Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/293

 264 still deeper humiliation of appointing as his arbiter one who had deserted him. The soldiery cried out for Abu Mūsa—the temporising governor of Al-Kūfa who had been deposed for want of active loyalty. "This man," answered ʿAlī, "did but lately leave us and flee; and not till after several months I pardoned him. Neither hath he now been fighting with us. Here is a worthy representative, the son of Al-ʿAbbās, the Prophet's uncle; choose him as your umpire." "As well name thyself," they answered rudely. "Then take Al-Ashtar." "What!" said the Bedawi chiefs in the same rough imperious strain, "the man that hath set the world on fire! None for us but Abu Mūsa." It was a bitter choice for ʿAlī, but he had no alternative. The Syrian arbiter was ʿAmr, for whose deep and crafty ways the other was no match. He presented himself in the Caliph's camp, and the agreement was put in writing. As dictated from ʿAlī's side, it ran thus: "In the name of the Lord Most Merciful! This is what hath been agreed upon between the Commander of the Faithful, and" "Stay! cried ʿAmr (like Ḳoreish to the Prophet at Al-Ḥodeibiya ); "ʿAlī is your commander, but he is not ours." Again the helpless Caliph had to give way, and the names of the contracting parties were written down simply as between "ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya." The document bound them "to follow the judgment of the Ḳorʾān; and, where the Ḳorʾān was silent, the acknowledged precedents of Islām." To the umpires, the guarantee of both ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya was given of safety for themselves and for their families, and the promise of the people that their judgment should be followed. On their part, the umpires swore to judge righteously, and thus, so far as in them lay, to reconcile the Faithful. The decision was to be delivered after six months, or later if the umpires saw cause for delay, and at some neutral spot midway between Al-Kūfa and Damascus. Meanwhile hostilities should be suspended. The writing having been duly executed and signed, was numerously witnessed by leading chiefs on either side. Al-Ashtar alone refused: "Never should I acknowledge this to be mine own right hand," he said, "if it did but touch a deed like this."

And so the armies buried their dead, and quitted the memorable but indecisive battlefield. ʿAlī retired to Al