A.H. XXXVI. A.D. 656, 657. [Sidenote: Medîna abandoned as seat of Caliphate.] When Aly rode forth from Medîna in pursuit of the insurgent army, a Companion seized his bridle;--‘Stay!’ he cried with earnest voice;--‘if thou goest forth from this city, the government will depart therefrom, never more to return.’ He was pushed aside as a crackbrained meddler. But his words were long remembered, and the prophecy was true. Medîna, hitherto queen of the Moslem world, was to be the seat of empire no more. [Sidenote: Aly’s entry into Kûfa. Rajab, A.H. XXXVI. Jan. A.D. 657.] About the middle of the thirty-sixth year of the Hegira, seven months after the death of Othmân, Aly entered Kûfa. The first four months of his Caliphate had been spent, as we have seen, at Medîna; the other three in the camp at Rabadza, in the campaign ending with the battle of the Camel, and a short stay at Bussorah. No Caliph had as yet visited Kûfa. It was now to be the seat of Aly’s government. We find no mention of the manner of his entry and reception; simply the fact of his arrival. No doubt the people were flattered by the honour now put upon them. The city also had some advantages; for there were in it many leading men, able, and some of them willing, to support the Caliph by their influence. [Sidenote: Factious spirit there.]Moreover, Aly might calculate on the jealousy of the inhabitants towards Syria, in the approaching struggle with Muâvia. But all this was more than counterbalanced by the fickle and factious humour of the populace. It was the focus of Bedouin democracy; and the spirit of the Bedouins was yet untamed. What had they gained, the citizens asked one of another, by the rebellion against Othmân? The cry of vengeance on the regicides was for the moment stifled; but things were fast drifting back again into the old Coreishite groove. This was, in fact, the same cry as the Arab tribes were making all around. ‘Aly hath set up his cousins, the sons of Abbâs, everywhere--in Medîna, in Mecca, and in Yemen; and now here again at Bussorah; while he himself will rule at Kûfa. Of what avail that we made away with Othmân; and that we have shed all this blood, fighting with Zobeir and Talha?’ So spoke the arch-conspirator Ashtar among his friends at Bussorah; and Aly, fearful of the effect of such teaching, took him in his train to Kûfa, where, indeed, among the excitable populace his influence was even more dangerous. Another uneasy symptom of the times was that the baser sort and the servile dregs of Bussorah, breaking loose from authority, went forth in a body, and took possession of Sejestan on the Persian frontier. They killed the leader sent by Aly to suppress the insurrection, and were not put down till Ibn Abbâs himself attacked them with a force from Bussorah. [Sidenote: Struggle in prospect with Syria.]