The first challenge to Ali as Caliph or Imam came quickly. A’isha had gone to Mecca during the revolt against Uthman, and she was returning to Medina when she heard that Ali had been acclaimed as the next Caliph. A’isha did not go home. Instead, she turned her caravan around and went back to Mecca. Her kinsmen and brothers-in-law, Talhah and Zubayr, soon followed her. In Mecca, they conferred.
A’isha was livid at the idea that Ali was now the Caliph. They were roughly the same age and had known each other well since childhood. Ali had spoken against A’isha when she was accused of adultery, and neither she nor her father ever forgave him. Whereas A’isha had been speaking out against Uthman, shaking the old sandal at him, calling him corrupt, now she set all that aside. In Mecca, in the mosque, she made another impassioned speech in which she said Uthman had been a pious man who was murdered. She called for revenge against his killers; did she know, did the listeners know, that the main killer was A’isha’s half-brother, Abu Bakr’s son?
Talhah and Zubayr joined A’isha in a plan to dislodge Ali quickly. Raising as many men from Mecca as possible, they would move north into Iraq. The city of Basra, in southern Iraq, may not have been as heavily represented in the revolt against Uthman as Kufa and Fustat had been. Talhah and Zubayr had a strong network in Basra, and they may both have owned estates on land purchased during Uthman’s Caliphate. If they went to Basra quickly, they could force its army to join them. They could move to Kufa, presenting a united front and sweeping the Kufan garrison into their cause. Mu’awiya, the governor in Damascus, would lead his army to join them. By the time they faced Ali, he would be numerically overwhelmed.
At an overnight stop, wild dogs howled in the night, and A’isha asked where they were. Muhammad had once said, sadly, to his wives, “One day, the dogs of Hawab will howl at one of you, and that one will know she is in error. ” Yes, they were at Hawab. A’isha realized she was fulfilling the prophecy, so she was in error. No good could come of this trip. But they still went. Did they talk her out of her fear, or did she later play up the fear, once she had the bad outcome confirmed?
At Basra, they met Ali’s newly appointed governor. They said they had only come seeking support for revenge on Uthman’s killers, but the Basran governor (no stranger to Mecca vs. Medina politics) was cautious. The Meccans were to wait for Ali to arrive. But during one night, the Meccans moved to seize Basra. Arresting the governor, they whipped him and pulled out his hair.
One detail portrays how the garrison cities were at this time. The treasury was guarded by recent converts from Pakistan, the farthest reaches of their conquest of Persia. When soldiers cannot understand each other, they are less likely to cooperate, so these non-Arabic guards could not be won over. In an assault at night, the Meccans killed them and seized the city center’s complex: treasury, mosque, guardhouse, offices. And this was a new low in the Muslim community: a deliberate, unprovoked attack on fellow Muslims. Sympathizers in Basra were shocked and many deserted the Meccans’ cause—though their support was why A’isha had come to Basra in the first place.
Ali had heard of these things and was riding from Medina with as many men as he could raise. He sent his son Hassan to ride faster to Kufa and persuade some fighters to join them. Their forces joined at a camp halfway between Basra and Kufa. In Basra, the army had made its loyalty choices based on tribes, with at least one large tribe walking away from Basra rather than be embroiled in fighting against members of the Prophet’s family.
By late in 656, Ali’s forces moved to Basra, camping across a plain from A’isha’s army.
- After the Prophet, by Lesley Hazelton.
- The Heirs of Muhammad, by Barnaby Rogerson
- The Prophet’s Heir, by Hassan Abbas