al-Gharat, vol. 1, p. 302: Abd al-Rahman ibn Jundab narrates from his father Jundab that Amr ibn al-Hamiq, Hujr ibn Adi, Habba al-Urani, and al-Harith al-A'war came in to the Commander of the Faithful (AS) after the conquest of Egypt by Amr ibn al-As. They found Ali sorrowful and grieved. They said to him: Tell us, what do you say concerning Abu Bakr and Umar? Ali (peace be upon him) said: Have you found leisure to raise such questions?! Egypt has been lost and my Shi'a there have been slaughtered. I shall write you a treatise on this matter and answer you regarding what you have asked. And I ask you — though you have hitherto squandered much of my right — that by way of amends you at least be faithful trustees of this writing and convey it to my Shi'a. This is the text of that treatise:
From the servant of God, Ali, Commander of the Faithful, to whoever among the believers and the Muslims reads my treatise. God's peace be upon you. I praise the One God, besides whom there is no god.
Now then: 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 those days held the worst of religions and were scattered in the worst of lands. You shed one another's blood and killed your children, you had severed the bonds of kinship, you squandered your wealth and consumed it wrongfully, and your roads were full of terror. Your idols stood erect among you and you yourselves were drowned in sin. Then God bestowed His favor upon you through Muhammad (PBUH) and sent him to you with a message — a messenger from among yourselves, to recite His signs to you, to purify you, and to teach you wisdom. He commanded you to maintain the bonds of kinship, to refrain from shedding blood, and to live in peace and harmony. He commanded that you restore trusts to their owners, fulfill your covenants, and not break your oaths, and he said that you should be kind to one another, do good to one another, be forgiving, and show mercy to one another.
When the term of his life had run its course, God took his soul, and he departed to the other world, blessed and praised. Alas, how great was the calamity of losing him — especially for his kin, and likewise for all the Muslims. No such calamity has ever befallen anyone before, nor shall any such calamity befall anyone hereafter.
When the Messenger of God (PBUH) departed to the everlasting world, the Muslims fell into dispute over his succession.
By God, it never entered my imagination nor crossed my mind that after Muhammad (PBUH) the Arabs would turn their faces from his command in the matter of the caliphate, and would entrust the caliphate after him to someone other than me. But the people rushed from every side toward Abu Bakr to pledge allegiance to him. I held back a while from pledging allegiance and delayed, until I saw that some of the people were turning back from the religion and were calling for the destruction of God's religion and the faith of Muhammad (PBUH). I feared that if I did not rise to the aid of Islam and the Muslims, a breach would appear in the religion and the edifice of Islam would be ruined; 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 set myself to consolidating the foundations of the religion, until the sedition of falsehood was destroyed and the word of God was set above all words, however much its deniers disliked it. Abu Bakr took the reins of affairs in hand and conducted matters now with gentleness and now with severity and harshness, while I was his well-wishing companion, and in every matter in which there was obedience to God I obeyed him and strove in its way. When his death drew near, he summoned Umar and handed the caliphate over to him. Again we gave ear to that decision and obeyed, and withheld nothing of goodwill and counsel, and Umar took charge of the caliphate. And he was of praiseworthy conduct and blessed in his ways. When death came to Umar, he made me the sixth of a council. They disliked my rule as they disliked the rule of none among themselves. They feared that if I gained rule over them, they would have no share in it for as long as they lived. So they gave the caliphate to Uthman and drove me away from it, hoping to seize hold of it and pass it around among themselves; and in truth they had despaired of anything reaching them from my side. Then they said: Come and pledge allegiance to Uthman, or else we will fight you. I pledged allegiance unwillingly and bore it patiently. One of them said: O son of Abu Talib, how eager you are for this affair! I said: You are more eager for it than I, though you are further from it.
