Chapter 74 : The Major Failure of Abu Bakr and Umar
The Difference between a Politician and a Statesman, it has been said, is that the politician thinks of the next election, the statesman of the next generation. What it means is that the impact of a politician on the public is transitory whereas that of a statesman is enduring.
In the case of leaders who are dead, people remember them according to whether their actions and ideas changed the course of history, and whether their works have become part of the national heritage.
Abu Bakr and Umar were great statesmen and their actions and ideas changed the course of history. Without a doubt, they were great leaders, conquerors and administrators.
But notwithstanding all the greatness of Abu Bakr and Umar, there is one area in which their vision as statesmen failed them, and it failed them totally. The area in question relates to the leadership of the Muslims. They failed to create an apparatus of succession for the Muslim umma. They failed to develop a system of peaceful transfer of sovereignty from one incumbent to another.
Before Abu Bakr and Umar, their master, Muhammad, the Messenger of God, had designed an apparatus for orderly and peaceful transfer of power. But most unfortunately, they (Abu Bakr and Umar) dismantled it. In its stead, they designed an apparatus of their own. Their apparatus was workable but it had too many "bugs" in it.
In contradistinction to the inspired plan of Muhammad for succession, Abu Bakr and Umar adopted a makeshift system of their own in Saqifa. Their system was successful in the sense that it put power in their hands; first one and then the other of them became the successor of Muhammad. After all, nothing succeeds like succession! But as events were soon to show, their system was incompatible with a coherent strategy. Coherence, and not visceral ad hoc-ery is the essence of statesmanlike strategy.
When Muhammad, the Apostle of God, died, Abu Bakr and Umar inaugurated the al-Khilafat er-Rashida (the Rightly-Guided Caliphate), and Abu Bakr became the first "rightly-guided caliph." Two years later, when he was dying, he appointed Umar as his successor who then became the second "rightly-guided caliph."
Ten years later, Umar lay dying, and he was confronted once again with the problem of transferring power. But all that he did, was to design a jerry-built apparatus to find a leader for the umma even though he had gained long experience of government and politics.
The dismantlement by Abu Bakr and Umar of the apparatus for transfer of power which Muhammad had given to his umma, proved to be the greatest tragedy in the history of Islam.
Maurice Latey, writing about the Roman Emperors, in his book, Patterns of Tyranny, published by Atheneum, New York (1969), says :
"The means color the end: and for all Augustus' statesmanship, the methods by which he seized power, left a fatal flaw in the foundation of his empire which repeatedly shook the edifice and finally destroyed it."
For all the statesmanship of Abu Bakr and Umar, the methods by which they seized power, left a fatal flaw in the foundations of al-Khilafat er-Rashida, which repeatedly shook the edifice and finally destroyed it.
Al-Khilafat er-Rashida collapsed in the midst of civil wars, assassinations and chaos, just as Umar himself had predicted. Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan, who had been awaiting the opportunity for thirty years, to grab the caliphate, moved in to fill the power vacuum, and he did so with no pretense of piety or even of sanctimony.
As noted before, Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was still alive when the potential candidates for power, and their supporters had worked out a plan or a master-plan which was designed to supersede his plan for succession. According to their plan, Abu Bakr was to be the first successor, and Umar and Uthman were to be the second and the third successors of Muhammad. The latter knew what some of his companions were trying to do, and it was because of this knowledge that he placed all of them under the command of Usama bin Zayd bin Haritha, ordered them to leave Medina, and to go on a campaign to the Syrian frontier. But they defied his orders and did not go.
The companions discarded Muhammad's plan for succession, and elevated Abu Bakr to the throne of khilafat. Before his own death, two years later, he appointed Umar as khalifa. Ten years later, when Umar was dying, he "stage-managed" the selection of Uthman as his own successor, as noted before, and the "master-plan" worked with perfect precision.
