In truth, her animosity seemed to have increased, while my memories of her addressing the crowds in the mosque, and from the balcony at Uthman’s palace, filled me anew with admiration: her tone as clear as the muezzin’s call; her proud stance more regal than the Queen of Sheba’s. From my seat on the minbar, where I awaited the ceremony that would inaugurate me as khalifa, I imagined the figure she had cut in the Ka’ba, hoisting Muhammad’s bejeweled sword and enticing warriors to her cause. It was a brilliant speech, I had heard, made more so by its impromptu nature, “nearly as impressive as your own spontaneous verses,” Abu Hurayra had fawned. I did not doubt this rumor, for I had heard excerpts that rivaled the rhetoric of our city’s most esteemed poet, Hassan ibn Thabit. We reproached Uthman. . . . He recanted and asked al-Lah for forgiveness. But Ali was not satisfied! He increased the strife that led to the murder of our khalifa, a single finger of whom was better than the whole of Ali.
