Talk:Battle of the Camel

Undated post

Hi we are a team from Colgate University and will be editing this page over the next month. We plan to make some additions in regards to sub-categories.

There are very few references

Where did this inforamtion come from? Bless sins 03:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC) This appears to be more of a story than historical fact.

This historical account seems inconsistent with some of the books I have read on the subject IHusain 18:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

__________________________

I agree and it has a fairytale prose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.211.36.107 (talk) 17:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Language more suited to a novel/screenplay than an encyclopedic article. Referencing is also too spartan.--ZayZayEM (talk) 02:42, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I think we need a section that says there isn't any historical evidence for this event provided. 2600:1011:B18F:2A45:0:12:CC36:4801 (talk) 16:53, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Can some one help me merge!

I want to merge this page with The battle of Jamal since they are the same battles. But i don't really know how to merge.

Battle of Jamal is a redirect to Battle of the Camel, so I don't think a merge is still needed. I added a note of the alternate name.--Wcoole (talk) 17:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Probable Copyright Violation

Where did this come from? The use of the word louring is archaic and leads me to believe that the source isn't appropriate.

Please check refrences

Please check the refrences on this article. please check and see the role of "Abdullah ibn Sabaa" and please differentiate between the sunni account of the battle, and the motivation behind the march on Kufa, and the Shai account of the events. thank u

___________________________________________________________________________________ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.211.36.107 (talk) 17:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Abdullah ibn Sabaa myth was actually started by Sayf ibn Umar at-Tamimi (a narrator) in at-Tabari and is abandoned as a weak narrator by the majority of the scholars of Ahle-Sunnah. Shi'as also regard him as a fabricator.

Secularist Muslim View In recent years some of the Sunni historians have questioned the existence of Abdullah Ibn Saba. Taha Husayn, a well-known secularist Egyptian writer has written that:

"The fact that the historians make no mention of Ibn al-Sawda' i.e., 'Abdullah ibn Saba' being present at the battle of Siffin together with his followers proves at the very least that the whole notion of a group of people led by him is a baseless fabrication. It is one of those inventions that acquired currency when the conflict between the Shi'is and other Islamic groups intensified. In order to underline their hostility, the enemies of the Shi'ah tried to insert a Jewish element into the origins of their sect. If the story of 'Abdullah ibn Saba' had any basis in historical fact, his cunning and guile could not have failed to show itself at the battle of Siffin. "I can think of only one reason for his name not occurring in connection with that battle: that he was an entirely fictitious person, dreamed up by the enemies of the Shi'ah in order to vilify them." [book al-Fitnat al-Kubra, Vol. II, p.90]Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Ibn_Saba"—Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.211.36.107 (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality of this article in question

This article is written in a clearly shi'ite point of view. It speaks of how ali and aisha fought. There should be two sections of the recountations by both sides. Not just speaking onesidedly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.231.47 (talk) 21:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Is this a Novel or an Article?

The article is crap! It is like the screenplay of a B-Movie! On one hand it says Aisha had 3000 troops and on another hand it says 10,000 men were killed equally from both sides! Were did the other 2000 men come from then? Beam me up Scotty! 94.195.72.113 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:49, 15 January 2010 (UTC).

It looks like a bad translation of an already-bad article in Arabic. Needs a total rewrite. KarlM (talk) 07:36, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Nearly a decade later, and sadly it still didn't improve. Dracona94 (talk) 12:51, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Copyright violations from the start

A great deal of this article was built on copyright violations: on Feb 2, 2005, Striver added a lot of material that very closely paraphrased a bunch of text from http://www.islamforamal.com/Home/additonal-information/caliphate and possibly other sources. That's why large chunks of this article read like a story rather than a Wikipedia article. Obviously the copyvio material is going to have to be removed, but I don't know if it will be possible to salvage anything that has been added since then, since it was all built on top of a rotten (illegal) foundation. AtticusX (talk) 10:32, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

created substitute page. I have tried to rewrite whole article and provided references for most of the text. Also, I have retained few features of the orignal article like info-box and lede sections which don't seemed to be copyvio to me. Few things still don't balance out and article needs to be further creased out. But for now this the best I am able to put up. Please review the substitute article and let me know if any copright infringement still exists. Hopefully, once copyright issue is fixed we can move forward and better the article. Thanks.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 03:30, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Here's a link to Faizhaider's temporary page: Talk:Battle of Bassorah/Temp.

The first check I ran revealed a lingering copyright violation taken from a different source. The section "Losses in the battle" appears to be largely plagiarized from page 261 of William Muir's The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline and Fall from Original Sources. The next section after that looks suspicious too.

