[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.