Introduction: The Evaluation of Ali:

1- Ali Ibn Abou Talib is not, and never was, part of the Islamic faith; and the same goes for any mortals. Ali was a historical figure being researched within methodology of history, and within the historical and political level.  We, Quranists, have no deified or sanctified creatures in our faith tenets; sanctification and deification are solely reserved to Almighty God alone, as per the Quran. As for God's creatures (humans, angels, and Jinn), all of them will standalone one by one before the Almighty in the Day of Judgment: "There is none in the heavens and the earth but will come to the Most Merciful as a servant. He has enumerated them, and counted them one by one.And each one of them will come to Him on the Day of Resurrection alone." (19:93-95) and they will not be able to speak in the Last Day except with God's permission: "Lord of the heavens and the earth, and everything between them-The Most Merciful-none can argue with Him. On the Day when the Spirit and the angels stand in row, they will not speak, unless it be one permitted by the Most Merciful, and he will say what is right." (78:37-38). We preach and warn with these verses those who deify Ali, and his progeny, and thus insult God by deifying and glorifying mortals as associates beside Him. 

2- Typically, we quote and use excerpts from historical accounts and narratives taken from authoritative Sunnite sources and books, like those of the historians Al-Tabary, Al-Masoody, and Ibn Saad, whose books show that all of these authors revered and exaggerated in glorifying Ali. Yet, we re-read such accounts to analyze them to extracts character traits of Ali and how he was such a political failure responsible for his own failure and for the death of thousands of people because of his rashness and ambition. We evaluate Ali here as a responsible politician, and we evaluate at the same time his arch-foe, Mu'aweiya, by the same tools and criteria. Such a comparison is necessary here; as both foes had in common their acceptance of the crime of the Arab conquests as 'jihad', received its ill-gotten money, approved of all its crimes of rape, enslavement, confiscation, and looting of possessions, money, and lands of conquered nations, and considered spoils of such conquests of as heritage or inheritance of Prophet Muhammad! These crimes and insults against Islam that tarnished its name were approved by both men, and this common ground was the setting for their military and political dispute. Thus, we evaluate both figures historically and politically, not in terms of Islam and its morals and values.

Firstly: Between Mu'aweiya the Secular and Ali who Mixed Politics with Religion:

1- The worldly aim of Mu'aweiya, i.e. to gain wealth, power, and authority of caliphate, was precise and clear, and the same applies to his allies, especially his close associate Amr. It was rumored that Mu'aweiya at one point, once Ali became caliph, asked Amr to swear fealty to him instead. But Amr told him shockingly that he would not give up the Hereafter unless Mu'aweiya would give him generously from glory and wealth of the transient world! Thus, Amr agreed to be the chief ally of Mu'aweiya in return to be appointed back as governor of Egypt. When Mu'aweiya agreed, Amr praised him with poetic verse, while reminding him that he would lose his Eternal Life for the sake of helping him become caliph and Amr to become ruler of Egypt! Thus, this frank confession of Amr in prose and verse shows that they fought for the sake of transient wealth and power and not for God's sake, overlooking intentionally Islam and the Hereafter! Yet, in terms of politics and history, this frankness did him credit! Within the Battle of Siffein, Mu'aweiya once reproached harshly one of his military leaders for his lack of military prowess, and this leader told him that it was enough to intentionally lose one's Eternal Life in the Hereafter for sake of Mu'aweiya by engaging in unjust wars against the son of the paternal uncle of Prophet Muhammad. This leader asserted to Mu'aweiya that all of them, in both parties, had lost their place in Paradise for the sake of this transient world. They have replaced Eternal Paradise with transient fruits of the gardens of this transient earth. Mu'aweiya could not reply to this confession, and he remained silent.  This shows that everyone was conscious of the fact that they fight for money. This is reminiscent of the stance of Khaled Ibn Al-Waleed and his men when he urged them to fight fiercely in Iraq and Persia as their only paradise in in this world, not in the next. The same applies to Ali; he fought his foes and rivals as well as his governors for the sake of the money of this transient world until he was killed. Ali knew that such possessions, wealth, lands, etc. belonged to their rightful owners: the peoples of conquered nations. Ali knew that this was ill-gotten money gained by bloodshed and crimes of looting, confiscation, and destruction of occupied countries, and he never cared for the sacred months when fighting is prohibited, as known from the Quran and as traditionally well-kept notion centuries before the advent of Islam, so as to make himself the ruler of such an empire based on grave injustices and oppression of millions of the innocent ones. Hence, Ali could not deceive others by showing off ostentatious behavior of piety and devoutness; indeed, Ali's crimes exceeded that of Mu'aweiya by adding a veneer of religiosity, tarnishing Islam's image and manipulating it in politics, a bad habit that has been going on for centuries by Arabs until the present day! Thus, the era of Ali would certainly reject his logic; every man knew quite well that fighting was for the scramble for loot, rule, power, and authority. Mixing religion with politics is misusing creeds for worldly gains; this is utter sacrilege and blasphemy. That was why in that era, people felt repulsed by the firmness of Omar and felt relieved to enjoy pomp, extravagance, and wealth during the caliphate of Othman, to the extent that they fought for money and killed Othman because of it. Thus, the discourse of Ali to all Arabs about religiosity and meritocracy (i.e., who deserves or entitled to rule) fell into deaf ears; as Arabs were dazzled by riches fell into their hands from the conquered countries. Thus, the pragmatic ways and venal ends would not allow any room for religious discourse; those who fancied using religious mottoes in such civil strife would have known better; as those called Al-Khawarij played the same game and declared Ali as an infidel. This bad habit of mixing creeds with politics within theocracies manipulating religions has caused millions of victims to lose their lives until this very moment in the Middle East.           

