A Literary History of the Arabs Part 21

But 'Ali had almost every virtue except those of the ruler: energy, decision, and foresight. He was a gallant warrior, a wise counsellor, a true friend, and a generous foe. He excelled in poetry and in eloquence; his verses and sayings are famous throughout the Mu?ammadan East, though few of them can be considered authentic. A fine spirit worthy to be compared with Montrose and Bayard, he had no talent for the stern realities of statecraft, and was overmatched by unscrupulous rivals who knew that "war is a game of deceit." Thus his career was in one sense a failure: his authority as Caliph was never admitted, while he lived, by the whole community. On the other hand, he has exerted, down to the present day, a posthumous influence only second to that of Mu?ammad himself. Within a century of his death he came to be regarded as the Prophet's successor _jure divino_; as a blessed martyr, sinless and infallible; and by some even as an incarnation of G.o.d. The 'Ali of Shi'ite legend is not an historical figure glorified: rather does he symbolise, in purely mythical fashion, the religious aspirations and political aims of a large section of the Moslem world.

[Sidenote: 'Ali against Mu'awiya.]

[Sidenote: Battle of ?iffin (657 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: Arbitration.]

[Sidenote: The award.]

[Sidenote: The Kharijites revolt against 'Ali.]

[Sidenote: Ali a.s.sa.s.sinated (661 A.D.).]

To return to our narrative. No sooner was 'Ali proclaimed Caliph by the victorious rebels than Mu'awiya b. Abi Sufyan, the governor of Syria, raised the cry of vengeance for 'Uthman and refused to take the oath of allegiance. As head of the Umayyad family, Mu'awiya might justly demand that the murderers of his kinsman should be punished, but the contest between him and 'Ali was virtually for the Caliphate. A great battle was fought at ?iffin, a village on the Euphrates. 'Ali had well-nigh gained the day when Mu'awiya bethought him of a stratagem. He ordered his troops to fix Korans on the points of their lances and to shout, "Here is the Book of G.o.d: let it decide between us!" The miserable trick succeeded. In 'Ali's army there were many pious fanatics to whom the proposed arbitration by the Koran appealed with irresistible force. They now sprang forward clamorously, threatening to betray their leader unless he would submit his cause to the Book. Vainly did 'Ali remonstrate with the mutineers, and warn them of the trap into which they were driving him, and this too at the moment when victory was within their grasp. He had no choice but to yield and name as his umpire a man of doubtful loyalty, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, one of the oldest surviving Companions of the Prophet. Mu'awiya on his part named 'Amr b.

al-'a?, whose cunning had prompted the decisive manuvre. When the umpires came forth to give judgment, Abu Musa rose and in accordance with what had been arranged at the preliminary conference p.r.o.nounced that both 'Ali and Mu'awiya should be deposed and that the people should elect a proper Caliph in their stead. "Lo," said he, laying down his sword, "even thus do I depose 'Ali b. Abi ?alib." Then 'Amr advanced and spoke as follows: "O people! ye have heard the judgment of my colleague.

He has called you to witness that he deposes 'Ali. Now I call you to witness that I confirm Mu'awiya, even as I make fast this sword of mine," and suiting the action to the word, he returned it to its sheath.

It is characteristic of Arabian notions of morality that this impudent fraud was hailed by Mu'awiya's adherents as a diplomatic triumph which gave him a colourable pretext for a.s.suming the t.i.tle of Caliph. Both sides prepared to renew the struggle, but in the meanwhile 'Ali found his hands full nearer home. A numerous party among his troops, including the same zealots who had forced arbitration upon him, now cast him off because he had accepted it, fell out from the ranks, and raised the standard of revolt. These 'Outgoers,' or Kharijites, as they were called, maintained their theocratic principles with desperate courage, and though often defeated took the field again and again. 'Ali's plans for recovering Syria were finally abandoned in 660, when he concluded peace with Mu'awiya, and shortly afterwards he was struck down in the Mosque at Kufa, which he had made his capital, by Ibn Muljam, a Kharijite conspirator.

With 'Ali's fall our sketch of the Orthodox Caliphate may fitly end. It was necessary to give some account of these years so vital in the history of Islam, even at the risk of wearying the reader, who will perhaps wish that less s.p.a.ce were devoted to political affairs.

[Sidenote: The Umayyad dynasty.]

[Sidenote: Moslem tradition hostile to the Umayyads.]

[Sidenote: Mu'awiya's clemency.]

[Sidenote: His hours of study.]

