Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/365

 336 to return. The names of their lands were even branded upon their hands. Such measures aroused resentment, and so contributed to swell the ranks of the disaffected under Ibn al-Ashʿath. Under ʿOmar II. another plan had to be tried.

Al-Muhallab was still engaged in Persia with Khawārij of the Azraḳi sect. Driven out of Fars, they fell back on Kirmān, and for a year and a half eluded or defied the Caliph's forces. Their chronic rebellion might have lasted longer, had they not fallen out among themselves, and broken up into parties that were soon effectively dispersed. Thus the Azāriḳa, having kept Al-ʿIrāḳ and Persia more or less in turmoil for a period of twenty years, were at last put an end to. In recognition of his success, Al-Ḥajjāj received Al-Muhallab with great honour at Al-Baṣra, and invested him with the governments of Khorāsān and Sijistān, which had lately (78 }) come under his jurisdiction. From Merv, Al-Muhallab crossed the Oxus, and with his sons warred for two years against the Turkomans in that direction, who, notwithstanding previous campaigns waged with various success, were yet but partially brought under Muslim influence. He died 82, and was succeeded by his sons. His services to Islām in the long and obstinate struggle with the Khawārij were great; and the name he left behind was singularly fair and unsullied.

Al-Ḥajjāj was yet to be exposed to another danger: the great King beyond Sijistān, named Zunbīl, when attacked drew the Muslim forces into difficult passes of Afghanistan, from which they were allowed to retire only on the payment of a humiliating ransom. To avenge the affront, an army was raised, named "the peacock army," so splendidly was it equipped at the cost of a heavy war cess on AI-Baṣra and Al-Kūfa. The command was unwisely placed in the hands of the ambitious grandson of Al-Ashʿath, who marched against Zunbīl, 80, put him to flight, and ravaged his land. Mindful, however, of the recent misfortune, Ibn al Ashʿath (for so he is commonly called) would have held his hand for a time till the country settled down; but Al-Ḥajjāj, upbraiding him with faint-heartedness, peremptorily bade him to war on; and when expostulated with, threatened supersession. The army,