A literary history of Persia

224 THE UMAYYAD PERIODPersia (the people of which were won "by the specious andinflammatory cry that payment of taxes to an ungodly Caliphwas but to support his cause, and as such intolerable "),*Ii^a e hw7yafollowed by a series of untoward and painful events,so broke 'All's spirit that in A.D. 660 he was fainto conclude a treaty which leftMu'awiya inundisturbed possession of Syria and Egypt. A year later(January, 661) 'AH was assassinated in the mosqueAssassination of c T - , e \ TU n/r i- j i tr\ iAH, Jan. 25,of Kufajby ibn, jvluljam and two other Khanjitefanatics. Thus died, in his sixtieth year, theProphet's cousin and son-in-law, the last of the four OrthodoxCaliphs of the Sunnis, the first of the Shi'ite Imams. He wassucceeded by al-Hasan (the eldest of the three sons 2 born tohim by Fatima, the Prophet's daughter), who, onSuccession and , f , , , .i, ,abdication ofAugust 10, ooi, tamely abdicated, leavingal-Hasan. // i- i /- iMu'awiya undisputed master of the greatMuhammadan Empire, and theUmayyad power firmlyestablished and universally acknowledged.The triumph of the Umayyads was inreality, as Dozy wellsays, the triumph of that party which, at heart, was hostile toIslam ;and the sons of the Prophet's most inveterate foesnow, unchanged at heart, posed as his legitimate successorsand vicegerents, and silenced with the sword those who daredto murmur against their innovations. Nor was cause formurmuring far to seek even in the reign of Mu'dwiya, who, inthe splendour of his court at Damascus, and in the barrierswhich he set between himself and his humbler subjects, tookas his model the Byzantine Emperors and Persian Kings ratherthan the first vicars of the Prophet. In the same spirit henominated his son Yazid as his successor, and forced thisunwelcome nomination on the people of the Holy Cities ofMecca and Madhia.1Muir, op. cit., p. 292.9One of these died in infancy. The other was al-Husayn.