A Shi'ite Encyclopedia (chapter 10)

Who Is Sayf?

Sayf Ibn Umar al-Dhabbi al-Usayyidi al-Tamimi lived in the second century of the Muslim era (8th century AD) and died after the year 170 AH (750 AD). al-Dhahabi said that Sayf died during the rule of Haroon al-Rashid in Baghdad (Iraq). During his life, Sayf wrote the following two books which were available even during the reign of Umayad:

  1. "al-Fotooh wa al-Riddah" which is the history of the period before the death of the Prophet (PBUH&HF) until the third Caliph Uthman resumed office as the ruler of Muslim world.

  2. "al-Jamal wa Maseeri Aisha wa Ali" which is the history from the murder of Uthman to the battle of Jamal (the fight that happened between Imam Ali and some companions).

These books are now lost but survived for a number of centuries after Sayf's own lifetime. Based on what we found, the last person who had said that he had possessed Sayf's books was Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852 AH).

These two books of Sayf contained more action than truth, some forged stories, and some true events which, intentionally, have been recorded in a ridiculing manner.

Since Sayf spoke about some of the companions of the Prophet (PBUH&HF) and also invented some companions with strange names, his stories have affected the history of early Islam.

Some biographers such as the authors of "Usdul Ghabah", "Isti'ab" and "Isabah" and geographers such as the authors of "Mu'jamul Boldan" and "al-Rawzul mi'tar" have written the life of some companions of the Prophet, and named places which exist only in the books written by Sayf. Because of this, the life and character of Sayf and his credibility should be carefully investigated.

What Do Sunni Scholars Say About Sayf?

The following leading Sunni scholars confirm that Sayf Ibn Umar was a well- known liar and untrustworthy:

(1) al-Hakim (d. 405 AH) wrote: "Sayf is accused of being a heretic. His narrations are abandoned."

(2) al-Nisa'i (d. 303 AH) wrote: "Sayf's narrations are weak and they should be disregarded because he was unreliable and untrustworthy."

(3) Yahya Ibn Mueen (d. 233 AH) wrote: "Sayf's narrations are weak and useless."

(4) Abu Hatam (d. 277 AH) wrote: "Sayf's Hadith is rejected."

(5) Ibn Abi Hatam (d. 327 AH) wrote: "Scholars have abandoned Sayf's narrations."

(6) Abu Dawud (d. 316 AH) wrote: "Sayf is nothing. He was a liar. Some of his Hadiths were conveyed and the majority of them are denied."

(7) Ibn Habban (d. 354 AH) wrote: "Sayf attributed fabricated traditions to the good reporters. He was accused of being a heretic and a liar."

(8) Ibn Abd al-Barr (d. 462 AH) mentined in his writing abut al-Qa'qa: "Sayf reported that al-Qa'qa Said: I attended the death of the Prophet Muhammad." Ibn Adb al-Barr continued: "Ibn Abu Hatam said: Sayf is weak. Thus, what was conveyed of the presence of al-Qa'qa at the death of the Prophet is rejected. We mentioned the Sayf's traditions for knowledge only."

(9) al-Darqutini (d. 385 AH) wrote: "Sayf is weak".

(10) Firoozabadi (d. 817 AH) in "Towalif" mentioned Sayf and some others by saying: "They are weak."

(11) Ibn al-Sakan (d. 353 AH) wrote: "Sayf is weak."

(12) Safi al-Din (d. 923 AH) wrote: "Sayf is considered weak."

(13) Ibn Udei (d. 365 AH) wrote about Sayf: "He is weak. Some of his narrations are famous yet the majority of his narrations are disgraceful and not followed."

(14) al-Suyuti (d. 900 AH) wrote: "Sayf's Hadith is weak."

(15) Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852 AH) wrote after mentioning a tradition: "Many reporters of this tradition are weak, and the weakest among them is Sayf."

