Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/142



desire of the Caliph, Saʿd paused for a while to let the weary troops refit. Fragments of the defeated host escaped in the direction of Babylon, and rallied there. After two months' rest, Saʿd, now recovered from sickness, advanced to attack them. On the march he re-entered Al-Ḥīra. It was the third time the unfortunate city had been taken. Punishment for the last helpless defection was now the doubling of its tribute. Soon supplanted by Al-Kūfa, a few miles distant, the once royal city of Al-Ḥīra speedily dwindled into insignificance. But the neighbouring palace of the Khawarnak, beautiful residence of a bygone Dynasty, was still left standing by the Lake of Najaf, and was sometimes visited as a country-seat by the Caliphs and their Court in after days.

The scattered Persian troops rallied first at the Tower of Babel, and then, recrossing the Euphrates, halted under the great mound of Babylon. Driven from thence, they fell back upon the Tigris. Saʿd pitched a standing camp at Babylon, from whence he cleared the plain of Dura, fifty miles broad, from the Euphrates to the Tigris. The territorial chiefs from all sides now came in, some as converts, some as tributaries; and throughout the tract between the two rivers, Muslim rule again became supreme. Several months passed; and at last, in the summer, Saʿd found himself able, with the full consent of ʿOmar, now in the second year of his reign, to advance upon Al-Medāin. 113