THE LATER YEARS OF OMAR’S REIGN--DOMESTIC EVENTS.
A.H. XVII.-XXIII. A.D. 638–644.
[Sidenote: Quiet in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt.]
While the arms of Islam were thus rapidly reducing province after
province in the East to the sway of Omar from the Caspian to the Indian
Ocean, the wave of conquest was for the time calmed down in Asia Minor.
There had now for some time prevailed a period of comparative quiet.
After the death of Heraclius there was no spirit left in the Byzantine
empire to continue the struggle either by land or by sea. Desultory
attempts were made, indeed, at intervals upon the coast; but they
were followed by no lasting success.[394] Muâvia was busy meanwhile
consolidating the administration of Syria; and, with a sagacious
foresight, strengthening his hold upon the provinces against the
contingencies of the future. Elsewhere peace prevailed. Shorahbîl ruled
over the district of the Jordan. Amru maintained a firm government in
Egypt; and, pushing a chronic warfare against the native tribes and
the Roman settlements on the coast of Africa, gradually extended the
boundaries of Islam towards the West. Arabia, still pouring forth its
unquiet spirits to fight in the wars abroad, was tranquil at home under
its various governors.
[Sidenote: Omar visits Mecca, and founds Grand Square around Kâaba.]
Besides the journeys into Syria already mentioned, Omar only quitted
his residence at Medîna for the purpose of performing the annual
pilgrimage.[395] The governors of the various provinces were wont
to repair to Mecca to discharge at that season the same religious
obligation; and the Caliph used to improve the opportunity for
conferring with them, as they returned by way of Medîna, on such
provincial business as needed his attention. The occasion, in fact,
served the purposes of an annual report delivered orally of local
government. Several years before his death, Omar spent three weeks
within the sacred precincts of Mecca, and enlarged the space around the
Kâaba. The dwellings approaching too closely the Holy House were pulled
down, and the first step taken towards the formation of a grand square
and piazza fitting the place of worship for all nations. Some of the
owners refused to sell their patrimony; but the houses were demolished
nevertheless, and the price in compensation left at their disposal
in the treasury. The boundary pillars of the _Haram_, or Sacred
Territory, were renewed. And convenient halting places were constructed
at the pilgrim stations on the road to Medîna, for the custody of
which, and the care of the adjoining springs of water, the local tribes
were held responsible.
[Sidenote: Volcano near Medîna. A.H. XIX.]
The seventh year of Omar’s Caliphate was distinguished by the bursting
forth of volcanic fires from a hill called Leila in the neighbourhood
of Medîna. The Caliph gave command for a general distribution of alms
amongst the poor. The people joined in the pious work, and the volcano
stopped.[396]
[Sidenote: Disaster in Red Sea.]
In the same year a naval expedition was sent to Abyssinia, across the
Red Sea, to check attacks upon the Moslems on the coast, or on the
borders of Nubia. [Sidenote: A.H. XIX. A.D. 640.] The vessels were
wrecked, and the expedition suffered great privations. [Sidenote: Omar
dreads the sea.]The disaster led Omar to vow that he would never again
permit his troops to embark on an element fraught with such danger. It
was not till some years after his death that the Mussulmans gathered
courage to brave the risks of naval encounter in the Mediterranean
Sea.[397]
[Sidenote: Moghîra, Governor of Bussorah, arraigned on charge of
adultery, A.H. XVII. A.D. 638,]
In the governors appointed to control the turbulent cities of Kûfa
and Bussorah, Omar was not altogether fortunate. Otba, Governor of
Bussorah, died shortly after rescuing the unfortunate expedition to
Persepolis.[398] The choice of a successor in Moghîra ibn Shoba, was
ill-advised. Of rude and repulsive aspect, he had committed murder in
his youth at Tâyif, and Islam had not softened his nature or improved
his morals. The heartless insult which he offered to an aged Christian
princess of the house of Hîra, whom he demanded in marriage on the
capture of that city, has been handed down in Arab song. His harem,
stocked with fourscore wives and concubines, failed to satisfy his
vagrant passion. His enemies at Bussorah watched his movements from
an adjoining building; and through a party-window were witness to
an intrigue with a Bedouin lady, who had visited his house. When he
issued forth to lead the public prayer, they shouted him down as an
adulterer; and Omar summoned him to his court to answer the accusation.
[Sidenote: and acquitted.]By any reasonable law of evidence, the
crime had been established beyond a doubt; but, under the strange
ordinance promulgated by Mahomet on the misadventure of his favourite
wife, there was a flaw in the testimony of Ziâd, the fourth witness.
