Chapter XXXII

DANGEROUS FACTION AT KUFA. GROWING DISAFFECTION.

A.H. XXXII.--XXXIV. A.D. 653–655].

[Sidenote: Seditious elements at work.]

Towards the close of Othmân’s reign, the ferment, which (excepting Syria perhaps) had long been secretly at work throughout the empire, began to make its appearance on the surface. The Arab people at large were everywhere displeased at the pretensions of the Coreish. The Coreish themselves were ill at ease, the greater part being jealous of the Omeyyad branch and of the favourites of the Caliph. And the temptation to revolt was fostered by the weakness and vacillation of Othmân himself.

[Sidenote: Ibn Sauda preaches sedition in Egypt. A.H. XXXII. A.D. 653.]

Ibn Aámir had been now three years governor of Bussorah, when Ibn Saba (or, as he is commonly called, Ibn Sauda), a Jew from the south of Arabia, appeared on the scene, and professed the desire to embrace Islam. It soon appeared that he was steeped in disaffection to the existing government--a firebrand of sedition; and as such he was expelled successively from Bussorah, Kûfa, and Syria, but not before he had given a dangerous impulse to the already discontented classes. At last, he found a safe retreat in Egypt, and there became the setter forth of strange and startling doctrines. Mahomet was to come again, even as the Messiah was expected to come again. Meanwhile, Aly was his legate. Othmân was a usurper, and his governors a set of godless tyrants. The people were stirred. Impiety and wrong, they heard, were rampant everywhere; truth and justice could be restored no otherwise than by the overthrow of this wicked dynasty. Such was the preaching which gained daily ground in Egypt; by busy correspondence it was spread all over the empire, and startled the minds of men already foreboding evil from the sensible heavings of a slumbering volcano.[466]

[Sidenote: Émeute at Kûfa. A.H. XXXIII. A.D. 654.]

The breaking out of turbulence was for the moment repressed at Bussorah by Ibn Aámir; but at Kûfa, Saîd had neither power nor tact to quell the factious elements around him. He offended even his own party by ostentatiously washing the steps of the pulpit before he would ascend a spot pretended to have been made unclean by his drunken predecessor. He was not only unwise enough openly to foster the arrogant assumptions of the Coreish, but he had the folly to contemn the claims of the Arab soldiery, to whose swords they owed the conquest of the lands around them. He was so indiscreet as to call the beautiful vale of Chaldæa (the Sawâd) ‘_the Garden of the Coreish_’--‘as if,’ cried the offended Arabs, ‘without us--our strong arm and our good lances--they could have ever won this Garden.’ The disaffection, stimulated by a popular leader named Ashtar, and a knot of factious citizens, found vent at last in an émeute. As the governor and a company of the people, according to the custom of the time, sat one day together in free and equal converse, the topic turned on the bravery of Talha, who had shielded the Prophet in the day of battle. ‘Ah!’ exclaimed Saîd, with an invidious contrast, ‘_he_ is a warrior, if ye choose, a real gem amongst your Bedouin counterfeits. A few more like him, and we should dwell at ease.’ The assembly was still nettled at this speech, when a youth incautiously gave expression to the wish, how pleasant it would be if the governor possessed a certain property which lay invitingly by the river bank near Kûfa. ‘What!’ shouted the company with one voice, ‘and out of our Sawâd!’ So saying, and with a torrent of abuse, they leaped upon the lad and upon his father, who vainly endeavoured to urge his youth in excuse of his indiscretion, and went near to killing both.[467]

[Sidenote: The ringleaders are exiled to Syria.]

The factious spirits were emboldened by the outbreak; and discontent now found open and disloyal expression throughout the kingdom. Saîd, supported by the Coreishite nobility, appealed against their machinations to Othmân, who ordered that ten of the ringleaders should be expelled to Syria.[468] There the Caliph hoped that the powerful rule of his lieutenant and the loyal example of the Syrians would inspire the malcontents with better feelings. Muâvia quartered them in the church of St. Mary; and morning and evening, as he passed by, abused them roundly on their folly in setting up their crude claims against the indefeasible rights of the Coreish. Crest-fallen under several weeks of such treatment, they were sent on to Hims, where the governor, son of the great Khâlid, subjected them for a month to like indignities. Whenever he rode forth, he showered invectives on them as barbarous and factious creatures, who were doing all in their power to undermine the empire. Their spirit at last was thoroughly broken, and they professed to be repentant. They were then released; but, ashamed to return to Kûfa, they remained for the time in Syria, excepting the dangerous demagogue Ashtar, who made his way secretly to Medîna.

[Sidenote: Saîd expelled from Kûfa. A.H. XXXIV. A.D. 655.]