But there is no way of knowing what did Abu Bakr and Umar think would happen after Uthman. It appears that Umar tried to look beyond Uthman. Thinking of the times after Uthman, he "adopted" Muawiya as his protégé. Just as Muhammad had groomed Ali for ruling the Muslim umma after himself, Umar groomed Muawiya for the same purpose.
Muawiya had heard Umar denouncing the mode of election of Abu Bakr to khilafat as "an unprémeditated affair," one from the "evil effects" of which God had saved the Muslims. Therefore, when he became khalifa, he gave a burial to the method by which Abu Bakr was elected khalifa. He abolished the elective systemthus putting an end de jure to the institution which had been deprived of its power de facto by Abu Bakr himself when he designated Umar as his successor instead of leaving the choice of a leader to the Muslim umma.
Muawiya demolished the house built by Abu Bakr and Umar in a reversal of ideology.
Muawiya's rise to power signalized the spectacular failure of the "Islamic" or rather of the Saqifa democracy.
Charles Yost
"Democracy is not a matter of sentiment, but of foresight. Any system that doesn't take the long run into account, will burn itself out in the short run." (The Age of Triumph and Frustration).
The Saqifa democracy didn't take the long run into account, and burned itself out in the short run, and out of its ashes sprang Muawiya the son of Hinda into super-stardom! Just as Abu Bakr had inaugurated the al-Khilafat er-Rashida, Muawiya inaugurated monarchy, and founded a dynasty. On the ruins of the al-Khilafat er-Rashida, he reared the edifice of the empire of the Umayyads. His political philosophy rested upon long-range, sequential and coherent strategy.
Ninety years later, Muawiya's empire folded up. On the debris of his empire, the Abbasis reared the edifice of their empire. Abbasis also inaugurated dynastic rule, and their political philosophy also rested upon long-range, sequential and coherent strategy, and they ushered in the "Golden Age" of the Arabs. The Golden Age of any nation symbolizes peace and prosperity. The Golden Age of the Arabs might have brought prosperity to some people but it did not necessarily bring peace to the Muslims. Even when the Abbasi power was at its zenith, their empire did not have any real peace.
G. E. Von Grunebaum
Religion too was the motivation of the uprisings which repeatedly convulsed the Abbasi empire. Even under the first Abbasids, who held power firmly, not a year passed without rebellion of some kind, large or small. (Classical Islam - A History 600-1258, p. 88, 1970).
Warfare inside the Dar-ul-Islam was a norm, and it was expected that wars would take place. The struggle for power was considered normal and inevitable. This struggle was the "legacy" of Saqifa to the Muslims. Most Muslims had become "addicts" of civil war. But if there was no war, it was considered a phenomenon so extraordinary that it boggled belief. Transition of power without bloodshed was considered a "freak."
G.E. Von Grunebaum
Abu Yaqub Yusuf, the son of Abd al-Mumin (Almohads), took over power without incident. He fell in the holy war before Santarem (Spain) in 1184. The next three rulers also, of whom the most important was Abd al-Mumin's grandson, Yaqub al-Mansur (1184-1199) mounted the throne without having to put down any rebellion, a dynastic stability almost without parallel in the Dar al-Islam. (emphasis added) (Classical Islam - A History 600-1258, p.187, 1970)
A statesman is endowed with a vision that can penetrate generations and even centuries. Almost every nation has produced such statesmen. Those men of the 18th century who drafted the Declaration of American Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, and the Bill of Rights, were such statesmen. They were prophetic. They designed apparatus for orderly transfer of power, and by doing so, they saved the American people from the trauma of war and bloodshed. They put "built-in" safeguards in the Constitution so that since 1789, sovereignty has passed from one incumbent or from one party to another without any incident. They condensed in 52 words a Preamble that is the most satisfactory statement of the purpose of government ever written.
