Chapter XLVII: Some Biographical Notices

A.H. XL.-L.

[Sidenote: Biographical notices.]

Before passing on to the brief remainder of this work, I purpose to notice shortly the sequel of one or two of the leading men still left at Aly’s death upon the stage.

[Sidenote: Hasan, son of Aly, poisoned by his wife.]

Hasan, the short-lived Caliph, retired to Medîna, where, with ample means to gratify his ruling passion, he lived in ease and quietness, giving no further anxiety to Muâvia. He survived eight years, and met his death by poison at the hand of one of his wives. It was a not unnatural end for ‘Hasan the Divorcer;’ but Alyite tradition would have us to believe that the lady was bribed by the Caliph to commit the crime, and thus exalt the libertine to the dignity of a martyr.[576] Of his brother Hosein, we shall hear more anon.

[Sidenote: Amru.]

Amru remained in the government of Egypt till his death, A.H. 43. He died seventy-three years of age, and penitent, we are told, for all his misdeeds. His life was one of the most eventful in this history. No man influenced more than he the fortunes of the Caliphate. Brave in the field, astute in counsel, coarse and unscrupulous in word and action, it was mainly to Amru that Muâvia owed his ascendency over Aly, and the eventual establishment of the Omeyyad dynasty. He was four years Governor of Egypt under Omar; he continued in the same post a like period under Othmân, who by his recall in an evil hour made him his enemy; and, finally reappointed by Muâvia on the defeat of Mohammed son of Abu Bekr, he was still at his death the Governor of Egypt. One of his sons succeeded him, but not for any lengthened period.[577]

[Sidenote: Moghîra appointed Governor of Kûfa.]

The vicissitudes in the career of Moghîra were hardly less surprising than in that of Amru. Clever and designing, he survived the disgrace of his fall at Bussorah, and rose again to influence at court. He was eventually placed by Muâvia in the most difficult and coveted post of the empire, the government, namely, of the no longer regal Kûfa, to which was added the northern district of Persia. By his shrewd and firm administration, he held under strict control that fickle and restless city, still betrayed ever and anon into theocratic outbursts, or (the new trouble of the empire) into treasonable demonstrations in favour of the race of Aly.

[Sidenote: Ziâd, Governor of Southern Persia, gives in his adhesion to Muâvia. A.H. XLII. A.D. 662.]

But, perhaps, the service of greatest value which Moghîra rendered to his sovereign, was that he induced Ziâd, now holding powerful command in the south of Persia, to tender his allegiance. The son of a vagrant bond-woman, whom Abu Sofiân before his conversion chanced to meet at Tâyif, Ziâd had overcome, by the faithful and diligent application of his high abilities, the disadvantage of servile birth. His merits as Chancellor of the Treasury at Bussorah had been recognised by Omar, and he had risen both under Othmân and Aly to the most important commands in Bussorah and Southern Persia. Eloquent in address, and powerful in administration, he was by far the ablest statesman of the day. Firmly attached to the cause of Aly, he retained his animosity towards Muâvia, even after Hasan’s abdication; and as Governor of Istakhr (Persepolis) was a thorn in the side of the Caliphate. Moghîra, who had not forgotten that he owed his escape from the capital charge of adultery to the partial evidence of Ziâd,[578] maintained friendly relations with him, and in the forty-second year of the Hegira was deputed by Muâvia to the magnificent viceregal court of Istakhr, and there persuaded him to tender his submission. Under a safe-conduct, he appeared before the Caliph at Damascus, and presented, in token of his adhesion, a purse of a thousand golden pieces. He was dismissed with every token of honour, and confirmed in his Persian government.

[Sidenote: Muâvia declares Ziâd, as son of Abu Sofiân, his brother. A.H. XLV.]

Not long afterwards a curious episode in his history disturbed the equanimity of the Moslem public. Muâvia formally recognised Ziâd as the son of his own father Abu Sofiân, and therefore as his brother. The open acknowledgment of the relationship created a serious scandal throughout Islam, because it was held to contravene the law of legitimacy, and still more because it made Omm Habîba, one of the ‘Mothers of the Faithful,’ and daughter also of Abu Sofiân, to be the sister of an adulterous issue. Even the Beni Omeyyad, Muâvia’s own kinsfolk, were displeased at the affront put upon the purity of their blood. But the feeling passed away when it was seen that a pillar of iron strength had been gained to the Omeyyad side.[579] [Sidenote: Ziâd appointed Governor of Bussorah, and eventually of Kûfa.]In the year 45 A.H., Ziâd was made Governor of Bussorah, and of the whole of Southern Persia, from the Straits of Omân to the river Indus. His strong hand fell heavily on the restless population of Bussorah: the city was patrolled incessantly by an armed police of a thousand men. None might venture abroad at night on pain of death; and so ruthless was the order, that an unlucky Arab, who had wandered unawares into the precincts of the town, was tried and deliberately executed for the involuntary offence. Both at the Mosque and the palace, and whenever he went abroad, Ziâd was attended in Oriental guise by silver-sticks and lictors, and a body-guard of five hundred soldiers waited at his gate. The supremacy of law, or, as it might perhaps be called, the reign of terror, was new at Bussorah, but it effectually repressed rebellion; and the same may also be said of Kûfa, to which, on Moghîra’s death, Ziâd was translated. This stern administration was but a foretaste of the hard and cruel régime which, later on, found its climax in the bloody rule of Hajjâj; the son of Yusûf.

[Sidenote: Design of removing Mahomet’s pulpit to Damascus.]

In the fiftieth year of the Hegira, we are told that Muâvia entertained a project for removing the pulpit and staff of the Prophet from Medîna, the rebellious scene of Othmân’s murder, to Damascus, now the capital of Islam. But the impious project was, by Divine interposition, checked. For, ‘on its being touched, the pulpit trembled fearfully, and the sun was darkened, so that the very stars shone forth, and men were terrified at the prodigies.’ The tradition is significant of the superstitious regard in which everything connected with the Prophet’s person was held. It is not unlikely that Muâvia did entertain the sacrilegious design; but, if so, he was dissuaded from it by Abu Horeira, who urged that where the Prophet had placed his pulpit and his staff, there they should remain. And so they were left as relics in the Great Mosque hard by the dwelling-place of Mahomet.[580]