Hadith 44

it with a day of chance’. Twenty thousand men aimed to him-asws saying, ‘O Ali-asws! Answer to the Book of Allah-azwj when you-asws being called to it, or else we will push you-asws and throw you-asws to the people, or we will do with you-asws what we had done with Usman! ’
He-asws said: ‘Memorise my-asws words from me-asws, for I-asws am ordering you with the fighting. If you disobey me-asws, then do whatever comes to you’. They said, ‘Send for Al-Ashtar to come to you-asws’. He-asws sent Yazeed Bin Hany Al-Sabie to call him. Al-Ashtar said, ‘I am hoping Allah-azwj will Grant victory to me. Do not hasten me’. And he intensified in the fighting. They said, ‘He is eager regarding the war, so send with your-asws determination for him to come to you-asws or else, by Allah-azwj, we will remove you-asws’. Ali-asws said: ‘O Yazeed! Return to him, tell him to return to us, for the Fitna has occurred’. Yazeed travelled to him and delivered to him the words of Ali-asws. Al-Ashtar came back and he was saying to the people of Al-Iraq, ‘O people of disgrace and weakness! Is it when you are higher than the people and they know that you are subduing them, so they are raising the Qurans to you as a deception and a plot? ’ They said, ‘We fought them regarding Allah-azwj and we leave fighting them now for the Sake of Allah-azwj’. He said, ‘Respite me for a while, for I can sense the victory and am certain with the winning’. They said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Respite me for the (final) galloping of my horse’. They said, ‘We neither obey you nor your companions, and we can see the Quran upon the top of the spears. We are called to it’. He said, ‘You are deceived, by Allah-azwj! They are deceiving you and calling you to place (terminate) the war, and you are answering’. A group from Bakr Bin Wail stood up and said, ‘O Amir Al-Momineen-asws! If you-asws answer the people, we shall answer, and if you-asws refuse, we shall refuse’. He-asws said, ‘We are more rightful ones to answer to the Book of Allah-azwj, and Muawiya, and Amro, and Ibn Abu Mueet, and Habeen Bin Maslama, and Ibn Abu sar’h, and Al-Zahhak Bin Qays aren’t companions of religion and Quran. I-asws are more knowing with them than you all. I-asws had accompanied them as children, and men’. In a speech of his (narrator), ‘The people of Syria said, ‘We have chosen Amro (Bin Al-Aas)’. Al-Ash’as, and Ibn Al-Kawa, and Mis’ar Al-Fadaky, and Zayd Al-Taie said, ‘We choose Abu Musa (Al Ashari)’. Amir Al-Momineen-asws said: ‘You have disobeyed me in the first matter, so do not disobey me-asws now’. They said, ‘Surely he-asws had cautioned us from what we have fallen into’. Amir Al-Momineen-asws said, ‘He isn’t trustworthy. He has separated from me-asws and has caused the people to abandon me-asws, then he fled from me-asws until I-asws granted