them: 'She did not become pregnant from a man directly. She is a virgin yet she is pregnant. She will give birth to a boy who will be blue-eyed, broad-shouldered, with joined eyebrows and a hanging lock of hair; he will fight me with the Khawarij and I shall kill him without iron [weapons].' They said to him: 'We want to know the clarification of that.' He — Exalted Glory — said to them: 'She came to a certain spring to wash clothes; a certain man had come to the spring, wiped himself, and discharged [seminal fluid]. Your sister took the wool and used it, and she conceived from it.'

It is related from Abu al-Aswad that he said: I was present for what Amir Al-Muminin — Exalted Glory — mentioned and I monitored the woman's delivery; the matter was exactly as Amir Al-Muminin — Exalted Glory — had stated. I was with Amir Al-Muminin — Exalted Glory — on the day of the battle with the Khawarij. A man came out against him, clad in iron and veiled with a red turban, seeking a duel. He went out to him and ordered me to follow him, saying to me: 'O Abu al-Aswad, this is the one who was conceived from the discharge.' Then he said: 'O Earth, take him!' and it split open and swallowed him.

Among them is that a group came to Amir Al-Muminin — Exalted Glory — with a sister of theirs and said: 'O Amir Al-Muminin, this sister of ours has become pregnant and brought shame upon us; we want you to carry out the legal punishment upon her.' He said to them: 'She did not become pregnant from corruption.' They said: 'Make the clarification of that known to us.' He said to them: 'Go to such-and-such spring and bring me water from it.' They went and brought him water from it. He ordered them to put it in a basin (ṭast) and ordered the girl to sit in the water after being heated in it. She sat in it after being veiled, then she moaned and cried out, and there befell her what befalls women during childbirth. Then she stood up, having cast out a blood clot ('alaqa) as large as the greatest of vulvas.