The Umayyads came into power, but, except in Syria and Egypt, they ruled solely by the sword. As descendants and representatives of the pagan aristocracy, which strove with all its might to defeat Mu?ammad, they were usurpers in the eyes of the Moslem community which they claimed to lead as his successors.[362] We shall see, a little further on, how this opposition expressed itself in two great parties: the Shi'ites or followers of 'Ali, and the radical sect of the Kharijites, who have been mentioned above; and how it was gradually reinforced by the non-Arabian Moslems until it overwhelmed the Umayyad Government and set up the 'Abbasids in their place. In estimating the character of the Umayyads one must bear in mind that the epitaph on the fallen dynasty was composed by their enemies, and can no more be considered historically truthful than the lurid picture which Tacitus has drawn of the Emperor Tiberius. Because they kept the revolutionary forces in check with ruthless severity, the Umayyads pa.s.s for bloodthirsty tyrants; whereas the best of them at any rate were strong and singularly capable rulers, bad Moslems and good men of the world, seldom cruel, plain livers if not high thinkers; who upon the whole stand as much above the 'Abbasids in morality as below them in culture and intellect. Mu'awiya's clemency was proverbial, though he too could be stern on occasion. When members of the house of 'Ali came to visit him at Damascus, which was now the capital of the Mu?ammadan Empire, he gave them honourable lodging and entertainment and was anxious to do what they asked; but they (relates the historian approvingly) used to address him in the rudest terms and affront him in the vilest manner: sometimes he would answer them with a jest, and another time he would feign not to hear, and he always dismissed them with splendid presents and ample donations.[363] "I do not employ my sword," he said, "when my whip suffices me, nor my whip when my tongue suffices me; and were there but a single hair (of friendship) between me and my subjects, I would not let it be snapped."[364] After the business of the day he sought relaxation in books. "He consecrated a third part of every night to the history of the Arabs and their famous battles; the history of foreign peoples, their kings, and their government; the biographies of monarchs, including their wars and stratagems and methods of rule; and other matters connected with Ancient History."[365]

[Sidenote: Ziyad ibn Abihi.]

Mu'awiya's chief henchman was Ziyad, the son of Sumayya (Sumayya being the name of his mother), or, as he is generally called, Ziyad ibn Abihi, _i.e._, 'Ziyad his father's son,' for none knew who was his sire, though rumour pointed to Abu Sufyan; in which case Ziyad would have been Mu'awiya's half-brother. Mu'awiya, instead of disavowing the scandalous imputation, acknowledged him as such, and made him governor of Ba?ra, where he ruled the Eastern provinces with a rod of iron.

[Sidenote: Yazid (680-683 A.D.).]

Mu'awiya was a crafty diplomatist--he has been well compared to Richelieu--whose profound knowledge of human nature enabled him to gain over men of moderate opinions in all the parties opposed to him. Events were soon to prove the hollowness of this outward reconciliation. Yazid, who succeeded his father, was the son of Maysun, a Bedouin woman whom Mu'awiya married before he rose to be Caliph. The luxury of Damascus had no charm for her wild spirit, and she gave utterance to her feeling of homesickness in melancholy verse:--

"A tent with rustling breezes cool Delights me more than palace high, And more the cloak of simple wool Than robes in which I learned to sigh.

The crust I ate beside my tent Was more than this fine bread to me; The wind's voice where the hill-path went Was more than tambourine can be.

And more than purr of friendly cat I love the watch-dog's bark to hear; And more than any lubbard fat I love a Bedouin cavalier."[366]

[Sidenote: ?usayn marches on Kufa.]

[Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre of ?usayn and his followers at Karbala (10th Mu?arram, 61 A.H. = 10th October, 680 A.D.).]

Mu'awiya, annoyed by the contemptuous allusion to himself, took the dame at her word. She returned to her own family, and Yazid grew up as a Bedouin, with the instincts and tastes which belong to the Bedouins--love of pleasure, hatred of piety, and reckless disregard for the laws of religion. The beginning of his reign was marked by an event of which even now few Moslems can speak without a thrill of horror and dismay. The facts are briefly these: In the autumn of the year 680 ?usayn, the son of 'Ali, claiming to be the rightful Caliph in virtue of his descent from the Prophet, quitted Mecca with his whole family and a number of devoted friends, and set out for Kufa, where he expected the population, which was almost entirely Shi'ite, to rally to his cause. It was a foolhardy adventure. The poet Farazdaq, who knew the fickle temper of his fellow-townsmen, told ?usayn that although their hearts were with him, their swords would be with the Umayyads; but his warning was given in vain. Meanwhile 'Ubaydullah b. Ziyad, the governor of Kufa, having overawed the insurgents in the city and beheaded their leader, Muslim b.

