Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib (A.S) also said:
Do not fight1 the Kharijites after me, because one who seeks right but does not find it, is not like one who seeks wrong and finds it.
Sayyid ar-Radhi says the following: Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib (A.S) means Mu’awiyah and his men.
1. The reason for stopping people from fighting the Kharijites was that Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib (A.S) was clearly perceiving that after him authority and power would devolve on people who would be ignorant of the proper occasion of jihad, making use of the sword only to maintain their sway. And there were those who excelled, even the Kharijites, in holding and calling Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib (A.S) wrong. So those who are themselves in the wrong have no right to fight others in the wrong. Again, those who are willfully in the wrong can be allowed to fight those who are in the wrong by mistake. Thus, Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib’s words make this fact clear that the misguidance of Kharijites was not willful but under Satan’s influence. They mistook wrong as right and stuck to it. On the other hand, the position of misguidance of Mu’awiyah and his party was that they rejected right realizing it as right and appropriated wrong as the code of their conduct knowing that it was wrong. Their audacity in the matter of religion reached the stage that it can neither be regarded as a result of misunderstanding nor can it be covered under the garb of error of judgment. They openly transgressed the limits of religion and paid no heed to the Prophet’s injunctions in comparison with their own view. Thus, Ibn Abul-Hadid has written (Vol. 5, p.130) that when the Prophet’s companion Abud-Darda’ saw utensils of gold and silver being used by Mu’awiyah he said he had heard the Prophet (P.B.U.H. and His Household) saying, A One who drinks in vessels of gold and silver will feel flames of the fire of Hell in his stomach. Whereupon Mu’awiyah said, A As for me, I do not find any harm in it. Similarly, creating Ziyad ibn Abih’s blood relationship with himself by his own opinion in total disregard of the Prophet’s injunction, abusing the descendants of the Prophet (P.B.U.H. and His Household) over the pulpit, transgressing the limits of shari’ah, shedding blood of innocent persons and placing over Muslims (as so-called caliph) a vicious individual and thus opening the way to disbelief and atheism are events that to attribute them to any misunderstanding is like willfully closing one’s eyes to historic fact and common sense.
