Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/47

20 Of the doctrines of Ṭoleiḥa, and the other pretenders to prophetic office, we know little; nor indeed anything at all to show wherein the secret of their influence lay, So far as appears, their worship was a mere travesty of Islām. Some doggerel verses and childish sayings are all that the contemptuous voice of tradition has transmitted of their teaching. That four Pretenders (for Sajāḥ the Prophetess was also such) should just then have arisen in different parts of Arabia and drawn multitudes after them, would seem to imply something deeper than senseless rhymes, and more specious than petty variations of the Muslim rite. It is not unreasonable to assume that the spiritual sense of Arabia had been quickened by the preaching of Moḥammad, and that his example had both suggested the claims of others, and contributed thus rapidly to their success. Jealousy of Mecca and Medīna, moreover, and impatience of the trammels of Islām, were powerful incentives for the Bedawīn tribes to cast in their lot with these Pretenders. Thus the Beni Ghaṭafān who aforetime were in league with the Beni Asad, had recently fallen out with them and lost some pasture-land. ʿOyeina their chief now counselled a return to their old relations; "Let us go back," he said, "to the ancient alliance which before Islam we had with the Beni Asad, for never since we gave it up have I known our pasture boundaries. A Prophet of our own is better than a Prophet of Ḳoreish. Beside all this, Moḥammad is dead and Ṭoleiḥa is alive." So saying, ʿOyeina with 700 of his warriors joined Ṭoleiḥa and his army at Al-Buzākha.

On first hearing of Ṭoleiḥa's heresy, Moḥammad had sent an Envoy to rally the faithful amongst the Beni Asad and thus crush the Pretender. But the cause gaining ground, was now supported by the neighbouring Beni Ṭaiʾ, as well as by insurgents who flocked to Ṭoleiḥa after their defeat at Rabadha; and so the Envoy had to fly. The great family of Ṭaiʾ, however, was not wholly disloyal, for (as above mentioned) the legal dues had been already presented to Abu Bekr on behalf of some of them. ʿAdī their loyal chief was therefore now sent forward by Khālid in the hope of detaching his people from Ṭoleiḥa's cause. He found them in no friendly humour. "The father of the foal!" they cried (such was the sobriquet they contemptuously