RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESand said that God delegated to people the ability to direct their own
affairs.^64 Others held the position of al-I:Iasan al-Ba~rI that good ac-
tions came from God but sin came from themselves. Still others applied
the Khariji: concept of delegation and claimed that God had made
them responsible for themselves and had given them the power (Ar.
quwwa) to perform good acts without further help or guidance from
God.^65 The difficulties that beset the Qadariyya and their doctrinal
descendents, the upholders of God's justice and unity (Mu'tazila),
were largely due to this overreaction to fatalism which tended to
compromise the omnipotence of God and to say that God was forced
to be just.
THE SHI'A
An entirely different set of issues, which eventually produced the
ShI'I form of Islam, surrounded the factional support for 'All and his
family in Iraq. Although the Shi'l alternative is an important part of
the history of Islam, the main concern here is what this partisanship
meant in terms of continuity and change in Iraq. At one level this
involved Arab tribal concepts of leadership and the custom of choosing
the leader of a tribe from the same family or clan (Ar. ahl al-bayt).
In this respect, 'All's political claims were based on kinship-on the
fact that he was Mu~ammad's cousin and son-in-law, and that when
Mu~ammad died in 632, 'All's two sons, al-I:Iasan and al-I:Iusayn,
were Mu~ammad's only living male descendents. At another level, it
involved the pre-Islamic reputation of Mu~ammad's family as care-
takers of the Ka'ba. 'All's own religious status was based on his early
conversion to Islam.
However, the earliest supporters of 'All were a group of his own
proteges. Several of them were early converts of humble origin who
counted on the opportunities for advancement provided by the soci-
oeconomic equality of the early Islamic community in Madina. For
that reason they also resisted the reimposition of control by the Mak-
kan merchant elite, many of whom were late converts to Islam. Some
of 'All's supporters came to Iraq soon after the conquest. I:Iudhayfa
ibn al-Yaman and Salman al-Parisl were involved in the early admin-
64 Salem, Khawarij, pp. 41-42; J. van Ess, "Umar Il," p. 21; Montgomery Watt,
Formative Period, pp. 94, 97.
6S Schwarz, "Letter," pp. 15, 23; van Ess, "Umar Il," p. 21; Montgomery Watt,
Formative Period, pp. 94, 96; idem, Free Will, p. 56.