If I had not the fear that some people of my Ummah might say...

If I had not the fear that some people of my Ummah might say what the Christians said about `Isa (a.s), I would have said something about you that people would pick up the soil from under your very feet, wherever you went!”[1] The success of this campaign was because of the leadership of `Ali (a.s) in planning the strategy of war. He kept a keen eye on the reasons of the failure of the previous attempts and took care to eliminate them.

In the first attempt, they were lethargic and careless in their movement. Having gone to the den of the enemy, they casually retired to sleep without even posting nominal night vigil. The second and third attempts they made the mistake of following the same route of travel and thus gave early warning of their arrival to the enemy. `Ali (a.s) eliminated all these faults and added the element or surprise by traveling in the night and reaching the arena just before dawn!

If he had made the same mistakes as the first three leaders did, his attempt might have met with the same result as theirs did! [1] Kitāb al-irshād Shaykh al-Mufīd, Page 76 Previous…