great in their hearts and has taken the place of the truth with them.
52 The strongest proof they have cited for their submission to the authority of the Companions is an oral report which they claim to have transmitted from the Messenger of God, in which he said, “My Companions are like the stars. No matter which of them you follow, you will be led aright.”96 They claimed that everyone who accompanied the Messenger of God should be emulated in everything which he said and did, commanded and forbade. Thus, they made it obligatory to follow all the Companions and to adopt the positions they espoused regarding what they claim is not addressed in the Book of God or in the Practice of their Prophet. Yet we have found that those who they claimed were the Companions of the Messenger of God devolved into factions and differed among themselves after his demise, disputing, fighting, and even killing each other. The text of the Prophetic report that they cited as proof expressly denies that they would do this to each other, and yet declares it permissible for them to kill others and spill their blood. It would be an enormity if Islamic legal rulings were based on the logical implications of this report.
53 What prohibits them from disagreeing—together with God’s censure of disagreement and its proponents that we have cited and quoted in the course of our discussion above—is the principle that when one Companion performs an act, someone else, whether a Companion or otherwise, must not contradict him in that, since the Messenger of God commanded that one emulate each Companion’s behavior. So, in their disunity they violated the command of the Messenger of God. If we set out to discuss all their disagreements and disputes, we would exceed the bounds of this book, because of their great number and the lengthy narratives required to explain them. One example of their disagreements was their first, over the Imamate: the Allies at first sought to assume it for themselves, desiring to appoint one of their own number to the position, but the Emigrants opposed them and refused to allow them this privilege.97 It should have been obligatory for the Emigrants, on the grounds of the plain meaning of the Prophetic report, not to oppose the Allies, but rather to emulate them, especially since this disagreement of theirs was over a tremendous and fundamental principle of the faith. A full discussion of their disagreement over this matter would take too long.
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