Dictionary of Battles / From the Earliest Date to the Present Time

by Thomas Benfield Harbottle

Siffin.

A series of actions extending over a hundred days, in 656, between the Moslems, under the Caliph Ali, and the adherents Moawiyeh, the son of Abu Sophian, a pretender to the Caliphate. In the course of these engagements Ali lost 25,000, and Moawiyeh 45,000 men, but the latter was undefeated, and the sanguinary conflict was ended by an unsatisfactory compromise.