Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/268

 656] Ḳabīṣa first inquired whether his life was safe. "Safe," answered ʿAlī; "the person of an Ambassador is sacred. Speak on." "Know, then," proceeded Muʿāwiya's envoy, "that but now I left behind me, weeping under the blood-stained shirt of ʿOthmān, sixty thousand warriors, bent on revenging the Caliph's death,—and revenging it on thee!" "What!" exclaimed ʿAlī, aghast, "On me! Seest thou not that I am powerless to pursue the murderers? O Lord! I take Thee to witness that I am guiltless of ʿOthmān's blood. Begone! See, thy life is safe." As the envoy withdrew, the petulant slaves and rabble shouted after him, "Slay the dog; slay the envoy of Syrian dogs!" He turned, and, apostrophising Ḳoreish, cried at the pitch of his voice, "Children of Moḍar! Children of Ḳeis! The horse and the bow! Four thousand picked warriors close at hand. See to your camels and your steeds!"

Medīna was roused and startled by the envoy's cry. The time was come when ʿAlī could no longer put his decision off. Al-Ḥasan, his elder son, ever poor in spirit, counselled waiting; but ʿAlī saw too plainly the hour for action to be now or never. He gave vent to his troubled soul in martial lines, which, soon in everyone's mouth, told the people his resolve to make the sword the arbiter betwixt Muʿāwiya and himself. An expedition against Syria was proclaimed; captains were appointed to command the various companies of the expected levies, and banners were presented to them by ʿAlī; but he was careful to name no one who had taken part in the attack on ʿOthmān. Orders were also sent to Al-Kūfa, Al-Baṣra, and Egypt, to raise troops for the war. This done, ʿAlī mounted the pulpit and harangued the citizens. If they failed to fight now, he told them, the power would pass away from them, never more to be regained. "Fight, then, against the cursed schismatics, who would destroy the unity of Islām .and rend in twain the body of the Faithful. Haply the Lord will set that right which the Nations are setting wrong." But the people did not respond to the appeal, and the ranks were slow of filling.

Ṭalḥa and Az-Zubeir, when they saw affairs thus drifting, again asked leave to quit Medīna; and so they now set out for Mecca, on pretext of performing the lesser Pilgrimage.