Accession of Sulaiman — Fall of Musa and Tarick — Death of Abdul Aziz, son of Musa — Tribal dissensions — The Yemenites — The rise of Yezid, son of Muhallib — Siege of Constantinople — Moslem Reverses — Death of Sulaiman — Accession of Omar II. — His wise and virtuous Reign — Retreat from Constantinople — Omar's Death — Accession of Yezid II. — Insurrection of Yezid, son of Muhallib — Destruction of the Yemenites — Tribal dissensions — Moslem Reverses — Death of Yezid II. — The Abbassides.
In accordance with the covenant of his father Abdul Malik, Walid was succeeded by his brother Sulaiman, who is described as generous and bluff, fond of pleasure and good cheer, " preferring justice," and amenable to the wise and humane counsels of his cousin, the good Omar bin Abdul Aziz, who afterwards succeeded him on the throne. Immediately upon his accession Sulaiman opened the prison-doors of Irak, and gave their liberty to the thousands of beings whom Hajjaj had incarcerated. He removed the revenue-collectors of that tyrant, and abolished most of his oppressive ordinances. Had he rested content with removing the burdens that had been laid upon the people by Hajjaj there would have been nothing unworthy to record of him. But he allowed his vindictive feelings to master his judgment, and his band fell heavily upon the Modharites who had supported Walid in his design to alter the succession. The Yemenites were now in the ascendant, and they returned with interest the cruelties to which they had been subjected by Hajjaj. Yezid, the son of Muhallib, the new Viceroy of Irak, finding that his enemy had escaped him by death, wreaked his vengeance on the partisans and relatives of Hajjaj. In Khorasan, the great general Kotaiba was killed in the civil war which now broke out afresh between the Modharite and Yemenite in every part of the Empire.
Sulaiman's treatment of Musa and Tarick, the conquerors of Spain, seems inexplicable, as both of them were Yemenites, and enjoyed the confidence of the favourite Yezid. To the undying disgrace of the sovereign these two notable men were allowed to die in want. Sulaiman is even suspected of having connived at the murder in Seville of Abdul Aziz, the son of Musa, whose administiation of Spain had been so successful and prosperous. Mohammed, the son of Kasim, the conqueror of Sind and the Punjab, who had endeared himself to the Hindoos by his mild and equitable rule, was recalled from his government. Mohammed's only crime was that he was a nephew of Hajjaj, and for that he suffered terribly at the hands of Yezid bin Muhallib. Habib, a brother of Yezid, was appointed to the command in India. Brave but tactless, he lost the hold which his predecessor had acquired over the Hindoos.
During this reign the Moslems in Spain were left much to their own devices. On the murder of Abdul Aziz the army elected Ayub bin Habib, a nephew of Musa, as their governor, but his appointment was not accepted by the Viceroy of Africa, of which Spain was regarded as a dependency. After an administration of a few months only, in the course of which he removed the seat of government from Seville to Cordova, Ayub was replaced by al-Hurr, a Modharite. Al-Hurr is said to have brought in his train four hundred scions of the principal Arabian families of Africa, who became the stock of the Moslem nobility of Spain. From this time until the accession of the Abbassides the Peninsula was governed by a succession of governors, appointed sometimes by the Caliphs of Damascus and sometimes by the Viceroys of Africa, who held their court at Kairowan. The divided authority was a source of serious evil; it disorganised the administration, interfered with the continuity of policy, promoted disorders, and prevented efficient support of the outlying garrisons. Al-Hurr held the government for nearly three years, which were signalised by large conquests towards the north.
In 98 A.H. Sulaiman happened to be at a place called Dabik, near ancient Chalcis. Here he was visited by Leo, surnamed the I saurian, a Byzantine general, who commanded the Roman forces in Asia Minor. This double-faced traitor painted in glowing terms to Sulaiman the ease with which Constantinople could be captured, and the advantages that would acqirred to the Saracenic Empire from its conquest. To ensure success he offered himself to act as a guide to the invaders. Sulaiman, dazzled by the prospect of another Spain, and beguiled by the assurances of Leo, sent an army under Maslamah, which crossed the Hellespont without any opposition. Arrived under the walls of Constantinople they laid siege to the city. A detachment under a son of Sulaiman reduced Thrace and its capital, called Sakalibat, "the City of the Slavs." The Romans thus hemmed in were panic-stricken ; they offered Maslamah a large subsidy to raise the siege. This was refused, and the Romans were reduced to dire straits. At this juncture Theodosius III., who ruled Constantinople, was either killed or deposed, and the terrified Romans invited Leo to assume the purple. Escaping from the Moslem ranks Leo entered Constantinople, and was proclaimed Emperor. Acquainted with the weak points of the besiegers, he was able to withstand all the Moslem attacks. He had already by a piece of treachery procured the destruction of a great portion of their provisions. The Moslem army and fleet now began to suffer severely from famine, pestilence, and frost ; and yet bravely they held on to the siege. There was no talk of retreat until the Commander of the Faithful gave the order. Nothing shows so well Sulaiman's incapacity to fill the place of his brother Walid as his inadequate support of Maslamah and his army under the walls of Byzantium. Had they been properly assisted there is no doubt Constantinople would have fallen then.
