Even men of the strictest piety practised this species of fraud...

Even men of the strictest piety practised this species of fraud, and maintained that the end justified the means.”[^1] The effect of the legends was that the infallible Imams became the acknowledged spiritual leaders while the Caliph assumed the temporal rulership. The only object of these legends was to separate the spiritual leadership (wilaya ) from the temporal rulership (mulk), and to keep the temporal leadership out of the reach of the Ahlul Bayt .

It is this later motive that was responsible for the creation of further fast legends such as that Ali and his Shia never offered prayers and that the Shia were heretics. The false propaganda that Ali and his Shia were heretics deserving to be cursed after every prayer, was first started by Mu’awiya in the year 12 AH, and spread by him throughout the Muslim world that he later came to preside over.

As a result of Mu’awiya’s orders, Imam Ali (a.s.) and his Shia were cursed from on seventy thousand pulpits everyday, and false stories about them were spread throughout the Muslim world for over half a century. This put unshakable roots in the minds of common Muslims, so much so that even in these enlightened days they persist in several Muslim countries. Sheikh Shamsuddin Abu Abdullah bin Makki bin Hamid al-Aamuli al-Juzaini known as ‘the First Martyr’ was a great scholar of his time.

He had written several books. The accusation against him was that he was a Shia and therefore deserved to be killed. First, he was imprisoned for one year and then he was asked to tender an apology that he refused because it would then amount to admission of guilt. He was martyred at the instance of Judge Burhanuddin al-Maliki and Judge Abbaad ibn Jama’a ash-Shafi’iy on Jumada II, 786 AH in Damascus.

On the persistence of Judge Abbaad ibn Jama’a, he was beheaded and his body was hung from gallows and later was burnt. The ‘Second Martyr’ is Sheikh Zainuddin bin Ali bin Ahmed bin Muhammad bin Jamal bin Taqiyyuddin bin Salih. He was martyred on the allegation that he was Shia and so he deserved to be killed. When he came to know that he was likely to be arrested, he left on pilgrimage.

When the Judge came to know this, he wrote to the king of Rome that a person who was not from the four sects of Sunnis and who was a Kharijite had taken refuge in his (the king) domain, and that he should be arrested forthwith.