During the greater part of his Caliphate, he had occupied that house. For the first six months, indeed, after Mahomet’s death, he continued to live chiefly, as he had done before, at Al Sunh, a suburb of Upper Medîna. Here he inhabited a simple dwelling made of palm stems, with the family of Habîba, the wife whom he married when he came to Medîna, and who was with child when he died, and bore him a daughter shortly after. Every morning he rode or walked to the Great Mosque, where Mahomet had lived and ruled, for the discharge of the business of the State, and to perform the daily prayers, Omar presiding in his absence. For the more important service of Friday, when a speech or sermon was delivered, he stayed at home to dye his hair and beard, and dress more carefully; and so did not appear till the time of midday prayer. In this primitive home, as elsewhere, he preserved the severe simplicity of early life, and even fed and milked the goats of the household. At the first also he continued to maintain himself by merchandise; but finding it interfere with the proper burdens of the State, he consented to forego all other occupation, and to receive a yearly allowance of six thousand dirhems for his household charges.[191]
Removes his dwelling to the Great Mosque.
Finding Al Sunh at an inconvenient distance from the Great Mosque, where, as in the time of Mahomet, the affairs of the kingdom continued to be transacted, he transferred his residence, and with it the Treasury, thither. The Exchequer of Islam was in those days but a simple one. It needed neither guard nor office of account. The tithes were given to the poor, or spent on equipage and arms. The spoil of war, and gold and silver from the mines,[192] or elsewhere, were all distributed as soon as received, or on the following morning.[193] All shared alike, the recent convert and the veteran, male and female, bond and free. As a claimant on the Moslem treasury, every believing Arab was his brother’s equal. When urged to recognise precedence in the faith as a ground of preference, he would reply, ‘That is for the Lord. He will fulfil the reward of such as have excelled, in the world to come. These gifts are but an accident of the present life.’ After his death, Omar had the treasury opened; and they found therein but a solitary golden piece, which had slipped out of the bags; so they lifted up their voices and wept, and blessed his memory. His conscience troubled him for having taken even what he did by way of stipend from the people’s money; on his death-bed, therefore, he gave command that certain lands, his private property, should be sold, and a sum equal to all that he had received refunded.
Mild and gentle disposition.
In disposition Abu Bekr was singularly mild and gentle. Omar used to say that there was no man for whom the people would more readily have laid down their life. They gave him the sobriquet of ‘the Sighing,’ because of his tender-heartedness. Excepting the solitary case in which he committed a traitor-brigand to the flames, no single act of cruelty stands against him; and for that he expressed his sorrow. It was one of the three things, he used to say, which he would wish undone. The others were, that he had pardoned Asháth, who deserved death; and that when he transferred Khâlid to Syria, he had not at the same time sent Omar to Irâc. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘I should have stretched out mine arms, both the right and the left, in the ways of the Lord.’[194]
His wives and family.
Unlike his Master, he contented himself with but few wives. He had married two at Mecca before his conversion. On his arrival at Medîna he married the daughter of a Citizen, and, later on, Asma, the widow of Jáfar. By all of these he left issue. There is no mention of any other wives, nor of any slave-girls in his harem.[195] Of his children, he loved Ayesha the best, and, in proof of special affection, had given her a property for her own. On his death-bed, this troubled his conscientious spirit, and he said to her, ‘I wish thee, my daughter, to return it, that it may be divided with the rest of the inheritance amongst you all, not forgetting the one yet unborn.’[196] His father survived him six month, reaching the great age of ninety-seven.’[197]
Simplicity and diligence in the affairs of state.
At his court, Abu Bekr maintained the same simple and frugal life as Mahomet. Guards and servitors there were none, nor anything approaching the pomp and circumstance of state. He was diligent in business. He leaned upon Omar as his counsellor, whose judgment (excepting in a few cases in which it was warped by prejudice) had so great weight with him, that he might be said to have shared in the government. Abu Bekr never spared himself, and many incidents are related of the manner in which he descended to the minutest things. Thus, he would sally forth by night to seek for any destitute or oppressed person; and Omar found him one night inquiring into the affairs of a poor blind widow, whose case Omar himself had gone forth to look after. The department of justice was made over to Omar, but for a whole year, we are told, hardly two suitors came before him. The Seal of state bore the legend, God the best of Potentates.[198] The despatches were chiefly indited by Aly; and Abu Bekr made use also of Zeid (the amanuensis of the Prophet and compiler of the Corân) and of Othmân, or of any other penman who happened to be at hand.[199] In the choice of his agents for high office or command, he was absolutely free from nepotism or partiality, and was wise and discerning in his estimate of character.
But he had not Omar’s strength or decision; nor was his sense of justice so keen and stern. Not so strong, or sternly just, as Omar.This is illustrated in the matter of the two Khâlids. From the one—Khâlid ibn Saîd, though warned by Omar and Aly, he hesitated to withhold a command; and the disaster in Syria was the consequence. On the other hand, by refusing to degrade Khâlid, ‘the Sword of God,’ for injustice and cruelty and the scandal of taking to wife his victim’s widow, he became indirectly responsible for his acts. Yet to this unscrupulous agent it is due, more than to any other, that Islam survived and triumphed. But Abu Bekr was not wanting in firmness when the occasion demanded; for example, the despatch of Osâma’s army, and the defence of Medîna against the apostate tribes, when he stood almost alone and all around was dark, showed a boldness and steadfastness of purpose, which, more than anything else, contributed to turn the tide of rebellion and apostasy.