'Aqil, who was a cousin of ?usayn, sent a force of cavalry with orders to bring the arch-rebel to a stand. Retreat was still open to him. But his followers cried out that the blood of Muslim must be avenged, and ?usayn could not hesitate. Turning northward along the Euphrates, he encamped at Karbala with his little band, which, including the women and children, amounted to some two hundred souls. In this hopeless situation he offered terms which might have been accepted if Shamir b. Dhi 'l-Jawshan, a name for ever infamous and accursed, had not persuaded 'Ubaydullah to insist on unconditional surrender. The demand was refused, and ?usayn drew up his comrades--a handful of men and boys--for battle against the host which surrounded them. All the harrowing details invented by grief and pa.s.sion can scarcely heighten the tragedy of the closing scene. It would appear that the Umayyad officers themselves shrank from the odium of a general ma.s.sacre, and hoped to take the Prophet's grandson alive. Shamir, however, had no such scruples. Chafing at delay, he urged his soldiers to the a.s.sault. The unequal struggle was soon over. ?usayn fell, pierced by an arrow, and his brave followers were cut down beside him to the last man.

[Sidenote: Differing views of Mu?ammadan and European writers.]

[Sidenote: The Umayyads judged by Islam.]

[Sidenote: Character of Yazid.]

Mu?ammadan tradition, which with rare exceptions is uniformly hostile to the Umayyad dynasty, regards ?usayn as a martyr and Yazid as his murderer; while modern historians, for the most part, agree with Sir W.

Muir, who points out that ?usayn, "having yielded himself to a treasonable, though impotent design upon the throne, was committing an offence that endangered society and demanded swift suppression." This was naturally the view of the party in power, and the reader must form his own conclusion as to how far it justifies the action which they took. For Moslems the question is decided by the relation of the Umayyads to Islam. Violators of its laws and spurners of its ideals, they could never be anything but tyrants; and being tyrants, they had no right to slay believers who rose in arms against their usurped authority. The so-called verdict of history, when we come to examine it, is seen to be the verdict of religion, the judgment of theocratic Islam on Arabian Imperialism. On this ground the Umayyads are justly condemned, but it is well to remember that in Moslem eyes the distinction between Church and State does not exist. Yazid was a bad Churchman: therefore he was a wicked tyrant; the one thing involves the other. From our unprejudiced standpoint, he was an amiable prince who inherited his mother's poetic talent, and infinitely preferred wine, music, and sport to the drudgery of public affairs. The Syrian Arabs, who recognised the Umayyads as legitimate, thought highly of him: "Jucundissimus," says a Christian writer, "et cunctis nationibus regni ejus subditis vir gratissime habitus, qui nullam unquam, ut omnibus moris est, sibi regalis fastigii causa gloriam appetivit, sed communis c.u.m omnibus civiliter vixit."[367] He deplored the fate of the women and children of ?usayn's family, treated them with every mark of respect, and sent them to Medina, where their account of the tragedy added fresh fuel to the hatred and indignation with which its authors were generally regarded.

The Umayyads had indeed ample cause to rue the day of Karbala. It gave the Shi'ite faction a rallying-cry--"Vengeance for ?usayn!"--which was taken up on all sides, and especially by the Persian _Mawali_, or Clients, who longed for deliverance from the Arab yoke. Their amalgamation with the Shi'a--a few years later they flocked in thousands to the standard of Mukhtar--was an event of the utmost historical importance, which will be discussed when we come to speak of the Shi'ites in particular.

[Sidenote: Medina and Mecca desecrated (682-3 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: Rebellion of Mukhtar (685-6 A.D.).]

The slaughter of ?usayn does not complete the tale of Yazid's enormities. Medina, the Prophet's city, having expelled its Umayyad governor, was sacked by a Syrian army, while Mecca itself, where 'Abdullah b. Zubayr had set up as rival Caliph, was besieged, and the Ka'ba laid in ruins. These outrages, shocking to Moslem sentiment, kindled a flame of rebellion. ?usayn was avenged by Mukhtar, who seized Kufa and executed some three hundred of the guilty citizens, including the miscreant Shamir. His troops defeated and slew 'Ubaydullah b. Ziyad, but he himself was slain, not long afterwards, by Mus'ab, the brother of Ibn Zubayr, and seven thousand of his followers were ma.s.sacred in cold blood. On Yazid's death (683) the Umayyad Empire threatened to fall to pieces. As a contemporary poet sang--

"Now loathed of all men is the Fury blind Which blazeth as a fire blown by the wind.

They are split in sects: each province hath its own Commander of the Faithful, each its throne."[368]

[Sidenote: Civil war renewed.]

[Sidenote: Rivalry of Northern and Southern Arabs.]

Fierce dissensions broke out among the Syrian Arabs, the backbone of the dynasty. The great tribal groups of Kalb and Qays, whose coalition had hitherto maintained the Umayyads in power, fought on opposite sides at Marj Rahi? (684), the former for Marwan and the latter for Ibn Zubayr.

