Aly returns to Kûfa, and Muâvia to Damascus.
And so the armies, having buried their dead, quitted this memorable but undecisive battle-field. Aly retired to Kûfa; and Muâvia, his point for the present gained, to Damascus. As Aly entered Kûfa, he heard wailing on every side. A chief man, whom he bade to pacify the mourners, answered: ‘O Caliph, it is not as if but two or three had been slain; of this clan hard by, alone, an hundred and fourscore lie buried at Siffîn. There is not a house but the women are weeping in it for their dead.’
Discord at Kûfa.
The slaughter, indeed, had been great on both sides.[540] And what gave point to Aly’s loss was that the truce was but a hollow thing, with no hope in it of lasting peace or reconciliation. The Arab faction, to whose insolent demands Aly had yielded, was more estranged than ever. When the men of Kûfa murmured at the compromise, all that he could reply was this: that the mutinous soldiery had extorted the agreement from him; and that having pledged his faith, he could not now withdraw. He had thrown in his lot with traitors and regicides, and was now reaping the bitter fruit. Muâvia alone had gained.
CHAPTER XL.
THE KHAREJITES, OR THEOCRATIC FACTION, REBEL AGAINST ALY.
A.H. XXXVII. A.D. 657.
The Arab faction taken in by appeal to Corân.
The quick sagacity of Amru had never been turned to better account than when he proposed to the army of Kûfa that the Corân should be the arbiter between them. To be judged by the Book of the Lord had been their cry from the beginning. The sacred text gave no countenance to the extravagant pretensions of the Coreish, nor to their (so-called) empire of favouritism and tyranny. Its precepts were based on the brotherhood of the Faithful; and the Prophet himself had enjoined on his people the absolute equality of all.[541] No sooner, therefore, was it proclaimed than, as Amru anticipated, the Arab chiefs, caught in the snare, took up the cry, and pledged themselves thereto.
Dissatisfaction of the Arab, or theocratic, faction.
Reflection soon tarnished the prospect. They had forgotten how narrow was the issue which the Umpires had to decide. The Bedouins were fighting not for one Caliph or the other, but against the pretensions of the Coreish at large. It was this that nerved them to the sanguinary conflict. ‘If the Syrians conquer,’ cried Yezîd ibn Cays to his followers of Bussorah and Kûfa, ‘ye are undone. Again ye will be ground down by tyrants like the minions of Othmân. They will possess themselves as heretofore of the conquests of Islam, as if, forsooth, these had descended to them by inheritance, and not been won by our good swords. We shall lose our grasp both of this world and of the next.’ Such were the evils which they dreaded, for which they had slain Othmân, and from which they had now been fighting for deliverance. By the appointment of Abu Mûsa for their Umpire, what had they obtained? It was theocratic rule they had been dreaming of, and now they were drifting back to the old régime. The Umpires would decide simply as between Muâvia and Aly; and, whatever their verdict, the despotism of the past would be riveted more firmly than ever. Nothing of the kind they really wanted had been gained, nor was there any prospect of its being gained, by arbitration.
They draw off into hostile camp near Kûfa.