Part 14

Yazid b. Mohallab, the enemy of Hajjaj, was made governor of Irak. His arrival was hailed with joy, especially by the Azd, to whom his family belonged, and the other Yemenite tribes. Yazid discovered soon that the system of taxation as regulated by Hajjaj could not be altered without serious danger to the finances of the empire, and that he could not afford the expenses which his prodigal manner of life involved. He therefore asked the caliph to give him the governorship of Khorasan also, and took his residence in Merv, where he was free from control. On his return to Khorasan he set on foot a series of new expeditions against Jorjan and Tabaristan, with only partial success. He sent, however, to the caliph an exaggerated account of his victories and the booty he had made. He had cause to repent this later.

Walid had, in the last years of his reign, made preparations for a great expedition against Constantinople. Suleiman carried them on with energy, and as early as the autumn of A.D. 715 Maslama invaded Asia Minor at the head of a numerous army, whilst a well-equipped fleet under Omar b. Hobaira sailed out to second him. It is said that Suleiman was firmly persuaded that Constantinople would be conquered during his reign, in accordance with a Sibylline prophecy which said that the city would be subdued by a caliph bearing the name of a prophet, he himself being the first to fulfil this condition.[20] Moreover, the Byzantine empire was in these years disturbed by internal troubles. The first year of the expedition was not unsuccessful. The siege of Amorium in Phrygia was broken up, but Pergamum and Sardis were taken. On the 25th of August 716 the blockade of Constantinople began from the land side, and two weeks later from the sea side. A few months before, Leo the Isaurian had ascended the throne and prepared the city for the siege. This lasted about a year. The besieged were hard pressed, but the besiegers suffered by the severe winter, and were at last obliged to raise the siege. Maslama brought back the rest of his army in a pitiful state, while the fleet, on its return, was partly destroyed by a violent tempest. The Moslems regard this failure as one of the great evils that have befallen the human race, and one which retarded the progress of the world for ages,[21] the other calamity being the defeat in the battle of Tours by Charles Martel.

Maslama was still on his way back when Suleiman died at Dabiq in northern Syria, which was the base of the expeditions into Asia Minor. He seems not to have had the firmness of character nor the frugality of Walid; but he was very severe against the looseness of manners that reigned at Medina, and was highly religious. Raja b. Haywa, renowned for his piety, whose influence began under Abdalmalik and increased under Walid, was his constant adviser and even determined him to designate as his successor his devout cousin Omar b. Abdalaziz. Suleiman was kind towards the Alids and was visited by several of them, amongst others by Abu Hashim, the son of Mahommed b. al Hanafiya, who after his father's death had become the secret Imam (head) of the Shi'ites. On his way back to Hejaz this man visited the family of Abdallah b. 'Abbas, which resided at Homaima, a place situated in the vicinity of 'Amman, and died there, after having imparted to Mahommed b. Ali b. Abdallah b. Abbas the names of the chiefs of the Shi'a in Irak and Khorasan, and disclosed his way of corresponding with them. From that time the Abbasids began their machinations against the Omayyads in the name of the family of the Prophet, avoiding all that could cause suspicion to the Shi'ites, but holding the strings firmly in their own hands.

