Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/304

 658] changed his course, crossed the Tigris, and marched against the fanatics. When now near Nahrawān, he sent a messenger to demand surrender of all such as had been guilty of outrage and murder. "Give up these to justice," he said, "and ye shall be left alone until the Lord grant us victory in Syria, and then haply He shall have turned your hearts again toward us." They replied that "they were all equally responsible for what had passed, and that the blood of the ungodly heretics they had slain was shed lawfully." A parley ensued, in which the Caliph expostulated with the misguided fanatics, and offered quarter to all who should come over to his army, or retire peaceably to their homes. Some obeyed the call and came over; 500 went off to a neighbouring Persian town, and many more dispersed to their homes; but 1800 remained upon the field, martyrs to the theocratic creed. With the wild battle-cry, To Paradise! they rushed upon the lances of the Caliph's force, and to a man were slain. ʿAlī's loss was trifling. The date of the battle is 9, ii. 38, July 17, 658

It had been better for the peace of Islām if not one of the 4000 had escaped. The snake was scotched, not killed. The fanatic spirit was strangely catching; and the theocratic cause continued to be canvassed vigorously and unceasingly, though in secret, both at Al-Baṣra and Al-Kūfa. However hopeless their object, the fanatics were nerved, if not by expectation of divine aid, at the least by sure hope of the martyr's crown. In the following year, bands of insurgent fanatics once and again appeared unexpectedly in the field, denouncing ʿAlī, and proclaiming that the kingdom of the Lord was at hand. One after another they were cut to pieces, or put to flight with ease. Still such continual risings could not but endamage the name and power of ʿAlī, who now reaped the fruit of his weak compromise with the enemies of ʿOthmān, and neglect to bring them to justice. Fanatics in their extravagant doctrine, these men were too sincere to combine with any purely political sect, and hence they seldom came near to leaving any permanent mark of their creed behind them. But both in the present and in succeeding reigns, we find them every now and then gathering up their strength