The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

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A.n. ri8o] THE TRAGEDY OF KERP.ALA 309
to effect this without resort to arms, he ordered 'Omar to A.TI. 60-61.
cut off access to the river, hopin^r that thirst miijht thus force shamir sent
surrender. But .\l-Hosein, who feared the cruel tyrant to bring him
'Obeidallah worse than death, stood firm to his conditions. .Moiiunam.
He even prevailed on 'Omar to urge that he might be sent
direct to the Caliph's court. Well had it been for the
Umeiyad house, if the prayer had been agreed to. But
impatient of delay, 'Obeidallah sent instead a heartless
creature called Shamir (name never uttered by Muslim lips
without a shudder) to say that 'Omar must dally no longer
with Al-Hosein, but, dead or alive, bring him in to Al-Kufa
should 'Omar hesitate, Shamir was to supersede him in command.^
Thus forced, 'Omar forthwith surrounded closel)'
the little camp. Al-Hosein resolved to fight the battle to
the bitter end. The scene that followed is still fresh in the
believers' eye ; and as often as the fatal day comes round, the
loth of the first month, it is commemorated with the wildest
grief and frenzy. Encircled with harrowing detail, it never
fails to rouse horror and indignation to the utmost pitch.
The fond believer forgets that Al-Hosein, leader of the band,
having broken his allegiance, and yielded himself to a
treasonable, though impotent, design upon the throne, was
committing an offence that endangered society, and demanded
swift suppression. He can see nought but the cruel and
ruthless hand that slew with few exceptions all in whose
veins flowed their Prophet's sacred blood. And, in truth,
the simple story needs no adventitious colouring to touch
the heart.
'
Shamir ibn Dhi'l-Jaushan is a name never pronounced by the pious
MusHm but with ejaculatory curse. 'Obeidallah (so the story goes) was
at first inclined to concede the prayer of Al-Hosein, as urged by 'Omar,
for a safe-conduct to the Caliph at Damascus, when Shamir stepped
forward, and said that 'Obeidallah, for the credit of his name, must
insist on the pretender's surrender at discretion, So he obtained from
'Obeidallali a letter to 'Omar, threatening that if he failed to bring Al-
Ijoscin in, Shamir should taketlie command, and also obtain the government
of Ar-Reiy in his stead. The name is variously pronounced as
Shamir, Shomar, or Shimr.
The whole of the sad tale becomes at this point so intensified, and
so overlaid with 'Alid fiction, that it is impossible to believe a hundredtli
part of wlial the heated imagination of the Shi'a has invented. The
names are all ranged, either on one side or on the other (especially wiih
the Shi'a) as models of piety, or as demons of apostasy.