The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

2i8 'OTHMAN [chap. XXX.
A.H. 33-34. defeasible rights of Koreish. Subdued by several weeks of
such treatment, they were sent on to I.Iims, where the
Governor subjected them for a month to like indignities.
Whenever he rode forth, he showered invectives on them as
traitors working to undermine the empire. Their spirit at last
was broken, and they were released ;
but, ashamed to return
to Al-Kufa, they remained in Syria, excepting Al-Ashtar,
who made his way secretly to Medina.
Sa'id Months passed, and things did not mend at Al-Kufa.
expelleJfrom
^q^^ of the leading men, whose influence could have kept the
34 A.H. populace in check, were away on military command in
655 A.D., Persia ; and the malcontents, in treasonable correspondence
with the Egyptian faction, gained head daily. In an unlucky
moment, Sa'ld planned a visit to Medina, 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. Al-Ashtar, too, was soon upon the scene. Taking
his stand at the door of the Mosque, he stirred up the
people
against Sa'ld. " He had himself just left that despot," he
said, "at Medina, plotting their ruin, counselling the Caliph
to cut down their stipends, even the women's
;
and calling
the broad fields which they had conquered 77/^ Garden
of Koreis/i." The deputy of Sa'ld, with the better class of
the inhabitants, sought in vain to still the rising stonn.
He enjoined patience. " Patience ! " cried the warrior Al-
Ka'ka', in scorn "
;
ye might as well roll back the great river
when in flood, as quell the people's uproar till they have the
thing they want." Yezld, brother of one of the exiles, then
raised a standard, and called upon the enemies of the tyrant,
who was then on his way back, to bar his entry into Al-Kufa.
So they marched out as far as Al-Kadislya, and sent forward
to tell Sa'ld that " they did not need him any more." Little
anticipating such reception, Sa'id remonstrated with them.
" It had sufficed," he said, "to have 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. His servant, endeavouring to push on, was
slain by Al-Ashtar; and Sa'ld himself fled back to Medina,
where he found 'Othman terrified by tidings of the outbreak,
and prepared to yield whatever the insurgents might demand.
At their desire he appointed Abu Musa, late Governor of