366 WARS OF THE CALIPHS. 



resembling the quills of a porcupine. The bravest 

 in Ihe ranks successively lield the reins of the ani- 

 mal, chanting- pieces of poetry ; and in this arduous 

 duty not fe.ver than 280 were numbered among the 

 killed and wounded, most of whom had lost a hand. 

 The venerable heroine was not included in the list 

 of bondwomen, but dismissed with a select escort to 

 her home at iMedina. The battle of Khoraiba, or 

 the Day of the Camel, the first that stained the 

 arms of the IMoslems with civil blood, was fought in 

 the thirty-sixth year of the Hejira (December, 

 A. D. 656). 



Master of Irak, Ali received the submission of 

 Egy^pt, Arabia, Persia, and Khorasan ; but the sword 

 of rebellion was not broken. A more formidable 

 adversary remained to be vanquished in Syria, in the 

 person of the governor, .Moawiyah, who openly 

 threw oft" his allegiance, and had been proclaimed 

 caliph by the western provinces. The mosques 

 resounded with cries of vengeance for the death of 

 their legitimate sovereign. To inspire a just abhor- 

 rence of thi guilty perpetrators, the bloody shirt 

 of the murdered Othman,- with his wife's finger 

 pinned upon it, was exposed on the pulpit of Damas- 

 cus, and paraded at the head of the troops. 



The pacific overtures of Ali were rejected; both 

 parties appealed to the sabre as the arbiter of their 

 contested titles ; and on the plain of Seff'ein, which 

 extends along tlie western bank of the Euphrates, 

 near Racca, the two armies pitched their camps. 



On this spacious and bloody theatre 150,000 Mos- 

 lems waged a desultory war of 102 days ; for both 

 competitors seemed unwilling to peril their cause 

 on the hazard of a general engagement. Ninety 

 actions or skirmishes are recorded to have taken 

 place ; and in these the humanity of Ali was as con- 

 spicuous as his valour. He strictly enjoined his 

 troops invariably to await the first onset of the 

 enemy — to spare the fugitives, and respect the vir~ 



