Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/210

 638–44] before it crossed the bridge; and for so slight a cause, after he had been Governor but for a year, the Caliph sent him back again to Al-Bṣsra. ʿOmar was on the point of making appointed in another nomination, when the artful Al-Moghīra wormed the secret from him; and, dwelling on the burden of a hundred thousand turbulent citizens, suggested that the candidate in view was not fit to bear it. "But," said ʿOmar, "the men of Al-Kūfa have pressed me to send them neither a headstrong tyrant, nor a weak and impotent believer." "As for a weak believer," answered Al-Moghīra, "his faith is for himself, his weakness thine; as for a strong tyrant, his tyranny injureth himself, his strength is for thee." ʿOmar, caught in the snare, was weak enough to confer on Al-Moghīra, his former scandal notwithstanding, the government of Al-Kūfa. With all his defects, Al-Moghīra was, without doubt, the strong man needed for that stiff-necked city; and he held his position during the two remaining years of ʿOmar's reign.

About the same time, ʿOmar appointed another early convert of singular religious merit, ʿAbdallah ibn Masʿūd, who had in early days, like ʿAmmār, been a slave at Mecca, to a post at Al-Kūfa, for which, however, he was better fitted,—the charge of the treasury. He had been the body-servant of the Prophet, who was used to call him "light in body, but weighty in faith." He was learned in the Ḳorʾān, and had a "reading" of his own, to which as the best text, he held persistently against all recensions.

There was still considerable jealousy between Al-Baṣra and its richer rival. The armies of both had contributed towards the conquest of Khūzistān, and had shared accordingly. But Al-Baṣra, with its teeming thousands, was comparatively poor; and ʿOmar, to equalise the benefits of all who had served in the earlier campaigns, assigned to them increased allowances, to be met from the surplus revenues of the territories administered at Al-Kūfa.

In the more important governments, the judicial office was discharged by a functionary who held his commission as Ḳāḍi immediately from the Caliph. The control of other departments remained with the Governor, who, in virtue of his office, led the daily Prayers and, especially on Friday,