These reverses were hardly counterbalanced by the success of Yezid, the son of Muhallib, in Tabaristan and Kuhistan," — countries lying to the south-west of the Caspian Sea, and hitherto held by native rulers who, from their impregnable strongholds, had frequently defied the Saracenic power. At last Sulaiman roused himself to conduct in person the reinforcements Maslamah demanded ; but he had not proceeded beyond Dabik, in district of Kinnisrin, where he had met the traitor Leo, when he was stricken by a fatal illness. He died on the 20th Safar, 99 a.h., after a short reign of two years and five months.
Like his brother, Sulaiman was anxious to leave the throne to one of his sons. The eldest, whom he had nominated as his successor, pre-deceased him, whilst the second, Daud, was engaged in that ill-fated expedition against the Romans, and it was uncertain whether he was alive or dead. Racked by this dreadful anxiety, and wishful to prevent the dissensions that were certain to
arise in case he made no provision, he nominated on his death-bed his cousin, the good Omar, as his successor, and after Omar his brother Yezid, another son of Abdul Malik. The two names were written on a piece of paper, which was sealed up and delivered to Raja, son of Ayub, a trusted councillor, and the members of the household took the oath of fealty on that paper.
Sulaiman's character was made up of contradictions. Generous towards his partisans, he was as cruel as his father towards his enemies. Fond of pleasure and ease, he could, like the famous Vendome, rouse himself to great energy in moments of emergency. The act which won him most the affections of the people and the title of " the Key of Blessing " {Miftah ul-Khair) was his opening the prison-doors of the tyrant Hajjaj all over the East. He not only gave to the prisoners their liberty, but conferred on them substantial donations.
Omar II., surnamed the pious Caliph ascended the throne in the month of Safar 99 a.h. His father was Abdul Aziz, the brother of Abdul Malik at one time Viceroy of Egypt, which he governed wisely and with justice. His mother was a grand-daughter of the second Caliph. Omar is regarded by the Sunnis as the fifth of the Rashidhi or lawful Caliphs. Unaffected piety, a keen sense of justice, unswerving uprightness, His moderation, and an almost primitive simplicity of hfe character, formed the chief features in his character. The responsibility of the office with which he was entrusted filled him with anxiety, and caused many a heart-searching. Once he was found by his wife weeping after his prayers ; asked if anything had happened to cause him grief, he replied : "O, Fatima, I have been made the ruler over the Moslems and the strangers, and I was thinking of the poor that are starving, and the sick that are destitute, and the naked that are in distress, and the oppressed that are stricken, and the stranger that is in prison, and the venerable elder, and him that hath a large family and small means, and the like of them in the countries of the earth and the distant provinces, and I felt that my Lord would ask an account of them at my hands on the day of resurrection, and I feared that no defence would avail me, and I wept."
Immediately upon his accession, he had the horses of the royal stables sold by public auction and the proceeds deposited in the State treasury. He also asked his wife to return to the treasury all the jewellery and valuable presents she had received from her father and brothers, and the request was cheerfully complied with. After Omar's death, when her brother Yezid ascended the throne, he offered to return to her the jewellery. The noble answer was : "I did not care for the things in his lifetime, why should I care for them after his death ?" He restored to the Christians and the Jews the churches and synagogues to which they were entitled under the ancient capitulations, and which had been wrongfully taken away from them. The garden of Fedak, which belonged to the Prophet, had been appropriated by Merwan. Omar gave it back to the family of Mohammed. Hitherto it had been customary under the Ommeyades to anathematise from the pulpits the memory of the Caliph Ali and his descendants. Omar ordered the discontinuance of the practice, and directed that, instead of the imprecation hitherto used, a prayer should be offered to turn the hearts of the people towards charity, forbearance and benevolence. Laxity of morals was reprehended ; the smallest oppression met with condign punishment ; and the burdens imposed by Hajjaj and his myrmidons on the converts of Irak, Khorasan, and Sind were removed. The reign of Omar II. forms the most attractive period of the Ommeyade domination. The historian dwells with satisfaction on the work and aspirations of a ruler who made the weal of his people the sole object of his ambition.
