THE KHAREJITES, OR THEOCRATIC SEPARATISTS, DEFEATED
AT NEHRWAN.
A.H. XXXVII. A.D. 658.
[Sidenote: Aly’s designs against Syria.]
Aly, as the reader will suppose, was not content with heaping
imprecations on his antagonist. He resolved on the immediate renewal of
hostilities. But he had other work before him first in dealing with the
fanatics nearer home.
[Sidenote: Hostile attitude of the theocractic faction. Ramadhân, A.H.
XXXVII. Jan. A.D. 658.]
Ever since they had broken up their camp at Harôra, these, instead of
settling down in sentiments of loyalty and peace, had been gaining in
aggressive force and stubbornness. There should (such was their cry) be
no oath of fealty but to the Lord alone, the Mighty and the Glorious.
To swear allegiance either to Aly or Muâvia was in derogation of that
great name. ‘Ye are both of you,’ they would say, ‘coursing along, neck
and neck, in the race of apostasy: the Syrians run after Muâvia whether
the way be right or wrong, and ye swear for Aly through black and
white. It is nought but blasphemy.’ So they formulated their creed into
one short sentence: _No judgment, but the Lord’s alone_; and this
they insolently flung in Aly’s teeth.[549] In vain the Caliph argued,
as he had done before, that the Arbitration had been forced upon him
by themselves. ‘It is true,’ they would readily reply; ‘but we have
repented of that lapse; and thou must repent of it likewise, or else we
shall fight against thee; and if so be that we are slain, we shall meet
our Lord with joy.’ [Sidenote: Aly’s forbearance.]Aly yet hoped to gain
them over. He bore with their seditious talk; and in a public address
in the Great Mosque at Kûfa, he declared his intention of treating
them with forbearance. ‘They should have free access to the mosques
for prayer. If they joined his army, they should share the booty like
the rest. So long as they refrained themselves from any overt act of
disloyalty, he would use no force of arms against them.’
[Sidenote: The Khârejites march to Nehrwân. Shawwâl, A.H. XXXVII.
March, A.D. 658.]
Instead of softening the fanatics, this moderation only tended to
embolden them. When the Umpires’ judgment was announced, they were
elated at a result which in their eyes amply justified their secession
at Siffîn. They held frequent meetings in secret, and resolved on
raising the Divine standard. They looked for heavenly interposition;
but even if they perished, it would be in a righteous cause, sure to
triumph in the end; they would, at any rate, be protesting against a
wicked world, and become inheritors of a blessed futurity. In the month
following the Arbitration, they began accordingly, in concert with the
brethren who sympathised with them at Bussorah, to leave their homes
by stealth. The party from Bussorah, five hundred strong, was pursued
by the governor, Ibn Abbâs; but they effected their escape, and joined
the bands which in greater force had issued forth from Kûfa. Secular
power, and the dignity and pomp of this life, were abhorrent from
these Covenanters’ creed; and it was only after many had declined the
dangerous pre-eminence, and then simply as a temporary expedient to
meet the present necessity, that a chief was prevailed on to accept
the supreme command. The design was to occupy the city of Medâin, upon
the Tigris, and there, under a Council of Representatives, establish
theocratic rule as a model to the ungodly cities around. But the
governor had timely warning, and repulsed the attempt. They passed on,
and crossed the river farther up in various bodies, and, appointing
Nehrwân as their rendezvous, assembled there to the number of 4,000.
[Sidenote: Aly orders levy for Syrian campaign.]
Aly did not at first recognise the serious character and bearing of the
movement. The number of the fanatics was comparatively insignificant;
and he hoped that, when they saw their former comrades in arms
marching against the graceless Syrians, they would not hesitate again
to join his standard. So he mounted the pulpit and harangued the men
of Kûfa. He reprobated the Umpires, because they had cast the Book
of the Lord, equally with the precedent of the Prophet, behind their
backs. Both were apostates, rejected of the Lord, of his Prophet, and
of all good men. ‘Wherefore,’ he concluded, ‘we must begin to fight
our battle again at the point where, on the eve of victory, we were
forced to leave it off. Prepare then to march for Syria, and be ready
in your camp without the city, by the second day of the coming week.’
