The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall/Chapter 25

by William Muir

CHAPTER XXV

THE LATER YEARS OF ʿOMAR'S REIGN. DOMESTIC EVENTS

17–23 A.H. 638–644 A.D.

17–23 A.H.
638–44 A.D.
Quiet in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt.While Muslim arms were thus rapidly reducing the East under their sway, the wave of conquest which had swept over Syria, and broken threateningly on the southern border of Asia Minor, now for the time relaxed into a calm. After the death of Heraclius there was no longer spirit left in the Empire to continue the struggle by either land or sea. Desultory attempts there were at intervals upon the coast, but followed by no lasting success. Muʿāwiya was busy meanwhile consolidating the administration of Syria, and, with sagacious foresight, strengthening his hold against the chances of the future. Elsewhere peace prevailed. ʿAmr maintained firm rule in Egypt; and, waging chronic warfare against the Native tribes and Roman settlements on the coast, gradually extended westward the boundaries of Islām. Arabia, still pouring forth its restless spirits to fight abroad, was tranquil at home.

ʿOmar visits Mecca; enlarges court of Kaʿba.Besides the journeys in Syria already mentioned, ʿOmar quitted his residence at Medīna only for the annual Pilgrimage. The governors of the various provinces used to visit Mecca for the same purpose; and the Caliph was wont to improve the opportunity for conferring with them as they returned by way of Medīna, on matters of provincial interest. Several years before his death, he spent three weeks at Mecca, and enlarged the space around the Kaʿba. Dwellings that approached too closely to the Holy House were pulled down, and the first step taken to form a grand Square and piazza such as became the place of worship for all mankind. Some owners refused to sell their patrimony; but the houses were demolished nevertheless, and the price in compensation deposited in the treasury. The boundary pillars of the Ḥaram, or sacred precincts around the City, were renewed; and convenient halting-places constructed at the pilgrim stations, for custody of which and care of the adjoining springs, the local tribes were held responsible.

Disaster in Red Sea,
19 A.H.
640 A.D.In the seventh year of ʿOmar's reign volcanic fires burst from a hill in the neighbourhood of Medīna. The Caliph gave command to distribute alms amongst the poor, a pious work in which the people joined; "and so the volcano stopped." In the same year a naval expedition was sent across the Red Sea, to check attacks upon the Muslims on the Abyssinian coast. The vessels were wrecked, and the expedition suffered great privation. The disaster led ʿOmar to vow that he would never again permit troops to embark upon an element so treacherous. It was not till some years after his death that the Muslims gathered courage to brave the risks of a naval encounter.

Moghīra arraigned on charge of adultery,
17 A.H.
638 A.D.In the governors appointed to control the turbulent cities of Al-Kūfa and Al-Baṣra, ʿOmar was not altogether fortunate. ʿOtba, governor of Al-Baṣra, died, as we have seen, shortly after rescuing the unfortunate expedition to Persepolis. The choice of a successor in Al-Moghīra was ill-advised. Of rude and repulsive aspect, he had committed murder in his youth at Aṭ-Ṭāif, and Islām had not softened his nature or improved his morals. A ḥarīm of fourscore wives and concubines failed to satisfy his vagrant passion. At Al-Baṣra his movements were watched by enemies, who through an intervening window were witness to an intrigue with a Bedawi lady visiting his house. When he came forth to lead the public prayer, they shouted him down as an adulterer; and ʿOmar summoned him to answer the accusation. By any reasonable law of evidence, the crime had been established beyond a doubt; but, under the strange conditions promulgated by Moḥammad on the misadventure of his favourite wife, there was a flaw in the testimony of Ziyād, the fourth witness.^[1] The Caliph, with an ill-concealed groan at the miscarriage of justice, ordered the witnesses to be scourged according to the ordinance, and the accused set free. "Strike hard," cried the barefaced Al-Moghīra, addressing the unwilling minister of the law;—"strike hard, and comfort my heart thereby!" "Hold thy peace," said ʿOmar; "it wanted but little to convict thee; and then thou shouldst have been stoned to death as an adulterer." The culprit was silenced, but not abashed. He continued to reside in Medīna, a crafty courtier at the Caliph's gate.

