Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/380

 705–715] yet give an appearance of respect, he placed links of gold upon him. He then expelled the resident, and proceeded to enlist against Islām the potentates all around, from the Murghāb to the Oxus. Beyond posting a column under his brother, to guard the frontier, Ḳoteiba could do nothing to oppose this combination till the following year, when, largely reinforced from Persia, he again broke ground. Carrying all before him, he found Nīzak strongly posted in Khulm, at the entrance of a pass guarded by a fort. Bribing a deserter, he was shown a route to turn the pass, and so fell upon the rear of the enemy, who effected escape across the valley of Ferghāna. Here Nīzak was again taken in a defile guarded on one hand by Ḳoteiba and on the other by his brother. Thus hemmed in for months, he suffered the extremity of want. But the season again forcing a return to winter quarters, Ḳoteiba, unwilling to leave Nīzak still abroad, beguiled him into his camp with promise of safe-conduct. Reporting the capture to Al-Ḥajjāj, he asked for leave to put him to death. After a long delay permission came; and so, with 700 of his followers, Nīzak was slain and his head sent to Al-Ḥajjāj. The Prince of Tukhāristān was with his retinue sent to Damascus, where he was kept till Al-Welīd's decease. The perfidy of Ḳoteiba towards Nīzak was so gross, that the Muslim public, though not unused to guile in war, was scandalised, and upbraided him for it. Another painful, but less inexcusable, incident occurred about the same time. On Nīzak's defeat, the king of Jūzajan, a member of the coalition, sought terms of peace, which. being granted, Ḳoteiba invited him to his camp, sending one Ḥabīb as a hostage, and taking hostages in return. The king died while in Ḳoteiba's camp; and his subjects, suspecting foul play, put Ḥabīb to death; upon which Ḳoteiba retaliated by slaying the native hostages to a man. Having pushed his conquests still further into