Hadith No: 2
Ibn al-Athir - al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh - Then the year 36 entered - Mention of the Beginning of the Battle of the Camel
Volume: (2) - Page Number: (569/570)
[The text is lengthy, so only the relevant excerpt is provided here]
- .... And the reason for their gathering in Mecca was that Aisha had gone out to it while Uthman was under siege, and then she left Mecca intending Medina. When she was at Sarf, a man from her maternal uncles, from the Banu Luyth, met her. He was called Ubayd ibn Abi Salamah, the son of Umm Kulthum. She said to him, "What is it?" He replied, "Uthman was killed, and they remained for eight days." She said, "Then what did they do?" He said, "They gathered to pledge allegiance to Ali." She said, "I wish this had been confined to that! If the matter is settled for your companion, return me, return me." So she turned back to Mecca, saying, "Uthman was killed, by God, unjustly, and I will surely seek vengeance for his blood." He said to her, "And why, by God? The first to tilt a scale will be you and you had said: 'Kill the Nathu,' for he has disbelieved.'" She replied, "They sought to repent from him, then killed him," and I have spoken, and they have spoken, and my last word is better than my first." Ibn Umm Kulthum said to her:
"From you is the change of heart, and from you the anger, and from you the winds and from you the rain.
And you commanded the killing of the Imam, and told us he had disbelieved."
"So we feared you, we obeyed you in killing him, and his killer was, to us, a matter of concern.
And the ceiling did not fall upon us nor did our sun and moon become eclipsed."
"People have pledged allegiance to one with a shield, who removes the cobwebs and sets the scales right,
And dresses for war in its garments, and there is no loyal one like one who has betrayed."
She returned to Mecca, directed herself toward the Black Stone, and secluded herself in it. The people gathered around her, and she said: "O people, the rabble from the towns and the residents of the watering places, and the slaves of the people of Medina, have gathered around this man who was killed unjustly yesterday, and they resent his appointing one whose age they criticize. Yet he had appointed others like them before, and protected them in places of his authority, and had supported them and withdrawn from them. When they found no argument or excuse, they hastened to act unjustly, shedding sacred blood and desecrating the sacred city and the sacred month, and taking what is forbidden. By God, an insignificant finger of Uthman is better than a whole earth full of their likes! And, by God, if what they wronged him with had been a sin, he would have freed himself from it like gold from its impurities, or a garment from its filth, when they squeezed it, just as a garment is squeezed with water—i.e., washed."