Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/233

 204 vested the supreme control. Each appealed to ʿOthmān, who declared ʿAmr to be in fault, and deposed him from the revenue and civil control. ʿAmr objected. "To be over the army," he said, "and not over the revenue, was like holding the cow's horns while another milked her." He repaired angrily to ʿOthmān, who, after some words of bitter altercation, transferred the whole administration into the hands of Ibn abi Sarḥ. The act was unfortunate for the Caliph. It threw ʿAmr into the ranks of the disaffected; while the bad repute of Ibn abi Sarḥ, "the renegade," as they called him, gave point to the charges of partiality and nepotism now rife against ʿOthmān.

Ibn abi Sarḥ, left thus in sole command, carried his arms vigorously along the coast beyond Tripoli and Barḳa, and even threatened Carthage. Gregory, as its governor, reinforced by the Emperor, advanced against him with an army, we are told, of 120,000 men. ʿOthmān, warned of the danger, sent a large contingent to Ibn abi Sarḥ's help, with which marched a numerous company of "Companions." The field was long and hotly contested; and Ibn abi Sarḥ, to stimulate his troops, promised the hand of Gregory's daughter with a large dower, to the warrior who should slay her father. The enemy was at last discomfited with great slaughter, and a citizen of Medīna gained the lady for his prize. He carried her off on his camel to Medīna; and the martial verses which he sang by the way are still preserved. In this campaign, ʿOthmān incurred much odium by granting Ibn abi Sarḥ a fifth part of the royal fifth of booty as personal prize. The rest was sent as usual to Medīna; and here again ʿOthmān is blamed for allowing Merwān his cousin to become the purchaser of it at an altogether inadequate price.

It is, however, as the first commander of a Muslim fleet that Ibn abi Sarḥ is chiefly famous, in which capacity he