Othman, the pious and wealthy Umayyad who had
converted early to Islam but had never actually fought in
any battle and, at seventy, had already survived far
beyond the average life span of the time. Nobody could
have expected him to live much longer, and this would
prove to be precisely his advantage.
If they settled on Othman over Ali, each of the others
could buy time to position himself for the leadership the
next time around. They saw Othman as a stopgap, a
substitute until one or the other of them could muster
enough support to take over when he died, surely a
matter of no more than a year or two. Even as Ali could
see the consensus building among the other men in the
room, he was powerless to prevent it. As dusk fell on the
third day, they preempted his assent by announcing
their decision publicly in the mosque, and he knew then
that his years of dust and thorns were not yet at an end.
Left with no option, he pledged allegiance to yet another
man as Caliph.
How bitter must it have been to see the leadership
withheld from him yet again? How patient could he be?
How noble in the name of unity? In the blinding light of
hindsight, Ali should surely have been more assertive
and insisted on his right to rule. But then he would not
have been the man he was, the man famed for his
nobility, his grace and integrity—a man too honorable,
it seemed, for the rough-and-tumble of politics.