at least by her own report, refused to touch meat again
for the rest of her life.
Ali had lost Egypt, and still the attacks kept coming
from every quarter. The khariji Rejectionists had
reorganized and attracted thousands of new recruits not
only in Iraq but throughout Persia, where whole cities
now ousted Ali’s governors and refused to send taxes to
Kufa. Syrian units began a long series of harassment
raids into Iraqi territory, terrorizing the population and
reinforcing the feeling that Ali could not provide even
the most basic security. Arabia itself came under attack,
yet even after Muawiya had sent a punitive force to
Mecca and Medina and on into the Yemen, where
thousands of Ali loyalists were summarily executed, Ali
could not rouse his once-invincible army to action.
Demoralized by the seemingly endless civil war, his men
refused to move. “Our arrows are exhausted,” they said.
“Our swords are blunt, and our spearheads all used up.”
The man who had been so famed for eloquence was
reduced to haranguing his own ɹghters, berating them
as cowards. “You Kufans are only lions in time of peace,
and sly foxes when you are called to be brave,” he
complained from the pulpit. “May your mothers be
bereaved of you! I call you to the aid of your brothers in
Mecca and Medina and you gurgle like slack-jawed
camels slurping their water. If you hear even a rumor of
Syrian horsemen coming against you, each of you hides
in his house and locks his door, like a lizard in his hole.