CHAPTER II.
THE KHALIFS[43] FROM ABU BEKR TO HASHEM (OR HESHAM).
After the death of the prophet, his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on the choice of his successor, as Mohammed had abstained from expressing any explicit command or wish in this respect. Several competitors presented themselves, of whom Ali, Abu Bekr, and Omar were the most important. The illustrious son of Abu Taleb seemed indeed to combine in his own person every possible claim to the vacant throne of Arabia; he was chief, in his own right, of the family of Hashem, and hereditary prince of the city, and custodian of the Temple, of Mecca; the husband of Fatima, Mohammed’s favorite and only surviving daughter, might reasonably claim for himself and his two sons the inheritance of the prophet, who had always delighted in calling him his vizir and vicegerent; his valor and prowess had shone conspicuous in many a hard-fought battle; and even his enemies could not impeach the purity of his private life. But it so happened that Ali had drawn upon himself the implacable hatred of Ayesha: the conduct of this lady had, on one occasion, been rather indiscreet, to use the very mildest term, and Ali had urged his cousin to punish the frail fair. Mohammed was indeed inclined to jealousy, but the youth, beauty, and spirit of the daughter of Abu Bekr had established her empire over her husband’s affections so firmly that he rejected the clearest evidence of her faithlessness, inflicted a severe chastisement upon her accusers, and reproved Ali for his officiousness. Ayesha never forgave Ali the part he had played in this delicate affair, and the enmity she bore him was still heightened by her jealousy of Fatima, to whom she grudged the prophet’s paternal affection. Mohammed would most probably have named Ali his successor—and against the explicit nomination of the prophet, no voice would have dared a protest—but the artful daughter of Abu Bekr besieged his bed of sickness; and, turning the ascendant she had acquired over the uxorious man to excellent account, obtained from him that on the third day before his death, when he was no longer able to proceed to the mosque, he deputed Abu Bekr in his place to perform the function of public prayer, instead of charging Ali with that most honorable and important duty. After the death of Mohammed, she boldly asserted that he had “appointed” her father his successor in the royal and sacerdotal office. The Koreish, and more especially the branch of Ommiyah, the old enemies of the line of Hashem, eagerly espoused the cause of Abu Bekr. The Ansars of Medina, and a few of the Mohagerians of Mecca voted for Ali; the crafty Omar was watching the event; a rash proposal made by one of Ali’s supporters to let each party choose their own Khalif, and to divide the empire between them, brought the matter to an abrupt termination. Omar, discerning the danger which threatened the rising Saracen empire, if this proposal were acted upon, renounced his own pretensions; and, setting the regular forms of an election at naught, hailed Abu Bekr as the first Khalif. The people acquiesced, and Mecca, Medina, and most of the provinces of Arabia, acknowledged Abu Bekr as commander of the Faithful. The Hashemites, however, remained true to their chief, and Ali resisted for six months the cajoleries of the Khalif and the threats of Omar. But the death of his beloved Fatima subdued his haughty spirit, and he consented at length to submit to Abu Bekr’s rule. Strange enough, when Ali had made his submission, the old man offered to resign in his favor; an offer which was prudently declined.
During the later part of Mohammed’s life, several other prophets had arisen in various parts of Arabia, and among them one of some note, and of no mean skill in the apostolic trade. His name was Moseilama; the powerful tribe of Hanifa, in the city of Yamanah, in Neged, listened to his voice. Confident in his power, he coolly offered Mohammed a partition of the earth between them. The prophet of Islam treated the offer with disdain; but after his death, several tribes, who had unwillingly embraced his creed, seceded to the standard of the new prophet, who speedily became a formidable rival to the Khalif. Mohammed’s uncle Abbas and the fierce Kaled were dispatched against him by Abu Bekr; but though forty thousand Moslems followed their banner, the first action against Moseilama ended in the defeat of Abbas and Kaled, and the former of the two generals was severely wounded with a javelin. This defeat was, however, fearfully avenged by Kaled; ten thousand infidels were made to bite the dust, and the same javelin that had pierced Abbas, was sent, a messenger of death, to Moseilama’s heart, by the hand of an Ethiopian slave. The submission of the revolted tribes speedily followed, and the dread name of the Sword of God was in itself sufficient to disarm all the other rebels who had risen in various parts of the peninsula.
