Introduction: This is the Major Civil War We Are still Living its Darkness and Dire Results:

1- God in the Quran predicts that contemporaries of Muhammad will deny the Quran by their demeanor and behavior; this happened via the crimes of aggression called Arab conquests and its following crimes of aggressions called Arabian civil wars, which resulted in Arabs subdivided into groups, parties, factions, and cliques fighting one another in the what has been regarded as the worst internecine strife in the history of Arabia. Within the Mecca revelation of the Quran, God has addressed Muhammad in these verses that contain the prediction and warning in advance: "Say, "He is Able to send upon you an affliction, from above you, or from under your feet. Or He can divide you into factions, and make you taste the violence of one another. Note how We explain the revelations, so that they may understand." But your people rejected the Quran, though it is the Truth. Say, "I am not responsible for you." For every prediction is a realization, and you will surely know." (6:65-67). We tend to think that such warning is not confined to Qorayish alone; rather, it applies to all people, eras, societies, and localities: anyone people or group who would manipulate the Quran, and thus denying and distorting its meanings in the process, for worldly gains, God will punished by God in this life before the Hereafter. And these divine punishments include epidemics, inevitable long fierce wars, corruption, deadly pollution of nature, etc. Thus, the Qorayish and especially the Umayyad powerful, arrogant, and affluent ones never paid heed to this Quranic warning and prediction, because they denied the Quran and disbelieved in it in the first place.

2- God replies to their denying and their disbelief in the Quranic message within two parts: the first part is the phrase told to Muhammad to tell it to them: "…Say, "I am not responsible for you."" (6:66). This means that there is a divine command directed to Muhammad to declare that he was not responsible for their deeds and faith (or lack of it), and such expression or stance is repeated in the Quranic text: Muhammad did not dominate or control anyone; he was merely messenger conveying God's message, without being responsible for the consequences or results, as God will judge all people in the Hereafter: "So remind, you are only a reminder, you have no control over them, but whoever turns away and disbelieves, God will punish him with the greatest punishment, to Us is their return, then upon US rests their reckoning" (88:21-26). Thus, Muhammad has nothing to do with anything in relation to others' faith or lack of it and their deeds, good and bad, "It is no concern of yours whether He redeems them or punishes them…" (3:128), this is God's business and concern, not any mortal's: "And say to those who do not believe, "Act according to your ability; and so will we." "And wait; we too are waiting." To God belongs the future of the heavens and the earth, and to Him all authority goes back. So worship Him, and rely on Him. Your Lord is never unaware of what you do." (11:121-123). The second part of God's reply is as follows: "For every prediction is a realization, and you will surely know" (6:67), and this divine warning is addressed to those who deny the Quran: the message of God. This warning or prediction shows the inevitability of their being punished in the near future because of their denial. Of course, not all contemporaries of Muhammad denied the Quran, but this denial was adopted by the dominant majority, like the Umayyads for instance. In our opinion, this is the meaning of this verse: "But your people rejected the Quran…" (6:66). We note that the Quranic Chapter 8 tackles mostly Qorayish, with its believers and disbelievers, as this Chapter was revealed after the Battle of Badr when early Muslims defeated Qorayish. After tackling aggressive polytheists of Qorayish, we read this stern warning addressed to the immigrants to Yathreb among the believers who came from Qorayish as well: "O you who believe! Obey God and His Messenger, and do not turn away from him when you hear. And be not like those who say, "We hear", when they do not hear. The worst of animals to God are the deaf and dumb – those who do not reason. Had God recognized any good in them, he would have made them hear; and had He made them hear, they would have turned away defiantly. O you who believe! Respond to God and to His divine message when He calls you to what will revive you. And know that God stands between a man and his heart, and that to Him you will be gathered. And remember when you were few, oppressed in the land, fearing that people may capture you, but He sheltered you and supported you with His victory and provided you with good things – so that you may be thankful. O you who believe! Do not betray God and His divine message, nor betray your trusts, while you know. And know that your possessions and children are a test and that God possesses an immense reward" (8:20-28). We maintain that such a warning has been addressed mainly to immigrants among the so-called companions, as we discern here from the fact that God here has reminded them of the persecution they suffered earlier. We can conclude then that such warning came after the contemporaries of Muhammad among the immigrants participated in the Battle of Badr committed mistakes that entailed rebuke from God, and God warns them here against their intended betrayal. Sadly, we conclude here that even the few Qorayish believers among immigrants had some measure of doubts and denial within their hearts; or else, why would God address this warning to them?! This stern warning implies that among them those who were unjust and obeying their whims and do not heed God's Word, but obey words of the unjust sinners and deniers. That is why God here reminds them of their being formerly oppressed and persecuted and then warns them against betraying God. This stern warning comes from the Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent Almighty God, Who has exposed here in these above-mentioned verses the inner layers of the deniers' thoughts and intentions that were in direct contrast with their overt showing off their faith and piety, within these early days of Islam as a burgeoning religion at the time. This tells us that most people of Muhammad denied the Quran, and this indicates Qorayish in general: "But your people rejected the Quran…" (6:66).        

