control, to be sure—he had done all he could to prevent
Othman’s assassination—but they were tainted none
theless. No matter the twenty-ɹve years he had
sacriɹced for the sake of unity within Islam, or his
spiritual insight, or the justice of his cause. However
great his determination to avoid the nightmare of
dissension—of fitna—the nightmare had caught up with
him, and engulfed him.
History had turned on him with a horrible irony.
Beware of what you wish for, they say, and that thought
surely haunted him as he roamed the battleɹeld after his
victory, praying over the corpse of each warrior and
wishing he had not lived to see this day. He had
pardoned Aisha with goodness—would have done so
even if she had not asked—but all the goodness in his
nature had not saved him from what he most feared.
Worse still, it would now work against him, for though
Ali did not yet know it, he had only just begun to ɹght
the real war.
All the while, a far more formidable opponent had
been merely biding his time. In Damascus, Muawiya had
stood calmly by as Ali had been drawn into civil war.
The grisly relics of Othman’s assassination still hung on
the pulpit of the main mosque as he had ordered, serving
as all too vivid testimony to the original sin of Ali’s rule.
But Muawiya saw no reason to take action as long as
there was a chance Aisha would do his work for him.
Now that she had been defeated, however, he decided to