See http://books.google.com/books?id=DYx7LB3k7tIC&pg=PA261&lpg=PA261#v=onepage&q&f=false

You probably want to be more aggressive in weeding out everything unsourced from the old copyvio article. If any sentence was present in these massive additions made by User:Striver on Feb 2, 2005, it should be assumed to be an infringement. AtticusX (talk) 10:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

This article has come due for closure. Since the rewrite continued to constitute a copyright problem, it is not usable, I'm afraid. Since it has not been edited in a week, I have deleted it as it also constitutes a copyright problem. I have restored the last presumed clean version of this article. I have not deleted the intervening edits in case material added by other contributors could be resurrected. It will probably be rev-deleted in another week. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Is there a way to get content of Talk:Battle of Bassorah/Temp (I think admins can get it). I was busy with other articles and missed the update and did'nt occurred that one week deadline is over. If I can get the deleted page's content I'll retart by pruning it that will sve lot of time as current version is too rough to work upon (even names of Talha & Zubair are not correctly spelled in it).--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 14:27, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'll go ahead and restore it for you to work on it further. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:29, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. There are so many articles on my watchlist that some times I miss changes in few of them.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 14:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

A problem I share. :D I appreciate your work here to help clean this up. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I have did some clean up in the tow sections under question? Plz let me know 'bout your comments.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 15:36, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this. I have copyedited and checked the remainder of the temp version for copyvio and as far as I can tell it now looks clean. AtticusX (talk) 21:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Atticus, for cleaning up the article(Temp). i have restored Bukhari quote removed by you as a footnote and did few tweeks. The article has great scope for expansion but for now imo temp article is ready to replace existing main article.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 09:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Wrong name the correct is Battle of Camel

Please not that all and I reconfirm all history sources say the name is Battle of Camel only wikipedia gave as the totally new name Battle of Bassorah !! I think wiki is trying to give as a new history --82.194.62.25 (talk) 08:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Its Battel of Camel or Jamal(Arabic translation of Camel), Have never heard of Battel of Basara. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Husainalisaifee (talk • contribs) 08:34, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I've moved it, although I really cannot fathom how the article remained under "Battle of Bassorah" for so long... Constantine ✍ 11:05, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

GET RID OF THE 'CROSS' SYMBOL!

I was VERY, VERY SURPRISED to see the cross besides of Islamic Shaheeds (martyrs) in the number of Wikipedia Articles, such as:

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Siffin

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Camel

and perhaps many other Articles that I didn't realize about.

I know, some of you might think it's a small, insignificant matters, and that I just overreacted or something. But hey, have you read the history of the The Red Cross and the The Red Crescent symbols? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emblems_of_the_International_Red_Cross_and_Red_Crescent_Movement#Relation_to_the_flag_of_Switzerland)

At first, I didn't notice that, I was too tired of doing research about Islamic history that concerned Muslim law of war. Until I carefully looked at this unwelcome symbol and my eyes suddenly got widened. Oh my God! It's a Christian cross! God forbid, you don't put that symbol beside Muslim Martyrs names! It's an insult to their memories who died defending the religion of Islam!

Someone in authority better do something about this, otherwise I might, launch some sort of worldwide awareness campaign regarding this matter, maybe on Facebook. Many Muslims will definitely get upset about this (upset is an understatement!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.171.166.169 (talk) 17:29, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

This symbol is supposed to represent a dagger not a cross (see Template:KIA). The dagger has historically been used in typography and has many uses in modern times (see Dagger (typography)). On battle-related Wikipedia articles, it stands for Killed in action, hence, it is not just placed after names of Muslim Martyrs but after names of anyone who had died in the battlefield. --Wahj-asSaif (talk) 00:21, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Wahj-asSaif is probably literally correct, but in many fonts, that character is rendered in a way that resembles a cross. Given the strong negative connotations of the cross in the minds of many Muslims, perhaps it would be better to use the alternate form of Template:KIA,  (KIA) (or  (KIA) for short) for Muslim causualties.--Wcoole (talk) 18:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Block delete

Hi PJDF2367

We have been working on these articles for a year and went through all the sources Sunni, Shia, Roman and the Jewish sources from the time and the work of the recent western academics on these events. A large number of people have been involved on this project. You could go through the discussions on the Muawiyah talk page. There is a lot of material out there, in both the Sunni and the Shia sources about the Kawarij. Just get hold of the old books and you will see how important a role they played in the early days of Islam. Many old scholars that both the Sunnis and Shia respect, worked together on these books from Madina. There is a lot of common content in these old books and this is recognized by modern academics too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Muawiyah_I

