and if ever the names of some of them are mentioned in the...

and if ever the names of some of them are mentioned in the Shi‘ah books on rijal , the reason is that they had narrated these traditions prior to their deviation, just as the names of a number of Sunni narrators who have narrated from the infallible Imams ( ‘a ) have been mentioned in these books.

The Sunni scholars and rijal writers, however, have used the word Shi‘ah in broader sense and they have applied it to all the sects that have separated from the body of Shi‘ism and even to the ghulat as well. In addition, they also refer to those who love and admire the ( ‘a ) as “Shi‘ah”.

This is while some of these people do not have any sort of belief in the infallibility { ‘ismah } and Imamate { imamah } of the ( ‘a ), such as Sufyan ath-Thawri, a rector { mufti } in Iraq who issued edicts { fatawa } based on the Ahl as-Sunnah, but Ibn al-Qutaybah has enlisted him along with the Shi‘ah.[^13] Regarding ash-Shafi‘i, who is the founder of one of the four Sunni schools of thought { madhahib }, Ibn Nadim thus says: كَانَ الشَّافِعِي شَدِيْداً في التَّشَيُّع.

“Ash-Shafi‘i had extreme Shi‘ism { tashayyu‘ }.”[^14] Of course, during the second and third centuries hijri , besides the Shi‘ah Imami, the Zaydis constituted the greatest number of Shi‘ah.

They were “Shi‘ah” more in the political sense than in ideology because, in terms of jurisprudence { fiqh }, they were not followers of the Ja‘fari fiqh ; rather they were followers of the Hanafi fiqh .[^15] From the viewpoint of the ideological principles also, as narrated by Shahristani, “For sometime, Zayd was a student of Wasil ibn ‘Ata’, the founder of the Mu‘tazilah (Mu‘tazilite) madhhab and has learned from him the principles of the Mu‘tazilah madhhab .” Therefore, the Zaydis are Mu‘tazilites in principles { usul }.

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