The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER XXX
DANGEROUS FACTION AT AL-KUFA.
DISSATISFACTION.
GROWING
33-34 A.H. 654-655 A.D.
Seditious
elements at
work.
Ibn as-Saud;"
preaches
sedition in
Egypt.
32 A.H.
653 A.D.
Towards the close of 'Othman's reign, the hidden ferment,
which (Syria perhaps excepted) had long been everywhere
at work, began to make its appearance on the surface. The
Arab tribes at large were displeased at the pretensions of
Koreish. Koreish themselves were divided and ill at ease,
the greater part being jealous of the Umeiyad house and
the Caliph's favourites. And temptation to revolt was
fostered by the weakness and vacillation of 'Othman
himself.
Ibn 'Amir had been now three years governor of Al-
Basra, when Ibn Saba' (or, as he is commonly called, Ibn
as-Sauda), a Jew from the south of Arabia, appeared there,
and professed the desire to embrace Islam. It soon appeared
that he was steeped in disaffection towards the existing
government,— a firebrand of sedition ; as such he was
expelled successively from Al-Basra, Al-Kufa, and Syria,
but not before he had given a dangerous impulse to the
already discontented classes there. At last he found a
safe retreat in Egypt, where he became the setter forth of
strange and startling doctrines. Mohammad was to come
again, even as the Messiah was. Meanwhile 'Ali was his
legate.^ 'Othman was a usurper, and his governors a set
of godless tyrants.
Impiety and wrong were rampant every-
^ What led Ibn as-Sauda (whose name means son of the black
woman, his mother being a negress) to entertain transcendental ideas
of 'All does not appear ; and indeed the notices of an " 'Alid sect" at
this period sound somewhat anticipatory and unreal. See Tab. i. 2942.
21c