When 'Ali heard of this matter...

When 'Ali heard of this matter, he sent a number of people to prevent the crowd from their action and protect the corpse. They did so until they carried it to its destination and buried it in the above-mentioned cemetery. He was buried in darkness rather late in the evening, and no one was present there except Marwan al-Hakam, 'Uthman's fifth daughter and three of his servants, making five in all.

At her father's burial, 'Uthman's daughter wailed with lamentation, but at this moment the people threw stones at them and shouted: "Na'thal! Na'thal!" After Mu'awiyah became caliph, he ordered to pull down the wall of Hash Kawkab cemetery and thus this part was annexed to the al-Baqi' cemetery. He ordered also that the Muslims should bury their dead around 'Uthmans' 242. History of at-Tabari 5/122. Ansab al-ashraf of al-Baladhuri 5/69-70.

History of at-Tabari 5/143, Ibn al-Athir 3/76, Ibn A'tham 159, ar-Riyad an-nadrah 2/131-132. grave so as to join this grave to those of the Muslims. Appendices A word with critics Recently when I was engaged in revising this book and preparing it for publication, I heard that a writer called A.M. had written a critical note of the Arabic original of the book on 'A'ishah in No. 7 issue of the Journal of Book Guide for the Iranian year 1340 (1961).

I secured a copy of the said journal, and after reading page 696 of No. 273 of it, I realized that the writer's intention had not been to make a scientific and logical criticism of the book, but he has rather had a private motive in taking up this matter; for, he had selected certain passages of the book and had omitted the introduction and conclusion of each part, and in line with his hidden intentions he had purposefully used words and phrases to destroy the books' value as a research work and scientific study, and make such a reliable and worthy book look as lacking all validity and importance.

Some of the objections raised by Mr. A. M. were answered eloquently in the same journal by a clear-sighted scholar for whom I feel a great respect, and he has expressed his appreciation of this research work and defended it worthily. But this time the latter scholar has raised certain other criticisms about the contents of the book which criticisms cannot be disregarded and left unanswered, especially as these objections may also have occurred to other lovers of Islamic subjects and culture.