…and they were only appointed so as to reconcile the people and to agree upon a course that would show kindness to the Muslims and spare their blood—and that is exactly what happened. No one was led astray on their account except the sect of the Khārijites, who denounced the arbitration accepted by the two commanders, rebelled against them, and branded them unbelievers. ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib then fought them, while Ibn ʿAbbās debated them; a small band of them returned to the truth, but the rest persisted until most of them were killed at Nahrawān and elsewhere—disgraceful episodes for which they remain censured, as we shall later relate.

Foretelling by the Prophet ﷺ of the Khārijites’ emergence and of their distinguishing mark—the maimed man with the abnormal arm—which was fulfilled during the caliphate of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may Allah be pleased with him

Al-Bukhārī said:
‘Abū al-Yamān related to us; Shuʿayb narrated to us from al-Zuhrī, who informed me from Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān that Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī said:

While we were with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and he was distributing some spoils, Dhū al-Khuwaiṣirah—a man from Banū Tamīm—came and said, “Messenger of Allah, be just!”

He replied, “Woe to you! Who would be just if I am not just? You are ruined and lost if I do not act justly!”

ʿUmar said, “Messenger of Allah, allow me to strike off his head.”

He ﷺ said,

“Leave him, for he will have companions of whom one of you would deem his own prayer insignificant beside their prayer, and his fasting insignificant beside their fasting. They will recite the Qur’an but it will not go past their collar-bones. They will dart out of the religion just as an arrow passes right through its prey: one looks at the arrow-head and finds nothing on it, then at the shaft and finds nothing, then at the nock—which is the wooden part—and finds nothing, then at the feathers and finds nothing, for it has outrun the entrails and the blood. Their sign is a black man, one of whose upper arms is like a woman’s breast or like a dangling piece of flesh. They will appear when people are divided.”¹

Abū Saʿīd said:
“I testify that I heard this ḥadīth from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and I testify that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib fought them while I was with him. He ordered that man to be sought; he was brought, and I looked at him exactly as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had described him.”²

Muslim likewise narrated it through Abū Salamah from Abū Saʿīd.³

Al-Bukhārī also transmitted it through al-Awzāʿī, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah and al-Ḍaḥḥāk, from Abū Saʿīd.⁴