Months passed, and things did not mend at Kûfa. Most of the leading men, whose influence could have kept the populace in check, were away on military command in Persia; and the malcontents, in treasonable correspondence with the Egyptian faction, gained head daily. Disheartened at this, Saîd, in an unlucky moment, planned a visit to Medîna, there to lay his troubles before the Caliph. No sooner had he gone than the conspirators came to the front, and recalled the exiles from Syria. Ashtar, too, was soon upon the scene. Taking his stand at the door of the Great Mosque of Kûfa, he stirred up the people, as they assembled for worship, against Saîd: ‘He had just left that despot,’ he said, ‘at Medîna, plotting their ruin, counselling the Caliph to cut down their stipends, even the women’s; and calling the broad fields which they had conquered _The Garden of the Coreish_.’ The acting governor, helped by the better class of citizens, sought in vain to still the rising storm. He inculcated patience upon them. ‘Patience!’ cried Cacâa, the great warrior, in scorn; ‘ye might as well roll back the Great River when in flood as attempt to quell the people’s uproar till they have the thing they want.’ Yezîd, brother of one of the exiles, then raised a standard, and called upon all the enemies of the tyrannical governor to join and bar his return to Kûfa. When Saîd drew near, they marched out as far as Câdesîya, and sent forward to say that ‘they did not need him any more.’ Saîd, little expecting such a reception, said to them, ‘It had sufficed if ye had sent a delegate with your complaint to the Caliph; but now ye come forth a thousand strong against a single man!’ They were deaf to his expostulations. The servant of Saîd, endeavouring to push on, was slain by Ashtar; and Saîd himself fled back to Medîna, where he found Othmân already terrified by tidings of the outbreak, and prepared to yield whatever the insurgents might demand. [Sidenote: Abu Mûsa appointed in his room.]At their desire he appointed Abu Mûsa governor in place of Saîd. To welcome him the captains in command of the reserves and outlying garrisons came in from all quarters; and Abu Mûsa received them in the crowded Mosque of Kûfa. He first exacted from all present the pledge of loyalty to the Caliph, and then installed himself in office by leading the prayers of the great assembly.

[Sidenote: Othmân’s fatal mistake.]

If, instead of giving way, Othmân had inflicted on the ringleaders condign punishment, he might haply have succeeded in weathering the storm. It is true that thus he would, in all likelihood have precipitated rebellion, not only in Kûfa, but also in Bussorah and Egypt. But, sooner or later, that was inevitable; and in the struggle, he would now have had a strong support. For here the contention was between the Coreish and the nobility of Islam on the one hand, and the Arab tribes and city rabble on the other; and in this question the leaders of martial renown would all have rallied round the throne. By his pitiable weakness in yielding to the insurgents, Othmân not only courted the contempt of all around him, but lost the opportunity of placing the great controversy about to convulse the Moslem world, upon its proper issue. It fell, instead, to the level of a quarrel obscured by personal interests, and embittered by charges of tyranny and nepotism against himself. The crisis was now inevitable. Men saw that Othmân lacked the wisdom and the strength to meet it, and each looked to his own concern. Seditious letters circulated freely everywhere; and the claims began to be canvassed of successors to the irresolute and narrow-minded Caliph, who, it was foreseen, could not long retain the reins of empire in his grasp.

[Sidenote: Aly expostulates with Othmân.]

Thus, even at Medîna, sedition spread, and from thence messages reached the provinces that the sword would soon be needed there at home, rather than in foreign parts. So general was the contagion that but few are named as having escaped it.[469] Moved by the leading citizens, Aly repaired to Othmân and said:--‘The people bid me expostulate with thee. Yet what can I say to thee--son-in-law as thou wast of the Prophet and his bosom friend--that thou already knowest not as well as I? The way lieth plain and wide before thee; but thine eyes are blinded that thou canst not see it. If blood be once shed, it will not cease to flow until the Day of Judgment. Right will be blotted out, and treason rage like the foaming waves of the sea.’ Othmân complained, and not without reason, of the unfriendly attitude assumed by Aly himself. ‘For my own part,’ he said, ‘I have done my best; and as for the men ye speak of, did not Omar himself appoint Moghîra to Kûfa; and if Ibn Aámir be my kinsman, is he any the worse for that?’ ‘No,’ replied Aly; ‘but Omar kept his lieutenants in order, and when they did wrong he punished them; whereas thou treatest them softly, because they are thy kinsmen.’[470] ‘And Muâvia, too,’ continued the Caliph; ‘it was Omar who appointed him to Syria.’ ‘Yes,’ answered Aly; ‘but I swear that even Omar’s slaves did not stand so much in awe of their master, as did Muâvia. But now he doth whatever he pleaseth, and saith _It is Othmân_. And thou, knowing it all, leavest him alone!’ So saying, Aly turned and went his way.

[Sidenote: Othmân appeals to the people.]

As Aly’s message professed to come from the people, Othmân went straightway to the pulpit and addressed the multitude then assembled for prayer in the Great Mosque. He reproached them for giving vent to their tongues and following evil leaders, whose object it was to blacken his name, exaggerate his faults, and hide his virtues. ‘Ye blame me,’ he said, ‘for things which ye bore cheerfully from Omar. He trampled on you, beat you about with his whip, and abused you. And yet ye took it all patiently from him, both in what ye liked and what ye disliked. I have been gentle with you; bended my back unto you; withheld my tongue from reviling, and my hand from smiting. And now ye rise up against me!’ Then, after dwelling on the prosperity of his reign at home and abroad, and the many benefits that had accrued to them therefrom, he ended thus:--‘Wherefore, refrain, I beseech you, from your abuse of me and of my governors, lest ye kindle the flames of sedition and revolt throughout the empire.’ The appeal (we are told) was marred by his cousin Merwân, who at its close exclaimed, ‘If ye will oppose the Caliph, we shall soon bring it to the issue of the sword.’ ‘Be silent!’ cried Othmân, ‘and leave me with my fellows alone. Did I not tell thee not to speak?’ So Merwân remained silent, and Othmân descended from the pulpit. The harangue had no effect for good. The discontent spread, and the gatherings against the Caliph multiplied.[471]

[Sidenote: Close of Othmân’s eleventh year.]

Thus ended the eleventh year of Othmân’s reign. Near the close of it was held a memorable council, of which we shall read in the following chapter. The Caliph performed the pilgrimage as usual. He had done so every year. But this was to be his last.