During his reign the fanatical Kharijis withheld their hands both in Arabia and Africa. They even sent messengers to Omar to say they did not object to his rule, but protested against the succession of the reprobate Yezid, who had been nominated by Sulaiman as Omar's successor. Omar's heart was set not upon the enlargement, but on the consolidation of the vast empire that had been committed to his care. The army of Maslamah, encamped under the walls of Constantinople, was recalled ; all frontier expeditions were stopped ; the people were encouraged in the pursuits of industry, and provincial governors were required to give a strict account of their stewardship. Omar had always looked upon Yezid, the son of Muhallib, as a tyrant, whilst Yezid called Omar a hypocrite. The hypocrite, however, was in thorough earnest in the discharge of his duty towards his subjects. He called upon Yezid to account for the spoils of which he had sent such glowing descriptions to his deceased master. No satisfactory explanation being given, the presumable defaulter, instead of being tortured or otherwise ill-treated according to the practice of the times, was ordered to be imprisoned in the citadel of Aleppo, where he remained until Omar's death. In a rescript Omar's addressed to the prefect of Kufa, Omar exhorted his ordinance to abolish all unjust ordinances and remove
all causes of complaint, "for," said the good Caliph “thou must know, that the maintenance of religion is due to the practice of justice and benevolence ; do not think lightly of any sin ; do not try to depopulate what is populous ; do not try to exact from the subjects anything beyond their capacity ; take from them what they can give ; do everything to improve population and prosperity ; govern mildly and without harshness ; do not accept presents on festive occasions ; do not take the price of sacred books (distributed among the people) ; impose no tax on travellers, or on marriages, or on the milk of camels ; and do not insist on the poll-tax from any one who has become a convert to Islam."
His son, Abdul Malik, a promising youth of seventeen, who was in absolute sympathy with his father in his aspirations for the good of his people and the reform of the Moslems, one day asked Omar, half-reproachfully, why he did not make more serious endeavours to root out the evils that were beginning to eat into the heart of Moslem society. "My beloved son," was the father's answer, "what thou tellest me to do can be achieved only by the sword, but there is no good in the reform which requires the use of the sword."
In 719 A.c. Omar, apprised of the disorders that had out in Spain, and of the incapacity of al-Hurr to as Viceroy deal with them, removed him from office, and appointed his place an Yemenite chief, as-Samh, son of Malik, of the tribe of Khoulan. As-Samh, equally celebrated as an administrator and a warrior, was charged with the duty of re-establishing order in the finances, and of thoroughly reorganising the government. Under instructions from the Caliph, as-Samh took a census of the diverse nationalities, races, and creeds that inhabited the country. At the same time a general survey was made of the entire Peninsula — "the cities, mountains, rivers, and seas," the character of the soil, the nature of its products, the resources of the land were minutely and carefully described in the records. A great cathedral mosque was built at Saragossa, and numerous bridges were constructed or repaired.
After restoring order in Spain, as-Samh took in hand the repression of the Christian insurgents and the settlement of Languedoc and Provence, which had appertained to the Gothic dominions. The rebels were defeated and forced to take refuge in the mountainous defiles of the Asturias. Septimania was overrun, Narbonne opened its gates, and the other cities followed its example. As Advance Narbonne was easy of access from the sea it was strongly fortified and garrisoned. As-Samh then marched upon Toulouse, the capital of Aquitaine, which was besieged, but owing to the garrisons that had been left behind, the force under his command was not large. Before he could deliver the final assault upon the city, Eudes, the duke of Aquitaine, arrived with an immense army to the relief of his capital. Outnumbered by ten to one, and placed between two enemies, the Saracens fought with their usual dauntless courage. The chiefs broke the scabbards of their swords and fought, determined to conquer or die. "It may be said of the Arab generals of those days as has been said of Napoleon's old guards — they died, but never surrendered." The battle was terrible, and victory hung uncertain for a long time, when a chance arrow pierced as-Samh on the neck and felled him to the ground. Seeing their great leader fall the Moslems began to give way, but Abdur Rahman, who immediately assumed the command, succeeded in withdrawing them from Provence with remarkable skill and courage which elicited the admiration even of the enemy. The battle of Toulouse, in which perished a great number of illustrious Saracens, took place in the month of May, 721 A.c, some time after the death of Omar.