PJDF2367, I noticed that you have reverted all the work every one has put into this and all the references. Can you please put back the referenced content. If you have an issues, please discuss it. If there are references that you disagree with please also highlight your issues with them and we could reach a consensus. But just deleting all the content without any discussion is not the right approach. There are references in there from the earliest books written in Madina and from both the early Sunni and Shia sources and from Jewish and Roman books from the time and from modern western academics. There is a lot of common content in both the early Sunni and the early Shia sources about these events. These were extremely tragic events and one needs to learn from them. The early scholars like Imam Jafar and Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik understood this and worked together and you could still read their books. They are in the middle ground. Many of the references that you removed were from these old books from Madina. The Sunni and Shia arguments have been letting down the whole Islam section on Wikipedia and people need to get away from these arguments and show the actual historical data from the earliest sources most closest to the events and from modern neutral academics. I hope you understand. When you start digging and researching through these very old books written in Madina within the first 150 years of the passing of Muhammad, you will soon see how closely these early scholars worked and you will also see references to the Khawarij in every early book. Unfortunately many of the most critical scholars like Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr are now almost forgotten by both the Sunnis and the Shias yet they are critical to the formation of Fiqh and Sharia. But the Sunnis and Shia spend more time arguing on Wikipedia than actually making the effort to read these early books. We have spent a whole year on this. I hope you understand --Johnleeds1 (talk) 18:46, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• I have no opinion on the work of that editor, but the article as it is now is in a terrible state. References are unclear and don't seem to be up to date, and the whole thing is told like a narrative, not like an encyclopedic article. The language also is sub-par. Look at the title of the last section, "Many years later Marwan and Kharijites rule". What's that supposed to mean? And the final paragraph of that section is in first person! Drmies (talk) 01:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• I'm looking at inept citations like "Muawiya Restorer of the Muslim Faith By Aisha Bewley Page 14 with text from Al-Baladuri". First of all, that book is cited a dozen or more times; clearly, the system of referencing is faulty. Second, the formatting is off completely. Use book citation templates, or at the very least italicize the title and put a comma instead of "By". Third, "with text from Al-Baladuri"--what is that supposed to mean? But fourth, and most seriously, I see no reason to accept that the book is a reliable source. The publisher is unknown to me, and I haven't found any reviews in journals or magazines of the book. Drmies (talk) 02:14, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the Muawiya Restorer of the Muslim Faith By Aisha Bewley references should be removed. Zabranos (talk) 02:36, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Johnleeds1, PJDF2367, and others editing this article,

I will help mediate this issue. First of all, I added Johnleeds1's article information as well as the work done by PJDF2367 and others. Instead to deleting each others work why not blend the two articles together. This will only help to prevent losing information and it will help strengthen it. Lets try and blend the two articles together and create subsections as well (for different views if there is a conflict). Thanks.

Johnleeds1, PJDF2367, and others editing this article please let me know what you guys think about this resolution. Zabranos (talk) 02:05, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• In terms of writing, this version (by the now-blocked editor PJDF2367) is superior to the current version. No one who can read could dispute that. I'm not saying anything about content, but the current version is clearly written by someone whose first language is not English and whose research methods are not up to par, never mind the particulars of citation style and format. Drmies (talk) 02:28, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the old article was much better off. I deleted most of the unnecessary information that did not have any relevance. But, Im still reading to find relevant information in Johnleeds1 article.

• Problem 1: has way to many primary sources that are not fact checked
• Problem 2: certain facts are not referenced
• Problem 3: the article is not in chronological order and the information is scattered

For anyone who wants to reference the material in a proper and correct manner please use EasyBib.com. Zabranos (talk) 03:12, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree we need to merge

I Agree, we all need to work together and merge the articles. We did the same on the Muawiya I page, as that was also related to this and had the same problems. We ended up using primary sources in conjunction with literature from modern western academics because many people do not read old books, and in some cases the views of some modern Shia's are different to the old Shia books and the views of some modern Sunnis are different to the old Sunni books. Shia's were deleting content that was in line with old Shia books, because they thought that it was not in line with their thinking and Sunnis were deleting content that was in line with the old Sunni books. Every one was arguing.

Where as the old classical literature from people like Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik is more in the middle ground. Once we put the actual references from the old books in, there were less arguing and the page settled down. The primary sources were used in conjunction with research and literature from modern academics.

Another thing that we discovered is that many modern Muslims know very little about the Qurra who became the Kawarij. Even though there is a lot of literature regarding the kawarij in both the old classical Sunni and Shia books.

