Annals of the early Caliphate from the death of Mahomet to the Omeyyad and Abbaside dynasties A.H. XI-LXI (A.D. 632-680) from original sources

by Sir William Muir

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Manuscripts of the whole work have, however, been procured, and are now being published on the Continent, but not in time to be available for this work. They will serve hereafter to correct, perhaps, some of the doubtful points of the history on which, from the scantiness of the material, I may have gone astray.

[2] Geschichte der Chalifen, 3 vols., Mannheim, 1846–1851.

[3] Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, Wien, 1875.

[4] The date ordinarily given as that of the Prophet’s death is the 12th Rabi I. See note p. 280, Life of Mahomet, vol. iv.

For the term ‘Companion,’ technically used to signify all who had a personal acquaintance with the Prophet, see ibid. p. 564.

The era of the Hegira was established by Omar, five or six years after the Prophet’s death. The first Moharram of the first year of the Hegira corresponds with 19th April, A.D. 622. The real hegira, or flight of Mahomet from Mecca, took place two months later (June 20). See ibid. p. 145, and C. de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 17.

[5] Al Siddîck; ibid. vol. ii. 102, 220. He was also called ‘the Sighing one,’ from his compassionate nature.

[6] Meaning a palm-trunk left for the beasts to come and rub themselves upon; a metaphor for a person much resorted to for counsel. Hobâb was the chief whom Mahomet employed to reconnoitre the enemy at Bedr.

[7] The Arabian mode of swearing fealty. The chief held out his hand, and the people one by one struck their hand flat upon it as they passed.

[8] It will be remembered that the native population of Medîna was divided into the Aus and Khazraj, and Sád belonged to the latter. Enmity and fighting had long prevailed between them before Mahomet’s arrival (Life of Mahomet, p. 119).

[9] The followers of Mahomet were divided into the Muhâjerîn, or Refugees from Mecca and elsewhere; and the Ansâr or Helpers, the citizens of Medîna (Ibid. p. 189).

[10] The tradition regarding Zobeir and Talha, perhaps arose from their attempt at the Caliphate, and refusal to acknowledge Aly, five and twenty years afterwards. As to Aly himself, the traditions vary. By some he is said to have been among the first to swear fealty to Abu Bekr. But the more general tradition is that he did not do so till Fâtima, who had a grudge against Abu Bekr for her father’s patrimony, died (Life of Mahomet, p. 516). There are other tales, but they all bear the stamp of Abbasside fabrication; such as of Omar threatening to burn Aly’s house over his head; Zobeir rushing out with a sword, &c. We are even told that Abu Sofiân taunted Aly and Abbâs with allowing an insignificant branch of the Coreish to seize the Caliphate from them; likened them to a hungry donkey tethered up, or to a tent-peg made only to be beaten; and offered to help them with horse and foot, but that Aly declined his offer. These stories are childish and apocryphal. There is absolutely nothing in the antecedents of Aly, or his subsequent history, to render it in the least probable that during the first two Caliphates, he advanced any claim whatever, or indeed was in a position to do so. It was not till the reign of Othmân that any idea arose of a superior right in virtue of his having been the cousin of Mahomet and husband of Fâtima.

It is said that as the people crowded to the hall, where Sád lay sick, to salute Abu Bekr, one cried out: ‘Have a care lest ye trample upon Sád, and kill him under foot.’ ‘The Lord kill him, as he deserveth!’ was the response of the heated Omar. ‘Softly, Omar!’ interposed Abu Bekr, ‘blandness and courtesy are better than curses and sharp words.’ Indeed, throughout this chapter Abu Bekr appears to great advantage.

[11] See Life of Mahomet, p. 500.

[12] Life of Mahomet, p. 498.

[13] Some others of the chief Companions, Aly, Zobeir, &c., appear also to have remained behind; but they may possibly not have originally formed a part of Osâma’s army ordered to reassemble.

[14] The chronology at this period is uncertain, and the dates only approximate. On the Prophet’s death we plunge at once from light into obscurity. For the next two or three years we are left in doubt, not only as to the period, but even as to the sequence of important events and great battles. In the narrative of this expedition, we only know that the army started soon after Abu Bekr’s accession, but not before the spirit of rebellion had begun to declare itself, which last, according to one tradition, was within ten days of the Prophet’s death.

The length of the expedition varies, according to different traditions, from 40 days to 70.

[15] See Life of Mahomet, chapter 32.

[16] Ibid. chapter xxx. Amru hastened home through Bahrein immediately on hearing of Mahomet’s death. Corra ibn Hobeira, Chief of the Beni Amir, took him aside, after a hospitable entertainment, and advised, as the only way to avoid revolt, that the tithe upon the Bedouins should be foregone. Amru stormed at him for this; and subsequently, on Corra being brought in a prisoner, advised his execution as an apostate.

On reaching Medîna, Amru made known the disheartening news to his friends, who crowded round him. Omar coming up, all were silent, but he divined what the subject of their converse was: ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that ye were speaking of what we have to fear from the Arab tribes?’ On their confessing, he made them swear that they would not discourage the people by letting the matter spread, and added: ‘Fear ye not this thing; verily I fear far more what the Arabs will suffer from you, than what ye will suffer from them. Verily if a company of the Coreish were to enter into a cave alone, the Bedouins would follow you into the same. They are a servile crew: wherefore, fear the Lord, and fear not them.’

[17] Or Abrac. For the Beni Abs and Dzobiân, see Life of Mahomet, vol. i. pp. ccxxiv. et seq.

[18] The riding camels had all been sent away with Osâma’s army, and the only ones now available were those used to irrigate the fields and palmgroves. The stratagem, was curious. The Bedouins blew out their empty water-skins (mussucks), and when thus buoyant and full of air, they kicked them (as you would a foot-ball) in front of the Moslem camels, which, affrighted at the strange sight, took to flight.

[19] The centre and wings were commanded by three sons of Mocarran, a citizen of Medîna. These distinguished themselves on many occasions in the Persian campaign. One of them, Nomân, was killed ten years after in the decisive action of Nehâwend.

[20] For the royal Fifth, see Sura, viii. 41.

[21] There is a tradition that when Abu Bekr issued, sword in hand, to go to Dzul Cassa, Aly caught hold of his bridle, exclaiming: ‘O Caliph, I say to thee what the Prophet said to thee on the day of Ohod: Put up thy sword again and expose us not to lose thee, for, by the Lord! if we were to lose thee, the prop of Islam were gone.’ Whereupon Abu Bekr returned and went not forth.

But this probably refers to the expeditions shortly after sent out in all directions from Dzul Cassa, as narrated below, and to Abu Bekr’s return to Medîna at that time.

[22] The notion given by tradition is that these eleven columns were despatched on their several expeditions all at once from Dzul Cassa, in presence of Abu Bekr. This of course is possible, but it is very improbable. The arrangements could hardly have been so speedily cut and dry as that supposes. It is enough to know that, sooner or later, about this time, or shortly after, these eleven expeditions started. Some of the eleven, as given by tradition, seem hardly to have been separate commands.

[23] Meaning, no doubt, that as governors they would have been immediately subordinate to himself, exposed to much drudgery, and liable to be called to account for their stewardship.

[24] For an account of this marvellous system of oral tradition, see the Essay in the Life of Mahomet on the Sources for the Biography. The halo surrounding the Prophet casts something of its brightness on the lives also of his chief Companions, whose biographies are given by tradition in considerable detail; and from them we can gather something of the early history incidentally.

[25] So uncertain is the chronology of this period, that Ibn Ishâc makes the campaigns in Yemâma, Bahrein, and Yemen to be in the twelfth year of the Hegira; whereas the received, and manifestly correct, account, as ‘gathered from the learned of Syria,’ is that the operations against the apostate tribes throughout Arabia were brought practically to an end in the 11th year of the Hegira. Only one exception is mentioned (and that somewhat obscurely) of a campaign against Rabia, who was beaten by Khâlid. Amongst the spoils of the expedition is mentioned the daughter of Rabia, who, as a slave-girl, fell to the lot of Aly.

[26] Life of Mahomet, p. 427.

[27] Ibid. p. 409.

[28] We have met Thâbit before as a poet of renown and a chief of influence, especially among the Beni Khazraj (Ibid. p. 449).

The strength of Khâlid’s column is nowhere mentioned, but, adverting to the great number slain at Yemâma (although he was reinforced meanwhile from Medîna), it could hardly have been less than twelve or fifteen hundred, besides the 1,000 men contributed, as we shall see immediately, by the Beni Tay.

[29] Had there been anything else in Toleiha’s teaching, there is no reason why we should not have heard of it, as Toleiha, when he returned to the faith, became a distinguished champion of Islam. There may, however, have been a disinclination on his part to dwell on this chapter of his life. Al Kindy, the Christian, speaks in his Apology with greater respect of Moseilama’s sayings as calculated to draw off the followers of Mahomet. But I see no evidence of this. See the Apology of Al Kindy, p. 31 (Smith & Elder, 1881).

[30] A name familiar to us in the Life of Mahomet, see p. 323, &c.

[31] The Beni Jadîla and Beni Ghauth.

[32] Abu Bekr means ‘Father of the young camel,’ and they called him by the nickname Ab ul Fasîl, ‘Father of the foal.’ Adî answered, ‘He is not Ab ul Fasîl, but, if you like it, Ab ul Fahl,’ ‘Father of the stallion,’ i.e. endowed with power and vigour.

In the Persian version of Tabari, the surname is by a mistake given as Ab ul Fadhl, ‘the Father of Excellence,’ and is applied to Khâlid.

[33] Okkâsha was a warrior of renown and leader of some expeditions in the time of Mahomet.

[34] The sub-tribe of the Beni Ghatafân to which Oyeina belonged.

[35] Kahânat, the term used for the gift possessed by the heathen soothsayers. The sayings ascribed to Toleiha are childish in the extreme. For example: ‘I command that ye make a millstone with a handle, and the Lord shall cast it on whom he pleaseth;’ and again, ‘By the pigeons and the doves, and the hungry falcons, I swear that our kingdom shall in a few years reach to Irâc and Syria.’

[36] For the barbarous execution of Omm Kirfa, see Life of Mahomet, chapter xviii. The malcontents here gathered together were from all the tribes against which Khâlid had now been engaged in warlike operations—the Ghatafân, Suleim, Hawâzin, Tay, and Asad.

[37] It was a vain excuse, but was founded on the principle that no bloodshed, treachery, sin, or excess of any sort, before conversion, cast any blot on the believer; but that apostasy, however, repented of, left a stigma which could never wholly be effaced. At first the Caliph would receive no aid whatever from any tribe or individual who had apostatised; and, though when levies came to be needed urgently, the ban was taken off, still to the end no apostate chief was allowed a large command, or put over more than a hundred men.

Among the Beni Suleim was Abu Shajra, son of the famous elegiac poetess, Al Khansa. A martial piece which he composed in reference to an engagement at this time contains the verse:—

‘And I slaked my thirsty spear in the blood of Khâlid’s troop.’

Some years after, he visited Medîna, while Omar was distributing the tithe among the poor Arabs around the city: ‘Give to me,’ said the stranger, ‘for I, too, am poor and needy.’ ‘And who art thou?’ asked Omar. Being told his name, he cried out in anger: ‘Art not thou the same that said, I slaked my thirsty spear, &c.?’ and he beat him about the head with his whip till the poet was fain to run off to his camel. A poem complaining of this treatment has been preserved, in which he says:—

‘Abu Hafs (Omar) grudged me of his gifts,

Although every one that shaketh even a tree getteth at least the leaves it sheddeth.’

Such poetical fragments, in the scantiness of the materials for this early period, give at many points reality and fulness to the story.

[38] The account as here given is from Abu Bekr’s own son. According to other traditions, Fujâa employed the arms, &., which he got from the Caliph, in attacking the loyal sections of his own and neighbouring tribes, and was therefore a pure rebel. It is more probable that he carried his marauding expeditions indiscriminately against loyal and disloyal, wherever there was the chance of plunder. Even in this view Fujâa deserved exemplary punishment, had it been of a less barbarous kind.

[39] See Life of Mahomet, vol. i. chap. iii. Some of the sub-tribes were great and powerful, as the Beni Hantzala, Mâlik, Imrulcays, Dârim; and here the Beni Yerbóa.

[40] Ibid. ch. xxvii.

[41] The Beni Iyâdh, Namir, and Sheibân. We shall meet them again in the Irâc campaign.

[42] Sajâh, it is said, lived quietly with her tribe after this in the profession of Christianity, until with them she was converted to Islam. There is a childish tale that on returning from the hasty marriage, her army, scandalised that she had received no dower, made her go back and ask Moseilama, who received her roughly, refusing her admittance; but, in lieu of dower, agreed to remit two of the daily prayers imposed by Mahomet.

By some of the historians the interview between Moseilama and Sajâh is drawn (happily a rare case in these annals) in language of gross indelicacy. The pruriency suggesting this, is the more gratuitous, as we are told, almost in the same breath, that Moseilama’s tenets were rather of an ascetic turn. His system enjoined prayer and fasting, and prohibited (so the tradition runs) cohabitation after the birth of a son, to be resumed only, if the child died, till the birth of another. But our knowledge of the life and doctrines of these pretenders to prophecy is really too scanty to warrant us in pronouncing judgment upon them.

Belâdzori and Ibn Khaldûn are among the few who have here kept their pages clean. Gibbon characteristically seizes on the passage.

[43] In a passage of Tabari (vol. i. p. 188) it is stated that when Amru passed through these regions with a column to clear the roads, he and Mâlik had words with each other. It is possible, therefore, that Khâlid may have had a stronger case against Mâlik than appears.

[44] That is, the Ansârs, as opposed to the Refugees, i.e. the men of Medîna, as opposed to the Coreish and men of Mecca.

[45] In the Kinânite.

[46] A full account of Mâlik and Motammim, with copious extracts from their poetry, will be found in Nöldeke’s Poesie der alten Araber, Hanover, 1864. Arab critics take Motammim as the model of elegiac poets, both for beauty of expression and intensity of feeling. For twenty years he had been blind of an eye, and now he told Omar that grief for his brother’s cruel fate had brought floods of tears from that eye, which all these years had been bereft of moisture. ‘Verily this surpasseth all other grief!’ said Omar. ‘Yes,’ replied Motammim, ‘it would have been a different thing if my brother had died the death of thy brother Zeid upon the field of battle.’ The noble mien and generosity of Mâlik are painted in glowing colours. He used to kindle a great fire by his tent all night until the day broke, in the hope of attracting travellers to his hospitable home.

[47] The darker suspicion has been preserved by tradition, both in prose and verse. See C. de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 368; and Kitâb al Aghâny, vol. iii. p. 355. Leila, we are told, cast herself at Khâlid’s feet, with hair dishevelled and unveiled face, imploring mercy for her husband. The wretched man, noticing the admiring look which the conqueror bestowed upon his wife, cried out, ‘Alas, alas! here is the secret of my fate!’ ‘Not so,’ said Khâlid, as he gave the sign for beheading him; ‘but it is thine own apostasy.’ All the same, he took the wife straightway for his own. We may dismiss the scene as unsupported by evidence. It is also inconsistent with Abu Bekr’s treatment. His reproach of Khâlid was based not on the impropriety of the act itself (which he could hardly have avoided had the story been founded on fact), but on its being at variance with the ideas of the Arabs to wed on the field of battle. The example, however, was set by the Prophet himself, who married Safia the night after the battle of Kheibar, and at any rate it was not long in becoming a common practice. Following the example of Khâlid (repeated by him again shortly after), the Moslem warriors made no delay in the field to wed—or rather, without wedding, to treat upon the spot as servile concubines—the wives and daughters of their fallen foes. The practice also now arose of taking their own families with them in the field, and marriages were celebrated there among themselves—on one occasion, we read, on the eve of an impending battle.

As to the tenor of tradition, there are two distinct versions of the tragedy, one giving as its cause the misconception of Khâlid’s order, the other Mâlik’s own disloyal speech. This last, taken separately, is inconsistent with the admitted fact that Khâlid justified himself before Abu Bekr by the former. In the text I have endeavoured to combine the two narratives.

Mâlik had flowing locks, and (so runs the tradition) when the skulls of the prisoners were cast into the fire under the cooking-pots, his alone would not burn because of the mass of hair. The story (true or false) shows the spirit of savagery rapidly fanned by religious war.

I should perhaps mention that, though tradition is proud of Khâlid’s heroism, he is not a special favourite with Abbasside historians, as his son was afterwards a staunch supporter of the Omeyyads.

[48] I.e. Shawwâl, or two months before the close of A.H. XI. As already explained, the dates are arbitrarily assumed. The Kâtib Wâckidi places the battle of Yemâma in A.H. XII. (which begins March 18, A.D. 633), and even the engagement of Bozâkha in the same year; but this would throw the campaign in Irâc altogether too late. The cold which led Khâlid to order his prisoners to be ‘wrapped,’ must have been on the approach of winter, and corresponds with the chronology which I have been obliged to assume on grounds admittedly vague.

[49] See Life of Mahomet, ch. xxxii. Moseilama is a diminutive form of the adjective Moslem, and is supposed by some to be in that sense a derisive epithet. He is described as of a contemptible presence, a dark yellow complexion and a pug nose.

[50] Some say that he was deputed by Abu Bekr. He could recite the whole of Sura Becr (s. ii.). Khâlid had not heard of his defection, and looked for him to come out and join his army.

[51] The tales told of him are silly. He was desired to pray, as Mahomet had done, for rain, but it only intensified the drought; when he prayed for a blessing on young children, it made them stammer, become bald, &c. He established a sanctuary, perhaps in imitation of the Kâaba, but it became a mere rendezvous for bandits. See also the ascetic doctrines ascribed to him, and the opinion of Al Kindy, the Apologist, supra, pp. 23 & 32.

[52] Above, p. 18. Ikrima was the son of Abu Jahl, the arch-enemy, cursed in the Corân by Mahomet, and himself an inveterate opponent, until the taking of Mecca (Life of Mahomet, ch. xxiv.). So completely was it all forgotten now under the new dispensation of equality and brotherhood, that he had one of the chief commands given him.

[53] If Ikrima and Shorahbîl were despatched from Dzul Cassa at the general marshalling when Khâlid marched against Toleiha, then Shorahbîl must have had long to wait. But it is probable (as we have seen) that the popular tradition of the simultaneous despatch of all the columns is a fiction, and that Khâlid’s expedition preceded some of the others by a considerable interval.

After finishing the Yemâma campaign, Shorahbîl’s original orders were to join Amru in his proceedings against the Beni Codhâa in the north.

[54] From the expression used, it would almost seem as if Sâlim carried the Corân on the point of his flag-staff. This was a common practice in after times, but the Corân was not yet collected. Possibly some portion may have been thus borne aloft by the leader, or the words may be metaphorical or anticipative.

[55] In some accounts of the battle, Khâlid is spoken of as challenging his enemy to single combat, and slaying, one after another, all who came out against him. But the circumstances would hardly have admitted of this. These single combats are the conventional drapery of all the early battles, and need not always be taken as facts. Here they are specially introduced to give place to an apocryphal story about Moseilama. He came forth to answer the challenge of Khâlid, who, in reference to the offer made by him to Mahomet, ironically asked whether he was now prepared ‘to share the Kingdom’; whereupon Moseilama turned aside ‘to consult his dæmon.’ Khâlid then rushed at him, and he fled. ‘Where is that now which thou didst promise us?’ cried his followers to the prophet, but all that he could reply was to bid them fight for their honour and their families.

[56] The twelve Leaders at the Pledge of Acaba. Life of Mahomet, ch. vi.

[57] It is said that 7,000 of the enemy were slain on each of these occasions, but the statement is loose and, no doubt, vastly exaggerated. One tradition gives the slain in the garden alone at 10,000.

[58] The greater loss among the men of Mecca and Medîna was ascribed by themselves to their superior gallantry, but by the Bedouins to their being raw and unused to fighting. We see already the seed of the rivalry which afterwards broke out so fatally between the Bedouins and the Coreish.

[59] The terms of the treaty, notwithstanding the alleged artifice (which reads somewhat strangely) were sufficiently severe. The Beni Hanîfa agreed to give up all their armour, their silver and their gold; but they were allowed to retain half of their slaves, and get back half of their own people taken prisoner. Khâlid had already captured in the valleys and open villages so many prisoners, that he had sent 500 to Abu Bekr as the royal Fifth, implying a total number of 2,500. But Omar subsequently freed all slaves of Arab blood.

Selma, one of the Hanîfa chiefs, sought to dissuade his people from surrender, saying that the winter was not overpast, and that the enemy must retire. Being overruled, he fled and committed suicide.

[60] The sayings reported were such as these: ‘O croaking frog, thou neither preventest the drinker, nor yet defilest the water.’ ‘We shall have half the land and ye the other half; the Coreish are an overbearing folk.’ But as I have said before, we have not the materials for knowing what the real teaching of Moseilama was, nor the secret of his influence.

[61] The Persian paraphrase of Tabari gives a highly coloured version. Khâlid, it tells us, gave his bride the dower of a million pieces out of the spoil, while on the marriage night the Moslem warriors lay about hungry and in want. Verses banded about the camp to this effect reached Omar, and put him in a towering passion. He nearly persuaded Abu Bekr to recall Khâlid, but the Caliph, reflecting that, after so great a victory, it would discourage the army, contented himself with a reproachful letter. All this is evidently gross exaggeration, founded probably on the dislike of the Abbasside historians.

[62] See the previous history of the province, Life of Mahomet, ch. xxx.

[63] The mission of Alâ must have been considerably later than that of Khâlid. We have before seen reason to believe that the various expeditions were not, as tradition represents, despatched all at once from Dzul Cassa.

[64] The Beni Hanîfa, Moseilama’s tribe, was a branch of the same Beni Bekr ibn Wail, mentioned in the text, as also the Beni Temîm, who to this day (such is the tenacity with which the Bedouins hold to their native soil) occupy the same pasture-lands. Some details are given regarding the chiefs who had remained tolerably loyal throughout. Thus Cays ibn Asim, Zibricân, &c., who at first vacillated, though they kept aloof from Sajâh, now, as Alâ drew near, came forth with the tithes which during the anarchy had been kept in deposit, and fought upon his side.

We are also told of a staunch believer, Thomâma, who was able to maintain his loyalty with a party of his tribe, until Alâ appeared. He joined the force, but came to an untimely and ignominious end. He was presented for his bravery with the spoils taken from the person of Hotem (to be noticed below), and, wearing them on a journey, was set upon by the people as Hotem’s murderer and as such put to death.

[65] This is the solitary expedition since the death of Mahomet around which tradition has gathered a halo of marvellous tales. When they halted on that miserable night, the beasts of burden all ran off wildly with their loads. Not one was left, and the army was near perishing of hunger as well as thirst. In the morning, they returned from all directions with their burdens, of their own accord. The lake is likened to the water that flowed from the rock in the wilderness when struck by Moses.

[66] Called Ebnâa. The traders from India settled (as they do now) along the coast from the Euphrates to Aden, and so a mongrel race sprang up.

[67] He bore the dynastic name of Mundzir, and, having been freed at the instance of an Arab relative, embraced Islam. He had the surname of Gharur (deceiver), but said that he ought rather to have been called Maghrûr (deceived). The relations of these tribes on the N.E. of Arabia, with Hîra and also with Persia, were close and constant. Little more than twenty years before, the Beni Bekr had beaten back the combined forces of Persia and Hîra. The connection of the Arab tribes in this quarter with Persia corresponded with that between the Syrian tribes and the Roman empire. (Life of Mahomet, vol. i. p. clxxxii.)

[68] For the island Dârîn (or Dirîn) see an interesting article by Sir H. Rawlinson, on the islands of Bahrein, Royal As. Society’s Journal, vol. xii. p. 222, et seq. There were five bishops in this province, and ‘the insular see is always named Dirîn.’ We have here indirect evidence of the prevalence of the Christian faith in northern Arabia, far down the shores of the Persian Gulf.

[69] Each horseman got 6,000 pieces. The tale is told with such extravagances as we are accustomed to only in the life of the Prophet, e.g. the strait was so broad that it took a day and a night for a ship to cross, yet not the hoof of a camel was wetted. It is remarkable that, with few exceptions, this expedition is the only one, after the death of Mahomet, regarding which such childish tales are told.

[70] There is a tradition that two chiefs Zibricân and Acra obtained from Abu Bekr a patent appointing them collectors of tithe in Bahrein, on condition that they made themselves responsible for its loyalty. The document was shown to Omar, who, angry apparently because Acra had been an apostate, tore it up. Talha, who had negotiated the affair, went to Abu Bekr and asked, ‘Art thou ruler, or is Omar?’ ‘Omar,’ he replied, ‘but obedience is due to me.’ This (which illustrates the great influence of Omar with the Caliph) may have referred to a part of the Bahrein coast not under Alâ.

[71] He belonged to the Beni Shaybân, a sub-tribe of the Beni Bekr.

[72] No dates are given. But as the battle which follows was retrieved by reinforcements from the Beni Abd al Cays, and as that tribe was only set free by the success of Alâ, the operations in Omân must necessarily have been later than those in Bahrein.

[73] See Life of Mahomet, ch. xxx.

[74] They belonged to the great families of Azd and Himyar, who inhabited that part of the Peninsula, and had therefore both experience and local influence.

[75] Sohâr, still a mercantile port, lies above 100 miles west of Maskat. The bazaar of Dabâ was probably near to it.

[76] Attâb had been governor ever since Mahomet appointed him on the capture of Mecca. The rebels were headed by Jondob of the Mudlij tribe. Penitential verses, recited by this rebel chief on his submission, have been preserved (Tabari, i. p. 212). In the paucity of trustworthy tradition at this period, such verses are peculiarly valuable, amplifying as they do the meagre materials at our command, and giving fixed and certain points.

[77] According to another account of this affair, Khâlid (who had been appointed by Mahomet collector of tithes and resident with the Beni Zobeid in the quarter south of Mecca), attacked Amr ibn Mádekerib, and having taken his sister prisoner, obtained the sword as her ransom. The sword came several years afterwards into the possession of the Governor of Kûfa, who offered to give it back to Amr; to show its marvellous temper, Amr took it, and at one blow severed the pack on his mule’s back in two. Then he returned it to the governor, saying that he could not retain a sword of which he had once been despoiled. Among other poetry is some by Amr himself:—‘The sword of the son of Dzu Cayfar (A.D. 475) was mine; its blade was tempered in the age of Ad. It hath a grooved blade which cleaveth helmets, and the bodies of men, in twain.’ See Caussin de Perceval, vol. i. p. 117; also Mr. C. J. Lyall’s translations from the Hamasah. Journal As. Soc. of Bengal, 1877, vol. xlvi. pp. 179, et seq. It is curious to remark how many Arab warriors were also poets of renown.

[78] The tradition was preserved in the name of ‘the Villains’ (Akhabîth) road, by which this part of the coast was long known.

[79] Life of Mahomet, chap. xxxii.

[80] Yemen was, for a considerable period in the seventh century, governed by a Satrap as a dependency of Persia; and large numbers of Persians then settled in the country. These were their descendants, and also the Ebnâa of mixed parentage. (Life of Mahomet, vol. i., p. cxliv.)

[81] Dzul Kelâa and other semi-independent Himyar chiefs occupying the neighbouring districts. Some of these remained loyal, and distinguished themselves greatly in the Syrian campaigns.

[82] Feroze was a poet, as well as a statesman; and his verses lamenting the captivity of his family, and threatening revenge, have been preserved. (Tabari i. p. 220.) Abd Yaghûth, or servant of the idol of that name worshipped in the south of Arabia. See Lyall’s translations from the Hamasah, quoted above. We hear of him afterwards, but not much of Feroze.

[83] As usual, no date is given. But as only now he met Ikrima, who had made a march of several weeks from Omân, after the campaign in the East, the period must have been late in the year A.H. XI., if not the beginning of A.H. XII. Tabari, as I have said before, places the entire reduction of apostate Arabia within A.H. XI.

Mohâjir was brother to Omm Salma, one of the Prophet’s wives. He was one of the malingerers who absented himself from the Tebûk campaign, and so incurred the displeasure of Mahomet. (Life of Mahomet, chap. xxviii.) But Omm Salma, one day, washing the Prophet’s head, made mention to him of her brother, and, finding the opportunity favourable, called him in. His excuse was accepted; and the government of Hadhramaut was then and there conferred on him.

[84] The verses are quoted by Tabari, vol. i. p. 224. The Arabs, and especially their poets, had the faculty of abusing one another in the grossest manner. About the same time, lampoons were bandied between Amr ibn Mádekerib and Farwa, a loyal chief of the Beni Murâd, who maintained a constant check upon Amr’s proceedings. As regards Farwa, we are told that when he first presented himself to Mahomet, he explained how his tribe and the Beni Hamdân had an idol which each kept alternately for a year. The contested possession of this idol led in bygone time to the famous battle of Al Razm.

[85] The Beni Sakûn were loyal throughout the rebellion, and gave protection to the faithful refugees from other tribes. Among others, Moâdz ibn Jabal, deputed by Mahomet to teach the tribes of the south the Corân and the tenets of Islam (Life of Mahomet, chap, xxx.), took refuge with them, and married a lady from amongst them. He was so enamoured of this Sakûnite wife that it used to be his constant prayer that in the resurrection he and she might both be raised together. He died in the plague A.H. XVIII.

[86] See the account of their brilliant cavalcade and the betrothal, Life of Mahomet, chap. xxx.

[87] A thousand women were captured in the fortress. They called after Ashâth as he passed, ‘he smelleth of burning,’ i.e. he is a recreant traitor.