2- Ali failed in terms of politics and military efforts because he fluctuated between the fake piety and religiosity on one hand and the scramble for wealth and power, whereas Mu'aweiya succeeded to achieve all his goals because he was truthful with himself: he never cared for the Hereafter and focused his endeavors on how to realized his goal to become caliph and establish a Dynasty. Ali's fluctuation cost him his money, friends, health, and later on his life. He used to swing like a pendulum between those who sought the Hereafter Paradise and those who sought pleasures of this transient world; one cannot combine both as Ali thought he would. Moreover, Ali never objected to Arab conquests though they contradict the Quranic teachings; at the same time, despite the equestrian abilities of Ali, he never participated in any Arab conquests, but he enjoyed their results: much money, possessions, and slave-women. During the caliphate of Othman, Ali felt resentment as he did not get his share of the spoils sent to Yathreb, claiming that he deserved some of Prophet Muhammad's ''inheritance'' (he meant these spoils) because he was one of his nearest relatives, while the Umayyad military leaders who fought for such spoils did not deserve to take shares! And Othman gave him until he was satisfied! Ali's reference to spoils and ill-gotten money as Prophet Muhammad's inheritance was a flagrant insult to Muhammad and to Islam.  

3- Ali might have been on the side of right and truth if, and ONLY if, he had in public declared a strong stance against the crimes of Arab conquests, and to evict Arab settlers from conquered countries to restore such countries to their rightful owners and citizens; he would have forced Arabs to go home to Arabia where they would remain always, even if this would have cost him to wage war against the unjust conquering Arabs.  Ali should have had taken the side of Islam if he should have did so. We are supposing that as Muhammad's nearest relative, he understood the Quran very well; if so, he should have stood against the Arab conquests or at least should have kept himself away from people who participated in such grave injustices, as done nameless Arab believers whose names were never mentioned by history books, because they never participated in these horrendous crimes and grave injustices. Instead, Ali struggled for ill-gotten money of spoils and his hesitation and fluctuation prevented him from gaining political acumen and experience. As a caliph he was a failure as he could not realize that justice can never be applied within an empire based on massacres, looting, rape, enslavement, and grave errors and injustices. Thus, Ali was a failed caliph defeated by conditions of his era that he could not dare to change or properly face.

