en among the
Emigrants and as disappointed candidates for the Caliphate. Their
motives were purely selfish; not God's cause but their own, not religion
but power and preferment, were what they sought.[9] Their party was a
mixed one. To it belonged the men of real piety, who saw with
displeasure the promotion to the first places in the commonwealth of the
great lords who had actually done nothing for Islam, and had joined
themselves to it only at the last moment. But the majority were merely a
band of men without views, whose aim was a change not of system, but of
persons in their own interest. Everywhere in the provinces there was
agitation against the caliph and his governors, except in Syria, where
Othman's cousin, Moawiya, son of Abu Sofian (see below), carried on a
wise and strong administration. The movement was most energetic in Irak
and in Egypt. Its ultimate aim was the deposition of Othman in favour of
Ali, whose own services as well as his close relationship to the Prophet
seemed to give him the best claim to the Caliphate. Even then there were
enthusiasts who held him to be a sort of Messiah.

The malcontents sought to gain their end by force. In bands they came
from the provinces to Medina to wring concessions from Othman, who,
though his armies were spreading terror from the Indus and Oxus to the
Atlantic, had no troops at hand in Medina. He propitiated the mutineers
by concessions, but as soon as they had gone, he let matters resume
their old course. Thus things went on from bad to worse. In the
following year (656) the leaders of the rebels came once more from Egypt
and Irak to Medina with a more numerous following; and the caliph again
tried the plan of making promises which he did not intend to keep. But
the rebels caught him in a flagrant breach of his word,[10] and now
demanded his abdication, besieging him in his own house, where he was
defended by a few faithful subjects. As he would not yield, they at last
took the building by storm and put him to death, an old man of eighty.
His death in the act of maintaining his rights was of the greatest
service to his house and of corresponding disadvantage to the enemy.

4. _Reign of Ali._--Controversy as to the inheritance at once arose
among the leaders of the opposition. The mass of the mutineers summoned
Ali to the Caliphate, and compelled even Talha and Zobair to do him
homage. But soon these two, along with Ayesha, the mother of the
faithful, who had a