The book "Muawiya Restorer of the Muslim Faith By Aisha Bewley" is used as a reference in conjunction with references from other books. But all Aisha Bewley has done is put references from the oldest history books like Al Baladuri and other old books like Al Muwatta of Imam Malik. We spent a year on the Muawiya article and as you could see we went through hundreds of books. In many cases we found, that the older the books the closer their views. The oldest accounts of these events are in history books like those written by Al-Waqidi (748 – 822) from Madina, Ibn Hisham (died 833), Al-Baladhuri (died 892) other old books like Al Muwatta of Imam Malik (711 – 795)from Madina. Subsequent authors used these books as references too. The complete stories are to be found in these early books. Modern academics also use these books. Zabranos its good that you are updating the page.--Johnleeds1 (talk) 21:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

There is a sentence in there that says "Ali was urged to accept Abu Musa but he never did". Where as all the books I have looked at say that Abu Musa was not his decision but the decision of the Khawarij, but he did not oppose Abu Musa. --Johnleeds1 (talk) 21:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Could you please provide a source for the following:

"Get ready, Ziyad!"

"What for?"

"To fight the Syrians."

"Better to wait and tolerate."

Then Ziayd recited a poem:

"One who doesn’t tolerate

"He will be torn by the teeth

"And will be smashed by the feet"

Unconsciously recited another poem:

"When a wake heart and a brave sword and brain

Are gathered, then you will be safe from the oppression"

Then Ziyad came out to the people waiting for his conclusion. They asked:

"What happened? What is he going to do?"

Ziyad only said:

"You people! Sword!!"

And they understood what Ali was going to do.

Zabranos (talk) 23:31, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I looked at the history and this has been on the first fitna page for years. The first fitna page is the parent page to this. It was there when that page was first created. --Johnleeds1 (talk) 15:20, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Article Merging/Cleanup/Editing Update

The article is still in a rough shape. Status of the following sections:

• Prelude: Cleaned, edited, and merged info. However, I feel that it has little relevance to the actual battle, but I will leave the section in it for now.
• Problems Resurface: Cleaned, edited, and merged info. However, I feel that it has little relevance to the actual battle, but I will leave the section in it for now.
• Conflicts with the Governor of Kufa: Cleaned, edited, and merged info. Good to go. No issues that I found.
• Downfall of Uthman: Cleaned, edited, and merged info. Subsection The Siege of Uthman needs to be referenced. See citation need tags.
• Ali Elected as Caliph: Cleaned, edited, and merged info. Good to go. No issues that I found.
• Events Leading Up To The Battle: Just created this section and added the info that pertains to it. But its a mess. 1 still needs more info. 2 needs to be edited. 3 needs to be placed in chronological order or and order that flows.
• Preparation for battle: Did not touch yet but needs major editing and correcting. Also needs more info.
• Rebels in Basra: Did not touch yet but needs major editing and correcting. Thinking about making it a subsection.
• Battle of the Camel: Did not touch yet but needs major editing and correcting. Also needs more info.
• After The Battle: Did not touch yet but needs major editing and correcting. Needs to be split into subsections. Have to removed irrelevant info yet.
• End of the battle: Did not touch yet but needs major editing and correcting. Also needs more info. Needs to be moved before "After the Battle" section.
• Aftermath: Did not touch yet but needs major editing and correcting.
• Participants: Every individual needs to be referenced
• All references need to be properly cited (Use EasyBib.com)

Article is 38.5% complete. Zabranos (talk) 00:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Non relevant information

Hi Johnleeds1,

I appreciate your contributions, however you have added a lot of information that is not relevant to the battle of the camel. Most of the information is about Muawiyah and his life (this article is about the Battle of the Camel not Muawiyah). I noticed that you copied and pasted a majority of Muawiyah's article on to this one. The information you is just not relevant to this article. I dont want to be rude or hurt your feelings, but the information just does not fit. For example, how are the following relevant.

• Expeditions after the peace treaty with Hassan (not needed, happened years later)
• Expansion into North Africa (not needed, how does this pertain the the battle itself)
• His appointment of his son as the next Caliph (Not needed since its not part of the battle)
• Reforming the Umayyad rule peacefully from the inside (not needed, not relevant)
• And the Qarra aka the Khawarij have their own article but please do not copy and past things onto it as it might create a mess (like this article).

I just want to say dont copy and paste information from Muwiyah's article (which has many issues and it not properly written as both Drmies and I pointed out) but rather do research and find sources (add them into the Talk page before placing it into the article so that I can review it and slowly blend it in because I need time to correct the current article. In terms of english, relevance, and format). I am reverting the edits because they are irrelevant to this particular article. But please can you help me find more sources (western, nonwestern, sunni, and shia) on the battle itself because that should be the main focus of this article. And once again im not trying to be rude nor am I trying to hurt your feelings. Im just trying to clean this article up and edit the english. Please do not revert my revert before explain your reason on the talk page so that we can avoid a edit war. Thanks. Zabranos (talk) 02:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

P.S If you find any sources please list them out in the following manner.

