Dear brother Ibn Sadique, first of all thank u for going thru the trouble of pasting the concerned part from the thread referred to earlier…now we have at least got some substance to talk abt…u have raised some interesting points regarding a particular letter of Amirul Momineen to the king of Syria where he has talked abt the earlier sheikhdoms…I think u r trying to indicate tht this letter implies approval of Imam Ali with the coup of saqeefa…well, I would request u to open the book where u have got their letter from and quote the complete set of letters that was exchanged before this letter…this pre-Siffein exchange of letters were carried by messengers Abu Ammama Bahili and Jarir b Abdullah just for ur reference in helping locate these letters…once u find and present them then we may go over each point that u r having difficulty understanding in this particular letter of Imam Ali, Insha Allah…once u gain a holistic view then u wont have much trouble seeing the childish game of deceit that Muawiya was trying to play with Imam Ali…once that starts becoming apparent, Insha Allah, I hope u won’t turn back and start calling the letters “imaginary” again?!..