…from ʿAlī, who said:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared, “Whoever would like to gaze upon a man whose very limbs will precede him into Paradise, let him look at Zayd ibn Ṣūḥān.”(1)

I (the author) add: This Zayd was killed in the Battle of the Camel, fighting on ʿAlī’s side.

It is likewise established in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections, in the narration of Hammām ibn Munabbih from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The Hour will not be established until two great factions fight one another, both having the same claim.”(2)

Al-Bukhārī also recorded it from Abū al-Yamān, from Shuʿayb, from Abū al-Zinād, from al-Aʿraj, from Abū Hurayrah,(3) with identical wording.

Those two factions were the People of the Camel and the People of Ṣiffīn. Both sides professed Islam; their dispute concerned issues of rule and the pursuit of public interests that would benefit the community at large. Refraining from battle would have been preferable—a position held by the majority of the Companions, as we shall mention.

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān said: Abū al-Yamān narrated to us; Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr narrated to us; he said: “The Syrians numbered sixty thousand, of whom twenty thousand were killed. The Iraqis numbered one hundred and twenty thousand, of whom forty thousand were killed.” Even so, ʿAlī and his followers were nearer to the truth than the followers of Muʿāwiyah, and Muʿāwiyah’s party were the aggressors, as is affirmed in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim from the report of Shuʿbah, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Naḍrah, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, who said:

“One better than I—meaning Abū Qatādah—told me that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to ʿAmmār, ‘The rebellious party will kill you.’”(4)

Muslim also related it through Ibn ʿUlayyah, from Ibn ʿAwn, from al-Ḥasan, from his mother, from Umm Salamah, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The rebellious party will kill ʿAmmār.”(5) One version adds: “And his killer will be in the Fire.”

This ḥadith, with its various chains, was cited earlier when discussing the construction of the Prophet’s Mosque at the start of the Hijrah. As for the additional words some Rāfiḍah append—“May Allah withhold from him my intercession until the Day of Resurrection”—they have no reliable basis; they are a fabrication of the Rāfiḍah—may Allah disfigure them.

Al-Bayhaqī has further transmitted, through Abū ʿUbaydah ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, from a female servant of ʿAmmār, who said:

“ʿAmmār once fell ill and suffered sleeplessness until he lost consciousness. When he came to, we were weeping around him. He asked, ‘Why do you weep? Are you afraid I will die in my bed? My beloved ﷺ informed me that the rebellious party will kill me and that the last thing I shall partake of in this world will be a sip of milk.’”(6)