Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/393

 362 how doth the Commander of the Faithful?" "The last of his race!" exclaimed Al-Welīd, in admiration of the fast vanishing homeliness and simplicity which others might have rebuked as uncourtly rudeness.

It has been already noticed that Al-Welīd wished to displace his brother Suleimān from being heir-apparent, in favour of his own son. He died before the change could be accomplished; but the effect was, not the less, to create an intense feeling of resentment in the mind of Suleimān, especially towards Ḳoteiba and the adherents of Al-Ḥajjāj, both of whom had encouraged Al-Welīd in his design.

Al-Welīd was about forty years old at his death, and he had reigned nearly ten years.

By this time the Naval Administration of the Caliphate was fairly well organised. The fleet was divided into five squadrons, those of Syria with headquarters at Laodicea, Africa (that is, Tunis), Egypt (with Alexandria as starting-point), the Nile (with headquarters at Babylon), and a special squadron to guard the mouths of the Nile from descents upon the coast by Byzantines. For Egypt the chief arsenals and shipbuilding yards were at Babylon and Clysma. The superintendents of Alexandria, Rosetta, and Damietta were, at the end of the first century, Christians. The ships' companies were divided into sailors and marines. They were all Muslims. The former, who comprised the rowers and helmsmen, were mostly Mawāli or native converts to Islām, both Copts and Greeks. The latter were Arab settlers in the country, mainly of Ḳoreish and the Anṣār. Both were conscripts, but the latter certainly, and the former probably, received pensions out of the public revenues. It is noteworthy that the expeditions were made in winter.

Arab rule in Egypt appears to have come as a relief to the country as a whole. No doubt taxation was heavy, but it was probably less so than under Byzantine rule, and Egypt is capable of bearing heavy taxation. Moreover, when an Arab governor is denounced as rapacious and tyrannical, it is often, as the papyri show, because he vindicated the rights of the poor as against the great. This is especially shown to be so in the case of Ḳurra ibn Sharīk, who was governor about this time. The Arab historians themselves also, writing as they are under the ʿAbbāsids,