the non-Arabs: Romans, Greeks, and others. During his reign, the “Khurramiyya” emerged. They were heretics and hypocrites who outwardly professed Islam, and later branched into the Qarāmita, the Bātiniyya, and the Ismāʿīliyya. Most of these outwardly professed Rāfidī doctrine.

During the rule of the Banū Buwayh, after the third century AH, the Imāmī Rāfida came to embrace most of these misguided doctrines: rebellion, Rāfidī doctrine, Qadarī doctrine, and Jahmī doctrine. When a scholar considers the texts of the Quran and Sunnah that they have contradicted, he finds that none but Allah can enumerate them. All this shows that they possess what is found among the Harūrī Khawārij, and more besides.

Moreover, the Harūrī Khawārij professed to follow the Quran according to their own opinions, and claimed to follow traditions which they alleged contradicted the Quran. The Rāfida profess to follow the Prophet’s household and claim that among them is an infallible person from whom no knowledge is hidden and who never errs—neither deliberately nor inadvertently nor when exercising sound judgment.

Following the Quran is obligatory upon the Muslim community; indeed, it is the foundation of faith and the guidance of Allah with which He sent His Messenger. Likewise, it is obligatory to love the household of Allah’s Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to maintain allegiance to them, and to uphold their rights. These are the two weighty trusts concerning which the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, gave his instructions.

Muslim narrated in his Sahīh from Zayd ibn Arqam, who said: “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, addressed us at a pool called Khumm, between Mecca and Medina, saying: ‘O people, I am leaving among you the two weighty trusts’—and in another version, ‘one of them is greater than the other’—‘the Book of Allah, in which there is guidance