The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER LV
CAF.U'HATE UF HISHAM. COXTIXUKI) DECADEN'CE OF THE
U.MEINAl) DVXASTV
105-125 A.H. 724-743 A.D.
HiSHAM now entered peaceably on a long reign. His mother llisham.
was of Makhzum, once the principal gens of Koreish, and Ijl \d
he showed favour to her brothers. Exemplary as a true
believer, he banished, like 'Omar II. , from his Court all things
inconsistent with the profession of Islam, and his mild and
generally upright administration might have restored
prosperity to the Empire, had not the evil genius of his
predecessors still cast its blight upon the throne. There
was much besides to cause depression. His lieutenants were
not always happily chosen, and they so played upon his
two defects of character, avarice and suspicion, as sometimes
Lo betray him into unguarded and cruel action, as well as
cause him to miss the friendship and popularity which a
well-timed liberality would have secured. Military enterprise
was nowhere successful in his reign, and indeed
repeatedly suffered severe disaster. From the first Hisham
threw himself into the arms of the Yemeni party, and thus
alienated from his rule the Northern faction.
From early times, anterior even to the birth of Mohammad, AmasoniMu
there existed a rivalry between the two chief stocks of
^
|>et\vcen the
liouses of
Koreish, the descendants namely of 1 lashim and of Umeiya.^ lUshiin and
l/'meiya.
The Prophet, sprung from the former, suffered bitter
opposition, both in field and forum, from the Umeiyads, till
the concjuest of Mecca converted the whole body of Ivoreish,
and welded friend and foe equally within the bonds of Islam.
'
See Lt/e of Mohammad., pp. ex ff. 'I"hc acconipanyiiiL; tabic will
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