Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/39

12 detached the powerful tribes around Al-Yemāma from their allegiance. And to the north-east, nearer home, Ṭoleiḥa the third Pretender, had become openly and dangerously hostile. From every quarter, in rapid succession, came news of spreading disaffection. The Collectors of tithe (an impost hateful to the Bedawīn), the Legates and Residents of Moḥammad throughout the provinces,—all, in fact, who represented the authority of Islām, fled or were expelled. The Faithful wherever found were massacred, some of the confessors suffering a cruel death. Mecca and Aṭ-Ṭāif wavered at the first; but in the end, through the strong influence of Ḳoreish, stood firm. They were almost alone. Here and there some few tribes, under loyal, or it might be temporising Chiefs, maintained the semblance of obedience; but they were hardly discernible amidst the seething mass of rebellion. ʿAmr, hurrying back from ʿOmān (whither he had been sent as an Ambassador by Moḥammad at the Farewell Pilgrimage) saw, as he passed, the whole of Central Arabia either in open apostasy or ready to break away on the first demand of tithe; and his report filled the Citizens of Medīna with dismay. In truth Islām had never taken firm hold of the distant provinces; and as for the Bedawīn, Moḥammad himself had frequent cause to chide their fickleness. It was fear of punishment, and lust of plunder under the Prophet's banner, rather than attachment to the Faith, which hitherto had held in check these wild sons of the desert. The restraints and obligations of Islām were ever irksome and distasteful; and now rid of them, they were again returning to their lawless life.

As report after report came in of fresh defection, Abu Bekr could but instruct his scattered officers, wherever they were able, to hold together the loyal few, bravely trusting to tide over the crisis until Usāma's force returned. For the immediate defence of Medīna he took such measures as were possible. The faithful tribes in the neighbourhood were called in, and pickets posted at the various approaches to the City. The turbulent clans in the near desert were the first to assume a threatening attitude. The Beni ʿAbs and Dhubyān massed there in such numbers "that the land was straitened by them," and they parted into two bodies, one to Ar-Rabadha, the other to Dhuʾl-Ḳaṣṣa, the first station