1567 — Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Sālih al-Bukhārī also informed us. He said: Muhammad ibn Sulaymān Luwayn narrated to us. He said: Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr narrated to us, from Abd Allah ibn Sharīk al-Āmirī, from Jundub, who said:

On the day Ali—may Allah be pleased with him—killed the Kharijites, I looked at their faces and demeanor and began to doubt whether I should fight them. I therefore withdrew a short distance from the army, dismounted, planted my spear in the ground, placed my armor beneath me, and hung up my shield to shelter myself from the sun. While I was sitting apart from the army, the Commander of the Faithful, Ali ⦗2081⦘—may Allah be pleased with him—appeared riding the mule of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. I thought to myself, “What am I to do with him? I am fleeing from him, yet he is coming toward me!”

He asked me, “Jundub, why are you here, apart from the army?”

I replied, “Commander of the Faithful, I have been stricken with a fever, and the dust became too difficult for me, so I could not remain standing.”

He said to me, “Have you not heard what reward a servant receives for enduring the dust raised by an army?”

He then swung his leg over and dismounted. I took hold of his mount’s head, and he sat down, so I sat down as well. I held the shield in my hand and shaded him from the sun with it.

By Allah, while I was sitting there, a horseman came galloping up and said, “Commander of the Faithful, the men have crossed the bridge and are leaving.”

Ali turned to me and said, “Their places of death lie on this side of the river.”

While the man who had brought him the news was still standing there, another man came and said, “Commander of the Faithful, by Allah, they have crossed, and not one of them remains!”

He replied, “Woe to you! Their places of death lie on this side of the river.”

Another horseman then came galloping up and said, “Commander of the Faithful, by Him who sent His Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—with the truth, they have turned back!” Then the people came and said, “They have turned back. They are even falling into the water as they jostle one another to cross.”

Then a man came and said, “Commander of the Faithful, the men have drawn up their ranks and shot arrows at us, and they have wounded so-and-so.”

Ali—may Allah be pleased with him—said, “Now fighting has become lawful.”

He sprang up and mounted his mule. I went to my weapons, put them on, and fastened them securely around myself. Then I mounted my horse, took my spear, and set out. No, by Allah, O Abd Allah ibn Sharīk, I did not pray the afternoon prayer—he said, “the noon prayer”—until I had killed seventy with my own hand.