It is interesting to see that although al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH) has quoted from the book of Sayf in his History, he has mentioned in his other book that Sayf as a weak narrator. In "al-Mughni fi al-Dhu'afa'" al-Dhahabi wrote:

"Sayf has two books which have been unanimously abandoned by the scholars." (al-Mughni fi al-Dhu'afa', by al-Dhahabi, p292)

The result of the investigation into Sayf's life shows that Sayf was an agnostic and an unreliable story teller. Stories told by him are dubious and are entirely or partly forged. In his stories, he has used names of cities which never existed in the world.

Abdullah Ibn Saba are the star of those stories. He also introduced some 150 imaginary companions for the Prophet to fill out the empty characters of his scenarios, by giving them some strange names which are not found in any other documents. Also the timing of the events given by Sayf's narrations contradict the authentic Sunni documents. Sayf has also used imaginary chains of narrators, and reported many miraculous events (like talking cows with human etc...).

Some of the defenders of Sayf hold the opinion that eventhough he was known as a weak transmitter and many scholars of Hadith do not trust his reports, it is only in the matter of the Shari'ah (the Law), but not in the matter of historical report!

By that, they want to rely on the "historical" stories of someone who was regarded a liar and "zindeeq"! If the problem of Sayf was just lack of knowledge about Shari'ah (divine law), one could say he can be trusted on other accounts. But the problem with Sayf was that he was a liar, and made lots of forgery by constructing the events, attributed fabricated traditions to good narrators.

Then such person becomes questionable for almost everything. As for his historical accounts we will witness in Part V that even Christian historians have confirmed great inconsistencies between his historical report and other sober transmitters. No need to mention Sunni and Shia opinion on the heretical nature of Sayf.

The stories about Abdullah Ibn Saba which do NOT have any source or any chain of transmitters

There are some reports from both Shia and Sunni scholars, historians, and story tellers of ancient cultures who wrote few lines about Abdullah Ibn Saba but did not supply any evidence for their claims, nor did they provide any chain of supportive authorities (isnad) for their reports to be examined.

For instance, their reports start with: "some people say so and so ..." or "some scholars say so and so ..." without mentioning who that scholar was, and where they got it from. It was based on rumor which was propagated by Umayads (AFTER Sayf's work) which had reached them, and some based on the authors' own creativity. This is inferred when we see these authors have reported some legends which are clearly false and rejected by logic.

These reports are provided by those who wrote books about "al-Milal wa Nihal" (stories about civilizations and cultures) or "al-Firaq" (divisions/sects).

Among the Sunnis who mentioned the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba in their stories WITHOUT bringing any source for their claims, are:

(1) Ali Ibn Isma'il al-Ash'ari (d. 330) in his book "Maqalat al- Islamiyin" (Essays about the People of Islam).

(2) Abdul-Qahir Ibn Tahir al-Baghdadi (d. 429) in his book "al-Farq Bain al-Firaq" (Differences of the Sects).

(3) Muhammad Ibn Abdil-Karim al-Shahrastani (d. 548) in his book "al-Milal wan Nihal" (Nations and Cultures).

The above mentioned Sunnis do not give any source or any chain of authority for their story about Abdullah Ibn Saba. They have competed with each other to increase the number of sects in Islam with strange names such as al- Kawusiyyah, al-Tayyarah, al-Mamturah, al-Ghrabiyyah, al-Ma'lumiyyah !!, al-Majhuliyyah !!! and so on WITHOUT giving any source or reference for their claims.

Living in medieval times, these authors presumed that writing stranger stories and attributing unrealistic events to different Muslim nations will make them more reputable than the other competitors in this area. And by that, they caused a tragic damage to the history of Islam and committed a great crime for what they have falsely attributed to the Muslim nations.

