If you capture prisoners, do not kill them. Do not mutilate the dead, and do not rob them of their armor or weapons or other valuables which you may find on their persons.
Do not plunder their camp, and do not molest their women even if they use foul and abusive language against you or your leaders. But above all things, do not be unmindful, at any time, of the presence of your Creator in your life. You are in His sight every moment. The two armies then charged at each other. The rebels had already lost Zubayr, one of their two generals, through desertion. The other general, Talha, was also destined to meet a fate similar to Zubayr's.
Abul Fida, the historian, says that Marwan asked his slave to cover him so that he would not be seen. When the slave covered him, he strung an arrow to his bow, aimed it at Talha, and said to his slave:. He was inciting and urging the crowd to enter the house, and to kill him. But today he wants vengeance for his blood. How touching! He truly loved Uthman. Here, I will give him a reward for that love. He richly deserves a reward.
After all, such love must not go unrewarded. Marwan released the arrow. It was a fatal shot that caught Talha in the thigh, and he limped to his death in the rear of the army. In the battle of the Camel, Talha was on his horse beside Ayesha when Marwan shot an arrow at him which transfixed his leg. Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Talha said that Marwan bin al-Hakam killed his grandfather Talha with an arrow in the battle of the Camel. Zubair was a first cousin of the Prophet.
His mother had been the sister of Mohammed's father. Zubair and Ali had known one another and worked together all their lives. When they now met between the lines of their respective armies, Ali asked Zubair if he remembered this and that occasion when they had both been young, and when both were filled with passionate religious zeal and personal devotion to Mohammed; how the Apostle of God had said this and Ali or Zubair had said that. What wonderful times those had been.
Zubair was moved to tears and swore that he would never oppose Ali with force. Ali had the reputation of being a persuasive speaker. When the fighting was joined, Zubair, in compliance with his oath, withdrew from the battlefield. Wandering in a desert valley, a little way from the battle-field, he was apparently encountered and killed by some passing straggler. Thus futilely and ignominiously died one of the great early heroes of Islam.
Meanwhile, Talha had been wounded by an arrow and was carried back to Basra where he died soon after. Zubayr and Talha perished for the most dubious of causes. It appears that they were aware that the cause for which they were going to fight, was not theirs, and it was not just. Both of them had been among the leading heroes of the early days of Islam but in the battle of Basra, their heroism abandoned them.
They showed no heroism, and they died like sheep. The only explanation for this can be that their morale had collapsed, and they were defeated even before the battle began.
Theirs was a moral defeat. Actually, Talha and Zubayr had walked into an impasse. At one time, they were very eager to get rid of Uthman. They cast the die and they lost.
After the death of Uthman, sojourn in Medina would, in fact, be very perilous for them. They could find no exit from the impasse except by shouting that they were seeking vengeance for the blood of Uthman. Arresting the murderer s of Uthman was the duty of the lawfully constituted authority which was existing, and which had declared that it was going to investigate the case.
But this is precisely what Talha and Zubayr were afraid of. They did not want any investigation. Their only chance of saving their own necks was to throw the state into turmoil, and to keep it in turmoil. In this attempt they were successful. It's amazing that Talha and Zubayr, early converts to Islam and companions of the Prophet that they were, could break their solemn pledge so casually as they did.
If they really believed that Ali was implicated in the murder of Uthman, they ought to have said so in the Prophet's Mosque in the assembly of all Muhajireen and Ansar instead of taking the oath of loyalty to him. But they did not, and they took the oath of loyalty. As long as they had hope that Ali would appoint them governors, they kept quiet.
But as soon as they lost that hope, they broke their pledge, and rose in rebellion. A rebellion was the only way in which they could prevent Ali from investigating the murder of Uthman. If Talha and Zubayr had been sincere in seeking vengeance for the murder of Uthman, there is one thing they could have done. They could have told Ali that they were going to set a deadline for him to investigate the case of Uthman, and he had to apprehend the criminals before that deadline.
But they didn't set such a deadline; instead, they rose in rebellion behind the screen of seeking vengeance for the murder of Uthman. Some historians say that Ali lamented the death of both Zubayr and Talha. If he did, recollection must have come to him of the glorious beginning and the inglorious end of these two heroes of primitive Islam. With Talha and Zubayr thus eliminated, the camel on which Ayesha rode, became the rallying point of the army of Basra.
Her soldiers fought fiercely and with determined bravery, and they made themselves a living rampart around her camel. One warrior held its reins in his hand. Ali's famous captain, Malik ibn Ashter, cut his arm at the elbow. Immediately, another warrior took the place of the first, and held the reins of the camel in his hand.
