through the reigns of three Caliphs before taking his
rightful place, citing the need for unity, then he himself
could surely wait through just this one.
Hussein pleaded with him to reconsider. “I beg you,
heed the words of Ali,” he said, “not the words of
Muawiya.” Deception was Muawiya’s modus operandi,
he argued. Nothing good could come of negotiating with
such a man, no matter what he had promised. But a
younger brother rarely holds much sway over an older
one, and besides, the wound in his leg had already
persuaded Hasan.
He was still limping as he mounted the pulpit to
address the Kufans for the last time. “People of Iraq, you
have pledged allegiance to me, swearing that any friend
of mine is a friend of yours,” he said. Now he called on
them to follow through on that pledge. “I have deemed it
right to make peace with Muawiya and to pledge
allegiance to him, since whatever spares blood is better
than whatever causes it to be shed.”
There was utter silence by the time he ɹnished
speaking, a silence that held as he descended from the
pulpit and left the mosque. He told his brother to prepare
for the long ride back to Medina and to do so as quickly
as possible. He would be thankful, he said, to see the last
of Kufa.
Who could blame him? The Shia certainly do not. In
Shia Islam, Hasan is revered as the second Imam, the