Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/325

 296 planted in Khorāsān with their wives and families. Ziyād did not long enjoy the splendid position he had thus achieved. Not satisfied with the East, he coveted also charge of the Ḥijāz with its Holy Cities. The inhabitants in terror prayed to the Lord that he might not have it; and so (says our annalist) his hand was smitten with a malignant boil, of which he died in the year 53 (summer of 673 ), at the age of fifty-eight.

Great progress was made by Muʿāwiya in extending his rule eastward. The conquered peoples and their chiefs, impatient of the tribute and restraints of Islām, were continually casting off their allegiance; but the yoke was yearly becoming more secure. Herāt, having rebelled, was stormed, 41 ; and two years later Kābul also was besieged for several months, and taken after the walls had been breached by catapults. Similar operations are noticed against Ghazna, Balkh, Ḳandahār, and other strongholds. In the year 54, one of Ziyād's sons, crossing the Oxus and mountain range on camels, took Bokhārā; and two years later a son of ʿOthmān beat back the Turkish hordes and gained possession of Samarḳand and Tirmidh. The territories in the far north and east continued long on a precarious tenure; but in the south all the country up to the banks of the Indus was gradually being consolidated under Moḥammadan rule or suzerainty.

The experience of Africa along its northern shore did not materially differ from that of the East, for the Berbers were ever and anon rebelling after they had tendered their submission. Indeed, the struggle was harder here, for the Roman settlements enabled the native population to offer a more stubborn resistance. And yet, in the end, the overthrow was not less complete, so that the bright seats of civilisation and of the Christian faith were soon known only by the ruins of their temples, aqueducts, and civic buildings. ʿOḳba, appointed by ʿAmr, 41, waged war against the Berbers, and for several years the littoral was ravaged as far as Barḳa and Waddān. In the year 50, strengthened by Muʿāwiya with a body of 10,000 Arabs, he founded the settlement of Ḳairawān, to the south of Tunis, as the African capital, and strongly fortified it against the Berbers. Ever since, it has been regarded as a sacred centre.