and they complained of the plight they were in as captives (1). Muṣqala therefore purchased them from Maʿqil for five-hundred thousand dirhams and set them free. When Maʿqil demanded the price, Muṣqala slipped away to Ibn ʿAbbās in Basra. Maʿqil then wrote to Ibn ʿAbbās about the matter, whereupon Muṣqala said, “I have only come in order to pay you their price,” yet he again escaped (2) and made for ʿAlī. Ibn ʿAbbās and Maʿqil both wrote to ʿAlī, who pressed Muṣqala for payment; he handed over two-hundred thousand, then hurried off once more (3) and joined Muʿāwiyah b. Abī Sufyān in Syria. ʿAlī nevertheless validated their emancipation and said, “How much of the money still remains against Muṣqala’s liability?” He then ordered Muṣqala’s house in Kūfah to be demolished.

Al-Haytham related from Sufyān al-Thawrī and Isrāʾīl, from ʿAmmār al-Duhnī, from Abū al-Ṭufayl, that the Banū Nājiyah apostatized, whereupon Maʿqil b. Qays was dispatched against them, took them captive, and Muṣqala bought them from ʿAlī for three-hundred thousand dirhams, freed them, and afterwards fled to Muʿāwiyah.

Al-Haytham remarked, “This is the view held by the Shiʿah, yet no Arab tribe has ever been heard of to have apostatized [from Islam] after the Ridda that occurred in the days of al-Ṣiddīq.”

He further said, “ʿAbd (4) Allāh b. Tamīm b. Ṭarfah al-Ṭāʾī narrated to me, my father having narrated to him, that ʿAdī b. Ḥātim once said to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib while the latter was delivering a sermon: ‘You killed the people of Nahrawān for rejecting arbitration, and you killed al-Khurrīt (5) b. Rāshid for asking you for arbitration as well—by Allah, there is not the space of a single foot between the two cases!’ ʿAlī replied, ‘Be silent! Only yesterday you were a desert Arab eating hyena in the mountains of Ṭayy!’ ʿAdī retorted, ‘And by Allah, only yesterday we saw you eating dates in Madinah.’”

Al-Haytham continued, “Then there rose up (6) against ʿAlī a man from Basra who was killed, whereupon his followers appointed al-Ashras b. ʿAwf al-Shaybānī over them, and he and his men were slain. Next, al-Ashhab b. Bishr al-Bajalī rebelled against ʿAlī, after which ʿUraynah of Kūfah took command, and he and his companions were likewise killed. Then Saʿīd b. Naghad al-Tamīmī (7), followed by men from Banū Thaʿlabah of Kūfah, revolted against ʿAlī; Saʿīd was killed at the Bridge of Durrabjān above al-Madāʾin. Al-Haytham said that ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAyyāsh told him this on the authority of his elders (8).”

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Ibn Jarīr (9) narrated from Abū Mikhnaf Lūṭ b. Yaḥyā—one of the leading authorities in this field—that ʿAlī’s battle against the Khārijites