The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall/Chapter 41
CHAPTER XLI
REVOLT OF EGYPT
38 A.H. 658 A.D.
ʿAlī gives up Syrian campaign.
End of 37 A.H.
April, 658 A.D.Having dispersed the fanatics at Nahrawān and recrossed the Tigris, ʿAlī turned his face again towards Syria. But the troops urged that, before so long a campaign, their armour needed refitting. "Let us return for a little to our homes," they said, "to furbish up our swords and lances, and replenish our empty quivers." ʿAlī consenting, they marched back and encamped in the vicinity of Al-Kūfa. The soldiers dropped off in small parties thither; and in a short time the camp was left almost empty. ʿAlī, finding that none returned, became impatient, and himself entering Al-Kūfa, again harangued the people on the obligation to go forth with him and make war on Syria. But exhortation and reproach fell equally on listless ears. There was no response. ʿAlī lost heart. The Syrian expedition fell through, and the opportunity passed.
Position of ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya.Thus closed the 37th year of the Hijra. The situation was unchanged. Muʿāwiya, with now a colourable title to the Caliphate, remained in undisturbed possession of Syria, strong in the loyalty and affections of his subjects; while ʿAlī, mortified by an indifferent and alienated people, was now to experience a severer trial in the loss of Egypt.
Egypt in revolt.We have seen that a powerful faction in that dependency sided with those demanding satisfaction for the blood of ʿOthmān; and that Ḳeis having been recalled for not suppressing the dissentients, Moḥammad son of Abu Bekr had been appointed in his room. Casting aside the wise policy of his predecessor, Moḥammad demanded of the recusants at once to: submit, or to be gone from Egypt. They refused, but, masking their hostile designs, watched the issue of the struggle at Ṣiffīn. When on its conclusion Muʿāwiya was still left master of Syria, they gained heart and began to assume the offensive. Though repeatedly defeated, the slumbering elements of revolt were everywhere aroused, and Muʿāwiya, seeing his opportunity, commissioned ʿAmr to regain the province of which he had been first conqueror.
ʿAmr conquers Egypt for Muʿāwiya,
ii. 38 A.H.
July, 658 A.D.ʿAlī saw, now all too late, the mistake which he had made. He would have reappointed Ḳeis; but Ḳeis declined again to take the post. The only other fitted for the emergency was Al-Ashtar, the regicide, who was sent off in haste to Egypt. But on the way he met with an untimely death, having being poisoned (at the instigation, it is said, of Muʿāwiya) by a chief on the Egyptian border with whom he rested. There was joy at the death of the arch-regicide throughout Syria, where he was greatly feared. ʿAlī was equally cast down by the untoward event. His only resource was now to bid Moḥammad hold on and do what he could to retrieve his position.[1] But the faction which favoured Muʿāwiya gained ground daily; and when ʿAmr, taking advantage of the defection of ʿAlī's troops, at the head of a few thousand men crossed the border, he was joined by an overwhelming body of insurgents. Moḥammad, after a vain attempt to fight, was slain, and his body ignominiously burned in an ass’s skin.[2] Thus Egypt was lost to ʿAlī; and ʿAmr, as lieutenant of the rival Caliph, again became its governor.
ʿAlī's mortification at loss of Egypt.The loss of Egypt was the harder for ʿAlī to bear, as immediately due to his own mistake in removing Ḳeis; and even now it might have been retrieved if the men of Al-Kūfa had not been heartless in his cause. Over and again he implored them to hasten to the defence of Moḥammad, With difficulty two thousand men were got together, but after so long delay that they had hardly marched before news of the defeat made it necessary to return. ʿAlī thereupon ascended the pulpit, and upbraided the people for their spiritless and disloyal attitude. For fifty days he had been urging them to go forth, to avenge their fallen brethren, and help those still struggling in the field. Like a restive, wayward camel, casting its burden, they had held back. "And now," he said, in grief and bitterness of spirit, "the son of Abu Bekr is fallen a martyr, and Egypt hath departed from us."
- ↑ According to other accounts, Ḳeis was immediately succeeded by Al-Ashtar, after whom came the son of Abu Bekr.—Wellhausen, p. 61.
- ↑ ʿAmr had offered Moḥammad quarter. But he was caught in his flight by a chief so incensed against the regicides that he slew him in cold blood, and having put his body in an ass's skin, cast it into the flames. ʿĀisha was inconsolable at her brother's fate, and, though her politics were all against ʿAlī, she now cursed Muʿāwiya and ʿAmr in her daily prayers, and thenceforward ate no roasted meat or pleasant food until her death.