and help resolve it. If Othman had scorned her for
sheltering “the rebels and scoundrels of Iraq,” he had
been wrong; he needed her inɻuence with them now,
lest things get completely out of hand.
But it was too little, too late. Just a few weeks earlier,
Aisha might have taken a certain pleasure in the
Caliph’s right-hand man pleading with her. She might
have taunted him with his newfound respect for the
Mother of the Faithful, and would certainly have found a
way to turn the situation to her advantage. By now,
however, there was no longer any advantage to be had.
“You’re running away after setting the country
ablaze,” Marwan ɹnally accused her, but Aisha would
have none of it.
“Would to God that you and your cousin who entrusts
his aʃairs to you each had a millstone around his feet,”
she retorted, “because then I would cast both of you into
the depths of the sea.” And with that, she left for Mecca.
The end began with a rumor. Word spread among the
rebels that military reinforcements for the besieged
Caliph were on the way from his governor in Syria. The
reinforcements never arrived, and nobody knew whether
the Syrian governor had ever received such a request, or
if he had received it and, for reasons of his own, ignored
it. Either way, it made no diʃerence; the very idea of
Syrian reinforcements brought things to a head. Rumor