3- Such predictions and warnings were never heeded by the Qorayish tribesmen; they fell into a trap of their own doing once Muhammad died and the revelation of the Quran was completed. Qorayish led, unified, controlled, and dominated Arabs in all Arabia, and immigrants to Yathreb joined forces with the rest of Qorayish tribesmen in Mecca who declared (and some feigned) conversions to Islam. We are not to forget that those immigrants have been warned sternly in the Quranic Chapter 8 as we detailed above and that those new 'converts' of Qorayish in Mecca had a long history of enmity and fighting against Islam and Muslims. When both groups were united later on, they had marginalized the Yathreb dwellers, despite God's praise of those dwellers who supported early believers as we know from the final verses of the Quranic Chapter 8. Thus, the immigrants, who originated from Qorayish, had ignored the warning of God about never forming alliances with disbelievers; see 8:72-75. Thus,  the Umayyads led and dominated Arabs and directed all situations once Muhammad died, causing Arabs to commit the crimes of aggression called Arab conquests, abusing and tarnishing the name of Islam in these crimes. This is deemed a crime against the Quranic sharia because Arabs in those conquests began aggression against innocent peaceful peoples who never fought Arabs; hence, Arabs did NOT require engaging in wars of self-defense. Thus, such conquests were aggression that contradicts Quranic sharia of Islam. Islam is against such aggression, conquering, enslavement, rape, looting, etc. Thus, the Umayyads controlled everything concerning this unjust aggression behind curtains during the caliphates of Abou Bakr, Omar, and Othman, and later on fought Ali in civil wars that went on for years with dire consequences and heavy losses and thousands of killed ones in order to establish their ruling dynasty and hereditary rule: the Umayyad Empire. In these civil wars, most former immigrants met their deaths of both sides of Ali and Mu'aweiya, including Talha and Al-Zubayr who incited such civil wars at first, and each party claimed falsely to fight for God's cause! Before such civil wars, the Umayyads, headed by Abou Sufyan and his son Mu'aweiya, plotted the assassination of Abou Bakr and Othman and caused indirectly the assassination of Ali and Omar. The Battle of the Camel, our next topic here, was the embodiment of the curse that befell Arabs at the time, and of God's punishment and fulfillment of the Quranic predictions. Massacres of this battle were repeated in the ensuing battles of Siffein and Nahrawan, during the caliphate of Ali, and wars went on between Mu'aweiya, as a caliph, and Al-Khawarij group of rebel fighter, and his successor, Yazeed, as caliph, three massacres and heinous crimes were committed: attacking and committing massacres and rape in Karbala city in Iraq, Yathreb in Arabia, and later on the siege of the Kaabah Mosque in Mecca and striking the Kaabah with catapults an d heavy rocks.

Firstly: Lines about the Caliphate of Ali from "Al-Tabakat Al-Kobra" by the Historian Ibn Saad:

1- (…When Othman was assassinated in Friday, Zu Al-Hijja, in 35 A.H., Ali was proclaimed as caliph in Yathreb next day, and all Yathreb dwellers, including Talha, Al-Zubayr, Saad Ibn Abou Waqqas, swore fealty and allegiance to him…).

2- (…Talha and al-Zubayr swore fealty to Ali reluctantly, and went out of Yathreb, heading to Mecca to meet Aisha, and the three of them went to Basra, in Iraq, inciting others to avenge the death of Othman, and when Ali got news of that call for sedition, he led troops to Basra, sending envoys to Al-Kufa to ask its dwellers to support the troops of Ali, and all their forces joined on the route to Basra…). Of course, the result was the Battle of the Camel. (…Talha, al-Zubayr, and Aisha gathered forces from Arabs of Basra to engage in fighting against Ali, who defeated them, and Talha and Al-Zubayr were killed in the process, among 13.000 killed soldiers, and Ali stayed for 15 days in Basra and then went to Al-Kufa…).