• "Abu Dharr confronted Uthman for giving exorbitant amounts of money to his friend and family and cited a Quranic Verse warning of the punishment that awaits those who horde gold and silver. Uthman told him to cease and desist, but Abu dharr defended his right to recite the Quran. Uthman sent Abu Dharr into exlie and was reprimaneded for punishing anyone who criticized him." Medieval Islamic Historiography: Remembering Rebellion, By Heather N. Keaney Pg. # (Use easybib.com for citation and add it here) Thanks. Zabranos (talk) 03:46, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree. This article should just be on the battle of the camel. The article had the battle of the siffin on it too. That is why I added the other content as I had been working on that and the Muawiya article. But you are right this should only be about the battle of the camel. Its best to keep this article short and only include the information every one agrees on. As it says in the early Shia book Nahjul Balaagha - Letter 58 Ali says that the first fitna was about this:

The thing began in this way: We and the Syrians were facing each other while we had common faith in one Allah, in the same Prophet (s) and on the same principles and canons of religion. So far as faith in Allah and the Holy Prophet (s) was concerned we never wanted them (the Syrians) to believe in anything over and above or other than what they were believing in and they did not want us to change our faith. Both of us were united on these principles. The point of contention between us was the question of the murder of Uthman. It had created the split.

I advised them that this problem cannot be solved by excitement. Let the excitement subside, let us cool down; let us do away with sedition and revolt; let the country settle down into a peaceful atmosphere and when once a stable regime is formed and the right authority is accepted, then let this question be dealt with on the principles of equity and justice because only then the authority will have power enough to find the criminals and to bring them to justice.

All the early books say that the first fitna was about bringing the people who killed Uthman to Justice. Ali also wanted to bring them to justice the question was about timing. If it is kept simple on the points agreed to by every one it will avoid future arguments.

On the other subject, you said But please can you help me find more sources (western, nonwestern, sunni, and shia) on the battle itself because that should be the main focus of this article.

I have been collecting old books from Madina from the first 200 years of Islam. They are usually the most detailed. The oldest history books are by imam al waqidi. He lived in Madina for 50 years and had access to the grand children of the companions of Muhammad. One of his books was recently translated and is online at http://www.kalamullah.com/conquest-of-syria.html

Al Waqidi's history books are extremely old and everyone uses them, both the Sunnis and the Shia's and the western academics. They also match the text in the Roman books from the time. He writes in a style that makes you feel that you are there. Al Waqidi also wrote a book on the Battle of the Camel. The problem is that it is very hard to find some of these old books. I was going through Ibn Katheer's books on the Umayyads and he also references Al Waqidi.

There are also Imam Malik's and Imam Abu Hanifah's books but they are more about Muhammad and on Hadith. Imam Malik's book Muwatta Imam Malik is usually used by orientalists, like N.J. Coulson - in his book "History of Islamic Law" as a bench mark to compare Islam Law against other legal systems because it is the oldest book on Islamic law and was the consensus of opinion of the jurists of Madina at the time. It also contains fiqh and hadith narrated through Imam Jafar and Imam Muhammad Bakar. But they are not history books as such. They are more about the rulings that Muhammad gave and on preserving this knowledge for future generations.

The next oldest history books you could get hold of are Ibn Hisham's that are based on the work of Ibn Ishaq Born 85 AH /704 AD. It took me ages to find an English version of it. Some of the text on the Battle of Siffin I put in, was from Ibn Hisham's book. And he got those bits from an earlier writer, Abu Mikhnaf, who was Ali's supporter.

These events are extremely tragic and you could see the tragedy in these old books. It's all the more tragic for those people, as they were all so united a few years earlier, as shown in the book on Syria http://www.kalamullah.com/conquest-of-syria.html and then a few years later small misunderstandings snowballed and led to extremely tragic events. They all knew each other and in most cases they are all very closely related.

Then there is also Al-Baladhuri. Most Muslims have never heard of him, but you could find his book "The origins of the islamic state" in the main national libraries in the West. There are also some translations of it on line by the orientalists. If Muslims, these days, read these old books, then there will be less arguments on Wikipedia.

There is also The History of al-Tabari but it was written later

http://www.sunypress.edu/p-2078-the-history-of-al-tabari-vol-16.aspx

In the description of this book it says

There are also the 'Abbasid historians, who, though anti-Umayyad, must balance a reverence for the Prophet's household (ahl al-bayt) with a denunciation of 'Alid antiestablishmentarianism. All these points of view, and more, are represented in al-Tabari's compilation, illustrating the difficulty the Muslim community as a whole has faced in coming to terms with these disastrous events.