O God, I seek Your help against the Quraysh. They severed my ties of kinship, belittled my standing, and joined hands in agreement to wrest a right from me. And they said: This is how it is; either be content or die! I had neither helper nor defender. With a thorn piercing my eye, I closed my eyes; and I drank the bitter draught of sorrow in small sips; I bore it patiently and swallowed my anger; it was more bitter than colocynth. Until the time when men such as you rebelled against the caliphate of Uthman, came and killed him, and turned toward me to pledge allegiance to me — and I refused and drew back my hand. You struggled with me to force my hand open, and I resisted, and you pulled at my hand, and I would not allow it. Then you crowded around me so that I thought you would either kill one another or kill me. You said that you would pledge allegiance because you found no one but me and would be content with no one other than me. And you said that once you had pledged allegiance you would neither scatter nor let any dissension arise among you. So of necessity I accepted your allegiance and called the people to pledge it. Whoever pledged allegiance willingly, I accepted from him, and whoever did not wish to, 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 allegiance, I would not have forced them to do so — neither them nor anyone else. It was not long before I heard that the two had gone to Mecca and were headed for Basra, with an army every one of whom had pledged allegiance to me and had declared his obedience. These two assaulted my governor and the keepers of the public treasury, and attacked the people of a city who were all within my allegiance. Discord fell among the people and their unity was broken. Then they fell upon my Shi'a and killed some by treachery, some in prison, and some by the sword. But God did not leave power and rule in their hands. So away with the wrongdoing people! Then I looked to the people of Syria: bands of hungry-eyed, base, rootless bedouin Arabs, each come from some quarter — a people who need to be disciplined until they become seasoned, and who need someone to take the reins of their affairs in hand. They were neither of the Emigrants nor of the Helpers nor of the Followers. I led the army in that direction and called them to obedience and unity, but they only increased in division and hypocrisy. They stood face to face with the Muslims and made them the target of their arrows and drove their spears into their bodies. It was at such a moment that I, together with the Muslims, charged upon them and joined battle. When they tasted our arrows and our life-taking swords and felt the pain of wounds, they raised up the Qur'ans, meaning: we call you to what is in this Book. I told you that these men know neither religion nor Qur'an, and that they had done this out of guile and deceit, and because of their weakness before you. Continue your fight, for the right is with you. But you turned away and told me to accept their proposal. I accepted your view, since you had both raised the head of disobedience and grown slack in the fighting. It was agreed that the matter of reconciliation between you and them should rest with two men, and that they should give life to whatever the Qur'an has given life to and put to death whatever it has put to death. But those two took a different view and did not act according to that stipulation. As a result of this sedition, a group broke our covenant, went out in rebellion, and became the Kharijites. We too left them alone, until they wrought corruption in the land, killed, and spread mischief. When we entered into discussion with them, we said: First hand over to us the killers of our brothers, then let the Book of God judge between us and you. The Kharijites said: All of us are their killers, and we hold the shedding of their blood and yours to be lawful. Then they resolved to fight us, and God cast them down where He casts down the wrongdoers. When their affair was settled, I told you to march at once against your enemy. You said: Our swords are blunt, our quivers are empty of arrows, and our spears have no spearheads. Take us back to our city so that we may prepare for battle. I brought you back to the city; and when we drew near Kufa I commanded you to encamp at Nukhayla, to set up a camp and remain in it, to gather what you lacked, to set your hearts on jihad, and to reduce your visits to your wives and children. A group of you stayed with me and offered flimsy excuses, and another group disobeyed and went into the city. Neither was there patience and steadfastness in those who had remained, nor did those who went into the city return. Until one day I looked at my camp and the number of my soldiers did not even reach fifty. When I saw that, I too entered Kufa, and to this day you have not been able to set foot outside the city with me.
What are you waiting for? Do you not see that on every side your lands are shrinking, that your cities are falling one after another into the enemy's hands, that my Shi'a are being killed in those cities, that your frontiers have no guardians, and that it is the enemy who marches his armies into your lands? What is the matter with you? Where do you come from? Where are you going? Who has bewitched you? My grief and sorrow are that the foolish among this community, and the people of transgression and debauchery, should come to rule over it — that they should seize God's wealth and pass it among themselves, make God's servants their slaves, wage war on the righteous, and gather the corrupt around themselves. By God, were it not for this grief of mine, I would not reproach you so much nor urge and exhort you so much; rather, at the very moment when you turned away and grew slack, I would have left you and gone out alone in person to face them. By God, I am upon the truth, and I dearly love martyrdom.