The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

A.H. 73-8G.
Musa ibn
Khazim's
career in
Khorasan
Defeated and
slain, 85 A.H.
704 A.D.
342 'ABD AL-MELIK [chap,
89 A.M., whcn he was superseded by Musa, of whom we shall
hear more anon.
The progress of the Muslim power during this Caliphate in
the far East and beyond the Oxus, was paralysed for a time
by the continued jealousies and discord of the Arab tribes that
formed its garrison. The story of Musa, son of Ibn Khazim,
illustrates both this feeling and the relation in which the
independent or protected States beyond the frontier stood
towards the Muslim Court. Ibn Khazim, it will be remembered,
having put many of the Beni Temim to death,
was deserted by his followers, and returning to Nisabur, sent
Musa to save his property at Merv, and place it in some
stronghold across the Oxus. This he did with a following
of one or two hundred mounted men. The Prince of Bokhara,
and other chiefs whom he approached, refused to meet him
;
but Tarkliun, king of Samarkand, received him into friendship.
One of his followers, however, having killed a Turkoman, he
was obliged to fly to Tirmidh, where, treated kindly by the
Chief, he took advantage of a feast to seize his fortress.
Established there, the Keisites who had served under his
father flocked to him, and refugees also from the army of
Ibn al-Ash'ath, to the number of some 8000. With their aid,
Musa beat back not only the Turkomans, but the Muslim
columns sent from Merv to dislodge him. Thus prospering,
his followers pressed him to recross the river and take
possession of Khorasan. But he was content with the country
beyond the Oxus, and with expelling the provincial residents
sent from Merv. Al-Muhallab, and after him his sons,
thought best to leave him alone ; and so for fifteen years
Musa was undisputed ruler of this great tract. At last, one
of Al-Muhallab's sons, thinking to please Al-Hajjaj, sent an
army against him, which was joined by 15,000 of Tarkhun's
Turks; and by these, after a long siege, Musa was defeated
and .slain, 85 a.h. But so inveterate were the tribal leanings
of Al-Hajjaj— (who, as we have lately seen, was vexed at
YezTd having spared some of Ibn al-Ash'ath's followers
because they were of Yemeni blood)—that he was little pleased
with tidings of the death of Milsa. " I bade Yezld," he said,
" to slay the Yemeni, and he replied that he had given him
quarter ;
and now his brother hastens to tell me of the death
of this noble Keisite, Musa, son of Ibn Khazim, as if, instead