Uthman’s successor as caliph was Muhammad’s exceptionally pious and upstanding cousin Ali, a proven warrior and intimate member of the Prophet’s family, who had grown up with Muhammad and was married to Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah. Ali was a widely respected figure, and an impeccably holy character, who had the distinction of having been born inside the Ka‘ba itself, and who had built his reputation as the most Muslim of the Muslims—a paragon of old-fashioned virtue whose partisans, known as the Shia, were entranced by his ability to expound on and espouse the values given to them by the
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