8. _Reign of Omar II._--Omar b. Abdalaziz did his best to imitate his grandfather Omar in all things, and especially in maintaining the simple manner of life of the early Moslems. He was, however, born in the midst of wealth; thus frugality became asceticism, and in so far as he demanded the same rigour from his relatives, he grew unjust and caused uneasiness and discontent. By paying the highest regard to integrity in the choice of his officers, and not to ability, he did not advance the interests of his subjects, as he earnestly wished to do. In the matter of taxes, though actuated by the most noble designs, he did harm to the public revenues. The principle of Islam was, that no Moslem, whatever might be his nationality, should pay any tax other than the _zakat_ or poor-rate (see MAHOMMEDAN INSTITUTIONS). In practice, this privilege was confined to the Arabic Moslems. Omar wished to maintain the principle. The original inhabitants had been left on the conquered lands as agriculturists, on condition of paying a fixed sum yearly for each district. If one of these adopted Islam, Omar permitted him to leave his place, which had been strictly forbidden by Hajjaj in Irak and the eastern provinces, because by it many hands were withdrawn from the tilling of the ground, and those who remained were unable to pay the allotted amount. Omar's system not only diminished the actual revenue, but largely increased in the cities the numbers of the _maula's_ (clients), mainly Persians, who were weary of their dependency on their Arabic lords, and demanded equal rights for themselves. Their short dominion in Kufa under Mokhtar had been suppressed, but the discontent continued. In North Africa particularly, and in Khorasan the effect of Omar's proclamation was that a great multitude embraced Islam. When it became necessary to impose a tribute upon the new converts, great discontent arose, which largely increased the number of those who followed the Shi'ite preachers of revolt. Conversion to Islam was promoted by the severe regulations which Omar introduced for the non-believers, such as Christians and Jews. It was he who issued those humiliating rescripts, which are commonly but unjustly attributed to Omar I. But he forbade extortion and suppressed more than one illegal impost. He endeavoured above all to procure justice for all his subjects. Complaints against oppression found in him a ready listener, and many unlawfully acquired possessions were restored to the legal owners, for instance, to the descendants of Ali and Talha. Even to the Kharijites he contrived to give satisfaction, as far as possible. In all these matters he followed the guidance of divines and devotees, in whose congenial company he delighted. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that these men saw in Omar the ideal of a prince, and that in Moslem history he has acquired the reputation of a saint.

After the failure of the siege of Constantinople, the advanced posts in Asia Minor were withdrawn, but the raids were continued regularly. It has been said that it was Omar's intention to give up his Spanish conquests, but the facts argue the contrary. The governor, named by Omar, Samh b. Abdallah, even crossed the Pyrenees and took possession of Narbonne; but he was beaten and killed at Toulouse in July 720. But Omar did all he could to prevent the degradation of the Holy War, which, instead of being the ultimate expedient for the propagation of Islam, if all other means had failed, had often degenerated into mere pillaging expeditions against peaceful nations.

9. _Reign of Yazid II._--Omar's reign was as short as that of his predecessor. He died on the 24th of Rajab 101 (A.D. 9th February 720). Yazid II., son of Abdalmalik and, by his mother 'Atika, grandson of Yazid I., ascended the throne without opposition. He had at once, however, to put down a dangerous rebellion. Yazid b. Mohallab had returned to Irak, after the conquest of Jorjan, when Suleiman was still alive. Shortly after, Adi b. Artat, whom Omar II. had appointed governor, arrived, arrested Yazid, and sent him to Omar, who called him to account for the money he had mentioned in his letter to Suleiman, and imprisoned him when he pretended not to be able to pay the amount. Yazid II. had personal grounds for ill-will to Yazid b. Mohallab. One of the wives of the new caliph, the same who gave birth to that son of Yazid II. who afterwards reigned as Walid II., was niece to the celebrated Hajjaj, whose family had been ill-treated by the son of Mohallab, when he was governor of Irak under Suleiman. Aware that Yazid b. Abdalmalik, on ascending the throne, would spare neither him nor his family, Yazid b. Mohallab had succeeded in escaping to Basra, the home of his family, where his own tribe the Azd was predominant. Meanwhile 'Adi b. Artat had all the brothers of Yazid and other members of the family of Mohallab arrested, and tried to prevent Yazid from entering the city. But 'Adi was too scrupulous to employ the public money for raising the pay of his soldiers, whilst Yazid promised mountains of gold. Yazid stormed the castle and took 'Adi prisoner, the public treasury fell into his hands, and he employed the money to pay his troops largely and to raise fresh ones. A pardon obtained for him from the caliph came too late; he had already gone too far. He now proclaimed a Holy War against the Syrians, whom he declared to be worse enemies of Islam than even the Turks and the Dailam. Notwithstanding the warnings of the aged Hasan al-Basri, the friend of Omar II., the religious people, took the part of Yazid, and were followed by the _maulas_. Though the number of his adherents thus increased enormously, their military value was small. Ahwaz (Khuzistan), Fars and Kirman were easily subdued, but in Khorasan the Azd could not prevail over the Tamim, who were loyal to the caliph. As the rebellion threatened to spread far and wide, Yazid II. was obliged to appeal to his brother, the celebrated Maslama. With the approach of the Syrians, Yazid b. Mohallab tried to forestall them at Kufa. He took his way over Wasit, which he mastered--the Syrian garrison seems to have been withdrawn in the days of Omar II.--but, before he could get hold of Kufa, the Syrian troops arrived. The meeting took place at 'Aqr in the vicinity of Babel, and Yazid was completely defeated and fell in the battle. His brothers and sons fled to Basra; thence they went by sea to Kirman and then to Kandabil in India; but they were pursued relentlessly and slain with only two exceptions by the officers of Maslama. The possessions of the Mohallabites were confiscated.

