The Battle of Siffin

In the spring of 37 AH ʿAli ﵁ set out from Kufa with an army that contemporaries estimated at seventy to a hundred thousand men. Muʿawiya ﵁ marched east from Damascus with a comparable force. The two armies maneuvered against each other for weeks on end through the Jazira, until they met on the plain of Siffin, on the western bank of the Euphrates, west of present-day Raqqa.

Muʿawiya ﵁'s army arrived first and occupied the only usable access to the river water on that stretch of plain: a shallow crossing where the bank sloped down and water buckets could be filled. Here he posted a heavy guard under Abu al-Aʿwar al-Sulami, with the express order to let ʿAli ﵁'s men draw not a single drop of water. This was more than a tactical detail. It was an attempt to force ʿAli ﵁'s army to choose between thirst and a frontal attack.

ʿAli ﵁ sent Saʿsaʿah ibn Suhan ﵁ as an envoy to Muʿawiya ﵁'s tent, with the request for free access to the water for all Muslims, as the Prophet ﷺ had commanded for access to wells and pastures. Amr ibn al-As ﵁ advised Muʿawiya ﵁ to grant the request, for strategic reasons. Muʿawiya ﵁ refused.

ʿAli ﵁ appointed Malik al-Ashtar ﵁ to storm the water post with cavalry. The attack on the usable crossing was fought out in a short but fierce struggle. Abu al-Aʿwar’s guard was driven off. ʿAli ﵁ then himself had Abu al-Aʿwar’s men, after their retreat, offered leave to draw water from the Muslim bank, the very thing they had refused to offer his men. Tabari records this decision as one of the enduring images of Siffin.

For three months Siffin was marked by a remarkable and painful form of warfare: the daily duel. Every day, a few dozen to a few hundred men from both camps stepped out before the lines and personally challenged their opposites. Name was set against name, tribe against tribe, kinship against kinship. Many of those who stepped forward had fought together at Yarmuk or Qadisiyyah in the same ranks.

ʿAli ﵁ tried to postpone committing to the general battle. He repeatedly sent envoys to Muʿawiya ﵁'s tent with the proposal to decide the matter by a single personal duel between the two of them, without further shedding of Muslim blood. Muʿawiya ﵁ refused every time. Amr ibn al-As ﵁, who sat beside Muʿawiya ﵁ as his chief adviser, counseled him to accept. Muʿawiya ﵁ knew too well that he was not ʿAli ﵁'s equal with the sword, and refused.

In this period of Mubarazah fell one of the most shocking losses of the battle. Ammar ibn Yasir ﵁, in his nineties, rode out with the qurra of Kufa under ʿAli ﵁'s banner. A Sham fighter later named as Abu al-Ghadiya threw the spear that struck him. Ammar ﵁ fell. The hadith of the Prophet ﷺ (“A rebellious band will kill you, O Ammar”) was known to many in Muʿawiya ﵁'s army. The news of Ammar ﵁'s death shook Muʿawiya ﵁'s camp more deeply than any battle up to that point. Muʿawiya ﵁ publicly reinterpreted the hadith: it was not they who had killed him, but those who had brought him to the fight. Not everyone was convinced.

The duels continued until the end of Safar. The tally-keepers of both armies counted thousands of fallen on each side. ʿAli ﵁ realized that without a decisive general battle the bloodshed would go on without end.

Toward the end of Safar 37 AH ʿAli ﵁ decided on the general battle. On the evening of 8 Safar he gave the order that the entire line would go on the attack at dawn. The night that followed, and the day and night after it, received in the Arabic tradition the name Layla al-Harir, the Night of Wailing. Tabari writes that the sound of the battle, swords on shields, the groaning of horses, dying men, produced a continuous wail that could be heard in the tents a mile away.

ʿAli ﵁ fought in the front line himself, with Hasan ﵁ and Husayn ﵁ at his side. Tabari notes that he personally struck down several prominent opponents that night, and that the men around him had to restrain him from pushing deeper into the Sham line. The Sham troops under Habib ibn Maslama fought with great steadfastness; on the central axis not a foot of ground was won or lost until deep into the night.

The left flank of ʿAli ﵁'s army, led by Malik al-Ashtar ﵁, broke through in the second half of the night. Ashtar ﵁'s cavalry drove the Sham right wing back and threatened the whole Sham line with collapse. By the second dawn light the Muslim cavalry of ʿAli ﵁'s camp stood within sight of Muʿawiya ﵁'s own tent. The news reached Muʿawiya ﵁ in his tent: one more breakthrough, and everything would be over.

