over Muʿawiya and the people of Syria. (1)
These are the names of those who attested to this arbitration (2) from ʿAli’s army: ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbbas, al-Ashʿath ibn Qays al-Kindi, Saʿid (3) ibn Qays al-Hamdani, ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Tufayl (al-Maʿafiri), Ḥujr ibn ʿAdi (4) al-Kindi, Warqaʾ ibn Sumay al-ʿIjli, ʿAbd Allah ibn Bilal al-ʿIjli, ʿUqba ibn Ziyad al-Ansari, Yazid ibn Juḥfa al-Tamimi, and Malik ibn Kaʿb al-Hamdani—ten men in all.
From the Syrians there were another ten witnesses: Abū al-Aʿwar al-Sulami, Ḥabib ibn Maslama, ʿAbd al-Raḥman ibn Khalid ibn al-Walid, Mukhariq ibn al-Ḥarith al-Zubaydi, Waʾil ibn ʿAlqama (5) al-ʿAdawi, ʿAlqama ibn Yazid al-Ḥaḍrami, Ḥamza ibn Malik al-Hamdani, Subayʿ (6) ibn Yazid al-Ḥaḍrami, ʿUtba ibn Abi Sufyan, Muʿawiya’s brother, and Yazid ibn al-Ḥurr al-ʿAbsi.
Al-Ashʿath ibn Qays then went out with the document, reading it aloud to the people and presenting it to both parties. After that, everyone began burying their dead.
Al-Zuhrī said: “I was informed that fifty bodies were buried (7) in a single grave. ʿAli had taken a number of Syrians captive; when he decided to withdraw [from Ṣiffīn] he released them. A similar number—or close to it—had been captured by the Syrians. Muʿawiya had resolved (8) to kill them, assuming (9) that ʿAli had slain his prisoners; but when those whom ʿAli had freed (10) reached him, Muʿawiya released the captives he held.
“It is reported that among the prisoners was a man called ʿAmr ibn Aws of the tribe of al-Azd. Muʿawiya wanted to execute him, so the man said, ‘Show me mercy, for you are my maternal uncle.’
“Muʿawiya replied, ‘Woe to you! How am I your uncle?’
“He answered, ‘Umm Ḥabība, the wife of the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—is the Mother of the Believers. I am her son and you are her brother, so you are my uncle.’ Muʿawiya was pleased by this and set him free.”
ʿAbd al-Raḥman ibn Ziyad ibn Anʿam, speaking about the combatants of Ṣiffīn, said: “They were Arabs who had known one another in the Age of Ignorance, and they met in Islam with (11) fierce zeal in accordance with the practices of Islam. They bore hardship and were ashamed to flee. Whenever the lines drew apart, men from one camp would enter the other (and men from that camp would enter this one), retrieve their dead, and bury them.”
Al-Shaʿbi said: “They are the people of Paradise: they faced one another, and not a single man fled from another.”