It should be replied:

“If the Muslims with him did not obey him, how could the disbelievers who reject his Prophet and him ever obey him?!”

These Rāfidah combine two contradictory claims because of their extreme ignorance and wrongdoing: they portray Ali as surpassing everyone in power and courage, going so far as to claim that it was he who established the Messenger’s religion and that the Messenger needed him. They utter disbelief of this kind by making him (1) Allah’s partner in establishing Muhammad’s religion. Yet, after Islam had become dominant and strong and people had entered it in multitudes (2), they portray him as utterly helpless and weak, lacking all fortitude and practising dissimulation.

It is known with certainty that, after entering the religion of Islam, people were more inclined to follow the truth than they had been before entering it. If someone had shared with Allah in establishing Muhammad’s religion until he had vanquished the disbelievers and people had embraced Islam, how could he fail to do the same by subduing a faction that rebelled against him, when they were fewer than the disbelievers (3) present when the Messenger was sent, possessed less power than those disbelievers, and were closer to the truth than they had been?!

For when Allah sent Muhammad, the disbelievers were more numerous than those who opposed Ali and farther removed from the truth. The inhabitants of the Hijaz, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Khorasan, and the Maghreb were all disbelievers—whether polytheists, People of the Book, Magians, or Sabians. By the time the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) died, Islam had become dominant in the Arabian Peninsula; and by the time Uthman was killed, Islam had become dominant in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Khorasan, and the Maghreb.

Thus, at the death of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), the enemies of the truth were fewer than those disbelievers