this shall never come to pass.”
Ibn ʿAbbās then said, “Commander of the Believers, ‘al-ḥarb khudʿah’ (war is deception) (1) as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared. By Allah, if you obey me I will make them return to the watering-place after they have already turned away from it (2).”
Ibn ʿAbbās also warned ʿAlī not to accept the counsel of those who were urging him to leave Madinah for Iraq (3), but ʿAlī rejected all of his advice and instead yielded to the wishes of those provincial leaders from among the Khārijites.
Ibn Jarīr said (4): In this year Constantine, son of Heraclius, advanced against the Muslims’ lands with one thousand ships. Allah sent a furious wind upon him, and by His might and power He drowned him together with his men; none survived except the king and a small remnant of his people. When he reached Sicily they built a bathhouse for him; when he entered it, they killed him there, saying, “You are the one who slew our men.”
Then came the year 36 AH. At its outset the Commander of the Believers ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib had already assumed the caliphate and had appointed deputies over the provinces. He placed ʿUbayd Allāh (5) ibn ʿAbbās over Yemen, Samurah ibn Jundab (6) over Basrah, ʿImārah ibn Shihāb over Kūfah, Qays ibn Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah (7) over Egypt, and Sahl ibn Ḥunayf over Syria in place of Muʿāwiyah.
Sahl set out until he reached Tabūk, where Muʿāwiyah’s cavalry met him and asked, “Who are you?”
“I am the governor,” he replied.
“Governor of what?” they asked.
“Of Syria,” he answered.
They said, “If ʿUthmān appointed you, then welcome; but if someone else appointed you, turn back.”
He said, “Have you not heard what has happened?”
They replied, “Indeed.” So he returned to ʿAlī.
As for Qays ibn Saʿd, the people of Egypt were divided over him: the majority pledged allegiance to him, but a faction said, “We will not pledge until we have killed the murderers of ʿUthmān.” The same was true in Basrah.
And ʿImārah ibn Shihāb, whom ʿAlī had sent as governor of Kūfah, was turned back by Ṭalḥah ibn Khuwailid—out of anger for ʿUthmān—so he returned to ʿAlī and informed him.