Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/41

 14 slaughter out of Dhuʾl-Ḳaṣṣa and, leaving a portion of his little force as an outpost there, returned to Medīna.

The affair was small, but the effect was great. As failure would have been disastrous, perhaps fatal, to Islām, so was victory the turning-point in its favour. The power of the Prophet's Successor to protect the city even without an army was noised abroad. And soon after, the spirits of the Muslims rose as they saw some Chiefs appear bringing in the tithes. The tribes whom these represented were indeed few compared with the apostate hordes; but it was an augury of brighter days. The first thus to present their legal offerings to the Caliph were deputations from the Beni Temīm and Beni Ṭaiʾ. Each was ushered into his presence as an Embassy. "Nay," said Abu Bekr, "they are more than that; they are Messengers of glad tidings, true men, and defenders of the Faith." And the people answered:—"Even so; now the good things that thou didst promise do appear."

Tradition delights to ascribe with pious. gratitude the preservation of Islām to the aged Caliph's faith and fortitude. "On the death of Moḥammad" (so runs our record), "it wanted but little and the Faithful had perished utterly. But the Lord strengthened the heart of Abu Bekr, and stablished us thereby in the resolve to give place not for one moment to the Apostates;—giving answer to them but in these three words, Submission, Exile, or the Sword." It was the simple faith of Abu Bekr which fitted him for the task, and made him carry out the law of his Master to the letter. But for him Islām would have melted away in compromise with the Bedawīn tribes, or, likelier still, have perished in the throes of birth.