Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/152

 637] sallow and unwholesome look, asked the cause. They replied that the city air did not suit the Arab temperament. Whereupon, he ordered inquiry for some more healthy and congenial spot; such as, approaching nearer the desert air, and well supplied with wholesome water, would not be cut off from ready help in any time of need. After diligent search along the desert outskirts, they found no place answering so well as the plain of Al-Kūfa, not far from Al-Ḥīra, on the banks of the western branch of the Euphrates. ʿOmar confirmed the choice, and left it open for each man either to remain at Al-Medāin, or transfer his habitation thither. The new Capital suited the Arabs well, and to it accordingly they migrated in great numbers. The dwellings, as at Al-Baṣra, were made at first of reeds. But fires were frequent; and after a disastrous conflagration, the Caliph gave permission that both cities might be built of brick. "The flitting camp," he wrote, "is the warrior's proper place. But if ye must have a permanent abode, be it so; only let no man have more houses than three for his wives and children, nor exceed the modest exemplar of the Prophet's dwelling-place." So the City was rebuilt, and the streets laid out in regular lines. The centre was kept an open square, in which was erected a Mosque with a portico for shade; and, for ornament, pillars of marble brought away from Al-Ḥīra. Saʿd built himself a spacious edifice, and reared in front of it a gateway, to prevent intrusion from the market-place hard by. The rumour of "the Castle of Saʿd" troubled the simple-minded Caliph, and he sent a Companion with a rescript commanding that the gateway should be pulled down. Arrived at Al-Kūfa, the envoy, invited by Saʿd to enter his mansion as a guest, declined. Saʿd came forth, and received this letter at his hands:—"It hath been reported to me that thou hast builded for thyself a palace, and people call it The Castle of Saʿd; moreover thou hast reared a gateway betwixt thee and the people. It is not thy castle; rather is it the castle of perdition. What is needful for the treasury, that thou mayest guard and lock; but the gateway which shutteth out the people from thee, that thou shalt break down." Saʿd obeyed the order; but he protested that his object in building the portal had been falsely reported, and ʿOmar accepted the excuse.