Umayyad tradition of cursing Ali

[1][2] Mu'awiya was the incumbent governor of Syria who had rebelled against Ali ostensibly to avenge the previous caliph Uthman (r. 644–656), who was in turn assassinated by some provincial dissidents angered by his policies.

[3] The public cursing of Ali continued after Mu'awiya and was finally abandoned some sixty years later by the pious Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (r. 717–720).

The policy likely served as a propaganda measure,[4] and also helped provoke, identify, and then crush the supporters of Ali, whom the Umayyads considered a threat.

[6] Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, was subsequently elected caliph by the Medinans and the dissidents.

[20] Soon after the collapse of the arbitration process, Mu'awiya received the Syrians' pledge as caliph in 659,[21][18] and began dispatching military units to raid and harass the civilian population loyal to Ali.

[5][32][33] A tradition attributed to al-Mughira's son describes how the governor failed to convince Mu'awiya to abandon this policy and leave behind a legacy of reconciliation.

[36] Caliph Hisham (r. 724–743) followed suit later and did not vilify Ali on Arafa, apparently ignoring protests by Abd-Allah ibn al-Walid, the grandson of Uthman.

[5] That this practice was widespread is also the Shia view,[37] while its existence is usually rejected by Sunni scholars, perhaps with the notable exception of Abul A'la Maududi (d. 1979), the founder of the Islamic movement Jamaat-e-Islami.

[32] After the accession of Mu'awiya, he regularly protested the cursing of Ali in the mosque,[32] which was tolerated by al-Mughira but not by his successor Ziyad ibn Abihi, who was appointed in 671 to govern Kufa.

[40][41][42] This was probably the first judicial execution of Muslims for high treason and was widely condemned at the time,[43][44] even by Aisha bint Abi Bakr,[45] who was otherwise hostile to Ali.

[37] One instance is the hadith traditionist Atiya ibn Sa'd Awfi (d. 729), who fled to Sind when the revolt by al-Ash'ath was crushed by the Umayyad governor al-Hajjaj circa 701.