2803 – Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Sahl informed us; Aḥmad ibn Muslim related to us, saying: “Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Jawharī narrated to us, saying: ‘Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Hāniʾ al-Ṭāʾī al-Athram narrated to us, saying: “Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAmr narrated to us.”’ Fudayl – meaning Ibn Marzūq – reported, from Abū Ḥubāb, from Abū Sulaymān al-Hamdānī, from a man of his own clan, who said: ʿAlī stated that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Shall I not guide you to a deed which, if you perform it, you will be one of the people of Paradise – indeed you are already of the people of Paradise? After us there will arise a people who bear a nickname; they will be called the Rāfiḍah. When you meet them, kill them, for they are polytheists.”

ʿAlī also said: “After us there will come a people who claim affection for us. They invent lies about us; they are renegades. Their distinguishing mark is that they curse Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.” (So stated Fudayl.)

Al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan said: “Al-Mughīrah ibn Saʿīd once came in to see me. He spoke of my lineage and likened me to the Messenger of Allah; when I was young I most resembled the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Then he mentioned Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, cursed them, and disavowed them. I said, ‘Enemy of Allah – and you do this in my presence?’ Then I seized him by the throat, ⦗1542⦘ strangling him … for Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAmr is one of them … We went out laughing, and the Rāfiḍī said, ‘He only strangled him with words.’

Fudayl continued: I went back to him and asked, ‘Did you choke him merely with words?’ He replied, ‘No, by Allah – I strangled him until his tongue hung out.’

Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan said: “By Allah, the Rāfiḍah have broken away from us just as the Khārijite Ḥarūriyyah broke away from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.”

I also heard him say to one of them, “By Allah, killing you is a deed that brings one near to Allah.” The man answered, “May Allah have mercy on you; I know you are only joking.” He said, “No, by Allah, this is no joke – it is in deadly earnest. The only thing that would make me spare you is a covenant of protection.”

I further heard him say: “If Allah enables us to overcome you, we will certainly cut off your hands and your feet.”

Fudayl said: I heard al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan say: “Woe to you! If the matter is as you claim – that Allah and His Messenger chose ʿAlī for this office and for supervising it over the Muslims after the Messenger of Allah ﷺ – and yet ʿAlī abandoned the command of Allah and His Messenger to discharge it as he had been ordered, or at least to offer the Muslims an excuse – then the greatest sinner of all mankind in that would be ʿAlī ﵁ for abandoning the command of Allah and His Messenger.”

A Rāfiḍī objected, “Did not the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, ‘Whoever’s master I am, ʿAlī is his master’?” He replied, “Indeed. But, by Allah, had the Messenger of Allah ﷺ intended by that statement leadership, authority, and administering the affairs of the Muslims after him, he would have stated it to them plainly – just as he spelled out prayer, zakāh, the pilgrimage to the House, and the fast of Ramaḍān. Who ⦗1543⦘ could have been a better counsellor to the Muslims than the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?”