Under the circumstances...

Under the circumstances, it is apparent, as Conde goes on to remark that "a sound and just discrimination forbids us to content ourselves with the testimony of one side only, this requires that we compare the rela- tions of both parties with careful impartiality, and commands us to cite them with no other purpose than that of discovering the truth." It is really very strange that the European writers on Islamic History have entirely lost sight of this wholesome axiom based on mere com mon sense, and have accepted, with credulity almost criminal, the version of the events of that troublous period as published by the party that had won the throne and displaced the rightful heirs by means of a very skilfully planned coup d'etat giving rise to a fierce and long drawn struggle between the two parties and their representatives, in which one party had almost always the upper hand.

And this in spite of their knowing, or having enough material at their disposal to know the following facts: The appointment of a successor to the Prophet at Saqifah Bani Sa'idah was not an open, sincere and peaceful affair. It was a very skillfully arranged scheme to capture the throne after the death of the Prophet. That it was nei- ther open and sincere nor peaceful is…