I personally prefer the very earlier books written in Madina. The very early authors in Madina had access to more first hand information. It was also harder for them to lie, as so many people in Madina knew Muhammad and what he said. 10,000 people in Madina new Muhammad. They are to the point and tell it how it was. So the early the better.

Small misunderstandings led to a huge loss of life. When you go through these old books, you understand why Hassan wanted peace. He knew people on both sides in the Battle of the Camel and the Battle of Siffin who were killed. Many were his childhood friends. Ali performed the funerals. Its very tragic. You feel very sorry for Hassan and he truly deserves his title of the peace maker. When you look at it in detail from the rational perspective, you realize that he also thinks extremely strategically. Muawiya thought he was clever, but Hassan was far cleverer and his main objective was to preserve his grandfathers legacy, of making sure people continue to worship one God. People could say what every they want, but Hassan deserves respect. He was very God fearing and did not want any ones blood on his hands but you could also say that Hassan managed to transfer the problem of the Kawarij and the Romans to Muawiya. As it says in: Book of "Peacemaking" Sahih Bukhari - Volume 3, Book 49 (Peacemaking), Number 867

Muawiya who was really the best of the two men said to him, "O 'Amr! If these killed those and those killed these, who would be left with me for the jobs of the public, who would be left with me for their women, who would be left with me for their children?"

Imagine if Hassan never made peace, either there would be no Islam today or the Kawarij would have exploited the upheaval and only the Kawarij would have remained. Image what the world would have been like with the Kawarij. Many of these old books are very neutral. They show the tragedy of it all. It is not about point scoring. A lot was going through Hassans mind. Therefore in these articles it is best stick to the facts and keep them neutral. --Johnleeds1 (talk) 18:18, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• It does not pertain to this article. This article is only about the battle of the camel not the Khawarij or a peace treaty that was years after the battle. Zabranos (talk) 20:12, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

References

Reference needed

I need the following references otherwise I will delete them.

• Esposito (2010, p. 38 (need book title)
• Hofmann (2007), p.86 (need book title)
• Islam For Dummies By Malcolm Clark Page (need pg #)
• The Koran For Dummies By Sohaib Sultan Page (need pg#)
• The Many Faces of Faith: A Guide to World Religions and Christian Traditions By Richard R. Losch (need pg #)
• tabri 2959 2985 (need vol # and pg #)
• al-Baladuri 204-5 (need book title)
• Bewley Pg.17 (need book title)
• The complete history. vol.2,P.19 (need author's name)
• Iraq, a Complicated State Page 32 (need author's name)
• Holt (1977), pp. 67 - 68 (need book title)
• Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (need pg #)
• Lapidus (2002), p.47 (need book title)
• Holt (1977a), p.70 - 72 (need book title)
• Tabatabaei (1979), p.50 - 53 (need book title)
• Tabatabaei 1979 192 (need book title)

This is ridiculous seriously! Zabranos (talk) 08:05, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

There is a bot on Wikipedia that goes around and where it finds multiple references to the same book and page number it puts a short cut version of it in the text and the full version at the end. When you are on the page and click on the link, it takes you to the full reference. It's best not to delete these. Deleting these types of references creates half orphaned references and you end up with errors on the page. It looks like many of these books are self explanatory and many also have a hyper links to the google books page where the text is taken from. The author will be where the full text is. Where there isn't one it will be easy to find the authors. --Johnleeds1 (talk) 15:17, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• Than find the missing information for the references. Zabranos (talk) 20:19, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

While you are correct that we have a bot that does just that, Johnleeds1, that's not at all what happened here; if it were, then all of the info would be here somewhere. That bot collects references together, as you can see with reference 1. It never deletes info--it just consolidates multiple identical lines into a single line and reference number. We do need full publication information in order to use a citation, though some effort should be made to find the info when there's enough info, such as, for example, a full title that is unambiguous. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:14, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Relevant info

The following are classified as relevent events because these events sparked the initial tension leading to the Battle of the Camel itself. Please do not delete it.

• The Spark of Tension Leading Up To The Battle
• Preparation for battle
• Rebels in Basra
• Participants
• End of the battle
• Aftermath

And the following subsections

• Conflicts with the Governor of Kufa
• Public Outrage of Uthman
• Downfall of Uthman
• The Siege of Uthman
• Ali Elected as Caliph
• Ali as Caliph
• Plot For A Rebellion

Im still determining whether the other sections are relevant to the scope of the conflict.

• Prelude (does not seem relevant but I will review it a bit further)
• Khawarij (Not relevant since the Khawarij emerged after the Battle of Siffeen. But there are bits of information that are relevant.)