[88] Her name was Omm Farwa. Their son Mohammed was killed fighting in the army of Musáb against Mokhtâr. Some verses by Ashâth lamenting the catastrophe of Nojeir have been preserved by Tabari, vol. i. p. 248.

[89] She was the daughter of one Nomân, who, praising her attractions to Mahomet, added, as the climax, that she never had had sickness of any kind. After a private interview with her, Mahomet sent her back to her home in the south, saying, ‘Had the Lord seen anything good in her, it had not been thus.’

In the Life of Mahomet, I rejected as apocryphal this and other accounts of the Prophet’s betrothal to certain females with whom marriage was not consummated. In the present case, however, the betrothal is certainly confirmed by the curious objection taken by the army to Ikrima’s marriage on account of the inchoate relation in which she at one time stood to the Prophet; and it is therefore possible that other betrothals which at the time appeared to me improbable may also be founded on fact. See Life of Mahomet, chap, xxii., and Ibn Cotâba, p. 18.

It will be remembered that the widows of the Prophet, as ‘Mothers of the Faithful,’ were prohibited by the Corân from re-marrying. Ibid. p. 303.

[90] See Life of Mahomet, chap. xxix.

[91] ‘The days of Ignorance,’ that is, the period preceding Islam.

[92] Two such are named by Tabari, i. p. 248.

A light ransom was fixed for each Arab slave, namely seven camels and six young ones. In the case of some tribes which had suffered most severely (as the Beni Hanîfa, the Beni Kinda, and the people of Omân discomfited at Dabâ), even this was remitted.

[93] Fadak was a Jewish settlement north of Medîna, conquered by Mahomet at the same time as Kheibar. Portions of both were retained by Mahomet for the support of his household. (See Life of Mahomet, pp. 394 and 548.)

[94] According to most authorities she survived her father six months; others say only three.

[95] Some say that Abu Bekr appointed Abd al Rahman to the duty. The uncertainty on this (to the Moslem) most important point is indicative of the confusion which still prevailed, and the vagueness of tradition for the period immediately following Mahomet’s death.

[96] Gibbon, chap. xlvi.

[97] Above, p. 50.

[98] By some accounts Mothanna appeared in person before Abu Bekr and promised to engage the local tribes in carrying the attack into the border lands of Irâc.

[99] Such are said to have been Abu Bekr’s orders; but tradition here probably anticipates the march of events. It is very doubtful whether he had yet the city of Hîra in view. The campaign widened, and the aims of Khâlid became more definite as his victories led him onwards.

[100] The pre-Islamite history of these Arab races is given in the introductory chapters to the Life of Mahomet, vol. i.

[101] i.e. ‘Irâc of the Arabs’ as distinguished from Irâc Ajemy, ‘foreign’ or Persian Irâc.

[102] The mounds are, no doubt, not only the remains of embankments but also of the clearances of silt, which (as we know in India) become hillocks in the course of time.

[103] This, as well as the main stream, is sometimes called by our historians Furât, or Euphrates; at other times by its proper name of Bâdacla, and also Al Atîck, the ‘old’ or deserted channel; but the streams have varied their course from age to age.

[104] The country suffers similarly in the present day at the hands of the Turkish Government. A traveller writes regarding it: ‘From the most wanton and disgraceful neglect, the Tigris and Euphrates, in the lower part of their course, are breaking from their natural beds, forming vast marshes, turning fertile lands into a wilderness,’ &c.

[105] These seem to have occupied a position similar to that of the great Talookdars in Upper India.

[106] Beyond the general outline we must not look for much trustworthy detail at the outset of these campaigns. The narrative of them is brief and summary, often confused and contradictory. For example, Hîra is said by some to have submitted at the outset and agreed to pay tribute, which is inconsistent with the course of the narrative. The summons to Hormuz as given in the text savours too much of the set type of after days to be above suspicion; so with the constant repetition of single combats, without which the historians seem to think no Arab battle complete.

There is one point of some importance. It is the call on Hormuz to pay tribute. Now, tribute was permitted by Mahomet only to ‘the people of the Book,’ that is, to Jews and Christians. No such immunity was allowed to the heathen, who were to be fought against to the bitter end. Zoroastrians (for such was Hormuz) should strictly have been offered no terms but Islam. They had not, however, yet been thought of, for they were altogether beyond the limits and tribes of Arabia. Eventually, Omar ruled that having ‘a Book’ or Revelation, they might be admitted into the category of those to be spared on payment of tribute. But, as I have said, the summons is no doubt cast in the conventional mould of later days.

[107] Horsemen received three shares; the foot soldiers one. This was the standing rule from the time of the Prophet. Two shares were for the horse.

[108] The grade of Persian nobility was marked by the costliness of the jewelled turban.

[109] No elephant had ever been seen before at Medîna, and only one at Mecca—‘the year of the elephant’ marking the era of Abraha’s attack (Life of Mahomet, p. xxvi.). The astonishment of the women and children of Medîna was unbounded, and some inquired in childish amazement whether it was an artificial thing, or really was a work of nature.

[110] It is also called the battle of Kâtzima, a neighbouring town reduced by Khâlid.

This tale of soldiers being chained together, or tied with ropes, is commonly told both of Persian and Roman armies. How far it is founded on fact it is difficult to say. We must ever remember that the materials for our story are all one-sided, and that there is much ignorance of their enemies displayed by the annalists, as well as much contemptuous fiction regarding them.

[111] It will be more convenient hereafter (dropping the Occidental forms of Ctesiphon and Seleucia) to speak of the Persian capital by its Arabic name, Medâin.

[112] Cârin, they say, was the last noble of the first rank who took the field against the Mussulmans. The slain are put at 30,000, besides those drowned in the canal. Such numbers, always loose, are especially so in the traditions of this early period. Among the prisoners was a Christian, father of the famous jurisconsult Abul Hasan of Bussora (d. A.H. 110). Also Mâckia, afterwards the freedman of Othmân, and Abu Ziâd, freedman of Moghîra.

[113] Khâlid’s speech is quoted by Al Kindy the Christian Apologist (Smith and Elder), p. 33.

[114] The iddat (or interval prescribed between divorce and re-marriage, or before the cohabitation of a new master with his slave-girl) is not observed in respect of women taken captive on the field of battle. I can find no authority on the subject, but am told by those versed in the law that the only exception is that of women with child in which event cohabitation would be unlawful till after delivery. In all other cases, in conformity with the precedent of the Prophet’s marriage with Safia at Kheibar, the captives, whether maid or matron, are lawful to the captors’ embrace upon the spot (Life of Mahomet, p. 391).

[115] Tabari tells us that every month it was the turn of a new prince to rule as minister, and this was Bahmân’s month.

[116] The slain are given at the fabulous figure of 70,000. The decapitation of the captives went on for a night and a day (so we are told), and then they scoured the country for more. Cacâa, one of the Arab captains, told Khâlid that ‘the Lord had forbidden the earth to allow human blood to flow upon its face more than the length of a man’s dress,’ and that it never would run in a stream until water was turned on. Blood, as we know, soon thickens and curdles of itself.

There is, presumably, great exaggeration in the story, and I should willingly have put down the whole as a fiction growing out of the name of the river; but the narrative unfortunately is in keeping with the bloodthirstiness of the Arab crusaders, and specially with the character of ‘the Sword of the Lord.’ The tradition about the flour-mills comes from Moghîra, through one of Tabari’s standing string of traditional authorities.

[117] She bore him children, or the circumstance would probably have been too common to merit a place in tradition. Abu Bekr was so charmed with his stalwart mien that he burst forth in a martial couplet in the envoy’s praise.

[118] For the history of Hîra up to this time, see Life of Mahomet, vol. i. introd. chap. iii. The Lakhmite dynasty sprang from the southern branch of the Arabs, and, both on this account and for the reasons stated in the text, their influence did not penetrate deeply into the peninsula.

[119] Called also Manîshia. It never recovered the calamity; at any rate we do not hear of it again.

[120] The escapes were opened perhaps as well to flood the country and impede the enemy’s progress, as to lay the navigating channel dry. These channels have greatly altered, so that attempt at identification would be fruitless.

[121] The palace of Khawarnac was built 200 years before, by Nomân I., for the reception of his pupil Bahrâm Gour, heir-apparent to the throne of Persia. Sinnimâr was the architect. There was a stone, so the story runs, which, if removed, the whole building would fall. The secret was known to Sinnimâr alone; and Nomân dashed him from the top, that the secret might perish with him. (Life of Mahomet, vol. i. p. clxxi.)

[122] The treaty is given as follows:—‘This is the Treaty of Khâlid with the son of Adi, Amr son of Abd al Masîh, and Iyâs ibn Cabîsa, empowered in that behalf by the citizens of Hîra. They shall pay, year by year, 190,000 dirhems, to be levied on clergy and laity, saving mendicants who have abjured the world. The Mussulmans on their side shall protect the city, otherwise there will be no obligation to pay the tribute. If the city be disloyal in word or deed, the treaty shall be void.’ The terms are given alike in two independent traditions; but the rising, which shortly after swept over the land, cancelled it.

[123] Showeil was an old dotard. When Kerâmat said to him, ‘What carest thou for an old creature like me?’ he replied, ‘I am not my mother’s son if I take less for thee than a thousand dirhems.’ She feigned to think it much, but paid it down. When she had gone, his companions laughed at him for asking such a trifling sum for so distinguished a captive. He went to Khâlid: ‘I meant,’ he said, ‘to ask the highest figure that there was; but now they tell me that numbers go beyond a thousand, and that I did not ask enough. Give me, therefore, a fitting ransom.’ Khâlid said: ‘Thou purposedst one thing, my friend, and the Lord purposed another. I judge by what appeareth, and leave thy purposes alone.’ I give the story as I find it, absurd as it appears, for the lady is said to have been fourscore years of age. The romance of early love, at any rate, was soon changed into a more sordid passion. The tale, though surrounded by marvels (e.g. Mahomet’s foretelling the conquest of Hîra), is, no doubt, founded on some slight substratum of fact. The lady’s age must be exaggerated as well as the simplicity of Showeil, since she was the daughter of Abd al Masîh who headed the deputation from the city.

[124] Tradition gives with considerable zest a somewhat coarse and childish conversation between Khâlid and the aged Abd al Masîh (called Ibn Backîla, ‘son of the bean-stalk,’ from his green dress), who headed the deputation. ‘Whence comest thou?’ asked the conqueror. ‘From my mother’s womb.’ ‘And where art thou now?’ ‘In my clothes,’ and so on. Asked what was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen, he said, ‘The road from Hîra to Damascus, which was lined in my early days with villages all along, so that a woman could travel on it alone, taking with her a single cake; but that time hath long passed by.’ His attendant carried a little bag containing a quick poison, which his master was prepared to swallow if any indignity had been shown him. Khâlid took and swallowed it, saying that no soul could die before its time. As no ill effect followed, the chief was lost in amazement, and declared that Khâlid must be irresistible. Marvellous tales of this sort are, however, very rare now. Some touching verses are recorded as sung by Ibn Backîla on the fall of Hîra. Here is a specimen:—

Now that the Princes of the house of Mundzir are gone, shall I ever again behold the royal herd of camels returning at eve from the pastures of Khawarnac and Sedîr?

Now that the horsemen of Nomân are passed away, shall I ever again feed the young she-camel on the pastures between Mecca and Hafîr?

Like a flock of goats on a stormy day, we are scattered by the Beni Maád (the invading Moslems), even as pieces of camels slaughtered for the feast.

Heretofore our homes were sacred, and we like the teats of a well-filled udder,

Yielding tribute at the appointed times to the Chosroes, and imposts in cattle and gold.

Alas! even so is the changeful wheel (bucket) of the well of fortune. Now the day brightens with joy and gladness, and now it is dark with sorrow and grief.

Masûdi speaks of the Ibâdites (the Christian aborigines of Hîra) as still in his time inhabiting this neighbourhood.

[125] For the field of Mûta, where Khâlid rallied the fragments of the Moslem army broken by the Roman legions, see Life of Mahomet, chap. xxiii.

[126] The ‘Service of Victory’ consisted of eight continuous Rakâats, or series of prostrations, with the appointed Sura of Victory.

In this first campaign there is no mention of any Moslems killed. There were, no doubt, casualties among the rank and file of the Bedouin tribes, but these are taken little account of. If any ‘Companion,’ or leader of eminence, had been slain, the fact would, no doubt, have been mentioned. We must remember that most of the soldiers from Medîna had returned to their homes from Yemâma, so that there may not have been many Companions present with Khâlid at this time.

With reference to Khâlid’s speech, I should notice that it was the tendency of the Kûfa and Bussora schools to magnify the difficulties of the conquest of Irâc in their own interest, as enhancing their claims upon the revenues of the Sawâd, or surrounding province. In this sense there is a fragment from the Arab warrior Amr ibn Cacâa:—

The Lord water the ground where lie buried the heroes of Irâc

Upon the dusty plain and beneath the sandy mounds!

And then he mentions in verse the various fields in which they had fallen in this first campaign from Hafîr to the siege of Hîra.

[127] These treaties were mostly abrogated by the rebellion that shortly after swept over the land. But some of the chieftains remained steadfast, as Salûba ibn Nestûba, ‘the lord of Coss Nâtick.’ His treaty is given verbatim by Tabari, with the witnesses, &c., copied, probably, from the original. He had to pay a tribute of 10,000 dirhems, to be contributed rateably by his people according to each man’s means, besides a tax of four dirhems per head (apparently a Persian tax, as it is called harazat Chosra).

The terms of these treaties were made by Khâlid, with the consent and approval of the army, showing how Khâlid recognised the dominancy of the democratic element.

[128] The terms of the discharge are given by Tabari, who also mentions nine of the Moslem chiefs employed to attest the receipts.

[129] One of the great channels drawn above Babylon from the Euphrates, which flows across the peninsula and falls into the Tigris.

[130] P. 68.

[131] His name was Shîrazâd, for we come now constantly on Persian names. The story is that the Moslems were told to shoot at the eyes of the garrison. And so a thousand of the enemy had their eyes transfixed; whence the siege was called ‘The action of the Eyes.’ I give the tradition as I find it—not pretending to offer an explanation—excepting that the same word stands for eyes and fountains.

[132] Still called by that name (pl. Felâlij), meaning the district about Anbâr irrigated by channels from the Euphrates. The army is said to have passed by the plain of Kerbala, which, however, is a good deal south of the position I assign to Ain Tamar (‘The Fountain of Date-palms’).

[133] See above, p. 31. The Beni Taghlib, it will be remembered, retired into Mesopotamia with Sajâh after her marriage with Moseilama.

[134] The Companion was Omeir. He had been one of the refugees to Abyssinia in the persecution of the Coreish, and was therefore a very early convert. A citizen (Ansâr) was also buried here; it is not distinctly stated, but I infer, that he too was killed in the action. This is the first mention of anyone killed on the Moslem side in the Irâc campaign, though, as said before, loss in the rank and file of the Bedouin levies was not of such importance as necessarily to require distinct notice.

[135] Another of these youths was Hemrân, who became the Mowla, or freedman, of Othman. When surprised in their cloister, they declared themselves to be ‘hostages,’ perhaps strangers from a distance, detained to complete their education there.

[136] Welîd was the son of that Ocba who had been put to death by Mahomet after the battle of Bedr (Life of Mahomet, p. 239). We shall hear more of him by and by.

[137] The distance must have been over 300 miles, besides the detour rendered necessary by the intervening desert (the Nefûd of red sand, see Lady Blount’s Pilgrimage to Nejd); and must have taken, C. de Perceval says, not less than ten days; with any other than Khâlid, I should have said a good deal more.

[138] Jabala VI. See Life of Mahomet, vol. i. p. clxxxix.

[139] So the ordinary narrative. But there is another account that Okeidar was sent a prisoner to Medîna; and being subsequently released by Omar, settled near Ain Tamar, at a place which, in memory of his former home, he named Dûma. The name may have given rise to the tradition; though, on the other hand, the execution of Okeidar is in keeping with Khâlid’s sanguinary character. For his first encounter with Khâlid, see Life of Mahomet, p. 458.

[140] Acra was chief of the Beni Temîm, old allies of the Beni Kelb, who otherwise would have shared the common fate.

[141] The demonstration was probably forced. The citizens, we are told, murmured secretly,—‘We thought that they had passed by, like other Arab raiders; their return is the breaking out of a fresh calamity;’ and so, before long, they found it.

[142] The girl’s name was Sahba. Aly had recently received into his harem another maiden taken captive at Yemâma; being of the Beni Hanifa, the son, Mohammed, whom she bore to him, was called the Hanifite. Thus, though he sat inactive at home, Aly took his full share of the captive ladies. He also married in this year Omâma, a granddaughter of the Prophet (being a child of Abul Aâs and Zeinab) and niece of his deceased wife Fâtima.

I have noticed these expeditions very briefly, as the similarity of detail becomes tedious. The Persian generals Zermihr and Rozaba, were attacked by Cacâa and slain before they could form a junction with the Beni Taghlib, but the fugitives joined the Bedouin camp at Modeya in the desert. Thereupon, Khâlid organised three parties to converge at a set time by night upon the Arab encampment, which was surprised, and left covered with the dead, ‘like a field of slaughtered sheep.’ The chief, Hodzeil, escaped.

Among the slain were two Bedouin chiefs who, having embraced Islam, held an amnesty from the Caliph. Omar took the occasion again to blame Khâlid for his indiscriminating vengeance; but Abu Bekr, as before, justified him; ‘for those,’ he said, ‘who dwell in the encampment of an enemy must take their chance with him.’ As, however, they were both said to have called aloud the Moslem shibboleth, their families were set free and taken care of, and blood-money paid. Omar treasured up these things against Khâlid.

The similar stratagem of a convergent night attack was repeatedly resorted to at Thinia, Zomeil, and Bishr, not a soul escaping the sword but the women and children. Horcus, a famous chief of the desert, was surprised and slain while drinking his last draught of wine with his daughters, who were carried away captive. The subject is a favourite one, and the bacchanalian verses sung by Horcus in his last cups, with a swan-like anticipation of impending fate, are assigned to several different occasions.

[143] Ramadhan fell in December, A.D. 633.

[144] No details are given of this great battle, excepting the fabulous number of 100,000 slain.

[145] In the troublous times that followed, almost all the country rose and committed acts of disloyalty which, with one or two exceptions, cancelled the treaties and engagements now entered into by Khâlid with the Dihcâns.

[146] According to some traditions, Abu Bekr deputed Omar to preside at the pilgrimage this year. But the general opinion is that Abu Bekr did so himself, leaving Othmân during his absence in charge of Medîna. This is the more likely, as, owing to the troubled state of the peninsula, he had been unable to go on pilgrimage the previous year.

[147] See above, p. 53.

[148] Near to Castal (which C. de Perceval makes Callirhoe) and towards Abila but probably not so far north; the advance on Syria being made (as always) on the coast of the Dead Sea.

[149] Dzul Kelâa, with his immediate clan, remained firm in the rebellion of Yemen, and aided Ikrima in its suppression: see above, p. 54. Ikrima’s column was called ‘the brigade of substitutes,’ because on his return from the long campaign in the south, his soldiers were allowed furlough to their homes, on condition of their giving substitutes for the new expedition in the north.

[150] Amru is said to have had the promise of the command over the tribes of Odzra and Sád-Hodzeim (branches of the Beni Codhâa) from Mahomet when he deputed him to Omân, and Abu Bekr fulfilled the promise. His present mission must have been subsequent to the affair at Dûma, as Welîd, on his return to Medîna from Irâc, was sent to help Iyâdh at Dûma. This further appears from the notice that Welîd, on joining the Syrian force, left as his locum tenens over the Beni Codhâa, Imral Cays ‘from Dûma’; implying that Dûma was by this time a Mahometan possession.

[151] Marj al Soffar is to the north of the Yermûk on the road to Damascus, and is frequently mentioned in the subsequent campaign. It was not far from Jâbia in the Jaulân (Gaulonitis) which became the grand rendezvous for the Moslem armies, and the point of departure both for northern Syria and Palestine. The journey from Medîna to Syria was always, as now, by the country to the east of the Dead Sea, very much what is the present pilgrim route from Damascus to Mecca.

Some accounts say that Khâlid himself was killed in the engagement, which, according to the wont of Saracen defeats, is slurred over with a few unsatisfactory and garbled words. According to other traditions, Khâlid was degraded because, in returning from Yemen, he delayed to swear allegiance to Abu Bekr, and abused Aly and Othmân for allowing the government to pass out of the house of Abd Menâf. This is altogether improbable. The account in the text is the received one and also the most consistent. But the dates are all uncertain, for none are reliable till after the battle of Ajnadein.

[152] Shorahbîl had fought under the great Khâlid at Yemâma, and thence accompanied him to Irâc. Deputed at this crisis to Medîna with despatches or booty, he there obtained this command.

[153] The Scriptural expressions of ‘the Promised Land,’ ‘the Land of Blessing,’ &c., are applied in the Corân to Palestine; and it remained long the most coveted destination of the Bedouin levies.

[154] The strength of the four columns is usually given as 27,000, some authorities adding 3,000 rallied from Khâlid’s force, and some not. Tradition represents Abu Bekr as sending them forth each to reduce a given district in Syria—Abu Obeida, Hims; Yezîd, Damascus; Shorahbîl, the Jordan; Amru, Palestine. A palpable anticipation. Abu Bekr’s vision was yet bounded by the Roman army, and the issue doubtful.

[155] Ar, or Rabbah of Moab.

[156] The Dothan of Joseph’s story is placed by Robinson north of Nablûs, near the plain of Megiddo. If this be the same, Yezîd must have penetrated into the centre of Palestine, which at this early period of the campaign is not likely. But the whole account is very brief and confused. It seems, also, improbable that Abu Obeida should have advanced quite so far as Jâbia, while as yet the Roman battalions dominated the country north of the Yermûk.

[157] The names of the Roman commanders are given as Jâreja (George?), Cayear ibn Nestûs, Darâckis, and Tadzâric (Theodoric). Tradition pretends that Heraclius, half persuaded of the truth of Islam, was desirous to cede to the Moslems the plain of Syria up to the mountains of Asia Minor, but was hindered by the perversity of his grandees.

[158] The way out, however, could have been only partially closed, for reinforcements reached the Romans without hindrance. The ravine was probably passable at some points, though, on the whole, a sufficient defence against the Arabs.

[159] The country is well described by Laurence Oliphant in his Land of Gilead, and the picture at p. 87 gives an admirable idea of the gorge surrounding our battle-field. ‘The Yermûk,’ he says, ‘at this point is just sinking below the level of the plain through which it has been meandering, and in the course of the next mile plunges down, a series of cascades, into the stupendous gorges through which it winds, until it ultimately falls into the Jordan below Gadara.’ The grand old military road, still bearing traces of wheeled carriages, bifurcates five and twenty miles south of Damascus. The right branch leads S.W. to Palestine, crossing the Yermûk at Gadara; the other continues to run south towards Jerash and Bostra, and so onward till it is lost in the Hajj or pilgrim-route into Arabia. The latter was the road always traversed by the Saracen armies as they marched into Syria and Palestine; and I assume that the battle was fought at a point some 30 miles east of Gadara where this road crosses the Yermûk. The same road northward leads to Jâbia (Tell Jâbieh); and Jâbieh became the grand base of operations both for Syria and for Palestine; for Palestine was never approached from Arabia but by this circuitous route. The Arabs, we are told, do not use the Roman road, because probably it is in so rugged and ruinous a condition. But they always use the bridges when passable; and Mr. Oliphant tells us of an ‘old Roman bridge of nine arches, one of which has fallen and has not been repaired,’ over the Yermûk in this vicinity, p. 87. The researches now being prosecuted to the east of the Jordan may throw farther light on this great battle-field, the site of which it may be possible yet to identify.

[160] Some authorities represent the transfer as a punishment for the surreptitious visit to Mecca; but this is at variance with the terms of the order, as well as opposed to the whole tenor of Abu Bekr’s forbearing treatment of Khâlid.

[161] The numbers of Khâlid’s column are variously stated at 9,000 and 6,000; and again as low as 800, 600, and 500. But the smaller numbers are probably intended to indicate only that part of his force which formed the flying column in his adventurous march across the desert: the rest, I assume, followed more leisurely and by an easier route. In point of fact, 6,000 returned the following year to Irâc, though they had been thinned by the Syrian campaign.

Some put the march of Khâlid a month earlier. Ibn Ishâc says that before leaving, Khâlid despatched the sick and infirm, with the women and children, to Medîna, with the last consignment of royal prize, as if he apprehended insecurity during his absence.

[162] The great sea of red sand has been spiritedly described by Lady Anne Blount in her Pilgrimage to Nejd; her route (reversed) was the same as Khâlid’s, from Irâc as far as Corâcar, only her circuit led her farther south to Hâil, and nearer the mountain range of Ajâ and Selma.

[163] Such is the received account of this extraordinary march, the memory of which is also preserved in contemporary verse. Ibn Ishâc speaks of twenty camels, which would have gone but a little way. Other accounts give the number of camels at so many per hundred lances, without mentioning the strength of the column. As before explained, Khâlid probably took the perilous route with only the lighter part of his force, leaving the bulky and heavy portion to follow by the ordinary road, along the Wady Sirhân, after he had cleared the Bostra approach. The lips of the camels were slit or cut off (according to other accounts bound up) to prevent their ruminating and the consequent digestion and assimilation of the water in their stomachs.

[164] They emerged at Suwâ near Tadmor, and forthwith fell upon the Beni Bahra, a Christian tribe, a portion of which was engaged in the defence of Dûma the year before. Here again we have the bacchanalian death-song of Horcûs mentioned before. We must receive the account of Khâlid’s circuit even after the passage of the desert, with some reserve. He is said to have plundered Cariatein and Huwarein on the way from Tadmor; to have made terms with the Beni Codhâa at Cussum; then to have passed over the ‘Mount of the Eagle’ (so called from his halting on it with the Prophet’s black flag), within sight of Damascus; to have plundered Marj Râhat, and a convent in the Ghûta or plain of Damascus, killing the men and taking the females prisoners; and so on to Bostra, which, after some opposition, came to terms. If this be all true, he may have at Bostra formed a junction with the body of his column left behind at Corâcar. But it is all very vague, and with a dash of the marvellous.

Ibn Ishâc gives a somewhat different account. He mixes up former victories (e.g. the capture of the forty Christian youths, of Aly’s slave-girl, &c.) with this campaign; and he makes the storming of Bostra to follow the junction with Abu Obeida. I find no authority whatever for the romance of the taking of Bostra as given by Ockley and followed by Gibbon.

[165] In the silence of Byzantine chroniclers we must make the best of the figures. 80,000 were ‘prisoners,’ either simply so or in chains; 40,000 were ‘chained together to fight to the death;’ 40,000 were ‘tied by their turbans;’ and 80,000 free and unencumbered. In the Armenian general Bahân we recognise the Βάαν of Theophanes; a rare (one might say a unique) coincidence.

[166] The imagination of the crusading army was inflamed by tales and visions of the dying soldiers each tended by two black-eyed girls of Paradise, who, wiping the sweat and dust of battle from the face of their spouse, welcomed and clasped him in their fond embrace.

[167] It is doubtful whether Abu Bekr’s commission to Khâlid on his transfer did not at the same time nominate him to the supreme command of the Syrian forces. Ibn Khaldûn reads so; and likewise the tradition that Omar, in eventually deposing him, appointed Abu Obeida similarly to the supreme command. If so, Khâlid may have chosen not to excite jealousy by assuming the supremacy at once, but rather to have obtained it by consent. But our information is, at this early period, vague and incomplete.

[168] The tale is full of childish matter. The following is an outline from which the reader may draw his own conclusion. When the two armies were drawn up for battle, Jâreja, riding forth from the Roman ranks, called out to Khâlid as if challenging him to single combat. They drew so near to one another, midway between the two armies, that their horses’ necks touched. Having pledged their word to each other, a conversation ensued. Jâreja asked Khâlid why he was called the ‘Sword of God,’ and whether a sword had really been sent down to him from heaven. Khâlid smiled, and expounded to him the basis and practice of Islam. The ingenuous Roman, convinced, forthwith reversed his shield; whereupon Khâlid, leading him away to his tent, sprinkled clean water upon him and taught him to pray,—Jâreja following him, with the prescribed prostrations and words, in two Rakáats. Meanwhile his followers, supposing that he had attacked Khâlid and been decoyed away by him, advanced rapidly on the Moslem line, which at first gave way, and both sides became promiscuously engaged. Then Khâlid, with Jâreja now upon his side, issued forth and at the head of their troops charged the Romans and drove them back; Jâreja fought by the side of Khâlid all day long, and in the evening was slain, dying a faithful martyr, though he had prayed but once. The tale is probably founded on fact, and framed so as to cover the defection of some Roman general—perhaps a Bedouin,—who, by previous arrangement, came over to Khâlid on the day of battle, with a following, perhaps, of Syrians from the Roman camp. Jâreja may be the Arab rendering here for George.

[169] Battalion or Kardûs. The number of battalions now formed is variously given at from thirty to forty. The leader of each is named; but probably tradition has merely selected the most likely names, for in other respects there is a great want of detail in the narrative.

[170] The person performing this duty was called Al Cass, the Declaimer. The following is a specimen of the address by which Abu Sofiân stirred up each battalion. ‘Lord! these be the champions of Arabia, the defenders of the Faith. Those yonder are the champions of Rome, the defenders of Idolatry. O Lord! this is a day to be held in remembrance among Thy great days. Wherefore send down help upon Thy servants and succour them.’