Secondly: Between the Genius of Ali in Sex and the Genius of Mu'aweiya in Politics:

1- Despite the military genius and political prowess of Mu'aweiya, he was a failure in bed, in terms of the sexual aspect. We know from history that his first wife, Maysoon, the daughter of the leader of the tribe of Kalb, and the mother of his first born son, Yazeed, hated her conjugal life with him because of his impotence, to the extent that she hated all affluence and riches he gave her and yearned for her tribal life in deserts with her parental family, and when she expressed her sexual frustrations and ill-luck in marriage in verses of poetry to abuse and scandalize Mu'aweiya, he divorced her and sent her to her tribe. Another story of the personal history of Mu'aweiya, narrated by one of his eunuchs who was serving him in his caliphate palace in Damascus, asserts his being impotent: he said that once Mu'aweiya bought a white slave-girl for his own amusement, and her made her

Enter his bedchamber stark naked, and he kept inserting a phallic piece of polished wood (similar to today's sex toys or dildos) into her vagina, while lamenting his ill-luck for not having a healthy 'virile member' to satisfy such a vagina! It seems that Mu'aweiya tried to make up for his impotence by his hatching cunning plots and masterminding intrigues to reach his goal of absolute power, and both this ambition and this cunning nature were inherited from his father, Abou Sufyan, whose cunning plots would have eliminated mountains!

2- In contrast to Mu'aweiya, Ali Ibn Abou Talib was a political failure and a failed caliph, but he enjoyed immense sexual prowess and abilities; he had a large number of Arab wives and non-Arab concubines once his first wife died. He had a large number of offspring; he begot from his first wife, Fatima the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, four children: two males (Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein) and two females (Zeinab and Oum Koulthoum). He begot from the rest of his Arab wives and non-Arab concubines 12 males and 17 females, within 30 years after Fatima's death in 10 A.H., until his own death in 40 A.H., making the total number of his offspring 14 males and 19 females! Thus, Arabs participating in the crimes of Arab conquests were busy fighting within unjust wars of aggressions, while Ali was very busy with his amorous conquests! He used to name his children, who had different mothers, by similar names: he had three boys named ''Muhammad'': Muhammad the eldest, the middle, and the youngest, three boys named "Abbas": Abbas the eldest, the middle, and the youngest, and three boys named "Omar": Omar the eldest, the middle, and the youngest! Some historians mix up the names of Ali's progeny, but they assert that most of them died within the massacre of Karbala. Ali's children of non-Arab concubines (13 females and one male of his progeny) did not enjoy the same rights and stature of those born of Arab legal wives. This injustice was against Islam; and keeping concubines at home without marrying them is a sin in Islam called fornication. Would readers imagine that Ali never knew about sins?!  Damn these sexual excesses of this mortal deity worshipped by the Shiites!

3- By the way, the dominant animosity and general prejudice against begetting offspring from non-Arab concubines and slave-women went on during the whole Umayyad Era, as such offspring were lower in rank, rights of birth, and social status and stature. Of course, this type of injustice was against equality as a value called for in the Quran. This prejudice was so unanimously agreed upon at the time that most Arab men used to take their erect ''virile members'' out of the vaginas of concubines and slave-women directly before ejaculation. Yet, Ali seemed never to pay heed to such habit, and so he begot 25 children apart from the four ones by Fatima! During the Abbasid Era, some Sunnite clergymen once issued a fatwa to prohibit this lack of ejaculation inside vaginas, under the pretext that one cannot prevent intentionally the divinely ordained process of procreation. A funny joke spread at the same time that a male fornicator committed the sin of fornication with a slave-girl one night, and he ejaculated inside her, and when she wondered why he did not ejaculated outside her to avoid her becoming pregnant, he told her that Sunnite clergymen prohibited this habit as religiously illegal, and the slave-girl laughed and wondered whether he knew that fornication is prohibited in Islam as well or not! We do not mention these stories for the sake of amusement; rather, but for the analysis of the character of Ali. Ali ate from ill-gotten money for decades and spent his time having sex within and outside wedlock with legal wives an concubines, thinking falsely and insultingly that this was the inheritance of Muhammad! Was this a stance of pious man who knew Islam so well?! Ali gave himself airs of being the only one deserving to be a caliph just because he was a relative and in-law of Muhammad. He never contemplated the Quran to realize that he was wrong in all this, and he joined the scramble for power and loot, setting a bad example for those who followed his footsteps, especially among the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs. Hence, talking about his piety and devoutness is utter nonsense and falsehood. He knew he was intentional enjoying, with no qualms whatsoever, the mortal taste of the fruits of oppression, suppression, massacres, and grave injustices of every sort committed as a sort of aggression against the conquered nations.

