faith. The image of Othman’s blood-stained Quran was
still fresh in the men’s memory; they were not about to
commit sacrilege again.
Muawiya quickly sent up a herald to stand between
the two armies and read aloud his proposal for how they
should proceed. The issue of who should be Caliph, he
said, should be resolved not by men but by God, not by
battle but by the Quran itself. Each side should pick its
most trusted representative to sit in arbitration and
resolve the issue, using the Quran as his sole guide. The
final judgment would thus be that of God alone.
The proposal drew cheers from Ali’s men, for Muawiya
had deliberately couched his proposal in the most pious
terms. Besides, it seemed clear to them that any
arbitration guided by the Quran could only favor Ali.
But Ali himself was not deceived. The very idea of
arbitration to decide who was to be Caliph not only
placed his own right to the caliphate in question from
the start, it also made the Quran itself a matter of
negotiation. For the ɹrst time, the Quran was being
made into a political tool.
Ali had been thoroughly outmaneuvered. No matter
that he could plainly see how Muawiya had manipulated
the situation, or that one of the most worldly of men had
used faith as a weapon against one of the most spiritual.
With his troops standing fast by their refusal to fight any
further, Ali was left no option but to consent to