Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/373

 344 after the Umeiyads had obtained undisputed sway, Al-Welīd made efforts in the same direction, but in vain.

In the following year ʿAbd al-Melik died, sixty years of age, having reigned twenty-one years, during the first portion of which, however, his title was disputed by Ibn az-Zubeir. From his deathbed he enjoined on his sons mildness and concord, and bade them make much of Al-Ḥajjāj;—"For," said the dying Caliph, "it is he that hath made our name to be named in every pulpit throughout the Homeland of Islām, and subdued our enemies under us." He was buried at the Jābiya Gate of Damascus.

Of ʿAbd al-Melik the Arabian historian says:—He was the first Caliph that resorted to treacherous execution, as in the case of ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd; the first to conduct the exchequer in Arabic instead of Persian; the first to prohibit men from talking in the Caliph's presence; the first to play the miser; the first to declare, as on the death of Ibn az-Zubeir, "Let no one enjoin equity and the fear of God upon me, or I will strike his head from off his shoulders." But if such things were really spoken of him, we must attribute it in great part to the prejudice of ʿAbbāsid writers, and to the odium naturally attaching to his siege of the Holy City, and the destruction of the Kaʿba. Apart from the case of ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd, we are told of nothing in his personal control inconsistent with a wise, mild, and just administration; although, by the support accorded to Al-Ḥajjāj, he must undoubtedly be held responsible, at second hand, for the cruelty and injustice of his lieutenant. The charge of penuriousness, too, appears equally unfounded; for at least in one respect he was lavish. Himself a composer of no mean merit, he encouraged poets by a princely liberality. Many stories are told of literary contests held before him by such bards as Jerīr, Al-Farazdaḳ, Kutheiyir ʿAzza, and Al-Akhṭal the Christian, and of the largesses conferred on such occasions. Of niggardliness in any branch of the administration, no instance has been given. His piety was a matter of policy.

Upon the whole, the verdict on ʿAbd al-Melik must be in his favour. His life was a stormy one. As a boy he witnessed the tumultuous scenes at Medīna ending in the outrage on ʿOthmān's life,—scenes as we know from his addresses to the inhabitants of that City, which made a