Who are the Ra fid ah

The state of the noble Imam—the forerunner, the pure, the guide, the
rightly guided—Zayd ibn ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him), and his rising
among the community of his grandfather, was manifest among
creation; none separated from him except this sect, the Ra fid ah,
regarding whose misguidance the noble report has come.
The reason for their separation from him is mentioned in the Kitab
Maʿrifat Allah by the Imam al-Ha dī ila al-H aqq (Peace be Upon Him),
and in other works of the Imams and the Ummah. The Ummah agreed
that the Ra fid ah are the faction that reneged against Imam Zayd ibn
ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him); however, the reports differed concerning the
reason for their reneging. The Ahl al-Bayt (Peace be Upon Them) are
most knowledgeable in this matter. This faction followed its earlier
seceding predecessors, the H aru riyyah, as Imam Zayd ibn ʿAlī (Peace
be Upon Him) said: “O Allah, place Your curse—and the curse of my
fathers and grandfathers, and my curse—upon these people who
rejected me and withdrew from my pledge of allegiance, just as the
people of H aru ra ʾ rejected ʿAlī ibn Abī T a lib (Peace be Upon Him)
until they fought him.”
As for the narration of the general historians, it is stated in History of
Nations and Kings by Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, volume (8), p.
272, events of the year 122, as follows: “When Zayd ibn ʿAlī feared that
he would be seized, he hastened before the time he had set between
himself and the people of Ku fah … until he said: When the
companions of Zayd ibn ʿAlī who had pledged allegiance to him saw
that Yu suf ibn ʿUmar had been informed of Zayd’s affair and that he
was sending agents against him and seeking information about him, agroup of their leaders gathered to him and said: ‘May Allah have mercy
on you—what is your view regarding Abu Bakr and ʿUmar?’ …
… until he said: Zayd said to them: ‘The most severe thing I say
regarding what you mentioned is that we were more entitled than all
people to the authority of the Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless him
and his family and grant them peace); the people appropriated it over
us and pushed us away from it, yet that did not reach, in our judgment,
the level of disbelief. They assumed authority, judged justly among the
people, and acted by the Book and the Sunnah.’
They said: ‘Then these did not wrong you if those did not wrong you;
so why do you call to fighting a people who are not unjust?’”
He said: “These are not like those. Indeed, these are oppressors—
against me, against you, and against themselves. We only call you to
the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet (May Allah bless him
and his family and grant them peace); to revive the Sunnahs and
extinguish the innovations. If you respond to us, you will prosper; and
if you refuse, I am not a guardian over you.” So they parted from him
and broke their pledge of allegiance. They said: “The Imam has
preceded.” They used to claim that Abu Jaʿfar Muh ammad ibn ʿAlī —
the brother of Zayd ibn ʿAlī —was the Imam. He had passed away by
then, while his son Jaʿfar ibn Muh ammad was alive. They said: “Jaʿfar
ibn Muh ammad is our Imam today after his father, and he is more
entitled to the matter after his father. We will not follow Zayd ibn ʿAlī ,
for he is not an Imam.” So Zayd named them al-Rafidah.
He said: A group among them, before his uprising, went to Jaʿfar ibn
Muh ammad ibn ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him) and said to him: “Zayd ibn
ʿAlī is among us and people are pledging allegiance to him—do you see
that we should pledge allegiance to him?” He said to them: “Yes—
pledge allegiance to him; by Allah, he is our best, our master, and the
best of us.” They then returned and concealed what he had
commanded them.
Al-Dhahabī said in Siyar Aʿlam al-Nubalaʾ, vol. 5, p. 389, in the entry on
Imam Zayd, as follows: “He narrated from his father Zayn al-ʿA bidī n
and his brother al-Ba qir …” until he said: “And from him narrated his
nephew Jaʿfar ibn Muh ammad, Shuʿbah, Fud ayl ibn Marzu q, al-Mut t
alib ibn Ziya d, Saʿī d ibn Khuthaym, and Ibn Abī al-Zina d. He
possessed knowledge, dignity, and righteousness. He erred and rose
up, and he was martyred.”
Until he said: “ʿI sa ibn Yu nus said: The Ra fid ah came to Zayd and
said: ‘Disavow Abu Bakr and ʿUmar so that we may support you.’ …
They said: ‘Then we reject you.’ Hence they were called al-Ra fid ah. As
for the Zaydiyyah, they spoke by his word and fought alongside him.”