Some of them have provided silly legends and fairy-tales whose falsehood are easy to detect nowadays, though it would have been possible for them to succeed in passing off such stories as history in those times. For instance, al-Shahrastani in his book "al-Milal wan Nihal" has mentioned that there was a group of semi-human creatures in the name of "al-Nas-Naas" with only half face, one eye, one hand, and one leg.

Muslims could talk to these semi-human creatures and they even exchanged poetry!!! Some Muslims even used to go hunting these semi-human creatures and they used to eat them!!! These semi-humans could jump faster than a horse and were ruminant/cud- chewers!!! al-Shahrastani further mentioned that al- Mutawakkil, the Abbasid Caliph, ordered the scientists of his time to investigate about these creatures!!! (See al-Milal wan Nihal, by al- Sharastani)

People at that time did not have the modern tools that would enable them to discover the falsehood these unrealistic stories and fairy-tales, and perhaps they would have preferred more extensive and more strange collections which may have seemed a guarantee of their accuracy, eventhough they were provided with no reference.

Also by chronological study of the life time of these authors, we can conclude that ALL of them were long after the era of Sayf Ibn Umar, and even after al-Tabari. So it is quite possible that they all got the story of Abdullah Ibn Saba from Sayf.

This claim becomes more strong when one observes that non of them mentioned the source of their reports which might be due to the fact that Sayf Ibn Umar's scandal was known to every body by that time and they did not want to discredit their books by mentioning its source. Moreover there exists NO document available related to Abdullah Ibn Saba BEFORE Sayf.

The scholars or historians who lived before Sayf Ibn Umar NEVER mentioned the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba in their books. This shows that if Ibn Saba ever existed he was not anything important for the historians before Sayf. This is also another reason to believe that what was propagated around the personality of Abdullah Ibn Saba was initiated by the mass propaganda of Sayf Ibn Umar al-Tamimi.

Among the Shia who mentioned the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba but without any information regarding to their source, are the following two historians:

(1) Sa'ad Ibn Abdillah al-Ash'ari al-Qummi (d. 301) in his book "al-Maqalat wal-Firaq" mentioned a report in which there exists the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba. But he did not mention any chain of authorities nor did he mention from whom (or which book) he got the story and what his source was. Moreover al-Ash'ari al-Qummi has narrated many traditions from Sunni authorities.

al-Najjashi (d. 450) in his "al-Rijal" said that al-Ash'ari al-Qummi traveled to many places and was well-known for his relation with Sunni historians and heard many stories from them. He wrote many weak reports from what he heard, one of which is a short story about Abdullah Ibn Saba, with no reference.

(2) Hasan Ibn Musa al-Nawbakhti (d. 310) who was a Shia historian who provided in his book "al-Firaq" a report in which is the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba. However he never mentioned from whom he got the report and what his source was.

The above two were the Shia who originally provided some information about the existence of an accursed man in the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba at the time of Imam Ali (AS). Notice that all of them reported these information long after Sayf Ibn Umar and even after al-Tabari wrote his history.

Thus they might perhaps got the information from Sayf or those who quoted from him such as al-Tabari. This becomes more probable when we see that they wrote "Some people say so and so..." without giving any documented support (isnad) or the name of those "some people"!

Reports about Abdullah Ibn Saba which were NOT transmitted through Sayf Ibn Umar

We should point out however that there are less than 14 reports available in the collections of Shia and Sunni which mentions the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba, and are supplied with the chain of authorities, but in their chain of authorities the name of Sayf does not exist.

As for the Shia, he was al-Kushshi (or al-Keshshi; also abbreviated as Kash) (d. 369) who wrote his book "Rijal" in 340 AH. In that book he mentioned few traditions in which there exists the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba, from the Imams of Ahlul-Bayt which were quoted below. As we will see, these traditions give a very different picture than those mentioned by Sayf. However, it has been proven for Shia scholars that the book of al-Kashshi has some errors, especially in the names and also few errors in quotations.

