The Battle of Siffin: Its Causes and Consequences

Abstract

 The Battle of Siffin, which took place in an area called Siffin near the city of Raqqa in Syria, between the caliph of the Muslims Imam Ali (peace be upon him) and Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan in 37 AH, is one of the important battles in Islamic history, where tens of thousands of both sides were killed and the main reason for the battle was Muawiyah’s refusal to pledge allegiance to Imam Ali for the caliphate, and his insistence on the governorship of Syria and raising the slogan of demanding the blood of Uthman, in order to confer legitimacy on all his movements against the Imam, while he was greedy for power and staying in the governorship of Syria, which the Imam dismissed him from and appointed Abdullah bin Abbas, and the battle continued but when Muawiyah saw the victory of the Imam’s ally, especially after the killing of Ammar bin Yasser, Muawiyah cried out to Omar bin al-Aas “Woe to you, where is your trick?”, Omar said to him, ask everyone to raise the Qurans on the spears, and the people of Syria shouted “Fear God, O Ali, the Book of God is between us and you” and the people of Iraq were deceived, and the sedition occurred in the Imam’s army and they said to him, answer them to the Book of God or we will kill you, the Imam said to them “They are not people of religion or Quran” it is a deception which forced the Imam to accept the arbitration and the battle ended in the month of Ramadan in 38 AH and the issue of arbitration was settled in favor of Muawiyah, and the reason for that was the disobedience of the Imam by his army in appointing Abdullah bin Abbas to be his judge, and they asked that Abu Musa al-Ash’ari be, who was deceived by Omar to depose the two and make the matter a consultation between them, and he presented it with the excuse of his old age, so Abu Musa deposed the Imam and Omar came after him and deposed the Imam and confirmed Muawiyah and a quarrel occurred between the two and the issue of arbitration ended and the Imam returned to Kufa and was busy with the war of the Kharijites who raised the slogan “No rule but the rule of God”, and their number was twelve thousand "led by Abdullah bin Wahb al-Rasibi in the Battle of Nahrawan, which is located between Baghdad and Hillah belonging to the district of al-Mada’in, and the Imam killed them except forty people, and Muawiyah returned to Syria in their view the legitimate caliph, and they began to call him “the Prince of the Believers”