Thirdly: An Example to Politically Compare between Ali and Mu'aweiya:

1- Mu'aweiya insisted on capturing Egypt under the Umayyad control because this was a way to protect his capital, Damascus and the whole Levant. Mu'aweiya, thus, understood the strategy of the region and realized that the safety and existence of the Levant is linked strongly and directly with his controlling Egypt, an opinion urged strongly and vehemently by Amr Ibn Al-'As, his chief ally. Thus, Mu'aweiya had to keep Ali busy by the rebels and the Battle of the Camel in Iraq to have time to allow Amr to capture Egypt. Mu'aweiya and Amr plotted together the murder of Ibn Abou Huzayfa, who felt resentment and bore a grudge against Othman, the caliph at the time, and who chased away the governor of Egypt appointed by Othman, Abdullah Ibn Abou Sarh once Ali succeeded Othman as caliph, and Amr and Mu'aweiya hastily led their troops to capture Egypt, but they could not at first, and both had to trick Ibn Abou Huzayfa, who was appointed governor of Egypt, until he was entrapped in Arish, Sinai, with a troop of 1000 soldiers in a fortress, to be sieged by troops of Amr and Mu'aweiya that outnumbered troops of Ibn Abou Huzayfa who suffered huge stones and rocks catapulted at the fortress until he had to fight, to eventually get killed by soldiers of Amr.

2- Once Ali heard of the murder of Ibn Abou Huzayfa, he sent another governor to Egypt: Qais Ibn Saad who was from the Yathreb dwellers known for his political shrewdness and acumen; he managed to unite warring groups of Arab settlers who supported either Othman or Mu'aweiya, reminding them of their tribal belonging and assuring them of general peace in Egypt for all Arabs under the caliphate of Othman, and convinced them to sign peace treaties. 

3- Mu'aweiya felt restless as Qais Ibn Saad posed a threat to his plan to stir and incite Arab settlers against Othman later on and as Ali emerged victorious from the Battle of the Camel. Mu'aweiya felt quite sure that he cannot succeed in paving his way toward caliphate unless he dominated and controlled Egypt, so as not to be crushed, in the Levant and his capital Damascus, between Egypt and its pro-Ali governor on one hand and Ali and his supporters in Iraq on the other hand. Mu'aweiya failed to win Qais Ibn Saad to his side, as two astute, shrewd men could not deceive or trick each other easily. Qais pretended in a letter to promise Mu'aweiya to think this offer over and over, but Mu'aweiya realized that Qais was trying to gain some time to support and warn Ali. Mu'aweiya tested Qais to make sure he would comply or not; he urged him to prepare troops to fight with him against Ali in Iraq, in return for big financial reward. Qais replied that he refused to betray Ali and that he would support him with all his might. Mu'aweiya was sure then that Qais was a fierce enemy that must be removed, murdered, or neutralized. 

