وقعة صفين

وقعة صفين

37 ھ

Between Ali ibn Abi Talib and Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan in 37 AH. Before the fighting Ali addressed his companions, urging them to keep their line firm and guard the banners ¹. During the battle Amr ibn al-As proposed to Mu'awiya that the copies of the Qur'an be raised; the people of Syria raised them on their lances and called for the Book of God, and many of the people of Iraq responded ². The index of that volume mentions the night of al-Harir and the account of Hashim ibn Utba al-Mirqal ³. In al-Mas'udi's account, the dead at Siffin were seventy thousand: forty-five thousand from Syria and twenty-five thousand from Iraq. They stayed there one hundred and ten days, with seventy engagements. Among the Companions who fell fighting with Ali were twenty-five men, including Ammar ibn Yasir, who was seventy-three years old. Eighty-seven veterans of Badr fought with Ali: seventeen of the Muhajirun and seventy of the Ansar; nine hundred of the people of the Pledge of Ridwan; and the Companions in all numbered two thousand eight hundred ⁴. Ali left Kufa on the fifth day of Shawwal 36 AH, passed by Raqqa and crossed on a bridge. It is agreed that he had ninety thousand men and Mu'awiya eighty-five thousand. Mu'awiya got there first and seized the water-point with Abu al-A'war al-Sulami and forty thousand men, and Ali's men were cut off from water. Mu'awiya said, 'Let them die of thirst as Uthman died', until a note was dropped into al-Ash'ath's tent; he went out with four thousand horsemen and broke the siege of the water ⁵. Ammar ibn Yasir, aged ninety-three, fell there, along with Hashim ibn Utba al-Mirqal, Dhu al-Kala', Safwan and Sa'd, the two sons of Hudhayfa. As the killing intensified, ten thousand or more men, mostly from Rabi'a and others, volunteered for Ali; he charged with them in a single charge, on his white mule, saying, 'From which of my days of death shall I flee?' until he reached Mu'awiya's pavilion ⁶.