of you⦗1⦘—save those who murdered our brothers.’ Large numbers withdrew; they had been four thousand strong, and only about one thousand, or even fewer, remained with ʿAbd Allah ibn Wahb al-Rasibi⦗2⦘. They moved against ʿAlī. ʿAlī placed the cavalry in front of him, set the archers before them, and arrayed the infantry behind the horsemen. He then said to his men, ‘Hold back until they strike you first.’
The Khārijites advanced, shouting, ‘No judgment but Allah’s! On, on to Paradise!’ They charged the cavalry that ʿAlī had stationed forward and scattered them, some of the horsemen veering to the right flank and others to the left. The archers⦗3⦘ met them with arrows, shooting at their faces, while the cavalry wheeled in from both flanks and the foot soldiers rushed in with spears and swords, laying the Khārijites low until they lay slain beneath the horses’ hooves.
Their leaders were killed: ʿAbd Allah ibn Wahb, Ḥurqūṣ ibn Zuhayr, Shurayḥ ibn ʿAwfā, and ʿAbd Allah ibn Sabrah al-Sulamī—may Allah disgrace them.
Abū Ayyūb said, ‘I thrust my spear through one of the Khārijites, the point coming out his back, and I told him, “Rejoice, enemy of Allah, in the Fire.” He replied, “Soon you will know which of us is worthier of its blaze.”’
They relate that only seven men from ʿAlī’s force were killed. ʿAlī walked among the dead and said, ‘Wretched are you! The one who deluded you has ruined you.’ They asked, ‘O Commander of the Believers, who deluded them?’ He answered, ‘Satan⦗4⦘ and souls ever-inclined to evil: they deceived them with wishful thinking, adorned sin for them, and assured them they would prevail.’
He then ordered that their wounded—four hundred in all—be handed over to their respective tribes for treatment, and he distributed whatever weapons and goods he found among them.
Al-Haytham ibn ʿAdī states in his book “Al-Khawārij” that Muḥammad ibn Qays al-Asadī and Manṣūr ibn Dīnār narrated from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Maysarah, from al-Nazzāl ibn Sabrah, that ʿAlī did not take the statutory one-fifth (khums) of what he captured from the Khārijites on the day of Nahrawān; rather, he returned all of it to their families⦗5⦘—even the last item, a cooking-cauldron that had been brought to him, he sent back.
Abū Mikhnaf⦗6⦘ reports—ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī Ḥurrah related to me—that ʿAlī went out in search of Dhū al-Thudayyah, accompanied by Sulaymān ibn Thumāmah al-Ḥanafī (Abū Ḥurrah) and al-Riyyān ibn Sabrah ibn Hawdhah. Al-Riyyān discovered him in a pit on the riverbank among forty or fifty corpses. When he was pulled out, they looked at his upper arm and found a growth of flesh on his shoulder like a woman’s breast, with a nipple bearing a few black hairs. When stretched, it would extend until it reached level with his other hand, then it would contract⦗7⦘ and return.