeliever named Ibni Saba’ and the munâfiqs who had gathered around him, he would have added another one to the services he had rendered to Islam. Thus the Saba’iyya group, who have shed Islamic blood throughout history, would have been annihilated. How would this question be answered?
Answer: His ijtihâd was not so. The destiny foreordained by Allâhu ta’âlâ was inspired into his blessed heart. So he submitted himself to the qader-i-ilâhî. Scholars of Ahl as-sunna explain that hadrat Alî’s ijtihâd was correct. The same was experienced by Abd-ul-hamîd Khân II ‘rahmatullâhi aleyh’. As an army of pillagers prepared with Masonic plans were on their way towards the palace to dethrone the Sultân, the generals in Istanbul suggested to resist. The barracks in Istanbul were full of trained soldiers. Yet Abd-ul-hamîd Khân imitated hadrat Alî’s ‘radiy-Allâhu anh’ ijtihâd. He submitted himself to qader-i-ilâhî (Allah’s divine foreordination). He did not resist the rebels. Thus he thwarted the Party of Union’s plans to avenge on him and thousands of Muslims.
Day after day the number of separatists increased and consequently hadrat Alî’s ‘radiy-Allâhu anh’ army was broken into four groups:
1- The first group was the Shî’ah, who followed hadrat Alî ‘radiy-Allâhu anh’. They did not criticize any of the As-hâb-i-kirâm. On the contrary, they spoke about them with love and respect. They were free from the doubts inspired by the devil. They knew the group they were fighting against as their brothers. (After a very short time) they stopped fighting them. Hadrat Alî accepted their judgements. The name Shî’ah was attached to this group first, and people who followed this group were called Ahl as-Sunna wa’l-jamâ’at.
2- The group who held hadrat Alî ‘radiy-Allâhu anh’ higher than all the other Sahâbîs were called Tafdîliyya. Hadrat Alî tried to dissuade them by threatening them with flogging. The word Shî’ah represents this group today.
3- The group who said that all the Sahâba ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anhum ajma’în’ were sinners and disbelievers. These people were called Saba’iyya or Hurûfî.
4-The group called Ghulât, who were the most unreasonable, were the most heretical of the four groups. They asserted that Allah had entered hadrat Alî.
When hadrat Huseyn’s son Imâm Zeynel’âbidîn Alî passed away when he was forty-eight years old in the ninety-fourth year of the Hegira, his son Zeyd bin Alî ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anhum ajma’în’ revolted against Khalîfa Hishâm and marched to Kûfa with an army. Yet, when hadrat Zeyd heard that his soldiers were swearing at the As-hâb-i-kirâm, he advised them to stop doing so. This made most of his soldiers abandon him. Having to defend himself with the very few soldiers who remained faithful to him, he was finally martyred in 122. Those who left him called themselves Imâmiyya. And the faithful ones who stayed with Zeyd were called Zeydiyya.
According to the Ahl as-sunna, who were Alî’s Shî’ah, hadrat Alî was the highest of his time. Caliphate was his right. Those who disagreed with him were wrong and became bâghîs (rebels against the Khalîfa). Hadrat Âisha, Talha, Zubeyr, Mu’âwiya,Amr Ibni Âs and the other Sahâbîs ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anhum ajma’în’ who fought hadrat Alî did not do so for the office of caliphate. They protested him because hadrat ’Uthmân’s murderers had not been found and retaliated against. They were about to come to an agreement, when Abdullah bin Saba’ and his men started the fight, and everything happened after that. All the Sahâbîs fighting hadrat Alî were saying that caliphate was his right and that he was higher than themselves. They were praising him. And hadrat Alî loved and praised those Sahâbîs who fought him.
10- Hurûfîs say that “The Ahl-i-Bayt castigated the As-hâb-i-kirâm ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anhum ajma’în’ and lamented over the persecutions inflicted by them.” They add that “Most of the Sahâba, especially (hadrat) Mu’âwiya and his father and (hadrat) Amr bin Âs, were apostates, and that those who love and praise those apostates will go to Hell together with them.” It is true that after the As-hâb-i-kirâm there were governors who perpetrated cruelty and persecution. The torments inflicted in the time of Abbasids were very much worse than those done in the time of Umayyads. Some imâms of the Ahl-i-Bayt criticized those governors. Yet these people (Hurûfîs) distorted these criticizations of the imâms of the Ahl-i-Bayt and represented them as if they had been intended for the As-hâb-i-kirâm. This act of theirs is treacherous both against the Ahl-i-Bayt and against the As-hâb-i-kirâm.