And the Caliph, with an ill-concealed groan at the miscarriage of
justice, ordered the witnesses who had brought the charge to be
scourged according to the law, and the accused released. ‘Strike hard,’
cried the barefaced culprit, addressing the unwilling minister of the
law;--‘strike hard, and comfort my heart thereby!’ ‘Hold thy peace,’
said Omar, ‘it wanted little to convict thee; and then thou shouldest
have been stoned to the death as an adulterer.’ The guilty chief was
silenced, but not abashed. He continued to reside in Medîna, a crafty
courtier at the Caliph’s gate.[399]
[Sidenote: Abu Mûsa, Governor of Bussorah,]
As successor to Moghîra, Omar appointed Abu Mûsa al Ashári, Governor
of Bussorah--a man of a very different stamp. Of small stature, smooth
in face, and little presence, he had yet distinguished himself on the
field of Honein; and had been the envoy of Mahomet to Hadhramaut.[400]
He wanted strength and firmness (as we shall see hereafter) for the
stormy times that were coming; but he was wise and sufficiently able
to hold the restless Bedouins of Bussorah in check. Belonging to
the tribe of Ashár, it was perhaps an advantage, in the jealousies
now growing up, that he was himself outside the clique of Mecca and
Medîna citizens. But he still felt the need of Coreishite influence
to support his government; and as he departed he said to Omar:
[Sidenote: is accused of malversation, but aquitted. A.H.
XXIII. A.D. 643.]‘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;’--so he took in his train nine-and-twenty men of
mark along with him. But even Abu Mûsa was near losing his command.
The story is curious, and illustrates Omar’s style of government.
After a successful campaign against the Kurds in Ispahan, Abu Mûsa,
as was usual, sent a deputation to Medîna to report the victory, and
carry to the Caliph the royal Fifth. Dhabba, a discontented citizen,
desired to be of the number, but was not allowed. He forthwith set out
alone to Medîna, and there laid certain charges against Abu Mûsa, who
was summoned by Omar to clear himself. After some days of confinement
to his quarters, he was brought before the Caliph, face to face with
his accuser. The first charge was that a band of youths, from amongst
the captives taken in the recent expedition, had been used by him as
personal attendants. ‘True,’ said Abu Mûsa; ‘these sons of Persian
chieftains did me good service as guides; therefore I paid their
ransom as prize of the column, and now, being free, they serve me.’
‘He speaketh the truth,’ answered Dhabba, ‘but what I said was also
true.’ The second accusation was that he held two landed properties.
‘I do,’ explained Abu Mûsa; ‘the one is for the subsistence of my
family, the other for the sustenance of the people.’ Dhabba answered
as before. The third was that the governor had in his household a girl
who fared too sumptuously. Abu Mûsa was silent. Again, he was charged
with making over the seals of office to Ziâd; which was admitted by Abu
Mûsa, ‘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 Mûsa admitted having done, with the view to
preserve his authority from being weakened by scurrilous attacks. The
Caliph received the explanation, and permitted Abu Mûsa to resume his
government, but desired him to send Ziâd and the girl to Medîna. He was
so pleased with the knowledge and readiness of Ziâd, who was already
foreshadowing the greatness of his administrative talent, that he sent
him back with the full approval of his employment in the affairs of
the province; but the girl was detained in confinement at Medîna. With
Dhabba the Caliph was very angry. Out of malice he had sought to ruin
Abu Mûsa by one-sided allegations. ‘Truth perverted is no better,’ Omar
said, ‘than is a lie; and a lie leadeth to hell fire.’[401]
[Sidenote: Sád deposed at Kûfa. A.H. XXI. A.D. 642.]
Kûfa remained for several years under the rule of Sád, its founder,
the conqueror of Chaldæa and Medâin. At length, in the ninth year of
Omar’s Caliphate, a faction sprang up against him. The Bedouin jealousy
of the Coreish had already begun to work; and Sád was accused of
unfairness in distributing the booty. There was also imputed to him
the lack of martial spirit and backwardness to show himself in the
field, a revival of the old charge made slanderously against him at
Câdesîya.[402] He was summoned, with his accusers, to Medîna; but the
main offence of which he was found guilty was one of little concern
to them. Sád in his public ministrations had cut short the customary
prayers; and Omar, deeming the offence unpardonable, deposed him.
[Sidenote: Changes in the government of Kûfa.]