His book also contains some weak traditions, and as a result, it is not a fully reliable source for the Shia. Not to mention that the reports of al-Kushshi (Kash) are not found in any of the major 4-books of tradition for Shia. (For a critical evaluation of his errors, please see al-Rijal by al-Tusteri as well as al-Askari.)

Other Shia scholars who mentioned Abdullah Ibn Saba, have quoted al-Kushshi or the two historians mentioned above (i.e., al-A'sh'ari al-Qummi and al- Nawbakhti who did not provide any chain of transmitters or any source for their report). Among those who quoted al-Kushshi (Kash) are: Shaikh al-Tusi (d. 460), Ahmad Ibn Tawoos (d. 673), Allama al-Hilli (d. 726), etc.

As for the Sunnis, beside those who quoted from Sayf Ibn Umar whose names were given earlier, there are few reports from Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani which provide the very similar information of what al-Kushshi (Kash) provided (see below).

For these very few Shi'i and Sunni reports, we would like to mention the following points:

  1. The story that these few Sunni and Shia traditions provide, are totally different than the heavy narrations propagated by Sayf Ibn Umar. These tradition say that there was a poor man in the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba appeared AT THE TIME OF government of Imam Ali (AS). He claimed that he was a Prophet and Ali was God, and as soon as Imam Ali heard the news, he imprisoned him, and asked him to repent. He did not do so, and thus, Imam Ali ordered to burn him.

The traditions confirm that Imam Ali and his descendants cursed this man and disassociated themselves from his claim of deity for Imam Ali (AS). This is all there is about it, provided that these few traditions are genuine in the first place.

  1. These few (less than 14) traditions do NOT exist in any authentic book.

In fact, there is NO mention of Abdullah Ibn Saba in ANY of the six authentic Sunni collections (Sihah). Moreover, these few reports were NEVER rated authentic by Shia or Sunni scholars, and there is a great possibility that a person in the name of Abdullah Ibn Saba never existed in the world, and was the total invention of Sayf Ibn Umar, similar to his invention of 150 imaginary companions for the Prophet (PBUH&HF) which do not exist in any other independent report.

Granted that Abdullah Ibn Saba ever existed, Sayf has used his character and attributed many events to him for which there exists NO SIMILAR REPORT by other Sunni narrators. Not only that, but also Sayf's reports clearly contradict other reports by the Sunnis, as we will show in this part and the next parts. Such malicious construction of the events were easy to detect even by the Sunni scholars.

Now, let me give you some of these few traditions which have NOT been reported by Sayf, and compare what Sayf attributed to Abdullah Ibn Saba. As for Shia:

It is attributed to Abu Ja'far (AS) saying:

Abdullah Ibn Saba used to claim being a prophet and claimed that The Commander of Believers, Ali (AS) is God. Allah is Higher than such (claim). This news reached to The Commander of Believers (AS), so he called him and questioned him. But he repeated his claims and said: "You are Him (i.e., God), and it has been revealed to me that you are God and I am a prophet." So The Commander of Believers (AS) said: "How dare you! Satan has made a mockery of you.

Repent for what you said. May your mother weep at your death! Quit (your claim)." But he refused, so (Imam Ali) imprisoned him and asked him three times to repent, but he didn't. Thus he burnt him with fire and said: "Satan had taken him into his whim, he used to come to him and to induce these (thoughts) in him." (Rijal, by al-Kushshi)

Moreover it is reported that Imam Ali Ibn Husain (AS) said:

"May the curse of Allah be upon those who tell lies about us. I mentioned Abdullah Ibn Saba and each hair in my body stood up, Allah cursed him. Ali (AS) was, by Allah, a proper servant of Allah, the brother of the Messenger of Allah (PBUH&HF). He did not earn the graciousness/honor from Allah except with the obedience to Allah and His Messenger. And (similarly) the Messenger of Allah (PBUH&HF) did not earn the honor from Allah except with his obedience to Allah." (Rijal, by al-KuShshi)

It is reported that Abu Abdillah (AS) said:

"We are a family of truthfulness. But we are not safe from a liar telling lies about us to undermine our truth with his lies in front of people. The Messenger of Allah (PBUH&HF) was the most truthful among people in what he said (Lahjatan) and the most truthful among all humanity; and Musaylima used to lie on him.

