killed by Muslims. “I have healed my wounds this day,”
he mourned, “but I have killed my own people.”
He stayed there three days, making amends in the way
only he could. He forbade his men to kill the enemy
wounded or captives. These were not apostates but good
Muslims, he declared; they should be accorded the
utmost respect. Those who had ɻed were not to be
pursued. All prisoners were to be set free after pledging
allegiance to him, and the usual spoils of war swords
and daggers, purses and jewelry—were to be returned.
To compensate his own men for the loss of spoils, he
would pay them directly from the treasury of Basra.
The enemy dead were buried as honorably as those
who had fought for Ali. The hundreds of severed limbs
were gathered together and placed with ceremony in one
large grave. Only when all that had been done—when
each and every one of the thousands of dead had been
laid to rest in accordance with Islamic law—did Ali ride
into Basra and accept the whole city’s renewed pledge of
allegiance.
If he had done all he could to ease the inevitable
bitterness of defeat for those who had fought against
him, he now did even more for the woman who had led
them. To demean Aisha in defeat, he insisted, would
only be to demean both himself and Islam. Once again,
he chose the path of unity over that of revenge. When
Aisha had recovered from the wound in her arm, Ali