Robert B. Downs
The nineteenth-century (American) historian, George Bancroft, believed that the Founding Fathers had acted under divine guidance, that they had been directed by God first to stage a democratic revolution, and then to write a democratic constitution. (Books that Changed America, London, 1970)
Considering the ephemerality of the al-Khilafat er-Rashida, it might appear that it did not have any divine guidance or divine blessing.
On January 20, 1981, Mr. Ronald Reagan, the fortieth President of the United States, said in his inaugural address :
"The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal, is nothing less than a miracle."
The "Founding Fathers" of America achieved this miracle in the 18th century. Twelve centuries before them, Muhammad, the Apostle of God, had achieved the same miracle in Arabia. Here a student of history can see two miracles in "orderly transfer of authority." But whereas the miracle of the American Founding Fathers turned out to be viable, the miracle of the Arabian Prophet turned out to be "still-born!"
Why?
For a very simple reason, viz., the young American nation gave massive and whole-hearted support to the principles enshrined in the American "miracle" but the key figures in the young Muslim umma withheld their support to the principles enshrined in the Islamic miracle.
As noted before, Muhammad was stymied by his own companions in the execution of his inspired design for orderly transfer of authority in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The latter had a design of their own, and they succeeded in putting it into effect at his death. But with their "success," they and their proxies opened the Pandora's Box of polarization, confrontation and conflict in the Dar-ul-Islam which took a dreadful toll from the Muslim umma. Countless Muslims were killed in their countless wars which were fought only because there was no apparatus for peaceful transfer of power from one ruler to another.
Many modern historians have noted and have commented upon the paradox of war and bloodshed in the Dar-ul-Islam, i.e. "the House of Peace."
Sir John Glubb
"Politically, the Muslim states, throughout their long centuries of leadership, constantly were torn by civil wars between rival claimants to rule. We see them once again frequently the scene of internal upheavals and of army seizures of power, precisely as they were 800 years ago Throughout history, Muslim armies have been employed in internal struggles more often than in external wars... " (The Lost Centuries, 1967)
Another historian has commented upon the political and moral decline of the empire of the Muslims in which young men perished fighting the interminable wars of their rulers, while the rulers themselves rotted away in gilded, bejeweled, be-eunuched palaces.
HerbertJ. Muller
They (the Umayyads) established a dynasty, set up a worldly court, introduced eunuchs into their harems, and in general ruled like Oriental kings, no longer associating with their fellows in the manner of Arab chieftains. Church and State, theoretically one, became in fact separate. Islam retained a misty devotion to the theory, but had no real political doctrine.
The Abbasids built a new capital at Baghdad, a cosmopolitan city that became the site of the Arabian Nights, and of a civilization much richer than Arabian. They brought Islam to the summit of its material wealth and power and its cultural creativity, producing the famous symbol of its splendor in the reign of Harun al-Rashid (786-809). Yet in this reign the basic rottenness of the Abbasid regime was already apparent. Harun had ascended the throne more easily because his brother had been murdered in the harem; he had to contend with many revolts in his empire; and his death was followed by civil war between his sons. The Islamic world shortly began to fall apart, as Persia, Spain, Egypt and other provinces became independent kingdoms. The empire built in the name of Mohammed and Allah had nothing of the staying power of the secular Roman Empire.