Abu Mūsa governor of Baṣra.As successor, ʿOmar appointed Abu Mūsa to the government of Al-Baṣra, a man of very different stamp. Small of stature, smooth in face, and of little presence, he had yet distinguished himself at Ḥonein, and had been employed as an envoy by the Prophet. He wanted strength and firmness for the stormy times that were coming, but was wise and sufficiently able to hold the restless Bedawīn of Al-Baṣra in check. Belonging to a Bedawi tribe himself, it was perhaps an advantage, in the jealousies now growing up, to be outside the clique of Mecca and Medīna citizens. But feeling still the need of such support, he said to ʿOmar as he was leaving: "Thou must strengthen my hands with a company of the Companions of the Prophet, for verily they are as salt in the midst of the people"; and his request was granted, for he took nine-and-twenty men of mark along with him. But even Abu Mūsa was near losing his command, and that in a way which curiously illustrates ʿOmar's government. After a successful campaign against the Kurds, he sent, as usual, a deputation to Medīna with report of the victory, and the royal fifth. Ḍabba, a discontented citizen, being refused a place upon it, set out alone to Medīna, and there laid charges against Abu Mūsa, who was summoned by ʿOmar to clear himself. After some days of confinement, he was brought before the Caliph, face to face with his accuser.Accused of malversion,
23 A.H.
644 A.D. The first charge was that a band of youths taken in the expedition were used by him as attendants. "True," said Abu Mūsa; "they did me good service as guides; therefore I paid their ransom, and now, being free, they serve me." "He speaketh the truth," answered Ḍabba, "but what I said was also true." The second was that he held two landed properties. "I do," explained Abu Mūsa; "one for the subsistence of my family, the other for the sustenance of the people." Ḍabba answered as before. The third was that the governor had in his household a girl that fared too sumptuously. Abu Mūsa was silent. Again, he was charged with making over the seals of office to Ziyād; which was admitted by Abu Mūsa, "because he found the youth to be wise and fit for office." The last charge was that he had given the largess of a thousand dirhems to a poet; and this Abu Mūsa admitted,—to preserve, as he said, his authority from scurrilous attack. The Caliph was satisfied, and permitted Abu Mūsa to resume his government, but desired him to send Ziyād and the girl to Medīna. On their arrival, ʿOmar was so pleased with Ziyād, already foreshadowing his administrative talent, that he sent him back with approval of his employment in the affairs of state; but the girl was detained, perhaps because of her undue influence, in confinement at Medīna. With Ḍabba the Caliph was very angry. Out of malice he had sought to ruin Abu Mūsa by one-sided allegations. "Truth perverted is no better," said ʿOmar, “than a lie; and a lie leadeth to hell-fire."

Saʿd governor of Kūfa deposed,
21 A.H.
642 A.D.Al-Kūfa remained several years under its founder Saʿd, the conqueror of Chaldæa. At length, in the ninth year of ʿOmar's reign, a faction sprang up against him. The Bedawi jealousy of Ḳoreish had already begun to work; and Saʿd was accused of unfairness in distributing the booty. There was imputed also lack of martial spirit and backwardness in the field, a revival of the slanderous charge at Al-Ḳādisīya. He was summoned, with his accusers, to Medīna; but the main offence proved against him was one of little concern to them. In his public ministrations he had cut short the customary prayers; and ʿOmar, deeming the misdemeanour to be unpardonable, deposed him. To fill a vacancy requiring unusual skill, experience, and power ʿOmar unwisely appointed ʿAmmār, who, as a persecuted slave and confessor in the first days of Islām, was second to none in the faith; but a man of no ability, and now advanced in years.^[2] The citizens of Al-Kūfa were not long in finding out his incapacity; and, at their desire, ʿOmar transferred Abu Mūsa from Al-Baṣra to rule over them. But it was no easy work for him to curb the factious populace. They took offence at his slave for undue influence in buying fodder before it crossed the bridge; and for so slight a cause, after he had been Governor but for a year, the Caliph sent him back again to Al-Bṣsra.Moghīra appointed in his room. ʿOmar was on the point of making appointed in another nomination, when the artful Al-Moghīra wormed the secret from him; and, dwelling on the burden of a hundred thousand turbulent citizens, suggested that the candidate in view was not fit to bear it. "But," said ʿOmar, "the men of Al-Kūfa have pressed me to send them neither a headstrong tyrant, nor a weak and impotent believer." "As for a weak believer," answered Al-Moghīra, "his faith is for himself, his weakness thine; as for a strong tyrant, his tyranny injureth himself, his strength is for thee." ʿOmar, caught in the snare, was weak enough to confer on Al-Moghīra, his former scandal notwithstanding, the government of Al-Kūfa. With all his defects, Al-Moghīra was, without doubt, the strong man needed for that stiff-necked city; and he held his position during the two remaining years of ʿOmar's reign.

