Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/265

236 wider range. The Bedawīn were impatient of Ḳoreishite control; and that which had happened to the Umeiyad family, now forced to flee Medīna, might any moment happen to themselves, Yet ʿAlī, though he denounced the work of the regicides as high treason, took no steps to punish it, but temporised. Prompt and vigorous pursuit would no doubt have been joined in, heart and soul, by all the leaders and better classes of Islām. He chose rather to let the vessel drift, as it shortly did, into the vortex of rebellion.

The confirmation, or supersession, of the provincial governors was another pressing matter; and here ʿAlī, turning a deaf ear to his friends, proved wilful and precipitate. When Ibn al-ʿAbbās returned from the pilgrimage at Mecca, he found Al-Moghīra wisely urging ʿAlī to retain the governors generally in their posts, at least till the Empire at large had recognised his succession to the throne. But ʿAlī refused. Ibn al-ʿAbbās now pressed the same view: "At anyrate," he said, "retain Muʿāwiya; it was ʿOmar, not ʿOthmān, who placed him there; and all Syria followeth after him." The advice, coming from so near a kinsman, deserved consideration. But ʿAlī, with family hatred against the Umeiyad line, answered sharply, "Nay; I will not confirm him even for a single day." "If thou depose him," reasoned his friend, "the Syrians will question thine election :and, still worse, accusing thee of the blood of ʿOthmān, rise up as one man against thee. Confirm him in the government of Syria, and they care not who is Caliph. When thou art firmly seated, depose him if thou wilt. It will be easy then." "Never," answered ʿAlī; "he shall have nought but the sword from me." "Thou art brave," Ibn al-ʿAbbās replied, "but innocent of the craft of war; and hath not the Prophet himself said, What is war but a game of deception?" "That is true," responded ʿAlī, "but I will have none of Muʿāwiya." "Then," said Ibn al-ʿAbbās, "thou hadst better depart to thy property at Yenboʿ, and close the gates of thy stronghold there behind thee; for everywhere the Bedawīn are hounding along; and if thou makest others thine enemies, these will surely find thee out, and lay the blood of ʿOthmān at thy door." "Come," said ʿAlī, trying another line, "thou shalt go forth thyself to Syria. See, now, I have appointed thee." "That," replied Ibn al-ʿAbbās, "can