They misled ignorant people by misrepresenting books censuring the Ashâb-i-kirâm as literature belonging to the scholars of Ahl as-sunna. For example, the author of the book of interpretation entitled Keshshaf is a supporter of the groups called Tafdîliyya (see the second group explained above) and Mu’tazila. Ahtab Hârezmî, on the other hand, is an unbridled Zeydî. Ibni Qutayba, the author of the book Maârif, and Ibni Ebilhadîd, who wrote an explanation of the book Nahj-ul-belâgha, are in Mu’tazila sect. Hisham Kelebî, a writer of Tafsîr, is a bid’at holder. Mes’ûdî, the author of Murawwij-uz-zeheb, Abulferej Isfehânî, author of the book Eghânî, and Ahmad Taberî, author of Riyâd-un-madara, are a few of the fanatical adversaries of Ahl as-sunna. These people are being presented as scholars of Ahl as-sunna and thus younger generations are being deceived. In order to practise their deceit easily, they withhold the fact that they are holders of bid’at. Most of them masquerade completely. They pretend to be Sunnites. They praise scholars of Ahl as-sunna and yet vituperate the greater ones of the As-hâb-i-kirâm. And, in the name of documents, they refer to such books as the ones we have named above. Then, Muslims will have to be extremely vigilant. They should not read books and magazines quoting or translating from these corruptive books. No matter how earnestly they may seem to be praising Islam and the scholars of Ahl as-sunna, any religious book containing the names of the so-called books should be known as a venom, a snare prepared behind the scenes by zindiqs, whose sole purpose is to destroy Islam from within.
There are two men of religion named Suddî. One of them is Ismâîl Kûfî. He is Sunnite. The other man, who is better known with his nickname Saghîr, is a vulgarly bigoted holder of bid’at. Also, there are two Ibni Qutaybas. Ibrâhîm ibni Qutayba is a bid’at holder. Abdullah bin Muslim bin Qutayba, on the other hand, is Sunnî. Each of these people has a book entitled Me’ârif. Another name shared by two people is Muhammad ibni Jerîr Taberî. One of these two people is Sunnî and wrote a great history book. The other is a bid’at holder. The history book named Taberî was abridged by a bid’at holder named Alî Shimshâtî.
The book Tuhfa quotes the twenty-seventh falsification of Hurûfîs:
11-“A black maiden, a jâriya, praised the Shi’ah and censured the Ahl as-sunna in Hârûn-ur-reshîd’s palace. There were scholars of Ahl as-sunna, particularly Qâdî Abû Yûsuf. None of them could answer her,” they say. The maiden’s name, as they forge, was Husniya. Now a book named after her, Husniya, is being sold throughout Anatolia. This story, contrary to their expectations, is depreciatory to those scholars of their own aberrant way. For it naturally leads one to the conclusion that “for many centuries none of these people had been able to do what the jâriya did. In no debate had they managed to refute the scholars of Ahl as-sunna ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ alaihim ajmâ’în’ as did the jâriya. They had always been beaten. Had they learned the jâriya’s methods earlier, they would have saved themselves from embarrassment.” It has been clear that the stories in the book Husniya were written by a person named Murtadâ. And that this Murtadâ was a Jewish convert is written in the book Esmâ-ul-muallifîn.
