SCHISM 63Camel, so-called because Ayesha rode a camel right into the battlefield and
directed her troops from its back; the battle ended only when her camel
was cut down and she was captured. Ali won the day, but what a bitter vic-
tory! It's difficult to imagine how the two of them must have felt, meeting
after the carnage ended, the Prophet's adored wife and the Prophet's
beloved son-in-law, face to face on a blood-soaked field littered with ten
thousand Muslim dead, many of them close companions of the Messenger
of God.
As they pieced together how people and events had betrayed them
both, these two survivors made some sort of peace with one another. Per-
haps they found their way to a friendship, even. Perhaps, in some strange
way, the tragedy that engulfed them both, and the horrors that neither
could have wanted, drew them together. In any case, they never fought
again. After the Battle of the Camel, Ayesha retired to Medina, and spent
the rest of her life recording the sayings of the Prophet and writing com-
mentaries on them. She ended her days as one of the most respected early
scholars of Islam.
Ali never went back to Medina. He made the city ofKufa, in modern-
day Iraq, his seat of government to reward the people of that city for sup-
porting him, and he tried to piece together the remains of his khalifate,
but the heartbreaking war with Ayesha only marked the beginning of his
troubles. The master troublemaker still loomed in the wings, sharpening
his scimitar and drilling his troops. Mu'awiya was getting ready for his
final push.
By this time, Mu'awiya had formally refused allegiance to Ali and de-
clared that the khalifate belonged to him. Both sides led armies into the
field. In the year 36 AH, (657 CE), Ali confronted Mu'awiya at the battle
of Siffin. It started when Mu'awiya's army tried to block Ali's access to
water. A brief battle burst out, but Ali's men gained the river bank, and the
fighting subsided into a stalemate that lasted for months, interrupted only
by sporadic skirmishes. Both sides were holding back, looking for a way to
win without brutality, because each side stood to lose religious authority
by spilling Muslim blood.
The standoff ended with a four-day outburst of violence in which some
sources reckon that sixty-five thousand people died. The slaughter led to
calls that both armies pull back and let the two leaders settle the dispute