Note 482 — Chapter XXXIV · THE PLOT RIPENS. CONSPIRATORS ATTACK MEDINA. DEATH OF OTHMAN. A.H. XXXV. A.D. 656.

There are traditions, but of an entirely Abbasside stamp, of other interviews between Aly and the Caliph, with repeated promises of the latter to amend; Aly recriminating that these promises were no sooner made, even from the pulpit and before the congregation, than under the baneful influence of Merwân they were broken. Even Nâila, his wife, is represented as blaming her weak-minded husband for his fickleness. But were all this true, it would go but a little way to relieve Aly, Zobeir, and Talha from the charge of desertion, or, worse, of treasonable collusion with rebels against the rightful monarch—a short-sighted policy even in their own interest.