though he was no chosen one. The ruthless destroyer was al-Hajjāj ibn Yūsuf al-Thaqafī. The turmoil that occurred during his time was the revolt of Ibn al-Ashath, who rose against him together with the Quran reciters; it arose because of al-Hajjāj’s injustice and tyranny.

None of these conflicts occurred over the caliphates of Abū Bakr and Umar. Rather, all those involved accepted the caliphates of Abū Bakr and Umar. Their disputes concerned only who would wield authority at the time: whenever a group arose to contest the ruler’s authority, some people sided with him while others rose against him.

The conflicts that occurred thereafter during the Umayyad era were likewise. When Zayd ibn Alī ibn al-Husayn rose during the caliphate of Hishām and sought authority for himself, he was among those who recognized Abū Bakr and Umar. His fighting was therefore not based on any tenet concerning the imamate professed by the Rāfidīs.

When Abū Muslim and the partisans of Banū Hāshim rose against Banū Umayya, they fought only the ruler then in power, namely Marwān ibn Muhammad and his supporters.

The Banū al-Abbās consistently affirmed the legitimacy of the four caliphs (1), publicly proclaiming from the pulpits the precedence of Abū Bakr, Umar, and Uthmān. Thus, none of their partisans or those of Banū Umayya fought (2) to impugn the caliphates of the first three.

Those who rose against them—such as Muhammad ibn Abd Allāh ibn al-Hasan in Medina and his brother Ibrāhīm in Basra—only (3) rose, together with their followers, against al-Mansūr, not