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.