[171] Dhirâr is a favourite hero with the pseudo-Wackidy and other romancers, who represent him as performing the most marvellous feats in the field. Ikrima’s war-song was:—

A noble maid, both fair and tender,

Knows that her knight can well defend her.

[172] Abu Sofiân himself lost an eye; it was pierced by an arrow, which was with difficulty withdrawn. There is a foolish tale that Abdallah, son of Zobeir, then a boy, overheard Abu Sofiân, who, with a company of the Coreish, stood upon a knoll, applauding the Romans when they advanced, and crying, ‘Out upon you,’ when they fell back, as if siding with them. He ran and told his father, who laughed, saying, ‘It is mere spite, for we are a deal better than the Romans.’ This is a manifest anti-Omeyyad tale, for tradition is almost unanimous that Abu Sofiân, notwithstanding his age, distinguished himself that day by his valour and his ardour in stirring up the troops (Ibn Khaldûn, p. 85); and indeed it would have been altogether against his interest to have done otherwise.

[173] The disaster, making every allowance for exaggeration, must have been appalling. We are told that there were driven over the precipice 80,000 ‘chained’ and 40,000 free soldiers, besides those that perished by the sword.

[174] The order given by Omar is couched in terms which would appear to imply that Khâlid was in supreme command in Syria, from which command he was now deposed, and Abu Obeida substituted in his room. This is not consistent with the previous narrative. It is possible, indeed, to construe the order as deposing Khâlid simply from his command over his own Irâc contingent, and transferring it to Abu Obeida. But it is certain that Abu Obeida from this time became in permanence the Ameer, or governor-general and commander-in-chief of Syria. See Ibn Khaldûn, p. 86, and previous note p. 106.

[175] The date is fixed by that of Abu Bekr’s death (August 22); twenty days after which we are told that the battle was fought. But the messenger bringing the news of the Caliph’s death could hardly have taken more than half that time for so urgent a journey. We may safely, therefore, place the action about the end of August (Jumâd II.); or, rather, following other traditions, early in Rajab, that is, the beginning of September.

[176] The new king is called otherwise Shahrîzân and Shahrîzâz, son of Ardshîr. His commander is called Hormuz Jâdzoweih.

[177] The poet Farazdac (who flourished shortly after), enumerating the various families of the Beni Bekr ibn Wâil, when he comes to the clan of Mothanna, describes him as ‘the hero who slew the elephant at the battle of Babylon.’ So also Abda, a Bedouin poet, who, being in search of his mistress, chanced to be present as a wayfarer at the battle, makes a similar reference to the slaughter of the elephant.

[178] The delay may have been occasioned by Abu Bekr’s sickness, or the proposal to employ the apostate Arabs in the campaign may have been difficult to answer.

[179] The Council House (Dar ul Nadwâ) built by Cossaí. Life of Mahomet, Introduction.

[180] From this account it would appear that Abu Bekr did not perform the full pilgrimage to Mina and Arafât. Some authorities make Omar to preside at this pilgrimage, others Abd al Rahmân. Possibly Abu Bekr performed only the Omra or Lesser Pilgrimage (Ibid. p. xii.), and left Omar to fulfil the other rites.

There is a curious incident quoted by an early writer as an authority to prove that Abu Bekr was himself present. Some one bit the ear of a man at the pilgrimage in play. Abu Bekr sent the case to Omar as judge, and he summoned a surgeon. Thereupon Abu Bekr recited, as in point, a story of the Prophet, who, having made the gift of a slave to his aunt, bade her not to bring him up as a surgeon, lest in the discharge of his profession he should be subject to reprisals for injuries done in surgical operations.

[181] That is, the year in which the Viceroy of Yemen besieged Mecca. He had in his train an elephant; and the year, A.D. 570, is therefore called ‘the year of the Elephant.’ Ibid. p. xxvi.

[182] There is a tradition that Abu Bekr’s illness was owing to poison, given to him and to Attâb and another, which, being a slow but deadly drug, did not take effect till a year after. No details are given; the tale is evidently apocryphal, and based on the desire (common in those early days) to give to Abu Bekr the honour of martyrdom.

[183] Meaning the Divine physician.

[184] The tradition proceeds: Abu Bekr answered, ‘The Lord bless thee, Othmân! If I had not chosen Omar, then I had not passed thee over; and I know not whether Omar will accept the office. As for myself, I could wish that I had never borne the burden of the Caliphate, but had been of those who departed this life in times that are past.’

This would imply that Abu Bekr had thought of Othmân as his successor in default of Omar. The conversation, however, is professedly secret and confidential. It rests solely on the authority of Othmân himself, and we need not give too much heed to it.

[185] It is not stated on what day this occurred. It may have been only a day or two before his death; for his interview with Mothanna shows that even on the last day of his life, he was able to gather up his strength.

The ordinance ran in these words: ‘In the name of the Lord most Merciful! This is the covenant of Abu Bekr, son of Abu Cohâfa, with the Moslems:’ (here he swooned away)—‘I have appointed, as my Successor over you, Omar, son of Khattâb. I have not in anywise spared myself in this matter; but have striven to the utmost to do the best for you.’ Ibn Khaldûn adds: ‘I know that he will do judgment and justice amongst you; but if he commit tyranny or injustice, verily the future is hidden from mine eyes.’

Asma had been the wife of Jáfar; and again, after Abu Bekr’s death, became one of Aly’s numerous wives. The Arab women still tattoo their breasts and arms with elaborate and beautiful designs.

The reader will remark the freedom with which women of the highest rank appeared in public even at this period, their habits partaking still of the freedom of the desert. But this was not long to last.

[186] Sura, v. 18. Some make this to have been said in reply to Ayesha, who had been repeating the few lines just given as recited by Abu Bekr himself.

[187] The prayer is somewhat similar to the last words of Mahomet. See Life of Mahomet, p. 509.

[188] The 21st Jumâd II. He reigned two years, three months, and ten days. He died on the same day of the week (Monday) as Mahomet, and at the same age, 63 lunar years.

[189] Abu Bekr told Asma that he wished her alone to wash his body and lay it out. On her replying that her strength was not equal to the task, he said that she might ask Abd al Rahmân to help her. He desired to be buried in the same two garments he had on, with a new piece over them; and when those around objected, he made use of the words in the text.

[190] It was opposite the house of Othmân, which adjoined the apartments of Ayesha and the other widows of Mahomet. The cortège would thus pass across the open court of the mosque. The grave was dug after the same fashion as Mahomet’s (Life, p. 517). Talha, and Abd al Rahmân the Caliph’s son, were the two who descended to adjust the body in the grave.

A curious incident illustrates the rude manners of the time. When her father died, Ayesha, with her sister Omm Farwa (Asháth’s wife), and a party of female friends, began to wail. Omar forbade it, as a work of Satan, but they persisted. Omar, on this, ordered Hishâm to bring forth Omm Farwa. Ayesha screamed and said, ‘Who is Omar? I forbid thee my house.’ But Omm Farwa was brought forth and beaten with a whip, on which the mourning women dispersed. The story is probably exaggerated; but that it should have been preserved at all is a proof of the rough notions prevalent as to the treatment of ladies of rank and birth at this early period.

[191] Some say 8,000 dirhems; others, that he had no fixed allowance, but took only what sufficed for the maintenance of his family. In support of the latter statement, a tradition is given that his wife, having a longing for some sweetmeats, saved up a little money for the purpose. Abu Bekr finding it out, took the whole sum and put it back into the treasury, as more than absolutely needed for the maintenance of his household. Many of these traditions are evidently exaggerated with the view of enhancing the hardness and thrift of Abu Bekr’s life, and his conscientious use of the public money, in contrast with the luxury and extravagance of later Caliphs. Thus we are told that at his death he desired that whatever property was found in his house should be sent to Omar, in repayment of what he had received; there was only a camel, a cutler-slave, and a carpet worth five dirhems. They were sent to Omar with the deceased Caliph’s message, whereat Omar wept, but carried out the request to the letter. All these stories, the feeding and milking of the goats, engaging in merchandise, &c., must be received dubiously.

[192] Mines were worked in the lands of the Beni Suleim.

[193] In the general distribution, each soul received ten dirhems the first year, and twenty the second, besides what was spent in the public service. Warm clothing was purchased from the Bedouin tribes, and distributed among the destitute in the winter. In all, they estimate that 200,000 dirhems (say 10,000l.) were received in Abu Bekr’s reign—but a poor forecast of what was to come! A woman was employed to weigh the treasure as it came in.

[194] The three things are variously related: e.g. that he did not himself go forth with the expeditions against the apostate tribes; others, of weak authority, relate chiefly to the succession to the Caliphate, and some are clearly of an Alyite stamp.

[195] It does not, however, by any means follow that he had none. Slave-girls, as part of the harem, are rarely mentioned, unless one happened to bear issue to her master, when she became free, as his Omm walad.

[196] It seems he had a presentiment it would be a girl, for he said to Ayesha: ‘Thy brothers and sisters must all share equally.’ ‘What sisters?’ she asked in surprise; ‘there is only Asma.’ ‘The one,’ he answered, ‘that Habîba bint Khârija is big with.’ One of his sons, Abdallah, was only three years old at his death; and his mother, Coteila, was probably alive when he died. When Omm Rumân, Ayesha’s mother, died, is nowhere stated.

[197] The old blind man, hearing a commotion at Mecca, asked what it might be, and being told that his son had died—‘Alas!’ he cried, ‘glory hath departed from us; and who succeedeth him?’ They answered, Omar. ‘It is well,’ he replied; ‘for he was his worthy fellow.’ As the Caliph’s father, he inherited a sixth part of his son’s estate.

[198]

[199] This is almost the only mention made of Aly during Abu Bekr’s Caliphate, excepting when he gives advice in the Caliph’s Council, marries a new wife, or purchases some attractive bond-maid. In such a self-indulgent life, he was becoming portly and inactive.

[200] I.e. of the Muhâjerîn or Ansâr; that is, the Coreish, on the one hand, and the natives of Medîna on the other.

[201] The following is an outline of the narrative, as given by the Arab historians. On Shahrîrân’s death, after the battle of Babylon (summer of A.D. 634), Dokht Zenân, daughter of Chosroes (Perwîz), for a brief period, and then Sapor, son of Shahrîrân, occupied the throne. The latter gave the hand of Azarmîdokht, another daughter of Chosroes, to his favourite minister Furrukhzâd. But she resented the alliance; and, at her call, the hero Siâwaksh slew the intended husband on the marriage night, besieged the palace, and, putting Sapor to death, proclaimed Azarmîdokht queen. Such was the state of things when Mothanna, in August, went to Medîna. During his absence, Burân, another daughter of Chosroes, having great influence with the nobles, summoned the warrior Rustem from Khorasan to avenge the death of his father, Furrukhzâd, which he did most effectually—defeating the royal troops, killing Siâwaksh, and putting out Azarmîdokht’s eyes; and then he set Burân upon the throne. Her regency (such was the ordinance) should continue ten years, in default of any prince being discovered of the royal blood; after which, the male line being proved extinct, the dynasty would be confirmed in the female line. Burân then appointed Rustem her minister, with supreme powers, and the nobles rallied round him. This was just before Abu Obeid’s appearance on the stage.

The chronology, however, is utterly confused and uncertain. This Burân is said to have opposed Shîra (Siroes) for a year; and, when he finally succumbed to have retained her authority as arbiter (àdil) in the State. She is also said to have sent gifts to Mahomet, &c. But so much we may assume as certain that between Perwîz (A.D. 628) and Yezdegird there was an interval of four and a half years. See Weil’s Chalifen, vol. i. p. 64, and Tabari, vol. ii. p. 178.

[202] The Persian campaign begins now to assume greater consistency and detail; but, partly from alteration of the river beds, and partly from the sites of towns, &c., being no longer known, it is not always easy to follow the course of the campaign. Namârick, the scene of Abu Obeid’s first victory, was on the Bâdacla, or western branch of the Euphrates. Jabân was there taken prisoner; but the captors, not recognising his rank, ransomed him in exchange for two skilled artisans. Mothanna, discovering his quality, would have put him to death for the deception, but Abu Obeid stood by the ransom. ‘The faithful are one body,’ he said, ‘and quarter given by any one of them must be sustained by all; it would be perfidy to put him to death.’ He was therefore let go; but being again laid hold of after the battle of the Bridge, was then executed. The second engagement took place at the royal date-preserve of Sakatia, near Kaskar (subsequently the site of Wâsit). Abu Obeid, hearing that Jalenûs was on his way with supports, hurried on and gave battle to Narsa before he came up. Expeditions were then sent to Barôsama and the country around.

[203] Called also Dzú Hâjib.

[204] It was twelve cubits long and eight broad.

[205] The common tradition is that Ibn Salûba, Chief of Hîra (as a kind of neutral), constructed the bridge for both sides. The account given by Belâdzori is more probable, that it was a standing bridge belonging to Hîra, as it would be chiefly for its use. The Moslems crossed at Marwaha, near Babylon. The action must therefore have been fought on the banks of the main river, and not on the western channel.

[206] Dates now begin to be given, but the chronology is still very doubtful. One authority places the battle forty days after that of Wacûsa on the Yermûk—that is to say, seven or eight weeks after Abu Bekr’s death. But in the interval between that event and the present battle, there took place Abu Obeid’s protracted march, the battle of Namârick and the expeditions following it, the gathering of Jabân’s army and its march, all which must have occupied at the least two months, and probably a good deal more.

[207] A marvellous vision was seen by the wife of Abu Obeid. A man descended out of heaven, having a pitcher in his hand, out of which he gave drink first to her husband, and then, one after another, to several warriors of his tribe. She told Abu Obeid, who answered that he wished it might be a token of impending martyrdom to him and them. He then appointed each of the warriors, in turn, whom she had named, to succeed him if he fell; and so it turned out. Abu Obeid cut at the lip of the elephant, being told (erroneously) that it was the part where a mortal blow could most easily be struck.

[208] The same clan as Abu Obeid’s.

[209] The depth is as much as fifteen feet, and it runs at the rate of one and a half to three knots an hour. (Rich’s Travels.) The banks, however, are not so high, nor is the current so rapid, as of the Tigris.

[210] The remarkable fact of a Christian chief, Abu Zobeid, of the Beni Tay, being, not only on the Moslem side, but taking so prominent and brave a part in the defence of the broken force, is noticed both by Ibn Athîr and Belâdzori. We shall see how largely Mothanna was indebted to Christian help in the next decisive battle.

[211] Firuzân was the name of the insurgent. But, with the exception that the nobles sacrificed the empire to intrigue and jealousies, we are much in the dark as to the inner history of Persia at this time. There were two parties, we are told, the Persians proper, or the national faction, which supported Firuzân; and the other nationalities, Rustem. But they soon coalesced.

[212] See above, pp. 128, 129.

[213] Sura, VIII. v. 14.

[214] The names of the tribes now flocking to the war are, many of them familiar to the reader of the Prophet’s life; as the Beni Hantzala, Khátham, Abd al Cays, Dhabha. The Beni Azd were 700 strong, under Arfaja.

These levies are represented as the response to the present summons of Omar, now made afresh after the battle of the Bridge; but erroneously so, for they reached Mothanna at once, and fought under his banner within a month of that disaster. It took some time for the fresh levies to gather, as we shall see.

[215] The history of this contingent is interesting. Mahomet had promised Jarîr that he should have a commission to gather the scattered members of the Beni Bajîla into a fighting column. Jarîr followed Khâlid into Irâc, and then returned to Medîna, where he found Abu Bekr sick, or too much occupied to attend to his claim. But after his death, Omar, in fulfilment of the Prophet’s promise, gave him letters to the various governors to search out everywhere those who, before Islam, belonged to the Bajîla tribe, and still desired to be associated with it. A great rendezvous of these was accordingly made, at a spot between the Hejâz and Irâc, whither, yielding to the persuasion of Omar, they now bent their steps. There was rivalry between Jarîr and Arfaja as to the command of this tribe; but the levy had some grudge against Arfaja, who therefore left them and took the command of his own tribe, the Beni Azd. Arfaja is also said, by another tradition, to have led the Beni Bajîla into Syria; but that (if true) must have been a different body of men, and at a different time.

[216] The tradition runs: ‘Among those who joined Mothanna was Anis ibn Hilâl, with an immense following of the Beni Namr (Christians); for they said, We shall surely fight on the side of our own people.’

[217] Rustem and the insurgent Firuzân had come to a compromise, and agreed, we are told, to a division of power.

[218] Mehrân is called Hamadâny, because he was a native of that province. He is said, as on the former occasion, to have given Mothanna the option of crossing by the bridge.

The channel was the Bâdacla, which is here described as a spill canal to pass off the surplus waters of the Euphrates when in flood, into the Jowf or sea of Najaf—the same as the western branch of the river taken off (as already described) by the cut at Museyib, above Babylon. Boweib was not far from Hîra, the inhabitants of which must have been in much excitement during this and other great battles in the vicinity, on which their alternating fate depended.

[219] ‘Mothanna was an example,’ we are told, ‘in word and deed. The people trusted and obeyed him both in what they liked and what they disliked’—a noble, single-minded commander, whose repeated supersession had no effect upon his loyalty and zeal.

[220] ‘I brought the army,’ Mothanna said, ‘to an evil pass by getting before the enemy and closing the bridge upon him; but the Lord graciously warded off the danger. Beware, therefore, of following my example, for verily it was a grievous lapse. It becometh us not to bar the escape of those who have nothing to fall back upon.’ It will be observed that the compunction was not at all for any unnecessary bloodshed among the helpless enemy (an idea altogether foreign to the thoughts of a Moslem crusader), but of gratuitous loss and risk to the Moslems. It may have added to Mothanna’s grief that in repelling this last charge he lost his brother. The slain are put at 100,000. ‘Years after, even in the time of the civil wars, you could not walk across the plain without stumbling on the bones strewed all around.’

[221] The horse and spoil of Mehrân were awarded to the column in which this youth was fighting. Jarîr and another had a quarrel over them. Had the youth been a Mussulman, no doubt he would have obtained the whole as a prize.

[222] His own tribe, the Beni Bekr ibn Wâil.

[223] Amr went on with supplies to Hîra, where the rest of the families were in hiding. The female defenders of their camp remind one of Layard’s description of a similar occasion on which the women of an Arab encampment rushed out to repel an attack, armed with tent-poles and pitchforks. (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 168.)

[224] It would unnecessarily weary the reader to detail these raids at any length. Some of them were against other and hostile branches of the very Christian tribes that had fought at the Bridge and at Boweib on the Moslem side; some were to obtain supplies for the army, which was reduced at one time to great extremities for food; but most were for the double purpose of striking terror into the people, and at the same time gaining plunder. On one occasion the Beni Bekr ransomed a great company of prisoners from the Taghlib tribe, by relinquishing their own share of the booty. One of these minor actions is called ‘Anbâr the second’; and another ‘Allîs the second.’

A somewhat remarkable incident shows that Omar had spies in all quarters, and also that he dreaded the outbreak of ancestral quarrels between the different Arab tribes. The garrison of Siffîn, in Mesopotamia, composed of the Beni Namr and Taghlib, were attacked by the Beni Bekr and driven out of their stronghold, over the banks into the river. In their terror they cried out, We are drowning! and the Beni Bekr answered, Yea, drowning for burning! in allusion to an occasion in former days in which the Beni Taghlib had burned alive some of the Beni Bekr tribe. Omar, learning the circumstance from his spies, demanded what this threat—founded on a pre-Islamite feud, and therefore alien from the spirit of Islam—should mean. He was told that the threat was used, not in a spirit of retaliation, but of punishment and example, and in the interests of the faith; and the explanation was accepted.

[225] There is a tradition that the reason given by Omar why he set aside both Khâlid and Mothanna was ‘his fear lest their influence should become too great, and lead the people to put their trust in them instead of in the Lord of Hosts.’ There may, no doubt, have been some jealousy of Khâlid’s influence; but there could hardly have been any of Mothanna’s. Again, Omar is said to have changed his mind both in respect of Mothanna, on learning his gallant stand at the Bridge, and in respect of Khâlid, on account of his bravery at Kinnisrin—adding that, in both, Abu Bekr had proved a better judge of character than he. Whatever foundation there may be for the tradition so far as Khâlid is concerned, it can hardly apply to Mothanna, for it was not till after the battle of the Bridge that Omar finally superseded him, by appointing Sâd to the supreme command.

[226] The ancient Gaulonitis.

[227] The landscape between the Haurân and the Jordan is well described by Laurence Oliphant, Land of Gilead, p. 62. See also Chesney’s Euphrates Expedition (London, 1850), vol. i. pp. 512–515, where he speaks of the nightingale in these parts.

[228] The effect of Omar’s order depends on the nature of Abu Bekr’s commission. It is usually held that the commanders of the several columns were at the first independent, and that Khâlid held a similar position in respect of the Irâc contingent, till on the eve of the great engagement, he persuaded the rest to come temporarily under his supreme command—a fact, of course, unknown to Omar when issuing his order of deposition. If so, Abu Obeida would, by Omar’s order, have simply superseded Khâlid in taking command of the Irâc troops in addition to his own. On the other hand, it is held by some that the commission given by Abu Bekr to Khâlid was that of generalissimo; and that to this supreme command Abu Obeida succeeded, in addition to that of his own proper column and of Khâlid’s. This is the more probable, since Abu Obeida was certainly recognised thereafter as commander-in-chief in Syria. It is, however, inconsistent with the story of separate commands; but, see previous note, p. 111.

Tradition is still very shifty and uncertain. According to Belâdzori, it is even held that the order of supersession was not received till the siege of Damascus; but this seems improbable.

[229] It is said by some that Abu Obeida, though he received the order on the Yermûk, yet held it back till after the siege of Damascus. But this is out of the question. Had Abu Obeida not been supreme on that occasion, Damascus would not have been allowed to capitulate. It was with difficulty that Khâlid, even in his subordinate position, was prevented from treating the city as taken by storm, which he certainly would have done had he been supreme; and in that case all the property, as well as the inhabitants and buildings, would have been at the mercy of the captors.

[230] Gen. xv. 2. ‘The steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus.’

[231] The window from which St. Paul was let down, no doubt stood in one of these military structures, or casemates, upon the wall. Tradition still points out the window, ‘although the wall itself has been several times rebuilt.’ (Robinson’s Palestine, p. 466. Damascus is described, pp. 443 et seq.) There is an admirable account of the city given by H. von Kremer, in his vol. i. ch. iv., Damascus und der Hof der Omejjaden.

The Eastern gateway here mentioned is built of great masses of reddish sandstone, well polished. The arch is rounded, and there are two portals at the sides for foot-passengers. The main archway, intended for camels, &c., is now closed. The ‘Straight street,’ only fifteen feet wide, still runs right across the city, from this gate to the Jâbia gate, on the west. There are several other similar gateways in the great wall.

[232] For the Eastern gate invested by Khâlid, see Von Kramer, p. 210. Amru sat before the Bâb Tûma, to the N.E.; Shorahbil before the Bâb Farâdîs, to the north; and Yezîd patrolled from ‘the Lesser Gate to the gate Al Heisan.’

[233] The length of the siege is variously given at seventy days by Tabari, and six months by Wâckidy. The latter, indeed, places the capitulation in autumn, a month or two before the battle of Câdesîya, which was fought in November; but this leaves too little time for intervening events. The order of events was as follows. The city was first invested probably early in the spring; it capitulated in the summer; then followed the battle of Fihl; after which Khâlid’s contingent was sent back to Irâc, and appeared on the field of Câdesîya just as the contest was proceeding.

[234] He is called by some Nastûs, by others Bahân. The latter is the name of the general who inflicted on Khâlid ibn Saîd his severe defeat.

[235] Von Kremer describes the moat surrounding the walls as still from ten to fifteen feet in breadth. It is filled with water from the Barada.

[236] Madzûr.

[237] The ordinary account is that Khâlid, hearing the merriment of the feast, stormed the city on his side, unknown to the rest of the army, and that the garrison, when overcome, hastened to conclude a capitulation with Abu Obeida on the other side. But this is incredible. When the victorious column, in possession of the eastern quarter, were pushing their way through the city, it would have been altogether too late. It is of course possible that Khâlid, knowing that the treaty was impending, sought thus to anticipate the consequences of capitulation, by which the city was lost as a prey, and its inhabitants as prisoners of war. On the other hand, some traditions ascribe the acceptance of the surrender and the treaty to Khâlid himself. But the account I have given is the most probable and consistent.

Later authorities tell of treachery on the part of a bishop, who, from the walls, held converse with Khâlid, and having obtained for himself terms, pointed out the place for an escalade, &c.; also that Khâlid was supplied with scaling ladders by a monastery in the Ghûta. Such tales rest generally on weak and unreliable authority; but as regards the last, the monks, we are told, obtained a permanent reduction of the land-tax for the service now rendered. (See Belâdzori, p. 121.)

[238] From every jarîb, or local acre.

[239] It has been supposed that the column of Khâlid had reached the Cathedral and taken possession of one half, before he was recalled, and hence this arrangement. But it is not so; the surrender of one half was stipulated irrespective of his attack, and (in conformity with the treaty in other matters) as a fair concession to the conquering army. Corresponding arrangements were made for the division of the churches in other cities of Syria, which capitulated without an assault; but it was only in Damascus that the difficulty as to disposing of the Cathedral occurred.

[240] The following is the inscription as copied by Von Kremer, who gives a minute description of this most interesting structure. It is the Septuagint version of Psalm cxiv. 13, with the addition only of the words, O Christ:—

Η. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΑ. ΣΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΑ. ΠΑΝΤΩΝ. ΤΩΝ ΑΙΟΝΩΝ. ΚΑΙ. Η. ΔΕΣΠΟΤΙΑ. ΣΟΥ. ΕΝ. ΠΑΣΗ. ΓΕΝΕΑΙ

ΚΑΙ ΓΕΝΕΑΙ.

Belâdzori tells us that Muâvia and Abd al Malik both desired to take the portion occupied by the Christians as a church into the Mosque, and offered them any sum they chose to ask in compensation; but they stood by the terms of the capitulation, and refused. It was reserved for Welîd I., son of Abd al Malik, to seize the building. When he summoned masons to demolish the partition-wall, they demurred, saying that whoever touched a church became an idiot. Whereupon Welîd took the pickaxe into his own hand, and commenced the work of demolition. (Belâdzori, p. 125.)

I have given all the particulars I could find in the early and reliable traditions regarding the siege and capitulation. The tales and romances of later days are altogether without foundation.

[241] 1 Samuel xxxi. 7, et seq. Beth-Shan became by contraction Beisân. The classical name was Scythopolis, once a noble city, the seat of a bishop and convents, and the birthplace of Cyril and Basilides. Here Alexander Jannæus had his interview with Cleopatra; and Pompey took it as well as Pella, on his way from Damascus to Judæa. Pella has a special interest for us, as the spot where the Christians took refuge when Titus attacked Judæa. Both cities were at the time of our history populous and flourishing. (See Robinson’s Palestine, pp. 325 et seq.)

[242] ‘The whole plain was now so full of fountains and rivulets as to be in some places almost a marsh.’ (Ibid. pp. 325, 327.)

[243] The Roman army was so shut in, that their blockade is called ‘the first siege in Syria’; the second being that of Damascus. The numbers of the enemy are, no doubt, as elsewhere, exaggerated.

[244] Some accounts place the battle of Fihl at the close of A.H. XIII., and therefore prior to the siege of Damascus, in which city they say that the broken army of the Romans took refuge. But the chronology in Tabari is clearly as I have given it. The sequence of events is governed by the battle of Câdesîya, which took place in October or November, A.H. XIV., after the Irâc contingent had been dismissed from Syria.

[245] It is of Dhirâr that so many marvellous tales are told in the romances of Wâckidy and others.

[246] Bithynia.

[247] North of Tripoli.

[248] He was the son of Shahryâr and grandson of Kesra. His mother was of the house of Baduria.

[249] Such as Aly, Talha, Zobeir, and Abd al Rahmân.

[250] A play upon the name Sàd, or ‘lion.’ His ordinary patronymic was ibn Abu Wackkâs. (For his early history, see Life of Mahomet, pp. 63, 68.)

When Mahomet got excited in battle, he used a form of adjuration to Sád, which he is said never to have addressed to any other;—‘By the life of my father and mother, shoot, O Sád.’ Sád died A.D. 655, worth 250,000 dirhems.

[251] Tradition puts into Omar’s mouth a set speech; but it has evidently been framed for the occasion. We are also told that in the levies which defiled before Omar were the (future) murderer of Othmân, and also the assassin of Aly; and that Omar was observed to shrink back as they passed—a touch of the proleptic and marvellous, now rare in the matter-of-fact narratives of this period.

[252] Repentant rebel chiefs could thus lead their own tribes, though they could not take a general command, or the command of a column comprising ‘Companions’ in its ranks. Each of these leaders had an allowance of 2,000 dirhems. Amr ibn Mádekerib, who was a great gourmand, said to Omar: ‘A thousand for this side (slapping one side of his stomach), and a thousand for that (slapping the other); but what for this?’ (slapping the middle). Omar laughed, and gave him 500 more, at the same time exclaiming (in admiration of his stalwart frame), ‘Praised be the Lord who hath created such a one as Amr!’

[253] The statements as to the numbers in the different columns vary. After the battle of the Bridge, most of the recruits from Medîna (Omar’s first levy) had fled, and left Mothanna alone with the Bedouin contingents, mainly from the Bekr and Rabia tribes, belonging to the N.E. of Arabia. He was then reinforced, by Omar’s command, with new levies from the northern tribes of the Beni Tay, Codhâa, Bajîla, &c.; and could thus show, at the battle of Boweib, a rank and file of some 8,000 men. Then Sád brought 8,000 more, and fresh contingents kept trooping up from Yemen and the south; so that, with the Syrian levies, which arrived during the battle of Câdesîya, he had in all 30,000 men.