To fill a vacancy requiring, beyond all others in the empire, skill,
experience, and power, Omar unwisely appointed Ammâr, who, having been,
as a persecuted slave at Mecca, one of Mahomet’s earliest converts,
possessed a merit second to none in the Faith, but was a man of no
ability, and, moreover, advanced in years.[403] The citizens of Kûfa
were not long in finding out his incapacity; and, at their desire,
Omar transferred Abu Mûsa from Bussorah to rule over them. But it was
no easy work to curb the factious populace. They took offence at his
slave for buying fodder as it crossed the bridge; and for so slight
a cause the Caliph, after he had been governor for a year, sent him
back again to Bussorah. Another nomination had already been determined
on, when the artful Moghîra, finding Omar alone in the Great Mosque,
wormed the secret out of him; and dwelling on the grave burden of a
hundred thousand turbulent citizens, suggested that the new candidate
was not fit to bear it. ‘But,’ said Omar, ‘the men of Kûfa have pressed
me to send them neither a headstrong tyrant, nor a weak and impotent
believer.’ ‘As for a weak believer,’ answered Moghîra, ‘his faith is
for himself, his weakness falleth on thee; as for a strong tyrant, his
tyranny injureth himself alone, and his strength is all for thee.’ Omar
was caught in the snare, and, the scandals of Bussorah notwithstanding,
was weak enough to confer on Moghîra the government of Kûfa. With all
his defects, Moghîra was, without doubt, the strong man needed for
that stiff-necked city; and he held his position there during the two
remaining years of Omar’s reign.[404]
[Sidenote: Evil arising from change of governors.]
The vacillation of Omar, and his readiness, at the complaint of the
citizens of Kûfa, once and again to shift their ruler, led that
turbulent populace to know their power, and gave head to the factious
temper already disquieting the city. It was a weak though kindly spirit
which led the Caliph to nominate Ammâr to a post for which he had no
aptitude whatever. Upon his recall, Omar asked whether his removal had
caused him pain. ‘It did not much rejoice me,’ replied Ammâr, ‘when
thou gavest me the command; but I confess that I was troubled when
thou didst depose me.’ To which Omar responded amiably: ‘I knew when I
appointed thee that thou wast not a man fitted to govern; but verily I
was minded (and here he quoted from the Corân) _to be gracious unto
the weak and humble ones in the land; and to make them patterns of
religion, and heirs of the good things in this present life_.’[405]
At the same time, he appointed another early convert of singular
religious merit, Abdallah ibn Masûd, who had also been a slave at
Mecca, to a post at Kûfa, for which, however, he was better fitted--the
chancellorship of the treasury. He had been the body-servant of the
Prophet, who was used to call him ‘light in the body, but weighty in
the Faith.’ He was learned in the Corân, and had a ‘reading’ of his
own, to which, as the best text, he held persistently against all
recensions.[406]
[Sidenote: Additional endowment to Bussorah.]
There was still a considerable jealousy between Bussorah and its more
richly endowed sister city. The armies of both had contributed towards
the conquest of Khuzistan, and had shared accordingly. But Bussorah,
with its teeming thousands, was comparatively poor; and Omar, 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 Sawâd administered by Kûfa.[407]
[Sidenote: Officers of State: judicial, military, fiscal, and
spiritual.]
In the more important governments, the judicial office was discharged
by a functionary who held his commission immediately from the
Caliph.[408] The control of all departments remained with the governor,
who, in virtue of his supreme office, led the daily prayers in public;
and, especially on the Fridays, gave an address, or sermon, which had
often an important political bearing. Military and fiscal functions,
which vested at the first, like all other powers, in the governor’s
hands, came eventually to be discharged by officers specially appointed
to the duty. Ministers of religion were also commissioned by the State.
From the extraordinary rapidity with which cities and provinces were
converted, risk of error rose, in respect both of creed and ritual, to
the vast multitudes of ‘new believers.’ To obviate this danger, Omar
appointed teachers in every country, whose business it was to instruct
the people--men and women separately--in the Corân and the requirements
of the Faith. Early in his reign, he imposed it also, as an obligation
to be enforced by the magistrate, that all, both great and small,
should attend the public services, especially on every Friday; and
that in the month of Ramadhan, the whole body of the Moslems should be
constant in the assembling of themselves together in their Mosques.
[Sidenote: Omar establishes era of Hegira. A.H. XVII.]
To Omar is popularly ascribed, not only the establishment of the
Dewân, and offices of systematic account, but also the regulation of
the Arabian year. He introduced for this purpose the Mahometan Era,
commencing with the new moon of the first month (Moharram) in the year
of the Prophet’s flight from Mecca. Hence the Mahometan year was named
the _Hegira_, or ‘Era of the Flight.’[409]
[Sidenote: Deterioration of social and domestic life.]
