The same is true of followers of caprice and innovation other than the Rāfidah: among them you find forms of misguidance and waywardness, as well as polytheism and arrogance.

Yet the Rāfidah go further in this than others. Hence, you find them among the sects that do most to leave the houses of Allah and His mosques bereft of Friday and congregational prayers, which are the gatherings most beloved to Allah. They likewise do not wage jihad against the disbelievers, the enemies of the religion. Rather, they often ally themselves with them and enlist their aid (1) in opposing the Muslims. Thus, they are hostile toward Allah’s believing allies and ally themselves with His enemies—the polytheists and the People of the Book. They are likewise hostile toward the best of creation [among] the Emigrants (2), the Helpers, and those who followed them in righteousness, while allying themselves with the most disbelieving of all people—the Ismailis, the Nusayris, and similar heretics.

Although they say, “They are disbelievers,” their hearts and bodies are more inclined toward them than toward the Emigrants, the Helpers, the Successors, and the great majority of Muslims.

No follower of caprice and innovation—even among those affiliated with scholarship, speculative theology (3), jurisprudence, hadith, and Sufism—is entirely free of some measure of this. Likewise, some measure of it is also found among followers of caprice who attach themselves to kings, viziers, secretaries, and merchants. Yet the Rāfidah have gone further in misguidance and waywardness than every other sect among the people of innovation.

[Section: The Twenty-Fifth Proof—“Allah Will Bring Forth a People He Loves and Who Love Him”—and the Response to It]

Section

The Rāfidī said (4): “The twenty-fifth proof is the following statement of Allah Most High: