Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/204

642–3] in the great fire-temple there, were delivered up. The chiefs and people of all western Persia submitted and became tributary. The booty was immense; and amongst it two caskets of rare gems, which ʿOmar at first placed in the treasury at Medīna. Next morning, the courier was recalled, ʿOmar having seen a vision of angels who warned him of punishment hereafter if he kept the jewels. "Take them hence," he said; "sell them, and let the price be divided amongst the army." They fetched 4,000,000 dirhems.

ʿOmar had now embarked on an enterprise from which there was no returning. The proud Yezdejird refused to yield, and the Caliph no longer scrupled pursuing him to the bitter end. The warlike races south of the Caspian again gathered under Isfandiyār, brother of the ill-fated Rustem, for the defence of Ar-Reiy. The Muslims advanced to meet them; and another great victory placed the City at their mercy. Isfandiyār retired to Azerbījān; again defeated, he was taken prisoner; then, despairing of success, he changed sides, and made common cause with the invading army. From Ar-Reiy, Yezdejird fled to Ispahān; finding no shelter there, he hurried to Kirmān, and thence retired to Balkh. At. last he took refuge in Merv, whence he sought aid from the Turks, and even from the Emperor of China. The former espoused his cause; and for several years the contest was waged with varying success in the vicinity of Merv. But in the end the Turkish hordes retired, and with them Yezdejird, across the Oxus. The conflict was subsequently renewed, but Yezdejird never recovered his authority; bereft of his treasures and deserted by his followers, who in vain besought him to tender submission, he survived till the reign of ʿOthmān, when, as we shall see, he met with an ignoble death.

On the fall of Ar-Reiy, the Arabs turned their arms against the various Persian provinces. Some of these, though subordinate in name, had been, in point of fact, their own masters; and now, even when the heart had ceased to beat, maintained a dangerous vitality. Six columns, drawn from Al-Kūfa and Al-Baṣra, and continually replenished by new Arabian levies thirsting for rapine and renown, invaded as many different regions, each falling under the government