4- When Mu'aweiya failed to win over Qais to his side, he tried hard to drive a wedge between Ali and Qais to cause Ali to dismiss him from his post as governor of Egypt. Mu'aweiya spread the news all over the Levantine cities that Qais was his chief ally, hoping that Ali would go mad and get rid of Qais 'the traitor', and Ali ate the bait and the fishing line! Ali was somehow and to some extent naïve and lacked political experience; he believed what spies of Mu'aweiya came from the Levant to tell him about Qais 'the traitor'. Mu'aweiya read aloud in Damascus a fake letter that he pretended that Qais 'his new ally' had sent to him to declare his support. Ali was tricked easily, and to test the loyalty of Qais, he sent him a decree to kill all supporters of Mu'aweiya and Othman among Arab settlers in Egypt who urged rebellion against Ali. Qais refused to do this heinous crime because of the peace treaties signed with them, and he assured Ali that those people intended no harm at all to his caliphate. Ali got furious at such reply; the trick of Mu'aweiya succeeded in making Ali dismiss Qais from his post as governor of Egypt, to the relief and joy of Mu'aweiya who regarded Qais as a thorn in his side.

5- Ali sent a new governor to Egypt: M. Ibn Abou Bakr, who was the number one culprit within the assassination of Othman. Thus, Ali the unwise, and the very 'righteous' indeed (!), was foolish enough to send a governor who easily would incite wars in Egypt because he was a rash, inexperienced youth. This new governor raided houses of Arab settlers who supported Mu'aweiya and killed some of them, but later on, he gave them leave to get out of Egypt to join Mu'aweiya in the Levant. Thus, the folly of M. Ibn Abou Bakr strengthened Mu'aweiya with more men into his troops. After energies of Ali were sapped after the Battle of Siffein, Mu'aweiya felt that this was the right moment to try to capture Egypt and to get rid of M. Ibn Abou Bakr, by sending his troops to Egypt, led by the shrewd Amr who knew Egypt and Egyptians very well. Of course, M. Ibn Abou Bakr was defeated and burnt inside the hide of a donkey. Mu'aweiya gained control of Egypt easily via Amr, while Ali lost Egypt because of his folly, naivety, rashness, and lack of political experience and acumen; he never made use of Egypt as a source of power to threaten and get rid of Mu'aweiya.  

Fourthly: Examples Showing Ali's Political Failure:

 The ABC of politics is how to neutralize your enemies as much as you can and to turn them into your supporters later on and you must not engage into any war except when necessary. Ali did exactly the opposite of all this: he gave his enemies chances and pretexts to engage into wars against him and created enemies from neutral parties for no apparent reason, allowing them a chance to trick him and to plot and conspire against him, and to eventually murder him. This was his political concoction of failure that led to his downfall. We give examples below.

1- Ali refused the piece of Advice given to him by Al-Mughira, when he told him not to hastily dismiss at once all governors appointed by Othman, especially Mu'aweiya, who ruled the Levant, Iraq, Egypt, Persia, and Libya. He told him to wait until they swore fealty to him and to make sure that all their soldiers and Arab settlers outside Arabia were allies to him, and then, he could dismiss any of him as he want later on after settling all affairs. This piece of advice was right and sincere, but Ali paid no heed to it and hastily dismissed all governors, and Al-Mughira pretended to agree to such decisions, and when people blamed him for wavering attitudes, Al-Mughira insisted that he had to flatter the caliph since he never listened to advice. He chanted poetic verses to carrying this meaning, and soon enough, he took the side of Mu'aweiya and turned against Ali.     

2- Hearing about the advice of Al-Mughira, Abdullah Ibn Abbas said to Ali that this advice was right and that flattery indicates treachery and betrayal to occur soon enough, and told him to follow this advice so as to foil the plans of the Umayyads, who wished him dead like Othman, by winning most Arabs  everywhere to his side. Yet, Ali ignored the advice of the son of his paternal uncle, Abdullah Ibn Abbas, and Ali's faulty decisions gave Mu'aweiya the pretext to attack him as a rival!

3- An example showing Ali creating new enemies for no reason: Ali dismissed, for no reason, the governor appointed by Othman in a region of Persia, and this man was called Jarir. He sent for Jarir to come to Yathreb, and when he came, Ali told him that he was dismissed and that he would go in an errand to the Levant to convince Mu'aweiya to swear fealty to him. Ali's ally, Al-Ashtar, told him that this was a wrong step (a faux-pas), but it was too late: Jarir joined forces of Mu'aweiya and took his side once he reached Damascus. This boosted the morale of soldiers within the troops of Mu'aweiya.

