Still, whatever other motives may have been at work elsewhere, the contest, as between Aly and Muâvia, had now become a purely personal one. The struggle was for the crown; and many looked to ‘the grey mule of Syria’ as having the better chance. A possible solution of the contest lay, no doubt, in the erection of Syria into an independent kingdom side by side with that of Persia and Egypt. [Sidenote: Unity of Caliphate still the ruling sentiment.]But the disintegration of the empire of Islam was an idea which as yet had hardly entered into the minds of the Faithful. The unity of the Caliphate, as established by the history and the precedents of a quarter of a century, was still, and long continued, the ruling sentiment of Islam. CHAPTER XXXIX. BATTLE OF SIFFIN. A.H. XXXVI., XXXVII. A.D. 657. [Sidenote: Aly’s envoy returns with defiant message from Muâvia. Shabân, A.H. XXXVI. January, A.D. 657.] After Aly had established himself at Kûfa, there followed a short interval of rest. The lieutenants and commanders, from their various provinces, flocked into the new capital to do homage to the Caliph. Towards one of these, named Jarîr, chief of the Beni Bajîla, Muâvia was known to entertain friendly sentiments. Him, therefore, Aly deputed to Damascus with a letter, wherein, after reciting the fact of his election at Medîna to the Caliphate, and the discomfiture of his enemies at Bussorah, he called on Muâvia to follow the example of the empire, and, with the rest, to take also the oath of allegiance. Like the former envoy, Jarîr was kept long in attendance. At last he was dismissed with an oral message, that allegiance would be tendered if punishment were meted out to the regicides, but on no other possible condition. The envoy further reported to Aly, that Othmân’s blood-stained garment still hung upon the pulpit of the Great Mosque, and that a multitude of the Syrian warriors had sworn that they would use no water to wash themselves withal, neither sleep in their beds, till they had slain the murderers of the aged Caliph, and those that sheltered them.[526] Ashtar accused Jarîr of playing into the hands of Muâvia; and by having dallied for so long a time at his court, of thus giving the Syrians leisure to mature their plans and become hardened in their hostile attitude. Jarîr, disgusted at the imputation, retired a neutral to Kirckesia, or, according to others, went over to Muâvia. [Sidenote: Aly invades Northern Syria. Dzul Câda, A.H. XXXVI. April, A.D. 657.]