3- Later on, the Battle of Siffein began soon enough: (…Ali gathered forces from Al-Kufa and went to fight Mu'aweiya, governor of the Levant, to remove him from his post by force, and Mu'aweiya prepared his troops, fighting Ali in Saffar in 37 A.H. for days, and most allies of Ali got killed in the battlefield, like Ammar Ibn Yasser, and then, the Levantine troops raised copies of the Quran in the air by their hands, calling for arbitration using the Quran, and this was an intrigue and plot of Amr Ibn Al-'As, who advised Mu'aweiya to do so to urge warring parties to stop fighting and call for a peace treaty after arbitration. Mu'aweiya chose Amr as his deputy an arbiter in these negotiations, whereas Ali chose Abou Moussa Al-Ashaary. Negotiations resulted in waiting for the end of the year, within a temporary truce, and then, Mu'aweiya returned to Damascus after he gained the contentment of his allies and supporters, and Ali returned into Al-Kufa after he gained the ire and discontent of his allies and supporters…).

4- This arbitration, and its results, was forced on Ali's supporters and followers by those of Mu'aweiya, and their ire and fury led them to turn against Ali, and this group of rebels called themselves Al-Khawarij (literally in classical Arabic: those who 'went out of the group'), but Ali killed most rebels of these group during the Battle of Nahrawan. Those members of Al-Khawarij used to shout the slogan ''judgment is by God alone!'', and when they began to murder some of Ali's supporters, he led his troops to fight them in an area called Nahrawan, in 38 A.H., after negotiations between Ali's man, Abdullah Ibn Abbas, and AL-Khawarij failed and they reached an impasse. After this victory, Ali returned to Al-Kufa, surrounded by his supporters and allies who feared one of the descendants of Al-Khawarij might kill him, which just happened later on.  

5- The arbitration results came on the favor of Mu'aweiya because Amr, the cunning mastermind, managed to deceive Abou Moussa Al-Ashaary, when they gathered with all men in 38 A.H., including Abdullah Ibn Omar and Saad Ibn Abou Waqqas among other companions, and Al-Ashaary delivered a speech first to urge that both Ali and Mu'aweiya should be deposed from their posts in Yathreb and the Levant, respectively, and declared that ali is no longer a caliph. When he waited for Amr to declare Mu'aweiya as no longer the governor/ruler of the Levant, Amr did the exact opposite: he urged people to swear fealty to Mu'aweiya as the next caliph, and people agreed and went away!

6- Al-Tabary mentions that one member of Al-Khawarij, named Abdel-Rahman Ibn Meljam, assassinated Ali when the latter was about to enter a mosque to pray the dawn prayers, but on his way, two men interrupted him, saying that judgment is for God alone, not for Ali along with Him, and one man caught Ali and the other assassin struck him with the sword on the head, and then the other man struck him in the chest. People gathered and saw the result of the horrid act of murder, and the dying Ali urged them to avenge him by killing both murderers. When Aisha heard about the assassination of Ali, she rejoiced and gloated about it, and she deemed it glad tidings and recited some poetic verses! Thus ended the very first episode of the series of horrendous events called Arab civil wars, during the sacred months as usual, when they were violated as typical at the time, and in few years later on, the Kaabah Mosque itself was violated by the Umayyads!

Secondly: The Analysis of the Battle of the Camel as a Divine Punishment:

1- This battle went on for just one day: Thursday, the month of Jamady Awwal, in 36 A.H., resulting in the death of 13.000 persons within troops of Aisha and 5.000 persons within troops of Ali. Those killed had lost their lives within a cursed, mad civil war that we deem as divine punishment; it was a lost cause and doomed to fail from the very beginning as the warring parties fight NOT in self-defense for the sake of God, but for the sake of rule, wealth, and power. This doom to failure was because of another important reason; both parties (i.e., supporters of Aisha, Talha, and al-Zubayr on one hand, and supporters of Ali on the other hand) were NOT among the two powerful factions of Qorayish: the Hashemites and the Umayyads. This very reason was the cause of the failure of the revolt of Abdullah Ibn Al-Zubayr later on against the Umayyads. Of course, there were other reasons for such a failure; the three leaders, Aisha, Talha, and al-Zubayr, who joined forces due to their deep-seated hatred toward the Umayyads and the Hashemites, felt competitive against one another, especially both Talha and al-Zubayr, as they competed who would be imam in congregational prayers and who among both of them would earn the right to be the next caliph, as we read in the history book of Al-Masoody. Of course, both Talha and al-Zubayr suffered here bovine stupidity, especially concerning the political aspect, because they both forgot they could not possibly defeat Mu'aweiya at all, and they never agreed as to whom among both of them would be caliph! Thus, their fighting Ali was sheer madness and akin to suicide.