Marwan's victory secured the allegiance of Syria, but henceforth Qays and Kalb were always at daggers drawn.[369] This was essentially a feud between the Northern and the Southern Arabs--a feud which rapidly extended and developed into a permanent racial enmity. They carried it with them to the farthest ends of the world, so that, for example, after the conquest of Spain precautions had to be taken against civil war by providing that Northerners and Southerners should not settle in the same districts. The literary history of this antagonism has been sketched by Dr. Goldziher with his wonted erudition and ac.u.men.[370] Satire was, of course, the princ.i.p.al weapon of both sides. Here is a fragment by a Northern poet which belongs to the Umayyad period:--

"Negroes are better, when they name their sires, Than Qa??an's sons,[371] the uncirc.u.mcised cowards: A folk whom thou mayst see, at war's outflame, More abject than a shoe to tread in baseness; Their women free to every lecher's l.u.s.t, Their clients spoil for cavaliers and footmen."[372]

Thus the Arab nation was again torn asunder by the old tribal pretensions which Mu?ammad sought to abolish. That they ultimately proved fatal to the Umayyads is no matter for surprise; the sorely pressed dynasty was already tottering, its enemies were at its gates. By good fortune it produced at this crisis an exceptionally able and vigorous ruler, 'Abdu 'l-Malik b. Marwan, who not only saved his house from destruction, but re-established its supremacy and inaugurated a more brilliant epoch than any that had gone before.

[Sidenote: 'Abdu 'l-Malik and his successors.]

[Sidenote: Reforms of 'Abdu 'l-Malik.]

[Sidenote: The writing of Arabic.]

[Sidenote: ?ajjaj b. Yusuf ( 714 A.D.).]

'Abdu 'l-Malik succeeded his father in 685, but required seven years of hard fighting to make good his claim to the Caliphate. When his most formidable rival, Ibn Zubayr, had fallen in battle (692), the eastern provinces were still overrun by rebels, who offered a desperate resistance to the governor of 'Iraq, the iron-handed ?ajjaj. But enough of bloodshed. Peace also had her victories during the troubled reign of 'Abdu 'l-Malik and the calmer sway of his successors. Four of the next five Caliphs were his own sons--Walid (705-715), Sulayman (715-717), Yazid II (720-724), and Hisham (724-743); the fifth, 'Umar II, was the son of his brother, 'Abdu 'l-'Aziz. For the greater part of this time the Moslem lands enjoyed a well-earned interval of repose and prosperity, which mitigated, though it could not undo, the frightful devastation wrought by twenty years of almost continuous civil war. Many reforms were introduced, some wholly political in character, while others inspired by the same motives have, none the less, a direct bearing on literary history. 'Abdu 'l-Malik organised an excellent postal service, by means of relays of horses, for the conveyance of despatches and travellers; he subst.i.tuted for the Byzantine and Persian coins, which had hitherto been in general use, new gold and silver pieces, on which be caused sentences from the Koran to be engraved; and he made Arabic, instead of Greek or Persian, the official language of financial administration. Steps were taken, moreover, to improve the extremely defective Arabic script, and in this way to provide a sound basis for the study and interpretation of the Koran as well as for the collection of _?adiths_ or sayings of the Prophet, which form an indispensable supplement thereto. The Arabic alphabet, as it was then written, consisted entirely of consonants, so that, to give an ill.u.s.tration from English, _bnd_ might denote _band_, _bend_, _bind_, or _bond_; _crt_ might stand for _cart_, _carat_, _curt_, and so on. To an Arab this ambiguity mattered little; far worse confusion arose from the circ.u.mstance that many of the consonants themselves were exactly alike: thus, _e.g._, it was possible to read the same combination of three letters as _bnt_, _nbt_, _byt_, _tnb_, _ntb_, _nyb_, and in various other ways. Considering the difficulties of the Arabic language, which are so great that a European aided by scientific grammars and unequivocal texts will often find himself puzzled even when he has become tolerably familiar with it, one may imagine that the Koran was virtually a sealed book to all but a few among the crowds of foreigners who accepted Islam after the early conquests. 'Abdu'l-Malik's viceroy in 'Iraq, the famous ?ajjaj, who began life as a schoolmaster, exerted himself to promote the use of vowel-marks (borrowed from the Syriac) and of the diacritical points placed above or below similar consonants. This extraordinary man deserves more than a pa.s.sing mention.

A stern disciplinarian, who could be counted upon to do his duty without any regard to public opinion, he was chosen by 'Abdu 'l-Malik to besiege Mecca, which Ibn Zubayr was holding as anti-Caliph. ?ajjaj bombarded the city, defeated the Pretender, and sent his head to Damascus. Two years afterwards he became governor of 'Iraq. Entering the Mosque at Kufa, he mounted the pulpit and introduced himself to the a.s.sembled townsmen in these memorable words:--

[Sidenote: His service to literature.]

"I am he who scattereth the darkness and climbeth o'er the summits.

When I lift the turban from my face, ye will know me.[373]