Strictly it had never been a real empire with a uniform government. The spiritual unity of Islam failed to inspire political unity; its rulers displayed little political intelligence and less idealism. While the Abbasid caliphs made a show of orthodox piety, most of them were recklessly impious and still more recklessly extravagant, squandering the wealth of Islam in luxurious living. They consciously modeled themselves crowned with the diadem, became increasingly autocratic and remote from their subjects, and made the army their personal property, recruiting it from among foreign slaves. Another innovation was the executioner who always accompanied them. The founder of the dynasty, Abul Abbas, had taken the name of Bloodspiller; his successors often had their own blood spilled, in assassination resulting from court intrigue. By the tenth century the caliphs of Baghdad were puppets of their "slave" army, lacking any real political or spiritual authority over their dwindling domains. The sorry pretense of their rule was ended in 1031. More caliphs popped up elsewhere in Islam, as in Egypt and Spain, but they too had only nominal authority. Other Islamic states repeated the Baghdad story of imperial splendor, intrigue, and civil war. An Arabian poet summed up the moral for their subjects: "Get sons - for Death! Build high - for Ruination! March on - this road goes to Annihilation!" (The Loom of History, pp. 286-287, 1958)
Judging by this portrait, peace itself must have been at bay in the House of Peace (Dar-ul-Islam) since bloodshed and war were a far more familiar experience of its citizens. The Muslim umma has indeed paid a very high price for its failure to accept the plan of Muhammad, the Apostle of God, for transfer of authority.
Chapter 75 : Who Wrote the History of Islam and How?
History, it has been said, is the Propaganda of the Victorious Party.
What this means is that in any conflict, the victor can manipulate history just as it pleases him, and there is nothing that the vanquished can do about it. The victorious party can cook up a story and broadcast it as the absolute truth without any fear of being challenged by anyone. It has not only the power to cook up its own story; it also has the power to spike the story of an opposing party.
M. Shibli, the dean of India's Sunni historians of Islam, writes in his famous biography of Prophet Muhammad, Sira-tun-Nabi, volume I, 4th printing, published by the Maarif Printing Press, Azamgarh, U.P., India, in 1976 :
"Among all those extraneous forces which affect and influence the writing of history, none is more powerful than the government. But it will always be a source of pride for the Muslims that their pen was never subdued by the sword. Work on the compilation and collation of Hadith was begun in the times of the Banu Umayya. For full 90 years, from Sind in India (Indo-Pakistan) to Asia Minor and Andalusia in Spain, Ali and the children of Fatima were cursed from every pulpit in every mosque after every Friday sermon. Thousands and thousands of hadith (traditions; statements of the Prophet) glorifying Muawiya, were manufactured, and were put into circulation. In the times of the Abbasis, hadith were invented foretelling the birth and the excellence of each (Abbasi) khalifa by name. But what was the result of all this stupendous effort? The traditionalists (the collectors of the statements of the Prophet) declared publicly at the same time (during the caliphates of the Umayyads and the Abbasis) that all these hadith were spurious, and they rejected them. Today, we are proud to say that the science of hadith is free from all that filth and garbage."
Almost but not quite!
In the case of innumerable hadith, the attempt to excise a false report from hadith literature, or to correct it, never caught up with the original untruths.
Even after expurgation, if there was one, that part of the hadith literature which relates to the personal life of Muhammad, the blessed Prophet of Islam, is full of the quaint, the curious, the fanciful and the false. There are many hadith which make him appear as lustful and licentious; vindictive and cruel; opportunistic and unprincipled; and treacherous and unethical. Then there are some other traditions which can only be called smutty.
But the evidence of history runs counter to such characterization of Muhammad. He could have been all these things but he was not. It is important, therefore, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to separate bunk and junk from fact and truth in studying the history of Islam.
How did such "traditions" which defy commonsense and logic, insinuate their way into the hadith literature, and how were the deeds and statements which can only be called shocking, attributed to the man whose real life was the epitome of all purity, truthfulness, sincerity and simplicity?
Shibli has made a rather perfunctory attempt to answer this question in the passage quoted above. He says that the most powerful extraneous "agent" influencing the writing of history in the times of the Umayyads and the Abbasis (661-1258) was the government. The government in those days had the power to get history written to its own "specifications." Both dynasties felt they were free to distort history or to suppress history, and whenever they believed it was in their interest to do so – to invent ‘history.' Whereas many hadith were invented for political reasons, there were also those hadith which were invented for sensual reasons. The sybarites of the courts of Damascus and Baghdad sought "sanction" for their own pleasures in these hadith.