2- both Talha and al-Zubayr lowered themselves into a degrading pit of telling lies and in mass-murder, when they told and swore to God before Ali, back in Yathreb, that they would go to Mecca to perform pilgrimage, not to Basra or the Levant as Ali presumed, so as to allow them get out of Yathreb in peace, but in fact, as Ali knew later on, they went to Basra to call for sedition and to gather troops to fight Ali, and they in fact kidnapped and tortured the governor of Basra to give them the keys to steal all the money in his Treasury. Guards of the Treasury and other men tried to defend the place, but both Talha and al-Zubayr and their men killed about 70 men of them, and held 50 as captives, to be killed later on by imprisoning them and torturing them to death! Al-Masoody asserts that this was the first time after Islam that someone would dare to torture others to death. Shortly before the Battle of the Camel, Ammar Ibn Yasser tried to preach them to convince them to stop their aggression and surrender to the caliph, Ali, but both Talha and al-Zubayr tried to shoot their arrows at him, but he fled in a narrow escape, and the Battle of the Camel began the next day.   

3- Of course, this battle was originally part of the Umayyad plots to get rid of Ali; Mu'aweiya masterminded it so as to deplete the energy of Ali and his troops with a sudden battle, and Mu'aweiya, for sure, manipulated the stupidity of Aisha, Talha, and Al-Zubayr as well  as their deep-seated hatred toward Ali and the Hashemites in general. Mu'aweiya incited them to fight and rebel against Ali under the pretext of calling for revenge for the assassination of Othman, despite the fact that these three persons were among those who incited and urged the siege and killing of Othman, and they were not part of his family or clan to call for revenge at all. Ironically, M. Ibn Abou Bakr, the younger brother of Aisha, joined the forces of Ali against those of Aisha, and we must not forget that her brother murdered Othman along with the rebels who broke into the house of Othman, and Aisha was akin to a mother to him who feared for his life and urged him to accompany her to Mecca shortly before the assassination of Othman.  

4- Moreover, the Umayyads not only incited the warring parties; but they also financed the leaders of the revolt against Ali: Yaali Ibn Umayyah was the former governor of Yemen appointed by Othman, and the son-in-law of Otba Ibn Abou Sufyan, brother of Mu'aweiya, and he came to Mecca to meet with Aisha, Talha, Al-Zubayr, and Marawan Ibn Al-Hakam, among others, giving them countless horses, weapons, arms, and the total sum of 400 thousand dirhams. This man gave Aisha, as a gift, the camel that carried her in a howdah in the battlefield, to urge her troops to fight and protect her. This cursed howdah caused the death of thousands of men each shouting God is the Greatest! (Allahu Akbar!). Aisha caused these men's deaths. Another man affiliated with Mu'aweiya, named Abdullah Ibn Amer the governor of Basra, advised the whole party to go to Basra under his protection and gave them one million dirhams plus 100 camels, as per the account told by Al-Masoody.

5- The Umayyads remained thankful and grateful for the military leaders, who were agents for the Umayyads, who played their role perfectly to incite others to fight against Ali, and thus a major step in the Mu'aweiya plot to appoint himself caliph and establish his Dynasty was completed. The Umayyads gave such military leaders several financial rewards before and after the Battle of the Camel, and appointed them in posts later on within the Umayyad Caliphate and Empire.

6- Ironically, Marawan Ibn Al-Hakam seized the chance of the Battle of the Camel to kill Talha to avenge the assassination of Othman. Marawan fought fiercely alongside Talha and Al-Zubayr at first, and toward the end of the battle, he seized the chance of being alone with Talha and no one was near them, shouted that he must avenge Othman from the man who killed him, and shot a deadly arrow at Talha, who died instantly, as per the account of Al-Masoody. When Al-Zubayr saw what happened to Talha, he tried to flee the battlefield, but another man who was friends with Othman overtook him and killed him with his sword. 

