They relate that everyone living between Mecca, Medina, and Basra learned of the battle on the very day it occurred.豈 This was because vultures would snatch up hands and feet from the slain and drop them along the way. (1) Indeed, the people of Medina heard of the Battle of the Camel before sunset: a vulture flew over them with something in its claws, dropped it, and it proved to be a severed hand bearing a ring engraved with the name ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAtāb.
This is a concise résumé of what Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Jarīr—may Allah have mercy on him—transmitted from the leading authorities on the subject. It contains none of the fabricated ḥadīth about the Companions nor the spurious reports circulated in their entirety by the people of caprice from among the Shīʿah and others. When such people are summoned to Allah and to the manifest truth, they turn away, saying, “We have our reports and you have yours.” At that point we say to them, “Peace be upon you; we seek not the ignorant” (28:55).
Section
A listing of the distinguished nobles from both sides—may Allah be pleased with them all—who were killed on the Day of the Camel. We have already stated that roughly ten thousand lost their lives, while the wounded were beyond count, and only a few Companions were found in either army.
Imam Aḥmad said:
Ismāʿīl narrated to us; Ayyūb narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, who said: “The civil turmoil arose while the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ numbered tens of thousands, yet fewer than one hundred attended it—indeed, they did not even reach thirty.”
Imam Aḥmad also said:
Ismāʿīl—meaning Ibn ʿUlayyah—narrated to us; Manṣūr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to us, who said: al-Shaʿbī stated, “No one witnessed the Battle of the Camel from among the Prophet’s Companions ﷺ except ʿAlī, ʿAmmār, Ṭalḥah, and al-Zubayr; should they produce a fifth, then I am a liar.”
I (the author) say: ʿĀʾishah, Ibn al-Zubayr, al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn, Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr, Sahl ibn Ḥanīf, and others were present as well.
I also say: It may be that al-Shaʿbī meant that none of the Muhājirūn attended except those he named, and Allah knows best.
Among those killed on the Day of the Camel (3) in the thick of battle were:
Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd Allāh (4) ibn ʿUthmān ibn ʿAmr ibn Kaʿb ibn Saʿd (5) ibn Taym ibn Murrah ibn Kaʿb ibn Luʾayy ibn