ʿAbdallah ibn Masʿūd.About the same time, ʿOmar appointed another early convert of singular religious merit, ʿAbdallah ibn Masʿūd, who had in early days, like ʿAmmār, been a slave at Mecca, to a post at Al-Kūfa, for which, however, he was better fitted,—the charge of the treasury. He had been the body-servant of the Prophet, who was used to call him "light in body, but weighty in faith."^[3] He was learned in the Ḳorʾān, and had a "reading" of his own, to which as the best text, he held persistently against all recensions.

Baṣra additional endowment.There was still considerable jealousy between Al-Baṣra and its richer rival. The armies of both had contributed towards the conquest of Khūzistān, and had shared accordingly. But Al-Baṣra, with its teeming thousands, was comparatively poor; and ʿOmar, to equalise the benefits of all who had served in the earlier campaigns, assigned to them increased allowances, to be met from the surplus revenues of the territories administered at Al-Kūfa.

Provincial officers, civil, military, and religious.In the more important governments, the judicial office was discharged by a functionary who held his commission as Ḳāḍi immediately from the Caliph. The control of other departments remained with the Governor, who, in virtue of his office, led the daily Prayers and, especially on Friday, added an address which had often an important political bearing. Military and fiscal functions, vested at the first, like other powers, in the Governor’s hands, came eventually to be discharged by officers specially appointed to the duty. Teachers of religion were commissioned by the State. From the rapidity with which whole peoples were brought within the scope of Islām, risk arose of error in respect both of creed and ritual, to the vast multitude of "New-muslims," as they were called. To obviate the danger, ʿOmar appointed masters in every country, whose business it should be to instruct the people—men and women separately—in the Ḳorʾān and its requirements. Early also in his reign, he imposed it, as a legal obligation, that the people, both small and great, should all attend the public services, especially on Friday; and notably that in the month of Fast, the whole body of Muslims should be constant in the assembling of themselves together in the Mosques.

Era of the Hijra,
17 A.H.To ʿOmar is popularly ascribed, not only the establishment of the Dīwān or Exchequer, and offices of systematic account, but also the regulation of the Arabian year. He introduced for this purpose the Moḥammadan Era, commencing with the new moon of the first month (Moḥarram) of the year in which the Prophet fled from Mecca. Hence the Moḥammadan year was named Hijra, sometimes written Hegira, or "Era of the Flight."^[4]

Deterioration of social and domestic life.Of the state of Moḥammadan society at this period we have not the: material for judging closely. Constant employment in the field, no doubt, tended to check the depraving influences which, in times of ease and luxury, relaxed the sanctions and tainted the purity of Bedawi life. But there is ample indication that the relations between the sexes were already deteriorating, The baneful influence of polygamy, divorce, and servile concubinage, was quickened by the multitude of captive women distributed or sold among the soldiers and the community at large. The wife of noble blood held, under the old and chivalrous code of the Bedawīn, a position of honour and supremacy in the household, from which she could be ousted by no base-born rival, however fair or fruitful. She was now to be, in the estimation of her husband, but one amongst many. A slave-girl bearing children, became at once, as Um Weled,^[5] free; and in point of legitimacy her offspring ranked with the children of the free and noble wife. Beauty and blandishment thus too often outshone birth and breeding, and the favourite of the hour displaced her noble mistress.

