قَالَ لَهُ بَعْضُ الْيَهُودِ:
Some Jews said to Amir al-mu'minin, peace be upon him;
مَا دَفَنْتُمْ نَبِيَّكُمْ حَتَّى اخْتَلَفْتُمْ فِيهِ.
You had not buried your Prophet when you picked up differences about him,
فَقَالَ عليه السلام لَهُ:
when Amir al-mu'minin replied:
إِنَّمَا اخْتَلَفْنَا عَنْهُ لَا فِيهِ
We did not differ about him but we differed after him (i.e. about his succession);
وَ لَكِنَّكُمْ مَا جَفَّتْ أَرْجُلُكُمْ مِنَ الْبَحْرِ
whereas your feet had not yet dried after coming out of the river (Nile)
حَتَّى قُلْتُمْ لِنَبِيِّكُمْ اجْعَلْ لَنا إِلهاً كَما لَهُمْ آلِهَةٌ
when you began asking your Prophet: Make you for us a god as they have gods of their own.
قالَ إِنَّكُمْ قَوْمٌ تَجْهَلُونَ .
Said he; 'Verily you are a people behaving ignorantly. ' 79 (Qur'an, 7:138)
79. The purpose behind this criticism by the Jews was to show that the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad was a controversial matter, but Amir al-mu'minin clarified the exact focus of controversy by using the word "after him" as against "about him", namely that the controversy was not about his prophethood but about his succession and vicegerency. Then, commenting on the position of the Jews he pointed out that those who were today criticising the mutual differences among Muslims after the Prophet were of the same kind as those who had begun to waver about belief in the Unity of Allah even in the lifetime of Moses. Thus, when, on becoming free of the slavery of the Egyptians they reached the other side of the river and saw the figure of a calf in a temple in Sina', they asked Moses to get a similar figure for them, whereupon Moses rebuked them for being still as stubborn as they were in Egypt. This meant that a people who were so immersed in desire for idol-worship that even after being initiated into the belief in the Unity of Allah they became restless on seeing an idol and made the request for a similar idol to be made for themselves had no right to criticise any difference among Muslims.