A hadith means a statement. If a man saw the Prophet doing something or he heard him saying something, and then he reported it to others, it would be called a hadith or a tradition. The companions considered it their duty to preserve all the traditions of the Prophet for the benefit of the Muslim umma for all time.
A hadith could also be a comment of the Prophet on some person. If he paid a compliment to any of his companions, or if he criticized someone, his remarks gained wide publicity among the Muslims. During the khilafat of Muawiya, many of these hadith were in circulation. He was quick to grasp their importance, and he decided to make them a political weapon in his campaign against Ali ibn Abi Talib and the Banu Hashim.
Muawiya who was the founder of the Umayyad dynasty, won for himself another "distinction." He founded the "cottage industry" for the production of hadith. His successors, and after them, the Abbasi khalifas, patronized the "industry" which for a long time was busy churning out hadith. Though Shibli claims that hadith was expurgated by highly critical, perceptive and analytic censors, there was much that escaped detection by them, and is accepted today as genuine by a vast majority of Muslims.
Muawiya appointed a team of men to make up statements favorable to himself and to the other enemies of Ali, and to attribute them to the Apostle of God as his own hadith. At the same time, he suppressed or tried to suppress the genuine hadith which were complimentary to Ali, and ordered his team to manufacture hadith derogatory to him. The members of this team concocted hadith of both varieties, and he put them into circulation.
After the death of Muawiya, this campaign was carried on by his successors. Their "ghost-writers," "public relations personnel," and "image-makers" skillfully blended fake hadith with genuine hadith, and synthetic history with factual history, hoping that the "mix" would "jell," as part of the sacred lore of the Muslims.
Muawiya had one more reason for going into the business of "hadith-production." He knew that the generations of the future would judge every Muslim ruler against the ideal ruler – Muhammad. He knew too that if they did, they would find him poles apart from Muhammad. He was also aware that no matter what he did, he could never rise as high as Muhammad; he knew in fact that he could not reach the heights attained even by the slaves of Muhammad. But it occurred to him that though it was not possible for him to reach the sublime plane on which Muhammad stood, it was possible for him to bring him (Muhammad) down to the plane on which he (Muawiya) stood by the simple process of tarnishing his (Muhammad's) reputation, so that he too would look like other mortals.
Muawiya hoped that the indictment of the historians against him would be less severe if it was shown to them that even the most perfect man – Muhammad, God's Own Messenger – was not altogether free from blemishes of character. Clearly, much of the content of hadith literature was a conspiracy for the character assassination of Muhammad, the Messenger of God.
Muawiya and the other entrepreneurs of his "cottage industry" were "successful" in their attempt at the character assassination of Muhammad. They interspersed hadith literature with countless stories, anecdotes and "incidents" the intent of all of which was to make Muhammad look, in the eyes of posterity, less than prophetic.
Following is a sample of one of the "printable" traditions which has come down to us. It is quoted by Hakim Muhammad Saeed in an article published by the Hamdard Academy, Karachi, Pakistan, in 1972, in a book called Tazkar-i-Muhammad :
"Shortly after their marriage, Muhammad, the Apostle of God, suggested to his new bride, Ayesha, that both of them run in a race. Ayesha was thin and lean, and she easily outran her husband. Some years later, the Apostle challenged Ayesha to run against him once again. (She had put on weight during the years since the first race). Both of them ran, and this time the Apostle outran her. His comment: ‘Last time you were the winner, O Humayra (Ayesha's nickname) but this time I have won, and now the score between us is even.'" (Perhaps the defeat in the first race had rankled in the mind of the Apostle all these years.)
Muhammad, the Apostle of God, was 54 years old when he ran in a race against a girl of 9 or 10, and he lost; and he was 60 years old when he ran against her a second time, and won!
Muslims are very jealous of the dignity of their Prophet. Is this "tradition" which most of them believe to be true, a portrait of that dignity?
