A.H. 86–96.
cruellest tyrants the world has ever seen.[1] When, after twenty years of fighting he had pacified his provinces, he turned his attention to the arts of peace, developing the canal system, reclaiming land, and doing his best to prevent the peasantry from flocking from the country into the towns. He and Ziyād were the two great ministers of the Umeiyads, without whom the dynasty would not have survived, In one respect Ziyād was the greater of the two, since he did not use force in the shape of Syrian soldiers, but played off one faction against another, and so gained his end.
Wars of Ḳoteiba in Khorāsān,
86–96 A.H.
705–715 A.D.An indirect advantage has by some been attributed to the tyranny of Al-Ḥajjāj, in that his reign of terror drove many from their homes to swell the armies in the field, and so help forward the conquests for which the Caliphate of Al-Welīd is famous. A brief outline of these will now be given, beginning with the campaign of Ḳoteiba ibn Muslim in Central Asia. That great warrior, who was of Bāhila, a neutral tribe, advanced every summer into the provinces beyond the Oxus, retiring, as autumn advanced, to winter in Merv. Up to this time the Muslim campaigns appear to have been of the nature of ghazawāt, or raids, bringing the subdued lands into the category of allied, protected, or tributary, rather than of conquered and subject, states. The proceedings were now of a more permanent nature. Ḳoteiba's first advance was against Balkh, Tukhāristan, and Ferghāna. At Balkh, among the captives, was the wife of Barmek a physician, who was taken as a slave-girl into the ḥārīm of ʿAbdallah, Ḳoteiba's brother. Soon after, peace being made, the lady, as a matter of grace, was restored to her husband; but the result of the short union with ʿAbdallah was a son, acknowledged by him, and known in after-days as Ḳhalid the
- ↑ Tradition puts the number of lives sacrificed by Al-Ḥajjāj (apart from carnage on the field of battle) at 120,000,—mere guess-work of course. He was fond of making copies of the Ḳorʾān with his own hand, and as a work of merit making distribution of them; but he was bitterly opposed to Ibn Masʿūd's text,—declaring that he would behead anyone who followed it. Many savage sayings are attributed to him. The odium attaching to his name has no doubt magnified his demerits, which, however, with every allowance for exaggeration, were preeminently bad.
