Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/202



was not long before any lingering doubts of ʿOmar were put an end to, He was compelled at last by the warlike attitude of the Persian court to bid his armies take the field with the avowed object of dealing the Empire a final blow.

Though forced to fly, Yezdejird may have buoyed himself up with the hope that the Arabs, content with the fertile plain of Mesopotamia, would leave his possessions undisturbed beyond the mountain range. But the capture of Sūs, the ancient capital of Media, and the advance on Ispahān put an end to any such imagination. Arabian hordes still pressed upon the border; and their irruption into farther Persia was inevitable. The King, having resolved once more to stem the hostile tide, ordered the Governors of provinces to gather their forces together for a vigorous attack. Many of these enjoyed a virtually independent rule; but now their interests were knit together by a common danger. From the shores of the Caspian to the Indian Ocean, from the Oxus to the Persian Gulf, they rallied in vast numbers around the Royal standard on the plain below the snow-capped peak of Demavend, on the south of the Caspian Sea.

Tidings of the rising storm as they reached Saʿd were passed on directly to the Caliph. Each courier brought a fresh alarm. A host of 150,000 was assembled under a general named Fīruzān; now encamped at Hamadān, now marching on Ḥolwān, they would soon be close to Al-Kūfa, at their very doors. The crisis, no doubt, was serious. Any reverse on the mountain border would loosen hold upon the 173