It appears that the "foremen" and the "production managers" whom Muawiya had appointed in his "hadith factories," had only one love, and that was quantity. They had geared the "industry" only to mass produce "traditions." It is obvious that they had no interest in the "quality control" of their products. They planted lies in their books, and each lie left in its wake, as it invariably does, "a drop of poison," that polluted the minds of generations of Muslims. Some of their products are extremely crude. They are, in fact, unprintable. The critics and the enemies of the Prophet, inevitably, have shown great eagerness in accepting them as authentic, and they have quoted them in their books.
These critics and enemies of the Prophet have not, however, taken into account those facts the authenticity of which is beyond any question. For example, they overlooked the fact that in Makkah, the Quraysh had offered to him the most beautiful woman or women as a quid pro quo if he would give up preaching Islam. They also forgot the fact that Muhammad was the sovereign of Medina, and that he could have married any girl. The Arab chiefs would have been proud to give him their daughters.
The Prophet married many women in Medina but most of them were widows, and they were not very young either. With the exception of Khadija, all the other women entered his household when he was in his mid-fifties or late fifties. They entered his life at a time when the spring and the bounce and the sheen and the vigor of his youth had long since departed, and their place was taken by the ever-growing burdens of an ever-growing State, and other problems of superlative complexity and magnitude, leaving him little time or inclination for such dalliance as is reported in many of the "traditions."
For the compilation of hadith, Muawiya had given the following orders :
1. All the traditions of the Prophet in praise of Ali or upholding his superiority in any way, should be suppressed.
2. Any man narrating the virtues of Ali or quoting the hadith of the Prophet in this regard, would do so at his own risk. His subsidies and stipends would be withheld from him. His house and other property would be confiscated. His testimony as a witness would not be accepted in the courts, and he would be ostracized by other Muslims.
3. On the other hand, every conceivable virtue should be attributed to Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and of course, to Muawiya himself. People should be encouraged to make up "hadith" of the Prophet in praise of these four men and their friends. Whoever invents such hadith, would become a favorite at the royal court, and would receive rich rewards in rank or cash or estates etc.
Concurrently with the founding of his "cottage industry" for manufacturing "hadith" of the Prophet, Muawiya also set up a "brain laundry" for the Muslims. He instituted the practice of anathematizing the memory of Ali and his children from the pulpit in every mosque in his empire so that the Muslim children were born, they grew up, and they died hearing curses upon Ali, and not knowing who he was. Whole generations lived and died in ignorance. Falsehoods were put into circulation by the government on a scale so vast that they became the staple of their lives. Muawiya and his successors kept their "brain laundries" just as busy as their "cottage industry."
Muawiya mobilized every means for waging propaganda war against Ali and the Banu Hashim. The momentum of the blitz he launched against them, has lasted down to our own times. He waged his war from the mosques. The prayer-leaders in them were paid to put weird and fantastic interpretations upon the verses of Qur'an in an attempt to show Ali at a disadvantage. They tried to convince the rank-and-file Muslims that it would be in their interest "in both worlds" if they supported Muawiya against Ali and the Banu Hashim.
Michael C. Hudson
Incumbents have the advantage of the media and educational arms of the state, and they control through subsidies the religious establishment itself. (Islam and Development, p. 16, 1980)
It must now be clear to the reader that the history of Islam was written under the direction of the party which held all the instruments of power in its hands. It must also be obvious to him that much of the historical material was "laundered" at the "brain laundries" established by Muawiya before it got into his hands. Muawiya was a most consummate master of the art of propaganda.
Sir John Glubb
The full effects of propaganda have not yet become plain, yet it is already obvious that whole nations can be indoctrinated with wrong opinions and evil moral standards. Few, if any, minds are strong enough to resist the ideas constantly projected at them. (The Course of Empire - The Arabs and Their Successors, 1965)
If any hadith of the Prophet of Islam was complimentary to Ali, its narration was placed under proscription by Muawiya. This proscription was not lifted when he died in 680. It was not lifted even when his dynasty, the Umayyads, perished in 750, and it was not lifted even through the long centuries of the caliphate of the Abbasis.