12- After hadrat Alî’s martyrdom, followers of the Jew named Ibni Saba’ infiltrated among the Muslims supporting hadrat Hasan. Forty thousand people elected him Khalîfa among themselves and provoked thim to fight hadrat Mu’âwiya. Their aim was to do the same thing with him as they had done with hadrat Alî and to martyr him. They were showing disrespect to him. In fact, in one of such occasions Mukhtâr Seqafî pulled his prayer rug from under his blessed feet. At some other time another accursed villain hit him on the foot with a pickaxe. When the two armies met, they saw that hadrat Mu’âwiya was going to win and deserted hadrat Hasan’s army. One of their own men, a zindiq named Murtadâ, writes about these treacheries of theirs shamelessly in his book Tenzîh-ul-enbiyâ. In fact, it is stated in their book Kitâb-ul-fusûl that followers of Ibni Saba’, who were on hadrat Hasan’s side in the beginning, wrote a letter to hadrat Mu’âwiya, saying, “Attack now! We shall leave Hasan to you.” Being wise to these villains’ intentions, Hasan ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ offered peace. So hadrat Mu’âwiya ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’, who had been anxious that hadrat Hasan’s blessed body should not be hurt, answered that he was ready to make peace on any terms hadrat Hasan would propose.
13- These people would not give up their mischievous activities after Mu’âwiya’s ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ time, either. For it was the right time for them to deal Islam the destructive blow from within. They sent a message to hadrat Huseyn ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’, promising their support for his caliphate. They invited him to Kûfa from Mekka. Let us see what the book Qisâs-i-Enbiyâ has to say in this connection:
Abdullah bin ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ tried to dissuade him imploringly from going to Kûfa. Yet hadrat Huseyn would not listen to him. So Abdullah bid farewell to him in tears. Then Abdullah bin Abbâs took his turn and said, “O my (paternal) uncle’s son! I fear that the people of Kûfa may hurt you. They are malicious people. Don’t go there! Go to Yemen if you must go somewhere!” Hadrat Huseyn answered him, “You are right. But I have decided to go there.” Abdullah craved, “At least, do not take your household! I am afraid you will be martyred before the eyes of your children like hadrat ’Uthmân.” Hadrat Huseyn would not listen to this advice either. These statements cited from Qisâs-i-enbiyâ show that the Sahâbîs in Mekka knew that people who invited hadrat Huseyn to the city of Kûfa were malevolent and that their purpose was to dupe him into their snare.
14- Scholars of Ahl as-sunna state that after hadrat Alî’s martyrdom caliphate belonged to hadrat Hasan by rights. On his own volition he demitted his right to hadrat Mu’âwiya. For at that time he was the person suitable for caliphate. Hadrat Hasan abdicated the office of caliphate not out of fear or because he was left alone, but to protect Muslims from a grave bloodbath, and out of his magnanimous compassion for Believers. It is not permissible to make peace with disbelievers or renegades in order to prevent fitna. It is the worst fitna to give up fighting them at the cost of offering the victory to them. Yet it is permissible to make peace with rebels (in such circumstances). Until that time hadrat Mu’âwiya’s position was that of a rebel. That year he became Khalîfa rightfully. A bâghî (rebel) cannot be cursed. Instead, benedictions must be pronounced over him and one must supplicate to Allâhu ta’âlâ to “forgive this person.” An âyat-i-kerîma in Muhammad sûra purports, “Make istighfâr for Believers’ wrongdoings!” Commanding istighfâr (invoking Allâhu ta’âlâ for forgiveness) means prohibiting cursing. This âyat-i-kerîma commands to make istighfâr for those who commit grave sins. It may be permissible to curse wrongdoing, yet this does not mean that wrongdoers can be cursed, too. The tenth âyat of Hashr sûra purports, “Do not feel hostility towards earlier Believers. Pronounce benedictions over them.” It is a fact written even in Shiite books that hadrat Alî prohibited to curse Damascenes. This indicates that they were Muslims. It is stated in a hadîth-i-sherîf addressed to hadrat Alî, “Fighting you is fighting against me.” Yet this hadîth-i-sherîf is intended to alarm against the risk of fighting against those great people. This hadîth-i-sherîf is explained in detail in the forty-first paragraph. In reality, the position occupied by hadrat Mu’âwiya ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anh’ and his successors was that of a Ruler, a Sultân. They were doing only one of the three different duties of a Khalîfa.
Hurûfî books state that hadrat Mu’âwiya’s governor’s oppressed the people. One of them was Ziyâd, the governor of Shîrâz. He was Abû Sufyân’s illegitimate son, whom he had from a concubine named Sumayya belonging to a doctor named Hâris in the time of Nescience (before Islam). As he grew up, he became legendary for his n