The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall/Chapter 36
CHAPTER XXXVI
ʿALĪ TRANSFERS HIS SEAT OF GOVERNMENT TO AL-KŪFA,
AFFAIRS IN EGYPT
36 A.H. 656–657 A.D.
Medīna abandoned as capital of Islām.As ʿAlī rode forth from Medīna in pursuit of the insurgent army, a citizen seized his bridle; "Stay!" he cried earnestly;—"if thou goest forth from hence, the government will depart from this City never more to return." He was pushed aside, as one having lost his wits; but his words were long remembered, and the prophecy was true. Medīna was to be the seat of Empire no more.
ʿAlī's entry into Kūfa,
vii. 36A.H.
Jan., 657 A.D.In the 36th year of the Hijra, seven months after the death of ʿOthmān, ʿAlī entered Al-Kūfa. The first four of these had been spent at Medīna; the other three in the campaign of "the Camel" and a short stay at Al-Baṣra. No Caliph had as yet visited Al-Kūfa. It was now to be the seat of ʿAlī's government. The inhabitants were flattered by the honour thus put upon them. The city had certain advantages; for in it were many leading men, able, and some of them willing, to support the Caliph. Moreover, ʿAlī might calculate on the jealousy of Al-ʿIrāḳ towards Syria in the approaching struggle with Muʿāwiya. But these advantages were all more than counterbalanced by the factious humour of the populace. It was the focus of Bedawi democracy; and the spirit of the Bedawīn was yet untamed. What had they gained, the men of Al-Kūfa asked, by the insurrection against ʿOthmān? The cry of vengeance on the regicides was for the moment silenced; but things, they said, were drifting back into the old Ḳoreishite groove. The charge was, in fact, the same as the Sons of the Desert were making all round. "ʿAlī hath set up his cousins, the sons of Al-ʿAbbās, everywhere—in Medīna, Mecca, the Yemen, and now again at Al-Baṣra, while he himself will rule at Al-Kūfa.Factious spirit there. Of what avail that we made away with ʿOthmān, and have shed our own blood, fighting against Az-Zubeir and Ṭalḥa?" So spoke the arch-conspirator Al-Ashtar among his friends at Al-Baṣra; and ʿAlī, fearful of such teaching, took him in his train to Al-Kūfa, where, among the excitable populace, there was even greater danger. Another uneasy symptom was that the servile dregs and baser sort of Al-Baṣra, breaking loose from all control, went forth in a body and took possession of Sijistān on the Persian frontier. They killed the leader sent by ʿAlī to suppress the rising, and were not put down till ʿAbdallah ibn al-ʿAbbās himself attacked them with a force from Al-Baṣra.
Struggle in prospect with Syria.It was in the West, however, that the sky loured most. It was but a shorn and truncated Caliphate which ʿAlī enjoyed, so long as his authority was scorned in Syria. A mortal combat with Muʿāwiya loomed in that direction. But, before resuming the Syrian thread, we must first turn to Egypt.
Ḳeis, governor of Egypt,
ii. 36 A.H.
Aug., 656 A.D.That heavy charge had been committed to Ḳeis, the principal man of the Anṣār and son of Saʿd ibn ʿObāda, the citizen who was nearly elected Caliph at the Prophet's death.[1] Of approved ability and judgment, and a loyal follower of ʿAlī, he declined to take soldiers with him to Egypt, saying that the Caliph had more need of them than he, and preferring instead the support of seven "Companions," who accompanied him. On his approach, the rebel governor fled to Syria, where he lost his life. Ḳeis was well received by the Egyptians, who swore allegiance to him on behalf of ʿAlī. But a strong faction sheltered in a neighbouring district, under the leadership of Yezīd ibn al-Ḥārith of the tribe of Kināna, loudly demanded satisfaction for the death of ʿOthmān. Ḳeis wisely left these alone for the present, waiving even the demand for tithe. In other respects he held Egypt with firm grasp.