Zabranos (talk) 20:58, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I just said something similar on my talk page (Zabranos asked me to take a look at the recent events here), and, as I said, this article should not be about "the events that sparked the initial tension leading to the Battle of the Camel itself"; it should be about "the Battle of the Camel".

However, there's one exception--if, as Johnleeds1 stated on my talk page, Sunni and Shia scholars disagree about the cause of the battle, we do need to state both views. Of course, the majority of the article shouldn't be about either Sunni or Shia views--it should be about the views of modern, secular scholars who interpret the event from a historical/sociological/economic/etc. perspective; this is not to say that religious scholars aren't helpful and relevant, just that the bulk of the article should be based on neutral perspectives whenever possible, while noting any relevant partisan points. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:10, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Qwyrxian I fully agree. As you said:

this article should not be about "the events that sparked the initial tension leading to the Battle of the Camel itself"; it should be about "the Battle of the Camel".

I think the article will look even better if we only included things that every one agrees to. A lot of the disagreements are small. E.g. Every one agrees Marwan killed Talha. They disagree what he said after that. So just say "Marwan killed Talha" :)

This is the bit I was referring to from the Shia Muslim website http://www.al-islam.org when I said if you want to keep this put it into a Shia views section as the Sunni books do not say this:

The rebel army reached Basra, and encamped close by. Upon entering the city of Basra, Aisha ordered 600 Muslims beheaded, including 40 in the grand mosque, who were considered to be on Ali's side.

Or you could leave it out. The less arguments the better :)

Also keep the battle of siffin out. A small to the point article, that every one agrees to will be better and every one will be happy --Johnleeds1 (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

To my understanding the only area where sunni and shia differentiate is at the part of "The Plot for Rebellion" the events before that is agreed upon since they are documented in both shia and sunni books and cited in the article.

The a majority of shia sources in this article are done by historical scholars. But most of the sunni sources are from primary sources not from historical scholars. And I agree that there needs to be more western books like Madelung and others. Zabranos (talk) 21:32, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

When Uthman was killed the governor in Kufa was Abu Musa al-Ashari. Uthman had removed Waleed ibn Uqba from the position of governor and replaced him with Sa'id ibn al-As. The Qurra then stopped Sa'id ibn al-As and replaced him with Abu Musa al-Ashari. All those events are covered in other articles. I agree with Qwyrxian, as he said:"this article should not be about "the events that sparked the initial tension leading to the Battle of the Camel itself"; it should be about "the Battle of the Camel"." Just keep it simple. As Ali said: "The point of contention between us was the question of the murder of Uthman. It had created the split. I advised them that this problem cannot be solved by excitement. Let the excitement subside, let us cool down; let us do away with sedition and revolt; let the country settle down into a peaceful atmosphere and when once a stable regime is formed and the right authority is accepted, then let this question be dealt with on the principles of equity and justice because only then the authority will have power enough to find the criminals and to bring them to justice." All the early books say that the first fitna was about bringing the people who killed Uthman to Justice. Ali also wanted to bring them to justice the question was about timing. If it is kept simple on the points agreed to by every one it will avoid future arguments.

--Johnleeds1 (talk) 21:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The initial tension which led to the war is relevant because it sparked the political conflict about the Caliphate which led to the war. Historians always mention events that sparked conflicts before mentioning the battles themselves. For example, historians alway mention the stamp act, Boston massacre, Boston tea party, and other events as a spark to the Revolutionary war. The information that was obviously irrelevant was the information about Muawiyah, the Kawarij (who arose after the battle of Siffin not Jamal), the peace treaty with Hassan, and Yazid elected as caliph after Muawiyah. How do those events tie into the battle of the camel. On the other hand, the events that sparked the tension basically caused the battle to occur making it relevant. In addition, I think that the events that sparked the war should be kept in the article because not a lot of people know about them. And Im not trying to be hypocritical or biased in any way shape or form. Im just trying to decipher what is relevant and what is irrelevant. Zabranos (talk) 21:45, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• The fact that Uthman removed Waleed is accurate but he did so after the public opposed Uthman but it was too late since the public was already angry. This ultimately lead to his death (causing political conflicts for power). This bit of information should be added into the "Downfall of Uthman" but make sure to reference it properly. Use Easybib.com.

