Much less important than either of those just spoken of were the risings in northern Arabia, which were quelled by Okba in 768 or 769. In doing so Okba, a Yemenite Arab, out of tribal hostility shed an inordinate quantity of blood. Wishing to give a handsome present to an official whom the Caliph had sent to him, he handed over to him fifty prisoners, whom he was to take with him to Basra, making as if he was about to decapitate them and hang up their bodies; their tribesmen in that city would then be ready to redeem them at 10,000 dirhems (nearly £200) a piece. The pretty plan was unfortunately spoiled by the temper of the populace and the interference of an intelligent Cadi. On the report of the latter to the Caliph, he was thanked, and the prisoners let go.

It was while returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca that Mansúr had become Caliph; on a similar journey to Mecca he was destined to die. In 775 he once more set out; on the way he was seized with a disease of the bowels (dysentery?), which was probably connected with troubles of the digestive system from which he had formerly suffered. The heat of the Arabian late summer, and the fatigues and privations of the journey (on which even the Caliph must often have had to content himself with very indifferent drinking water), can only have aggravated the malady in a man now somewhat advanced in years, if they did not even occasion it. He succeeded in reaching the holy territory, but not the sanctuary itself. His death took place on Saturday, 7th October 775,—according to other authorities, on the Wednesday before,—at Bír Maimún, about one hour’s journey from Mecca, after a reign of twenty-one years and some months; his age was over sixty, the authorities vacillating between sixty-three and sixty-eight lunar (sixty-one and sixty-six solar) years.[[50]] The only persons present were the freedman Rabí, an influential confidant, and some servants. Rabí kept the death secret for some little time, with a view to the arrangements necessary to secure the throne for Mahdí. Mansúr lies buried near the holy city, the cradle of his family. Later generations believed they knew his grave; but the statement is not improbably correct that at the time a number of graves (“a hundred,” it is said) were dug, in order that his true resting-place might remain unknown. At this meeting-place of all restless spirits, where the power of the central government was never able to assert itself so firmly as in the lands of ancient civilisation, some embittered enemy of the dynasty might easily one day gain the upper hand, in which case it was not inconceivable that he might disinter and insult the body of its most powerful and most hated member, as Mansúr’s own uncle Abdalláh had done with the bodies of the Omayyads.

The East has seen many sovereigns who came near, or even surpassed, Mansúr in duplicity and absolutely unscrupulous egoism, but hardly one who was at the same time endowed with such commanding intellect, or who (speaking generally and on the whole) had so strong an influence for good on the development of his empire.

[20] By the Khorásán of that period we are to understand, not merely the modern Persian province of this name, but also extensive tracts to the east and north. Its capital was Merv, now in the hands of Russia.
[21] At that time even the noblest non-Arabian convert, on his acceptance of Islam, had to attach himself as “client” to some Arab tribe; whereupon he was entitled to add to his own name another, which designated him as belonging to this tribe.
[22]
[23] Probably on the right bank of the Nile, opposite Eshmúnein.
[24] According to others, on Saturday, 8th June.
[25] Compare the dream of Pericles’ mother, Herod. vi. 131.