With such a danger threatening their homes, it was not to be expected that 'Alí's troops would consent to march again on Syria until they had made an end of these schismatics. 'Alí, still for clemency, suffered such of them as would to withdraw themselves from the Khárijite camp. Half of them availed themselves of this offer; the remaining two thousand, scornfully rejecting all overtures, stood their ground and perished almost to a man, while of 'Alí's 60,000 warriors only seven fell. This happened in May or June, A.D. 658, and served but to render more implacable the enmity of the surviving Khárijites towards 'Alí, whom henceforth they hated even more than they hated Mu'áwiya. 'Alí's troops, moreover, refused to march against his rival until they had rested and recruited themselves. “Our swords are blunted,” they said, “our arrows are spent, and we are wearied of warfare; let us alone, that we may set our affairs in order, and then we will march.”* But instead they began to slip away as occasion offered, until at length the camp was left empty; and Mu'áwiya, waxing Gathering misfortunes. ever bolder as he saw the increasing difficulties against which his rival had to struggle, seized Egypt and stirred up revolt even in Baṣra; while fresh Khárijite risings extending throughout the south of Persia (the people of which were won “by the specious and inflammatory cry that payment of taxes to an ungodly Caliph was but to support his cause, and as such intolerable”),
* Truce with Mu'áwiya. followed by a series of untoward and painful events, so broke 'Alí's spirit that in A.D. 660 he was fain to conclude a treaty which left Mu'áwiya in undisturbed possession of Syria and Egypt. A year later Assassination of 'Alí, Jan. 25, A.D. 661. (January, 661) 'Alí was assassinated in the mosque of Kúfa by Ibn Muljam and two other Khárijite fanatics. Thus died, in his sixtieth year, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, the last of the four Orthodox Caliphs of the Sunnís, the first of the Shí'ite Imáms. He was succeeded by al-Ḥasan (the eldest of the three sons* born to Succession and abdication of al-Ḥasan. him by Fáṭima, the Prophet's daughter), who, on August 10, 661, tamely abdicated, leaving Mu'áwiya undisputed master of the great Muhammadan Empire, and the Umayyad power firmly established and universally acknowledged.The triumph of the Umayyads was in reality, as Dozy well says, the triumph of that party which, at heart, was hostile to Islám; and the sons of the Prophet's most inveterate foes now, unchanged at heart, posed as his legitimate successors and vicegerents, and silenced with the sword those who dared to murmur against their innovations. Nor was cause for murmuring far to seek even in the reign of Mu'áwiya, who, in the splendour of his court at Damascus, and in the barriers which he set between himself and his humbler subjects, took as his model the Byzantine Emperors and Persian Kings rather than the first vicars of the Prophet. In the same spirit he nominated his son Yazíd as his successor, and forced this unwelcome nomination on the people of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Madína.
It was still worse when, on the death of Mu'áwiya (April, A.D. 680), Yazíd came to the throne. No name is more Yazíd I (A.D. 680-683). execrated throughout Islám, but most of all in Persia, than his. A Persian who will remain unmoved by such epithets as “liar,” “scoundrel,” or “robber,” will fly into a passion if you call him Yazíd, His very name execrated by the Persians. Shimr, or Ibn Ziyád. A Persian poet, who had been rebuked for adding a curse to his name, retorted, “If God can pardon Yazíd, then He will very surely pardon us for cursing him!” Ḥáfidh has been severely censured because the first ode in his díwán begins with the second hemistich of the following verse from the poems of this impious Caliph:—
Ana'l-masmúmu má 'indí bi-tiryáqin wa lá ráqí;
Adir ka'san wa náwil-há, aláyá ayyuha's-sáqí!
“I, drugged with poison, have neither antidote nor guarding
charm;
Pass the cup and give it me to drink, O cupbearer!”
Ahlí of Shíráz, seeking to apologise for “the Tongue of the Unseen” (Lisánu'l-Ghayb), as the admirers of Ḥáfidh call him, says:—
“One night I saw Master Ḥáfidh in a dream;
I said, ‘O thou who art peerless in excellence and learning,
Wherefore didst thou take to thyself this verse of Yazíd,
Notwithstanding all this virtue and eminence?’
He answered, ‘Thou understandest not this matter;
The infidel's goods are lawful spoil to the true believer!’”
But even this excuse would not pass. Kátibí of Níshápúr replies:—
“Greatly do I marvel at Master Ḥafidh,
So that thereby understanding is reduced to helplessness.
What virtue did he perceive in Yazíd's verse
That in his díwán he first sings of him?Although to the true believer the infidel's goods
Are lawful spoil, and herein no discussion is possible,
Yet is it a very shameful act for the lion
To snatch a morsel from the mouth of the dog!”
Needless to say Yazíd has found defenders amongst European historians, to some of whom the reversal of unanimous verdicts Character of Yazíd. is always an alluring aim. Nor, indeed, is his personality repulsive. Born of a Bedouin mother,* bred in the free air of the desert, an eager and skilful huntsman, a graceful poet,* a gallant lover, fond of wine, music, and sport, and little concerned with religion, we might, for all his godlessness, levity, and extravagance, have suffered his handsome face,* his pretty verses, his kingly qualities, and his joyous appreciation of life to temper our judgment had it not been for the black stain which the tragedy of Kerbelá has left on his memory. “His reign,” says al-Fakhrí, “according to the more correct statement, lasted three years and six months. In the first year he slew al-Ḥusayn, the son of 'Alí (on both of whom be Peace!); and in the second year he sacked Madína and looted it for three days; and in the third year he attacked the Ka'ba.”
Of these three outrages, the first in particular sent a shudder
of horror throughout the Muhammadan world, nor can any
The tragedy of
Kerbelá (Oct.
10, A.D. 680).
one endowed with feeling read unmoved the
lamentable tale. It was not only a crime but a
gigantic blunder, whereby Yazíd and his execrable
minions, Ibn Ziyád, Shimr, and the rest irretrievably alienated
from the House of Umayya not the love or loyalty—for there
was little enough of that already—but the tacit toleration of
all those who loved the Prophet or cared for the religion which
he had founded. The Shí'a, or “Faction” of 'Alí, had, as we
have seen, hitherto been sadly lacking in enthusiasm and self-
“This is a catastrophe whereof I care not to speak at length, deeming it alike too grievous and too horrible. For verily it was a Al-Fakhrí on Kerbelá. catastrophe than which naught more shameful hath happened in Islám. Verily, as I live, the murder of ['Alí] the Commander of the Faithful was the Supreme Calamity; but as for this event, there happened therein such foul slaughter and leading captive and shameful usage as cause men's flesh to creep with horror. And again I have dispensed with any long description thereof because of its notoriety, for it is the most celebrated of catastrophes. May God curse every one who had a hand therein, or who ordered it, or took pleasure in any part thereof! From such may God not accept any substitute or atonement! May He place them with those whose deeds involve the greatest loss, whose effort miscarries even in this present life, while they fondly imagine that they do well!”