then were the dogs still howling?
For twenty-four hours Aisha sat there by the waters of
Hawab, paralyzed by a sense of foreboding. Talha and
Zubayr tried to reason with her, to no avail. The dogs
were not howling, they said, merely barking, but she
scoʃed at that. She was being superstitious, they said,
and that was forbidden by Islam; but still she refused to
move. They tried lying to her. This was not Hawab, they
said; that had been a mistake, and this was another
place entirely. Yet still the dogs howled, and she knew
this was the place. Knew too that these two men had no
right to gainsay what the Prophet had said. Even though
they were her sisters’ husbands, they were not men to be
trusted. Hadn’t both reneged on their sworn oath to Ali?
Both proven themselves not men of their word?
Why then did she not heed the dogs of Hawab? Why
did she not insist on turning back instead of going on to
Basra? Perhaps the dogs did not howl loud enough, or
perhaps it was hindsight that would make them far more
ominous than they seemed at the time. But then Aisha
would always be very good at hindsight, and thanks to
Ali, she’d live long enough to have it.
Ali had indeed rejected the call to punish Othman’s
assassins. They had, after all, been the ɹrst to acclaim
him Caliph, and their leader was his own stepson, so
while he did not approve of the assassination, neither