After that he glanced at you and said...

After that he glanced at you and said: “O Zubair, you would fight Ali while you would be in the wrong with relation to him…” Zubair recalled that event while pain and remorse was killing him and due to that condition of his he was very much ashamed. He glanced at the Imam, confirming the Imam’s statement. “Yes, by Allah.” [1] Seer A’laamun Nubla 3/288 “Then why are you fighting me?” “By Allah, I had forgotten it.

If I had remembered it, I would not have come out against you and fought you.” [1] “Go back.” “How can I go back when battle is raging on both the sides? And by Allah it is a shame that cannot be washed off.” “Go back, before degradation and Hellfire get you.” He pulled the reins of his horse while confusion and worry had afflicted him. He was going reciting the following couplets: “I preferred humiliation to the flame of Hell as anything made of clay is not able to bear it.

Ali told me something I was not aware of. By your life, humiliation shall be in the world and religion. I said: O Abal Hasan, do not flay me more as this much is sufficient for me.”[2] Imam (‘a) returned to his men and they said to him, “You went unarmed to Zubair while he was fully armed. Do you know his valor?” Imam said, “He is not my killer; my killer shall be a person of unknown parentage, of not much status in a place other than a battlefield and not in the arena of warriors. Woe be on him!

He is the most wretched human and he shall desire that his mother had not given birth to him. Know that! He and the red-faced people of Thamud shall be together…” [3] Zubair harkened to the Imam’s call and he went to Ayesha and told her: “Mother of believers, I am certainly not standing in a place but that I recognize the place where I have placed my feet.

Except for this condition that I don’t know whether I am fortunate or unfortunate.” Ayesha understood his changed mood that he has decided to leave the battlefield. So in order to arouse his sentiments she said in a taunting way, “O Abu Abdillah, are you scared of the sword of Abdul Muttalib’s family?” This ridicule almost killed him.

Then his son Abdullah criticized him through fear and trepidation and said, “You came out with full realization but when you saw the standard of the son of Abu Talib you knew that you shall be killed under it and therefore you became fearful?” Although he had not come out with full understanding and neither was he aware of his condition. He had come out only for power and rulership.