became increasingly outspoken as nepotism and
corruption devolved into their inevitable correlates:
wrongful expropriation, deportation, imprisonment,
even execution. The most respected early companions of
Muhammad began to speak out in protest, as did all ɹve
of the other men who had sat in caucus and elected
Othman, and none more clearly than Ali.
The property of Islam was being embezzled, he
warned. The Umayyads were like a pack of hungry
animals devouring everything in sight. “Othman shrugs
his shoulders arrogantly, and his brothers stand with
him, eating up the property of God as the camels eat up
the springtime grasses.” Once that brief treasured
lushness was gone, only barren desert would be left.
But the voice that gained the most attention was that
of Aisha, who found herself for once on the same side as
Ali. “That dotard,” she called Othman—a doddering old
man in thrall to his relatives—and the word stuck,
demeaning and mocking.
Some said she was roused to action only when
Othman reduced her annual pension to that of the other
Mothers of the Faithful, challenging her prominence.
Others said she acted in the hope that her brother-in-law
Talha would take over as Caliph. But there is also no
doubt that Aisha was truly outraged by the extent of the
corruption, which came to a head over the scandalous
behavior of Walid, one of Othman’s half brothers.