Abdullah Ibn Saba

This subject might be a little touchy but I just want to gather your idea about Abdullah Ibn Saba, a former Jewish Rabbi converted to Islam whom most of Sunni Islam sources recorded  that he was the founder of Shia Islam.  He was among the first Shi�at �Ali (party of Ali) to campaigned for the caliphate of Ali and went so far to proclaim Ali was God incarnation. Sunni scholars held him responsible for initiating First Fitna. In return, Ali exiled him and  had his followers burned at the stake for blasphemy. Some Shia scholars denied his existence by saying he was a total fabrication from Sunni.

Well, there are two points here. 1) the existance of Abdullah Ibn Saba' 2) his role as the founder of the Shiite sect.
I leave the second point to Shiite scholars as we all know that Shiism and Sunnism did not start right away as different ideologies. Rather, it was more of a political split and later was associated with ideological differentiation.
To the first point, Ahmed presented a well argument that one of the narrators of the story is himself an unreliable source by Sunni sources. However, Shiite sources did not deny his existance for the past 13 hundred years. In fact, well known shiite historical scholars, like Al Nobakhti who lived around the 800's CE, supported the existance of Abdullah Ibn Saba and even regarded him as a founder of one of the Shiite sects (The sects of Shiah, pp. 43, 44).
Was Abdullah Ibn Saba a founder of Shiism? I doubt it. Did he exist? some sources of Sunni and shiite hisotrians support his existance and Imam Ali prosecution of him.

Edited by �ok ge� - 09-Nov-2007 at 22:16

Abdullah ibn Saba existed in one the most terrible times during Islam's long history, the long unrest from 30 to 85 AH. This unrest and civil wars that came with it led to the deaths of over 200 000 combatants in the conservative figures and up to a million civilians. The main struggle during the time of Abdullah ibn Saba was a pure political struggle between Muawiyah and Ali. Muawiyah wanted revenge for Uthman's death and he and almost all the living Sahaba were angered by Ali's refusal to persecute Uthman's killers who some of them were part of his Army. Of course he did want to take revenge but was prevented by the chaos and because of other reasons that this is not the place for them to be explained. Any way, Muawiyah was not an usurper as Shias usually proclaim. He had swore allegiance to Ali and did all what Ali ordered him like protecting the nothern borders, gathering taxes and establishing law. The Khutbah was always in the name of Ali not Muawiyah so were the money that was minted in that time in Muawiyah's territories. Shiism was until those day just another political doctrine nothing more. Abdullah ibn Saba took that political doctrine a little bit far and established the first vestiges of the sect. the first step was to prefer Ali over all the Sahabah while continuing to revere them especially the first three. But that was not enough, certain groups with the Sabaian movement went further. Already there was much hate for Uthman within the ranks of Ali's shia since many actually contributed to his death. He was the first "villain" of many. Other promenent Sahabah who opposed Ali were quickly included, then Umar and Abu Bakr were pictured as usurpers from the legitimate caliph. By the time of the Zaidi revolt Shiasm became a religious sect when they refused to pray for the first three caliphs when Zaid ibn Ali ordered them and the first schism happened in Shiism with the Zaidis accepting the legitimacy of the first three caliphs but maintaining the primacy of Ali over them and the Jaafari shias who hate the first caliphs and indeed most of the Sahabah. An interesting note here is about the position of Abdullah ibn Abbas among the Jaafaris, though he was the judge and chief chancellor to Ali he is not considered a real Sahabi of the prophet and some Shia scholars even equate him with the rest of the Sahabah like Umar who are not accepted by the Shias. The reason for this is according to sunni traditions, he was very brutal against ibn Saba and his followers and he oreder their execution. he also clearly preferred the first three caliphs over Ali and attacked any one who said otherwise.