The Sufferings of Imam Ali after the Prophet's demise: The usurped Caliphate
After the death of the Prophet, Abu Bakr became the caliph instead of me. Every time he saw me, he used to ask for my forgiveness for his oppression against me. He used to ask for my forgiveness, and he used to blame his friend Omar, for having taken my true right, and broken their covenant with me, and for all these matters, he always asked for my forgiveness.
So I told myself that one day, his time as the caliph will be terminated and I will gain my true right, because God had chosen me for this position. Another thing was: Islam was in his prime days, and I didn’t want to add another discord to already existing discords and did not wish to fight those who had my true right and position, and subsequently start a war among my Muslim brothers.
In those days, my faithful and true followers were those who had a good intention in their hearts and were benevolent for God’s sake and his Prophet’s satisfaction; they believed in the Holy Quran and secretly they invited me to take own my right from those who had it.
Others, on that chaotic period, were a group of people who strongly believed in God, in the Prophet, in the Holy Quran and Islam and covertly or openly, were inviting me to give my true right and I found them to be true Muslims.
They were ready to sacrifice their lives for my right and to keep their covenant, but I always invited them to be patient and I used to tell them: may God give back my lost right, without any destructive feud between the Muslims.
After the death of the Prophet, many people fell into the trap of hesitation and became greedy for the Caliphate and each tribe was telling that the Emir (Caliphate) should be from their own men.
But one thing which was interesting was that they were against themselves, but at the same time they supported themselves, to keep away my hand from the Caliphate! So when the first one (Abu bakr) died, his friend Omar took over the responsibility of the Caliphate for himself and did exactly like the previous one and did not give me back my true right.
Once again, the followers of Muhammad (peace be upon him) came to me, and told me to stand up against Omar. But I didn’t change my mind and saved my patience.
But it is obvious that I was afraid, because I thought maybe those who were destroyed by the actions of the Prophet (sometimes with kindness, sometimes by the sword, or by forgiveness or intimidation) spread away.
I just know what the Prophet did to close their hearts to each other. He always fed them, supported them and placed them always in houses. We were the family of the Prophet, but we lived in a house that hadn’t a roof and the doors were built with the branches of palm trees.
There was nothing on our mattress and no light blanket to sleep in it… and in prayer time, we often just had one cloth to use by all the members of the family… How many days and nights we ended our day with hunger…!
Sometimes, after a war, God Almighty set aside some loot for us, for even the Prophet knew of our hard condition, but he gave our booties to affluent and rich men to open their hearts to Islam anymore.
So I myself saw the sufferings of the Prophet when he invited them to Islam, and I knew that I had a hard responsibility to preserve the circle of Islam, and not to break it.
On the other hand, if I did some kind of revengeful actions and gathered some people to help me, with no doubt, I could have gathered some groups around me and they were ready to fight against our enemies, but that idea had two faces:
Maybe some people would cut down their helps and would then join the opposite side, or some other people would die.
So I knew that my affinity toward the Prophet (peace be upon him), was like the kinship of Harun toward Moses and I was truly afraid from the punishment of God, for my people, like the punishment of Moses’ people, when they disobeyed from Harun’s words. So I thought it would be better if I drank a sip of sorrow, hold my breath and keep my patience, so that God would do His Will
My Jewish brother! if I had not kept my tolerance and had done something to achieve my true right, my blessings would have definitely be revealed because the followers of the Prophet, all of them -the departed ones and the others alive- knew that my examples were more obvious and my family relationship was stronger than all of them.
And, I also had a solid background from the past, and was closest to the Prophet, in family relationship, and as his successor. And beyond other things, the Prophet in the day of Ghadir Khom had expressed his strongest wish about my being his successor according to God’s will, and he invited the people to swear their allegiance to me to be their Amir al momenin, after his death, and it was impossible for the people to have any idea against me in their minds.
Yes, when the Prophet died, the government of the Islamic lands was in his own house, not in the hands of others or in their houses! And his “Ahlu- Al- Beyt” were definitely more deserving for the position of the “Caliphate” or other things than the others, because the God Almighty had created us innocent.
Other links:
The Sufferings of Hazrat Ali Ibn Abi Taleb (part1)
The Sufferings of Hazrat Ali Ibn Abi Taleb (part2)
The Sufferings of Hazrat Ali (part3)
The Sufferings of Hazrat Ali during the Prophet’s life time (part1)
The Sufferings of Hazrat Ali during the Prophet’s life time (part2)
The Sufferings of Hazrat Ali during the Prophet’s life time (part3)
The Sufferings of Imam Ali after after the death of the Prophet of Islam
