ef leader of the Yemenites in Ali's army, Ash'ath b. Qais,
knew beforehand that this appeal would be made. Certainty is not to be
obtained in the whole matter.

On each side an umpire was appointed, Abu Musaa al-Ash'ari, the
candidate of Ash'ath, on that of Ali, Amr-ibn-el-Ass (q.v.) on that of
Moawiya. The arbitrators met in the year 37 (A.D. 658) at Adhroh, in the
south-east of Syria, where are the ruins of the Roman Castra described
by Brunnow and Domaszewsky (_Die Provincio Arabia_, i. 433-463). Instead
of this place, the historians generally put Dumat-al-Jandal, the
biblical Duma, now called Jauf, but this rests on feeble authority. The
various accounts about what happened in this interview are without
exception untrustworthy. J. Wellhausen, in his excellent book _Das
arabische Reich und sein Sturz_, has made it very probable that the
decision of the umpires was that the choice of Ali as caliph should be
cancelled, and that the task of nominating a successor to Othman should
be referred to the council of notable men (_shura_), as representing the
whole community. Ali refusing to submit to this decision, Moawiya became
the champion of the law, and thereby gained at once considerable support
for the conquest of Egypt, to which above all he directed his efforts.
As soon as Amr returned from Adhroh, Moawiya sent him with an army of
four or five thousand men against Egypt. About the same time the
constitutional party rose against Ali's vicegerent Mahommed, son of Abu
Bekr, who had been the leader of the murderous attack on Othman.
Mahommed was beaten, taken in his flight, and, according to some
reports, sewn in the skin of an ass and burned.

Moawiya, realizing that Ali would take all possible means to crush him,
took his measures accordingly. He concluded with the Greeks a treaty, by
which he pledged himself to pay a large sum of money annually on
condition that the emperor should give him hostages as a pledge for the
maintenance of peace. Ali, however, had first to deal with the
insurrection of the Kharijites, who condemned the arbitration which
followed the battle of Siffin as a deed of infidelity, and demanded that
Ali should break the compact (see above, A.4). Freed from this
difficulty, Ali prepared to direct his march against Moawiya, but his
soldiers declined to move. One of his men, Khirrit b. Rashid, renounced
him altogether, because he had not submitted to the decision of the
umpires, and persuaded many othe