September 11, 2001.
Muawiya’s declaration of war came by letter. “Ali, to
each Caliph you had to be led to the oath of allegiance as
the camel is led by the stick through its nose,” he wrote,
as though Ali were not himself the Caliph but at best a
mere pretender. He accused Ali of inciting the rebellion
against Othman “both in secret and openly.” Othman’s
murderers were “your backbone, your helpers, your
hands, your entourage. And the people of Syria accept
nothing less than to ɹght you until you surrender these
killers. If you do so, the Caliph will be chosen by a shura
among all Muslims. The people of Arabia used to hold
that right in their hands, but they have abandoned it,
and the right now lies in the hands of the people of
Syria.”
In Muawiya’s hands, that is. The governor of Syria
was ready to claim the caliphate for himself.
Early that summer of 657 the two armies, Syrian and
Iraqi, met at the Plain of Siɽn just west of the
Euphrates, in what is today northern Syria. Ali’s army
had followed the river ɹve hundred miles north from
Kufa in high spirits. The farther they’d ridden, the
clearer the air had become, free of the humidity that
hung over the lower Euphrates. The rich alluvial valley
gradually narrowed. Desert bluʃs gave way to the high
grazing lands of the Jazeera with snow-covered