A.H. 24.
voice,—"take heed that, speaking thus, thou makest not a way against thyself, whereof thou shalt repent hereafter." And so ʿAlī passed out with the words of Jacob on his lips; "Surely patience becometh me. The Lord is my helper against that which ye devise."[1] Shortly after, Ṭalḥa returned to Medīna. ʿOthmān acquainted him with what had happened, and as his vote would have ruled the majority, declared that if he dissented, he was prepared even then to resign the Caliphate. But on learning that all the people had agreed, Ṭalḥa also swore allegiance.
The choice disastrous for Islām.The choice thus made by ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān sowed the seeds of sad disaster. It led to dissensions which for years bathed the Muslim world in blood, threatened the existence of the Faith, and to this day divide believers in hopeless and embittered schism. But ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān could hardly have anticipated the wanton, weak, and wavering policy of ʿOthmān, which slowly but surely brought about these results. There is no reason to think that, in discharging his functions as Umpire, he acted otherwise than loyally and, as he thought, for the best.[2]
Murder of Hormuzān and affair of ʿOmar's son.An embarrassing incident followed the accession of ʿOthmān. Some one told ʿObeidallah, son of the deceased Caliph, that Abu Luʾluʾa had been seen shortly before in private converse with Al-Hormuzān, the Persian prince, and with a Christian slave belonging to Saʿd; and that, when surprised, the three separated, dropping a poniard such as that with which the assassin had wounded ʿOmar. Rashly assuming a conspiracy, the infuriated ʿObeidallah rushed with drawn sword to avenge his father's death, and slew both the
- ↑ Sūra xii. 18.
- ↑ He discharged the invidious task as a loyal and unselfish patriot. Night and day engaged in canvassing the sentiments of the leading chiefs, he did his best to compose the antagonistic claims of the Electors. The immediate cause of his nominating ʿOthmān is not easy to find. ʿAbbāsid traditions assume it to have been the conscientious scruples of ʿAlī in hesitating to swear that he would follow strictly the precedents of Abu Bekr and of ʿOmar. The Ḳorʾān and the precedent of Moḥammad he would implicitly obey, but the precedent of the first Caliphs only so far as he agreed with them. In the tenor of the traditions relating how ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān first questioned ʿAlī and then ʿOthmān, and in their replies, I hardly find sufficient ground for this assumption; and it looks very much of a piece with the ʿAbbāsid fabrications of later days.