[254] The Beni Rabia and Modhar, i.e. clans of northern lineage.

[255] Of the constitution of companies, Tabari says that ‘it was according to the practice of the Prophet, and the system followed at the establishment of the civil (pension) list.’ The first allusion is not clear, for Mahomet made no such disposition of his soldiers. The second points to the enrolment, shortly after made by Omar, of the whole Arab race, according to descent. The organisation of commands was very simple. First, there was the Ameer, or commander-in-chief, responsible to the Caliph alone; immediately under the Ameer were the generals commanding the centre, the wings, and brigades, van- and rear-guards; between the generals and the decemvirs there was no intermediate grade.

[256] ‘Companions’ here include all men who had seen and conversed with the Prophet. The number of these now present was an altogether new feature in the army of Irâc, hitherto mainly comprised of Bedouins. Of the Companions, there were over 310 who had joined Mahomet before the ‘Tree of Fealty’ (Life, ch. xix.); 300 who had been under his banner at the taking of Mecca; and 700 sons of Companions. We have had no such detail for any previous engagement. It foreshadows the coming classification of Omar’s civil list.

[257] So called Al Atîck, as before explained. The Khandac here approaches within a few miles of that channel.

[258] Some of these raiding expeditions are described at considerable length by tradition, which, now becoming prolific, loves to dwell on all the accompaniments of this great battle. An expedition sent for cattle to the marshy jungles of the Lower Euphrates, for a long time searched in vain. At last a boor told them that there were no herds in the vicinity; whereupon an ox bellowed from the thicket, ‘The liar! here we all are.’ They entered the jungle and found a great herd, which was driven off, and lasted the army many days.

[259] On the right, we are told that towards the N.E. the country was flooded as far as Walaja. For the ‘Trench of Sapor,’ dug three centuries before, see Life of Mahomet, vol. i. p. clxxi., where also will be found an account of the beautiful palace of Khawarnac. One road led to the palace, another to the desert, and a third from the bridge took a direction south into Arabia.

The chronology is somewhat obscure. Sád is said to have encamped only two months at Câdesîya before the battle; but either he must have been much longer in that vicinity, or have spent some considerable time previously at Odzeib or Shirâf, or else upon the march thither—which last is not unlikely, as they travelled in heavy order, like emigrants with their families. Sád set out from Medîna in spring (it was March when on the way he received tidings of Mothanna’s death), and the great battle was not fought till November; so that three-quarters of a year have to be accounted for. According to some traditions, Rustem prolonged his march from Medâin to Câdesîya through a period of four months, which, however, may be an exaggeration.

[260] The names of fifteen are given as ‘among’ those sent, so there may have been as many as twenty or more. Of the number were the two Moghîras, Asháth, Amr ibn Mádekerib, Nomân ibn Mocarrin, Otârid, Moänna, &c.

[261] There is much embellishment and romance in the scene and in the speeches, which are given in great detail, and must be taken only for what they are worth. They have been spun by tradition, no doubt, around a kernel of fact. There must have been many Persians present, who would tell the tale in after days, as well as the members of the deputation itself. There is fair probability for at least so much of the narrative as I have given. Asim was brother of the warrior Cacâa.

[262] Jalenûs led the advanced column of 40,000; Rustem, the main body of 60,000; there were 20,000 in the rear-guard; and besides, 60,000 camp followers accompanied the army. The right wing was commanded by Hormuz, the left by Mehrân, son of Behrâm. Some traditions put the numbers at 200,000; but it is all guess-work. 15,000 of these (as with the Roman army) are called ‘bound (meaning, apparently, tied together) for death,’ and 60,000 free; the rest seemingly slaves and convicts. Abundance of tales are given of Rustem’s desponding dreams and auguries.

[263] These raids and expeditions are narrated at a length altogether incommensurate with their importance—excepting that everything connected with the impending battle is invested by tradition with unusual significance.

[264] The three envoys were Ribia, Hodzeifa, and Moghîra. The colloquies are much in the same style as those at the court of Medâin—long addresses, and rather tiresome. Rustem is represented at one time as inclining to Islam, and held back only by the taunts of his officers from embracing it; at another, threatening the Arabs with contemptuous denunciations. Much is drawn evidently from the imagination of the traditionists.

[265] ‘If the Lord will,’ added one of his followers. ‘Whether He will or not,’ said Rustem. Affecting to speak contemptuously of the Arabs, he said: ‘It is going, I fear, to be a year of monkeys. The fox barks when the lion is dead;’ meaning that in the time of Chosroes the Arabs would not have dared to invade Persia. Fresh dreams and omens of a portentous kind now multiplied upon him.

[266] There were, besides, the riding elephants of the court and nobles. These must all have been imported from India. The elephant does not appear to have been used by the Assyrians in war. It only appears in their mural representations as a rarity, and under peaceful associations.

The names of the other leaders were Dzul Hâjib (or Bahmân Jadoweih), Mehrân, Hormuzan, and Bendzowân.

[267] The squib did not die out (as we shall see below), but assumed a permanent form, as in this couplet:—

We fought patiently until the Lord vouchsafed us victory,

While Sád was safe within the walls of Câdesîya;

And we returned to our homes, finding many a widow there;

But among the women of Sád there was not any widow found.

[268] Sura viii., entitled Anfâl, or ‘The Spoils,’ is called also ‘Sura Jehâd.’ It is a long chapter, of seventy-eight verses. On ordinary occasions only suitable portions were recited. Here, apparently, the entire Sura was read. Two other Suras—Victory (xlviii.) and She who is tried (lx.)—are also used before battle, as containing warlike passages; and the practice is kept up in Moslem campaigns to the present day.

[269] The battle lasted three days, and each day, it will be observed, had a different name. The first, Armâth; the second, Aghwâth (alluding, as some think, to the succour brought that day by the Syrian contingent); the third, Ghimâs; the final night,Harîr (noise or clangour). The last is the only name which clearly has a meaning, as we shall see. The others may have been taken from names of places. See C. de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 484. Gibbon (ch. li.), ignoring the first day, translates the other three as signifying Succour, Concussion, and Barking.

[270] Abu Mihjan confessed to Selma that in his cups he had been singing these verses:—

Bury me when I die by the roots of the vine;

The moisture thereof will distil into my bones;

Bury me not in the open plain, for then I much fear

That no more again shall I taste the flavour of the grape.

But he swore to her that he would not again indulge in drinking, nor in abuse of the Ameer. And Selma, explaining this to Sád, obtained his release, so that he joined his comrades on the last great day of battle.

[271] Cacâa is said to have dressed up a troop of camels with trappings, &c., resembling those of elephants, and so endeavoured to affright the Persian cavalry. But it reads like a story.

[272] Sád felt satisfied and assured, so long as this shouting of genealogies went on among his men, that all was right; and desired that his sleep should not be disturbed during the night unless it ceased. What kind of shouting the Persians’ was is not stated.

[273] So tradition says; but it seems a piece of extravagance that thirty Persians should come forward, one after another, to be thus cut down.

Cacâa is the great hero of Câdesîya whom tradition delights to honour. He was fearful lest Hâshim should not arrive in time. So, to keep up the spirits of the Moslems, he repeated the tactics of the previous day. During the night he led his thousand men back a little way on the Syrian road, and in the morning appeared as before, company after company, as if they had been fresh reinforcements. The last had just come in, when Hâshim himself appeared in sight with his 5,000. But there is a tendency to fiction throughout as respects Cacâa.

[274] The first thing, we are told, that gave him assurance was the sound of the Arabs vaingloriously reciting their genealogies, as they had done the night before. Then, towards morning, Cacâa was heard shouting—

We have slain a whole host, and more,

Singly, and in fours and fives,

(We were like black serpents in the manes of lions)

Until, as they fell, I called out lustily,

The Lord is my Lord! whiles I had to keep my guard all round.

Whereupon Sád knew that the attack was going on favourably.

[275] Another account is that, on the approach of the Moslems, Rustem shot an arrow, which transfixed the foot of Hilâl (the fortunate captor) to his stirrup; whereupon Hilâl rushed forward and despatched him. Gibbon’s version is very different from either.

[276] The Hindia (which answers to the Atick or Bâdacla) is described by Geary as flowing swiftly, sixty yards broad, and in the full season eight or nine feet deep, with banks from ten to twenty feet in height.

[277] This is on the authority of one present:—‘We followed our husbands,’ she relates, ‘and no sooner was the Persian army routed than we (the women) tucked up our garments, seized clubs in our hands, and issued forth to the field of battle, which was strewn with the dead. Every Moslem still alive we raised up, and gave drink to; and every wounded heathen we despatched. And the children followed us, and were helpers with us in this service.’ (Tabari, iii. p. 73.)

A characteristic incident is mentioned. Among the slain was the Muedzzin of the army. There was a contention as to who should succeed to this post of honour. It came near to blows and bloodshed, when Sád interposed, and settled the matter by his authority.

[278] The captor received 30,000. Gibbon, resting on the authority of D’Herbelot, tells us:—‘The standard of the monarchy was overthrown and captured on the field—a leathern apron of a blacksmith who, in ancient times, had arisen, the deliverer of Persia; but this badge of heroic poverty was disguised and almost concealed by a profusion of precious gems.’ Our authorities simply describe it as made of panthers’ skins, richly jewelled.

[279] The vast import of the battle is signified by the tradition that the tidings of the victory were carried by the Genii to distant parts, long before it was possible for any human messenger to reach.

[280] Written Burs. There is a town Bûrsa on the Euphrates, four leagues below Babylon; but I take it that the ruin (Tower of Babel) is meant, which lay in the way.

[281] In these engagements, Sûra, Kûtha, and Sabât, towns situated on or near the Tigris, were either taken, or submitted themselves to the Moslem arms. While encamped at Babylon, Sád made a pilgrimage to the shrine (Majlis) of Abraham.

[282] Medâin signifies ‘Cities.’ It is said to have comprised a cluster of seven towns, but it is ordinarily taken to designate the twin cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon. The double bend of the Tigris, in the form of the upper part of the letter S (with the convex side to the west), incloses a considerable peninsula on the eastern bank, and on this stands the Tâk i Kesra.

[283] Geary, in the account of his recent journey, says it is fast falling into decay; but ‘the arch unequalled in the world’ is still nearly entire. Built of brick, it has a façade 450 long and 160 deep, and the niches and cornices and mouldings still remain. The vaulted arch is nearly 100 feet high, with a span of 80 feet.

[284] It is also called Nahr Shîr, and is described as beyond (i.e. to the east of) Sabât. In the earlier campaigns, this name of Nahr Shîr frequently occurs, as the point at which the pursuit of the victorious columns was stopped by the Persian outposts.

[285] Sura xiv. v. 44.

[286] Among the single combats, a singular one is mentioned, in which Zohra challenged Shahryâr, a mighty champion. They closed, and each slew the other. But the story, though told with some detail, is uncertain; for, according to other accounts, Zohra was killed many years after by a fanatic (Khârijite) in the time of Hajjâj.

The Arabs had twenty catapults—an instrument of war not unknown in Arabia; see the siege of Tâyif (Life of Mahomet, p. 433). In Mesopotamia, now at Sád’s command, there were ample materials for their construction. The ramparts must have been of great thickness; for, composed of sun-dried bricks, their outline can be still distinctly traced on either bank. Of buildings, however, there are, besides the Tâk i Kesra, no other remains of any kind whatever, the materials having all been carried off to build the city of Baghdad, 16 miles above it. But coins and coffins abound.

In the siege we are told that the people, reduced to the utmost distress, were driven to feed on cats and dogs. But, with the whole river front open to them by boat, and the other half of the city with plentiful supplies safe on the opposite bank, it is difficult to understand how this could have been.

[287] As many as 100,000 are said to have been thus captured and released.

[288] A touch of the marvellous affects the story of the capture of Medâin at several points. Sád’s reply was communicated orally by Abu Mocarrin—‘who spake to the king in words given to him at the moment by the Lord, but which he himself understood not, neither did those about him.’ The fact was—as they were afterwards told by the single Persian left in the western suburb—that Abu Mocarrin had delivered (without knowing it) in the Persian tongue this mysterious answer: ‘The Moslems will never make peace with thee, till they have eaten the honey of Afrîdûn, along with the citrons of Kûtha.’ ‘Alas!’ exclaimed the king, ‘what was this but an angelic message spoken through the lips of the messenger? Even the angels have turned against us!’ And so, followed by his people, he fled across the river.

[289] Salmân, ‘the Persian,’ was a convert of some standing. It was he who suggested to Mahomet the device of digging a trench to defend Medîna against the siege which the Coreish laid to it, A.H. 5. (Life of Mahomet, chap. xvii.) A Christian, native of Ispahan (according to others, of Ram Hormuz), he had been taken captive in some Bedouin raid, and sold as a slave at Medîna, where he obtained his freedom on professing Islam. We do not hear much more of him after this. He died at Medâin.

[290] This was done that the horses might the more readily follow one another.

[291] The gallant feat was repeated by Timoor, when he took Baghdad, A.D. 1392; his army, swimming across the river, ‘thereby impressed the inhabitants with an opinion that they were invincible.’ (Chesney, vol. i. p. 32.) The Tigris is more rapid, and has higher and steeper banks, than the Euphrates. It is 200 yards wide, and flows at over four miles an hour. The depth is considerable, and no fords are spoken of by travellers. According to Rich, it is low in winter, begins to rise in March from the melting of the snow on the hills, and reaches its height in May. In flood, he says, the current is over seven miles an hour. At the period of the passage, the stream must have been on the rise. Tradition says it was in full flood.

Moslem annalists may be excused for surrounding the heroic passage with many marvellous associations. For example, not only was there no loss of life, but not even of the most trifling article. A drinking jug was carried away by the current, but even that was recovered. The water reached the horses’ manes, but they trod as it were on firm ground, &c. And it is added truly: ‘In the whole history of Islam, there was no passage more wonderful than this crossing of the Tigris and the capture of the royal city.’

[292] Sura xliv. 25.

[293] The treasure alone was put at Three millions of dirhems. The property divided, including the Fifth, was estimated at Nine hundred millions.

[294] It was used, mingled with wax, for the candles of the wealthy. Gibbon has a note, in loco, on the more precious sorts.

[295] Say five or six thousand pounds each.

[296] Five swords were captured, notable not only for intrinsic value but historical interest. One had been the sword of the Kaiser of Rome; another had been taken from the Khacân of the Turks; and a third had been that of Dâhir, ‘King of Hind.’ The sword of Bahram was given to Cacâa; and Sád kept the Kaiser’s for himself.

[297] As far as Khanickîn.

[298] The ruins of Rei are still visible within a few miles of Teheran.

[299] We shall hear more of Ziâd and of his parentage. His reputed father was Abu Sofîan, who is said to have met his mother, a slave kept by another person, at Tayif. He was eventually acknowledged by Muâvia (son of Abu Sofîan) as his brother, much to the scandal of the public. He was destined to play a prominent part in the history which follows.

[300] The Bedouin part of the garrison was formed of the Beni Iyâdh, Tâghlib, Namr, &c. Tekrît was stormed by Timoor, after an obstinate defence, A.D. 1392. It is now ‘a miserable village’ of 600 houses. But the ruins around are extensive, and a castellated building overhangs the river at a height of 200 feet, with a fosse behind and a staircase leading down to the river, where the massacre no doubt took place.

[301] Kirckesia or Circesium.

[302] The pest of gigantic and noisome mosquitoes, issuing from the swamps and groves in overpowering swarms, is complained of by all travellers in this quarter. See, e.g., Loftus’s Travels, p. 280.

[303] We are constantly reminded, in the tradition of this period, of Omar’s nervous apprehension lest his armies should be tempted beyond the reach of succour in case of any disaster befalling them.

[304] Reeds, wattle, and mud. (Belâdzori.)

[305] The square was set out thus. A powerful archer, from the centre, shot arrows on all four sides; where the arrows reached was the limit, and the square was measured out accordingly. The main streets were 40 cubits wide, the cross ones 20, and the lanes 7.

[306] In Kûfa the southern tribes, with the Beni Morâd at their head, greatly outnumbered the northern, which latter belonged to the Beni Nizâr. The two nationalities inhabited separate divisions of the city, and prayed each in its own Mosque. Bussorah, on the contrary, was almost entirely peopled from the north; and the five chief clans—Azd, Temîm, Bekr, Abd al Cays, and the Natives of Medîna (Ansâr)—occupied each a separate quarter of its own.

In the time of Ziâd (A.H. 50), Belâdzori tells us that in Bussorah the register (Dewân or civil list) numbered 80,000 warriors, and their wives and children 120,000, all drawing pensions from the State. Kûfa is rated at 60,000 fighting men on the roll, with families numbering 80,000 souls. The proportion of families to fighting men must surely have been much greater, as the harems of all of them swarmed with children; and the Arab population of each city was probably considerably greater than I have ventured (on the authority of Belâdzori) to note in the text. There also must have been a great multitude other than Arabs—dependants, clients, slaves, &c., Moslem and non-Moslem; so that, as the cities grew, it is not improbable that they numbered, of all classes, over 300,000 each. The population would fluctuate according to the numbers engaged in the field.

[307] At Marj Rum, to the N.W. of Damascus.

[308] Edessa.

[309] The Twelve ‘Leaders’ chosen by Mahomet at the Pledge of Acaba. (Life of Mahomet, p. 134.)

[310] The church of Hâma (Epiphania) was turned into a mosque. Arrestân (Arethusa) on the Orontes, Shaizar (Larissa), Maára, and other places of less importance, are mentioned as taken possession of on this march.

[311] Kinnisrîn or Chalcis. According to some, the inhabitants were forced to retire to Antioch, from whence they returned on peace being restored. Others say that the city with its churches was, like Damascus, divided. But the received tradition is that the people were treated with moderation, and that only one plot of ground was taken possession of for a mosque.

[312] Antioch, ‘Queen of the East, was the third metropolis of the world.... Its wide circuit of many miles was surrounded by walls of astonishing height and thickness, which had been carried across ravines and over mountain summits with such daring magnificence of conception as to give the city the aspect of being defended by its own encircling mountains.’ (Farrar’s St. Paul, vol. i. p. 288.) The ravages, not many years before, of the Persian invasion must have still left their mark upon this noble city, and possibly affected its means of defence. Still, we might reasonably have expected something more from tradition than the simple mention of a battle outside the famous citadel of Northern Syria, followed by its capitulation. But the history of the fall of Syria is little more than a calendar of dates and places.

[313] Samsât, or Shamsât, the same as Samosata. Besides Marásh (Germanica) and Menbij (Hierapolis), Tell Azâz, Doluk, and many other places in this direction were overrun by Khâlid upon this occasion.

[314] The meaning is somewhat obscure. The words are, ‘until there be born the Accursed one. And I would not that he should be born; for his deeds shall not be good; and he will devise evil against Rome.’

[315] Life of Mahomet, p. 384.

[316] The Jewish law of retaliation—‘eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth,’ &c.—is maintained in the Corân. See Sura ii. v. 179, and v. v. 53.

[317] The story is variously told, but the main facts, as given in the text, appear beyond doubt. Tradition gives us first a romantic tale of what happened at ‘the Iron Bridge’ on the Orontes, where Jabala was posted to cover Antioch. There a Mussulman chief was brought in a prisoner to Jabala’s camp. He happened to be descended from the same ancestry, and on his reciting the poem of Hassân on the glories of the Ghassanide dynasty, he was dismissed with rich presents; and, in the end, Jabala himself went over to the Moslem camp.

After he had retired to the Byzantine Court, an envoy arrived at Constantinople, with diplomatic communications from Medîna, and to him Jabala made known his sorrows and pining after the desert. Pressed to return to Arabia, he agreed to do so, if Omar would give him one of his daughters in marriage and designate him his successor. He at the same time sent a rich gift to Hassân, who composed a poem, still extant, in token of his gratitude. The following is a couplet from the same:—

‘Jabala, the son of Jafna, forgot me not, when he reigned in Syria,

Nor yet after he had returned at Constantinople to the Christian faith.’

We are to believe that Omar accepted the offer! but the officer who carried the answer to Constantinople found that Jabala had died (A.H. XX.). Others hold that Jabala survived to the reign of Muâvia, who tempted him in vain to return to Syria by the promise of a property at Damascus.

The colony of his descendants and followers is said to have survived at Constantinople till the fall of the Cæsars; and a colour of likelihood is given to the statement from the frequent recurrence of the name Gabala among the notables at the court of Heraclius’ successors. (See Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 510.)

[318] It was the same call as a general call to prayer. (See Life of Mahomet, p. 205.)

[319] The tradition is given in Ibn al Athîr. There is always a tendency to magnify the simplicity and self-abnegation of the first two Caliphs, and something in the story may be due to this. But the tradition is of a character otherwise not likely to have been invented; and there is nothing in it very improbable, as the two courts had dealings with each other, not always unfriendly.

[320] According to some authorities, this command was conferred on Khâlid by Omar on his visit to Jerusalem.

[321] Palestine (Filistîn) was thus confined to the lower and western portion of the Holy Land, south of a line from Jerusalem and Jericho to Cæsarea. The province of the Jordan (Ordonna) extended as far north-west as Sûr, Tyre, and Acca. To the north of this, again, was Syria or Shâm. (See Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 425.)

[322] Artabûn is called ‘the shallowest and the unluckiest of the Romans.’ Omar said of him: ‘We shall play off Artabûn the Arab (meaning Amru) against Artabûn the Roman, and see what cometh.’ Artabûn thought to throw Amru off his guard, by telling him, at the interview which is said to have taken place between them, that he was going to retire on Egypt. When Omar was told of the ambush and Amru’s escape by taking another road, he said, ‘Verily, Amru is a lucky fellow.’

[323] Ramleh was not founded till the eighth century. The place was previously named Rama (Arimathea), near which Ramleh was built; but tradition, by anticipation, always calls it Ramleh.

Gaza, according to some, was captured in the first invasion, two years before. The following places are mentioned as now reduced:—Sebastia (on the way from Cæsarea to Nablûs, where is the tomb of John the son of Zacharias); Beit-Jibrîn (or Beth Gabara); Yabna; Ramh (Marj Arjûn); Ascalon; Amwâs. In fact, the whole country, with the single exception of Cæsarea, now fell into the hands of the Arabs and became tributary.

The conquest of Palestine, however, like that of Syria, is a mere epitome, with great confusion of dates. This is forcibly illustrated by the perfunctory notice of the important battle of Ajnadein, and the uncertainty surrounding its chronology. Several authorities place it even before Yermûk, giving the date as on a Saturday, in Jumâd I., A.H. XIII. (634 A.D.). As the date given really fell upon a Saturday, Weil adopts this view. But it is opposed to the consistent though very summary narrative of the best authorities, as well as to the natural course of the campaign, which, as we have seen, began on the east side of the Jordan, all the eastern province being reduced before the Arabs ventured to cross over to the well-garrisoned country west of the Jordan.

[324] It was foretold (so the tradition runs) in the Jewish books, that Jerusalem would be captured by a king whose name was formed but of three letters (as in that of Omar [**Arabic]), and whose description tallied otherwise so exactly with that of the Caliph that there could be no doubt that he was the personage meant by the prophecy. When this was told to Artabûn, he lost all heart, and departed to Egypt; whereupon the Patriarch sent to make terms with Amru. The tradition is curious, and, however fabulous in appearance, may possibly have had some foundation in fact.

[325] ‘Whither away?’ said Aly to the Caliph; ‘wilt thou go and fight with dogs?’ ‘Nay,’ replied Omar; ‘not so, but I mean to visit the seat of war, before Abbâs is taken, and the flames of sedition burst forth.’ He then started, leaving Aly in charge of Medîna. But the tradition has a strong Abbasside tinge.

[326] The name is not given by the Arabian annalists. We learn it from Theophanes.

[327] The received account is that Omar made this (his first) journey to Syria on horseback; the second (on the Roman invasion by sea), riding on a camel; the third (at the great plague) on a mule; and the last (his progress through Syria) on an ass.

[328] The heavenly journey is thus referred to in the Corân: ‘Praise be to Him, who carried His servant by night to the Farther Temple (Masjid al Acksa), the environs of which we have made blessed.’ Sura xvii. (The ‘Farther Temple,’ in opposition to the Nearer Temple, the Kaaba.) See the tale, Life of Mahomet, p. 126. Jerusalem was the Kibla of Mahomet and his followers all the time he worshipped at Mecca. In the second year after his flight to Medîna, the Prophet was suddenly instructed to turn instead to Mecca, to which ever since, the Moslems have turned at prayer. (Ibid. p. 198.)

[329] The Haram, is the sacred inclosure on the S.E. corner of Mount Zion. It is minutely described by Ali Bey, vol. ii. p. 214, with its two great mosques, Masjid al Acksa (said to be the Basilica of the Virgin) and Kubbet al Sakhra (the Dome of the Stone),—where also will be found plans and sketches of the same. Until the Crimean War, the Haram was guarded, as sacredly as Mecca itself, from the tread of an infidel. But it is now more or less accessible, and an elaborate survey of the two Mosques and their surroundings has recently been made by the Palestine Exploration Society: see their Proceedings, January 1880.

The Kubbet al Sakhra, or ‘Dome of the Stone,’ has been built polygonal to meet the shape of the ‘Stone,’ or Rock referred to in the text, which gives its name to the Mosque. This rock rises to a height of six or seven feet from a base, according to Ali Bey, 33 feet in diameter (or, according to others, 57 feet long and 43 wide). The architecture is Byzantine, but Greek builders were no doubt engaged for its construction. There is probably little, if anything, of original Christian building in the present Haram.

Ali Bey describes the Sakhra itself as a stony apex cropping out from the rock, which, when Mahomet stood upon it, ‘sensible of the happiness of bearing the holy burden, depressed itself, and becoming soft like wax, received the print of his holy foot upon the upper part.... This print is now covered with large sort of cage of gilt metal wire, worked in such a manner that the print cannot be seen on account of the darkness within, but it may be touched with the hand through a hole made on purpose. The believers, after having touched the print, proceed to sanctify themselves by passing the hand over the face and beard.’ (Travels of Ali Bey, vol. ii. p. 220.)

[330] According to Theophanes, Omar, clad in unclean garments of camel hair, demanded of Sophronius to be shown over the Temple of Solomon, and was with difficulty constrained to change them by the protestations of the Patriarch, who wept over the threatened ‘abomination of desolation.’ But the general tenor of Christian tradition (whatever its worth may be) is, as in the text, altogether favourable to Omar’s courtesy and condescension. Sophronius, we are told, showed him the stony pillow of Jacob. It was covered with soil and sweepings. Whereupon Omar, with his own hands, assisted by his people, set to work to clear the spot, and the rock (Sakhra) having been laid bare, the foundation of the Great Mosque was built upon it.

The most unlikely part of these traditions is that which supposes that Omar would have ever thought of praying in a church adorned by pictures, crosses, &c., though of course it is possible that he may have made the excuse given in the text out of courtesy and politeness.

[331] It is of this journey the tale is told that in the midst of one of his discourses Omar was interrupted by an ecclesiastic. The Caliph quoted from the Corân the passage—Whom the Lord misleadeth, for him there is no guide (Sura iv. 90, 142; xvii. 99; and xviii. 6), whereupon the Christian cried out: Nay! God misleadeth no one. Omar threatened that he would behead the Christian if he continued his interruption, and so the Christian held his peace. The story is told both in the Romance of Wâckidy, and in the Fatooh al Shâm; and though wanting in authority, gives truly the popular impression of the doctrine of Predestination as taught in the Corân. (See The Corân: its Composition and Teaching, Christian Knowledge Society, p. 56.)

[332] The monks of the ‘Convent of Khâlid,’ near Damascus, received a permanent remission of their land tax as a reward for the treacherous aid rendered by them at the siege of that city. A similar concession was enjoyed by the Samaritans, who hated both Jews and Christians equally, and aided the Arabs as guides and spies; but the fruits of their treachery were resumed by Yezîd.

Omar made an assignment from the tithes to a colony of Christian lepers near Jâbia; but it seems to have been a purely charitable grant.

[333] Sura ix. 30.

[334] In some treaties given by Belâdzori and others, as concluded at the first conquest, some of these disabilities are mentioned; but I doubt their genuineness. Though the law was such, the practice varied greatly. Under intolerant Caliphs, such as the orthodox Abbassides, the poor Christians were always liable to have a fresh order issued to demolish all but their ancient churches, close the Christian schools, &c.

[335] According to Caussin de Perceval, the strongholds along the Tigris, as well as the Euphrates—Tekrît, Hît, &c.—were only now reduced by the Arabs; but, according to the best traditions, these towns fell into the hands of the Moslems, shortly after the battle of Câdesîya.

[336] The story of this inroad and widespread rising is told by tradition with the extremest brevity; but it is very evident that the position of Abu Obeida must, for some little time, have been very critical. Lebeau conjectures that the naval attack was led from Egypt by Constantine, the son of Heraclius; and M. Caussin de Perceval thinks that this is probable (vol. iii. p. 512).

[337] It seems almost certain that Khâlid did so serve, though there are other traditions to the effect that he never served under any other general than Abu Obeida. He may have led an independent expedition.

[338] Now Diâr Bekr.

