Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/294

 657] Kūfa, and Muʿāwiya, his point for the present gained, to Damascus. As ʿAlī entered Al-Kūfa, he heard wailing on every side. A chief man, whom he bade to pacify the mourners, answered: "O Caliph, it is not as if but two or three had been slain; of this clan alone hard by, an hundred and four score lie buried at Ṣiffīn. There is not a house but the women are weeping in it for their dead."

The slaughter, indeed, had been great on both sides. And what gave point to ʿAlī's loss was that the truce was but a hollow thing, with no hope in it of lasting peace or satisfaction. The Arab faction, to whose insolent demands he had yielded, was more estranged than ever. When the men of Al-Kūfa murmured at the compromise, ʿAlī could but reply that the mutinous soldiery had extorted the agreement from him; and that having pledged his faith, he could not now withdraw. He had thrown in his lot with traitors and regicides, and was now reaping the bitter fruit. Muʿāwiya alone had gained.