As for the “extremists,” he burned them with fire. One day, he came out through the Gate of Kindah, and some people prostrated before him. He asked, “What is this?” They replied, “You are Allah Himself.” He called on them three times to repent, but they would not recant. On the third occasion, he ordered trenches to be dug, kindled fires in them, and then cast the men into them. He said:

“When I saw how abhorrent the matter was,
I kindled my fire and called Qanbar.”

Sahīh al-Bukhārī relates that ‘Alī was brought some of their heretics and burned them. News of this reached {Ibn ‘Abbās, who said: “Had it been me, I would not have burned them, because the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade inflicting Allah’s punishment. Instead, I would have struck off their heads, because the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘Whoever changes his religion, kill him.’”}

As for the “revilers,” when he learned of a man who reviled Abū Bakr and ‘Umar, he sought to put him to death, but the man fled from him to Qarqīsiyā. Someone spoke to him on the man’s behalf. ‘Alī used to conciliate his commanders because he lacked firm control, and they did not obey everything he commanded them to do.

As for “those who maintained his superiority,” he said: “No one who considers me superior to Abū Bakr and ‘Umar will be brought before me without my flogging him with the prescribed punishment for false accusers.” It is narrated from him through more than eighty chains of transmission that he said: “The best of this community after its Prophet is Abū Bakr, then ‘Umar.”

Sahīh al-Bukhārī relates that Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah said to his father: “Father, who is the best of people after the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace?”