[339] Byzantine historians tell us that the Roman governor of Edessa (Roha) concluded a treaty with Iyâdh, by which he bound himself to pay 100,000 pieces of gold, as black-mail, with the view of preserving his province from Saracen inroad, but that Heraclius disowned the humiliating condition, and deposed the governor. There is no hint of this in our Arabian authorities.

[340] Four thousand of the Beni Iyâdh were sent back in a body to Mesopotamia from Asia Minor, and resumed their allegiance to the Caliph, though continuing to profess the Christian faith. The remainder dispersed on the borders of the two kingdoms.

[341] That is, their tax was called úshr (‘tenth’), the tithe paid by the believer, instead of jazia. It may be doubted whether the intolerant condition, forbidding the education of the children in Christian doctrine, was meant otherwise than as a nominal indication of the supremacy of Islam. It certainly was not enforced (if at all) with any rigour, for we read of this great tribe continuing in the profession of Christianity under the Omeyyad, and even under the Abbasside, dynasties. And in still later times they had their bishops at Ana, on the Euphrates. (See Caussin de Perceval, v. iii. p. 324.)

We now part with that invaluable author, whose history closes with this narrative.

[342] Nothing illustrates the vagueness of the Syrian narrative so forcibly as the uncertainty of the year in which Cæsarea fell. Byzantine historians make the siege last seven years, and place the fall in the year A.H. 19, that is, A.D. 640. Various traditions place it in every year between A.H. 14 and A.H. 20, and represent the siege as having lasted, some three, some four, some seven years.

A Jew is said to have betrayed the town by discovering to the Arabs an undefended aqueduct, through which they effected an entrance. The population was mixed; 70,000, we are told, were Greeks, fed (murtazac) from the public stores; 30,000 Samaritans; and 200,000 (?) Jews. It was a sad fate that of the captives. It is mentioned incidentally that two were made over to the daughters of Asâd ibn Zorâra, one of the twelve leaders, in place of two from Ain Tamar, who had died in their service. Multitudes of Greeks—men and women—must have pined miserably in a strange land and in hopeless servitude. And amongst these there must have been many women of gentle birth forced into menial office, or if young and fair to look upon, reserved for a worse fate—liable, when their masters were tired of them, to be sold into other hands. No wonder that Al Kindy, in his Apology, inveighs, with scathing denunciation, against the slavery practised in these Moslem crusades.

[343] Calansua, or helmet, worn by the captains of the Syrian army.

[344] Khâlid is no great favourite of Abbasside tradition. He belonged to a branch distant from that of the Prophet, which attached itself to the Omeyyads, of whom, in the struggle with Aly, Abdallah son of Khâlid was a staunch adherent.

The general outline of Khâlid’s case is clear, though there is variety in the details. According to some accounts, Omar returned to him all the property he had confiscated. Others say that, when pressed to do so, he said, ‘Nay, that be far from me. I am but the agent of the Moslems, and am bound to administer their property faithfully. I will never give it back.’

Tabari gives yet another account. Omar wrote to Abu Obeida commanding him to arraign Khâlid; but adding that if he would confess his guilt in the affair of Mâlik ibn Noweira, he would pardon him and restore him to his Government. Khâlid repaired for counsel to his sister Fâtima, then with her husband in Syria. She dissuaded him from confessing; for if he did so, it would only give Omar—who was determined on his ruin—a handle to depose him with disgrace. He bent down, and, kissing her forehead, said: ‘It is the truth, my sister.’ So he returned to Abu Obeida, and refused to make any confession. Thereupon Bilâl, as in the text, stripped off his kerchief, and so on, as in the text. At the conclusion of the trial Abu Obeida, by order of the Caliph, confiscated half of his property, even to his sandals—taking one and leaving the other.

[345] For an account of the persecution and martyrdom, avenged by the invasion of the Abyssinian Negus, see Life of Mahomet, vol. i. p. clxii. For the treaty of Mahomet, vol. iii. p. 299 (second edition, p. 158).

[346] The expulsion of the Jews is ordinarily assigned to the twentieth year of the Hegira; that of the Christians took place earlier. For the conquest of Kheibar, see Life of Mahomet, p. 395; and for the death-bed saying of the Prophet, ibid. p. 503. That the Peninsula should be wholly and exclusively Moslem was a sentiment so closely connected with the inspiration of Mahomet, when he declared in the Corân that he was ‘sent a prophet to the Arabs,’ and so forth, that it might well have recurred in the feverish delusions of his last illness. But whether or no, the utterance—whatever its purport—was evidently not taken at the time as an obligatory command. Had it been so, we may be sure that Abu Bekr would have made it his first concern to give effect to it, and no other reason would have been required to justify the act. As it is, various reasons are assigned for the expatriation of the Christians. First, we are told that they took usury greedily; next, that they fell to variance among themselves, and asked to be removed; lastly, that they were growing so strong that Omar became afraid of them. As regards the Jews, we are told that they were guilty of murder, and also that they attacked the Caliph’s son.

The governors of the districts to which they emigrated had it in charge to treat them fairly. The Christians received special consideration, and the tale of raiment (which the heads of the community collected by yearly circuits among their people in Irâc and Syria) was reduced by successive Caliphs as the numbers of the tribe diminished by conversion to Islam or other cause.

Fadak, a dependency of Kheibar, was long a source of discontent to the descendants of Fâtima, who, as we have seen, claimed it for her patrimony; but Abu Bekr reserved it for the poor and the kinsmen of the Prophet (Beni Hâshim). Certain of the Omeyyad Caliphs took possession of it as their private property. It was repeatedly released to the claimants as an act of justice or of piety (notably by Omar II., the pietist of the Dynasty); but it was always soon resumed again.

[347] For example, the grandsons of the Prophet got 5,000 pieces each, like the men of Bedr. As to Abbâs, his uncle, some say he was rated at 5,000 pieces, others 7,000, and some again as high as 12,000 or even 24,000; but these last figures are evidently a pandering of tradition to glorify Abbâs and exalt the Abbasside dynasty under courtly influence. Abbâs was of course respected in the time of Omar as the Prophet’s uncle; but he never took any leading part at the Caliph’s court; and indeed his antecedents, during the life of Mahomet, were not much to his credit. See Life of Mahomet, p. 417. Ayesha was allotted 2,000 pieces extra ‘for the love the Prophet bare to her;’ but according to some, she declined to take it. The slave-concubines (Safia and Juweiria) were at first rated at 6,000, but at the solicitation of the other widows they were placed on an equality with them.

[348] For these see ibid. pp. 368, 371, chap. xix.

[349] Thus certain of the Dihcâns, or Persian Talookdars, who threw in their lot with the invading army, had a high rank, with the title to 1,000 pieces, conferred upon them.

[350] See Life of Mahomet, p. 486.

[351] The dole was fixed, after a trial of what was sufficient as a monthly ration, for the support of sixty poor persons. Two jarîbs of grain, accordingly, was the portion appointed, as a minimum, to which every indigent believer of whatever race was entitled.

[352] The jealous susceptibilities of the rival tribes were continually breaking forth; as for example, in the election of a Muedzzin in place of the one killed at Câdesîya to proclaim the times of prayer to the army, on which a free fight arose that nearly ended in bloodshed.

[353] Belâdzori, p. 458.

[354] Omar gave out that if the revenues sufficiently increased, he intended to advance the stipend of every man in the upper grades to 4,000 dirhems. It is said also that he contemplated the issue of a sumptuary ordinance both for Syria and Irâc, by which 1,000 dirhems were to be considered the allowance for the support of the stipendiary’s family, 1,000 for his personal expenses, 1,000 for house and furnishings, and the remainder for hospitable entertainment; but that he died before he could issue the order. The object of such a rule, and the practicability of giving effect to it, are however doubtful.

[355] See Life of Mahomet, p. 555; and The Corân: its Composition and Teaching, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

[356] This is the received derivation of the era called the Year of Ashes. Others call it so because the land was pulverised, dark and dusty, without a blade of grass or of any green thing.

[357] The secretary of Wâckidy has several pages filled with traditions about Omar’s treatment of the famine, and self-denying solicitude for his people. He refused to ride a horse during the famine because it consumed corn. He chided his son for eating a cucumber, when men around were dying of hunger, and so forth. There may be much of exaggeration; but at the bottom of it all lies a fine trait in Omar’s character.

[358] Ayla, on the Gulf of Acaba, at the head of the Red Sea.

[359] Here again the Kâtib Wâckidy gives a great array of traditions regarding Omar’s prayers and the service for rain. Some of these which notice the part taken by Abbâs (but they are comparatively few in number) have been eagerly seized by the Abbasside annalists to glorify the patriarch, and through him the dynasty descended from him. The tale is cast in the supernatural type of the Prophet’s life. A man finding a sheep which he had slaughtered to be nothing but mere skin and bone without a drop of blood, in his distress invokes Mahomet, who thereupon appears to him in a vision, assures him that he shares the distress of his people, and bids him tell Omar ‘to call to mind that which he had forgotten.’ A general assembly is summoned in the Great Mosque, and after much heart-searching as to what the Prophet meant by these words, they betake themselves to prayer. Omar seizes the hand of Abbâs, and for the sake of the Prophet’s aged kinsman, beseeches the mercy of Heaven. Then Abbâs himself prays, and the people weep floods of tears. The heavens are suddenly overcast, and the rain descends. Thereupon Abbâs is saluted as ‘the Waterer of the two Holy Places,’ i.e. of Mecca and Medîna.

[360] We are told that Amru, to meet the famine, established a shipping service between Egypt and the ports of the Hejâz, that the trade in grain thus begun was permanently established, and that prices were thereafter little higher at Medîna than in Egypt. But Egypt was not conquered till two years later; and in the hostile state of the border preceding the conquest, it is impossible that a peaceful trade in corn could have sprung up. We must therefore conclude that tradition here anticipates that which occurred shortly after, when Omar reopened the communication from the Nile to Lake Timsa and Suez, and Egypt found a rich customer in the markets of Medîna and the Hejâz.

[361] The council was held at Sargh, near Tebûk, on the confines of Syria. During the discussion Abd al Rahmân quoted a saying of Mahomet:—‘If pestilence break out in a land, go not thither; if thou art there, flee not from it.’ Omar’s views were more reasonable, and he justified them by this illustration: ‘Suppose that ye alight in a valley, whereof one side is green with pasture, and the other bare and barren, whichever side ye let loose your camels upon, it would be by the decree of God; but ye would choose the brow that was green.’ And so he judged that in removing the people from the scene of danger into a healthier locality, he was making no attempt to flee from the decree of God.

[362] He purposed to make a circuit of all the provinces subject to his sway. Aly, we are told, even recommended a second hijra, or transfer of the Caliph’s court to Kûfa (evidently a proleptic tradition anticipatory of the move eventually made by Aly himself to that capital). What induced Omar to give up the project of visiting Irâc is not very clear. The ordinary story is that Káb the Rabbin (a Jew from Himyar, converted about this time, who will be noticed more hereafter) dissuaded him from it: ‘Of evil,’ he said, ‘the East hath nine parts, and of good but one; while the dwellings of Satan and every kind of plague are there. On the contrary, the West hath nine parts good, and but one of evil.’ Thereupon, the tradition proceeds, Omar abandoned the idea of visiting Irâc.

[363] Before, having the double meaning of ‘he is before you,’ that is, in your presence; or (as they took it) ‘in advance of you,’ and farther on the road.

[364] Shorahbîl, who had the command of the province of the Jordan (Ordonna), was put aside as weak and unfitted for the office; or rather his government was apparently placed under that of Amru, who was in command of all the Holy Land. The appointment of Muâvia as the brother of Yezîd, the late governor of Damascus, was in every way natural and expected.

[365] For Bilâl and his office of Muedzzin, see Life of Mahomet, p. 204.

[366] The male population alone, we are told, numbered 600,000. There were 70,000 (according to others 40,000) male Jews of an age to pay the poll tax, and 200,000 Greeks, of whom 30,000 effected their escape by sea before the siege. The baths were 4,000 in number, the theatres 400, and the harbour held 12,000 vessels of various size.

[367] The narrative is almost more fugitive, and the chronology less certain, than in the case of Syria. The expedition is variously placed at from A.H. XVI. to XXV. The earlier date is due probably to the notion (before explained) that Amru assisted Medîna with corn in the year of famine; the later date, to the attempt of the Greeks to retake Alexandria, A.H. 25. The best authenticated date is that which I have followed. The received account is this. Amru obtained permission for the campaign from Omar at Jâbia, probably on his last visit to Syria. When the Caliph returned to Medîna and reflected on the seriousness of the enterprise, he repented of having allowed Amru to go on with so small a force, and sent orders that if he had not already entered Egypt, he was to return. Warned probably of its purport, Amru did not open the packet till he had crossed the boundary; and so he went forward. When Omar was informed of this he sent Zobeir with 12,000 men to reinforce him. Other accounts say that Amru’s entire force consisted of 12,000 men, despatched from Palestine and Medîna, in three bodies, one after another. Some stories are told, but they look apocryphal, of Amru having visited Alexandria, before his conversion, many years previously.

[368] For the communications of this Mucoucus with Mahomet see Life, pp. 385 and 440.

[369] Memphis, in the vicinity of modern Cairo. The advance was probably made by Salahiya up the Pelusian branch of the Nile, to the north of Ismailia and Wolseley’s recent line of march.

[370] Later historians (whose accounts, however, bear the mark of being apocryphal) represent the Moslem army as at one time in considerable peril, surrounded and hemmed in at Heliopolis by the rising waters of the Nile. Mucoucus having retired to an island on the farther side of the Nile, broke up the bridge across it. Deputations were then sent by boat to and fro; and the Mussulman envoys delivered speeches before Mucoucus, exhorting and threatening the governor, much in the style of those recited at the Persian Court before the battle of Câdesîya. Mucoucus, who is represented as favourable to Islam, at last entered into terms with the invaders.

[371] Heraclius died in February, A.D. 641.

[372] The tale of Amru being taken prisoner in an attack on the outworks is not mentioned by any early authority, and seems to possess no foundation. The story is, that when carried before the authorities, his freedman, who had been captured with him, slapped Amru on the face, and so deceived the Greeks into the belief that he was a common soldier who might be set at liberty.

[373] Here again we see the same nervous fear on the part of Omar, lest his soldiers, wandering too far, or beyond some great river, should be surprised and cut off, as led him at the first to forbid an advance on Persia. Ghîzeh, properly Jîzeh, j in Egypt being pronounced as hard g.

[374] This name Câhira, or City of the Victory, is of later date.

[375] There is here, as in respect of other countries, a great profusion and variety of tradition, having for its object to prove that Egypt was taken by force of arms, and could therefore be treated as a conquered country; rather than that it capitulated, and was the subject of treaty and stipulations. There was always a strong pressure to prove the former, as it gave the invaders a better standing in courts of law as against the natives, in such claims as that pressed by Zobeir.

[376] The ancient canal appears to have followed very closely the line of the Fresh-water Canal of the present day. We are not favoured with many particulars; but there is no doubt that during Omar’s reign vessels did make the voyage from Cairo to the coast of Arabia, establishing thus a regular traffic between the two countries; and therefore the work must have been very quickly finished by the forced labour of the teeming population.

The reader who is curious about the previous attempts to unite the Nile with the Red Sea will find the subject discussed by Weil (vol. i. pp. 120–122). The attempt was made so far back as the time of Pharaoh Nechos, and subsequently by Darius, who is said to have made communication practicable from Bubastis, on the eastern or Tanitic estuary of the Nile, to the head of the Red Sea. A second canal was opened, under the Ptolemies at Phacusa (Tel Fakhûs), nearer to the Mediterranean. This (taking apparently the line of the Salahiya canal) must have presented greater difficulties in maintaining communication through the system of lagoons leading to the Red Sea, and so it was too shallow to be of much use, excepting in high flood. One of these lines (the former most probably) was eventually deepened by Trajan, and remained navigable to the end at least of the third century of our era. It was this canal, no doubt, which was now cleared out and deepened by Amru. Reference is made by Weil to the following authorities: Bähr’s Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 158; Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. xxvii. p. 215.

[377] This tale (which is not given by our earliest authorities) is, no doubt, based upon a custom of the Egyptians, who, as we learn from Lane, cast, year by year, the effigy of a maiden, decked in bridal attire, into the river, calling it ‘the Bride of the Nile.’ But whether the tale be real or fictitious, the sentiment conveyed in it is indicative of that virtue in the Moslem faith which carries the special providence of God into the life of every day.

[378] Amru is said to have been so pleased with Barca as to declare that if he had not possessed a property and home in the Hejâz, he would have settled there.

[379] The circumstances of the siege (a strange contrast to the bombardment, which recently crowded the horrors of months into so many hours) are narrated with the utmost brevity; and indeed tradition very much confuses the second siege with the first. Eutychius speaks of the investment of the city by the Arabs lasting fourteen months. He also tells us that George the Patriarch fled to Constantinople, and that for ninety-seven years there was no Melchite patriarch for Egypt. A Maronite patriarch seems to have succeeded.

I should mention that by later and less reliable authorities a long correspondence is given as having passed between Amru and Omar, in which the latter upbraids his lieutenant for not remitting ‘as large a revenue as that which Egypt yielded to the Pharaohs.’ Amru resented the imputation; whereupon Omar sent his legate, Mohammed ibn Maslama, to set on foot an investigation into the revenues of the country; and also superseded Amru in the government of Upper Egypt by Abdallah Ibn Abu Sarh. The correspondence (though accepted by Weil) appears to me altogether apocryphal. It was contrary to Omar’s character to write in the harsh and unreasonable tone of these letters, or to press his governors for funds at the expense of the provinces which they administered. Nor did he stand in any urgent need of the additional revenue, as these letters would imply; for the treasures of the world were flowing at this time in a full tide into Medîna. As to Ibn Abu Sarh, he did not supersede Amru till the reign of his foster-brother Othmân.

[380] The earlier operations of Otba have been narrated above, p. 91.

[381] The ancient capital of Khuzistan, where extensive ruins and colonnades still mark the extent and magnificence of this once regal city. Weil doubts whether the expedition reached so far as Persepolis. But I can only follow our authorities, who certainly represent Alâ as advancing to its vicinity.—Weil, vol. ii. p. 87.

[382] Omar, as we shall see farther on, had an unconquerable dread of committing his troops to the sea.

[383] Otba died the same year, A.H. 17; and Moghîra succeeded him, as related above (somewhat prematurely), p. 91.

[384] One of the three brothers who defended Medîna in the attack on Abu Bekr—supra, p. 14.

[385] Tostar, otherwise named Shuster.

[386] These conquests are variously placed by different traditions in A.H. XVII., XIX. and even XX. They immediately preceded the great campaign of Khorasan.

[387] Shushan, the ancient capital of Media, now called Sûs. Loftus gives an interesting history and description of Sûs, with a picture of the tomb of Daniel. (Travels in Chaldæa and Susiana, 1857, p. 322.) Our authorities say that Omar gave orders for the body of Daniel, which (as the legend goes) was still exposed to view, being honourably interred.

Mr. Baring, Secretary of the Teheran Legation, visited the spot in 1881, and found it much altered. The conical steeple, shown in Loftus’ picture, was removed, when three or four years ago the tomb was rebuilt; and it was then surrounded by a gallery with a railing of brass and woodwork overlooking the river.

[388] Two thousand dirhems, the same as was given to warriors of Câdesîya and the Yermûk. And stipends of like amount were granted to the Persian nobles who had recently joined the Moslem army in Khuzistan.

[389] It is remarkable that one of the arguments said to have been used, even on this late occasion, was that if the Caliph quitted Medîna there would be a risk of the Arab tribes of the Peninsula again rising up in apostasy and rebellion.

[390] The spies were the famous Amr ibn Mádekerib (the warrior-poet met with before) and Toleiha. The latter (the quondam prophet of the Beni Asad) was long in returning from his scouting expedition—so much so that the army, becoming anxious, began to speak among themselves: ‘What if Toleiha hath apostatised the second time!’ When he made his appearance, therefore, there was a shout of joy. Toleiha, hearing of it, was much hurt at the imputation. ‘Even had it been the old Arab faith,’ he said, ‘which I once professed much more this blessed faith of Islam, I should have disdained to change it for the jargon of these barbarians.’

[391] The battle was fought at Bowaj Rûd. Nóeim demolished the fortifications of Rei, and laid the foundations of a new city. The ruins of Rei, some five or six miles south-east of Teheran, are still to be seen of considerable extent. See Porter’s Travels in Georgia and Persia.

[392] The Zoroastrians must still have been numerous, especially in the outlying provinces, even in the Abbasside reigns. The social and political inducements brought to bear on them, and to induce a profession of Islam that was at first but superficial, are well brought out in ‘The Apology of Al Kindy’ (Smith and Elder, 1882). See especially the speech of Al Mâmûn, pp. xii. and 33.

[393] It is difficult to account for the origin of so strange a tale. It illustrates the heterogeneous materials of which our authorities are still composed.

[394] Ascalon is stated to have fallen as late as A.H. XXIII., i.e. A.D. 643. If so, it must have held out so long only in virtue of its maritime position. But we have no details.

[395] Omar presided every year, excepting the first of his Caliphate, when the struggle with the Byzantine and Persian empires was at its height. He is also said to have thrice visited Mecca for the Omra, or Lesser Pilgrimage. (Life of Mahomet, p. xii.)

[396] The superstition attributing the cessation of the volcano to an extraordinary dole of alms is not worse than that which seeks to check the devastations of Vesuvius by the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius in the cathedral of Naples.

[397] Omar consulted Amru on the subject, who was of the same mind, and said—

Dûd ála ûd

Fa in yaksar al ’ûd

Halak al dûd.

‘An insect floating on a splinter; if the splinter break, the insect perisheth;’ signifying thereby the risks of the mariner.

[398] Otba came on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and there besought Omar to allow him to resign his government. Omar refused, and as Otba died on his way back, the Caliph was much distressed. He visited his tomb to pray over it, and said that he would have reproached himself as the cause of his death—‘had it not been already written in the decrees of the Lord.’

[399] We have met Moghîra in the lifetime of the Prophet. First at Hodeibia, where the murder was cast in his teeth by his uncle, and subsequently at the demolition of the great idol of Tâyif, &c. (Life of Mahomet, pp. 370, 467.) He was red-haired, one-eyed, obese and repulsive in appearance, but insinuating in manner and speech. One of his eighty concubines, when his ill looks were mentioned, said, ‘Yes, he is a sweet conserve but on a beggarly dish.’

The aged princess whom he demanded in marriage on the fall of Hîra, was Hind, daughter of Nómân V. Some threescore years before she had been married to Adi, who, when tutor to her father, had caught a glimpse of her in the church at Hîra. Adi was executed for some offence by the Chosroes, and Hind then retired into a convent near Hîra, called, after her, Dâira Hind. See the strange story of Moghîra’s coarse conduct towards her as related by M. Caussin de Perceval, vol. ii. p. 150; and Life of Mahomet (1st edition), vol. i. pp. clxxix. et seq.

For the law of evidence on the charge of adultery, see Life of Mahomet, p. 313. The whole story is significant as manifesting the deterioration of Arab life from the ancient spirit and customs, which, amongst the Bedouins, admitted of social intercourse between the sexes without such scandals. The lady’s name was Omm Jamîl, of the Beni Aámir ibn Sassâá, and is said by Tabari to have been a widow. ‘This lady used openly to visit Moghîra and other chief men of Bussora, a custom common amongst some of the ladies of that time.’ But the old Arab chivalry towards the sex was rapidly disappearing under the system which raised the slave-girl giving issue to her lord to the position of Omm Walad, or freed-wife, and her children to the same legitimacy as the children of the noble-born. This, coupled with the laxity of divorce and re-marriage, was speedily lowering the position of the sex, and rendered the strict use of ‘the Veil’ an absolute necessity for the decent observances of social life; and gradually, but surely, bringing about the wretched condition of women, together with the seclusion of the harem, as we now find it in Moslem lands.

[400] In the action of Autâs following the field of Honein, his uncle, who commanded, was slain; and Abu Mûsa took up the banner and routed the enemy. He had more physical than moral courage, as we shall see at the great Arbitration.

[401] It is not said that he punished the calumniator. What was the fault of the girl which led to her imprisonment is not clear. Possibly there was some scandal of undue influence over Abu Mûsa, to whom some say she was given as a bribe by his predecessor Moghîra. As regards the gift to the poet, Weil remarks that for a smaller offence of the same kind, Khâlid was deposed with ignominy—which is true. This is the same Ziâd of whom we have heard before, as the putative son of Abu Sofiân, destined hereafter to assume a prominent position.

[402] Above, p. 166.

[403] See Life of Mahomet, p. 72. He was one of the friendless converts whose freedom Abu Bekr purchased, and thus saved him from the persecution of the Coreish.

[404] The manner in which Moghîra got hold of the secret is characteristic of his artfulness. He perceived Jobeir in close conference with the Caliph. Now Omar had apprised Jobeir of his intention to appoint him Governor of Kûfa; but bade him, for the present, to keep the matter secret. Moghîra, suspecting the truth, sent one of his wives with a present of viands to Jobeir’s wife, who, caught in the trap, accepted the congratulatory gift. Moghîra, thus assured that his suspicions were well founded, hurried off to Omar, and representing that he had got hold of a weak fellow, who could not even keep the secret of his nomination for a day, got the appointment (as in the text) for himself. Some say that Omar afterwards intended to reappoint Sád (who seems to have been removed on very inadequate grounds) to Kûfa, but that he died before he could give effect to the intention.

[405] Sura xxviii. 4.

[406] See Life of Mahomet, p. 64. His height only equalled that of an ordinary man seated.

[407] An extraordinary grant of one hundred dirhems was made to each. The civil list and pensions were settled by Omar in his Dewân; but the means of paying the allowances was by local assignments; so that each city was dependent on its endowment, from which all the expenditure of administration had to be met.

[408] According to some authorities, however, neither Abu Bekr nor Omar appointed any Câdhy to Kûfa or Bussorah.

[409] The calculation was already by strictly lunar notation of months, according to the Arab calendar; for that had been fixed by a Divine ordinance at the Farewell Pilgrimage. (Life of Mahomet, p. 486.) But the commencement of the era, and numbering of the years, was introduced only now. Note that the i is short in Hegira.

[410] See Life of Mahomet, p. 349.

[411] Take, for example, two lines with the play on the name Leila, or night—

I thought of Leila, but the heavens are between us;

Neither is her night (Leila) mine; nor my night hers.

[412] Many stories are told of Omar’s stern punishment of wine-drinkers. The house of one who surreptitiously trafficked in spirits, he caused to be burned over his head. Another culprit, expelled for drinking, escaped to the Byzantine territory and apostatised.

[413] See The Corân: its Teaching and Precepts, p. 61.

[414] For a description of the shameless demoralisation that prevailed, especially among the youth of Damascus and Baghdad, I must refer to the learned and elaborate work of H. von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter dem Chalifen.

[415] One of the wives was a captive maiden from Yemen, who, having, as his bond-maid, borne him a son and daughter, became, ipso facto, free. No mention is made of other slave-girls in his harem; but this affords no presumption that he did not consort with such; for no account is made of servile concubines, and they are rarely or never mentioned, unless they chanced to bear offspring.

It was his daughter from whom the tradition is derived that he had no special weakness for the sex, and married chiefly for the sake of issue.

[416] In the tradition both the maidens are spoken of as Omm Kolthûm; but that must have been by anticipation, since they were so called as having sons of that name.

[417] On one occasion Hind repaired to Syria and warned Muâvia against giving money to his father, Abu Sofiân, who was in need, lest he should incur the reproach of Omar and the people; and Muâvia accordingly sent him away with only one hundred dinars. But tradition, through Abbasside channels, begins now to take so strong and bitter a tinge of hatred against the Omeyyad family, that tales regarding it must be received with caution.

[418] By some authorities he was now sixty-three; but this was a favourite age with traditionists, being that at which the Prophet died (supra, p. 119). He was born before the ‘Sacrilegious War,’ which lasted ten years, A.D. 580–590 (Life of Mahomet, p. 14); but his birth was probably at the end of the last great battle, which terminated that war. This would make him twenty-six at his conversion, and fifty-five at his death. If born at the commencement of the war, he would now be ten years older. The true date may lie between the two extremes; and it is not unlikely that he was near sixty years of age at his death.

[419] Moghîra, when recently appointed to Kûfa, may have left him at Medîna; or, more likely, he may have accompanied his master from Kûfa to the Hejâz, it being the season of pilgrimage when the governors presented themselves.

[420] The following story is told even by the earliest authorities:—Káb (the converted Jewish doctor, of whom mention has been made already) came to the Caliph and said, ‘Omar, thou hast but three days to live.’ ‘Strange,’ said Omar, ‘for I feel quite well and strong.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ continued Káb, ‘thus and thus I find it foretold in the Towrât.’ Next day he came again, and told Omar he had but two days left. After he was struck down, Káb came to visit him, and Omar said, on this occasion, to those about him,—‘Káb spake the truth,’ adding this couplet—

Káb warned me that in three days I should die; in the prophecy of Káb there is no doubt;

I fear not death; and verily I am dying; but the fear of the wolf followeth in its wake.

For wolf (zeib) some read sin (zanb). It is difficult to say what can have given rise to this strange tradition. Possibly Káb, seeing the sullen and threatening attitude of Abu Lulû, may have warned him accordingly.

[421] It is possible that Abd al Rahmân’s subsequent renunciation of the Caliphate in the coming conclave may have led to the tradition of this supposed conversation with Omar; but I give the tradition as I find it; and the facts as stated in the text are not in themselves improbable.