The Abbasis exterminated the Umayyads but they shared with them their animosity to Ali and to the children of Muhammad. In this matter, the aims and interests of the governments of Saqifa, the Umayyads, and the Abbasis converged; there was ideological compatibility among them all.
The Umayyads and the Abbasis did their utmost to suppress the facts of history. Many of their khalifas had forbidden their subjects to say or to write anything about Ali except falsehoods. Truth was under a siege and falsehood was rampant in their dominions. And yet, Truth asserted itself.
Truth has (now) arrived, and falsehood perished: For falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish. (Qur'an. Chapter 17; verse 81)
True statements were volunteered by sources which, in most cases, were inimical to Ali. Even his most rabid enemies like the Umayyads and the Kharjis, conceded the sublimity of his character. As noted before, M. Shibli, the Indian historian, pointed out that the Shia Muslims did not write any history. Whatever history we have, has, therefore, come down to us from the non-Shia or the anti-Shia sources. It has come down to us from the archives of the governments of Saqifa, the Umayyads and the Abbasis. The story of the glorious deeds of Ali ibn Abi Talib, like the radiance of Truth itself, has filtered out of those archives.
But the modern historians are not threatened by any government for writing factual history nor are they being seduced by promises of rich rewards for writing false history. They should, therefore, curb the temptation to stifle or to distort truth. If they yield even now to this temptation, as many of their forerunners did in the past, then it can mean only that they give their loyalty, not to principles but to persons; not to truth but to the organizations and the governments; and not to their integrity but to their emotional commitments.
Loyalty is a noble quality as long as it is not blind, and does not exclude the higher loyalty to truth and to decency.
If the loyalty of the modern historians is not blind, and if it does not exclude the higher loyalty to truth and to decency, then they should scrape away the excrescences and barnacles of history, and they should also resist the temptation to invoke the "Meyers' Law" in their works. The "Meyers' Law" stipulates that :
"If the facts do not fit the theory, discard the facts."
A historian will inevitably run into truths which may be unpleasant to him but he must not suppress them. He must state all the facts as he uncovers them if he wishes to vindicate truth.
But the historian, if he is a Muslim, has no choice in this matter. He is not free to write "inspired" or "synthetic" history. All he can do, if he is writing history, is to cling tenaciously to truth. If he writes false "history" for any reason, he will only merit the displeasure of God. Here, as elsewhere, al-Qur'an al-Majid, the Book of God, is explicit, emphatic, and unequivocal in its judgment which reads as follows :
And cover not truth with falsehood, nor conceal the truth when ye know (what it is). (Qur'an. Chapter 2; verse 42)
Those who conceal the clear (signs) We have sent down, and the guidance, after We have made it clear for the people in the Book – on them shall be God's curse, and the curse of those entitled to curse. (Qur'an. Chapter 2; verse 159)
If the Muslim historians make these two verses of Qur'an their "guiding stars," they will be protected from error, and they will also be protected from becoming either the agents or the victims of propaganda, consciously or unconsciously.
In trying to smirch the name of Ali ibn Abi Talib; in trying to play down his services to Islam; and in desperately trying to conceal his glorious deeds, behind a screen of propaganda, from the eyes of posterity, his enemies were casting dust into the bright face of the sun. They raised clouds of dust in the form of most virulent and sustained propaganda against him, and yet, the sun only shone brighter and brighter.
And God blots out vanity, and proves the truth by His words. (Qur'an. Chapter 42; verse 24)
God blessed Ali's name to all eternity. His name is the symbol of love of God, and the symbol of Justice and Truth. His name will endure as long as Love of God, and Justice and Truth, will endure in this world.
