ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A Shi'ite Encyclopedia (chapter 10) Abdullah Ibn Saba (part V) The Opinion of the Historians I have already provided the opinion of 15 famous Sunni scholars about the weakness of the reports of Sayf Ibn Umar in of this article. Beside them, many Sunni historians have also denied the existence of Abdullah Ibn Saba and and/or the forged stories attributed to him. Among them are Dr. Taha Husain, who has analyzed these stories and rejected them.

He wrote in "al-Fitnah al-Kubra" that: In my opinion, those who have tried to emphasize on the story of Abdullah Ibn Saba, have committed a crime in the history and hurt themselves too. The first thing that is observed is that in the important collections the name of Ibn Saba does not appear when they discuss the agitation against Uthman. Ibn Sa'd does not mention the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba when he discusses the Caliphate of Uthman and the revolt against him.

Also the book by al-Baladhuri, "Ansab al- Ashraf", which I think the most important and the most detailed book about the revolt against Uthman, the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba has never been mentioned. It appears that al-Tabari was the first who reported the story of Ibn Saba from Sayf, and then other historians quoted al-Tabari in this regard.

In his other book "Ali wa Banuh", he also mentioned: The story of Ibn Saba is nothing but myth, and is the invention of some historians, since it contradicts other historical documents. ... The fact is that the friction between Shia and Sunni have had many shapes, and each group was advocating itself and denouncing the other by any means possible. This requires a historian to be much more cautious when analyzing the controversial reports related to seditions and revolts.

In, we briefly mentioned the masterpiece of Allamah al-Askari which was released in 1955 AD. Before that time, no analytical research had been done on the character of Abdullah Ibn Saba to investigate if he really existed in physical world and/or if the stories around this man had any single truth in it. Although Sayf's heresy was well-known for a number of centuries, no research had been done about the origin of the tale of Abdullah Ibn Saba.