Al-Gharat, vol. 1, p. 302: Abd al-Rahman ibn Jundab narrates from his father Jundab that after the conquest of Egypt by Amr ibn al-As, Amr ibn al-Hamiq, Hujr ibn Adi, Habba al-Urani, and Harith al-A'war came in to the Commander of the Faithful (AS). They found Ali sorrowful and grieved. They said to him: Tell us, what do you say concerning Abu Bakr and Umar? Ali (AS) said: Have you found leisure for raising such questions? Egypt has been lost, and my Shia there have been slaughtered. I shall write you a treatise on this matter and answer what you have asked. And I ask of you — though until now you have squandered so much of my right — that by way of amends you at least keep faith with this writing and deliver it into the hands of my Shia. This is the text of that treatise:
From the servant of God, Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, to every believer and Muslim who reads my treatise. The peace of God be upon you. I praise the One God, besides whom there is no god.
As for what follows: God sent Muhammad (PBUH) as a prophet to warn the people of the world. He was the trustee of His revelation and a witness over this community. And you, O Arabs, in that day held the worst of religions and were scattered across the worst of lands. You shed one another's blood, killed your own children, severed the ties of kinship, squandered your wealth and consumed it wrongfully, and your roads were full of terror. Your idols stood erected among you, and you yourselves were drowned in sin. Then God bestowed His favor upon you through the person of Muhammad (PBUH) and sent him to you as His messenger — a messenger from among yourselves, to recite His verses to you, to purify you, and to teach you wisdom. He commanded you to join the bonds of kinship, to refrain from shedding blood, and to live in peace and concord. He commanded that you restore trusts to their owners, keep your covenants, and not break your oaths; and he said: be kind to one another, do good to one another, be generous, and show mercy to one another.
When the term of his life was spent, God took his soul, and he hastened to the other world, felicitous and praised. Ah, how great was the calamity of losing him — above all for those near of kin to him, and likewise for all the Muslims. Never before had such a calamity befallen anyone, and never, so long as the world endures, shall such a calamity befall anyone again.
When the Messenger of God (PBUH) hastened to the everlasting world, the Muslims fell into dispute over his succession.
By God, it had never entered my imagination, nor crossed my mind, that after Muhammad (PBUH) the Arabs would turn away from his command in the matter of the caliphate, or that after him they would hand the caliphate to anyone other than me. But the people rushed from every side upon Abu Bakr to pledge him allegiance. For a while I withheld my hand from allegiance and paused, until I saw that some of the people were turning back from the religion and calling for the destruction of the religion of God and the creed of Muhammad (PBUH). I feared that if I did not rise to the aid of Islam and the Muslims, a breach would open in the religion and the edifice of Islam would fall to ruin — and were that to happen, it would be a great calamity. At that point I went to Abu Bakr and pledged allegiance to him, and I set myself to securing the foundations of the religion, until the sedition of falsehood was destroyed and the word of God was set above all words, however hateful this was to the disbelievers. Abu Bakr took the reins of affairs and conducted them now with gentleness, now with rigor and severity, while I was his well-wishing companion, obeying him in whatever obedience to God lay, and striving earnestly in that path. When his death drew near, he summoned Umar and handed the caliphate over to him. Again we listened to that decision and obeyed, withholding neither goodwill nor guidance, and Umar took charge of the caliphate — and 'his conduct was approved and his nature auspicious.' When death came for Umar, he made me the sixth of six men. They disliked my rule as they disliked the rule of no other among themselves; they feared that if I came to rule over them, they would have no share in it so long as they lived. So they gave the caliphate to Uthman and drove me out of it, in the hope that they might seize hold of it and pass it from hand to hand among themselves — for truly they despaired of anything reaching them from my side. Then they said: Come and pledge allegiance to Uthman, or else we shall wage war upon you. I pledged allegiance under compulsion, and I bore it with patience. One of them said: O son of Abu Talib, how covetous you are of this affair! I said: You are more covetous than I, and farther from it.