The reign of strict and impartial justice initiated by Omar went against the grain of the Ommeyades. They saw power and influence fast slipping out of their hands. He had openly refused to have public offices polluted by their presence; and the expostulations of the fiery covenanters had made him think seriously of altering the succession. It was high time the descendants of Ommeya should employ their usual method to rid themselves of this virtuous member of their clan. A slave in the employ of the Caliph was bribed to administer the poison with fatal result. Omar was murdered at a place called Dair Siman (the convent of Simeon), near Hems, about the middle of 101 a.h.
In accordance with the nomination of Sulaiman, Omar was succeeded by Yezid, the third son of Abdul Malik. Yezid was married to a niece of Hajjaj, and all his predilections and sympathies were on the side of the Modharites. Omar had carefully maintained the balance between the two rival tribes of Modhar and Himyar. Under Yezid the latter were to feel the full weight of Modharite revenge. This was in part the result of the harsh policy which had been pursued under Sulaiman by Yezid bin Muhallib, against the family of Hajjaj to make them disgorge their ill-gotten gains. In extorting from them their wealth he had not spared even the niece of Hajjaj, the wife of Yezid, and had put aside with contempt the pleadings of the husband, who swore that if he ever came to power he would have the son of Muhallib cut to pieces ; whilst the other as bravely declared that he would meet him with a hundred thousand lances. Thus the moment Ibn Muhallib heard in his prison at Aleppo that Omar was fatally ill, he knew what he had to expect from his Ommeyade namesake. He bribed his guards, and escaped to Irak, where, with his brother, he raised the standard of revolt. The great Imam Hassan, the founder of scholastic theology, who was then established at Bussorah, adjured his fellow-citizens not to side with either of the "reprobates"; but the volatile people, carried away by enthusiasm for Yezid, the son of Muhallib, and his brother, whose bravery and munificence greatly influenced the Arab mind, flocked to his help, and even took an oath of fealty to him. Yezid the Ommeyade sent a large force under Maslamah and Abbas son of Walid, the two warriors of the family, to crush the rising. The contending armies met on the field of Akra, on the right bank of the Euphrates. The rebel was outgeneralled ; deserted by most of his men, he and his brother Habib fell fighting. The other brothers escaped to Kerman, where in a second fight some were slain ; the rest took refuge with the Khakan of the Turks.
The revolt of Yezid bin Muhallib, which at one time threatened the very existence of the Ommeyade throne, though crushed, had far-reaching consequences. The destruction in Kerman and Irak of the Azdites, the branch of the Yemenite stock to which Yezid belonged, convulsed the entire Saracenic world. Yemenite and Modharite became involved in a deadly struggle in Spain, Africa, and in the East; and the enemies of Islam triumphed on all sides, whilst the incapacity of the sovereign and his advisers, and the nomination of incompetent governors encouraged internal disorders. An expedition into the country of Azerbijan was disastrously repulsed by the Khazars and Kipchacks who inhabited the Caucasian regions. In Transoxiana there were revolts and risings almost always brought about by the exactions of the new governors, which were suppressed with great difficulty and loss of life. In Asia Minor alone we read of successes against the Romans. In Africa, the nomination of a former official of Hajjaj, who attempted to treat the Berbers with the harshness and cruelty his master had used towards the Irakians, led to a rising which assumed within a short time formidable dimensions, and required for its suppression under Yezid's successor all the resources of the empire. In Spain, where the balance had been held so equally under the rule of Omar, that neither faction had cause for complaint, the old story of tribal dissensions and jealousies had recommenced ; and every city was distracted with its own intestine quarrels. The grinding imposts introduced into Yemen by the brother of Hajjaj in the reign of Walid I., but which had been abolished by Omar II., were re-introduced with the result that the people of the province were thoroughly alienated. All the just ordinances issued by Omar were revoked. The Kharijis, who, during the last reign, had refrained from acts of aggression, now issued against the man whom they considered an unjust and ungodly tyrant. Whilst the empire was thus distracted on all sides, Yezid spent his time with two ladies of his harem to whom he was greatly attached. The death of Hababa so overwhelmed him with grief that he died a few days after, much to the relief of his family. The annalist records one meritorious act to the credit of this monarch which is worthy of note. His governor at Medina, a man of the type of Hajjaj, had been importuning in marriage Fatima, the daughter of Hussain, the martyr. The lady refused his proposal, pleading that she had devoted her life to the care of the orphan children of her family. The tyrant threatened them with ill-treatment ; driven to extremities Fatima appealed to Yezid, who deposed the governor, and severely punished him.