[422] The selection of Soheib was, no doubt, made advisedly. It will be remembered that Mahomet is thought to have, in a manner, pointed out Abu Bekr as his successor by nominating him, when he was himself laid aside, to preside at the public prayers. Soheib had, of course, no pretensions to the office. He had been a slave at Mecca, but was much revered because of his early conversion (Life of Mahomet, p. 72). So his appointment on this occasion was very suitable.

[423] A stalwart warrior. Mahomet used to say that in the field, the voice of Abu Talha was better than a thousand men. At Honein he slew twenty of the enemy with his own hand.

[424] Some traditions omit the words ‘Jews and Christians,’ giving thus to the sentence a general bearing; but the mention of covenant or treaties would seem to imply that tribes or people were meant other than Mahometans; and the best supported traditions are as in the text.

[425] Backî al Gharcad

[426] There is the tradition of a long conversation between Ibn Abbâs and Omar, in which the former pressed the right of his family to the Caliphate; and Omar answered, attributing the claim to envy. The whole is a mere Abbasside invention; for neither Aly nor Abbâs, nor any one of the house of Hâshim, seems even to have dreamed of any such pretension till after the dissensions which broke out after Omar’s death. Fâtima was the only discontented person, and that, as we have seen, was about the property left by the Prophet withheld from her by Abu Bekr, not about any claim to the Caliphate.

[427] As in the Oriental style, the bed, or matting, was spread upon the ground, Abdallah had but to raise his father’s head and remove it outside the pillow; so placing it on the ground, and afterwards raising it upon his lap.

[428] Some traditions give the date of his death three days later, i.e. on the last day of Dzul Hijj. This, no doubt, arises from that having been the date on which the new Caliph was chosen, and Omar’s reign is conventionally spoken of as also lasting up to that day—the last day of the year A.H. 23. There is another tradition that he was wounded on Wednesday, 23rd of Dzul Hijj, and buried on the Sunday following, i.e. on the 27th.

[429] Bilâl used to say that the only way to soothe Omar, when in a rage, was to recite in his hearing passages from the Corân, which invariably assuaged his wrath. This may, perhaps, have reference to the period of his conversion, when having struck his sister, and made blood to flow, he was moved to repentance by the reading of a Sura. (See Life of Mahomet, p. 96.)

[430] Such were Abd al Rahmân, Zobeir, Othmân, Aly, and Talha. The tradition as given by the Secretary of Wackîdy (fol. 235) may also mean that he was unwilling to sully their name by subjecting them to the sordid surroundings and associations of provincial government.

[431] Thus, for example, while journeying in Arabia in the year of famine, he came upon a poor woman, seated, with her hungry and weeping children, round a fire, whereon was an empty pot. Omar ran on to the next village, procured bread and meat, filled the pot, and cooked an ample meal; leaving the little ones laughing and at play.

[432] When some one proposed his son Abdallah, Omar was angry and declared that the government had been long enough in his family. ‘Besides’ (alluding apparently to some scandal in his domestic life) ‘how could I appoint a man who was so weak as not to divorce his wife?’ They say, also, that Omar once praised Sâlim, the freedman of Hodzeifa, slain at Yemâma, as one who would have been fit for the Caliphate—‘a man beloved of the Prophet, and a lover of the Lord.’ But this could only have been as a mere figure of speech.

[433] Others say that the conclave was held in the house of Miswar, a citizen of Medîna; and that there Abd al Rahmân spent the last decisive night in separate conference with Aly and then with Othmân. For Micdâd, see Life of Mahomet, p. 239. Moghîra and Amru are characteristically said to have sat at the door of the house to make it appear as if they, too, had had a hand in the election. Amru had probably come to Medîna with the other governors on pilgrimage.

[434] For the two rival families see Life of Mahomet, pp. xx. and xxviii. The Electors were, in reality, selected very evenly. Zobeir was cousin to Aly both on the father’s side and the mother’s. Sád and Abd al Rahmân belonged to the Beni Zohra, a distant branch of Coreishite descent. Sád, however, was likewise the nephew of Mahomet’s mother, Amina. Some say that he voted for Othmân; others that, being pressed by Aly, he went over to his side. Talha was of the Beni Taym, the clan of Abu Bekr. The impartiality of Abd al Rahmân is impugned by the partisans of Aly, as being the brother-in-law of Othmân, whose uterine sister he married; and this probably was the relationship hinted at by Aly in his appeal to Abd al Rahmân.

We are getting now into the full flood of Abbasside tradition, which becomes entirely partisan and untrustworthy, with the view of exalting the claims of the Prophet’s family and defaming the Omeyyads. Of this class of traditions is the following:—Aly complained to Abbâs that he was sure to be outvoted in the conclave because Sád would go with his kinsman Abd al Rahmân, and vote for Othmân, brother-in-law of the latter; and that then, the votes being equally divided, Abd al Rahmân would have the casting-vote. On this Abbâs reproached Aly for having neglected the advice, given by him now and on former occasions, to claim the Caliphate as his right, and to have nothing to do with electors or arbitration. He had told him years before to demand the Caliphate from Mahomet, and he had neglected to do so. ‘And now,’ said Abbâs, ‘the Caliphate will leave our family for ever.’ All this is patent fabrication.

[435] The Beni Makhzûm was a powerful branch of the Coreish, but far removed by descent from the clan of Hâshim, and having little sympathy with it. It was Khâlid’s tribe. To understand the taunts here bandied, it must be remembered that Abu Sarh (his proper name is Abdallah Ibn Abu Sarh) was the foster-brother of Othmân, and bore a bad repute (as we shall see below) as having deceived Mahomet, and been proscribed at the capture of Mecca. Ammâr (as has been stated before) was son of a bond-woman called Sommeyya. See on the tradition of her martyrdom, Life of Mahomet (1st ed.), vol. ii. p. 126.

[436] The inaugural address was delivered on the 3rd Moharram or Nov. 10, the interval between the election and speech at installation being presumably taken up in receiving the oath of allegiance from all present at Medîna.

[437] Quoted from the Corân, Sura xii. v. 19.

[438] His attitude in discharging the invidious task was that of a loyal and unselfish patriot. He disclaimed the Caliphate for himself. Night and day engaged unceasingly in canvassing the sentiments of the leading chiefs, he did his best to compose the antagonistic claims of the selfish Electors. What was the immediate cause of his action when in the Mosque he nominated Othmân, it is not possible to say. Abbasside traditions assume that the cause was the conscientious scruples of Aly in hesitating to swear that he would follow strictly the precedents of Abu Bekr and of Omar in his conduct of the Caliphate. The Corân and the precedent of Mahomet he would implicitly obey, but the precedent of the first Caliphs only so far as he agreed in the same. In the tenor of the traditions relating how Abd al Rahmân first questioned Aly and then Othmân, and in their replies, I hardly find sufficient ground for this assumption; and it looks very much of a piece with the Abbasside fabrications of the day. One tradition ascribes the hesitancy of Aly to the cunning counsel of Amru, who, beforehand, advised him not to give a direct reply, lest Abd al Rahmân should think him too grasping; while he advised Othmân to answer unconditionally—as if Aly were so simple as to have been caught by such transparent guile.

[439] Aly, however, maintained his view, and sought, when he became Caliph, to give practical effect to it. He searched for Obeidallah, and would, we are told, have put him to death. But Obeidallah made his escape to Syria, where he was safe under the rule of Muâvia.

[440] From this point begin the rough waters of the great cataclysm. Tradition becomes deeply affected by faction, especially the envenomed shafts of the party of Aly and the Abbassides, under cover of which they built up their pretensions, and, in the end, succeeded in supplanting the Omeyyad dynasty. The evidence, therefore, must be received with caution as we go along.

[441] Kabul is said to have been first attacked A.H. 24. The early Moslems seem to have been as unfortunate (perhaps as unwise) as ourselves in their expeditions against Afghanistan, where they met with many sad reverses.

[442] Ascalon is said to have been reduced (apparently for the first time) just before Omar’s death, A.H. 23; but the delay was purely owing to its maritime position. This excepted, Syria had for some years been under the firm yoke of Islam.

[443] For his full name (Abdallah ibn Sád ibn Abu Sarh), see note at p. 290; but it may conveniently be abbreviated into Abu Sarh.

[444] Party spirit has, no doubt, been freely used to magnify the offence of Abu Sarh. He is supposed to be the person alluded to in Sura vi. 94:—‘Who is more wicked than he who saith, I will produce a Revelation, like unto that which the Lord hath sent down?’ Vide Sale’s note in loco. The circumstances as quoted there are altogether apocryphal. He must, however, have deceived, if not betrayed, Mahomet, in some very marked way, to have led to his proscription on the capture of Mecca—an occasion on which the Prophet treated the inhabitants, with but few exceptions, with mercy and even generosity. See Life, p. 425. We have seen above (p. 248) that Omar is said by some to have been dissatisfied with Amru’s administration in Egypt—so much so, as to have superseded him partially by appointing Abu Sarh to the command in Upper Egypt. The evidence of Omar’s disapproval of Amru is imperfect, but there is no doubt that he appointed Abu Sarh to Egypt, and that Othmân on his accession found him already in power there.

[445] This is all we are told by Ibn al Athîr. But there is elsewhere a not unlikely tradition that the unhappy maiden, tearing herself from her captor’s embrace, leapt from the camel, and found in death an escape from her humiliation. This campaign furnishes plentiful material for many still wilder stories in the romances of the pseudo-Wâckidy and later writers.

[446] According to some authorities, Othmân presented the royal share of the booty as a free gift to Merwân, and they add that this was one of the grounds of Othmân’s impeachment. But it reads like a party calumny.

[447] Coming there in disguise, he was recognised by a woman, who gave the alarm, and the natives rushed upon the boat. Asked how she recognised the Saracen captain, this woman said, ‘He came as a merchantman; but when I asked an alms of him, he gave as a prince giveth; so I knew it was the captain of the Saracens.’

The payment of jazia, or poll-tax, implied the corresponding claim of protection. Zimmy signifies one who, so assessed, becomes part and parcel of the Moslem empire, and as such entitled to its guardianship. The Cypriots were not expected, from their position, to take any active part on the Moslem side; but they were bound to give their new masters warning of any hostile expedition, and generally to facilitate their naval operations.

As the great crowd of prisoners were being shipped, one of the Moslem warriors wept; for, said he, ‘those captives will lead the hearts of their masters astray’—one of the few occasions on which we see a faint perception of the evils of female slavery to the conquerors themselves; for that I take to be the meaning.

[448] According to Theophanes, it was Constans II., grandson of Heraclius, who perished thus for his crimes, but at a later date. See Gibbon, ch. xlviii.

[449] Some authorities make the discontent to arise in consequence of the failure of Abu Sarh to follow up the victory, and give chase to the retiring enemy.

[450] See Life of Mahomet, p. 235.

[451] Abbasside tales are multiplied against the unfortunate Welîd. He consorted with the poet Abu Zobeid, a converted Christian of the Beni Taghlib, and was suspected of drinking wine in company with him. Another complaint was, that a conjuring Jew from Baghdad having been condemned in Ibn Masûd’s court for witchcraft, Jondob, one of the factious leaders, killed him with his own hand instead of waiting the regular course of execution; for which unlawful act Welîd imprisoned Jondob, to the great discontent of the people. Hostile tradition, by deep colouring, has improved on these tales, representing Welîd as a brutal sot and sacrilegist. E.g. by his command, the Jew performed works of magic in the sacred precincts of the Great Mosque, assumed by sorcery the form of various animals, cut off a man’s head, and then putting it on, brought him to life again, &c. Jondob, scandalised at his devilish tricks, proceeded to cut off the Jew’s head, saying, ‘If thou canst do miracles, then bring thyself to life again.’ Upon this Welîd imprisoned Jondob, and would have put him to death had he not, by the connivance of the jailor, escaped. These tales are given by Masûdi and later writers, whose tendency to vilify Welîd by the most extravagant fiction, is manifest.

Of the same complexion are the traditions which represent the citizens of Medîna as in such bodily fear of Othmân that no one dared to carry out the sentence of scourging against Welîd; so that Aly, at last, stepped forward, and himself inflicted the stripes. Others say that Aly ordered his son, Hasan, to do so; but he refused, saying, ‘The lord of the hot is lord also of the cold’ (i.e. the sweets and the bitter of office must go together), and that then Aly compelled a grandson of Abu Tâlib (Mahomet’s uncle) to carry out the sentence.

[452] His name was Abdallah, but to distinguish him from the multitude of that name, he is always called Ibn Aámir.

[453] The youth, however, was not satisfied with this pair of wives; for he left twenty sons, and as many daughters, behind him. He was nephew of that Khâlid ibn Saîd who opened the Syrian campaign so ingloriously.

[454] On the text of the Corân, and the history of this recension, see the Excursus on the ‘Sources for the Biography of Mahomet,’ in the Life of Mahomet. The manner in which the Abbasside faction perverted the facts and turned the charge to malignant purpose against the Omeyyad house, will be understood from the section on the Corân in the Apology of Al Kindy (Smith and Elder, 1882), pp. 25 et seq. The charge against Al Hajjâj of having altered the text is equally groundless. See Ibid. p. xi.

[455] The precise nature of the arrangement, as stated by Ibn al Athîr, is not very clear, but its general character seems to have been as given the text.

[456] Masûdy, an unprejudiced witness, dwells on this as one of the causes of demoralisation and disloyalty now setting in so rapidly, and he gives some remarkable instances. Zobeir had 1,000 slaves, male and female, and 1,000 horses. At all the great cities he had palaces, and the one at Bussorah was still to be seen in the fourth century. His landed estate in Irâc was rated at 1,000 golden pieces a day. Abd al Rahmân had 1,000 camels, 10,000 sheep, and 100 horses, and he left property valued at between three and four hundred thousand dinars. Zeid left gold and silver in great ingots, and had land valued at 10,000 dinars.

The Coreishite nobles built themselves grand palaces in Mecca and Medîna, and in their environs such as Jorf and Ackîck. Othmân himself had a splendid palace at Medîna, with marble pillars, walls of costly stucco, grand gates and gardens; he is also said to have amassed vast treasures, though we are not told what came of them after his overthrow.

Masûdy contrasts painfully all this luxury at home and abroad with the frugal severity that prevailed even in the Caliphate of Omar, who grudged to spend sixteen dinars on the pilgrimage to Mecca.

[457] Quoting from the Corân (Sura ix. 36), where these words are applied to Christian priests and monks; but Abu Dzarr gives them here a more general application. See Life of Mahomet, p. 470; and Sprenger’s Leben des Mohammeds, vol. ii. p. cvi.

[458] Attempts are made by Abbasside tradition to show that Abu Dzarr was driven into opposition by the tyranny of Muâvia’s rule in Syria, and by divers ungodly practices at Medîna, which he denounced as certain to bring down judgment on the city. But Ibn al Athîr justly doubts this, and distinctly says that his preaching tended to excite the poor against the rich. Abu Dzarr’s doctrines were based on the equality of all believers; and the danger lay in their popularity with the socialistic faction which decried the pretensions of the Coreish. Before Muâvia, he reasoned thus: ‘Riches, ye say, are the Lord’s; and thereby ye frustrate the people’s right therein; for the Lord hath given them to his people.’ ‘Out upon thee!’ replied Muâvia; ‘what is this but a quibble of words? Are we not all of us the Lord’s people, and the riches belong unto the same?’ Tradition dwells on the poverty of Abu Dzarr’s life at Rabadza to add point to Othmân’s unkind treatment. The Beni Ghifâr, his tribe, are said to have resented his ill-treatment by joining the insurgents when they appeared.

[459] On this subject historians say very little; and it is chiefly from incidental notices in fragments of early poetry that Von Kremer has so ably traced the inroads of profligacy and the practice of forbidden pastimes—music, wine, and gambling. The brief notice of Ibn al Athîr on this matter is as follows: ‘The prevalence of a worldly spirit first showed itself at Medîna in the flying of doves and shooting with pellets (with a gaming aim); and in the eighth year of his Caliphate Othmân appointed an officer to stop the same, who clipped the birds’ wings, and broke the cross-bows.’ A citizen was rebuked by the Caliph for playing at ‘oranges’ (apparently some game of chance); and he thereupon got angry and joined the hostile party. The anti-Omeyyad tendency of the tradition on this subject is evident from Welîd (the drunkard) being named as the person employed by the Caliph to administer the rebuke.

[460] As enlarged by Othmân, the Mosque was 160 cubits long, and 150 broad. As in Omar’s time, it had six gates for entrance.

[461] Othmân defended his innovations as based on the practice of the pilgrims from Yemen, who recited additional prayers on behalf of their distant homes; and he too (he said) had a property at Tâyif, as well as at Mecca. The matter seems at first sight altogether insignificant. But in an established ritual, the smaller the change, the greater oftentimes the scandal and indignation, as we need not go far to see. And although no point of doctrine was apparently involved, yet the practice of the Prophet had come to be regarded as an obligatory precedent in the commonest matters of daily life.

[462] For Abu Hodzeifa, see Life of Mahomet, p. 65. He left his infant son to be brought up by Othmân, who faithfully discharged the trust. When he grew up he asked for a government or military command, but was told that he was not yet fit for it, and must prove his capacity in the wars of Egypt and Africa. He never forgot the slight, and was active in the insurgent ranks. Various other examples are given of personal enmity, such as citizens alienated by the reprimand for gaming, a chief imprisoned for the ill-treatment of a Christian tribe, whose favourite hound he had killed, and so on.

[463] The well was at the distance of two miles from the city. Another well, called Rûma, was bought by Othmân, during the Prophet’s lifetime, from the Jews for the use of the Moslems. He first purchased the half title, the well being used day about by either party; but on their alternate days the Mussulmans emptied the well of enough water to last them two days. Whereupon the Jewish owner insisted on Othmân’s purchasing the entire right, which he did; and Mahomet promised him a fountain in Paradise for the same.

[464] For traditions regarding Mahomet’s ring, see Life of Mahomet, pp. 544 and 596. The despatches sent by him to the several kings in the eighth year of the Hegira were attested by it. The most received account is that the legend on it was ‘Mahomet, Prophet of God’ (Mohammed Rasûl Allah, in three lines, beginning from the bottom). It was used for all documents requiring a seal, by Mahomet and his successors. The new ring disappeared at the time of Othmân’s assassination, and, like the original, was never seen again.

[465] One of the four wives who survived him was Omm al Banîn, daughter of the famous freebooter, Oyeina. Othmân had thirteen children, and (so far as we read) no issue by slave-girls, which, looking to the habits of the time, is somewhat remarkable.

[466] The name of this demagogue was Abdallah ibn Saba, but he was usually called Ibn Sauda, and was supposed to come from Yemen. It is notable that this first sect of Alyites (if it can be so called) was founded by a Jewish convert. What led him (if the story of his teaching be not altogether a proleptic fiction of tradition) to magnify Aly, who had hitherto put forth no claim, nor indeed at any time dreamed of the extravagant pretensions in store for him after his death, it is difficult to understand. Nor did these transcendental notions regarding Aly gain any ground whatever till a much later period. Ibn Sauda had evidently imbibed some extreme notions on the dignity of prophets. ‘Strange,’ he is reported to have said;—‘strange that men should believe in the second coming of the Messiah, and not in that of Mahomet.’ The idea, we are told, was inspired by the verse in Sura xxviii. v. 84, ‘Verily, he who hath given thee the Corân will surely bring thee back again;’ which, of course, referred only to Mahomet’s returning again to Mecca. Indeed, the whole account of this man’s teaching is obscure and uncertain; and the Alyite notices of it may be altogether anticipatory and unreal.

[467] The youth and his father belonged to the Beni Asad. On hearing of the riot, Toleiha (the quondam prophet), chief of that tribe, hastened with a body of his men to the palace for their rescue; but found that both had escaped half dead.

Another version is, that on Saîd’s giving expression to the sentiment about ‘the Sawâd being the Garden of the Coreish,’ the whole company sprang to their feet and shouted excitedly: ‘Nay, but the Lord hath given the Sawâd to us and to our swords.’ On this, the captain of the body-guard retorted angrily at their rude reception of his master’s words; whereupon they set upon him and left him half dead. The inflammable material was all around, and wanted only the spark to explode. This unfortunate speech about ‘the Garden of the Coreish’ was in the mouths of the disaffected all through the insurrection.

[468] The chief amongst them was Mâlik al Ashtar, of whom we shall hear more as the most sanguinary amongst the traitors; Zeid ibn Sohan; Jondob (already noticed); Orwa; and Thâbit ibn Cays. Yezîd, a brother of the last, another chief leader of sedition, was not sent. Muâvia wrote to Othmân that they were an ignorant crew, bent on sedition, and on getting possession of the property of the Zimmies, that is of the subject races, whose rights of occupancy had been recognised as the hereditary tenants of the Sawâd—a policy, as we have seen, firmly upheld by Omar throughout Chaldæa, and which it was one object of the malcontents to upset. According to one account, the exiles were sent back by Muâvia, after expressing penitence, at once to Kûfa—where, however, resuming their factious courses, Othmân, as a last resource, despatched them again to Syria, this time to Abdallah, Khâlid’s son, at Hims. Muâvia is throughout represented as upholding the claims of the Coreish against the Arab faction, showing thus the real aim of the ringleaders.

A story is told that the exiles, enraged at the menaces of Muâvia, leaped upon him and seized him by the beard; whereupon, shaking them off, he warned them that they knew little of the loyal spirit of the Syrians, who, if they only saw what they were doing, would be so enraged that it would be out of his power to save their lives.

[469] Only two or three names are given of those who kept aloof from seditious action: as Zeid ibn Thâbit (the collector of the Corân); Hassân, the poet, his brother; Káb ibn Mâlik, and Abu Oseid—all natives of Medîna; so that the whole body of Refugees (the Coreish), excepting Othmân’s immediate kinsmen, must have joined the treasonable faction.

[470] No doubt Aly spoke the truth. Yet Othmân’s weakness towards the seditious populace was a far greater peril than his tender treatment of his governors.

[471] I have given all this as I find it in tradition, but not without some misgiving; especially of the part about Merwân, whom, as the evil genius of Othmân, the Abbasside writers are never weary of abusing.

[472] Amru, who had become a petulant malcontent ever since his deposition, is represented as speaking contumeliously of Othmân to his very face; and Othmân is represented as returning it in kind, calling him ‘a louse in his garments.’ On one occasion the Caliph is said to have addressed the people, ‘leaning on the staff of Mahomet’ (a venerable relic that had descended from the Prophet to Abu Bekr and Omar), when an Arab seized and broke it over Othmân’s head. Such stories, however much they may be tinged with Abbasside exaggeration and prejudice, point to the fact that Othmân was falling rapidly in popular esteem.

[473] The four were Mohammed ibn Maslama, often employed by Omar, as he had been by Mahomet himself, on confidential missions; Osâma ibn Zeid, commander of the Syrian expedition at Mahomet’s death; Abdallah, son of Omar; and Ammâr, whose injudicious appointment by Omar to the governorship of Kûfa appears to have turned his head, for he fell into the conspirators’ toils.

[474] We have abundance of conversations professing to have passed between Othmân and his advisers; but they have no further authority than as they represent the sentiments conventionally attributed to the several speakers. As, however, it may give point to the crisis now rapidly approaching, I subjoin the following epitome of the most received account:—

Othmân: ‘Alas, alas! what is all this I hear of you, my deputies and governors? I greatly fear that the complaints may be true; and it is upon me the burden falleth.’ They replied that the Caliph had sent his own men out to see, and they had found nothing wrong. Then he asked what they advised him to do. Sád (ex-governor of Kûfa) would have the traitors, who were burrowing in the dark, unearthed and slain; then sedition would subside. Muâvia: ‘In Syria there is no disaffection, and it would be everywhere the same were the people fairly and firmly dealt with.’ Abu Sarh proposed to work through the Dewân, increasing or diminishing stipends by way of reward and punishment. Ibn Aámir advised to engage the restless spirits in war, and so the crisis would pass over. Amru, embittered by his supersession in Egypt, is represented as addressing Othmân in coarse abuse. Othmân replied despondingly:—‘Cruel measures he would not sanction. If rebellion was to come, no one should, at the least, have that to say against him. The millstone would grind round and round to the bitter end. Good had it been, if before it began to revolve, he had been taken to his rest. There was nought left for him but to be quiet and to see that no wrong was done to anyone.’ So he gave the governors leave to depart, saying only that if fresh campaigns were set on foot, he would approve of that; otherwise he would hold on his way.

As they took their leave, Káb, the Jewish convert, said, ‘It will be the grey mule that wins,’ meaning Muâvia, who overheard the saying and from that moment (so the tradition runs) kept the Caliphate in view.

Another scene is represented, in which Othmân, surrounded by his own advisers, sends for Aly, Zobeir, and Talha. Muâvia pleaded before them the cause of the aged Caliph, and warned them of the danger they ran to their own selves in allowing any attack calculated to abate the sacredness of the Caliph’s person; it was, he said, both their duty and their interest to support him in his feeble old age. On this, Aly reproached Muâvia as the son of Hind, the ‘chewer of Hamza’s liver.’ ‘Let alone my mother,’ he responded angrily; ‘she became a good believer, and after that was not a whit behind thine own.’ Othmân interposed: ‘My cousin Muâvia doth speak the truth. Now tell me wherein I have gone astray, and I will amend my ways. It may be that I have been too open-handed towards my kinsmen. Take back that which they have received.’ So Abu Sarh disgorged 50,000 dirhems; and Merwân 15,000, and they all departed for the moment satisfied.

But all these accounts must be received with suspicion. In the midst of such violent factions as were springing up, the marvel is that tradition has preserved so consistent a narrative as we have.

[475] Adapting the words from Sura xxxix. v. 39.

[476] For the Lesser Pilgrimage, or Omra, see Life of Mahomet, p. xii. It may be performed in any month of the year, but preferably in Rajab (three months earlier than the commonly received date of the attack, which I have followed); and some traditions accordingly give this as the date of the advance upon Medîna. That, however, would make the interval (from January to May) too long for the intervening events, which were hurried through within the period of a couple of months, if so long.

[477] See above, p. 313.

[478] The men of Kûfa pitched at Al Awas; the Bussorah party at Dzu Khashab; the Egyptians at Dzu Marwa—all places in the close neighbourhood of the city.

[479] They marched off, we are told, expecting that the citizens would break up their armed gathering as soon as they were gone, and concerting to return again each from their separate road.

[480] The history of the document is obscure. On the one hand, it certainly was sealed with the Caliph’s signet; but who affixed the seal, and whether it was surreptitiously obtained, cannot be told. Nobody alleges Othmân’s complicity. Most traditions attribute the writing and sealing of the order to Merwân, the Caliph’s unpopular cousin, who, throughout the narrative, receives constant abuse as the author of Othmân’s troubles; but all this is manifestly tinged by Abbasside and anti-Omeyyad prejudice. Aly’s objection of collusion between the three insurgent bodies appears unanswerable. There must have been some preconcerted scheme as to the simultaneous return of the three camps; and there is a strong presumption of something unfair as regards the document also. Amidst conflicting evidence, it is beyond the historian’s power to offer any conclusive explanation. It is, of course, possible that Merwân may have taken upon himself the issue and despatch of the rescript; and, indeed, there was not wanting ground for his venturing on such a course (and something perhaps also to be said for his doing it unknown to Othmân), excepting only the deception of the insurgents by false promises. The insurgents may also have got scent of the document before they started ostensibly with the purpose of returning home. But these are all mere assumptions.

The Persian version of Tabari has a different story, namely, that the Egyptian band, on seizing the document, turned their faces back again towards Medîna, despatching at the same time messengers to apprise the Kûfa and Bussorah bands of Othmân’s treachery, and to recall them, so that all should reach Medîna and join in the attack together. Neither Ibn al Athîr nor Ibn Khallicân have anything to this effect, and it is hardly consistent with Aly’s speech, noticed above. The Arabic original of Tabari, now being published, may possibly throw further light on this chapter.

[481] Mohammed ibn Maslama, a Companion (as we have seen) highly trusted both by Mahomet and his successors; and Zeid ibn Thâbit, the collector of the Corân, tried to speak in confirmation of what Othmân had said, but were violently silenced and abused by the rebels Hakam ibn Jabala and Mohammed ibn Coteira.

[482] There are traditions, but of an entirely Abbasside stamp, of other interviews between Aly and the Caliph, with repeated promises of the latter to amend; Aly recriminating that these promises were no sooner made, even from the pulpit and before the congregation, than under the baneful influence of Merwân they were broken. Even Nâila, his wife, is represented as blaming her weak-minded husband for his fickleness. But were all this true, it would go but a little way to relieve Aly, Zobeir, and Talha from the charge of desertion, or, worse, of treasonable collusion with rebels against the rightful monarch—a short-sighted policy even in their own interest.

[483] He is called Al Ghâficky, the ‘Ameer,’ or Commander of the insurgents.

[484] According to some traditions, we are told, that Othmân prevailed on Aly to procure for him a three days’ truce, under the pretence of issuing orders to the governors for a reform of the administration; and that he treacherously employed the time instead in strengthening the defences, and excused himself by saying that the time was too short to carry out the promised reforms. But the story is altogether of the Abbasside type.

[485] The authorities are conflicting as to the length of the siege, though the several stages of the attack and investment are sufficiently well defined. After the first uproar Othmân still presided at the daily prayers for thirty days, after which he was besieged for forty days—that is ten weeks in all. Another tradition is that after the blockade had lasted eight and forty days, tidings of coming succour reached the city, and then the investment became severe. But this would leave too long an interval—namely, three weeks—between the report of help being on its way and the final issue, before which the columns, hurrying from Syria and Bussorah, should have had ample time to arrive at Medîna. The Syrian column, we are told, reached as far as Wâdy al Cora, and that from Bussorah as far as Rabadza, when they heard that all was over, and accordingly turned back.

