First Fitna - Battle of The Camel

Battle of The Camel

Ali was first opposed by a faction led by Talhah, Al-Zubayr, and Muhammad's wife Aisha bint Abu Bakr. First they gathered in Mecca then moved to Basra with the expectation of finding the necessary forces and resources to mobilize people in what is now Iraq. The opposers encamped close to Basra, and the subsequent heated exchange & protests during the parley turned from words to blows, leading to loss of life on both sides. When Ali asked them for obedience and a pledge of allegiance, they refused. Ali tried to negotiate with Aisha considering her the venerated wife of Muhammad, but she refused. At last the two parties met at the Battle of the Camel in 656, where Ali emerged victorious.

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