It was in this reign that the Propaganda in favour of the descendants of Abbas began to be actively prosecuted over the East. The Abbasside emissaries appeared in Khorasan in the garb of innocent merchants; but their diligent canvass for Mohammed, who was now the head of the Abbasside branch, did not fail to reach the ears of the Ommeyade governor Said. They were summoned before him and closely questioned ; their ingenuous answers and the assurances of people whose friendship they had secured, induced Said to set them at liberty.
His successors were either not so lenient or so easily duped ; and the Abbasside emissaries worked, wherever they went, with their lives in their hands ; if caught they were subjected to the barbarous punishments characteristic of the age. But in spite of all endeavours to crush this dangerous propaganda, the underground mining proceeded unceasingly, adherents were enrolled on all sides, and within a short time Persia was honeycombed with secret organisations for the subversion of the hated family of the Ommeya. Several causes combined at this moment to facilitate the development of the conspiracy and the eventual rising, which, like a sudden and colossal tidal wave, engulfed the Ommeyades a few years later in a terrible destruction. The cruelties of Hajjaj had hardly been effaced from the memories of men by the justice of Omar before Yezid succeeded to the throne. His brutality towards the relatives of his rebellious namesake roused the animosity of the Yemenites. Besides this there was another potent cause which paved the way of the Abbassides to power. On every side there was an eager longing engendered by the vices and misrule of Yezid II., that the House of Mohammed should be restored to its rights. The people looked wistfully to the Imams to give the sign, but these saints had retired from the world ; their domain was no more of this earth. It was in this state of suspense and unrest that the Band-Abbas appeared on the scene with their claims and pretensions.
Banu Abbas were the descendants of Abbas, an uncle of Abbas, Prophet, who died in 32 a.h., leaving four sons, Abdullah, Fazl, Obaidullah, and Kaisan. Abdullah, better known in history and tradition as Ibn Abbas, was born at Mecca in 619 a.c, three years before the Hegira. All four brothers were present at "the Battle of the Camel"; and at Siffin, Ibn Abbas, who was no less an accomplished soldier than a scholar, commanded the cavalry of Ali. He acted frequently as the envoy of the Caliph, and it was he whom Ali desired to nominate as the representative of the House of Mohammed when forced by his refractory troops to refer the dispute between himself and Muawiyah to arbitration.
Ibn Abbas died at Tayef in 67 a.h., in the seventieth year of his age, of a broken heart, after the murder of Hussain. His son, who was named Ali after the great Caliph, walked in the footsteps of his father in his zealous attachment to the children of Fatima. He died in 1 1 7 A.H., and was succeeded in the headship of his family by his son Mohammed. A man of great ability and unbounded ambition, Mohammed was the first to conceive the project of seizing the Caliphate for himself. He started a new doctrine to justify the claims of his house to the Imamate : that on the murder of Hussain at Kerbela, the spiritual headship of Islam was not transmitted to his surviving son Ali (Zain ul-Aabidin), but to Mohammed al-Hanafia ; that upon al-Hanafia's death his office descended upon his son Abu Hashim, who had
assigned it to Mohammed bin Ali bin Abdullah. This story received credence in some quarters; but to the bulk of the people, who clung to the descendants of the Prophet, the emissaries - of the Abbassides affirmed that they were working for the family of Mohammed. The adherents of the Fatimides, little suspecting the treachery which lay behind this profession, without the knowledge of the Imams and without their sanction, extended to Mohammed bin Ali and his party the favour and protection which was needed to impress upon his action the sanction of a recognised authority.
Before his death, which took place in 125 a.h., Mohammed named his sons Ibrahim, Abdullah Abu'l Abbas (surnamed as-Saffah), and Abdullah Jaafar(surnamed al-Mansur) as his successors, one after the other. And the Propaganda started by him was conducted after his death with the same devotion, coolness, and courage as in his lifetime.
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