These people were never sincere with Amir al-Mu’minin (a.

These people were never sincere with Amir al-Mu’minin (a.s) and were not Shi`ah of `Ali (a.s) that they broke away from him. The people who are opportunists by nature are fair weather friends. They vanish in times of adversity. These people were not interested in the caliphate of `Ali (a.s) and came to him out of compulsion and left him in the same way. Some were interested in seeing al-Zubayr as the caliph and others were in favor of Talhah.

When they saw that neither al-Zubayr nor Talhah were in sight of getting the caliphate, they came towards `Ali (a.s). An army that had such elements, it was the sagacity of `Ali (a.s) that he kept together for such a long time. These…