They were concerned about security and the power that could...

They were concerned about security and the power that could provide and guarantee it rather than about justice or, for example, a precise implementation of the religious rules and the traditions of the Prophet (S) as they were in force at the time of the Prophet (S) himself. The Shi‘ite opinion in the last two issues is different from the Sunni one. This difference is reflected in the history of the religious and social movements of the followers of these two schools.

It is the people’s love of and desire for justice that is the cause of political and social movements. Shi‘ism, since the beginning of its history, was concerned about and emphasized the concept of justice and a strict implementation of the religious rules and defended and tried to realize the same as its mission while, according to Sunnism, the issue of justice has the second or even the third priority.

What was and is important to them is merely having power and authority, in the shodow of which security can indeed be achieved. We will discuss each of these points here. Status of Caliphate We said in the previous chapter that the basic and primary factor in the development of the Sunni attitude towards the early history of Islam was Mu‘awiyah’s actions.

His rivalry with and hostility to ‘Ali’s personality and position[^1] and his attempt to isolate his supporters, all of whom were his ideological opponents, led him to command to its governors to publicly curse ‘Ali while forging sayings for others about virtues similar to those of ‘Ali and to propagate them, which they did. For many reasons, cursing ‘Ali did not and could not last for a long time. One important reason was the virtues that had been forged for others.

How could the others have such virtues while ‘Ali, who was at least a person like them and a caliph, had the opposites of those virtues so as to be cursed?[^2] If they could even make the people have such beliefs, then the mass of the people would have beliefs similar to those of the Rebels and would indeed approach them while this was hated by the ruling system, both the Umayyad and the ‘Abbasid, because the Rebels were their great enemies.

Nevertheless, the second action had its influence and took the early history of Islam and the Muslims of the time to a high status, equal to that of Islam. Indeed, other than Mu‘awiyah’s plan, there were other factors in the meanwhile that would help consolidate and continue such an opinion, which we will deal with later.