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Timeless Classics · Audiobook

Ali ibn Abi Talib, Volume One

Audiobook in English — narrated from the original Arabic · free to listen

Ali ibn Abi Talib, Volume One by Imam Ibn Kathīr is available as an English audiobook on Joyful Muslims, translated from the Arabic. It runs about seven hours across 69 chapters. Taken from Ibn Kathīr's history of Islam, it opens the account of the fourth caliphate: the pledge of allegiance in Medina, the Battle of the Camel, Siffin and the copies of the Qurʾān raised on spear points, the arbitration at Dumat al-Jandal, and Ali's fight with the Kharijites at Nahrawan.

By Abū al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar ibn Kathīr al-Dimashqī

أبو الفداء إسماعيل بن عمر بن كثير الدمشقي

Duration: 6h 54m
Access: Open to all
Language: English · Arabic

Ibn Kathīr opens the fourth caliphate with a withered hand: Ṭalḥa pledges first with the arm ruined at Uḥud shielding the Prophet, and a bystander reads it as an omen. Al-Zubayr says he pledged only with the rope at his neck. Within months both are dead at the Camel — a battle Ibn Kathīr shows was settled by negotiation and then started in the dark by men who said aloud that peace would destroy them. Four years follow in which the community's best fight one another: Ṣiffīn, where seventy men of Badr stood on the field and two brothers by one mother met in the line and turned away; ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, past ninety, killed by the party the Prophet had named in advance; the Qurʾāns raised on spear points, and an army that forced its own caliph to halt at the moment of victory and was told afterwards that it had been tricked and had let itself be tricked. Then the arbitration, where the honest man spoke first and the able man spoke second. Then the men who had demanded that arbitration called it disbelief, walked out twelve thousand strong, and murdered a Companion's son and his pregnant wife after scrupling over a stolen date. At Nahrawān they were met under a banner of safety that thousands accepted; asked afterwards whether they were idolaters or hypocrites, ʿAlī answered: our brothers, who transgressed against us. Sixty-nine chapters, half of them the case itself — fourteen Companions' hadiths on the Khārijites, twelve routes from ʿAlī alone, with their chains and their differing wordings. And the verdict is given by ʿĀʾisha, who fought him at the Camel: she sends to Kūfa for sworn witnesses, reads their testimony, weeps, and says, God have mercy on ʿAlī; he was upon the truth. English and Arabic, with al-Ḥuṣarī reciting every verse.

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About this work

What is Ibn Kathīr's Ali ibn Abi Talib, Volume One?

Ali ibn Abi Talib, Volume One is the first part of Ibn Kathīr's account of the fourth caliphate. Ibn Kathīr was a 14th-century historian and Qurʾan commentator, known for his history Al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah, and the book begins with Ali's life in brief — his lineage, his early Islam, his place among the Ten and the six of the consultation — before the pledge of allegiance, in which Talha pledges first with the hand that was crippled at Uhud shielding the Prophet.

The year thirty-six brings the march from Medina to Basra and the Battle of the Camel, with the deaths of Talha ibn Ubaydullah and al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and the notable men killed that day. Then Siffin, between the people of Iraq and the people of Syria: the killing of Ammar ibn Yasir, the copies of the Qurʾān raised on spear points, the story of the arbitration, and the meeting of Abu Musa and Amr ibn al-As at Dumat al-Jandal. The Kharijites leave Kufa in open enmity, and Ali marches against them to Nahrawan.

Close to half of the 69 chapters set out the hadiths traced to the Prophet concerning the Kharijites — fourteen Companions' reports, among them Ibn Mas'ud, Anas ibn Malik, Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, Ibn Abbas, Abu Dharr and Aisha, with their routes of transmission. The volume closes with Ali's address to the people after Nahrawan, those who went out after it, and the notable people who died in the year thirty-seven. On Joyful Muslims it is also available in the Arabic original.

Is there an English audiobook of Ali ibn Abi Talib, Volume One?

Yes. Joyful Muslims publishes Ali ibn Abi Talib, Volume One in full as an English audiobook (about seven hours), translated from the Arabic, with a word-synced bilingual transcript. It is Ibn Kathīr's account of the first years of the fourth caliphate in 69 chapters, from the pledge of allegiance through the Camel, Siffin and the arbitration to Nahrawan, with the hadiths on the Kharijites.

Is it free to listen?

The whole library is open to everyone. Every member gets five hours of listening free each month; Joyful+ removes the time limit.

What does it cover?

Sixty-nine chapters on the caliphate of Ali in the years thirty-six and thirty-seven: his life in brief, the pledge of allegiance, the Battle of the Camel and the deaths of Talha and al-Zubayr, Siffin and the killing of Ammar ibn Yasir, the raising of the copies of the Qurʾān, the arbitration, the Kharijites and Nahrawan, the hadiths concerning them, and the notable people who died in the year thirty-seven.

Last updated 2026-09-11

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Word-synced with the narrator.

The first three minutes are transcribed here. In the app, the Living Manuscript scrolls through the entire book in rhythm with the audio — Arabic alongside English.

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