Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/230

644–56] from time to time directed towards the East, and the various provinces brought more or less under tributary subjection. Shortly after the death of ʿOmar, a general rising took place in Persia, and so, in order to restore Muslim supremacy, a series of enterprises were, by command of ʿOthmān, set on foot. Ibn ʿĀmir, governor of Al-Baṣra, having first reduced the adjoining province of Fars, inaugurated a great campaign in the north and east. The land was overrun, and the strongholds, after they had been either stormed or had surrendered at discretion, were ordinarily left in the hands of native Princes on condition of a heavy tribute. Nīsāpūr, taken by the treachery of one of the Marzubāns who were over the quarters of the town, was assessed at a million, and Merv at a million and a quarter pieces; and so on with the other States. Sarakhs surrendered on quarter being given for a hundred lives; but in furnishing the list of names, the Marzubān forgot his own, and so was beheaded with the rest of the fighting men. A great battle was fought at Khwarizm on the Oxus, and the country as far as Balkh and Ṭukhāristān forced to acknowledge the Caliph's suzerainty. Having achieved these splendid victories, in which were taken 40,000 captives, Ibn ʿĀmir set out for Mecca, on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving. The Lieutenants whom he left to prosecute the campaign restored authority at the point of the sword in the revolted parts of Kirmān and Sijistān, and brought under obedience the chiefs as far as Herāt, Kābul, and Ghazna. The control must, however, as yet have been but slight and desultory; for long years after, we find these outlying provinces continually rising against Muslim rule, and again for the time asserting independence. Kirmān, however, and the nearer parts were held under a more substantial sway; forts were erected, water-courses dug, and the land divided among the conquerors; and so settled rule gradually extended eastward. It was not till the eighth year of ʿOthmān's reign that Yezdejird died. There are