He said: "Hīh, and what else?" They said: "Fourth: That you wrote a letter to Mu‘āwiyah in which you said: 'In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, from Amir Al-Mouminine to Mu‘āwiyah ibn Ṣakhr.' He returned the letter to you and wrote in it, saying: 'If I acknowledged that you are Amir Al-Mouminine and fought you, I would have wronged you. Rather, write with your name and your father's name.' So you wrote to him: 'In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, from ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib to Mu‘āwiyah ibn Ṣakhr.' When you agreed with Mu‘āwiyah to remove yourself from the Commandership of the Faith, we were more entitled to remove you from the Commandership."

He said: "Hīh, and what else?" They said: "Fifth: That you said: 'This is the Book of Allah, so judge by it and recite it from its opening to its conclusion. If you find Mu‘āwiyah more worthy than me, then establish him, and if you find me more worthy than him, then establish me.' You doubted yourself, so our doubt in you is greater." He said to them: "Is there anything left for you to say?" They said: "No."¹

By Allah, this speech from these people is nothing but the speech of people who did not ally themselves with the first and the second, but rather used to curse them and see them as the cause of misguidance and blindness!! If the Khārijites had been Naṣībah, they would not have criticized the Master Amir Al-Mouminine (may his glory be exalted) for abandoning the Caliphate!!!

If someone says that this tradition is not proof because it is narrated from Shaykh Al-Khaṣībī, we say: Be patient, the next is more serious and bitter.

Their situation continued like this, between rebelling against him and being reluctant to support him, as he said in his sermons in Nahj al-Balāghah. When he urged them to action in the summer, they excused themselves with the heat, and when he urged them to action in the winter, they excused themselves with the cold, until he cried out among them, saying: