Page:Muhammad Diyab al-Itlidi - Historical Tales and Anecdotes of the Time of the Early Khalîfahs - Alice Frere - 1873.djvu/209

180 his church as the object of their superstitious reverence, and issued an order that all the Arabs in the neighbourhood should perform the pilgrimage to his church at Sanaʾa. He also sent missionaries to the Hijáz and Nejd, and wrote to the King of Abyssinia telling him that he intended forcing the Arabs to abandon the Kaʾabah and substitute this temple as the object of their pilgrimage. This design being speedily known throughout Arabia, excited the indignation of all the pagan tribes, especially the custodians of the Kaʾabah, and accordingly Abrahá's messengers were badly received in the Hijáz, and one of them was murdered by a man of the tribe of Kinânah. Another man of the same tribe was bribed by the guardians of the Kaʾabah to defile the church at Sanaʾa. He effected this during the preparation for a high festival; but Abrahá having discovered the author of this indignity, vowed to take signal vengeance by the total destruction of Mekkah and its Kaʾabah. The war which followed is well known in Arabian history, and is called in the Kurân "The War of the Elephant." Abrahá was at first successful, but the Christian army was afterwards destroyed, by miraculous agency as Arabian authors maintain, though others, with more probability, suggest that it perished either from want of provisions, or from an epidemic disease, most probably small- pox. Abrahá himself, with a very small remnant of his army, reached Sanaʾa, where he soon after died, 570. He was succeeded by his son Yascoom, who reigned two years, and he was succeeded by his brother Masrûk, under whose viceroyalty the Arabs grew impatient of the Christian yoke, and at length found a liberator in Saïf, the last of the old Himyarite race. This Saïf made his way to Constantinople, and implored the emperor to send an army to repel the Abyssinians. The emperor being a Christian, refused to aid the Jews against those done so, he showed them where Saʾîd was. And they found him prostrate upon the ground, praying