Two events took place during the time of the Sahabah: The first is the civil war (fitna) regarding ‘Uthman and the second are the debates which took place between the ‘‘Ulamā. This resulted in disagreements over the types of Sharī’ah evidences which led to the presence of new political groups which in turn led to the presence of various juristical schools of thought. That is because after ‘Uthman  was murdered and the bay’a (pledge) of the Khilafah was given to ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib with whom Mu’awiyya ibn Abu Sufyan disputed and war broke out between the two factions and ended with the judgement of the two arbitrators. This resulted in the formation of new political groups which had not existed before. These groups came to have new opinions. The opinion began politically concerning the Khalifah and the Khilafah. Then it included most of the remaining ahkām. A group of Muslims arose who loathed ‘Uthman for his policies during his Khilafah and they resented Ali’s acceptance of arbitration (tahkeem) and they were angry over Mu’awiyyah for seizing the Khilafah by force. So they rebelled against all of them. Their view was that Muslims should give pledge to the Khalifah of the Muslims purely according to their choice without coercion or force. And that whoever qualifies for the Khilafah he is eligible to be the Khalifah. Muslims should give bay’a to him and the Khilafah will be contracted to him by the pledge as long as he is a man, Muslim and just even if he was a Ethiopian slave, and that obedience to the Khalifah is not obliged except if his matter was within the limits of the Qur’ān and Sunnah. These people did not take rulings reported in hadīth narrated by ‘Uthman, Ali, Mu’awiyya or if a hadīth was narrated by a Sahabi who supported any one of them. They rejected all of their ahadīth, opinions and legal verdicts and they outweighed what was narrated by those they approved of. They only considered their opinions and their own scholars to the exclusion of others. They had their own fiqh and they are called the Khawarij. Another group from the Muslim arose which adored ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib  and loved his descendants. They took the view that he and his descendants had greater right to the Khilafah over anyone else and they believed he was the wasi (trustee) to whom the Messenger  bequeathed the Khilafah after him. They rejected many ahadīth narrated about the Messenger  by the majority of the Sahabah. They did not depend on the views of the Sahabah and their legal verdicts. They only relied on the ahadīth narrated by their imams and the family of the Prophet  and relied on the legal verdicts originating from them. They had their own fiqh and they are the Shi’a. As for the majority of the Muslims they did not adopt the opinions adopted by the aforementioned groups. They took the view that the pledge should be given to a Khalifah from Quraysh if such a person was found, and they conveyed without a single exception, great respect, affection and loyalty to all the Sahabah. And they interpreted the disputes between them as being Ijtihād in speculative Sharī’ah rules which were not linked to belief (imān) or disbelief (kufr). They would use as proof every authentic hadīth narrated by a Sahābi without any discrimination between the Sahabah. Since for them all of the Sahabah were trustworthy and they accepted all the fatwas and opinions of the Sahabah. Due to this their ahkām did not accord with the ahkām of the other political groups in a number of topics due to their disagreement regarding ruling, method of istinbat (inference of rules) and in the types of evidences.