Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/126



left Al-Muthanna, after the great battle of Al-Buweib, ravaging at will the terror-stricken coasts of Chaldæa. But another wave of war was about to sweep over the unhappy land. A new movement was taking place at Al-Medāin. The Persian nobles, chafing under the weakness of Rustem and the feeble Queen, began to cry out that these were dragging the Empire down to ruin. The ladies of the Court assembled to search whether any king might not yet be discovered of the royal blood. And so Yezdejird was found, saved as a child from the massacre of Siroes, now youth of twenty-one. He was placed upon the throne. Around the young King the nobles rallied loyally, and something was rekindled of ancient patriotic fire. Troops were gathered, Mesopotamia reoccupied, and the cities as far as Al-Ḥīra strongly garrisoned.

The people returned to their allegiance; and Al-Muthanna, finding his diminished army unable to cope with the rising which in the Spring assumed such formidable dimensions, again withdrew behind the Euphrates to Dhu Ḳār. He sent an urgent message to ʿOmar of the new perils threatening all around. The danger was met bravely by the Caliph. "I swear by the Lord," was his emphatic word, "that I will smite down the proud princes of Persia with the sword of the princes of Arabia." It was clearly impossible permanently to hold Mesopotamia while it was dominated 97