4- One of the worst faulty decisions was to dismiss Ibn Qais and to bring him in Yathreb, thus allowing him to plot intrigue against Ali. Ibn Qais was one of the leaders of the tribe of Kendah, a tribe of Yemeni origin, who converted to Islam to realize his political ambition to become a ruler or a king. When Qorayish dominated everything after the death of Prophet Muhammad, Ibn Qais forsook Islam for a while, and then reconverted to Islam again and got married to the sister of Abou Bakr, as a step to fulfill his desire to undertake a leading role or position, and he participated in the crimes called Arab conquests in Persia and the Levant. Omar the caliph felt that Ibn Qais posed a danger and a threat as Khaled Ibn Al-Waleed gave Ibn Qais more shares of the spoils. Omar feared that an alliance between Khaled and Ibn Qais would be formed to unite soldiers of many tribes against him. Thus, Omar dismissed Khaled from his post as a military leader of Arab troops. The Umayyads knew the stature and ambitions of Ibn Qais among his tribesmen, and they knew his military genius was unsurpassed except by those of Khaled, and Othman made him governor of Azerbaijan as a powerful ruler who need not the permission of the caliph in every step or decision, thus warding off his danger and making good use of him. On the contrary, Ali hastily dismissed Ibn Qais and checked his finances as a former governor, confiscated his money. This led Ibn Qais to consider Ali an enemy, but he hid his feelings of animosity, until he forced and pressurized Ali, along with other men of consequence, to accept the arbitration via Abou Moussa and not Ibn Abbas and Al-Ashtar, both suggested by Ali, while threatening to withdraw his troops from those of Ali if he would not accept arbitration. Thus, Ibn Qais took revenge from Ali so cruelly, leading to the downfall of Ali later on. Thus, Ali's bad policies turned him from ruler into a subject obeying commands of others, especially disloyal allies bought by Mu'aweiya.      

5- This was another fault of Ali; he submitted easily to views and suggestions of belligerent desert-Arabs and Bedouins among his allies, though in terms of numbers, they were few thousands, nothing to his 100 thousand Arab soldiers from all powerful tribes. Those desert Arabs deserted Ali later on and became Al-Khawarij, killed off easily by Ali and his troops in few hours within one day of battle. Yet, we understand here how Ali was a political failure in his dealings with them earlier from the very start. Ali should have been more firm and harsh with them and to exert more influence on them by enlisting the aid of their respective tribes' leaders. Ali should have told him that allies of Mu'aweiya in the Levant obey him blindly, and he was entitled to receive the same type of obedience. Ali should have been stern with the leaders of those uncouth desert Arabs to control them, but his hesitation and fluctuation gave them the chance to exert bad influence over him and to be the main cause of his military failure, allowing Mu'aweiya to succeed him as caliph.   

6- In 40 A.H., shortly before the assassination of Ali, both Mu'aweiya and Ali agreed to a general truce and that each of them was to keep lands under his control, and in the same year, most allies of Ali deserted him because of his failure and fickleness, and the last ally to desert him was his own lifelong relative and friend Abdullah Ibn Abbas, the son of his paternal uncle, who was apparently fed up with giving many pieces of advice to the stubborn, hesitant, fickle Ali who kept ignoring them, to his detriment and downfall. Abdulla Ibn Abbas was the governor of Basra, and before he fled this Iraqi city, he confiscated all money inside its Treasury to himself!    

Lastly:

 The political failure of Ali made him lose most of his possessions and property, especially spoils shares given to him; as he spent all his wealth and savings during his five-year caliphate period filled with endless troubles. When he was assassinated, people found in his house about 600 or 700 dirhams, and some historians assert that people found only 250 dirhams. Ali never succeeded in the field of politics like Omar, Amr, and Mu'aweiya. As per historical accounts and narratives about Ali, we know that he kept eating and spending ill-gotten money, looted by bloodshed, destruction, confiscations, invasions, aggressions, looting, rape, enslavement, and massacres: the heinous crimes committed within the conquered nations.