The days of Abu Abd Allah al- Sadiq, peace be on him, were the days of religious schools, sects, ideas, desires, theology, research, misguidance, suspicion, and doubts. Now, we will mention the origin of those groupings and schools in a brief manner, following the methods that we have adopted in this book because the enlargement upon the research will take us out of the plan of the book, and in the books on the religious schools and sects are many details.
Indeed, the Muslim nation divided into seventy- three groupings. That was what our Truthful Trusty Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, said: "My nation will divide into seventy- three groupings."
In this chapter, we want to study the well- known groupings in the time of al- Sadiq. We will devote our research to the origins of those groupings. We may refer to sub- groupings after we have mentioned the origins. Of course, this will suit our purpose and plan.
All Muslim sects belong to four groupings: the Murjeia, the Mu'tazila, the Shi'a, and the Kharijites. So every Muslim sect belongs to one of these origins. Also al- Ghulat, though the other sects have regarded them as unbelievers, is a subdivision of the above mentioned origins. These four