7- Shortly before the Battle of the Camel, Ali tried to negotiate with his foes to save all parties bloodshed by sending them an envoy from Al-Kufa to Basra carrying a copy of the Quran, calling them to make it its judge in this dispute, but military men of Basra within troops of Aisha killed this envoy, and people of Al-Kufa decried the fact that Aisha was content of bloodshed instead of seeking peace. Aisha was inside her howdah, on a camel, covered with animals hides for protection, and after the battle, it became like a hedgehog because of countless arrows stuck to it. One of Ali's men asked her shortly before the Battle about her purpose behind all this, and when Aisha replied that she sought to avenge Othman, the man told her that she was not one of Othman's kinsmen, folks, or even tried to demand such revenge, and men protecting her tried to shoot this envoy but he escaped and told Ali to prepare for a fierce battle. People of AL-Kufa abused Aisha verbally as she was the primary inciter of this civil war, and until now in the Shiite creed, abusing her verbally is part of Shiite rites. Ali asked his soldiers not to begin fighting unless they were attacked first. The battle began when both military troops shot arrows at each other, killing several men of both sides. The fighting grew fiercer with the passage of hours, and the howdah became like a hedgehog because of arrows stuck into it, with hundreds of corpses around it on the ground. It is rumored that when a man opened the door of the howdah suddenly, Aisha screamed at him and demanded who he was. This man was her younger brother, M. Ibn Abou Bakr, who told her his name and identity and asked if she was OK, and when she answered in the affirmative, Ali appeared suddenly and shouted at her to go home to Yathreb, rebuking her for disobeying the Quran (he referred to 33:33, the divine order to wives of Muhammad to settle at home) and telling her that she disgraced her late husband, Prophet Muhammad, by obeying insensible men who sought sedition, rebellion, and bloodshed and manipulated her. Ali sent her by force to Yathreb with armed guards led by her own younger brother, who took the side of Ali, as we mentioned before. After the victory of Ali, he entered Basra, and both the victorious party and the defeated one felt depression and cursed for several weeks, and a general morning for the dead went on in every house with families who lost one or more than one man, to the extent that no one offered condolences to anyone; all families were too busy lamenting their dead. Hatred of people toward Ali increased because of that. 

Lastly:

1- the generation of the companions who committed the crime called Arab conquests committed unsolicited and unwanted aggressions and massacres against peaceful nations (in North Africa, the Levant, Iraq, and Persia) that never fought them at all, and thus incurred upon themselves the curse against which God warns in the Quran; see 8:25. These aggressive companions proved that God's view of them is right: most of them were deniers of the Quran; see 6:66, and the predictions in 6:65 and 6:67 have been fulfilled in the Arab civil wars, Ali vs. Mu'aweiya, and the other civil wars and rebellions that followed later on.  

2- No one of them, and of us today, tried hard to contemplate upon and sought to understand verses of the Quran as one should: "…Note how We explain the revelations, so that they may understand." (6:65). Hence, civil wars that began with killing Othman and went on for years intermittently until now in today's Middle East are God's curse upon deniers of the Quran: those who have forsaken it and established and followed earthly, man-made (Sunnite and Shiite) creeds that were formed because of these civil wars of Ali vs. Mu'aweiya. until this very moment, the Shiite creed followers live with the mentality of the Middle Ages of the 7^th century A.D., cursing and hating all companions that fought Ali or let him down, like Aisha, Abou Bakr, Omar, Othman, Al-Zubayr, Talha, Mu'aweiya, Yazeed, Abou Hurayrah, etc.

3- In contrast, Sunnite creed followers of today revere, deify, and worship all companions, including Ali, and insist that part of their creed tents is the notion that all of those companions were infallible and could never commit mistakes and errors at all! Thousands hadiths have been concocted and formulated to assert such a view and to ascribe it to Muhammad himself! Such a view causes headaches and depression to Shiites, as if the events of the 7^th century A.D. are being re-played daily before their eyes! Any news reel in any Arab TV channel will prove that the Shiite-Sunnite strife is still active, especially in today's Iraq. This is so painful, shocking, and grievous; the Battle of the Camel was the very first sign of the curse that befell the so-called companions and realized and fulfilled warnings and predictions of 6:65-67, never heeded by Arabs, past and present.

4- That is why civil strife within some Arab countries goes on: the curse of forsaking the Quran is striking Sunnites and Shiites until this very moment.