Hadith 21

pointed by him read his letter out to the people, and the people took to the reporting with regards to them (Abu Bakr and Umar) and their merits. Then he made a copy and gathered all these reports regarding them, from their virtues and their merits, in the form of a book, and enforced it upon his office bearers and ordered them to recite these upon the Pulpits and in every town and in every Masjid. And he ordered them to enforce the teachers of the Quran to teach it to their boys until they report it and learn it just as they had learnt the Quran, and until they had taught it to their daughters, and their women, and their older servants, and their younger servants. It remained like that for as long as Allah-azwj Desired it to. Then Muawiya wrote to his office bearers and copied it to all of the countries, ‘Look at the one who establishes the proof whether he loves Ali-asws and the Ahl Al-Bayt-asws (People-asws of his-asws Household), so remove him from the register and do not permit him to be a witness’. Then he wrote another letter, ‘The one who is accused of it (loving Ahl Al-Bayt-asws), and even though there is no clear proof for it even then consider him to be one from them, kill him’. They killed them (Shias) under every star, based upon accusations, and the assumption, and the doubts, to the extent that if there was a man who spoke out of turn, his neck was struck off. This was not the affliction in large cities, or mostly in Iraq, particularly in Al-Kufa, to the extent that if there was a man from the Shias of Ali-asws – from the remaining of his-asws companions in Al-Medina and other places – if a reliable person would come to him and enter his house, then he would speak to him in secret, fearing from his servants and his slaves, so he would not narrate to him until he had taken a binding oath from him to keep it secret. And the matter did not increase except for its intensity, and most of the ones in his (Muawiya) presence were their-asws enemies, and they manifested false Hadith and attributed to them-asws and to their companions, fabrications and slanderous. The people grew up on that and did not know except from them, and their judges and their governors and their jurists and died upon that. And the people who were the greatest (accusers) during that affliction and strife were the reciters, and the hypocrites and the fabricators, who displayed their grief, and their reverence, and their ascetism. They used to lie and fabricate Ahadeeth in order to benefit by that in the presence of their governors, and get closer to them in their gatherings, and acquire by that a share of the wealth, and the pieces of land, and mansions. This went on to the extent that their (false) Ahadeeth and reports ended up in the hands of the ones who concluded that these are right and that these are the truth. So they narrated these, and accepted these, and learnt these, and taught these, and loved and hated on the basis of these, to the extent that they gathered upon these in their gatherings, and these ended up in the hands of the religious people who did not consider it permissible to lie or hat