With such an arsenal at his disposal, one can see how
Muawiya could boast that he made war on Ali without
armies. Honey worked for him and would continue to do
so, whether in bribes or in a cooling, fatal drink.
The Syrian army took Egypt with ease. Muhammad
Abu Bakr had sent a small force to the border, but they
were completely outnumbered, and routed. Dismayed by
such ineʃective leadership, the rest of his army either
ɻed or switched sides to join forces with the Syrians, and
when Abu Bakr himself was hunted down, alone and
half dead of thirst in the desert, the Syrian soldiers
carried out their revenge for Othman on the man who
had led his assassins. Ignoring orders to take Abu Bakr
alive, they sewed him into the rotting carcass of a
donkey, then set it on ɹre. Some accounts have it that he
was already dead by then; others, that he was still alive
and burned to death.
Ali was distraught at the news, and Aisha even more
so. As though she had never been alienated from her
young half brother, she mourned him at dramatic length
—so much so that she provoked one of her fellow
Mothers of the Faithful, Muawiya’s sister Umm Habiba,
into sending her a “condolence gift” of a freshly roasted
leg of lamb, dripping with bloody juices. The
accompanying message read: “So was your brother
cooked.” Aisha was violently sick at the sight of it, and,