their fear of Allah and of him, from his own weakness, and from what arose through his relatives in positions of authority and financial affairs—circumstances that gave rise to the turmoil, until he was wrongfully killed as a martyr.

Alī then assumed authority(1) in the aftermath, while the turmoil still raged, and many of them regarded him as tainted(2) by Uthmān’s blood. Allah knows that he was innocent of what the lying slanderers who hated him attributed to him(3), just as we know that he was innocent of what those who went to excess regarding him and hated the other Companions attributed to him(4). Alī did not assist in(5) Uthmān’s killing, nor did he approve of it. It is reliably established that he himself said so—and he was truthful. Thus, many of them were not wholeheartedly devoted to him, nor could he compel them to obey him. His judgment did not lead him to refrain from fighting until he could see how matters would turn out; rather, his judgment called for fighting, and he believed that through it obedience and unity would be achieved. Yet matters only grew worse, his side only grew weaker, the side of those who fought him only grew stronger, and the ummah only became more divided. Eventually, toward the end of his rule, he himself(6) was asking those who fought him to desist, just as he had been urged to desist at the outset.

The (prophetic)(7) caliphate then grew so weak that it became kingship. Muāwiyah therefore established it as a kingship marked by mercy and forbearance, as stated in the transmitted(8) hadith: “There will be prophethood and mercy, then