[486] The talk among the courtiers of Al Mâmûn, in the third century, as reflected in the Apology of Al Kindy, was that Aly, even at a much earlier period, contemplated the putting of Othmân to death (Apology, p. 25). There seems to be no proof or presumption of this; but anyhow, one cannot but feel indignant at the attitude of Aly, who would do so much and no more; who sent his son to join the Caliph’s guard at the palace gate, and was scandalised at his being denied water to drink; and yet would not so much as raise a finger to save his life.

We have also traditions in which Othmân is represented as reproaching Talha for encouraging the insurgents to a more strict enforcement of the blockade; but, whatever his demerits in deserting the Caliph, this seems incredible. The ordinary account is that Talha as well as Zobeir, on hearing of the rebel excesses, kept to his house; others, again, say that they both quitted Medîna.

Omm Habîba, as daughter of Abu Sofiân, naturally sympathised with Othmân. Hantzala, one of the citizens of Kûfa who had accompanied the insurgents, was so indignant at their treatment of one of ‘the Mothers of the Faithful,’ that he went off to his home, and there gave vent to his feelings in verses expressive of his horror at the scenes his comrades were enacting at Medîna.

One day, we are told, Othmân, goaded by the thirst of himself and his household, ascended the roof, and cried aloud: ‘Ye men! know ye that I bought the well Rûma, and furnished it with gear that the Moslems might quench their thirst thereat? and now ye will not let me have one drop to quench my thirst. Moreover, I builded you such and such a mosque; and now ye hinder me from going forth to say my prayers in the Great Mosque.’ And so on, contrasting the various benefits he had conferred upon them, and the kind and loving words the Prophet used to address to him, with the cruel treatment he was now receiving; whereat the hearts of all were softened, and the word was passed round to hold back from pressing the attack. But Ashtar, the rebel, said, ‘He is but playing with you and practising deceit,’ and so he resumed the attack. There are many such traditions, but they seem to possess little authority.

[487] The pilgrims, in order to reach Mecca in time for the pilgrimage (beginning on the 8th of Dzul Hijj, June 7), must have left Medîna a week or ten days previously; that is, some three weeks before the final attack on the palace.

[488] The one killed was Moghîra, a Thackîfite from Tâyif. He was a confederate of the Beni Zohra, the same who had persuaded that clan to retire from the Coreishite army when it marched forth to attack Mahomet at Bedr (Life of Mahomet, p. 228).

Merwân received a sword-cut, which severed one of the tendons of the neck, and left him, when he recovered, with his neck stiff and shortened. The rebels were about to despatch him when his foster-mother cried out: ‘Do ye seek to kill him? he is dead already; if ye would sport with and mutilate his body, that were inhuman and unlawful.’ So they left him. In after days, when Merwân came to power, he showed his gratitude to this woman by giving her son a command.

[489] The blood, we are told, flowed down the leaves just touching these words: ‘If they rebel, surely they are schismatics; thy Lord will swiftly avenge you.’ (Sura ii. v. 138.) The appropriateness of the text, however, may of itself have suggested the story.

When the insurgents first rushed in, he was at the moment reading the appropriate passage in Sura iii. v. 174. Referring to the battle of Ohod, and the danger in which Medîna was then placed, the disaffected citizens are there represented as taunting Mahomet and his followers in these words: ‘Verily, the men (of Mecca) have gathered forces against you; wherefore, be afraid of the same. But (the taunt) only increased their faith, and they said: The Lord sufficeth for us; He is the best Protector.’ This was a favourite text of Othmân’s, and he may perhaps have turned to it for comfort now that vain was the help of man.

[490] The actual murderers were Al Ghâficky, the leader, and Sudân, who was himself killed. Kinâna ibn Bishr is also named. All these belonged to the Egyptian band, which seems to have contained the most rabid of the insurgents. Amr ibn al Hamac leapt upon the body, hardly yet breathless, and inflicted nine wounds—‘three for the Lord’s cause, and six to satisfy his own passion.’

[491] These two were among the chief men ‘whose hearts were gained over’ by largesses from the booty after the battle of Honein.—Life of Mahomet, p. 436. Hakîm is frequently mentioned in the Prophet’s biography. It was Hakîm who carried supplies to his aunt Khadîja when shut up with Mahomet in the Sheb.—Life, p. 100.

It is said that a party of the citizens of Medîna made an attempt to stop the funeral, but desisted on seeing that a tumult would arise. We are also told that Aly himself, on hearing of the design to molest the procession and cast stones at the mourners, did his best to prevent it. Indeed, Abbasside tradition abounds with attempts to rescue the memory of Aly from the obloquy attaching to the heartless part he had been acting. For example, Masûdy gives us a tradition that when Aly heard that all was over he hastened to the palace and asked his son how it had happened—as though he could not for many days have foreseen the fatal termination to which the blockade was tending!

[492] The field was called Hashh Kaukab—the Garden of the Star.

[493] My impression, on the whole, is that it was an afterthought. The narrative of those who side with Talha and Zobeir is as follows: After Othmân’s death the city was for some days in the hands of the insurgents. No one ventured to accept the Caliphate. Sád and Zobeir had already quitted the city; and all the members of the Omeyya clan who were able had effected their escape to Mecca. The rebels themselves were at their wits’ ends: ‘If we quit Medîna,’ they said, ‘and no Caliph is appointed, anarchy will burst forth everywhere. It appertaineth unto you (addressing the men of Medîna) to appoint a Caliph. Wherefore look ye out a man for the throne, and make him Caliph. We give you one day’s grace for the same. If ye choose him, well; but if not, then we shall slay Aly, Zobeir, and Talha, as well as a great number of you.’ Alarmed at these threats, the leading citizens repaired to Aly, who, at first, bade them seek another; but they constrained him; and, as a last resource, to rid them of the insurgents, he consented. Then they drew Zobeir (who, by this time, had returned) and Talha to the Mosque, and forced them, at the point of the sword, to swear.

It seems certain that the rebels of Kûfa and Bussorah were in favour respectively of Zobeir and Talha; but that they were induced to accept Aly, either through fear (as the partisans of the two pretenders hold) of the Egyptian regicides, or because the citizens made choice of Aly.

[494] Thus Sád, the conqueror of Irâc, refused to swear till all else had done so; whereupon, Ashtar, head of the conspirators from Kûfa, threatened to behead him; but Aly said, ‘Leave him alone; I will be surety for him.’ Moghîra, also, and a company of the late Caliph’s adherents, declined to swear, and were left unmolested. Amongst them was Hassân, the poet, and his brother Zeid (collector of the Corân), whom Othmân had appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. Of the latter, it is said that when Othmân was first attacked, he cried to his fellow-citizens, ‘Ye men of Medîna, be ye Ansârs (Helpers) of the Lord for the second time, even as ye were Ansârs of His Prophet at the first.’ But Abu Ayûb, another of the citizens, made answer and said, ‘Verily, he shall get no help from us. Let the multitude of his train-band slaves be his Ansârs!’

[495] This servile population (Sabâya or ‘captives’) had been pouring for years in a continuous stream, during the campaigns, into Medîna. They were employed as domestic servants, warders, body-guards, &c. Some followed trades, in quasi-freedom, paying the profits to their masters. They mostly embraced the Moslem faith because of the privileges it conferred. On the outbreak they became insubordinate, and broke away into a defiant attitude. This would occur the more readily as they formed the guards of the treasury and mansions of the great men; and, being the only trained force at Medîna, no doubt themselves felt their power. We find them similarly taking part in the outbreak at Bussorah. Like the Janissaries or Memlûk of later days, they were a petulant brood. Immediately on homage being done to Aly, they are said to have lampooned him in minatory verses, to which Aly (not to be outdone by the poetry even of slaves) replied in extempore couplets. Proclamation was made that slaves not returning to their masters would be treated as outlaws, but it had no effect.

[496] The tradition runs that Moghîra, at the first, gave sound and sincere advice to this effect; but that, finding Aly obstinately opposed to it, he returned next day, saying that, on reflection, he had changed his mind. When Ibn Abbâs came, Aly told him that Moghîra had, at the first, attempted to deceive him, but on the second day had spoken true, and advised him to put in his own men. ‘Not so,’ said Ibn Abbâs; ‘just the reverse. It was the truth which he spake at the first; the last was not his true opinion.’ And so it turned out; for Moghîra, finding his advice disregarded, departed to join the malcontents at Mecca

[497] Life of Mahomet, pp. 324 and 527.

[498] I have given this conference fully, because, in substance at least, it shows the impracticable bent of Aly’s mind which quickly drew on the civil war. It is also not unlikely in itself. The purport of such a conversation would become known; and, moreover, besides this and one or two other uncertain conversations, we have little or nothing to explain the early events of Aly’s Caliphate, and the motives which actuated him.

[499] Amru, it is said, pressed this course upon Muâvia, saying, in his proverbial style, ‘Show the dam her foal, it will stir her bowels.’

[500] The officers appointed were his cousin Abdallah ibn Abbâs, a faithful adherent, and his brother Cutham; Omar, son of Abu Salma (half-brother of Omm Salma, the Prophet’s widow); Abu Leila, nephew of Abu Obeida; Aly’s own son Mohammed, son of his Hanifite wife, &c.

[501] For this passage in the Prophet’s life see Life of Mahomet, pp. 311 et seq.

[502] We are treading now on specially factious ground, and have to weigh with care the bias of tradition which represents Ayesha as suddenly converted from a deadly enemy of Othmân into the champion of his memory. Thus, when, on receiving the tidings of the murder on the way back from Mecca, she declared that she would avenge his death: ‘What!’ cried her informant, startled by her zeal; ‘is this thy speech now, whilst but yesterday thou wast foremost to press the attack upon him as an apostate?’ ‘Yea,’ she replied; ‘but even now he repented him of that which they laid to his charge, and yet after that they slew him.’ In reply, her informant recited these verses: ‘Thou wast the first to foment the discontent. Thou commandedst us to slay the prince for his apostasy, and now, &c.’ How far this has been invented (possibly as a foil to Aly’s equally strange and inconsistent conduct), or whether the inconsistency in Ayesha’s conduct was really as strange as here represented, it is difficult to say. Anyhow, it must be admitted that Ayesha was a jealous, violent, intriguing woman, a character that may well account for much that would otherwise appear strange.

[503] This famous camel is an object of special interest to tradition. Some say it was bought for Ayesha in Yemen; others, that it belonged to the Orni guide who piloted the expedition; and that, in addition to a large sum for his services, he got the camel purchased for Ayesha in exchange for his own.

[504] The women of Mecca accompanied Ayesha as far as Dzât Ire. Some of Mahomet’s widows may have been at Mecca just then for the pilgrimage, and, in the present troubled state of Medîna, they may have preferred to stay on there. Perhaps some of them may have settled permanently in the Holy City, On the other hand, we know from a previous notice that Omm Habîba, at any rate, still resided at Medîna.

[505] Saîd inquired of Talha and Zobeir which of them was to be the Caliph. ‘Whichever,’ was the answer, ‘the people may choose.’ ‘But,’ replied Saîd, ‘if ye go forth as the avengers of the blood of Othmân, then the succession should of right devolve upon his sons,’ two of whom were with the rebel force. ‘That,’ they answered, ‘it will be for the chief men of Medîna eventually to settle amongst them.’

[506] Meaning Talha and Zobeir themselves, and intimating that these had had as much hand in fomenting the insurrection, and were as responsible for its fatal result, as anybody else.

[507] Omm al Fadhl.

[508] The incident is adduced to show the alarm of Aly. He had sent for Abdallah, Omar’s son, who declined to pledge himself to join the army against the rebels of Bussorah till he saw what the other citizens of Medîna did. On this he prepared to leave for Mecca, assuring his stepmother (Aly’s daughter) that he meant to keep aloof from the rebels, which he did.

[509] This column, which was got up in haste and with difficulty (for there was no enthusiasm at any time for Aly), was composed chiefly of men belonging to Kûfa and Bussorah in Aly’s interest. What these were doing then at Medîna does not appear.

[510] The commander of the first campaign after Mahomet’s death.

[511] Only one man of the band from Bussorah that attacked Othmân, the warrior Horcûs, escaped, at the intercession of the Beni Sád.

[512] Abu Mûsa, Governor of Kûfa, abused Ammâr, the envoy of Aly, as a murderer. When urged by Hasan (whom on his arrival he embraced affectionately) to support his father in putting down the dissension that rent the people, Abu Mûsa replied that he had heard the Prophet say that ‘in the event of sedition, walking was better than riding, standing better than walking, and sitting better than either.’ He exhorted the citizens, therefore, to adopt this maxim, and, following the example of the Coreish, to sit still at home;—‘if they studied their eternal interests, they would do this; if only their temporal interests, they would go forth and fight.’ A tumult arose; the palace was sacked, and he was deposed.

Hasan, spite of his want of ambition, must have managed the business well, especially after the failure of the previous deputations, which consisted of such able men as Mohammed, son of Abu Bekr, the sons of Abbâs and Jafar, and Ashtar the arch-regicide.

The spiritless rôle assigned by tradition to Hasan is illustrated by a conversation which passed between him and his father at Dzu Câr. Hasan: ‘Thou hast ever neglected my advice, my father, and now thou wilt be deserted all round, and slain.’ Aly: ‘And thou never ceasest whining like a girl. What advice of thine have I not followed?’ Hasan replied that his father should have quitted Medîna before Othmân was slain; after the murder, he should not have accepted the Caliphate till the provinces had agreed in his nomination; and now that Talha and Zobeir had risen up, he should have stayed at home, and let them take the first offensive step. To the first point Aly answered that at the time he was himself besieged, and could not, even if he had so wished, escape from Medîna; that he had been regularly elected, and would fight it out to the end; that as for staying at home, he would have been like a hyæna, baited by enemies on all sides; and that if he did not look after his own interests, he saw no one else who would do so for him. The conversation may be fictitious, but it entirely accords with Hasan’s poor and unaspiring character.

[513] Mohammed son of Abu Bekr, the regicide, was with Aly during the impending battle, which would seem to show that all those concerned in the insurrection against Othmân were not kept back. Possibly the order applied only to the Bedouins from Kûfa that were so concerned.

[514] Among other things, Aly said to Zobeir: ‘Dost thou remember the day when we both were with the Prophet among the Beni Ghanam; and he looked on me and smiled, and I smiled in return; and thou saidst to him, “Do not allow the son of Abu Tâlib to vapour thus;” and he answered, “It is no vapouring to quarrel about; thou doest him an injustice”?’ And Zobeir was touched.

The attitude of Talha and Zobeir is variously represented. They both appear to have assented to Aly’s proposals; and (notwithstanding Talha’s speech about compulsory swearing of allegiance) to have continued peaceful negotiations.

On the other hand, Abdallah son of Zobeir manifests the same ambitious spirit which led him many years afterwards into rebellion, and at one time nearly gained for him the Caliphate. He is represented as now taunting his father with faint-heartedness in swearing to Aly that he would not fight; and even persuading him to release himself from the oath by the legal substitution of freeing a slave.

Again, it is said that Zobeir was staggered when he heard that Ammâr was in the field against him, in consequence of Mahomet’s having once said that Ammâr would be slain by an ungodly host (a matter of which we shall hear more below). The general tenor of tradition is, that, from whatever cause, he retired, without fighting, into the neighbouring valley, and there met his death.

It is very difficult to weave a narrative at once faithful and consistent out of all this. The conversations of the rebel leaders with Aly must have been to a great extent conjectural; and the surprise of both armies no doubt adds to the confusion of the narrative as given by our authorities. The general outline, however, is established.

[515] The Eastern traveller will recognise and appreciate the illustration.

[516] This camel is a prominent subject in tradition, as we might expect from its having given its name to the battle, and many tales of heroism are told both in its attacks and defence. One says he never heard anything so fearful as the scream it gave when hamstrung.

[517] The numbers may be exaggerated; but the loss of life was, no doubt, immense, and it is evidence of the terrible fury with which the battle was fought. Of one tribe, the Beni Dhabba, alone, 1,000 men are said to have been slain. The strong partisan feelings both of Bedouin against Coreish, and of the opposing families of Hâshim and Omeyya, long pent up, tended to give bitterness to the conflict; and there was in addition the new cry of vengeance for the blood of Othmân.

[518] So carefully were Aly’s orders against plundering observed, that whatever was found on the field, or in the insurgent camp, was gathered together in the Great Mosque, and every man was allowed to claim his own. To the malcontents who complained that they were not allowed to take booty, Aly replied that the rights of war, in this case, lasted only so long as the ranks were arrayed against each other; and that, immediately on submission, the insurgents resumed their rights and privileges as brother Moslems.

[519] ‘She of the two shreds.’—Life of Mahomet, p. 145.

[520] There is a great abundance of tradition concerning Ayesha, both in the battle and after it. In the heat of the action, Aly’s soldiers taunted her as ‘the unnatural Mother of the Faithful.’ The soldiers on her side, in reply, extemporised a couplet, extolling her as ‘the noblest and best of Mothers.’ When they told it to her, she was much affected, and exclaimed, ‘Would that I had died twenty years before this!’ Aly also, when he heard it, said, ‘Would that I too had died twenty years ago!’

Ayesha, always ready in repartee, was not very particular in her language, and some of the speeches attributed to her are both coarse and intemperate. Asim approaching her litter on the field, she cursed him for the liberty he had taken. ‘It was but a little something red and white,’ he said, impudently, ‘that I caught a glimpse of.’ ‘The Lord uncover thy nakedness,’ she cried angrily; ‘cut off thy hands, and make thy wife a widow!’ All which, they say, came to pass. A saucy passage is related between her and the aged Ammâr, whose last words were, as she was leaving, ‘Praise be to the Lord that we shall hear no more that vile tongue of thine!’

Aly’s conduct was forbearing and generous. Of the family with which Ayesha was lodged at Bussorah, two sons had been killed fighting, one on the side of Aly, the other against him. The widow of the latter was loud in her lamentation, crying out against Aly as the cause of her sorrow. Aly was asked to punish her; but he refused, saying she was but a weak woman, and should not be touched. On the other hand, some one who spoke contumeliously of Ayesha was, by his order, beaten with shoes.

As Ayesha was starting for Mecca, Aly and a company gathered round her. When the time came to bid farewell, she said, ‘Let us not entertain hard thoughts one against the other; for verily, as regardeth Aly and myself, there happened not anything between us (alluding to her misadventure in the Prophet’s lifetime[521]) but that which is wont to happen between a wife and her husband’s family; and verily Aly was one of the best of them that entertained suspicions against me.’ Aly replied: ‘She speaketh the truth; there was nought, beyond what she saith, between her and me.’ And then he went on to say (quoting Mahomet’s own words) that ‘she was not only the Prophet’s wife in this world, but equally his spouse in the next.’

[521] Life of Mahomet, p. 311.

[522] A separate chapter is generally assigned by the Arabian historians to this episode; but its interest lies almost wholly in the intense hatred conceived by the usurper towards Othmân. Hearing of his factious courses, Othmân, to soften and remind him of his past care and favour, sent him from Medîna a purse, and also a camel laden with rich garments, as a present. The ungrateful rebel hung these up in the Great Mosque of Fostât, and used them to point his invectives against Othmân and the corruption of the age. Having joined the insurgent faction, he, no doubt, hoped that Othmân’s successor would have confirmed him in the government of Egypt. But Aly, treating him as he deserved, showed him no favour, and appointed a man of his own to the government.

[523] I give the narrative as related by concurrent tradition, which I can only question when there is strong internal probability against it. It would, no doubt, have been satisfactory to have had some evidence of Muâvia’s deceptive course of action. It may, however, all be true, for Muâvia was never overscrupulous. But we have no proof excepting fama clamans; and court influence under the Abbassides disposed the historians of the day to make the most of every report that was damaging to the character of the Omeyyad dynasty. The reader must, therefore, be cautious of accepting implicitly all these imputations of underhand machination.

[524] Aly’s cousins (sons of Jáfar, the Prophet’s uncle) appear to have encouraged the suspicions against Cays, hoping thus to pave the way for the appointment of Mohammed son of Abu Bekr, who was their uterine brother (Abu Bekr married Jafar’s widow, Life of Mahomet, p. 410).

[525] One of his sons is said to have advised Amru to remain in retirement and leave the impending conflict to be settled by those immediately concerned. The other urged that it was not becoming one of his father’s rank and dignity to be neutral. The former, Amru advised (so runs the Abbasside tradition), him the best for his spiritual advantage; the latter for his temporal, and he followed it.

[526] The oath reminds one of a similar vow taken by Hind after the battle of Bedr. (Life of Mahomet, p. 246.)

[527] The western detachment, 12,000 strong, was forced by the hostile attitude of Syria hastily to retrace its steps as far as Hît, where they recrossed the river, and then marched north through Mesopotamia. They were so long delayed that Aly, with the main body, reached Ricca first, and, on seeing them come up, naïvely exclaimed, ‘Lo, here is my advanced column in the rear!’

The main body took the Tigris route, perhaps as affording better forage at that dry season of the year.

[528] When the people refused to throw a bridge of boats over the river at Ricca, a detachment moved farther up, intending to cross by the standing bridge at Membaj; but meanwhile Ashtar threatened to put the inhabitants to the sword, and so had a bridge constructed at Ricca. Ricca (Nicephorium) is at the junction of the Belîk with the Euphrates, at which point the Great River, in its upper course, trends westward, and thus approaches Aleppo. Sûr al Rûm (now in ruins) is a little way west of Ricca. It is near Thapsacus of the ancients, on the line of the march of Cyrus.

[529] Freedmen begin to play prominent parts. Aly, on his side, gave a banner to Kinbar, his freedman, and put him in command of a column; and a verse of Amru’s has been preserved in which he pits the one freedman against the other.

[530a]The tendency of tradition, which continues to be cast, as a rule, in an Abbasside mould, is, throughout, to speak disparagingly of Muâvia, and eulogistically of Aly. Thus Aly is represented as sending Sassâa to ask Muâvia’s leave for his army to get water from the river until they had had the opportunity of settling their differences. Amru was for yielding to the request; but Muâvia, counselled by Welîd and Abu Sarh, declined. A skirmish ensued, and the Syrians were beaten from their ground. Then Aly’s people wished to refuse water to the Syrians; but Aly was more generous, and allowed them to take what water they wanted.

Siffîn was to the west of Ricca, about half-way to Balîs (one of Chesney’s steamer stations), opposite the fort of Jabor or Dansa, and about 100 miles from the coast. It lay south-east of Aleppo, and north-east of Hims.

[530]In the Persian version of Tabari, numbers are said to have been slain every day; but no details nor any names are given, so the casualties could not have been very serious. Blood was not yet inflamed.

It is significant that Aly’s deputations to Muâvia, as well as the commanders of his columns (whose names are given), were almost exclusively Bedouin chiefs; that is to say, there were hardly any of the Coreish or of the citizens of Medîna amongst them, excepting Cays, the ex-Governor of Egypt. Muâvia, on the contrary, had many such around him, as Obeidallah son of Omar, Abdallah son of Khâlid, Habîb ibn Maslama, &c.

[531] Ammâr, the ex-Governor of Kûfa, was son of the bond-woman Sommeya. (See above, p. 268.) Othmân’s freedman was slain in the first onslaught of the conspirators. (Ibid. p. 340.) Ammâr’s life was forfeit, they meant to say, for the lesser crime, but much more for the assassination of the Caliph.

[532] Thus the first day Ashtar was in command against Habîb ibn Maslama; then Hâshim ibn Otba (the hero of Câdesîya) against Abul Aûr; on the third day Ammâr against one of Amru’s sons, and so on. After six days the turn came round again to Ashtar and Habîb. But it all reads somewhat too made up.

[533] Mohammed son of Aly was challenged by Obeidallah son of Omar. When Aly saw this, he put spurs to his horse and would have taken his son’s place, whereupon the latter returned to the ranks, saying, ‘Why didst thou not leave me alone, and I should have slain my man? And how couldst thou, my father, offer single combat to such a scoundrel, and the son of one (Omar) who was so inferior to thee?’ ‘Hush!’ said Aly, ‘speak nought of his father but good.’ Many instances are given of brothers and near relatives meeting each other in conflicting ranks, and turning aside from the fight in consequence;—so much was society, even to the domestic circle, rent by the civil war.

[534] Readers or Reciters of the Corân (corâa), those, namely, who, having it by heart, were able to repeat it from beginning to end. They were the most fanatical part of the Moslem forces, answering to the Ghâzies of our own day.

[535] Other versions are given of Ammâr’s last words by the Secretary of Wâckidy, as this: ‘The thirsty man longeth for water; and here, close by, it welleth up. Descend to the spring (death) and drink. This is the joyful day of meeting with friends, with Mahomet and his Companions.’ The various versions all portend the same wild fanatical spirit which influenced the Moslem armies in the first battles against the infidels, and which was now being imported equally into the civil war against their own brethren in the faith.

[536] This curious saying, attributed to the Prophet (the same which alarmed Zobeir at the Battle of the Camel, see p. 363), is thus explained. When Mahomet first arrived in Medîna and began to build the Great Mosque there, his followers all put their shoulders to the work, and began to carry loads of stone, &c. upon their heads. Ammâr was laden with a double burden, and Mahomet, seeing him fatigued, began to blow off the dust from his head, saying kindly to him, ‘Ammâr! a cruel and unjust people will surely slay thee;’ meaning apparently that ‘the people will surely cause thy death by making thee carry such loads.’ Others attribute the saying to the similar occasion when Medîna was besieged, and the citizens dug the great Ditch, carrying away the loads of earth. Whatever the occasion, the saying was treasured up, and when the civil war broke out, was accepted, and ever after quoted by their enemies, as conclusive evidence that the Omeyyads were ‘the rebellious people’ foretold by Mahomet.

The idea had taken such hold of the Syrian army that Amru said he was thankful that Dzul Kelâa (the great Himyarite hero who fell fighting on Muâvia’s side) was slain before Ammâr’s death, as otherwise it might have staggered his constancy to the Syrian cause.

The saying itself, and the occasion on which Mahomet gave utterance to it, assume such importance from their bearing on the great dynastic controversy, that the Secretary of Wâckidy devotes several pages to the multitudinous traditions on the subject. The Alyites hold point-blank that ‘the truth must have been with Ammâr, and that it accompanied him on whichever side he fought.’ (Kâtíb Wâckidi, fol. 228–230.)

Mahomet is said, also, to have foretold to Ammâr that his last drink would be milk mingled with water; rather a safe prophecy, seeing that it was Ammâr’s favourite beverage.

[537] Abu Mûsa had kept aloof from the battle, but must have been in the neighbourhood. When told of the arbitration, he exclaimed, ‘The Lord be praised, Who hath stayed the fighting!’ ‘But thou art appointed Arbiter on our side.’ ‘Alas! alas!’ he cried; and so, in much trepidation, he repaired to Aly’s camp. Ahnaf ibn Cays asked to be appointed joint-Umpire with Abu Mûsa, who, he said, was not the man to stand alone, nor had he tact and wit enough for the task;—‘There is not a knot which Abu Mûsa can tie, but I will unloose the same; nor a knot he can unloose, but I will find another still harder to unravel.’ This was too true; but the army was in an insolent and perverse mood, and would have none but Abu Mûsa.

[538] An angry passage is given as occurring between Amru and Aly, but it reads like an Abbasside invention. When Amru objected to Aly being named ‘Caliph,’ or ‘Commander of the Faithful,’ in the deed, Aly recalled to those around him the similar occurrence at Hodeibia. He said that when he himself, on that occasion, was reducing the truce to writing, the Coreish objected to Mahomet being styled in it The Prophet of the Lord. ‘Well do I remember,’ continued Aly, ‘when the Prophet desired me, at their bidding, to erase the words; and then, when I hesitated, he blotted them out with his own hand, and said to me, “The day will come when thou, too, shalt be called on to make a like concession, and thou shalt agree thereto.” ‘Out upon thee!’ cried Amru; ‘dost thou liken us unto the Pagan Arabs, being good believers?’ ‘And when,’ said Aly, answering indirectly, ‘shall the Wicked not have a head, nor the Faithful an enemy?’ Whereupon Amru swore that he never would sit in company with Aly again; and Aly, on his part, expressed a similar determination. This conversation may possibly have had some foundation in fact, but it is abundantly coloured by Abbasside imagination. For the scene at Hodeibia, see Life of Mahomet, p. 372.

[539] Some make the interval arranged for to have been eight months. The ordinary term named by tradition is to Ramadhân or February (A.D. 658), which was seven or eight months from the date of the truce; others name Shabân, or January, making the interval six; and this is the commonly received account.

[540] The Persian Tabari gives the slain on both sides from first to last at 40,000, out of a total force of 130,000 men. Making every allowance for exaggeration, the carnage must have been great. The names of only a few ‘Companions’ are given; but now these were rapidly disappearing from the scene, as the period of a whole generation had elapsed since the Hegira. The chief fighting, moreover, was between the Bedouins; those from the north, as a rule, being on Aly’s side, and the Arabs of the south on that of Muâvia. The numbers from Mecca and Medîna were comparatively small. The prisoners taken on both sides were released. Amru is spoken of as having advised to put them to death, but this is altogether unlikely.

[541] See above, p. 226.

[542] Hence the seceders are sometimes called Harôrites.

[543] Dûma, to the extreme north of the peninsula, lies half-way between Irâc and Syria, thus fulfilling the conditions of the truce. Some place the scene at Adzroh.

