Okay, so the Prophet, who was a heavily mentally taxed old man, said at one point that his nephew was really smart and in tune with his spiritual message. I get it. That's lots of fun and very meaningful for an upstart mystical religious movement.
But this thing turned into a sprawling empire and required a rational, flexible, consensus-driven government that wouldn't burn down the first time some designated magic man died of cholera. Which is what every shi'a government has ever done.
You can't run a quarter of the world on the strength of the magical mystery voodoo spark that somebody said got zapped into whatever prince's fourth son and made his schizo ramblings holy writ. It's simply not practicable or desirable as a form of government.
"We're weird and mad and we have one of six different claimants to an ineffable mystical quality, and Haroun said he saw an angel" is not something you can reasonably expect to build an empire out of.

they should have resolved their differences in a collective zutting session. they eased a lot of stress from muhhamad (Zutt In His Butt) so why not his successors?

>>18392053
Islam having kings is heretical bullshit.

>>18392111
So all the Ummayads, Abbasids, Fatimids, and Ottomans were heretic bullshitters?

>>18392213
Basically lmao. After reading about the early caliphs, and especially Ali, Marwan really just completely derailed the original plans for Islam and turned it into a traditional hereditary monarchy with the king happening to be the main spiritual leader as well. To be fair, the rest of the Islamic world became a political snakepit, and I think Ali realized this but couldn’t control it. He meant well, but ultimately failed as a leader.

>>18392268
>Deralied
I mean, a hereditary monarchy was the logical outcome regardless. Do any muslims legit believe they could keep their sand people tribal election system with a multiple continents-spawning empire?
The Fitna was about which faction would had imposed its own dynasty; Uthman's kin by Marwan, or 'Ali and the brood of the prophet
If anything, the Ummayads won ironically was the best outcome for anti-monarchy muslims. Good look trying to get rid of monarchy if the whole muslims world was used since the beginning of being ruled by the prophet's lineage. They would be soon considered divine god-kings in all but formality, and the elective phase just an annoying intermezzo between Muhammad and 'Ali

>>18392614
>the Ummayads won
*The Ummayads winning

>Good look
*Good luck

>>18392111
>>18392213
Fatimids were full on heretics.
Umayyads and Abbasids promoted deviancy and heresy as well.

It's only with the rise of non-Arab regimes by the late-800s CE that Sunni Islam came to power for the first time.

The early succession dispute is kinda irrelevant from a Sunni perspective. It's the other sects that care about it.

imam ali had a stronger claim to the caliphate, but sunni hadiths are more historically reliable, so sunnis and shias are both wrogn