Response to Chapter 2 Entitled “The Historical Facts”

 

Response to Chapter 2 Entitled “The Historical Facts”

There is nothing much here to refute as such, except the fact that a couple weak narrations are being used, as follows :

Answering-Ansar says

"Indeed there is among you a person with whom if he seeks authority, none will dispute [i.e. Ali]”.
Tarikh, by al Yaqubi, Volume 2 page 113-114, quoted from History of Tabari, Volume 9 English translation by Ismail Poonawalla p 193 - 194 "

A common deception of the Shia is to pass off Shia scholars as being Sunnis. Would it surprise anyone to know that Ismail Poonawalla, the translator of Tabari used by Answering-Ansar and many Shia groups, is himself an Ismaili Shia and a professor of Shi’ism at the University of California Los Angeles? It is not surprising then that the Shia Poonawalla inserts into brackets the words “Ali” even though this does not appear in the Arabic text.

Answering-Ansar says

"What Hadhrath Umar seems to have forgotten when recollecting the event is the fact that not all those present in the Saqifa gave Bayya to Hadhrath Abu Bakr, and they were adamant that their loyalties lay with another man:

“Umar stood up saying, “Who among you would be agreeable to leave Abu Bakr whom the Prophet gave precedence?” and he gave him the oath of allegiance. The people followed [Umar]. The Ansar said, or some of them said “We will not give the oath of allegiance [to anyone] except Ali”.

History of Tabari, English translation, Volume 9 p 186"

However, this is a weak narration because it is narrated by Ibn Humayd who is not reliable; Tabari, a historian, has been criticized by the scholars of Hadith for his reliance on weak narrators such as Ibn Humayd. He has even been accused of being “mutashhi`” or Shia-leaning, due to his over-reliance on Shia narrations. And it is for this reason that the Shia are quick to quote from Tabari, attempting to pass it off each and every narration as authentic to the Sunnis, when in fact many narrations are from Shia and considered unreliable. In his defense, however, Tabari simply collected Hadith and did not claim to authenticate them, but rather left that upto the scholars of Hadith to do. Therefore, Tareekh al-Tabari contains both strong and weak narrations; this particular narration is weak. Ibn Humayd has been labelled by the Muhadditheen as an outright liar and shameless forger. Imam Dhahabi and Shaikh al-Islam have declared him to be weak. We read:

“I have never seen a natural liar, except for two persons: Sulayman ash-Shadhakuni and Muhammad ibn Humayd.”

(Tahdhib al-Kamal, Vol.25, p.105)

Answering-Ansar has used these two narrations in order to further their argument in Chapter 5 of their article. Therefore, to read our rebuttal, please refer to our Response to Chapter 5.

We have dealt with this topic more in our rebuttal to Chapter 5.

Written By: Ibn al-Hashimi, www.ahlelbayt.com