Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/183

 154 distributed himself amongst the famished people. ʿAmr despatched food from Palestine by camels, and also by shipping from the port of Ayla. Supplies came likewise from Chaldæa. The beasts that bore the burden were slain by twenties daily, and served, together with their freight, to feed the citizens of Medīna. After nine months of sore trial, a solemn Assembly was called by ʿOmar; and in answer (we are told) to a prayer offered up by Al-ʿAbbās, the Prophet's aged uncle, the heavens were overcast and rain descending in heavy showers drenched the land. Grass sprang rapidly, the Bedawīn were sent back to their pasture-lands, and plenty again prevailed. Out of the calamity there grew a permanent traffic with the north, and the markets of the Ḥijāz continued long to be supplied from Syria, and eventually by sea from Egypt.

The famine was followed, but in a different region, by an evil of still greater magnitude. The plague broke out in Syria: from the town at which it began (Emmaus) it was called the plague of ʿAmwās; and, attacking with special virulence the Arabs at Ḥīmṣ and Damascus, devastated the whole province. Crossing the desert, it spread even as far as Al-Baṣra. Consternation seized every rank. High and low fell equally before the scourge. Men were struck down and died as by a sudden blow. ʿOmar's first impulse was to summon Abu ʿObeida to Medīna for the time, lest he too should fall a victim to the fell disease. Knowing his chivalrous spirit, ʿOmar veiled the purpose, and simply ordered him to come "on an urgent affair." Abu ʿObeida divined the cause, and choosing rather to share the danger with his people, begged to be excused. ʿOmar, as he read the answer, burst into tears. "Is Abu ʿObeida dead?" they asked. "No, he is not dead," said ʿOmar, "but it is as if he were." The Caliph then set out himself for Syria, but not far from Tebūk he was met by Abu ʿObeida and others from the scene of the disaster. A council was called, and ʿOmar yielded to the wish of the majority that he should return home again. “What,” cried some of his courtiers, "and flee from the decree of God?" "Yea," replied the Caliph, wiser than they,—"if we flee, it is but from the decree of God unto the decree of God." He then commanded Abu ʿObeida to carry the Arab population in a body out of the