Maslama was rewarded with the governorship of Irak and Khorasan, but was soon replaced by Omar b. Hobaira, who under Omar II. had been governor of Mesopotamia. He belonged to the tribe of Qais, and was very severe against the Azd and other Yemenite tribes, who had more or less favoured the part of Yazid b. Mohallab. In these years the antagonism between Qais (Modar) and Yemenites became more and more acute, especially in Khorasan. The real cause of the dismissal of Maslama was, that he did not send the revenue-quota to Damascus. Omar b. Hobaira, to supply the deficiency, ordered the prefect of Khorasan, Sa'id-al-Harashi, to take tribute from the Sogdians in Transoxiana, who had embraced Islam on the promise of Omar II. The Sogdians raised a revolt in Ferghana, but were subdued by Sa'id and obliged to pay. A still more questionable measure of Ibn Hobaira was his ordering the successor of Sa'id Harashi to extort large sums of money from several of the most respectable Khorasanians. The discontent roused thereby became one of the principal causes of the fall of the Omayyads.

In Africa serious troubles arose from the same cause. Yazid b. Abi Moslim, who had been at the head of the financial department in Irak under Hajjaj, and had been made governor of Africa by Yazid II., issued orders that the villagers who, having adopted Islam, were freed from tribute according to the promise of Omar II., and had left their villages for the towns, should return to their domiciles and pay the same tribute as before their conversion. The Berbers rose in revolt, slaughtered the unfortunate governor, and put in his place the former governor Mahommed b. Yazid. The caliph at first ratified this choice, but soon after dismissed Mahommed from his post, and replaced him by Bishr b. Safwan, who under Hisham made an expedition against Sicily.

Yazid II. was by natural disposition the opposite of his predecessor. He did not feel that anxiety for the spiritual welfare of his subjects which had animated Omar II. Poetry and music, not beloved by Suleiman and condemned by Omar, were held by him in great honour. Two court-singers, Sallama and Hababa, exercised great influence, tempered only by the austerity of manners that prevailed in Syria. He was so deeply affected by the death of Hababa, that Maslama entreated him not to exhibit his sorrow to the eyes of the public. He died a few days later, on the 26th of January 724, according to the chroniclers from grief for her loss. As his successor he had appointed in the first place his brother Hisham, and after him his own son Walid.

