Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/321



the death of ʿOthmān, 35, Muʿāwiya was independent ruler of the West; and from AI-Ḥasan's abdication till his own death, that is, for nearly twenty years, he was undisputed Caliph of all Islām. During this long reign there was prosperity and peace as a rule at home, disturbed only by intermittent outbursts cf Khāriji zealots, and by factions still ardent for the house of ʿAlī, supported by old-fashioned Muslims who nicknamed the Umeiyads Ṭulaḳā (forced converts). Both were easily suppressed, though not without bloodshed, by the strong arm of the Caliph and his able lieutenants. Abroad his rule was equally successful, and extended the boundaries of Islām in all directions.

ʿAmr held the government of Egypt during the rest of his long life, which, indeed, had been one of the most eventful in this history. No man influenced more than he the fortunes of the Caliphate. Brave in the field, astute in counsel, coarse and unscrupulous in word and deed, it was mainly to ʿAmr that Muʿāwiya owed his ascendency over ʿAlī, and the eventual establishment of the Umeiyad dynasty. Conqueror of Egypt, and for four years its governor under ʿOmar, he continued in the same post a like period under ʿOthmān, who by his recall made him in an evil hour his enemy. Finally reappointed by Muʿāwiya on the defeat of Moḥammad, he was still at his death the governor of Egypt. He died seventy-three years of age, penitent, we are told, for his many misdeeds.

The career of Al-Moghīra, though less brilliant, was not 292