Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/403

 372 founded, in this reign, at Saragossa. To promote conversion in the East, ʿOmar addressed a rescript to the kings of Sind, inviting them to embrace Islām, with the promise of thereby enjoying all the privileges and immunities of the Arab race. This they did, and obtained Arabian names, but again, in the reign of Hishām, apostatised.

ʿOmar II. appointed his governors, not for the party to which they belonged, but for their honesty and trustworthiness. His governors in Al-Baṣra, ʿAdī ibn Arṭāt, and in Mesopotamia, ʿOmar ibn Hubeira, both of Fezāra, were of Ḳeis; whilst his governor in Spain was a Yemeni, Samḥ ibn Mālik, and in India a brother of Ḳoteiba. He considered the Ḳāḍi or judge a more important official than the governor. His Ḳāḍi in Al-Baṣra was the famous Al-Ḥasan. Unlike his predecessors he did not leave his governors a free hand so long as the taxes came in regularly, but considered himself as responsible for them.

One instance of this conscientiousness was the arraignment of Yezīd, son of Al-Muhallab, Even Suleimān is said to have become dissatisfied with his favourite; and ʿOmar, regarding him now as a tyrant, summoned him to give an account of his stewardship in Khorāsān. Yezīd no sooner set foot in Al-ʿIrāḳ than he was put in chains, and so conducted to Damascus. ʿOmar held him to the letter of his reported victories and prize in Central Asia. In vain Yezīd protested that the report was made to magnify the achievement in the people's eyes, and that he had never thought of being called to account for the exact amount which he had named. ʿOmar would none of the excuse; Yezīd must produce a reckoning of the whole, and make good what was due. Finally, he was banished in coarse prison dress to an island in the Red Sea. But warned of his dangerous aims even in that isolated place, the Caliph removed him to Aleppo, where he was kept in strict confinement. His son, whom he had left to take his place at Merv, came to intercede for him, but in vain; and dying shortly after, ʿOmar performed the funeral service over him, saying that he was a better man than his father. Yezīd had fancied ʿOmar to be but a sanctimonious hypocrite; he now found him terribly in earnest; but he had reason to fear his successor even more. On hearing that ʿOmar had sickened,