And Isma ʿī l al-Suddī mentioned from him: “The Ra fid ah are at war
with us; they rebelled against us.”
ʿAbdulla h ibn Abī Bakr al-ʿAtakī narrated from Jarī r ibn H a zim, who
said: “I saw the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant
them peace) as if he were leaning upon the plank of Zayd ibn ʿAlī ,
saying: ‘Is this how you deal with my son?’”

ʿAbba d al-Rawwa jinī said: ʿAmr ibn al-Qa sim informed us. He said: I
entered upon Jaʿfar al-S a diq (Peace be Upon Him) while some of the
Ra fid ah were with him. I said: “They disavow your uncle Zayd.” He
said: “Allah disavows whoever disavows him. By Allah, he was the most
learned among us in the Book of Allah, the most knowledgeable
among us in the religion of Allah, and the most dutiful to kinship
among us—there has not remained among us his like.”
Al-Dhahabī said: “I say: He went out with interpretation, and he was
killed as a martyr; would that he had not gone out.”
I say: Has there occurred, in the narrations of the early authorities, any
mention that would justify transferring the designation Rafidah to
those who preferred ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him) over the early shaykhs?
This is falsehood and slander without any justification. For we andthey have agreed that the Ra fid ah are those who rejected Zayd ibn ʿAlī
(Peace be Upon Him).
Nashwa n al-H imyarī said in his book al-Hur al-ʿIn in the discussion of
the Ra fid ah, as follows: Zayd said to them: “Abu Bakr and ʿUmar are
not like these. These are oppressors against you, against themselves,
and against the Household of their Prophet. I only call you to the Book
of Allah so that it may be acted upon, to the Sunnah so that it may be
practiced, to extinguish innovations, and to remove and exile the
oppressors from Banu Umayyah. If you respond, you will prosper; and
if you refuse, you will lose—and I am not a guardian over you.” They
said: “If you do not disavow them, then we reject you.” Zayd said: “Alla
hu akbar. My father narrated to me from the Messenger of Allah (May
Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) that he said to
ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him): ‘There will be a people who claim love for
us; for them is a nickname. When you meet them, kill them, for they
are polytheists.’ Go—indeed you are the Ra fid ah.” They parted from
Zayd that day, and he named them al-Ra fid ah, and thus this name
came to apply to them.
Al-Sayyid Abu T a lib Yah ya ibn al-H usayn ibn Ha ru n al-H asanī
narrated in his book al-Diʿamah that all the factions of the Ummah
agreed upon the imamate of Zayd ibn ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him) except
this previously mentioned faction. He said: When his virtue and
precedence became manifest, his knowledge and excellence appeared,
and his perfection—by which he surpassed the people of his age—
became known, the groups of people, despite the differences of their
views, gathered upon pledging allegiance to him. The Zaydī was not
more eager for it than the Muʿtazilī , nor was the Muʿtazilī quicker to it
than the Murjiʾī , nor the Murjiʾī than the Kha rijī . His pledge of
allegiance thus encompassed the factions of the Ummah despite their
differences, and none deviated from pledging allegiance to him except
this small, ill-fated group.
Until he said: He was the most excellent of the ʿItrah, because he
shared with their collective matters in ways in which they did notshare with him. Among them is his distinction in ʿilm al-kalam—which
is the noblest of sciences and the path to salvation, the knowledge
without which the other sciences are of no benefit—along with his
precedence therein and his renown among the elite and the common
people.
This is Abu ʿUthma n ʿAmr ibn Bah r al-Ja h iz describing him in the
craft of theology, boasting of him, and bearing witness to the utmost
degree of his precedence. Jaʿfar ibn H a rith, in the Kitab al-Diyanah,
and many of the Muʿtazilah of Baghdad—such as Muh ammad ibn
ʿAbdulla h al-Iska fī and others—attribute themselves to him in their
books and say: “We are Zaydī s.” Sufficient for you in this matter is the
attribution of the Muʿtazilah to him—though they view people with an
eye like that with which the angels of the heavens view the inhabitants
of the
earth, by way of analogy. Were it not for the manifestation of his
knowledge, excellence, and precedence over all others in virtue, the
Muʿtazilah would not have submitted to him.
