The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

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[Footnote 171: The schism of the Persians is explained by all our
travellers of the last century, especially in the iid and ivth
volumes of their master, Chardin. Niebuhr, though of inferior
merit, has the advantage of writing so late as the year 1764,
(Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 208 - 233,) since the
ineffectual attempt of Nadir Shah to change the religion of the
nation, (see his Persian History translated into French by Sir
William Jones, tom. ii. p. 5, 6, 47, 48, 144 - 155.)]

[Footnote 172: Omar is the name of the devil; his murderer is a
saint. When the Persians shoot with the bow, they frequently cry,
"May this arrow go to the heart of Omar!" (Voyages de Chardin,
tom. ii. p 239, 240, 259, &c.)]

[Footnote 173: This gradation of merit is distinctly marked in a
creed illustrated by Reland, (de Relig. Mohamm. l. i. p. 37;) and
a Sonnite argument inserted by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens,
tom. ii. p. 230.) The practice of cursing the memory of Ali was
abolished, after forty years, by the Ommiades themselves,
(D'Herbelot, p. 690;) and there are few among the Turks who
presume to revile him as an infidel, (Voyages de Chardin, tom.
iv. p. 46.)]

[Footnote *: Compare Price, p. 180. - M.]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.

Part VIII.

A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the
martial activity of Ali; but in a mature age, after a long
experience of mankind, he still betrayed in his conduct the
rashness and indiscretion of youth. ^* In the first days of his
reign, he neglected to secure, either by gifts or fetters, the
doubtful allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of the most powerful
of the Arabian chiefs. They escaped from Medina to Mecca, and
from thence to Bassora; erected the standard of revolt; and
usurped the government of Irak, or Assyria, which they had vainly
solicited as the reward of their services. The mask of patriotism
is allowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies; and the
enemies, perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance
for his blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha,
the widow of the prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her
life, an implacable hatred against the husband and the posterity
of Fatima. The most reasonable Moslems were scandalized, that
the mother of the faithful should expose in a camp her person and
character; ^! but the superstitious crowd was confident that her
presence would sanctify the justice, and assure the success, of
their cause. At the head of twenty thousand of his loyal Arabs,
and nine thousand valiant auxiliaries of Cufa, the caliph
encountered and defeated the superior numbers of the rebels under
the walls of Bassora. ^!! Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir, ^@
were slain in the first battle that stained with civil blood the
arms of the Moslems. ^@@ After passing through the ranks to
animate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers
of the field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held
the bridle of her camel, were successively killed or wounded; and
the cage or litter, in which she sat, was stuck with javelins and
darts like the quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive
sustained with firmness the reproaches of the conqueror, and was
speedily dismissed to her proper station at the tomb of Mahomet,
with the respect and tenderness that was still due to the widow
of the apostle. ^* After this victory, which was styled the Day
of the Camel, Ali marched against a more formidable adversary;
against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed the
title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of
Syria and the interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage
of Thapsacus, the plain of Siffin ^174 extends along the western
bank of the Euphrates. On this spacious and level theatre, the
two competitors waged a desultory war of one hundred and ten
days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of
Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five,
thousand soldiers; and the list of the slain was dignified with
the names of five-and-twenty veterans who had fought at Beder
under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest the
lawful caliph displayed a superior character of valor and
humanity. ^!!! His troops were strictly enjoined to await the
first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to
respect the bodies of the dead, and the chastity of the female
captives. He generously proposed to save the blood of the
Moslems by a single combat; but his trembling rival declined the
challenge as a sentence of inevitable death. The ranks of the
Syrians were broken by the charge of a hero who was mounted on a
piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible force his ponderous
and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted
the Allah Acbar, "God is victorious!" and in the tumult of a
nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that
tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already meditated
his flight; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp
of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their
conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of the
Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances; and Ali was
compelled to yield to a disgraceful truce and an insidious
compromise. He retreated with sorrow and indignation to Cufa;
his party was discouraged; the distant provinces of Persia, of
Yemen, and of Egypt, were subdued or seduced by his crafty rival;
and the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed against the three
chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of Mahomet.
In the temple of Mecca, three Charegites or enthusiasts
discoursed of the disorders of the church and state: they soon
agreed, that the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend
Amrou, the viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of
religion. Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his
dagger, devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of
action. Their resolution was equally desperate: but the first
mistook the person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied
his seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the
second; the lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a
mortal wound from the hand of the third. He expired in the
sixty-third year of his age, and mercifully recommended to his
children, that they would despatch the murderer by a single
stroke. ^* The sepulchre of Ali ^175 was concealed from the
tyrants of the house of Ommiyah; ^176 but in the fourth age of
the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a city, arose near the ruins of
Cufa. ^177 Many thousands of the Shiites repose in holy ground at
the feet of the vicar of God; and the desert is vivified by the
numerous and annual visits of the Persians, who esteem their
devotion not less meritorious than the pilgrimage of Mecca.

