They therefore took care to ensure that the people were fed on this theory...

They therefore took care to ensure that the people were fed on this theory, and their children nursed and brought up in its atmosphere. And to make it still stronger, it was consecrated as a part of Religion.

The second fact is that their firm conviction that Imam Ali was the rightful claimant to the caliphate, which they had deprived him of by intrigue and clever moves, naturally made them see in him a most formidable rival who must be carefully watched and strictly kept down if they were to breathe easily in their usurped power. This caliphate owed its life to the opposition to the Prophet's scheme in which Ali was to be the first caliph.

For reasons, which will become apparent as we proceed, this opposition succeeded, and Imam Ali was brushed aside after the death of the Prophet (P).

But the position which the Prophet (P) had created for Imam Ali, coupled with the deeds of heroism which Imam Ali had performed to save Islam, and the sacrifices which he had made at the risk of his life to establish the Islamic state, made him a formidable ri8val in the eyes of the rulers who never forgot that what they had obtained by a coup d'état was not theirs by right.

They therefore regarded Imam Ali with that dread mingled with hatred and enmity which is generally the hallmark of a precarious position obtained by fraud and held up by force, and they used those devices and stratagems which are generally resorted to by persons similarly holding office without legitimacy, employing all the available means in their power, which will become apparent as we proceed. They tried to keep Imam Ali down and erected enormous barriers between him and the Caliphate.

One of these, which in the end proved insurmountable, was the push to prominence given by the first two caliphs to BANU OMAYYA the hereditary rivals and inveterate foes of BANU HASHIM, with the result that when Imam Ali's precarious rule began, he found himself surrounded by hostile elements with an independent and antagonistic kingdom in Syria confronting him. Eventually this kingdom expanded into the fully-fledged Caliphate.

BANU OMAYYA inherited the policy as well as the Government of the first three Caliphs, and the circumstances under which they wrested power from BANU HASHIM added even more venom to the already poisoned sting.