To the same degree...

To the same degree, it creates revulsion against this ruler who resorts to injustice, carries his tyrannies to the furthest limit and overburdens the population with hardships. For this reason, the Shi’ a cause became great during the last decade of Mu’awiya’s reign, and their call spread -and what a spread it was in the eastern Islamic countries and southern Arabia.

And by the time Mu’awiya had died, many people, and especially the general public in Iraq, believed that hate of Umayyads and love of the Ahl al Bayt was their religion.'(2) Wellhausen writes: “All the people of Iraq during Mu’awiya’s reign, and especially the Kufites were Shi’i and this was not only among individuals but among whole tribes and chiefs of the tribes.”(3) Arabia, Iraq and Khorasan, together with Yemen and Bahrain were in turmoil; hatred of the Umayyads became an established factor of the body politic, and to the same degree people gravitated towards the descendants of ‘Ali.

Several factors led to this result: 1. They were the ; Allah had chosen that house for His Prophethood; it was appropriate that the people should choose them for their guidance. 2. They were the first to rise against the Umayyads and their tyrannies; they were the first to speak for the oppressed masses and to sacrifice their lives for this cause. 3.

Not only the , but even their Shi’is, right from the beginning of Umayyad rule, worked openly and secretly against those tyrants; and they faced all the consequences: massacres, banishments, imprisonments, crucifixions, and all types of torture.(4) Ibn al-Athir confirms that when the ‘Abbasids joined this campaign towards the end, “they were using the slogan that they wanted to avenge the murders of Husayn, Zayd and Yahya.”(5) Wellhausen writes: “The ‘Abbasids tried their utmost to keep secret from the people their intention that they wanted to replace the descendants of Fatima; instead, they pretended that they were doing whatever they were doing for the sake of the Fatimids.

They rose in Khorasan and other places claiming that they wanted to avenge the martyrs of the children of Fatima.” (6) “The ‘Abbasids rose in the name of the ‘Alawites, and on the shoulders of their Shi’is.