Muʿawiya ﵁ considered fleeing. He called for his horse. According to Tabari, Amr ibn al-As ﵁ held him back, and said that if he fled, everything they had built would collapse in a single moment. He had to wait. Amr ﵁ had a plan, but it had to hold for one more night.

By the second dawn the breakthrough of Malik al-Ashtar ﵁ could no longer be stopped. His cavalry had broken through the Sham right wing, had rolled up the Sham reserves, and stood a few hundred meters from Muʿawiya ﵁'s flagship tent. The Sham banner itself had been withdrawn into a last defensive ring around the tent.

Ashtar ﵁ himself rode in the first rank. Tabari relates that his sword was so heavy with blood that morning that his arm stiffened and he had to keep it bent in order to raise it. The Sham veteran who stood before him, a man named Bisr ibn Artat, was nearly killed when he leapt from his horse and managed to mingle among the prisoners. The Sham line teetered close to total collapse.

Muʿawiya ﵁ called for his horse again. His women cried out from the tent. Men of his bodyguard brought the horse. Amr ibn al-As ﵁ stood in front of the horse.

Amr ﵁ had seen what made ʿAli ﵁'s army unique: the qurra, the bearers of the Quran, the men who fought not for Muʿawiya ﵁ but for what they regarded as the purity of the cause. They would stop fighting if confronted with the Book itself. He had the order passed down that would turn the entire battle.

Amr ibn al-As ﵁‘s order moved quickly through the Sham line. Hundreds of mushafs, some accounts say five hundred, were taken from the war camels and out of the officers’ tents, and fastened to the points of the lances. Then the Sham men carrying the mushafs held them aloft and called out across the battle: “O Muslims, the Book of Allah between us and you!”

The effect of the gesture was immediate. In the first lines of ʿAli ﵁'s army the qurra saw the mushafs in the air. Many of them were men who had devoted their entire lives to reciting and preserving the Book. To attack them while they invoked the Book felt unbearable to many, regardless of whose hand it was that raised it.

In the second line came the first halts. Some units of ʿAli ﵁'s army broke off the attack; others wanted to press on. ʿAli ﵁ stood and cried out that the mushafs in the air were a ruse, that Muʿawiya ﵁ and Amr ﵁ had no true desire for the Book but were using the Book only to escape defeat at the moment they were lost. He swore that he knew what he was saying. But between ʿAli ﵁ and the front line stood a row of qurra who had seen the Book, and who could no longer be moved.

ʿAli ﵁ knew that he had lost on this point. It was not a military defeat. It was a political rupture that cut through the heart of his own army. He gave the order for Ashtar ﵁'s cavalry to withdraw. Ashtar ﵁ refused at first, saying that one hour more and everything would be finished. Only after a second direct order did he turn back. The Sham men, seeing the order, cheered and lowered the mushafs.

The ceasefire was formally confirmed on the evening of 13 Safar 37 AH. ʿAli ﵁'s army withdrew to its western encampment, Muʿawiya ﵁'s army to its eastern one. Between the two, a neutral zone was agreed where envoys could pass back and forth. The next morning the negotiations began.

The arbitration protocol was drawn up. Two men would examine the dispute on behalf of the two parties: one for ʿAli ﵁'s cause, one for Muʿawiya ﵁'s cause. Muʿawiya ﵁ immediately chose Amr ibn al-As ﵁. ʿAli ﵁ wanted Malik al-Ashtar ﵁ or Abdullah ibn Abbas ﵁; the qurra in his army demanded Abu Musa al-Ashʿari ﵁, a man of good standing but without the political capacity to stand up to Amr ﵁. ʿAli ﵁ protested but had to yield in order not to lose more of his own army.

The document of arbitration was drafted. A first version named ʿAli ﵁ as Amir al-Muʾminin. Amr ﵁ refused to sign unless that title was omitted. ʿAli ﵁ said: “Subhan Allah, so too did the Prophet ﷺ on the day of Hudaybiyya wish to call himself Messenger of Allah, and the Quraysh refused, and he had it struck out. Strike it out here as well.” And the title was struck out.

The two armies withdrew to their respective territories. Muʿawiya ﵁ returned to Damascus. ʿAli ﵁ returned to Kufa. The arbitration would take place months later at Dumat al-Jandal, and would produce no clear ruling. But the most important outcome of Siffin was not the arbitration itself, but the rupture the arbitration caused within ʿAli ﵁'s own army. A faction of the qurra, who had first demanded arbitration and now realized that arbitration itself amounted to abandoning the judgment of Allah, went their own way. They became the Khawarij. Their path would lead to Nahrawan.