Until he said: And among what indicates the soundness of what al-
Sayyid Abu T a lib narrated—regarding the consensus of the factions
of the Ummah upon Zayd ibn ʿAlī —is what occurred from the virtue of
a Kha rijī poet who elegized Zayd (Peace be Upon Him) and
reproached the Zaydiyyah, saying:
O Abu al-Husayn—affairs extend afar, O Abu al-Husayn—if only the
Shurat were a band.
And he also said:
O Abu al-Husayn—affairs extend afar, O Abu al-Husayn—if only the
Shurat were a band.
And he also said:
[20/6] The sons of Darzah abandoned you, cut off; They left the son of
Fatimah—his noble forefathers.
The sons of Darzah abandoned you and fled; They left you hanging—
your water withheld.
On Thursday—not for the drink of the drinker—In a place of spectacle
for the eyes.
And H asan ibn ʿAlī ibn Yah ya ibn Abī Yaʿla narrated from ʿUmar ibn
Mu sa , who said: I said to Zayd ibn ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him): “Was ʿAlī
an Imam?”
He said: “The Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless him and his family
and grant them peace) was a sent Prophet. No one among creation was
in the rank of the Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless him and his
family and grant them peace), nor did ʿAlī have what the extremists
claim. When the Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless him and his
family and grant them peace) passed away, ʿAlī thereafter was the
Imam of the Muslims—in their lawful and unlawful matters, in the
Sunnah from the Prophet of Allah, and in the interpretation of the
Book of Allah. Whatever ʿAlī brought of lawful or unlawful, or Book or
Sunnah—rejecting it was disbelief. That remained so until he
unsheathed the sword, made his call manifest, became entitled to
obedience, and then Allah took him as a martyr.”
“Then came al-H asan and al-H usayn (Peace be Upon Them). By Allah,
they did not claim the rank of the Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless
him and his family and grant them peace), nor was there from the
Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them
peace) regarding them what he said regarding ʿAlī (Peace be Upon
Him)—except that he said: ‘They are the masters of the youth of
Paradise.’ Thus they are as the Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless
him and his family and grant them peace) named them. They were two
just Imams, and they remained so until Allah—Exalted is He—took
them both as martyrs.”
Then we were the progeny of the Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless
him and his family and grant them peace) after them—descendants of
al-H asan and al-H usayn. There was among usno Imam whose obedience was obligatory. By Allah, neither ʿAlī ibn al-
H usayn—my father—nor anyone else claimed the rank of the
Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them
peace), nor the rank of ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him). Nor was there from
the Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless him and his family and grant
them peace) regarding us what he said regarding al-H asan and al-H
usayn, except that we are the progeny of the Messenger of Allah (May
Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace).
So these people say: “You envied your brother and your nephew.” Do I
envy my father a right that is his? What an evil son I would be among
sons! I would then be a disbeliever if I were to deny him a right that is
his from Allah. By Allah, ʿAlī ibn al-H usayn did not claim it, nor did my
brother Muh ammad ibn ʿAlī claim it—from the time I accompanied
him until he parted from me.
Then he said: Indeed, the Imam from among us, the Ahl al-Bayt (Peace
be Upon Them), whose obedience is obligatory upon us, upon you, and
upon the Muslims, is the one who unsheathes his sword, calls to the
Book of his Lord and the Sunnah of his Prophet (May Allah bless him
and his family and grant them peace), proceeds according to its
rulings, and is known for that. That is the Imam whose ignorance is
not permissible for us nor for you.
As for one who sits in his house, lets down his curtain, closes his door
upon himself, upon whom the rulings of the oppressors are carried
out, who neither enjoins good nor forbids evil—how could such a one
be an Imam whose obedience is obligatory?
Regarding the merit of Zayd is what Muh ammad ibn Sa lim narrated.
He said: Jaʿfar ibn Muh ammad (Peace be Upon Him) said to me: “O
Muh ammad, did you witness my uncle Zayd?”
I said: “Yes.” He said: “Did you see among us anyone like him?”
I said: “No.”
He said: “By Allah, I do not think you will see among us anyone like
him until the Hour is established. By Allah, he was our master; he left
among us no equal to him in religion nor in worldly affairs.”
And it is narrated from Muh ammad ibn ʿAlī (Peace be Upon Him) that
he said—pointing to Zayd—: “This is the master of Banu Ha shim. If he
calls you, then answer him; and if he seeks your help, then help him.”
[Al-Tuhaf: Sharh al-Zulf, by the Imam who renewed the religion, Majd
al-Dī n ibn Muh ammad ibn Mans u r al-Muʾayyidī (Peace be Upon
Him).]