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This is a sub-article to Non-Muslim Islamic scholars and Ali.

Some non-Muslim scholars reject all hadith as fabrications, which colors their views. Others, like Wilferd Madelung, accept the hadith literature. A few of them, like Lammens, have held a negative view of Ali. Madelung has criticized this school of thought and, like many other non-Muslim Islamic scholars, praised Ali.

Contents 1 Reservations 1.1 Hadith 2 Views 2.1 Positive 2.1.1 Edward Gibbon 2.1.2 Sir William Muir 2.1.3 Dr. Henry Stubbe 2.1.4 Robert Durey Osborn 2.1.5 Washington Irving 2.1.6 Simon Ockley 2.1.7 Philip Khuri Hitti 2.1.8 Wilferd Madelung 2.1.9 Thomas Carlyle 2.1.10 Gerald de Gaury 2.1.11 Charles Mills 2.1.12 United Nations 2.2 Negative 2.2.1 L. Caetani 2.2.2 Lammens 2.2.3 Dante 3 Parallel articles 4 References

Some other Islamic Scholars do not accept narrations collected in later periods, and only study the early collections of narrations. This leads them to regard certain reported events as inauthentic or irrelevant.

Among events that these scholars reject on the grounds that they are not included in what he calls "early sources" (meaning, essentially, the Sirat Rasul Allah of Muhammad ibn Ishaq) include:

• Ali was prominent in the battlefield of Uhud and was wounded there seventeen times.

• In 9 A.H. (630 CE), Muhammad prepared to lead an expedition against Syria. This was the well-known expedition of Tabuk. He left Ali behind in charge of Madinah, saying

"Will you not be pleased that you will be to me like Aaron to Moses? But there will be no prophet after me." ^[1].

• That this was the only battle Muhammad engaged in without Ali at his side.

Wilferd Madelung has rejected the stance of indiscriminately dismissing everything not included in "early sources". He wrote in the preface to his book The Succession to Muhammad:

"work with the narrative sources, both those that have been available to historians for a long time and others which have been published recently, made it plain that their wholesale rejection as late fiction is unjustified and that with [not without] a judicious use of them a much more reliable and accurate portrait of the period can be drawn than has so far been realized."

Gerald opines that Ali was to be forever the paragon of Muslim nobility and chivalry ^[12].

Nahj al-Balagha contains a long letter (letter 53) given to Malik ibn Ashter when he departed to succeed Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, in which Ali gave thorough instructions on how to establish and uphold a government. The United Nations urged the Arab nations to use that letter as a model. ^[14]

In his Annali dell' Islam Caetani levels severe criticisms against Ali's personality and policies. Madelung in his Succession has provided a detailed critical analysis of these criticisms.

Lammens describes Ali as "dull-witted and incapable" in Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici ^[15]

Maxime Rodinson, a contemporary of Lammens, and a biographer of Muhammad, characterized Lammens as "filled with a holy contempt for Islam, for its 'delusive glory', and 'lascivious' prophet." ^[16]

Some modern authors feel Lammens has yet to be refuted ^[17]. Madelung in his Succession provided a detailed critical analysis of Lammens' criticisms.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante describes in Inferno XXVIII that both Ali and Muhammad were in the 8th (and second harshest) Circle of Hell, as sowers of dissent: 'see how mangled is Mohammed! / Ahead of me proceeds Alì, in tears, / his face split open from his chin to forelock. / 'And all the others whom you see / sowed scandal and schism while they lived, / and that is why they here are hacked asunder.^[18][19]

• Non-Muslim view of Muhammad

• Sunni view of Ali
• Shi'a view of Ali

1. ^ See Hadith of position for references
2. ^ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London, 1911, (originally published 1776-88) volume 5, pp. 381-2]
3. ^ The Life of Mahomet, London, 1877, p. 250]
4. ^ An Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahometanism, 1705, p. 83
5. ^ Islam Under the Arabs, 1876, p. 120
6. ^ Lives of the Successors of Mahomet, London, 1850, p. 165
7. ^ Lives of the Successors of Mahomet, London, 1850, pp. 187-8
8. ^ History of the Saracens, London, 1894, p. 331
9. ^ History of the Arabs, p. 183
10. ^ The Succession to Muhammad pp. 309-310
11. ^ May 8, 1840
12. ^ Rulers of Mecca p. 49
13. ^ An history of Mohammedanism p. 89
14. ^ ref
15. ^ Henri Lammens, Fatima and the Daughters of Muhammad, Rome and paris: Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici, 1912. Translation by Ibn Warraq.
16. ^ "A Critical Survey of Modern Studies of Muhammad" by Maxime Rodinson, p26, Revue Historique 229, 1963. Also see "Das Leben Muhammeds" by Frants Buhl, p367.
17. ^ The Quest of the Historical Muhammad by F.E. Peters. International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 23 (1991), p291-315. Cambridge University Press.
18. ^ [1]
19. ^ The Divine Comedy