[552] Only seven men were killed on Aly’s side. The burden of the fanatic cry was that Aly had committed a deadly sin in consenting to refer to human judgment that which appertained alone to the Divine; and that he must repent of his apostasy. Aly replied, that being a true believer he would belie himself if he admitted his apostasy.
Abu Ayûb, as he speared one of the fanatic leaders, cried, ‘I give thee joy of hell fire!’ Aly affirmed the imprecation, thereby implying that in his judgment the fanatics had damned themselves by going out of the pale of Islam and of its covenanted mercies.
[553] This is the meaning of the name: Khârejite, one who ‘goes forth,’ rebelling against the government with the demand for a theocracy.
[554] The fact is mentioned famâ clamante, and there is no counter evidence. It was, no doubt, of vital importance to Muâvia to be rid of Ashtar; but this may of itself have suggested the report; and in the East, sudden deaths are generally set down to poisoning, a charge easy to make and difficult to disprove. Muâvia, we are told, promised the chief, who was collector of the tithes and revenues at the head of the Red Sea, immunity from taxation for ever after, if he committed the foul deed. But as these histories were all compiled more or less under Abbasside influences, and the evidence is absolutely one-sided, we must be on our guard against the continual abuse and depreciation of the Omeyyad dynasty. The portion of the original Tabari, now in the press may possibly throw light on this and other obscure passages of our history.
[555] According to some he was slain in battle; but the more received story is that he was put to death by an insurgent leader, who was so inveterate against the regicides that he had put his own son to death for being of that party. Notwithstanding that Amru had given Mohammed quarter, this chief, we are told, slew him in cold blood, and having put his body in an ass’s skin, burned it in the flames. Ayesha was inconsolable at her brother’s fate, and (although her politics were all against Aly) she was now led to curse Muâvia and Amru in her daily prayers, and thenceforward ate no roasted meat nor pleasant food until her death.
[556] The incident is significant of the attitude of the Moslems at this period towards Christian captives, which certainly had not softened since the time of Mahomet. On hearing of Mascala’s humanity, the commander of the army said, ‘If I had had any notion that he did this thing out of false pity for the Christians, and thus cast a slight upon Islam, I would, at the risk even of alienating all the Beni Bekr (Mascala’s tribe), have beheaded him on the spot.’ Aly’s remark was: ‘The first act of Mascala (in offering to take upon himself the ransom of the prisoners) was the act of a prince; his second (in avoiding his obligations and going over to Muâvia) the act of a robber and an outlaw.’ So he gave orders for his house to be razed, and all his slaves set free.
From Damascus, Mascala sent a letter to his brother at Kûfa, offering him, on the part of Muâvia, a command and great honour if he would come over to him. The messenger, a Christian of the Beni Tâghlib, was seized and carried before Aly, who ordered his hands to be cut off, so that he died. His brother wrote verses in reply from Kûfa, from which Mascala gathered the concealed meaning, that the messenger had lost his life. Whereupon the Beni Tâghlib received blood-money from Muâvia. The verses have been preserved.
[557] Abu Mûsa, on this occasion, fled from Mecca for his life. The unfortunate man, ever since the Arbitration, was equally obnoxious to both sides.
[558] Why to Hasan does not appear, as the hereditary principle of succession was not as yet thought of, either in Aly’s or any other line.
[559] The mother, for example, apostrophising the assassin, speaks of her infants, with singular beauty and pathos, as pearls whose shell has been rudely torn asunder: