Chapter 8 — Kerbela and Najaf: Surveying the Shiite World
I received a message from London ordering me to leave for the cities of Kerbela and Najaf, the two most popular Shiite centres of knowledge and spirituality. So I had to put an end to my company with Muhammad of Najd and leave Basra.
But I was happy — because I was sure that this ignorant and morally depraved man was going to establish a new sect which would demolish Islam from within, and that I was the composer of its heretical tenets