Story of Leila.With the coarse sensualist, revelling like Al-Moghīra in a ḥarīm stocked with Greek and Persian bond-maids, this might have been expected. But it was not less the case in many a house of greater refinement and repute. Some lady, ravished, it may have been, from a noble home, and endowed with the charms and graces of a courtly life, would captivate her master, and for the moment rule supreme. The story of Leila affords a sample. That beautiful Ghassānid princess was bought at Dūma by Khālid from the common prize. The fame of her charms reached Medīna, and kindled a romantic flame in the breast of ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān, son of Abu Bekr. The disconsolate lover ceased not singing his mistress's praises, and his own unhappiness, in verses still preserved. At last he became her master, and she was despatched from the camp to his home. At once he took her to wife. His love was so great that, forsaking all other, he kept only to her, so long as her beauty lasted. She was the queen of his household. After a time she fell sick and began to waste away. The beauty went, and with it the master's love, and her turn came to be forsaken. His comrades said to him: "Why keep her forsaken and neglected thus? Suffer her to go back to her people and her home." So he suffered her. Leila's fate was happy compared with that of most. Tired of his toy, the owner would sell her, if still young and beautiful, to be the plaything of another; or if disease or years had fretted her beauty, leave her to eke out the forlorn, weary, hopeless, lot of a household slave.

Use of wine.Relaxation of manners is significantly marked by frequent notices of drunkenness. There are not wanting instances even of Governors deposed because of it. ʿOmar was rigorous in imposing the legal penalty. He did not shrink from commanding stripes to be inflicted, even on his own son and his boon companions, for the use of wine. At Damascus, the scandal grew to such a height that Abu ʿObeida had to summon a band of citizens, with the hero Ḍirār at their head, for the offence. Hesitating to enforce the law, he begged of ʿOmar that the penitent offenders might be forgiven. An angry answer came: "Gather an assembly," he wrote in the stern language of his early days, "and bring them forth. Then ask, Is wine lawful or forbidden? If they shall say forbidden, lay eighty stripes on each; if lawful, behead them every one." They confessed that it was forbidden, and submitted to the ignominious punishment.

Influence of concubinage on the family.Weakness for wine may have been a relic of the days when the poet sang, "Bury me under the roots of the juicy vine." But there were domestic influences altogether new at work in the vast accession of captive women, Greek, Persian, and Egyptian, to the Muslim ḥarīms. The Jews and Christians might retain their ancestral faith, whether as concubines, or married to their masters. With their ancestral faith they, no doubt, retained much also of the habits of their fatherland; and the same may be said both of them and of the Heathen and Parsee slave-girls, even when adopting outwardly the Muslim faith. The countless progeny of these alliances, though ostensibly bred in the creed and practice of Islām, must have inherited much of the mother's life and nationality who nursed and brought them up. The crowded ḥarīm, with its sanction of servile concubinage, was also an evil school for the rising generation. Wealth, luxury, and idleness were under such circumstances provocative of licence and indulgence, which too often degenerated into intemperance and debauchery.

Prevailing laxity of manners.For, apart from war and faction, Muslim life was idle and inactive. There was little else to relieve its sanctimonious voluptuousness. The hours not spent in the ḥarīm were divided between listless converse in the City clubs, and prayer at Mosque five times a day. Ladies no longer appeared in public excepting as they flitted along shrouded beneath "the veil." The light and grace, the charm and delicacy, hitherto imparted by their presence to Arab society were gone; the softness, brightness, and warmth of nature, so beautifully portrayed in ancient Arab song, were chilled and overcast. Games of chance, and suchlike amusements, were forbidden; even speculation was checked by the ban on interest for money lent. And so, Muslim life, cut off, beyond the threshold of the ḥarīm, from the ameliorating influences of the gentler sex, began to assume outside the dreary, morose, and cheerless aspect ever since retained. But nature is not to be for ever thus pent up; the rebound too often comes; and in casting off its shackles, humanity not seldom bursts likewise through the barriers of the Faith. The gay youth of Islām, cloyed with the dull delights of the sequestered ḥarīm, were tempted thus when abroad to evade the restrictions of their creed, and seek in the cup, in music, games, and dissipation, the excitement which the young and lighthearted will demand. In the greater cities, intemperance and libertinism were rife. The canker spread, oftentimes the worse because concealed. The more serious classes were scandalised not only by amusements, luxuries, and voluptuous living, inconsistent with their creed, but even with immoralities which cannot here be named. Development of this evil came later on, but tares were already sown even under the strict regime of ʿOmar.^[6]