[Footnote *: Ali had determined to supersede all the lieutenants
in the different provinces. Price, p. 191. Compare, on the
conduct of Telha and Zobeir, p. 193 - M.]

[Footnote !: See the very curious circumstances which took place
before and during her flight. Price, p. 196. - M.]

[Footnote !!: The reluctance of Ali to shed the blood of true
believers is strikingly described by Major Price's Persian
historians. Price, p. 222. - M.]

[Footnote @: See (in Price) the singular adventures of Zobeir.
He was murdered after having abandoned the army of the
insurgents. Telha was about to do the same, when his leg was
pierced with an arrow by one of his own party The wound was
mortal. Price, p. 222. - M.]

[Footnote @@: According to Price, two hundred and eighty of the
Benni Beianziel alone lost a right hand in this service, (p.
225.) - M]

[Footnote *: She was escorted by a guard of females disguised as
soldiers. When she discovered this, Ayesha was as much gratified
by the delicacy of the arrangement, as she had been offended by
the familiar approach of so many men. Price, p. 229. - M.]

[Footnote 174: The plain of Siffin is determined by D'Anville
(l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 29) to be the Campus Barbaricus of
Procopius.]

[Footnote !!!: The Shiite authors have preserved a noble instance
of Ali's magnanimity. The superior generalship of Moawiyah had
cut off the army of Ali from the Euphrates; his soldiers were
perishing from want of water. Ali sent a message to his rival to
request free access to the river, declaring that under the same
circumstances he would not allow any of the faithful, though his
adversaries, to perish from thirst. After some debate, Moawiyah
determined to avail himself of the advantage of his situation,
and to reject the demand of Ali. The soldiers of Ali became
desperate; forced their way through that part of the hostile army
which commanded the river, and in their turn entirely cut off the
troops of Moawiyah from the water. Moawiyah was reduced to make
the same supplication to Ali. The generous caliph instantly
complied; and both armies, with their cattle enjoyed free and
unmolested access to the river. Price, vol. i. p. 268, 272 - M.]

[Footnote *: His son Hassan was recognized as caliph in Arabia
and Irak; but voluntarily abdicated the throne, after six or
seven months, in favor of Moawiyah St. Martin, vol. xi. p 375. -
M.]

[Footnote 175: Abulfeda, a moderate Sonnite, relates the
different opinions concerning the burial of Ali, but adopts the
sepulchre of Cufa, hodie fama numeroque religiose frequentantium
celebratum. This number is reckoned by Niebuhr to amount
annually to 2000 of the dead, and 5000 of the living, (tom. ii.
p. 208, 209.)]

[Footnote 176: All the tyrants of Persia, from Adhad el Dowlat
(A.D. 977, D'Herbelot, p. 58, 59, 95) to Nadir Shah, (A.D. 1743,
Hist. de Nadir Shah, tom. ii. p. 155,) have enriched the tomb of
Ali with the spoils of the people. The dome is copper, with a
bright and massy gilding, which glitters to the sun at the
distance of many a mile.]

[Footnote 177: The city of Meshed Ali, five or six miles from the
ruins of Cufa, and one hundred and twenty to the south of Bagdad,
is of the size and form of the modern Jerusalem. Meshed Hosein,
larger and more populous, is at the distance of thirty miles.]

