Ali asking him for a permission to go to Mecca, saying:
- Do you permit us, O Commander of the faithful?
-Where?
-We want (to go to Mecca to perform) al-‘Umra (minor hajj).
The Imam looked at them for a while. He understood the hidden things in their souls and said to them:
“By Allah, you do not want (to go to Mecca to perform) al-‘Umra! Rather you want to betray me and break the allegiance!”
They took a strong oath that they would not break the pledge of allegiance, and that they would perform the minor hajj in the Mecca. They knew that they took a false oath but they found no way to reach their objective except in making a false oath. The Imam turned to them, while his soul was full of doubt, and said to them:
“Pay the homage to me again!”
They did that without any hesitation and escaped to Mecca. It was as if that he released them from a prison or a punishment. They joined A’isha and moved her to revolt against the Imam. They knew her malice and enmity against the Imam.
A’isha rebels against the Imam
A’isha was in the vanguard of those who kindled the fire of the revolt against Uthman, and she said the bitterest and severest words in respect of him. She gave him the name of Na‘thal. Some sources have ascribed the reason for that to that he decreased what Umar had given to her and regarded her as equal to the other wives of the Prophet (a.s).[1] She went too far in defaming him and provoking people to kill him. When the revolutionists surrounded him, she went to Mecca. When she had performed the ceremonies of the hajj, she quickly returned to Medina, that she might know Uthman’s news. She arrived in Saraf.[2] On her way to there, an uncle of her called Ubaydillah bin Abi Salama was coming from Medina. He met her, and she hurried to ask him:
-What has happened there?
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[1] Al-Ya‘qubi, Tarikh, vol. 2, p. 132.
[2] Saraf was a place six miles from Mecca, and it was said that it was more than that. At it the Prophet (a.s.) married Maymoona, daughter of al-Harith, who died there. The narrators of al-Bukhari have said: “The name of the Place was Sharaf.” This has been mentioned in Mu‘jam al-Buldan, vol. 5, p. 71.