published in the book...

published in the book, The Traditional Near East, edited by Stewart Robinson, published by Prentice-Hall, Inc., N.J., 1966) Robert Frost once said: “A theory, if you hold it hard enough and long enough, gets rated as a creed.” This statement may be modified slightly to read as follows: “A falsehood, if you hold it hard enough and long enough, gets rated as a creed.” An overwhelming majority of the historians of Islam have claimed that the Prophet did not specify anyone as the future head of the State of Medina after his own death.

For them, and for many others, this claim has become a creed now. But not for the Shia Muslims. They maintain that Muhammad, the Messenger of God, declared repeatedly and unequivocally that Ali was his vicegerent and the sovereign…