The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his
children; and the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads
of his religion and empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had
been fierce and obstinate; his conversion was tardy and
reluctant; his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest;
he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and the sins of the
time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits of the
family of Ommiyah. Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the
cruel Henda, was dignified, in his early youth, with the office
or title of secretary of the prophet: the judgment of Omar
intrusted him with the government of Syria; and he administered
that important province above forty years, either in a
subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of
valor and liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity and
moderation: a grateful people was attached to their benefactor;
and the victorious Moslems were enriched with the spoils of
Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of
Othman was the engine and pretence of his ambition. The bloody
shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the
emir deplored the fate of his injured kinsman; and sixty thousand
Syrians were engaged in his service by an oath of fidelity and
revenge. Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the
first who saluted the new monarch, and divulged the dangerous
secret, that the Arabian caliphs might be created elsewhere than
in the city of the prophet. ^178 The policy of Moawiyah eluded
the valor of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he
negotiated the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was
either above or below the government of the world, and who
retired without a sigh from the palace of Cufa to an humble cell
near the tomb of his grandfather. The aspiring wishes of the
caliph were finally crowned by the important change of an
elective to an hereditary kingdom. Some murmurs of freedom or
fanaticism attested the reluctance of the Arabs, and four
citizens of Medina refused the oath of fidelity; but the designs
of Moawiyah were conducted with vigor and address; and his son
Yezid, a feeble and dissolute youth, was proclaimed as the
commander of the faithful and the successor on the apostle of
God.

[Footnote 178: I borrow, on this occasion, the strong sense and
expression of Tacitus, (Hist. i. 4: ) Evulgato imperii arcano
posse imperatorem alni quam Romae fieri.]

A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the
sons of Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently
dropped a dish of scalding broth on his master: the heedless
wretch fell prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and repeated
a verse of the Koran: "Paradise is for those who command their
anger: " - "I am not angry: " - "and for those who pardon
offences: " - "I pardon your offence: " - "and for those who
return good for evil: " - "I give you your liberty and four
hundred pieces of silver." With an equal measure of piety,
Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan, inherited a remnant of his
father's spirit, and served with honor against the Christians in
the siege of Constantinople. The primogeniture of the line of
Hashem, and the holy character of grandson of the apostle, had
centred in his person, and he was at liberty to prosecute his
claim against Yezid, the tyrant of Damascus, whose vices he
despised, and whose title he had never deigned to acknowledge. A
list was secretly transmitted from Cufa to Medina, of one hundred
and forty thousand Moslems, who professed their attachment to his
cause, and who were eager to draw their swords so soon as he
should appear on the banks of the Euphrates. Against the advice
of his wisest friends, he resolved to trust his person and family
in the hands of a perfidious people. He traversed the desert of
Arabia with a timorous retinue of women and children; but as he
approached the confines of Irak he was alarmed by the solitary or
hostile face of the country, and suspected either the defection
or ruin of his party. His fears were just: Obeidollah, the
governor of Cufa, had extinguished the first sparks of an
insurrection; and Hosein, in the plain of Kerbela, was
encompassed by a body of five thousand horse, who intercepted his
communication with the city and the river. He might still have
escaped to a fortress in the desert, that had defied the power of
Caesar and Chosroes, and confided in the fidelity of the tribe of
Tai, which would have armed ten thousand warriors in his defence.

In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the
option of three honorable conditions: that he should be allowed
to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison
against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid.
But the commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and
absolute; and Hosein was informed that he must either submit as a
captive and a criminal to the commander of the faithful, or
expect the consequences of his rebellion. "Do you think,"
replied he, "to terrify me with death?" And, during the short
respite of a night, ^* he prepared with calm and solemn
resignation to encounter his fate. He checked the lamentations
of his sister Fatima, who deplored the impending ruin of his
house. "Our trust," said Hosein, "is in God alone. All things,
both in heaven and earth, must perish and return to their
Creator. My brother, my father, my mother, were better than me,
and every Mussulman has an example in the prophet." He pressed
his friends to consult their safety by a timely flight: they
unanimously refused to desert or survive their beloved master:
and their courage was fortified by a fervent prayer and the
assurance of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day, he
mounted on horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in
the other: his generous band of martyrs consisted only of
thirty-two horse and forty foot; but their flanks and rear were
secured by the tent-ropes, and by a deep trench which they had
filled with lighted fagots, according to the practice of the
Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance, and one of their
chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to claim the partnership
of inevitable death. In every close onset, or single combat, the
despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but the surrounding
multitudes galled them from a distance with a cloud of arrows,
and the horses and men were successively slain; a truce was
allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the battle at
length expired by the death of the last companions of Hosein.
Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at the door of his
tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the mouth
with a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths, were
killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they were
full of blood; and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and
the dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the
tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians, that he would not
suffer Hosein to be murdered before his eyes: a tear trickled
down his venerable beard; and the boldest of his soldiers fell
back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them.
The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful,
reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain
with three-and-thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they
had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of
Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a
cane: "Alas," exclaimed an aged Mussulman, "on these lips have I
seen the lips of the apostle of God!" In a distant age and
climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the
sympathy of the coldest reader. ^179 ^* On the annual festival of
his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his
Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of
sorrow and indignation. ^180

