Chapter III: Medina Threatened

A.H. XI. JUNE AND JULY, A.H. 632.

[Sidenote: Beneficial effects of Osâma’s expedition.]

In after days Abu Bekr used to look back with a just pride and satisfaction to his despatch, against a universal reclamation, of Osâma’s force. Public opinion was not long in justifying the act and attributing thereto results of essential benefit. The firmness of his attitude inspired the Bedouin tribes with a sense of stability in the government. If the leaders at Medîna had not been confident in their strength at home they would not have sent away this army; and the Arabs, reasoning thus, were restrained from much that they might otherwise have attempted. Still the position was critical, and at times sufficiently alarming.

[Sidenote: Courageous attitude of Abu Bekr.]

It was indeed a thing of which the brave old Caliph might proud. ‘The Arabs,’ so the tradition runs, ‘were on all sides rising in rebellion. Apostasy and disaffection began to raise their heads; Christians and Jews to stretch out their necks; and the Faithful were left like a flock of sheep without a shepherd--their Prophet gone, their numbers few, and their foes a multitude.’ It was in face of all this that Abu Bekr sent off beyond recall his only force, and left Medîna open and, to the outward eye, defenceless.

[Sidenote: Insurrection throughout Arabia.]

During the lifetime of Mahomet three rivals had already laid claim to the prophetic office and raised the standard of rebellion. In the south, insurrection had hardly been quelled by the assassination of the ‘Veiled Prophet’ of Yemen, when tidings of the death of Mahomet made it burst forth with redoubled violence. Enshrined in the very centre of the peninsula, Moseilama had detached the powerful tribes around Yemâma from their allegiance; and to the north-east, nearer home, Toleiha, the third pretender, was now openly and dangerously hostile.[15] From every quarter, in rapid succession, came the news of spreading disaffection. The legates of Mahomet, the collectors of tithes--all, in fact, who represented the authority of Islam--fled or were expelled. The Faithful were massacred, and some confessors suffered a cruel death. Mecca and Tâyif quivered and vacillated at the first intelligence of the Prophet’s decease; in the end, through the strong influence of the Coreish, they stood firm; but they were almost alone. Here and there some few tribes, under loyal, or, it might be, temporising, chiefs, maintained the semblance of obedience; but they were hardly discernible amidst the seething mass of rebellion. Amru, hurrying back from Omân (whither he had been sent by Mahomet as ambassador at the Farewell Pilgrimage), witnessed the whole of Central Arabia either in open revolt or ready to break away on the first demand of tithes, and his report filled the citizens of Medîna with dismay.[16] In truth, Islam had never taken firm hold of the distant provinces; and as for the Bedouins, Mahomet had himself had frequent cause to chide their fickleness. It was fear of punishment, and the lust of plunder, rather than attachment to the faith, which had hitherto held these wild sons of the desert in bondage to the Prophet. The restraints and obligations of Islam were irksome and distasteful; and now, on Mahomet’s death well rid of them, they hoped to return to their lawless life.

[Sidenote: Demand for exemption from tithes refused by Abu Bekr.]

As report after report came in of fresh defection, Abu Bekr could but instruct his officers to hold on where they were able with the loyal few, hoping to tide over the crisis till the return of Osâma’s force. For the immediate defence of Medîna he took such measures as were possible. He called in all that remained of the faithful tribes in the neighbourhood, and posted pickets at the various approaches to the city. The turbulent tribes in the near desert to the east were the first to assume a threatening attitude. The Beni Abs and Dzobiân massed there in such numbers ‘that the land was straitened by them,’ and they parted into two bodies, one at Rabadza,[17] the other at Dzul Cassa, the first station from Medîna on the road to Nejd. The false prophet Toleiha sent his brother with men to help them; but they still vacillated between the claims of the pretender and Islam. At last they bethought themselves of a compromise. They sent a deputation to Abu Bekr, offering to hold by Islam and its ritual if only they were excused the tithe. The strangers bearing the message were welcomed by the chiefs of Medîna, but by the Caliph their advances were indignantly rejected. He would relax not a tittle of the legal dues. ‘If ye withhold but the tether of a tithed camel,’ said Abu Bekr, bluntly, ‘I will fight with you for the same.’ With this refusal they retired, and also with the intelligence that the city had but few defenders left. Now was the time, before the army came back, not only for plunder, but to deliver a decisive blow. Abu Bekr, foreseeing this, redoubled his precautions. He strengthened the pickets, and set over them the chief men who had remained with him--Aly, Zobeir, Talha, and Abdallah ibn Masûd. For the rest of the people he appointed the Great Mosque a rendezvous. ‘The land hath rebelled against us,’ he said, ‘and they have spied out our nakedness and the weakness of our defence. Ye know not whether they will come upon you by night or come upon you by day, or which of you may be first attacked. They verily hoped that we should have accepted their offer, but we rejected it. Wherefore be vigilant and ready.’

[Sidenote: Attack on Medîna repelled.]

And so it came to pass. They tarried but three days, when a surprise was attempted from Dzul Cassa. The outposts were on the alert, and kept the assailants at bay while the main guard was hurried up from the Mosque on camels. The Bedouins, hardly prepared for so warm a reception, fled back upon their reserves. They were pursued; but the camels of the Moslems, being used only to draw water for the fields, took fright at a stratagem of the enemy, and turning, fled back to the Mosque.[18] There were no casualties among the Medîna troops, but the rebels were emboldened by the flight of their opponents. Abu Bekr, anticipating a renewed attack, called out every man capable of bearing arms, and spent the night in marshalling his force. Next morning, while yet dark, the Caliph himself led out the little band in regular array, with a centre and two wings.[19] The enemy were taken by surprise at early dawn, and as the sun rose were already in full flight. Abu Bekr drove them with slaughter out of Dzul Cassa, and, leaving a portion of his little force as an outpost there, returned with the rest to Medîna.

[Sidenote: Good effect of the victory.]

The affair was comparatively small, but its effect great. As failure would have been disastrous, perhaps fatal, to Islam, so victory was the turning-point in its favour. The power of the Prophet’s successor, even without his proper army, to secure the city and beat off his assailants was noised abroad. And soon after, the spirits of the Moslems rose as they saw certain chiefs appear, bringing in the tithes. The tribes they represented, to be sure, were few in contrast with the apostate hordes; but it was an augury of brighter days to come. Safwân and Zibricân, chiefs of two branches of the Beni Temîm, and Adi son of Hâtim from a loyal branch of the Beni Tay, were the first to present their legal offerings to the Caliph. Each was ushered into his presence as an ambassador. ‘Nay,’ said Abu Bekr; ‘they are more than that; they are Messengers of glad tidings, true men, and defenders of the faith.’ And the people answered, ‘Even so; now the good things that thou didst promise are appearing.’

[Sidenote: Saving of Islam due to Abu Bekr.]

Tradition delights to ascribe with pious gratitude the preservation of Islam to the aged Caliph’s faith and fortitude. ‘On the death of Mahomet,’ we are told, ‘it wanted but little, and the faithful had utterly perished. But the Lord strengthened the heart of Abu Bekr, and stablished us thereby in the resolve to give place, no not for one moment, to the apostates; and to say but these three words--_Submission_, _Exile_, or the _Sword_.’ It was the simple faith in Mahomet of Abu Bekr which fitted him for the task, and made him carry out the law of his Master to the very letter. But for him, Islam would have melted away in compromise with the Bedouin tribes, or might have perished in the throes of its birth.