Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/60



Khālid thus pursued his victorious career from the North to the Centre of Arabia, the various columns despatched by Abu Bekr were engaged with the apostate and rebellious tribes in other parts of the Peninsula. The opposition there was not less stubborn; and the success, though in many quarters slow and even at times doubtful, was in the end complete.

Beyond Al-Yemāma, and skirting the Persian Gulf between Al-Ḳaṭīf and ʿOmān, lie the two desert provinces of Hejer and Al-Baḥrein. Al-Mundhir, their Christian chief, had adopted Islām, and recognising the suzerainty of the Prophet had received Al-ʿAlā as Resident at his Court. But Al-Mundhir died shortly after Moḥammad, and the Province went into rebellion. Al-ʿAlā fled, but was sent back with a strong force to reclaim the apostate people. The brilliant campaign of Khālid had just then struck terror into the neighbouring country; and so, as he passed near the borders of Al-Yemāma, Al-ʿAlā was joined by contingents from many chiefs anxious thus to prove their loyalty. A scion of the Ḥīra dynasty hostile to Islām had succeeded Al-Mundhir, and Al-ʿAlā found him so well supported that, even thus strengthened, he had to entrench his army and content himself with single combats and indecisive skirmishes. At last, finding through his spies that the enemy were in a festive and drunken state, he overwhelmed them unexpectedly and took their Prince a prisoner. The discomfited host fled by ship to Dārīn, an island near the coast, whither they were 33