Whenever the teeth of the mad dog bite a man or an animal...

Whenever the teeth of the mad dog bite a man or an animal through its saliva the microbes are transfused into the blood of such man or animal. After some time the bitten men and animals will also become mad, bite others and render their bitten mad. If this situation continues, it assumes exceptionally dangerous proportions. It is for this reason that wise men would immediately kill a mad dog, so that at least others may be saved from microbic spreading of madness.

Ali says: "They have created the situation of a mad dog. They have become incurable. They would bite and afflict others aggravating the number of the mad ones". Woe! To the Muslims of that time! A band of idiots, arid formalists and obstinate pounced upon every one. Which power would confront such untamable serpents and stand against them? Where is that 'powerful' and 'forceful' who should not give in against these faces of piety and continence?

Where is that hand which would wield sword on their heads and would not shiver? It is for this reason that Ali says: "None except me could dare take such steps". Except Ali, except Ali's insight, except Ali's predominant faith, nothing of themselves would have encouraged the believers in God, the Prophet and the Dooms Day to draw sword against them. ( 129 ) Only the non-believers in God and Islam have the courage to kill such people and not the ordinary Muslims.

It is for this reason that while claiming it as his own great distinction Ali says: "It was I and I alone, to have realized and addressed myself to threat posed to Islam by these arid formalists. Their clotted foreheads, their divine cloaks, their ever-supplicating tongues and even their profound faith unfaltering in its foothold could not blur my insight.

It was I who realized it that if they get a foothold, they will afflict all with their own malady and will make the world of Islam stagnant, formalist, superficial and petrified so as to bend the spinal cord of Islam. It was for this reason that the Prophet had said, "Two people will break my back-bone, un-conscientious scholars and idiot formalists".

Ali means to say, "If in the Muslim world I would not have waged war against the Kharijites movement, none else was there to have plucked courage for such a combat.