Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/248

 654–5] Al-Baṣra, in place of Saʿīd. To welcome him the officers in command of garrisons came from all quarters into Al-Kūfa; and Abu Mūsa received them in the crowded Mosque. He first exacted from the inhabitants a pledge of loyalty to the Caliph, and then installed himself by leading the prayers of the great assembly.

If, instead of thus giving way, ʿOthmān had inflicted on the ringleaders of Al-Kūfa condign punishment, he might haply have weathered the storm. It is true that thus he would in all likelihood have precipitated rebellion, not only in that turbulent City, but in Al-Baṣra and Egypt also. Yet, sooner or later, that was unavoidable; and in the struggle he would now have had a strong support. For here the contention was between Ḳoreish with all the nobility of Islām on the one hand, and the Arab tribes and city rabble on the other; and in this question the great leaders would to a man have rallied round the throne. By his pitiable weakness in yielding to the insurgents, ʿOthmān not only courted contempt, but lost the opportunity of placing the great controversy about to convulse the Muslim world upon its proper issue. It fell, instead, to the level of a quarrel obscured by personal interests, and embittered by charges of tyranny and nepotism against himself. The crisis was now inevitable. Men saw that ʿOthmān lacked the wisdom and strength to meet it, and each looked to his own concern. Seditious letters circulated freely everywhere; and the claims even began to be canvassed of candidates to succeed ʿOthmān, who, it was foreseen, could not long hold the reins of empire in his feeble grasp.

Thus, even at Medīna, sedition spread, and from thence messages reached the provinces far and near that the sword would soon be needed at home, rather than in foreign parts. So general was the contagion that, besides his immediate kindred, but two or three men are named as still faithful to the throne. Moved by the leading Citizens, ʿAlī repaired to ʿOthmān and said:—"The people bid me expostulate with thee. Yet what can I say to thee, who art the son-in-law of the Prophet, as thou wast his bosom friend? The way lieth plain before thee; but thine eyes are blinded that thou. canst not see. Blood once shed, will not cease to flow until the Judgment Day. Right blotted out, treason will rage like foaming waves of the sea." ʿOthmān com-