But I saw that patience and forbearance with respect to this...

But I saw that patience and forbearance with respect to this affair is better than the dissension of Muslims and shedding of their blood.

It is because the people then had newly embraced Islam and the religion was like a goatskin full of milk which has frothed and the least sluggishness and negligence would spoil it and the most trivial difference would turn it upside down.[^2] The Danger Posed by the Apostates {murtaddin} After the demise of the Prophet (S), a large number of the Arab tribes that had accepted Islam during the last years of the Prophet’s (S) life turned back from the religion and became apostate, and this danger always seriously threatened Medina.

As such, in order not to weaken the government in Medina in front of them, ‘Ali ( ‘a ) was forced to keep silent.

I swear by Allah that at that juncture it could not even be imagined that the Arabs would snatch the seat of the caliphate from the family and descendants of the Holy Prophet (S) and that they would be swearing the oath of allegiance for the caliphate to a different person.

At every stage, I kept myself aloof from that struggle of supremacy and power-politics till I found the heretics had openly taken to heresy and schism and were trying to undermine and ruin the religion preached by our Holy Prophet (S). I felt afraid that, even after seeing and recognizing the evil, if I did not stand up to help Islam and the Muslims it would be a worse calamity to me than my losing authority and power over you, which was only a transient and short-lived affair.