the wholesale declaration of unbelief(1), just as some of the Imāmīs disputed the wholesale declaration of unbelief(2). Yet they agreed with them(3) on the basic principle of declaring others unbelievers.

As for taking up arms, the Zaydīs advocate it, whereas the Imāmīs do not. Al-Asharī(4) \ 123 said: “The Rāfidīs(5) unanimously agreed that revolt is invalid and rejected taking up arms, even if they were killed, until the Imam appears to them and commands them(6) to do so.”

I say:

For this reason, they neither wage war against the unbelievers nor fight alongside the leaders of the community, except for any one of them who adheres to his doctrine. It has thus become clear that both divergence and agreement in the fundamentals of belief are shared by the Rāfidīs and others.

The Seventh Argument:

It may be said that their divergence from all other schools is more indicative of the falsity of their position than of its correctness(7). A sect’s mere separation from every other sect does not prove that it alone is correct, just as all those other sects agreeing on a position does not prove that it is false.

If it is said(8): “The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—stated that his community would comprise seventy-three sects, all of them in the Fire except one(9). This indicates that this one sect must necessarily differ from all the other seventy-two sects.”