Ali Ibn Abi Talib - Volume 2 of 2

50 The Battles of the Camel and Siffeen, and the issue of arbitration
whom Ibn 'Adiyy said: "They (the scholars) criticised him for being
an extremist and a Shia."I3O Al-Faziti narrated this report from 'Ali
ibn 'Lbis al-Azraq, who is weak according to Ibn Hajar and an-
~asi'i.'~' He also narrated this report from al-Khac$ib al-Hajri, who
is unknown.'32 This unknown al-Hajri narrated from another
unknown narrator, whose name was Safwgn ibn Qubay'ah al-
AIpna~i.'~~ Finally, an even more unknown character is al-'Azni, the
alleged owner of the camel. He was not the owner of the camel; rather
its owner was Ya'la ibn ~ ma~~ah.'~~
In the text of this report, the reader may detect a clear whiff of
Shia and RZfidi influence at the end of the report, where it is claimed
that 'Ali (&) thought himself more entitled to the caliphate than
Abu Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uthmb (may Allah be pleased with them all).
On the contrary, the reports that are proven to be sound indicate
something completely different135 Based on the above, it becomes
clear to us that this report is not 50und.l~~ There are other reports
concerning this matter, all of which are false in both chain of
narration and text. The message and aim of these reports is to cast
aspersions on the senior Companions (may AUah be pleased with
them) and to prove that the goal of this campaign was to achieve
worldly, personal gains such as wealth, leadership and so on; that the
ends justified the means; and that in trying to achieve that, they
would not refrain from creating war and turmoil among the Muslims.
These reports focus on two great Companions, Talhah and az-
~uba~r.'~~ The fabricators of these reports also wanted to confum
that these two Companions and the members of the army who were
with them dared to violate the sacred limits of Allah (g). The reports
allege that Tabah and az-Zubayr swore in the strongest terms to the
Mother of the Believers that this was not the water of al-Haw'ab;
furthennore, they brought seventy people - and according to
another report, fifty people - to testify that what they said was true.