Tabari (Persian translation) represents Abu Mûsa as at first appearing unattended, and then, at Amru’s suggestion, sending for the stipulated guard. It came under command of the Bedouin chief Shoreih, who, we are told, carried an insolent message from his master Aly to Amru, warning him against improper motives. Amru resented the imputation, and an altercation ensued. The tradition is from Alyite sources; but one can hardly credit Aly with so indelicate a proceeding as the attempt by threats to influence his adversary’s Umpire. The whole story is in the vein of Abbasside abuse, which tramples on the memories of Muâvia and Amru; and here we may well reject it in the interest of Aly himself.

[544] Among those who entertained expectations of the Caliphate are named Abdallah son of Zobeir, the usurper of later days; and Mohammed son of Talha. Opinion varies as to whether Mohammed son of Abu Bekr was a candidate or not. Abdallah son of Omar was present, but without any pretensions to the Caliphate.

[545] He had a beautiful voice, ‘clear and sweet as a flute’ when he recited the Corân.

[546] At this point Mohammed son of Abbâs is represented as interposing with these words: ‘Out upon thee, Abu Mûsa! he hath overreached thee if indeed ye be agreed, and now he putteth thee forward. Let him speak first, and thou after him. He is a deceiver; he will make thee speak, then turn round and undo thy words.’ But Abu Mûsa did not listen. Any such interposition, however, is highly improbable. For it could hardly have been foreseen in what particular way Amru was about to overreach Abu Mûsa. Moreover the private conversation and agreement in the pavilion between the Umpires is itself open to doubt; at any rate, it is deeply coloured by Abbasside touches. But we have no other narrative, and must take the story as we find it. And although strange, and, in some of the details, improbable, it must be admitted that the transaction is not inconsistent, as a whole, with the wily character of Amru, who made himself notorious for astuteness and ‘sharp practice.’

[547] We do not hear more of Abu Mûsa, who, however, survived to A.H. 52, or, as others say, to A.H. 42. Some of his grandsons held judicial office.

Many of the angry speeches at Dûma by the chief men, who were bewildered at the strange dénouement, have been preserved. These are some of them. The son of Omar: ‘See what a pass Islam hath come to! Its great concern committed to two men; one who knoweth not right from wrong, the other a nincompoop.’ Abu Bekr’s son: ‘Would that Abu Mûsa had died before this affair; it had been better for him.’ Abu Mûsa himself is represented as abusing Amru in the language of the Corân: ‘His likeness is as the likeness of a dog; if thou drive him away, he putteth forth his tongue; and if thou leave him alone, still he putteth forth his tongue.’ (Sura vii. 77.) ‘And thou,’ retorted Amru, ‘art like the donkey laden with books, and none the wiser for it.’ (Sura vi. 25.) Shureih, commander of the Kûfa escort, flew at Amru, and they belaboured each other with their whips, till they were separated by the people. Shureih exclaimed that he only wished he had used his sword instead. But the tales are mostly of the Abbasside type, and we cannot implicitly receive them.

[548] The imprecation used by Aly has been preserved, as follows: ‘O Lord, I beseech thee, let Muâvia be accursed, and Amru, and Abul Aûr, Habîb, Abdal Rahmân son of (the great) Khâlid, Dhahhâk son of Cays, and Welîd! Let them be accursed all!’ Muâvia’s imprecation, in the same way, included Aly, Ibn Abbâs, Hasan and Hosein (sons of Aly), and Ashtar.

[549] The formula was: La hukm illa lillâhi. The political creed of the Separatists was that, Believers being absolutely equal, there should be no Caliph, nor oath of allegiance sworn to any man; but that the government should be in the hands of a Council of State elected by the people. When the loyalists heard this, to counteract the evil, they said, ‘Come, let us swear a second oath of fealty unto Aly, namely, that we shall support all that he supporteth, and oppose all that he opposeth.’ ‘Now truly,’ replied the Separatists, ‘ye are running, ye and the Syrians, neck and neck, in the race of infidelity. They follow Muâvia through thick and thin, and ye swear by Aly black and white.’ ‘Nay,’ replied the loyalists, ‘Aly never held forth his hand to receive the oath, but on condition of following the Book and the Sunnat of the Prophet. It is you that have made us think of this new oath. As for Aly, he is altogether in the right, and whosoever opposeth him is wandering in the paths of error.’ So spake Ziâd the son of Nadhr; but they heeded him not.

[550] Of these, 40,000 were enrolled stipendiaries, 17,000 youths below the ordinary fighting age, and 8,000 slaves. On finding the people indifferent, Aly first induced certain chiefs of influence to lead the way, and then made the heads of every clan and every household furnish the names of their dependants. The backwardness might have been in some measure due to the feeling that the fanatics should first be dealt with as a danger immediately threatening Kûfa. But apart from this, the influence of Aly was weak and precarious. Never enthusiastic on his side, the people were becoming more and more indifferent to him. This was partly owing, no doubt, to the strong feeling against the pretensions of the Coreish that prevailed at Kûfa.

[551] These outrages were of the most barbarous character. For example, a traveller refusing to confess Khârejite tenets was put to death, and his wife, great with child, ripped up with the sword; three women of the Beni Tay were killed, &c.

[552] Only seven men were killed on Aly’s side. The burden of the fanatic cry was that Aly had committed a deadly sin in consenting to refer to human judgment that which appertained alone to the Divine; and that he must repent of his apostasy. Aly replied, that being a true believer he would belie himself if he admitted his apostasy.

Abu Ayûb, as he speared one of the fanatic leaders, cried, ‘I give thee joy of hell fire!’ Aly affirmed the imprecation, thereby implying that in his judgment the fanatics had damned themselves by going out of the pale of Islam and of its covenanted mercies.

[553] This is the meaning of the name: Khârejite, one who ‘goes forth,’ rebelling against the government with the demand for a theocracy.

[554] The fact is mentioned famâ clamante, and there is no counter evidence. It was, no doubt, of vital importance to Muâvia to be rid of Ashtar; but this may of itself have suggested the report; and in the East, sudden deaths are generally set down to poisoning, a charge easy to make and difficult to disprove. Muâvia, we are told, promised the chief, who was collector of the tithes and revenues at the head of the Red Sea, immunity from taxation for ever after, if he committed the foul deed. But as these histories were all compiled more or less under Abbasside influences, and the evidence is absolutely one-sided, we must be on our guard against the continual abuse and depreciation of the Omeyyad dynasty. The portion of the original Tabari, now in the press may possibly throw light on this and other obscure passages of our history.

[555] According to some he was slain in battle; but the more received story is that he was put to death by an insurgent leader, who was so inveterate against the regicides that he had put his own son to death for being of that party. Notwithstanding that Amru had given Mohammed quarter, this chief, we are told, slew him in cold blood, and having put his body in an ass’s skin, burned it in the flames. Ayesha was inconsolable at her brother’s fate, and (although her politics were all against Aly) she was now led to curse Muâvia and Amru in her daily prayers, and thenceforward ate no roasted meat nor pleasant food until her death.

[556] The incident is significant of the attitude of the Moslems at this period towards Christian captives, which certainly had not softened since the time of Mahomet. On hearing of Mascala’s humanity, the commander of the army said, ‘If I had had any notion that he did this thing out of false pity for the Christians, and thus cast a slight upon Islam, I would, at the risk even of alienating all the Beni Bekr (Mascala’s tribe), have beheaded him on the spot.’ Aly’s remark was: ‘The first act of Mascala (in offering to take upon himself the ransom of the prisoners) was the act of a prince; his second (in avoiding his obligations and going over to Muâvia) the act of a robber and an outlaw.’ So he gave orders for his house to be razed, and all his slaves set free.

From Damascus, Mascala sent a letter to his brother at Kûfa, offering him, on the part of Muâvia, a command and great honour if he would come over to him. The messenger, a Christian of the Beni Tâghlib, was seized and carried before Aly, who ordered his hands to be cut off, so that he died. His brother wrote verses in reply from Kûfa, from which Mascala gathered the concealed meaning, that the messenger had lost his life. Whereupon the Beni Tâghlib received blood-money from Muâvia. The verses have been preserved.

[557] Abu Mûsa, on this occasion, fled from Mecca for his life. The unfortunate man, ever since the Arbitration, was equally obnoxious to both sides.

[558] Why to Hasan does not appear, as the hereditary principle of succession was not as yet thought of, either in Aly’s or any other line.

[559] The mother, for example, apostrophising the assassin, speaks of her infants, with singular beauty and pathos, as pearls whose shell has been rudely torn asunder:

Ah! who hath seen my two little ones—

Darlings that lay hidden, as it were pearls within the fold of their shell?

As they were grandchildren of Abbâs, the Caliph’s uncle, the incident naturally occupies a conspicuous position in Abbasside tradition. Ackîl, Aly’s brother, deserts.Aly cursed Bosor, praying that he might lose his intellect, and in answer to the prayer (so it is said) he became a hopeless, drivelling lunatic.

[560] The defection of Ackîl is not mentioned in the Persian Tabari. But the circumstance is not one of a kind likely to have been invented, or (as being opposed to the credit of the Prophet’s family) perpetuated by tradition under Abbasside influence, if it had not been founded on fact. On the occasion, Aly gave vent to his grief in these lines, illustrating the proverb of Solomon, ‘A brother is born for adversity’:

He is not a brother who quitteth thee in the dark and louring day;

But rather he that abideth with thee then,

Rejoicing in thy success, and weeping in thy misfortune.

Some traditions make the retirement of Abdallah from Bussorah to have occurred after Aly’s death. But the fact, as stated above, is not likely to have been fabricated. Besides, the narrative is given in great detail and consistency. Abdallah received the summons of Aly to render an account of his government, with wrath and scorn, and retired from Bussorah, carrying his great riches with him. He was pursued by the citizens of Bussorah; but after some fighting, in which the rival tribes took part, he managed to get off to Mecca without further molestation.

[561] The assassin thought at first that he had accomplished his object; but, when taken before Amru, and seeing how the people made their obeisance to him, he discovered his mistake. ‘Tyrant!’ he exclaimed, ‘it was for thee the blow was intended.’ ‘Thou intendedst me,’ replied Amru, with characteristic brevity; ‘but the Lord intended thee!’ and the culprit was led away to execution. Like many of Amru’s sayings, the words became a proverb.

[562] Muâvia was stabbed in the groin. Some say that the culprit was put to death. Others say, that one hand and the opposite foot (the punishment of a robber according to the Corân) were cut off, and that he was sent to Bussorah. There having begotten a son, Ziâd put him to death, saying, ‘Thou hast begotten a son thyself, and hast made the Caliph impotent; thou shalt die.’ Muâvia said, that having already Yezîd for his heir, he did not care for further offspring. I give the story as I find it.

[563] In modern times, some spiritual loss in the future state is popularly attributed to the burning of a criminal’s body. Here, apparently, it was intended to be emblematical of the fire of hell to which Hasan consigned the murderer. In the case of Abu Bekr’s son (p. 403), the additional indignity was added of the body being packed up in an ass’s skin.

The offer to assassinate Muâvia is hardly consistent with the expectation which Ibn Muljam must have had that he had already perished at the hand of his brother conspirator. But I give the words as I find them.

[564] The popular tradition is that he was buried at Najaf, near to Kûfa, and on the shore of the ‘Sea’ of that name, where his supposed tomb is the object of popular veneration at the present day. Others assert (but on no sufficient ground) that Hasan had the body removed to Medîna. There is, in fact, no tradition of any authority on the subject. The uncertainty is significant. Aly never had any hold on the affections of the people. His grave must have been neglected, and even lost sight of, in the troubles succeeding his death. The oblivion as to his burial-place is in strange contrast with the almost Divine honours paid to him by so many sects in later days.

[565] One of the sons died in infancy. The daughters were Zeinab and Omm Kolthûm; but he had, by other mothers, two other daughters whom he called by the same names, i.e. Zeinab the less, and Omm Kolthûm the less.

[566] The mother of this little girl belonged to the Beni Kilâb. The child lisped, pronouncing l like sh, and so was unable to say Kilâb; so when asked to what tribe she belonged, she would imitate the bark of a dog (kilâb or kalb meaning ‘a dog’), to the great delight of Aly and his courtiers.

[567] Such was the popular belief even at the Alyite court of Al Mâmun. See The Apology of Al Kindy, which faithfully represents the sentiments current at that day among the courtiers of Baghdad, p. 25.

[568] It might be thought that the teaching of Ibn Sauda in Egypt was the germ of the Divine Imâmate and Second Coming. But the traditions regarding that teaching are altogether vague and uncertain. Whatever it was, it certainly took no root; nor do we hear of it again for many years after, and then first away in the far East.

[569] His vagrant passions gained for him the unenviable nickname of The Divorcer, for it was only by continual divorces that he could harmonise his craving for new nuptials with the requirements of the Divine law, which limited his lawful wives to four. He is said to have exercised the power of divorce, as a matter of simple caprice, seventy (according to others ninety) times. The leading men complained to Aly that his son was continually marrying their daughters, and continually divorcing them. Aly replied that the remedy lay in their own hands; they should refuse to give him their daughters to wife. These divorced wives were irrespective of his concubines or slave-girls, upon the number and variety of whom there was no limit or check whatever.

[570] There are some traditions, but untrustworthy, that Muâvia was now, for the first time, proclaimed Caliph at Jerusalem.

[571] The traditions read as if the army had been previously kept up in readiness for an attack on Syria; but, as already shown, a truce at this time existed between Aly and Muâvia of indefinite duration, according to which hostilities had been laid aside.

[572] Aly had formerly taken the same route, via Medâin, when advancing upon Syria. Muâvia was no doubt marching now from Ricca or Tadmor, across the plain of Upper Mesopotamia, and the natural way of meeting him would, consequently, be up the Tigris from Medâin, and then striking off to the west.

[573] The received date of Hasan’s resignation, as in the text, would make his reign last five and a half months. Others place it in Rabî II., and some even in Jumâd I., which would make the reign one or two months longer.

His offer to resign on specified terms was crossed by a messenger from Muâvia, with a blank sheet signed by Muâvia, who thus declared his readiness to concede any terms to Hasan if he abdicated. Thereupon Hasan doubled his claim; but Muâvia refused, saying that he had already specified his terms, and that they had been accepted. Darâbgird was the district of which Hasan was to receive the revenues; but the people of Bussorah claimed it as their own conquest, and would not give it up.

There is an Abbasside tradition, that one abused Hasan as he left Kûfa, saying that he had ‘blackened the faces of the Moslems;’ to which Hasan replied by quoting a dream in which Mahomet saw the descendants of Omeyya one after another ascending the steps of his pulpit; whereupon the Prophet was comforted by the revelation of Suras 97 and 108, regarding the Fountain of Al Cawthar and the Night of Power, which he is told are ‘better than a thousand months,’ that is, than the thousand months during which the Beni Omeyya would rule!

According to another tradition, Amru persuaded Muâvia to allow Hasan, after his own inaugural speech, to address the people. Hasan then began to speak of the wheel of fortune, and of the necessity of stopping the effusion of blood, and was going on to quote Sura xxi. v. 111, about the world being a trial, and the Lord helping the Prophet against his adversaries, when Muâvia made him sit down. He also told Amru he had made a mistake in proposing that Hasan should be allowed to speak.

[574] Amru, they say, wished Muâvia to fight Cays, but he answered that it would be only useless bloodshed, and so sent to Cays a clean sheet signed at foot, as he had done to Hasan, agreeing to any terms he might propose. Cays, upon receiving this, bade his soldiers choose whether they ‘preferred to obey an illegitimate prince, or to go on fighting without any prince at all.’ They preferred to give in, and so retired from the field.

We hear little more of Cays, who died before Muâvia. His sympathies had been all on the side of Aly; and if the correspondence that passed between Muâvia and him, when in Egypt, be genuine, he had little reason to trust Muâvia.

[575] We are even told that the promise given by Muâvia to Hasan, namely that the sound of the curse should not fall upon his ears, was not kept.

It is said that Omar II. (A.H. 100) dropped the imprecation; but he was a poor pietist, whose religious scruples led him to make many weak concessions, and even to recognise the claims of the house of Aly. He is of course popular with the Abbassides, who magnify him as a saint of blessed memory, and have invented many wonderful stories to his credit. Weil thinks that this may be one of them; and, at any rate, if suspended during his reign, the curse was resumed immediately on his decease.

[576] The culprit was a noble Arab lady, the daughter of Asháth, Chief of the Beni Kinda. The tradition, that she was bribed by Muâvia, is altogether unlikely, and is no doubt a fiction of the prevailing character. Hasan was, politically, a harmless creature; and Muâvia had no motive whatever, after his abdication and retirement into private life (so far as our materials go), for the crime. The jealousies of Hasan’s ever-changing harem afford a far likelier reason.

[577] Amru is, as a matter of course, unpopular with the Abbasside historians, who make the most of his undoubted unscrupulousness and levity both in word and action. His last words are said to have been the humble confession that his life had been one of rebellion against the Lord, and an earnest prayer for pardon.

[578] See above, p. 264.

[579] The subject was much canvassed by all parties. Prior to Islam, the law of marriage and legitimacy was lax; and a loose woman might, as in the present case, ascribe the paternity of her child to anyone prepared to admit the same; and (adds Ibn al Athîr) had Muâvia taken up this ground, there could have been no valid objection to it. But he did more; he proceeded to take the evidence of the owner of the slave-girl, as if the case had been one of Mahometan law, under which the paternity would not have been admitted, and the case, in fact, would have been held to be one of whoredom, demanding the punishment of both parties. Tradition varies as to whether Abu Sofiân himself ever acknowledged the paternity.

After Muâvia had recognised him as his brother, Ziâd proposed to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medîna. His brother, Abu Bakra (who, offended at his tergiversation in the adulterous charge against Moghîra, had never spoken to him since) sent a message to dissuade him. ‘Thou wilt meet Omm Habîba,’ he said, ‘if thou wilt go on pilgrimage. Now, if she receive thee as her brother, that will be regarded as a slight upon the memory of the Prophet; if otherwise, it will be a slight upon thyself.’ So Ziâd thought better of it, and gave up the design.

Again, Ziâd, wishing to extract an acknowledgment of his birth from Ayesha, addressed a letter to her in which he subscribed himself, Ziâd son of Abu Sofiân; to which she replied, without committing herself, merely thus, ‘To my dear son, Ziâd.’ On the same ground, Abbasside writers ordinarily name him without a patronymic, as, Ziâd ibn Abîhi, i.e. ‘Ziâd, son of his father.’ He is also called after his mother, ‘Ziâd ibn Sommeyya.’

[580] We are told that the same attempt, followed by similar prodigies, was made by the Caliph Abd al Malik, and also by Welîd, &c.; in fact, it was an impious act, of a kind which Abbasside tradition is rather fond of attributing to the Omeyyad Caliphs. We are told that Mahomet, anticipating the sacrilege, is said to have threatened hell-fire against any who would venture to remove the pulpit. This Abu Horeira, who came to Medîna, A.H. 7, and from whom we have so many traditions, died in A.H. 57 or 59.

[581] Sád (the father of Cays) was the only recusant.

[582] The project, indeed, has been attributed entirely to Moghîra. The tradition runs thus: Moghîra was afraid that Muâvia intended to supersede him as Governor of Kûfa by the promotion of Ziâd to the post; and so, by suggesting the nomination of Yezîd, and promising to gain over the city of Kûfa to it, he hoped to secure his continued hold of the city, as being necessary to the success of the scheme. But the tradition bears strong marks of coming through an Abbasside medium.

[583] When Merwân, governor of the city, placed the matter before the men of Medîna, he was at first violently opposed. Amongst others, Abd al Rahmân, son of Abu Bekr, said, ‘This thing is naught but a fraud and a deception. In place of the election, the right to which vesteth in this city, ye will now make the succession like unto that of the Greeks and Romans—where one Heraclius succeedeth another Heraclius.’ On this, Muâvia quoted from the Corân: ‘Say not unto your parents, Fie on you! neither reproach them’ (Sura xvii. 24); signifying, it may be, that the very practice of nomination, now opposed, had been introduced by Abu Bekr himself in appointing Omar.

Abdallah son of Omar is said to have been gained over by the gift of ten thousand golden pieces.

[584] That the Caliph should be a Coreishite was a condition generally admitted, excepting by the Khârejites, who opposed the exclusive pretensions of the Coreish, and, supposing there were a Caliph (for the stricter would have had only a Council of State), were indifferent from what stock he came.

[585] Yezîd was the only fit son Muâvia had. He was also born of a noble mother belonging to the Beni Kalb, who amid the luxuries of the court pined for the freedom of nomad life. Another son was decrepid; and a third the son of a slave-girl. By the letter of the Mahometan law, the son of the bond-woman is equally legitimate with the son of the free. But amongst the Arabs, the son of a noble mother took precedence over the lower born; and so noble birth became naturally one of the elements of fitness in the choice. And the same we see to the present day, even in such petty principalities as that of Afghanistan.

The history of Yezîd’s mother has attractions for the Arab writers. She gave vent to her longing for a return to desert life in verse, which coming to Muâvia’s ears, he dismissed her with her son to live in the encampment of her tribe; and there Yezîd acquired the tastes of the Bedouins, and his love for the chase and a free life, which he ever after retained. His mother’s verses were such as these:

A tent fanned by the desert breeze is dearer far to me than the lofty palace.

I should ride more joyously on the young camel than on the richly caparisoned steed.

The whistling of the gale across the sandy plain is sweeter to me than the flourish of royal trumpets.

A crust of bread in the corner of a Bedouin tent has a better relish to me than that of choicest viands.

The noble Arab of my tribe is more comely in my sight than the obese and bearded men around me.

O that I were once again in my desert home! I would not exchange it for the most gorgeous hall.

[586] His courage, however, was more moral than physical. Both he and Aly, by luxurious living, had become obese (at Kûfa, Aly went by the nickname of ‘the pot-bellied’), so that in their later years there was little room, in respect of either, for active bodily exertion. Still, even as late as the field of Siffîn, we have seen that Aly fought with his early gallantry; while Muâvia (if the tradition be true) shrank from a personal encounter with him. Aly was, without doubt, the braver of the two in physical courage; but Muâvia, beyond comparison, the abler and bolder ruler.

[587] Some, again, think that Abd al Rahmân died before this.

[588] Muslim was son of Ackîl (brother of Aly) and grandson of Abu Tâlib, Mahomet’s uncle. All the actors in this melancholy chapter have become household names in the mouths of Moslems, especially the Shîyites.

[589] The number varies in different traditions; but no account gives it at more than forty horse and one hundred foot. Seventy heads were brought into Kûfa, including probably all the combatants. There were, no doubt, others, non-combatants, camp-followers, &c.

[590] Horr (we are to believe), during these parleys, was converted to the cause of Hosein, and eventually going over to him, fell fighting by his side. But the whole of the sad tale becomes at this point so intensified and overlaid with Alyite fiction, that it is impossible to believe a hundredth part of what is related, and which the heated imaginations of the Shîyites have invented.

All the names we meet with here are ranged, either on one side or on the other (especially in the Shîyite vocabulary), as models either of piety or apostasy.

[591] Amr son of Sád the hero of Câdesîya, they tell us, had just been nominated by Obeidallah to the government of Rei in Persia; and now Obeidallah made it a condition of investiture that he should bring in Hosein, dead or alive. The scene is painted theatrically of Amr wavering between duty to the grandson of the Prophet, and the bribe of office. He yielded to the latter, and for Mammon sold his soul. But all this must be taken cum grano.

[592] Shamir ibn Dzu al Joshan, the Dhihâbite, is a name never pronounced by the pious Moslem but with ejaculatory curse. Obeidallah (so the story goes) was at first inclined to concede the prayer of Hosein, as urged by Amr, for a safe-conduct to the Caliph at Damascus, when Shamir stepped forward, and said that Obeidallah, for the credit of his own name, must insist on the Pretender’s surrender at discretion. So he obtained from Obeidallah a letter to Amr, threatening that if he failed to bring Hosein in, Shamir should take the command, and also obtain the government of Rei in his stead. The name is variously pronounced as Shamir or Shimar, Shomar or Shimr.

[593] Aly Akbar, that is Aly the elder, as his brother was called Aly Asghar, Aly the younger.

[594] There were either six or seven of Abu Tâlib’s descendants. There was moreover a foster-brother of Hosein, and also a freedman of his.

[595] The tradition goes on to say that Obeidallah was wroth with this aged spokesman, called him a drivelling dotard, and said that if he had not been such, he would have beheaded him upon the spot. But much is manifestly here invented, and everything coloured for effect. Some represent the incident as occurring at the Court at Damascus, and ascribe the speech to Yezîd. Weil holds falsely so, and I agree with him.

[596] Aly the less is also called Zein al Abidîn, ‘Ornament of the Pious.’

[597] The name of Hasan is added, not only according to the Shîyite theory that he was entitled to the Caliphate (though he resigned it), but because he, too, is regarded as a martyr poisoned by his wife, as they say, at the instigation of Muâvia, but, as we have seen, without any sufficient presumption.

The tragedy is yearly represented on the stage as a religious ceremony, especially by the Shîyites, in the ‘Passion Play,’ throughout which are interwoven, in a supernatural romance, the lives of the early worthies of Islam, ending with the pathetic tale of the martyr company of Kerbala; while Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othmân are execrated as usurpers, and the whole Omeyyad crew, Obeidallah, Hajjâj, &c., are held up to eternal malediction. A series of these scenes will be found well represented in The Miracle Play of Hasan and Hosein, by Sir Lewis Pelly, London, 1879. It will give some idea of the extravagances of Shîya doctrine, and of the intense hold which the episode of Kerbala has taken of the Moslem mind.

[598] Weil thinks that if, instead of leaving his battles to be fought by his generals and remaining himself inactive at Mecca, he had shown the energy of his early days and attacked the Caliphs in Syria, he would probably have overthrown them; even as it was, he was near to doing so.

The dismantling of the Káaba excited the same terror as when it was rebuilt in the youth of Mahomet, nearly a century before. (Life, p. 28.) No one durst detach a stone; and when Ibn Zobeir took the pickaxe in his own hands, many fled the city, fearing the Divine wrath, and only returned when after three days they saw no ill effect follow.

In the time of Ibn Zobeir music and singing were common at Mecca, so that notwithstanding the scandal excited at Medîna, the practices of Syria were beginning to leaven even the Holy Cities.

[599] Abu Obeid, the famous warrior who was slain in the battle of the Bridge.

[600] Life of Mahomet, p. 145.

[601] In this reign the Moslem arms, conducted by the famous Mûsa, reached to the Atlantic. The Moslem fleets were now powerful, and made a descent on Sicily, A.H. 82.

Kûfa and Bussorah continued to give such constant annoyance, that Wâsit (or the ‘Midway garrison’) was founded half-way between the two cities, to keep them in check. Moslem mints were now first established, the coinage having a verse of the Corân for the legend. See Weil’s Caliphs, vol. i. p. 470.

[602] Whatever the cruelties of Hajjâj, it must be confessed that he had a rebellious race to deal with. And in respect of his attack on Mecca, from whence Ibn Zobeir so long defied the empire, it is difficult to see how that attack could have been avoided; but the necessity is forgotten, and only the sacrilege, with its testudos and battering rams, remembered. In point of cruelty, indeed, it would not be easy for inhumanity to outdo the deeds of some of the Abbasside Caliphs. But Hajjâj was the servant of the ‘godless’ Omeyyads, and indiscriminate abuse must be heaped both on him and his Master.

[603] For the unbridled sensuality of the times, the use of wine and other breaches of the Moslem law, and the demoralisation that festered in these seats of luxury, I must again refer to H. von Kremer’s excellent work, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, Wien, 1875.

[604] The term Shîya (Sheea) means simply sect or party; but it has come to signify the partisans of the house of Aly, holding this Divine claim. Imâm means head or leader, and, according to the Shîyas, the Imâmate, or Headship of all Islam, vests in the house of Aly. Hence we are continually hearing of an Imâm, or successor of this line, as about to appear.

[605] 26th Dzul Hijj, A.H. 132, August 5, A.D. 750.

[606] He was the fifth in descent from the Prophet’s uncle; that is, he was the grandson of Aly, who was the grandson of Abbâs. Al Saffâh signifies, ‘The Butcher.’

[607] Thus the use of wine, and the Mutáah or temporary marriage, could be justified. The latter, by which a conjugal contract can be entered into for a limited period, is still a tenet of the Shîyas; but is justly reprobated by the orthodox.

[608] When he found that the scheme must be given up, he caused his son-in-law—now an inconvenient appendage—to be removed by poison.

[609] For example, it was only under a Motázilite court that any such discussion as the Christian ‘Apology of Al Kindy’ could have been allowed to see the light.

[610] For the ‘Ordinances of Omar,’ see above, p. 212.

[611] Such is the character of the Wahâbee revival which, born in the present century, spread rapidly and widely over Arabia, and extended in some of its features (chiefly of a protesting character) even to India.

[612] Soonnies (Sunnies) are those who acknowledge the authority of the Sunnat, or precedent established by the practice of Mahomet, and also admit the validity of the Caliphates of Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othmân, which the Shîyites deny.

[613] Their bigotry is conspicuous mostly in matters of purification, a remnant, probably, of their ancient faith. Baths and mosques are held polluted by the presence of an infidel. It is curious, also, that the Persians to this day curse the memory of Al Mâmûn, and accuse him of poisoning his Alyite son-in-law; curiously enough, using his name as a term of abuse.

Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.
2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the original.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.
4. Errata have been silently corrected.

5. A large version of the map of Arabia can be viewed by clicking the image at the beginning of the book. The large version is best viewed in a browser using the HTML version of this ebook.