The victorious Kaled was now sent to the banks of the Euphrates, where he reduced the cities of Anbar and Hira (A.D. 632), and, having slain the last of the Mondars of the Arabian colony of Hira, and sent his son a captive to Medina, prepared to invade the Persian empire; but in the midst of his triumphant career, he was recalled and sent into Syria, to take the command of the army there, and, in conjunction with Abu Obeidah, to effect the reduction of that province of the Greek empire. Bosra, a strong city situated four days’ journey from Damascus, fell by his valor and by the treachery of the Greek governor Romanus. Damascus was besieged (633); and an army of 70,000 Greeks, who came to the relief of the hard-pressed city, under the command of Werdan, was totally defeated and dispersed by 45,000 Moslems under Kaled, Amru, and Abu Obeidah, at Aiznadin (13th July, 633). Still Damascus resisted stoutly for many months, sustained chiefly by the valor of a noble Greek named Thomas. At length, however, the courage of the besieged gave way, and they surrendered to the mild Abu Obeidah (most probably in August, 634), who granted them personal safety, and free possession of their lands and houses, and to such of them as should prefer exile to the Moslem rule, the permission to depart with as much of their effects as they could carry away with them. But the fierce and cruel Kaled refused to ratify these terms of his fellow-commander: he slaughtered thousands of the unfortunate Damascenes; and, though he consented at last to abide by the terms of the capitulation, he only gave three days respite to the band of voluntary exiles who left Damascus under the leadership of the valiant Thomas. At the expiration of this term, he set out in pursuit at the head of four thousand horsemen; a miserable renegade, named Jonas, acted as guide. The hapless fugitives were overtaken, and ruthlessly cut down to the last being of either sex, with the solitary exception of the widow of the brave Thomas, who was sent by Kaled to carry a message of defiance to the throne of the Cæsars.
Meanwhile the aged Abu Bekr, after a short reign of two years, had been gathered to his fathers; Ayesha’s influence and Omar’s craft had once more defeated Ali’s claims to the vacant throne; and Omar had gained the object of his ambition (24th July, 634). The new Khalif[44] proved himself worthy of this exalted position; his justice, his wisdom, his moderation, and his frugality form, even to the present day, among the Sonnites, the theme of the most enthusiastic praise; though by the Shiites his memory is as bitterly reviled, and the appellation Shitan Omar, which the Persians so liberally bestow upon the second Khalif, shows the sense which they entertain of his machinations against the illustrious Ali. The son of Abu Taleb, however, submitted to Abu Bekr’s choice, and was comforted for the loss of empire by the most flattering marks of esteem and confidence on the part of the new commander of the Faithful.
One of the first acts of Omar’s reign was to remove Kaled from the command of the Syrian army, under pretext of excessive cruelty, and of rashness in the pursuit of the Damascene exiles, but in reality because the Khalif bore a personal enmity to his invincible lieutenant. This made, however, practically, no difference in the conduct of the war; Kaled could command and obey with equal readiness, and Abu Obeidah was modest and sensible enough to guide himself in all important operations by the advice of his former chief. After the reduction of Damascus, the Arabs laid siege to Heliopolis (Baalbec) and Emesa, and speedily compelled these important cities to surrender (635). Heraclius made one last great effort to free Syria from these most unwelcome visitors; he sent four-score thousand veteran soldiers by sea and land to Antioch and Cæsarea; this host was considerably increased by the remains of the Syrian army, and by new levies in Syria and Palestine, and joined also by 60,000 Christian Arabs under the banner of Jabalah,[45] the last of the Gassanide princes. Upon Kaled’s prudent advice, Abu Obeidah resolved to retire to the skirts of Palestine and Arabia, and there to await the attack of the enemy. In the vicinity of Bosra, on the banks of the obscure river Yermuk (Hieromax), a fierce and bloody encounter took place, in which the Greek forces were totally routed (636); their Gassanide allies had already previously met with the same fate at the hands of the intrepid Kaled. After the victory of Yermuk, Abu Obeidah resolved to invest Jerusalem (or Ælia, as the Romans called it); he first sent Moawiyah, Abu Sophian’s son, with the van of five thousand Arabs, to try a surprise; and this failing, he appeared himself, ten days after, with the whole army.
After having endured four months the hardships of a siege, the garrison and people of the holy city offered to capitulate; but they demanded as a guarantee for the articles of security, that the Khalif should ratify them in person. Ali advised the Khalif to comply with this rather unusual demand; and Omar set out from Medina, mounted on a red camel, which carried, besides his person, a bag of corn, a bag of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern bottle of water! Jerusalem immediately surrendered (637), and the Khalif returned promptly to Medina in the same simple manner in which he had come. The conquest of Syria was achieved the year after (638) by Abu Obeidah and Kaled, who reduced Antioch, Aleppo, Tripoli, Tyre, Acca (St. Jean d’Acre), Cæsarea, Ascelon, Hierapolis, and many other cities and strong places. Abu Obeidah died 639, of a fatal disease which carried off twenty-five thousand of the conquerors of Syria; the hero Kaled, the Sword of God, survived his fellow-commander about three years. The government of the conquered province was entrusted by Omar to the hands of Moawiyah, the chief of the family Ommiyah, and who became afterwards the founder of the Ommiade dynasty.