The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

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418
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ARAB
TRII'.AT. FEUDS [chap, lviii.
A.H. 64- Ribfib and Hanzala. Through the generous action of
_^^ Temlm no blood was shed, and the collective triVjes chose
an Amir, until Ibn az-Zubeir should send them a governor,
which he did three months later. The feud passed, but the
rivalry remained ;
and under Al-Muhallab Temim resented
Khoriisan.
being made second to the Azd. A wholesome fear of the
Khawarij also helped to keep things quiet.
Position in In Khorasfm the Arabs were opposed by Turks and
Persians, but this did not prevent them from fighting
amongst themselves. The country was too like their old
home, and Temim especially kept up the old traditions.
Khorasan was conquered under 'Othman by Arabs of
Al-Basra, and it remained a colony of that city, whose
governor generally regarded the governor of Khorasan as
his lieutenant. 1 The western part of the country came to
be occupied by Keis, the eastern by Bekr and Temim. The
western capital was Nisabur, the eastern Merv. Sijistan to
the south went along with it, and both were under Al-Basra.
Ziyad and his sons ruled them for long. It was in Sijistan
that the feud between Rabi'a (Bekr) and Modar (Temim)
broke out afresh over the choice of an Amir. It spread
to Khorasan where Al-Muhallab had been left in charge.
His tribe, the Azd, were not strong in Khorasan, however,
and the other chiefs deprived him of one part of his province
after another. Temim supported 'Abdallah ibn Khazim,
who was not one of them, but of Suleim, another Modar
tribe, and opposed to Bekr, Ibn Khazim drove Bekr out of
Khorasan into Sijistan, This was in the year 684 a.d. (64-65
A.H.), and was simultaneous with the feud between Kelb
and Keis in the west. Ibn Khazim tried to prevent Temim
settling in Herat, so they waged a guerilla warfare upon him
until he perished. But immediately the clans of Temim
began to fight amongst themselves, until the Khorasan Arabs,
foreseeing that these incessant feuds would end in their ruin,
begged 'Abd al-Melik to send them a governor who would
stand above party strife. He sent them a Koreishite of the
house of Umeiya, " a jovial and generous man," but no soldier.
1
Wellhausen remarks that along with the campaigns of the tribes
as a whole, there went many anonymous expeditions of individual tribes.
This reminds us of the conquest of Canaan as related in the book of
Joshua and in that of Judges.