[Sidenote: And summons the theocrats, who refuse to join him.]Then he
indited a despatch to the fanatics at Nehrwân. It was couched in terms
similar to his address, and ended thus: ‘Now, therefore, when ye have
read this, return forthwith and join the army. I am marching against
the common enemy, yours and ours alike; and we have come back again to
the state of things when aforetime at Siffîn ye were fighting by my
side.’ In reply Aly received an insulting message: ‘If he acknowledged
his apostasy and repented thereof, then they would see whether anything
could be arranged between them; otherwise they cast him off as an
ungodly heretic.’ The stiff-necked theocrats were thereupon, for the
present, left to their own devices, and the business of raising levies
for Syria proceeded with. [Sidenote: Aly marches for Syria.]But little
enthusiasm was anywhere displayed in the cause of Aly. Of the 60,000
fighting men drawing stipendiary allowances in Bussorah, 3,000 were
with difficulty got together. At Kûfa, after vain appeal to the loyalty
of the city, a conscription was ordered through the heads of clans; and
thus at length an army of threescore and five thousand men of every
rank and class was brought into the field.[550]
[Sidenote: But is diverted by the excesses of the fanatic host.]
With this imposing force, Aly had already commenced his march on Syria,
when tidings reached him that the fanatics were committing horrid and
cold-blooded outrages in the country round about their camp.[551] A
messenger was sent to make inquiry; but he too was put to death by
the insurgents. The tidings of their proceedings became more and more
alarming, and the men of Kûfa demanded to be led against them; ‘for
how,’ said they, ‘can we leave such outlaws unpunished and at large
behind us, and our homes exposed to their unlicensed cruelties?’ Aly
himself, seeing that this must be done, changed his course eastward,
crossed the Tigris, and marched against the fanatics. When now near
to Nehrwân, he sent a messenger forward, to demand that the murderers
should be delivered up. ‘Surrender these to justice,’ he said, ‘and
ye shall be left alone, until the Lord grant us victory in Syria, and
then haply He shall have turned your hearts again toward us.’ They
replied that ‘they were all equally responsible for what had passed,
and that the blood of the ungodly heretics they had slain was lawful
to them.’ A parley ensued, in which the Caliph through his captains
expostulated with the misguided fanatics, and offered quarter to all
who should come over to his army, or retire peaceably to their homes.
[Sidenote: The fanatics at Nehrwân dispersed and slain.]Some obeyed
the call and came over; 500 went off to a neighbouring Persian town,
and many more dispersed in other directions to their homes at Kûfa or
elsewhere. Eighteen hundred remained upon the field, martyrs to the
theocratic creed. With the wild battle cry, _On to Paradise!_ they
rushed upon the Kûfa lances, and were slain to a man. Aly’s loss was
trifling.[552]
[Sidenote: The Khârejites again appear in the field. A.H. XXXVII. A.D.
658.]
It would have been better for the peace of Islam if none of the four
thousand had escaped. The snake was scotched, not killed. The fanatic
spirit was strangely catching; and the theocratic cause continued to be
canvassed vigorously and unceasingly, but in secret, at Bussorah and at
Kûfa. However hopeless the attainment of their object might appear, the
fanatics were nerved, if not by the expectation of Divine aid, at the
least by the sure hope of a Martyr’s crown. In the following year armed
bodies once and again appeared unexpectedly in the field, denouncing
Aly, and proclaiming that the Kingdom of the Lord was at hand. One
after another these bands of insurgent fanatics were cut to pieces, or
put to flight with ease. But the effect was unsettling; and it could
not but endamage the name and power of Aly, who now reaped the fruit
of his weak compromise with the enemies of Othmân, and his neglect to
bring them to justice. [Sidenote: They become a thorn in the Moslem
empire.]Fanatical in their extravagant doctrine, they were too sincere
to combine with any of the political sects, and hence they never came
near to leaving any permanent mark of their theocratic creed behind
them. But both at this period and in succeeding reigns, we find them
at intervals gathering up their strength to assail the empire, and as
often beaten back. Ever and anon, for years, and even for ages, these
_Khârejites_ still ‘went forth’[553] on their desperate errand, a
thorn in the side of the Caliphate, and a terror to the well-disposed.