Of the state of Mahometan society at this period we have not the
materials for judging closely. Constant employment in the field, no
doubt, tended to arrest the action of the depraving influences which,
in times of ease and luxury, began to relax the sanctions and taint
the purity of Bedouin life. But there is ample indication that the
relations between the sexes were already rapidly deteriorating. The
baneful influence of polygamy, especially now that it was intensified
by the husband’s power of arbitrary divorce and the unlimited licence
of servile concubinage, was quickened by the vast multitudes of
slave-girls taken by the army, and distributed or sold, both among the
soldiers and the community at large. The wife of noble blood held,
under the old chivalrous code of the Arabs, 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, to whose level she
was gradually being lowered. If his slave-girls bore him children,
they became at once, as _Omm Walad_, free;[410] and in point of
legitimacy and inheritance the offspring was equal to the children of
the free and noble wife. Beauty and blandishment began to outshine
birth and breeding, and the favourite of the hour too often displaced
her noble mistress.
[Sidenote: Story of the Princess Leila.]
With the coarse sensualist, revelling like Moghîra in a harem well
stocked with Greek and Persian captives, this might have been expected.
But it was not the less the case in many a household 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 the Princess Leila will afford a sample. This beautiful
daughter of Judi, the Ghassanide chief slain at Dûma, was bought by
the victorious Khâlid from the common prize. The fame of her charms
had already reached Medîna, and kindled a romantic flame in the breast
of Abd al Rahmân, son of Abu Bekr. He was wild in his passion for her,
and sang his grief in verses still preserved.[411] At last he became
her happy master, and she was despatched from the camp to his home. At
once he freed her, and took her to wife. His love for this lady was
so great that, forsaking all other, he kept him only to her--so long
as her beauty lasted. She was the queen of his household. But after
a time she fell sick and began to waste away. The beauty went, and
with it her master’s love; and so her turn, too, came to be forsaken.
Then his comrades said to him: ‘Why thus keep her on, neglected and
forsaken here? Suffer her to go back to her people and her home.’ So
he suffered her. Leila’s fate was happy compared with that of others.
Tired of his toy, the owner would sell her to become, if still young
and beautiful, the plaything of another; or if, like Leila, disease or
years had fretted her beauty, to eke out the weary, wistless, hopeless
lot of a household slave.
[Sidenote: The use of wine.]
Relaxation of manners is significantly marked by the frequent notice
of punishment for drunkenness. There are not wanting instances of even
governors deposed for the offence. Omar was rigorous in imposing the
legal penalty. He did not shrink from commanding that stripes should
be inflicted, even upon his own son and his boon companions, for the
use of wine. At Damascus, the scandal grew to such a height that Abu
Obeida had to summon a band of the citizens, with the heroes Dhirâr and
Abu Jandal at their head, for the offence. Hesitating in such a case to
enforce the law, he acquainted Omar with the circumstances, and begged
that the offenders, being penitent, might be forgiven. An angry answer
came: ‘Gather an assembly,’ he wrote in the stern language of his early
days;--‘gather an assembly, and bring them forth. Then ask, ‘_Is
wine lawful, or is it forbidden?_ If they say _forbidden_,
lay eighty stripes upon each one of them; if they say _lawful_,
then behead them every one.’ They confessed that it was forbidden, and
submitted themselves to the ignominious punishment.[412]
[Sidenote: Influence of female slavery in the family.]
The weakness for wine may have been a relic of ‘the days of Ignorance,’
when the poet sang ‘Bury me under the roots of the juicy vine.’ But
there were influences altogether new at work in the vast accession to
the households of believers everywhere of captive women from other
lands. Greek, Persian, and Egyptian maidens abounded in every harem.
The Jews and Christians amongst them might retain their ancestral
faith, whether in freedom or bondage, whether as concubines or married
to their masters; and with their ancestral faith retain much also of
the habits of their fatherland; and the same may be said of the heathen
bondmaids from Africa and the Parsee slave-girls from Persia, even if
outwardly converted to the Moslem faith. The countless progeny of such
alliances, though ostensibly bred in the creed and practice of Islam,
must have inherited much of the nationality of the mothers by whom
they were nursed and brought up. The crowded harem, with its Divine
sanction of servile concubinage, was also an evil school for the rising
generation. Wealth, luxury, and idleness were under such circumstances
provocative of a licence and indulgence which too often degenerated
into debauchery.
