unscrupulous hadith collector, this should not detract from his general reliability as a transmitter of historical information (akhbārī). Tucker also states that even if Sayf's accounts of Ibn Saba' was a fabrication, he appears to be only the transmitter of the story and not the ultimate source. He adds that accusations of bias could equally be leveled at other akhbārīs contemporary to Sayf, including the Shi'a historian Abu Mikhnaf. Moreover, Fuat Sezgin, Albrecht Noth, and Martin Hinds have also challenged Wellhausen's views and placed Sayf on an equal footing with other traditionalists. Linda D. Lau and A. R. Armush accept Sayf's accounts and the role of the Saba'iyya at the Battle of the Camel. They point out that traditionalists other than Sayf did not give an explanation to why the hostilities broke out after the near-settlement. Not only Sayf's account is the sole exiting account with an explanation of what happened, it is also logically consistent. Sunni views According to Tabari, based on traditions collected by Sayf ibn Umar, Ibn Saba' was a Yemenite Jew who embraced Islam. During the time of Ali ibn Abi Taleb, he introduced a number of concepts that later were ascribed to more extreme factions of Shia Islam, or ghulat. According to these traditions, the exaltation of Ali, his divine appointment by the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a successor, the concept of occultation (ghayba) and return (rajʿa) were first formulated and expressed by Ibn Sabaʾ and his followers (the Sabaʾiyya). He and his followers are sometimes said to be the ones who enticed the Egyptians against Uthman on the ground of Ali's special right of succession, and participated in further instigation at later conflicts. Historically, Sunni theologians have not only upheld Ibn Saba's existence, but used evidence from the historical works of the Shi'a in order to support their claims. In Sunni polemics, Ibn Saba' plays the same role of seeking to destroy the message of Islam from within (by introducing proto-Shi'ite beliefs) as Paul would play in seeking to deliberately corrupt the early teachings of Jesus. Shia views In traditional Shia sources, Abd Allah ibn Saba' is viewed as an extremist (Ghali) that was cursed and killed by Ali ibn Abi Talib (1st Shia Imam), and cursed by Ali ibn Husayn (4th Shia Imam), Muhammad al-Baqir (5th Shia Imam) and Ja'far al-Sadiq (6th Shia Imam). Nevertheless, Ibn Sabaʾ became the subject of a tradition