Fatima to the end, but there was now, he said, a higher
call on his loyalty. This was no time to hold grudges. He
would pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr for the sake of unity
in the face of rebellion, for the good of the community,
and to present a solid front against the forces of
divisiveness. If this was a declaration of idealism over
experience, so be it. Indeed, his followers later praised it
as an act of utmost nobility, but then Ali would rarely be
anything but noble. His highest virtue, it would also
prove to be his greatest liability.
With Ali at last in support, Abu Bakr took a hard line
with the rebel tribes. “If they withhold only a hobbling
cord of what they gave the Prophet, I will ɹght them for
it,” he declared, and his choice of language was a
deliberate insult. These were mere camel herders, he was
saying, “boorish Beduin” in the eyes of the urbanized
Quraysh aristocracy. The thousands of Arabic odes
extolling the purity of desert life were no more than
nostalgic idylls, much as pastoral images of shepherds
and shepherdesses would later be in Europe, or the John
Wayne cowboy in the United States. Actual shepherds
and camel herders were something else. Indeed, the few
Beduin who have not been absorbed into urban life are
still scorned within the Arab world.
Abu Bakr declared that since the taxes belonged to
Islam, to refuse them was an act of apostasy. And where
grace could be extended to a nonbeliever, none could be
oʃered an apostate, someone who had ɹrst accepted and