[Sidenote: Intemperance, dissipation, and depravity.]
For, apart from the field of war and the strife of faction, Moslem life
was idle and inactive. There was nothing to relieve its sanctimonious
voluptuousness. The hours not spent in the harem were divided between
listless conversation in the city knots and clubs, and formal prayers
in the 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, which their presence imparted to
Arab society before Islam, was gone. The soft warm colouring of nature,
so beautifully portrayed in ancient Arabian song, was chilled and
overcast. Games of chance, and such like amusements, common to mankind,
were forbidden by law as stigmatised in the Corân; even speculation was
checked by the ban put upon interest for money lent. And so, Mussulman
life, cut off, beyond the threshold of the harem, from the ameliorating
influences of the gentler sex, began to assume that dreary, morose,
and cheerless aspect which it has ever since retained.[413] But nature
is not thus to be pent up and trifled with; the rebound must come;
and with the rebound, humanity, in casting off its shackles, burst
likewise through the barriers of the Faith. The gay youth of Islam,
cloyed with the dull delights of the sequestered harem, were tempted
when they went abroad to evade the restrictions of their creed, and to
seek in the cup, in music, games, and dissipation the excitement which
the young and the light-hearted will demand. In the greater cities,
intemperance and libertinism were rife. The canker spread, oftentimes
the worse because concealed. The more serious classes of believers were
scandalised not only by amusements, luxuries, and voluptuous living,
held to be inconsistent with their creed, but with immoralities of a
kind which may not even be named. The development of this evil came
later on, but the tares were already being sown even under the strict
and puritanical Caliphate of Omar.[414]
[Sidenote: Simplicity of Omar’s domestic life.]
Such excesses were, however, for the present confined to foreign parts.
At home, the first Caliphs, fortified by the hallowed associations of
Medîna, and at a distance from the scenes of luxury and temptation,
preserved the severe simplicity of ancient Arab life. This, it is true,
was not inconsistent (as we see even in the case of Mahomet) with the
uncontrolled indulgences of the harem. But as concerns the Caliphs
themselves, Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othmân, their lives in this respect
were, considering the licence of Islam, temperate and modest. Omar, we
are told, had no passion for the sex. Before the Hegira, he contracted
marriage with four wives, but two of these, preferring to remain at
Mecca, were thus separated from him. At Medîna, he married five more,
one of whom he divorced.[415] His last marriage was in the eighth year
of his Caliphate, when over fifty, perhaps nearer sixty, years of age.
Three years before, he had married a granddaughter of the Prophet,
under circumstances which cast a curious light on his domestic ways.
He conceived a liking for Omm Kolthûm, the young unmarried sister of
Ayesha, through whom a betrothal was arranged. But Ayesha found that
the light-hearted damsel had no desire to wed the aged Caliph. In this
dilemma she had recourse to Amru, who undertook the task of breaking
off the match. He broached the subject to Omar, who at first imagined
that Amru wished the maiden for himself. ‘Nay,’ said Amru, ‘that I do
not; but she hath been bred indulgently in the family of her father Abu
Bekr, and I fear that she may ill brook thine austere manners, and the
gravity of thy household.’ ‘But,’ replied Omar, ‘I have already engaged
to marry her; and how can I break it off?’ ‘Leave that to me,’ said
Amru; ‘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 Omm Kolthûm, even the daughter of
Aly and Fâtima, the granddaughter of the Prophet.’ So Omar married this
other maiden, and she bore him a son and daughter; but there was no
eventual issue in this line.[416]
[Sidenote: Death of persons of distinction.]
Many of those whose names we have been familiar with in the life of
Mahomet were now dropping off the scene. Fâtima, the daughter, and
Safia, the aunt, of Mahomet, Zeinab his wife, and Mary his Coptic
bond-maid, Yezid the son of Abu Sofiân, Abu Obeida, Khâlid, and Bilâl,
and many others who bore a conspicuous part in the great _rôle_
of the Prophet’s life, had all passed away, and a new race was
springing up in their place.
[Sidenote: Abu Sofiân, and Hind, his wife.]
Abu Sofiân himself survived till A.H. 32, and died aged eighty-eight
years. One of his eyes he lost at the siege of Tâyif, and the other at
the battle of the Yermûk, so that he had long been blind. He divorced
Hind, the mother of Muâvia--she who ‘chewed the liver’ of Hamza at the
battle of Ohod. As for her, we are told that, having received a loan
from Omar, she supported herself by merchandise. What was the reason of
the divorce does not appear.[417]