Moved most of the irrelevant info to the First Fitna article. Since we agreed that this article should only talk about the battle. Zabranos (talk) 05:13, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The Khawarij did not just appear out of thin air. The Khawarij were there before from the beginning, they were just called Qurra. Every old book has references to them. Their official title changed to Khawarij and they formed their own political movement after the battle of Siffin. --Johnleeds1 (talk) 07:29, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I personally think that this article needs to be neutral and needs to be base on the non-Muslim orientalist sources like the best selling book "In the shadow of the sword, The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World" by Tom Holland. He goes through the archeological evidence, the roman and the Jewish history books from the time and shows you the political and the economic interests of the different groups after the collapse of the Persian Empire and the defeat of the Romans. He shows how important the economic interests of the Kawarij were in all this. The book "Muawiya Restorer of the Muslim Faith By Aisha Bewley" says the same thing and if you go through the early Muslim books they also show the economic aspects. Have any of you read the book "Muawiya Restorer of the Muslim Faith By Aisha Bewley". You need to read a book before dismissing it. You could buy it from amazon. It meets the Wikipedia guidelines. Aisha Bewley translates a lot of old books and you could read them on her website http://bewley.virtualave.net/. But this article needs to be independent and from a non Muslim perspective. Muslims just argue on Wikipedia. The al-islam.org website and Wilferd Madelung create just as many arguments. Wilferd Madelung works for the Institute for Ismaili Studies in London which is funded by Aga Khan. This article needs to be independent and from a non Muslim perspective. Or it needs to be kept short and to the point like Qwyrxian said. --Johnleeds1 (talk) 12:59, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Zabranos is blocked for a week for abusing multiple accounts. (See here for details.) *Nanner-Nanner (talk · contribs) is a  Confirmed sock of Zabranos (talk · contribs)

References

"I personally think that this article needs to be neutral and needs to be base on the non-Muslim orientalist sources like the best selling book "In the shadow of the sword, The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World" by Tom Holland. "

How are non-Muslim orientalist sources neutral? Least of all Tom Holland whose pseudo theories on Mecca actually being Petra, the 5 daily prayers coming from zoroastrianism among various other theories have been debunked numerous times FullMetal234 (talk) 16:42, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Madina

I changed all the references to "Madina" into "Medina", as I believe "Madina" is a variant spelling for the same city and that "Medina" is the standard spelling in English and on the English Wikipedia. The mix of spellings within a single article was confusing. If this is incorrect, please include some explanation to correct my ignorance.Wcoole (talk) 17:44, 26 September 2014 (UTC)--

External links modified

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Changes reverted without clear substantiation?

@Hammad: My changes focused on two things. 1. Improving the grammar of the sentences because the coherence of this page is very poor, and 2. Adding more clarity and information about the Sunni perspective from a Sunni source. These changes were reverted without a clear explanation. I would like to undo this reversion if a clear explanation is not provided. On the other hand, if a more substantive explanation is provided, and my method of adding these changes were genuinely flawed, I would like the opportunity to address the contentions or to incorporate my edits in a more sound and acceptable way using your feedback. Thank you. --SacredSunflower (talk) 18:38, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

---

Since I haven't received any response, I'm going to go ahead and revert. --SacredSunflower (talk) 01:42, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

In need of a major revision

As noted by others on this page, large parts of this article are poorly written and/or poorly sourced. I'm hoping to work on this article over the next few weeks to try and improve it a bit. I'll propose the major changes here first (if any). Albertatiran (talk) 17:15, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Date conflict

The section on the battle claims that the "battle began at noon on a December day in 656 CE" while the info-box says "7 November 656 CE (13 Jumada Al-Awwal 36 AH)". These claims cannot both be true. AstroLynx (talk) 12:46, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Fixed! Albertatiran (talk) 14:08, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps not! 8 December 656 converts to 14 (or 15) Jumada al-Thani or al-Akhirah [Jumada II, not Jumada I as given by Madelung] 36 AH in the Islamic calendar. Perhaps a printer's typo, I instead of II, or perhaps an error by Madelung? What do other sources say? AstroLynx (talk) 14:49, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Citations

There is very few variations in the key areas of contention. I know this is wikipedia, but god its the same five citations over and over again. We don’t rely on primary sources only, but we shouldn’t rely on the same five secondary’s. 2001:1970:5163:1200:0:0:0:5214 (talk) 15:31, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

You have a good point. I do hope to revise the article or parts of it in the next couple of months. I'll try to improve the quality of the sources (e.g., remove Rogerson) and add new reliable sources. Albertatiran (talk) 17:12, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Sindhi people

At that time the Sindhi people were under the Brahmin Shahi Chach, so whatever went on from the Sindh side in this war, it went only with the permission of the raja Chach! 103.206.177.49 (talk) 10:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Banu Umayya vs Umayyad Caliphate

It is to be noted that Banu Umayyah refers to the Tribe that would later found the Umayyad Caliphate and Dynasty. In 656 CE, at the time of this battle, only the former existed. Haditaha.z (talk) 07:43, 5 April 2023 (UTC)