Malik cut his arm also. A third champion stepped in, and he too lost his arm. This went on until the severed arms were piled high in front of the camel. All around Ayesha's camel, men were attacking each other, and were dying. Ayesha, sitting in the litter on top of the camel, was urging her warriors to defend her, and to attack and kill the enemy who had killed their innocent khalifa, Uthman. Each time, they heard her voice, they were inspired to make a greater effort. They were striking deadly blows at the enemy not only to defend the Mother of the Faithful but also to avenge the death of Uthman.
Malik was still playing his little game of cutting the arms of all those men who held the reins of Ayesha's camel. Presently he spotted Abdullah bin Zubayr, the fire-eater of the Makkan army, and the darling of Ayesha, brandishing his sword.
If it were not for his incendiaries, the battle of Basra might never have been fought. Malik forgot Ayesha's camel, and lunged viciously at Abdullah bin Zubayr, knocking him down on the ground.
As he pointed his sword toward his throat, an anguished cry escaped from Ayesha who thought that he Malik was going to kill him her nephew. But who was there in the rebel army who could save Ayesha's nephew from Malik? Whoever came close to save him, was himself killed.
There was only one man who could save Abdullah, and that was Malik himself. Malik spared the life of Abdullah bin Zubayr more in contempt than in pity.
The latter stood up from the dust, and unnerved as he was by this brush with death, rapidly put himself out of the range of Malik's sword, with the resolution of never to be caught by him again.
Malik returned to the sport of severing the arms of the rebels. But they were not dismayed by the fear of losing their arms to him. Eventually Malik got tired of cutting the arms of men, and he decided to put an end to the game which had lasted much too long. He planted his feet at the bodies of the dead, aimed a blow of his irresistible sword, and killed Ayesha's camel. The camel fell bespattering all around it with its blood, and Ayesha's howdah fell to the ground with it. But she was not hurt.
Ali immediately sent Ayesha's brother, Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr, and Ammar ibn Yasir, to put the howdah on the ground, and told him to escort his sister to the house of the widow of a certain noble of Basra. Ayesha's camel was the visible emblem for which the army of Basra was fighting.
Suddenly the army of Basra had nothing for which to fight, and it began to come apart — visibly. Everyone in it began to flee every which way. In their flight, the soldiers forgot even Ayesha for whom they were fighting so heroically only a little earlier.
Soon nothing was left on the battlefield except the dead and the wounded. Since Ali had forbidden his army to pursue the fugitives, most of the rebels were able to escape, and the battle was practically over. Ali promulgated once again the orders he had issued before the battle that the dead were not to be robbed or mutilated; the enemy camp was not to be plundered; and those combatants who had surrendered, were not to be killed.
He maintained that his own army must set an example of gentleness, restraint, decency and uprightness as the basic values underpinning a genuinely Islamic military organization. The battle of the Camel was fought in December As soon as the enemy withdrew, Ali gave orders that there should be no pursuit and that killing should immediately cease.
When Ali entered Basra, he endeavored to conciliate all parties. The defeated army was treated with generosity. Ali urged that bygones be bygones, for he was of a mild and generous, perhaps an easy-going nature and wished to reunite the empire rather than revenge himself upon his enemies. The reason he did not chastise the rebels was that he had an extreme hatred of bloodshed in general, and of intra-Muslim bloodshed in particular.
He also forbore from destroying the rebel city of Basra for the same reason, viz. Incidentally, no one else among his contemporaries shared this belief with him. They were not squeamish like him about shedding Muslim blood; they shed it, and torrents of it. Ayesha interceded with Ali for her nephew and adopted son, Abdullah bin Zubayr, and begged him to pardon him.
There is pardon for everyone. Nowhere in the entire history of the world has a conqueror treated his defeated enemy as generously as Ali, before or since. In granting amnesty to the rebels, he was, once again, imitating his late friend and master, Muhammad, the blessed Apostle of God, who had also pardoned the polytheists of Makkah, among them his most rabid enemies, when he conquered that city.
Ali walked in the footsteps of Muhammad, and he lived in imitation of his sainted life. A few days later, Ayesha was ready to travel. Upon her request, Ali sent her to Makkah. Her brother, Muhammad, went with her. In Makkah, she performed Umra, and then she went to Medina. Ayesha has the reputation of being highly knowledgeable in matters of religion, and she was also a muhadittha, i.
Being so knowledgeable, is it possible that she did not know that she had no right to seek vengeance for Uthman's blood? Vengeance-seeking is the business of the injured party, and imposing penalty upon the offender s is the duty of the government. Ayesha was neither related to Uthman in any way nor she was a representative of the government of the Muslims.
And yet she challenged the lawful government in the name of vengeance, and pushed an immense number of Muslims into the flames of war. Her obsession with war made thousands of children orphans, and thousands of women widows. Iqd-ul-Farid , vol. Some members of Ayesha's own family wished she had never led armies and fought battles. On one occasion, she sent a messenger to her nephew, Ibn Abil-Ateeq, asking him to send his mule to her for riding.
