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644-655] candidates, all of whom were more or less incompetent. He therefore nominated a Board of Election (Shūrā), composed of six of the most respected of his colleagues, with the instruction to select from their midst the new Caliph. Ali, Othman, Zubair, Ṭalḥa, Sa'd ibn Abī Waḳḳāṣ and 'Abd-ar-Raḥmān ibn 'Auf had now to decide the fate of Islām. After long hesitation they agreed on Othman, probably because he appeared to be the weakest and most pliable, and each of them hoped to rule, first through him and afterwards in succession to him. This choice looks like a reaction; they had had enough of Omar's energetic and austere government — for he upheld the autocratic power of the representative of the prophet, even as against the proudest and most successful generals, probably less from personal ambition than from religious and political conviction. They speculated correctly, but they overlooked the fact that in a race to profit by the weakness of Othman his own family had a start which could not be overtaken. Othman was however an Umayyad, i.e. he belonged to the old Mecca aristocracy, who for a long time were the chief opponents of the prophet, but who, after his victory, had with fine political instinct seceded to his camp and had even migrated to Medina, in order to emulate the new religious aristocracy created by Mahomet. In this they succeeded only too well, for they counted among them men of remarkable intelligence, with whom the short-sighted intriguers, the honest blusterers and the pious unpolitical members of the circle of Companions could not keep up. They now induced Othman, who had at once nominated his cousin Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam to be the omnipotent Secretary of State, to fill all the positions of any importance or of any value with Umayyads or their partisans.

Later on Othman was reproached on all sides with this nepotism, which caused great discontent throughout the entire empire. To this discontent there was added an increasing reaction against the system of finance, founded by Omar and carried on without alteration by Othman. The lust of booty had led the Arabs out to battle, and the spoils belonged to them after deduction of the so-called prophet's fifth. But what was to be done with the enormous landed property which victors in such small numbers had acquired, and who was to receive the tribute paid yearly by the subjected peoples? Payment of this money to the respective conquerors of the individual territories would have been the most logical method of dealing with it, but with the fluctuations in the Arabian population this plan would have caused insuperable difficulties, apart from which it would have been from a statesman's point of view extremely unwise. Omar therefore founded a state treasury. The residents of the newly formed military camps received a fixed stipend; the surplus of the receipts flowed to Medina, where it was not indeed capitalised but utilised for state pensions, which the Caliph decreed according to his own judgment to the members of the theocracy, graduated according to rank and dignity. Under the impartial Omar