Chapter 5 examines the writings of the highly influential Sunnī scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), and those of some of his detractors, who accused him of advocating anti-ʿAlid doctrines. Ibn Taymiyya discussed his views of ʿAlī and anti-ʿAlids in his multivolume anti-Shīʿī work Minhāj al-sunna al-nabawiyya. He provides comprehensive arguments and many proofs in favor of anti-ʿAlid doctrines while claiming to be a Muslim who respected ʿAlī. His anti-ʿAlid and anti-Shīʿī claims illuminate the tension that some Sunnīs (and their predecessors such as al-Jāḥiẓ) faced in opposing Shīʿism while simultaneously rejecting anti-ʿAlid sentiments.

Chapter 1 identifies the phenomenon of anti-ʿAlid sentiment in its varied expressions in early Muslim political and intellectual history. The chapter also provides a framework for researchers to locate and contextualize anti-ʿAlid doctrines that appear in later Sunnī and Ibāḍī historiography. It identifies six distinct positions on ʿAlī held by Muslims and arranges these doctrines on a spectrum from the ardently pro-ʿAlid to the radically anti-ʿAlid to enable readers to interpret literary depictions of ʿAlī and situate authors who engaged in theological discussions about ʿAlī across sectarian boundaries and multiple centuries.

Chapter 3 examines the views of al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869), a Muʿtazilī belletrist who lived in a period in which anti-ʿAlid sentiment still ran high in various parts of the Muslim world. His Risālat al-ʿUthmāniyya examines the views of one of the factions introduced in the previous chapter and constitutes a seminal text for understanding this anti-ʿAlid current in early Islam. Al-Jāḥiẓ’s treatise triggered a number of rebuttals from authors who condemned him as an anti-ʿAlid.