Praise be to Allah from whose view one sky does not conceal another sky nor one earth another earth.
Someone 1 said to me, "O' son of Abi Talib, you are eager for the caliphate." Then I told him:
"Rather, you are, by Allah, more greedy, although more remote, while I am more suited as well as nearer. I have demanded it as my right, while you are intervening between me and it, and you are turning my face from it." When I knocked at his ears with arguments among the crowd of those present he was startled as if he was stunned not knowing what reply to give me about it.
O My God! I seek Thy succour against the Quraysh and those who are assisting them, because they are denying me (the rights of) kinship, have lowered my high position, and are united in opposing me in the matter (of the caliphate) which is my right, and then they said, "Know that the rightful thing is that you have it and also that you may leave it." 2
They (Talhah, az-Zubayr and their supporters) came out dragging the wife of the Messenger of Allah (the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him and his descendants) just as a maidslave is dragged for sale. They took her to Basrah where those two (Talhah and az-Zubayr) put their own women in their houses but exposed the wife of the Messenger of Allah to themselves and to others in the army in which there was not a single individual who had not offered me his obedience and sworn to me allegiance quite obediently, without any compulsion.
Here in Basrah they approached my governor and treasurers of the public treasury and its other inhabitants. They killed some of them in captivity and others by treachery. By Allah, even if they had wilfully killed only one individual from among the Muslims without any fault, it would have been lawful for me to kill the whole of this army because they were present in it but did not disagree with it nor prevented it by tongue or hand, not to say that they killed from among the Muslims a number equal to that with which they had marched on them.
(1) Al-Tabari, Ta'rikh, VI, 48;
(2) al-Bayhaqi, al-Mahasin, 41;
(3) al-Saduq, al-'Amali;
(4) Ibn al-'Athir, al-Nihayah, (bab al-ba');
(6) al-'Amidi, Ghurar, 329;
(7) al-Thaqafi, al-Gharat, see Ibn Abi al-Hadid, I, 295;
(8) al-Mufid, al-Jamal,* 45, 76.