[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.