[100] And in it, when he resolved to fight the Kharijites and it was said that they had crossed the bridge of al-Nahrawan, he said: “Their places of slaughter are before the nutfa (water/river). By Allah, not ten of them shall escape, and not ten of you shall perish.”

Al-Sharif al-Radi said: By al-nutfa, he means the water, the water of the river. And Sheikh Muhammad 'Abduh said in his commentary: Only nine of them escaped, and only eight of the companions of the Commander of the Faithful were killed.

[101] And in it, from his words—Exalted is His might—addressing the people of Basra: “By Allah, your city shall surely drown, until I look at its mosque like the breast of a ship or a crouching ostrich.”

It came in the commentary by Sheikh Muhammad 'Abduh: “What the Commander of the Faithful promised occurred; Basra drowned. The water came to it from the Persian Sea from the direction of the place known as the Island of the Horse, and from the direction of the mountain known as Mount al-Sanam, and nothing remained visible of it except its grand mosque.”