Original Shi'atu 'Ali movement was not a religion but a political party

[quincy]

What happened with the Shi'atu 'Ali movement since the abbassid revolution is a tragedy since the persian elite hijacked it and turned it into a dogmatic believe system from within. While objectively studying the "islamic" history and filtering the truth from it i came to the conclusion that the claims of the Shia'a followers are partly true. Yes the first "Khalifs" did corrupt the original teachings of the prophet and his original "sunnah". Today the term "sunni" includes not only the teachings of the prophet (even though they got corrupted as well) but also the teachings of the Khalifs like Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman. If you study the history with an open mind you come to a conclusion that those Khalifs did some very questionable things like introducing the zakah as a tax (Abu Bakr) or changing to the pure lunar calendar ('Umar) from the luni-solar, or enforcing aristocracy (Uthman). So these were the most cruical decisions in the history of Islam which corrupted the deen even further. Reading about 'Ali it seems like he was just a pure warrior, fighting corruption and tyranny.

What do you think?