targeted Talha in a misguided attempt to ingratiate
himself with Ali. Yet others were convinced that he had
acted under orders from a far more powerful rival for the
caliphate, for no sooner was the battle lost than he rode
across the desert to Damascus, to become a senior
counselor in the court of Muawiya, the governor of
Syria. One would need a mind as devious as Marwan’s to
know where the truth lay.
Zubayr’s death was another act of treachery, though it
would remain unclear exactly whose treachery it was.
Word had it that no sooner had the battle begun than
Zubayr left the ɹeld and started on the road back to
Mecca. A clear matter of cowardice, some said, though
given Zubayr’s record as a warrior, that was hard to
believe. A matter of honor, said others, since Zubayr had
been in dismay when the truce he had worked so hard to
achieve had been so abruptly broken. He had given his
word to Ali that his side would not start the ɹghting, yet
now his word had been broken, and he had taken this all
the harder since he had already gone back on his word
to Ali after swearing allegiance to him, and regretted it.
If he had not been a man of honor before, he would be
one now, and die for it.
The Meccans would claim that Beduins, always
unreliable in Meccan eyes, had chased after Zubayr and
killed him as a deserter. But at whose orders? There were
rumors of the hand of Marwan at work once again,
making sure that both Talha and Zubayr were safely out