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Chapter Four looks at specific themes in the portrayal of Khārijism during the caliphate of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. It maintains that the relevant accounts are primarily concerned with providing an apologia for ʿAlī’s conduct during the conflict with his rival Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān at Ṣiffīn and for his slaughter of Khārijite opponents at Nahrawān a year later. The Khārijites here serve mainly as mouthpieces for different positions in a debate centred on the correctness of ʿAlī’s behaviour. The overwhelming interest that the sources show in this affair indicates its centrality for the formation of a consensus regarding the events of early Islamic history, particularly concerning the status of ʿAlī and the development of Shīʿī positions over time. Connected to this is the second main theme, the relationship between ʿAlī and his cousin ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās. In his capacity as an eminent Companion and scholar and particularly as an important ancestor of the ʿAbbāsids, Ibn ʿAbbās occupies a prominent position in the narratives of early Islam. But while the sources stress the close and cordial relationship between ʿAlī and Ibn ʿAbbās, on the whole they confirm ʿAlī’s superiority.

This chapter provides an overview of the main actors and events of early Khārijite history from their origins at the Battle of Ṣiffīn in 657 CE until the death of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik in 705 CE. It situates Khārijite history in the broader context of the reign of the last ‘rightly-guided’ caliph, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, and of early Umayyad rule, including the second civil war (fitna). The chapter gives background information on the main Khārijite factions of this period, the Azāriqa and Najdiyya, and looks at well-known Khārijites like Abū Bilāl Mirdās b. Udayya and Shabīb b. Yazīd. The survey is intended to guide readers as they progress through the subsequent chapters.

This chapter focuses on Fawwaz’s portraits of early Muslim women, especially those of ahl al-bayt, the Prophet Muhammad’s family and lineage. It highlights her presentations of Alid and early Shi’i women given Fawwaz’s origins in the Shi‘i region of Jabal ‘Amil, Lebanon. Discussing women’s roles in the rift which led later to the development of sects in Islam, it finds that the biographical dictionary features an unusually high proportion of pro-‘Ali (Alid) and then Shi ‘i women, and that in their orientation these biographies signal a quiet but discernible Shi‘i perspective or allegiance. It then discusses Fawwaz’s emphases in her biographies of Muslim contemporaries: scholarship, literature, and reform, and how her life histories of Arab or Muslim contemporaries parallel those of Europeans.

The concluding chapter to this volume explores the evidence in Naṣīḥat al-mulūk for Pseudo-Māwardī’s religious-intellectual orientation. It discusses his emphasis on the themes of (1) ethical responsibility, expressed in part in observance of the divine law; (2) the indispensable nature of rationality in the pursuit of religious understanding; and (3) an austere way of living in the world, with an abiding sense of its transience and relativity. The chapter situates the mirror Naṣīḥat al-mulūk in the context of a milieu in which philo-ʿAlidism, the intellectual orientations of the Ḥanafiyya and the Muʿtazila, and practices of renunciation featured prominently.