The Commander of Believers (AS) was the most truthful one among the creation of Allah after the Messenger of Allah; and the one who used to lie on him, and tried to undermine his truthfulness and claimed lies about Allah, was Abdullah Ibn Saba." (Rijal, by al-Kushshi)

Also:

"As he (Aba Abdillah - Ja'far al-Sadiq) was telling his companions in the subject of Abdullah Ibn Saba and that he claimed in Godness of The Commander of Believers, Ali Ibn Abi Talib. He said: When he claimed that in Ali, he asked him to repent and he refused, so he burnt him with fire." (Rijal, by al-Kushshi)

As for the Sunnis, few reports from Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani which provide the very similar information of what al-Kushshi (Kash) provided. Ibn Hajar mentioned:

"Abdullah Ibn Saba was one of the extremist (al-Ghulat), dualist/seducee/manichaeist (Zindeeq), and misguided, which is conveyed that Ali burnt him with fire." (Lisan al-Mizan, by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, v3, p289)

Then Ibn Hajar continues:

"Ibn Asakir mentioned in his History that `his origin (Abdullah Ibn Saba) was from Yemen and that he was a Jew who adopted Islam and traveled in the cities of Muslims and preached them to disobey their rulers, to induce evil amongst them, then he entered Damascus for that purpose.' Then Ibn Asakir mentioned a LONG STORY from the book of al-Futooh of Sayf Ibn Umar, which does not have correct support/ authorities (isnad)." (Lisan al-Mizan, by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, v3, p289)

Then Ibn Hajar gives a tradition among whose chain of authorities two individuals are missing. In footnote he says that its has been dropped. This is the tradition:

"Ali ascended the pulpit and said: What is wrong with him? people said: He is denying (or lying upon) Allah and His Messenger." (Lisan al-Mizan, by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, v3, p289)

In another tradition, Ibn Hajar reported:

"Ali said to Abdullah Ibn Saba: I have been told that there shall be thirty liars/imposters (who claim prophethood) and your are one of them" (Lisan al-Mizan, by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, v3, p290)

He also wrote:

"Ibn Saba and his followers believed in the deity of Ali Ibn Abi Talib, and certainly Ali burnt them by fire during his rule." (Lisan al-Mizan, by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, v3, p290)

These Sunni traditions were not rated authentic either. The total of these tradition by both Shia and Sunni (reported by other than Sayf), do not exceed fourteen at most. They will be even less if you remove repetitions. These few Sunnite and Shi'ite traditions convey that:

  1. Abdullah Ibn Saba appeared during the Caliphate of Imam Ali (AS), and not during the rule of Uthman as Sayf alleged.

  2. Abdullah Ibn Saba did not say that Ali is the successor of Prophet (PBUH&HF) as Sayf claimed. Rather he said Ali (AS) is God.

  3. Imam Ali (AS) burnt him along with all other extremists (al-Ghulat). This is while Sayf does not state such a thing.

  4. There is no mention of his existence or his playing a role at the time of Uthman. There is no mention of his agitation against Uthman which ended up with assassination of Uthman as Sayf attributed to Abdullah Ibn Saba.

  5. There is no mention of the role of Abdullah Ibn Saba in the battle of Camel as Sayf attributed to him.

  6. These traditions do not indicate that any righteous companions of Prophet followed Abdullah Ibn Saba. This is while Sayf maliciously alleged that some of the most faithful pioneers of Islam such as Abu Darr (RA) and Ammar Yasir (RA) were the students of Abdullah Ibn Saba during the reign of Uthman.