In prospect of an early attack by ʿAlī, Muʿāwiya became uneasy at the Egyptian border being commanded by so able a ruler as Ḳeis, whom he made every effort to detach from ʿAlī.Ḳeis supplanted by Muʿāwiya's intrigue. Upbraiding him with having joined a party still imbued with the blood of ʿOthmān, he called upon Ḳeis to repent, and promised that, if he joined in avenging the crime, he should be confirmed in the government of Egypt, and his kinsmen promoted to such office as he might desire. Ḳeis, unwilling to precipitate hostilities, fenced his answer with well-balanced words. Of ʿAlī's complicity in the foul deed there was as yet, he said, no evidence; he would wait. Meanwhile he had no intention of making attack on Syria. Again pressed by Muʿāwiya, Ḳeis frankly declared that he was, and would remain, a staunch supporter of the Caliph. Thereupon Muʿāwiya sought craftily to stir up jealousy between ʿAlī and his Lieutenant. He gave out that Ḳeis was temporising, and spoke of his leniency towards the Egyptian malcontents as proving that he was one at heart with them. The report, assiduously spread, reached, as intended, the court of ʿAlī, where it was taken up by those who either doubted the fidelity of Ḳeis or envied his prosperity. To test his obedience, ʿAlī ordered an advance against the malcontents; and the remonstrance of Ḳeis against the step as premature was taken as proof of his complicity. He was deposed, and the regicide Moḥammad son of Abu Bekr, appointed in his room.Moḥammed son of Abu Bekr, appointed to Egypt. Ḳeis retired in anger to Medīna, where, as on neutral ground, adherents of either side were unmolested; but finding no peace there from the taunts of Merwān and others, he at last resolved to cast himself on ʿAlī's clemency; and ʿAlī, on the calumnies being cleared away, took him back at once into his confidence, and thenceforward kept him as his chief adviser. Muʿāwiya upbraided Merwān with having driven Ḳeis from Medīna;—"If thou hadst aided ʿAlī," he said, "with a hundred thousand men, it had been a lesser evil than is the gain to him of such a counsellor."
Muʿāwiya joined by ʿAmr.On his own side, however, Muʿāwiya had a powerful and astute adviser in ʿAmr, the conqueror of Egypt. During the attack on ʿOthmān, ʿAmr had retired from Medīna with his two sons to Palestine. The tidings of the tragedy, aggravated by his own unkindly treatment of the Caliph, affected him keenly. "It is I," he said, "who, by deserting the aged man in time of trouble, am responsible for his death." From his retirement he watched the struggle at Al-Baṣra; and when ʿAlī proved victorious, repaired at once to Damascus, and presented himself before Muʿāwiya. In consequence of his unfriendly attitude towards ʿOthmān, Muʿāwiya at first received him coldly. In the end, however, the past was condoned and friendship restored. Thenceforward ʿAmr was the trusted counsellor of Muʿāwiya.
ʿAlī's position at Kūfa weak;This coalition, and the false step of ʿAlī in recalling Ḳeis from Egypt, materially strengthened Muʿāwiya's hands, The success of ʿAlī at Al-Baṣra had also this advantage for Muʿāwiya, that it removed Ṭalḥa and Az-Zubeir, his only other competitors, from the field. The position of ʿAlī, again, as one of concession to the Arab faction, was fraught with peril. While refusing ostensibly to identify himself with the murderers of ʿOthmān, it was virtually their cause that he had fought; and therefore equally the cause of the Arab tribes against Ḳoreish and the aristocracy of Islām. And ʿAlī might have foreseen that the socialistic element in this unnatural compromise must, sooner or later, inevitably come into collision with the interests of the Caliphate.
strength of Muʿāwiya at Damascus.The authority of Muʿāwiya rested on a firmer basis; his attitude was bolder, his position more consistent. He had from the first resisted the levelling demands of the faction hostile to ʿOthmān. He was, therefore, now justified in pursuing these to justice, while, at the same time, in so doing, he asserted the supremacy of Ḳoreish. The influence of the "Companions" had always been paramount in Syria; while the Arab element there was itself largely recruited from the aristocratic tribes of the south;—the result being that the Bedawīn were by Muʿāwiya held thoroughly in check. The cry for vengeance, inflamed by the gory emblems still hanging from the pulpit, was taken up by high and low; while the temporising attitude of ʿAlī was in every man's mouth proof of complicity with the regicides. And though many may have dreaded ʿAlī's vengeance in the event of his success, the general feeling throughout Syria was a burning desire to avenge the murder of his ill-fated predecessor.
Still, whatever the motives at work elsewhere, the contest as between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya, was now virtually for the crown; and many looked to "the grey mule of Syria" as having the better chance.ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya in personal antagonism. A possible solution lay, no doubt, in the erection of Syria into an independent kingdom side by side with that of Al-ʿIrāḳ and Persia. But the disintegration of the Caliphate was an idea which had as yet hardly entered into the minds of the Faithful. The unity of Islām, established by the precedent of the quarter of a century, was still, and long continued to be, the ruling sentiment of the nation.
- ↑ On the death of ʿOthmān, his governor Ibn Abi Sarḥ was expelled from Egypt by Moḥammad ibn Abi Ḥodhaifa, acting for ʿAlī, but he was entrapped and slain by Muʿāwiya.