When her nephew received the message, he said to the messenger:. Does she now want to start a battle of the mule? I, page Ibn Abil Ateeq's remark was prompted in jest.
They were going to prevent the Banu Hashim from burying Imam Hasan beside his grandfather. The Umayyads were not alone; Ayesha, the mother of believers, came with them, riding a mule! Hasan could not be buried with his grandfather because of her and Umayyad opposition, and he was buried in the cemetery of Jannat-ul-Baqi. There is no way to rationalize the roles Ayesha, Talha and Zubayr played after the death of Uthman.
The fact that they were famous personalities in the history of the Muslims, does not change or affect the roles they played. An error does not become less reprehensible because some important person committed it. An error remains an error regardless of who committed it. The wives of the Prophet were especially expected to be discreet in everything they said or did. After all, they had to be models before the umma of exemplary deportment and decorum.
A lapse from excellence may be condoned in the wives of the commoners but not in them. O consorts of the Prophet! If any of you were guilty of evident unseemly conduct, the punishment would be doubled to her, and that is easy for God. Chapter 33; verse This is perhaps the earliest extant example in history of recycling. According to these historians, Abdullah bin Saba and his followers looked at peace as their nemesis. They were convinced that if Ali's overtures for peace were successful, then they would become its first casualties.
Therefore, the only guarantee that they could find for their own safety, was in the civil war of the Muslims. It was with this understanding, so say the Sunni historians, that Abdullah bin Saba and his party, attacked at night, the two armies, simultaneously.
In the darkness, neither side could see or recognize the real agents provocateurs, and each side was convinced that the other had started the battle. The invention of Abdullah bin Saba was dictated by the pragmatic necessity for the window-dressing of some embarrassing passages in history.
For example, was it Abdullah bin Saba who violated the truce with Uthman ibn Hunaif, and who attacked Basra at night, captured it, seized its treasury, and killed more than Muslims in the city? And was it Abdullah ibn Saba who threatened to kill Uthman ibn Hunaif, brutalized him, drove him out of his home, and banished him from Basra? Was it Abdullah bin Saba who killed him? And who was it who was practicing archery at Ali's army?
The archers in the rebel army had killed more than twenty young men in his army before he allowed them to fight. Were these archers killing Ali's soldiers without the knowledge of Ayesha, Talha and Zubayr? Ayesha lived for many years after the battle of Basra but she never referred to Abdullah bin Saba and his role as the catalyst of war. She often said that she wished that she had died long before that battle in which many thousands of Muslims were killed.
If Abdullah bin Saba had been a historical figure, she would have scourged him for the carnage in the battle of Basra. Abdullah bin Saba was created a long time after the battle of Basra, and the death of Ayesha. Was he not present in the battles of Siffin and Nehrwan? Didn't he trigger those two battles also after he had had such success in Basra? And didn't Muawiya and the Kharjis also become victims of his intrigues?
Whatever happened to such an important, if sinister, character in the history of the Muslims? Abdullah bin Saba was an entirely synthetic and an ad hoc character. He was designed especially by the admirers and partisans of some important personages in the early history of the Muslims. Their aim was to protect the reputation, and also, if possible, to mask the identity, of these personages. These latter were actually responsible, first, for the assassination of Uthman, the third khalifa; and then, for the outbreak of the Second Civil War in Islam — the battle of Basra or the battle of the Camel.
They hoped that the reputation of the personages in question would become safe from the judgment of history if they could foist the blame for these events upon Abdullah bin Saba.
Abdullah bin Saba, it appears, was a most remarkable man in the history of the Muslims. Muslims were not only eager to obey him; they were also eager to die for him, and many did, in the battle of Basra. He must have been highly charismatic. One cannot help admiring his gumption and his amazing powers. But notwithstanding all his charisma, and his abilities and capacities, Abdullah bin Saba appears to have been a shy man.
Immediately after the battle of Basra, he plunged into obscurity, and never surfaced again. He perhaps died unsung and un-mourned. The battle of Basra or the battle of the Camel is one of the greatest tragedies in the history of Islam. It struck the death blow to the unity of the Muslim umma , and Islam never recovered from its trauma. Many Muslim historians tell the story of the battle of Basra but when doing so they try to soft-pedal some vital issues, and they try to obfuscate the reader.
The duty of a historian is to state facts. He may analyze facts, interpret them, and establish generalizations resting on them but he must never tamper with them. The failure of a historian to do this means that he is suppressing Truth which is the same thing as broadcasting Falsehood! If the battle of Basra had not been fought, then the battles of Siffin and Nehrwan also would not have been fought.
