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.