—their eyes toward him.
Then Dhu al-Kalaʿ rose and said, “O Commander of the Believers! The judgment is yours; the deeds are ours.”
Muʿāwiyah thereupon proclaimed to the people, “Leave for your encampment within three days; whoever lingers after that has placed himself in peril.” All of them gathered at once.
The envoy rode back to ʿAlī and informed him. ʿAlī ordered a crier to announce, “The congregational prayer!” When the people assembled, he mounted the pulpit and said, “Muʿāwiyah has rallied the people to fight you—what is your counsel?” Each faction spoke its own mind, their voices overlapping until ʿAlī could make nothing of what they were saying. He then descended from the pulpit, declaring, “Truly we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return. By Allah, the son of the liver-chewer has carried the day!” (1)
What happened thereafter between the two camps unfolded as we have already narrated in detail under the events of the year 36 AH.
Abū Bakr ibn Durayd said: Abū Ḥātim related to us from Abū ʿUbaydah, who said that Muʿāwiyah remarked, “On the day of Ṣiffīn I had placed my foot in the stirrup, intending to flee, and nothing restrained me except the words of Ibn al-Iṭnaba:
My honor and my trials forbade me—
and my quest for praise at a splendid price;
My soul recoils from what I loathe,
while I smite the crown of every charging hero;
And whenever my chest heaves with fear I say,
‘Hold your ground: you will be praised, or find relief.’” (2)
Al-Bayhaqī relates from Imām Aḥmad that he said, “The caliphs are Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī.” He was asked, “And Muʿāwiyah?” He replied, “No one in the lifetime of ʿAlī had a stronger claim to the caliphate than ʿAlī. May Allah have mercy on Muʿāwiyah.”
ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī said: I heard Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah say, “There was nothing in ʿAlī that fell short of fitting him for the caliphate, nor was there anything in Muʿāwiyah by which he could contend with ʿAlī.”
Shurayk the judge was asked, “Was Muʿāwiyah forbearing?” He replied, “He cannot be called forbearing who belittles the truth and fights ʿAlī.” This is reported by Ibn ʿAsākir. (3)
Sufyān al-Thawrī transmitted—from Ḥabīb, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās—that Ibn ʿAbbās mentioned Muʿāwiyah’s having pronounced the talbiyah on the afternoon of ʿArafah, whereupon Ibn ʿAbbās spoke harshly of him. When it reached him that ʿAlī likewise pronounced the talbiyah on that afternoon, he refrained.
Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā said: ʿAbbād ibn Mūsā related to me; ʿAlī ibn Thābit al-Jazarī related to us, from Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah, from ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who said, “I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in a dream, and Abū Bakr and ʿUmar were seated with him…"