10. _Reign of Hisham_.--Hisham was a wise and able prince and an enemy of luxury, not an idealist like Omar II., nor a worldling like Yazid II., but more like his father Abdalmalik, devoting all his energy to the pacification of the interior, and to extending and consolidating the empire of Islam. But the discontent, which had been sown under his predecessors, had now developed to such an extent that he could not suppress it in detail. His first care was to put an end to the tyrannical rule of the Qaisites (Modarites) in Irak and Khorasan by dismissing Omar b. Hobaira and appointing in his place Khalid al-Qasri. This very able man, who under Hajjaj had been prefect of Mecca, belonged properly neither to the Qaisites nor to the Yemenites, but as he took the place of Ibn Hobaira and dismissed his partisans from their posts, the former considered him as their adversary, the latter as their benefactor. After his death, in particular, the Yemenites celebrated him as their chief, and assigned as the reason for their revolt the injuries which he suffered. Khalid himself assuredly did not intend it. He was a loyal servant of the dynasty, and remained such even after receiving very harsh treatment from them. For fifteen years Khalid governed the eastern half of the empire, and continued to maintain peace with only few exceptions throughout. He did much for the reclaiming and improving of lands in Irak, in which the caliph himself and several princes took an active part. The great revenues obtained thereby naturally caused much jealousy. Khalid lived on a very rich scale and was extraordinarily liberal, and he was charged with having carried out all his improvements for his own interests, and upbraided for selling the corn of his estates only when the prices were high. To these charges were added the accusation that he was too tolerant to Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians. As his mother professed the Christian religion, he was accused of infidelity. At last a conspiracy, into which the principal engineer of Khalid, Hassan the Nabataean, had been drawn, succeeded in inciting Hisham against Khalid. They told him that Khalid had used disrespectful terms in speaking of the caliph, and that he had appropriated revenues belonging to the state. The latter imputation especially influenced Hisham, who was very parsimonious. When the dismissal of Khalid had been resolved upon, Yusuf b. Omar, his appointed successor, was sent secretly to Kufa, where he seized on Khalid unawares. For eighteen months Khalid remained in prison. But when he declined even under torture to confess that he had been guilty of extensive peculation, he was finally released. He settled at Damascus and made a noble return for his injuries by taking an active part in the war against the Greeks. In the summer of A.D. 740, while he was in Asia Minor, a great fire broke out in Damascus, the guilt of which was attributed to Khalid. Though it soon appeared that the imputation was false, Khalid, on his return, was furious, and uttered very offensive words against the caliph. Hisham, however, would not again punish his old servant; on the contrary, he seems to have regarded his indignation as a proof of innocence.

The successor of Khalid in Irak had not long been in office when Zaid b. Ali, grandson of Hosain b. Ali, who had come to Kufa for a lawsuit, was persuaded by the chiefs of the Shi'a to organize a revolt. He succeeded in so far that 15,000 Kufians swore to fight with him for the maintenance of the commandments of the Book of God and the _Sunna_ (orthodox tradition) of his Prophet, the discomfiture of the tyrants, the redress of injury, and last, not least, the vindication of the family of the Prophet as the rightful caliphs. The revolt broke out on the 6th of January 740. Unfortunately for Zaid he had to do with the same Kufians whose fickleness had already been fatal to his family. He was deserted by his troops and slain. His body was crucified in Kufa, his head sent to Damascus and thence to Medina. His son Yahya, still a youth, fled to Balkh in Khorasan, but was discovered at last and hunted down, till he fell sword in hand under Walid II. Abu Moslim, the founder of the Abbasid dynasty, proclaimed himself his avenger, and on that occasion adopted the black garments, which remained the distinctive colour of the dynasty.

In Khorasan also there were very serious disturbances. The Sogdians, though subdued by Sa'id al Harashi, were not appeased, but implored the assistance of the Turks, who had long been contending earnestly against the Arabs for the dominion of Transoxiana. They found besides a most valuable ally in Harith b. Soraij, a distinguished captain of the Arabic tribe of Tamim, who, with many pious Moslems, was scandalized by the government's perfidy in regard to the new converts. Harith put himself at the head of all the malcontents, and raised the black flag, in compliance with a Sibylline prophecy, holding that the man with the black flag (the Prophet's flag) would put an end to the tyranny, and be the precursor of the Mahdi.[22] The government troops suffered more than one defeat, but in the last month of the year 118 (A.D. 736) the governor Asad al-Qasri, the brother of Khalid, after having defeated Harith, gained a brilliant victory over the Turks, which finally caused them to retreat. Asad died almost simultaneously with the dismissal of Khalid. Hisham then separated Khorasan from Irak and chose as governor of the former Nasr b. Sayyar, a valiant soldier who had grown grey in war, and who, besides all his other capacities, was an excellent poet. Nasr instituted a system of taxation, which, if it had been introduced earlier, would perhaps have saved the Arabic domination. It was that which later on was generally adopted, viz. that all possessors of conquered lands (i.e. nearly the whole empire except Arabia), whether Moslems or not, should pay a fixed tax, the latter in addition to pay a poll-tax, from which they were relieved on conversion to Islam. During the reign of Hisham, Nasr made a successful expedition against Harith and the Turks. The propaganda of the Shi'a by the Abbasids was continued in these years with great zeal.