The seeds of dissension in Islam were sown and they burgeoned in the battle of Basra. If Ayesha, Talha and Zubayr had not challenged the lawful sovereign of the Muslims, the doors of schism in Islam would never have been opened. The rebel leaders were free agents. Their choice was determined by their own personal blend of ambition, hatred, guilt and jealousy. It was not principle that prompted them but chagrin, self-interest and the lust for power posing as altruism.
Their bellicosity proved counter-productive not only for the Muslims but also for themselves. Two things would have happened in the event of their victory, viz. In this new alignment, Ayesha, Talha and Zubayr would have been on one side, and Muawiya and Amr bin Aas, on the other. The Muslim world would have been divided into these two hostile camps, and in the following struggle for hegemony, the two sides would have decimated each other.
The Muslim world would have been deluged in blood leaving a vast power vacuum. Into this vacuum would have marched the emperor of the Byzantines with his army, and would have snuffed the light of Islam out! From this possible catastrophe, it was the skill, the vision, the humanity and the statesmanship of Ali that saved the umma of Muhammad. May God bless him and all other members of the Ahlul-Bayt of Muhammad. Ali had offered redemption to them, not once but repeatedly, and they had turned it down.
If the Companions of the Camel repented, then it is for God alone to accept their repentance. God will accept their repentance if they were sincere. But acceptance by God of their repentance will not become known to us until the Day of Judgment.
The historian's job, as stated earlier, is only to isolate Truth from the mass of falsehood in which it may be hidden, and then to state it, with clarity and precision. He should interpret facts but he must not suppress them or invent them or distort them out of his fear lest they reflect an unflattering image of his favorite character s in the history of Islam. After the battle, Ali said prayers for the dead of the two armies, and ordered his men to bury all the corpses lying on the battle-field.
I will come on to point number 1 later. With regard to point number 2, it should be noted that after the demise of the Holy Prophet sa , the first issue faced by these glorious Sahaba [Companions] was the matter of successorship.
Upon the advice of Hazrat Abu Bakr ra the Ansar then agreed to electing two leaders — one from among the Ansar and one from among the Muhajireen [Muslims native to Mecca] [2]. Eventually, after an extensive debate, the Companions came to the realisation that if there was to be a successor to Prophet Muhammad sa , he ought to be from among the Muhajireen and also the Quraish.
If point number 2 were correct, then this was the perfect scenario for the Ansar to attack the Muhajireen and their chosen leader, so that the power could shift to the Ansar , but they did no such thing and instead continued to show obedience to him throughout his Caliphate.
When Hazrat Abu Bakr ra fell ill and was close to his demise, after much prayer and contemplation, he appointed Hazrat Umar ra as his successor. No such incident took place. When Hazrat Umar ra was fatally wounded by a Christian slave, not a Companion! Hazrat Uthman ra was peacefully elected and no Companion waged war to overthrow him. Many years later, he was brutally murdered by rebels working under the orders of Abdullah bin Saba, who again, was not a Companion but a Jewish convert.
All three of them refused, stating that whoever is appointed as the Caliph will be associated with the blood of Hazrat Uthman ra. However, the rebels issued an ultimatum that if a Caliph was not elected, they would begin a killing spree starting with the Companions.
Under these dire circumstances, it was the valiant Hazrat Ali ra who accepted this mantle, surrounded by friend and foe alike. Now we come to the first instance in the history of Islam when the Companions ra of Prophet Muhammad sa fought in opposite camps, i. This took place in 36 AH CE , approximately 24 years after the demise of the Holy Prophet sa and more than 45 years after the advent of Islam.
In all these years, the companions never once fought for power whereas there were ample opportunities to do so, had they so desired. Thus, the onus of proof is on the claimant to provide evidence where in history these noble Companions were at war with each other. On the contrary, volumes and volumes of history are replete with their noble characteristics; and if there was anything they wanted over their fellow companions, it was to excel one another in virtuous deeds.
The battle itself resulted in many companions of the Prophet losing their lives leading to groups adopting identities within the Muslim community. Quoting early historical historians such as al-Tabari, al-Baladhuri and others, Qari Zahiruddin outlined the events after the death of Uthman, the reluctance of Ali to take office of caliphate, and his subsequent taking of office due to insistence by the people.
The battle was eventually won by Ali, after which he sent off Lady Aisha back to Medina with dignity and respect. Professor Takim briefly recapped the historical narrative, outlined by Qari Zahiruddin, confirming that these details were largely agreed upon by both Shia and Sunni. Furthermore, he mentioned the incident of the dogs barking at a place called Hawab, at which point Lady Aisha wanted to turn back as she remembered the Prophet warning his wives of the barking dogs of Hawab.
However, members from her army came together and bore witness that the place they were at was not Hawab, to which some Shia scholars point out that this was a mass false testimony if not the first one in the Muslim history.
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