He said,

“O Zubayr, do you love (1) ʿAlī?”

I replied, “Why should I not love my cousin—my mother’s nephew and my father’s cousin—and the one who follows my religion?”

He then said,

“O Zubayr, by Allah, you will fight him while you are the one wronging him!”

Al-Zubayr responded, “Indeed! By Allah, I had forgotten that from the moment I heard it from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ until just now. By Allah, I will not fight you.” Al-Zubayr then turned his mount around and began cleaving his way through the ranks. His son ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr (2) confronted him, and al-Zubayr said, “ʿAlī has just reminded me of a report I heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; I heard him say, ‘You will fight him while you are in the wrong toward him.’”

His son replied, “Did you come out to fight? You only came to reconcile the people, and Allah will bring about reconciliation through you.”

Al-Zubayr said, “I have sworn that I will not fight him.”

His son said, “Manumit your slave Sarjis (3) and remain until you reconcile the people.” So he freed his slave and stayed. When confusion later seized the people (4), he mounted his horse and rode off.

[Al-Barāʾ narrated—from Aḥmad ibn ʿAbdah (5), from al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan, from Rafāʿah ibn Iyās ibn Abī Iyās, from his father, from his grandfather—who said: I heard ʿAlī (may Allah have mercy on him) say to Ṭalḥah on the Day of the Camel, “I adjure you by Allah, O Ṭalḥah—have you not (6) heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, ‘O Allah, befriend those who befriend him and oppose those who oppose him’?” He answered, “Yes,” and turned away. Al-Bazzār (7) deemed this narration odd, and rightly so.] (8)

They relate that al-Zubayr then returned to ʿĀʾishah and told her he had vowed not to fight ʿAlī. His son ʿAbd Allah said to him, “You gathered the people, and when they faced one another you withdrew from between them. Expiate your oath and be present.” So he freed a slave of his named Makhḥūl—though some say it was Sarjis.

It is also said that he withdrew from the battle only when he saw ʿAmmār on ʿAlī’s side, for he had heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say to ʿAmmār, “The rebellious faction will kill you,” and he feared that ʿAmmār might be killed that very day.

In my view, if the report we have cited (9) is soundly attributed to him, then nothing else made him withdraw; it is far-fetched that he would expiate his oath and then come back afterwards to fight ʿAlī (10). Allah knows best.

The point is that when al-Zubayr withdrew on the Day of the Camel, he continued on until he halted in a valley called Wādī al-Sibāʿ (11) (“the Valley of the Beasts”), whereupon a man (12) followed him