the Book of God be the judge between us." The fighting thus stopped at once. Bahramian lists two precedents for this: Before the Battle of the Camel, a representative of Ali, carrying a copy of the Quran, had summoned the rebels to the book. The war broke out when that man was killed by the rebels. During the battle, Ka'b ibn Sur al-Azdi, the judge () of Basra, who counted among the rebels, similarly walked to the battlefield with a copy of the Quran and pleaded for the fighting to stop. By this point at Siffin, Ali is estimated to have lost 25,000 men, while Mu'awiya might have lost 45,000 men. It was consistently Mu'awiya's position that battle was the only option acceptable to the Syrians. The Syrians' call for arbitration thus indicates that Mu'awiya had sensed imminent defeat, argue Madelung and McHugo. This tends to be the view of modern authors, some of whom add that Mu'awiya was advised to do so by Amr ibn al-As, citing al-Tabari and al-Baladhuri, among others. Iraqis' reaction The Syrians' call to arbitration on the basis of the Quran has thus been interpreted as an offer to surrender. Even so, Ali's army stopped fighting, perhaps because devout Muslims in his camp had been fighting to enforce the rule of the Quran all along, or simply because both armies were exhausted and a truce must have appealed to them, or because some in his camp saw the ceasefire as an opportunity to regain their influence over Ali. While this majority wanted the fighting to stop, there was also probably a minority that was certain of victory and wanted the fight to continue, and yet another minority that followed Ali unconditionally. For his part, Ali is said to have exhorted his men to continue fighting, telling them to no avail that raising the Quran was for deception. The account of Ibn Muzahim too reflects this attitude of Ali. Despite his pleas, the majority of the and those reluctant for war insisted on accepting the call to arbitration. In the former group, Mis'ar ibn Fadaki and Zayd ibn Hisn al-Ta'i, who both later became Kharijite leaders, threatened to kill Ali if he did not answer the Syrians' call. The latter group included the tribesmen of Kufa and all newcomers to the city from their clans. These formed the largest bloc in Ali's army. They followed al-Ash'ath