Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/320

 661] on condition that he should retain the contents of the treasury of Al-Kūfa, five million pieces, in addition to the revenues of a Persian district; and that the imprecation against his father should drop from the public prayers. Muʿāwiya granted the first request; as for the second, he consented that no prayer reviling ʿAlī should be recited within hearing of the son. The truce was ratified accordingly.

And so, after a brief and inglorious reign of five or six months, Al-Ḥasan, with his household and belongings, quitted Al-Kūfa for Arabia. The people wept at his departure. But Al-Ḥasan left them without regret. They were a race, he said, in whom no trust could be reposed, and who had set purpose neither for evil nor for good.

Ḳeis, whose ability and prowess were worthy of a better cause, remained for some while longer in the field. At length, having obtained terms for all who had been fighting on the side of ʿAlī, and there being no longer any master now to fight for, he laid down his arms and did homage to Muʿāwiya.

Thus, at last, Muʿāwiya was able to make triumphal entry into Al-Kūfa. Having there received the homage of the Eastern provinces, he returned to Syria sole and undisputed Caliph of Islām. The year is called the Year of Union (jamāʿa), Damascus thenceforth was the capital of the Empire.

The imprecations against the memory of ʿAlī, his house, and his adherents, still formed part of the public service; and so, indeed, they continued to do throughout the Umeiyad Caliphate, except during the Caliphate of ʿOmar.

The short-lived Caliph retired to Medīna, where, with ample means to gratify his ruling passion, he passed his time in ease and quietness, giving no further anxiety to Muʿāwiya. He survived eight years, and met his death by poison at the hand of one of his wives. It was a not unnatural end for "Al-Ḥasan the Divorcer." ʿAlid tradition, indeed, would have us to believe that the lady was bribed to commit the crime, and thus exalts the libertine to the dignity of "Martyr." But Muʿāwiya had no object in ridding himself of his harmless subject; and the jealousies of Al-Ḥasan's ever-changing ḥarīm afford a sufficient and a likelier reason. Of his brother Al-Ḥosein there will be more to tell.