O God, I seek Your help against Quraysh. They severed my ties of kinship, belittled my station, and joined hands together to wrest from me a right that was mine. And they said: this is how it is — either be content, or die! I had neither helper nor defender. With the thorn lodged in my eye, I closed my eyes; drop by drop I drank the poison of sorrow; I endured, and swallowed my rage, though it was bitterer than colocynth. So it went, until the likes of you rose in revolt against the caliphate of Uthman: you came and killed him, and then turned to me to pledge me your allegiance. I refused and drew back my hand; you strove with me to pry my hand open; I held it back while you pulled at it, and I would not yield. Then you crowded upon me so densely that I thought you would kill one another, or kill me. You said: we will pledge allegiance, for we find no one but you and will consent to no one else. And you said: once we have pledged, we shall neither scatter nor shall any discord arise among us. So of necessity I accepted your allegiance and called the people to pledge theirs. Whoever pledged of his own will, I accepted it from him; whoever would not, I did not compel him, but left him to himself. Among those who pledged allegiance to me were Talha and Zubayr. Had they not wished to pledge, I would not have forced them — neither them nor any others. Not long after, I heard that the two of them had gone to Mecca and were bound for Basra, with an army whose men, every one of them, had pledged allegiance to me and professed obedience. These two assaulted my governor and the keepers of the public treasury, and attacked the people of a city who were all under my allegiance. Discord fell among the people and their unity was shattered. Then they fell upon my Shia, killing some by treachery, some in captivity, and some by the sword. But God did not leave dominion and rule in their hands — 'so away with the wrongdoing people!' Then I looked to the people of Syria: bands of hungry-eyed bedouin Arabs, base and rootless, each come from some different region — people who needed to be schooled before they could be seasoned, who needed someone to take the reins of their affairs in hand; they were neither of the Muhajirun, nor of the Ansar, nor of the Tabi'un. I marched the army toward them and called them to obedience and unity, but they only grew in separation and discord. They stood face to face against the Muslims, made them the targets of their arrows, and drove spears into their bodies. It was then that I, with the Muslims, charged upon them and joined battle. When they had tasted our arrows and our life-rending swords and felt the pain of their wounds, they raised copies of the Qur'an aloft — as if to say: we call you to what is in this Book. I told you that these people know neither religion nor Qur'an, that they had done this out of cunning and deceit, and because of their helplessness before you: press on with your fight, for the right is with you. But you turned away and told me to accept their proposal. I accepted your judgment, for you had both slipped into disobedience and grown slack in the fighting. It was agreed that the settlement between you and them should rest with two men, and that those two would give life to whatever the Qur'an gives life to and put to death whatever it puts to death. But the two changed their minds and did not act according to that condition. Through this sedition a group broke their covenant with us, went out in rebellion, and became the Khawarij. We, for our part, left them alone — until they wrought corruption in the land, killing and spreading ruin. When we entered into talks with them, we said: first hand over to us the killers of our brothers, and then let the Book of God judge between us and you. The Khawarij said: all of us are their killers, and we hold the shedding of their blood — and of yours — to be lawful. Then they resolved upon battle with us, and God cast them down as He casts down the wrongdoers. When their affair was finished, I told you to march at once against your enemy. You said: our swords are blunted, our quivers are empty of arrows, and our lances have lost their heads; take us back to our city that we may make ready for war. I brought you back, and when we drew near to Kufa I commanded you to halt at Nukhayla, to pitch camp and remain in it, to gather what you lacked, to set your hearts upon jihad, and to lessen your visits to your wives and children. A group of you stayed with me, offering hollow excuses, and a group disobeyed and went into the city. Neither was there patience and steadfastness in those who stayed, nor did those who went into the city return — until one day I looked upon my camp, and the number of my soldiers did not reach even fifty men. When I saw it so, I too entered Kufa; and to this day you have not been able to march out of the city with me.
What are you waiting for? Do you not see that on every side your lands are being diminished, that your cities fall to the enemy one after another, that my Shia are being killed in those cities, that your frontiers stand without guard, and that it is the enemy who marches armies into your lands? What is the matter with you? Where do you come from? Where are you going? Who has bewitched you? My sorrow and grief are that the fools of this community and the people of vice and debauchery should come to rule over it — that they should seize the wealth of God and pass it from hand to hand, make the servants of God their slaves, war upon the righteous, and gather the corrupt around themselves. By God, were it not for this grief, I would not reproach you so, nor would I urge and exhort you so much; rather, the very moment you turned away and slackened, I would have left you and gone out alone, in my own person, to face them. By God, I am upon the truth, and I dearly love martyrdom.