Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/50

 632–3] her camel. It was soon disabled; and Um Ziml slain, the rout of the rebel host was easy.

A few of the leading rebels were sent prisoners to Abu Bekr. One of them, ʿOyeina a notable marauding chieftain, had often been the terror of Medīna. When the City was besieged by Ḳoreish, he offered assistance to the Prophet on humiliating terms which were happily refused; and he was also one of the influential leaders "whose hearts," after the battle of Ḥonein, "had been reconciled" by the Prophet's largesses. He was now led into Medīna with the rest in chains, his hands tied behind his back. The Citizens crowded round to gaze at the fallen chief, and the very children smote him with their hands, crying out, "Oh enemy of the Lord, apostate!" "Not so," said ʿOyeina bravely; "I am no apostate, and never was a believer until now." The Caliph listened patiently to the appeal of the captives. He forgave them, and commanded their release.

Having subdued the tribes inhabiting the hills and deserts north of Medīna, Khālid bent his steps eastward, against the Beni Temīm who occupied the plateau towards the Persian Gulf.

This great tribe, partly Christian and partly heathen, had from time immemorial spread its innumerable branches over the pasture-lands between Al-Yemāma and the mouth of the Euphrates. With the rest of Arabia it. acknowledged Moḥammad and submitted to his claims. But the Prophet's death had produced amongst them the same apostasy as elsewhere. After Abu Bekr's first success some of its Chieftains, as we have seen, came to Medīna with the tithes. Meanwhile a strange complication had arisen which embroiled the Beni Yerbūʿ (one of their clans, commanded by the famous Mālik ibn Nuweira) in hostilities with the rest of the tribe, and eventually brought Khālid on the scene.

It was no less than the advent of the Prophetess Sajāḥ, at the head of a great host from Mesopotamia. Descended