kept ɹghting at Siɽn—but he could not escape a
growing feeling of self-loathing. He had waited twenty-
ɹve years for this? Not to lead Islam into a new era of
unity but to kill other Muslims?
“Since I became Caliph,” he told his cousin, “things
have gone continually against me and diminished me.”
If it were not for the need to stand up against corruption
and oppression, “I would throw oʃ the bridle of
leadership, and this world would be as distasteful to me
as the dripping from the nose of a goat.”
With Muawiya working against him, however, the
diminishment would only continue. As was his style, the
Syrian governor continued to undermine Ali at every
turn. “After Siɽn,” he later said with great satisfaction,
“I made war on Ali without armies and without
exertion.”
The arbitration agreed on at Siɽn took almost a year
to set up. There were all the usual diplomatic
preliminaries: the need to agree on an agenda; to
determine the size and makeup of the delegations from
each side; to agree on the timing of the conference, the
format, and the location, a small town halfway between
Kufa and Damascus. Yet when all the details were in
place and the two sides ɹnally met, it would end only in
further bitterness.
Muawiya was represented by his chief of staʃ, Amr,
who had conquered Egypt for Islam and was soon to