avert disaster. He spent the coming days in prayer in the
mosque.
Aisha must have wished she could do the same, and in
her way, she did. She could not have played a more
public role in stirring up feeling against “that dotard,”
but she had never imagined things would go this far.
She had used Muhammad’s sandal to bring Othman
back to his senses, but now he seemed to have lost them
completely. How could she have foreseen that secret
letter? How had things come to the point where she was
on the same side as Ali, of all people? Where her own
half brother was now besieging the palace? Where she
could in good conscience defend neither him nor the
Caliph? The whirlpool of overlapping conɻicts and
loyalties overwhelmed even her, and as the situation
worsened, she reached for a way out. She would leave
for Mecca on pilgrimage, she announced—not the hajj
but the umra, the individual “lesser pilgrimage” that
could be made at any time of the year.
The moment he heard of her plans, Marwan
recognized the danger. Aisha’s leaving under such
circumstances would be taken as a clear signal to the
rebels that she would not stand in their way—a silent
but powerful blessing of their position. He slipped out of
the palace under cover of darkness and made his way to
her house. She could not leave, he argued. She had
helped create this situation with those ɹery letters and
speeches of hers, and now she was duty bound to stay