Simplicity of ʿOmar's domestic life.For the present such excesses prevailed only in foreign parts. At home, the Caliphs, fortified by the hallowed associations of Medīna, preserved the simplicity of ancient Arab life. Severe simplicity, indeed, was not incompatible (as in the case of Moḥammad himself) with the indulgences of the ḥarīm. But even in this respect, the first three Caliphs, judged by the standard of Islām, were temperate and modest. ʿOmar, they say, had no passion for the sex, Before the Hijra, he contracted marriage with four wives, but two of these, preferring to remain at Mecca, separated from him, At Medīna, he married five more, one of whom, however, he divorced. The last marriage was in the eighth year of his reign, when near sixty years of age. Three years previously he had married a granddaughter of the Prophet, under circumstances casting a curious light on his domestic ways. He conceived a liking for Um Kulthūm, the maiden daughter of Abu Bekr, and sister of ʿĀisha, through whom a betrothal was arranged. But ʿĀisha found the light-hearted damsel with no desire to wed the aged Caliph. In this dilemma she had recourse to the astute ʿAmr, who readily undertook to break the marriage off. He broached the subject to ʿOmar, who thereupon imagined that ʿAmr wished the maiden for himself. "Nay," said ʿAmr, "that I do not; but she hath been bred softly in the family of her father Abu Bekr, and I fear she may ill brook thine austere manners, and the gravity of thy house." "But," replied ʿOmar, "I have already engaged to marry her; how can I break it off?" "Leave that to me," said ʿAmr; "thou hast indeed a duty to provide for Abu Bekr's family, but the heart of this maiden is not with thee. Let her alone, and I will show thee a better than she, another Um Kulthūm, even the daughter of ʿAlī and of Fāṭima." So ʿOmar married this other maiden, and she bore him a son and a daughter.

Death of many familiar personages.Many of those names we have been familiar with were now dropping off the scene;—Fāṭima, the daughter, and Ṣafīya, the aunt of Moḥammad, Zeinab one of his wives, and Mary his Coptic bond-maid; Abu ʿObeida, Khālid, and the Muëzzin Bilāl. Many others who also bore a conspicuous part in the great rôle of the Prophet's life had now passed away, and a new race was springing up in their place.

Abu Sufyān and Hind.Abu Sufyān survived till 32 A.H., and died 88 years of age. One eye he lost at the siege of Aṭ-Ṭāif, and the other at the battle on the Yarmūk, so that he had long been blind. He divorced Hind, the mother of Muʿāwiya—she who "chewed the liver" of Ḥamza at the battle of Oḥod!^[7] The reason for the divorce does not appear.

1. The autoptic witness of four persons is necessary for conviction, the penalty being death; but if the evidence fail of full proof, the witnesses instead are scourged (Life of Moḥammad, p. 302 f.). Conviction therefore is, under ordinary circumstances, practically impossible. Al-Moghīra felt beholden to Ziyād for his evidence in this matter, as we shall in the sequel see.
2. Life of Moḥammad, p. 67 f.
3. Life of Moḥammad, pp. 59, 201.
4. The calendar was already strictly lunar, as announced by the Prophet at the farewell pilgrimage. But the era, and consequent numbering of the years, was introduced only now. The lunar year is eleven days shorter than the solar, and so loses three years in every century of ours. There is this convenience in the lunar reckoning, that, if the date be given, you can tell the age of the moon; but also this serious want, that the month is no indication of the season of the year.
5. i. e. "Mother of a child."
6. For a description of the shameless demoralisation that prevailed in Damascus and Bagdad, I must refer to the learned and elaborate work of H. von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter dem Chalifen.
7. Life of Moḥammad, p. 263.