[430] Such were Abd al Rahmân, Zobeir, Othmân, Aly, and Talha. The tradition as given by the Secretary of Wackîdy (fol. 235) may also mean that he was unwilling to sully their name by subjecting them to the sordid surroundings and associations of provincial government.
[431] Thus, for example, while journeying in Arabia in the year of famine, he came upon a poor woman, seated, with her hungry and weeping children, round a fire, whereon was an empty pot. Omar ran on to the next village, procured bread and meat, filled the pot, and cooked an ample meal; leaving the little ones laughing and at play.
[432] When some one proposed his son Abdallah, Omar was angry and declared that the government had been long enough in his family. ‘Besides’ (alluding apparently to some scandal in his domestic life) ‘how could I appoint a man who was so weak as not to divorce his wife?’ They say, also, that Omar once praised Sâlim, the freedman of Hodzeifa, slain at Yemâma, as one who would have been fit for the Caliphate—‘a man beloved of the Prophet, and a lover of the Lord.’ But this could only have been as a mere figure of speech.
[433] Others say that the conclave was held in the house of Miswar, a citizen of Medîna; and that there Abd al Rahmân spent the last decisive night in separate conference with Aly and then with Othmân. For Micdâd, see Life of Mahomet, p. 239. Moghîra and Amru are characteristically said to have sat at the door of the house to make it appear as if they, too, had had a hand in the election. Amru had probably come to Medîna with the other governors on pilgrimage.
[434] For the two rival families see Life of Mahomet, pp. xx. and xxviii. The Electors were, in reality, selected very evenly. Zobeir was cousin to Aly both on the father’s side and the mother’s. Sád and Abd al Rahmân belonged to the Beni Zohra, a distant branch of Coreishite descent. Sád, however, was likewise the nephew of Mahomet’s mother, Amina. Some say that he voted for Othmân; others that, being pressed by Aly, he went over to his side. Talha was of the Beni Taym, the clan of Abu Bekr. The impartiality of Abd al Rahmân is impugned by the partisans of Aly, as being the brother-in-law of Othmân, whose uterine sister he married; and this probably was the relationship hinted at by Aly in his appeal to Abd al Rahmân.
We are getting now into the full flood of Abbasside tradition, which becomes entirely partisan and untrustworthy, with the view of exalting the claims of the Prophet’s family and defaming the Omeyyads. Of this class of traditions is the following:—Aly complained to Abbâs that he was sure to be outvoted in the conclave because Sád would go with his kinsman Abd al Rahmân, and vote for Othmân, brother-in-law of the latter; and that then, the votes being equally divided, Abd al Rahmân would have the casting-vote. On this Abbâs reproached Aly for having neglected the advice, given by him now and on former occasions, to claim the Caliphate as his right, and to have nothing to do with electors or arbitration. He had told him years before to demand the Caliphate from Mahomet, and he had neglected to do so. ‘And now,’ said Abbâs, ‘the Caliphate will leave our family for ever.’ All this is patent fabrication.
[435] The Beni Makhzûm was a powerful branch of the Coreish, but far removed by descent from the clan of Hâshim, and having little sympathy with it. It was Khâlid’s tribe. To understand the taunts here bandied, it must be remembered that Abu Sarh (his proper name is Abdallah Ibn Abu Sarh) was the foster-brother of Othmân, and bore a bad repute (as we shall see below) as having deceived Mahomet, and been proscribed at the capture of Mecca. Ammâr (as has been stated before) was son of a bond-woman called Sommeyya. See on the tradition of her martyrdom, Life of Mahomet (1st ed.), vol. ii. p. 126.
[436] The inaugural address was delivered on the 3rd Moharram or Nov. 10, the interval between the election and speech at installation being presumably taken up in receiving the oath of allegiance from all present at Medîna.
[437] Quoted from the Corân, Sura xii. v. 19.
[438] His attitude in discharging the invidious task was that of a loyal and unselfish patriot. He disclaimed the Caliphate for himself. Night and day engaged unceasingly in canvassing the sentiments of the leading chiefs, he did his best to compose the antagonistic claims of the selfish Electors. What was the immediate cause of his action when in the Mosque he nominated Othmân, it is not possible to say. Abbasside traditions assume that the cause was the conscientious scruples of Aly in hesitating to swear that he would follow strictly the precedents of Abu Bekr and of Omar in his conduct of the Caliphate. The Corân and the precedent of Mahomet he would implicitly obey, but the precedent of the first Caliphs only so far as he agreed in the same. In the tenor of the traditions relating how Abd al Rahmân first questioned Aly and then Othmân, and in their replies, I hardly find sufficient ground for this assumption; and it looks very much of a piece with the Abbasside fabrications of the day. One tradition ascribes the hesitancy of Aly to the cunning counsel of Amru, who, beforehand, advised him not to give a direct reply, lest Abd al Rahmân should think him too grasping; while he advised Othmân to answer unconditionally—as if Aly were so simple as to have been caught by such transparent guile.