In India several provinces which had been converted to Islam under the Caliphate of Omar II. declared themselves independent, because the promise of equal rights for all Moslems was not kept under the reign of his successors. This led to the evacuation of the eastern part of India (called Hind by the Arabs, Sind being the name of the western part), and to the founding of the strong cities of Mahfuza and Mansura for the purpose of controlling the land.

In the north and north-west of the empire there were no internal disorders, but the Moslems had hard work to maintain themselves against the Alans and the Khazars. In the year 112 (A.D. 730) they suffered a severe defeat, in which the general Jarrah perished. But the illustrious Maslama b. Abdalmalik, and Merwan b. Mahommed (afterwards caliph), governor of Armenia and Azerbaijan (Adherbaijan), succeeded in repelling the Khazars, imposing peace on the petty princes of the eastern Caucasus, and consolidating the Arab power in that quarter. The war against the Byzantines was continued with energy during the whole of Hisham's reign. Moawiya, the son of Hisham, whose descendants reigned later in Spain, was in command till 118 (A.D. 736), when he met his death accidentally in Asia Minor by a fall from his horse. After his death, Suleiman, another son of the caliph, had the supreme command. Both were eager and valiant warriors. But the hero of all the battles was Abdallah b. Hosain, surnamed al-Battal (the brave). He has been the subject of many romantic tales. Tabari tells how he took the emperor Constantine prisoner in the year 114 (A.D. 732; but Constantine V. Copronymus only began to reign in 740 or 741 A.D.); another Arabic author places this event in the year 122, adding that al-Battal, having defeated the Greeks, was attacked and slain in returning with his captives. The Greek historians say nothing about Constantine having been made prisoner. It is probable that the Arabs took another Greek soldier for the prince.[23] The victories of the Moslems had no lasting results. During the troubles that began in the reign of Walid II., the Greeks reconquered Marash (Germanicia), Malatia (Malatiyeh) and Erzerum (Theodosiopolis).

In Spain the attention of the Moslems was principally turned to avenge the defeat of Samh beyond the Pyrenees. As early as the second year of the reign of Hisham, 'Anbasa, the governor of Spain, crossed the Pyrenees, and pushed on military operations vigorously. Carcassonne and Nîmes were taken, Autun sacked. The death of 'Anbasa in A.D. 725 and internal troubles put a stop to further hostilities. The Berbers were the chief contingent of the Moslem troops, but were treated by their Arab masters as inferior people. They began to resent this, and one of their chiefs, Munisa (Munuza), made himself independent in the north and allied himself with Odo, king of Aquitaine, who gave him his daughter in marriage. In the year 113 Abdarrahman b. Abdallah subdued Munisa, crossed the mountains and penetrated into Gascony by the valley of Roncesvalles. The Moslems beat Odo, gained possession of Bordeaux, and overran the whole of southern Gaul nearly as far as the Loire. But in October 732 their march was checked between Tours and Poitiers by Charles Martel and after some days of skirmishing a fierce but indecisive battle was fought. Abdarrahman was among the slain and the Moslems retreated hastily in the night, leaving their camp to the Franks. They were, however, not yet discouraged. In 739 the new governor of Spain, Oqba (Aucupa) b. Hajjaj, a man of high qualities, re-entered Gaul and pushed forward his raids as far as Lyons, but the Franks again drove back the Arabs as far as Narbonne. Thenceforth the continual revolts of the Berbers in Africa, and the internal troubles which disturbed Spain until the reign of Abdarrahman I., effectually checked the ambition of the Moslems.