Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/35



had soon an occasion for showing his resolve to carry out to the utmost the will of Moḥammad in things both great and small.

Just before he fell sick, the Prophet had given orders for an expedition to the Syrian border. It was to avenge the disaster which three years before had befallen the Moslem arms on the field of Mūta. In that reverse, Zeid ibn Ḥāritha, the bosom friend of Moḥammad, who led the army, fell; and so, distinctly to mark the object of the expedition, his son Usāma, though still young, was nominated by Moḥammad to the command, and bidden to avenge his father's death. The camp, including all available fighting men, had been formed at the Jurf, a little way outside Medīna on the Syrian road. During the Prophet's sickness the force remained inactive there, uncertain of the issue. When the fatal event took place, Usāma broke up the camp, and carrying back the banner received at the hands of Moḥammad, planted it in the court of the great Mosque, close by the door of ʿĀisha's apartment.

The day following his inauguration, Abu Bekr took up the banner, and restoring it to Usāma, in token that he was still commander, bade the army again assemble and encamp at the Jurf as it had done before; not a man was to be left behind. Obeying his command, the fighting men of Medīna and its neighbourhood all flocked to the camp, even ʿOmar amongst the number. While yet preparing to depart, the horizon darkened suddenly. Report of the