many of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them).
Saīd ibn al-Musayyib said: “The first civil strife erupted, and no one who had witnessed Badr was left. Then came the second, and no one who had witnessed al-Hudaybiyya was left.”
He said: “I think that, were a third to occur, it would not subside while any good remained among the people” (1).
Al-Baghawī said: “By the first civil strife, he meant the killing of Uthmān, and by the second, the Battle of al-Harra” (2).
G – The Trial over the Claim that the Quran Was Created:
Thereafter, during the Abbasid era, there arose the trial concerning the claim that the Quran was created. The Abbasid caliph al-Mamūn championed and supported this doctrine, following in this the Jahmiyya and the Mutazila, who had promoted it to him. As a result, the scholars of Islam were put to the test, and the Muslims suffered a tremendous affliction. It preoccupied them for a prolonged period, and through it beliefs alien to the Muslim creed were introduced into it.
Indeed, the civil strife that has occurred is too extensive to enumerate, and such strife continues to arise, follow in succession, and intensify.
Because of these and other outbreaks of civil strife, the Muslims divided into sects