[Footnote *: According to Major Price's authorities a much longer
time elapsed (p. 198 &c.) - M.]

[Footnote 179: I have abridged the interesting narrative of
Ockley, (tom. ii. p. 170 - 231.) It is long and minute: but the
pathetic, almost always, consists in the detail of little
circumstances.]

[Footnote *: The account of Hosein's death, in the Persian Tarikh
Tebry, is much longer; in some circumstances, more pathetic, than
that of Ockley, followed by Gibbon. His family, after his
defenders were all slain, perished in succession before his eyes.

They had been cut off from the water, and suffered all the
agonies of thirst. His eldest son, Ally Akbar, after ten
different assaults on the enemy, in each of which he slew two or
three, complained bitterly of his sufferings from heat and
thirst. "His father arose, and introducing his own tongue within
the parched lips of his favorite child, thus endeavored to
alleviate his sufferings by the only means of which his enemies
had not yet been able to deprive him." Ally was slain and cut to
pieces in his sight: this wrung from him his first and only cry;
then it was that his sister Zeyneb rushed from the tent. The
rest, including his nephew, fell in succession. Hosein's horse
was wounded - he fell to the ground. The hour of prayer, between
noon and sunset, had arrived; the Imaun began the religious
duties: - as Hosein prayed, he heard the cries of his infant
child Abdallah, only twelve months old. The child was, at his
desire, placed on his bosom: as he wept over it, it was
transfixed by an arrow. Hosein dragged himself to the Euphrates:
as he slaked his burning thirst, his mouth was pierced by an
arrow: he drank his own blood. Wounded in four-and-thirty
places, he still gallantly resisted. A soldier named Zeraiah gave
the fatal wound: his head was cut off by Ziliousheng. Price, p.
402, 410. - M.]

[Footnote 180: Niebuhr the Dane (Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii.
p. 208, &c.) is, perhaps, the only European traveller who has
dared to visit Meshed Ali and Meshed Hosein. The two sepulchres
are in the hands of the Turks, who tolerate and tax the devotion
of the Persian heretics. The festival of the death of Hosein is
amply described by Sir John Chardin, a traveller whom I have
often praised.]

When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in chains
to the throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to extirpate
the enmity of a popular and hostile race, whom he had injured
beyond the hope of reconciliation. But Yezid preferred the
councils of mercy; and the mourning family was honorably
dismissed to mingle their tears with their kindred at Medina.
The glory of martyrdom superseded the right of primogeniture; and
the twelve imams, ^181 or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are
Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal descendants of Hosein to the
ninth generation. Without arms, or treasures, or subjects, they
successively enjoyed the veneration of the people, and provoked
the jealousy of the reigning caliphs: their tombs, at Mecca or
Medina, on the banks of the Euphrates, or in the province of
Chorasan, are still visited by the devotion of their sect. Their
names were often the pretence of sedition and civil war; but
these royal saints despised the pomp of the world: submitted to
the will of God and the injustice of man; and devoted their
innocent lives to the study and practice of religion. The
twelfth and last of the Imams, conspicuous by the title of
Mahadi, or the Guide, surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his
predecessors. He concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the
time and place of his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend
that he still lives, and will appear before the day of judgment
to overthrow the tyranny of Dejal, or the Antichrist. ^182 In the
lapse of two or three centuries, the posterity of Abbas, the
uncle of Mahomet, had multiplied to the number of thirty-three
thousand: ^183 the race of Ali might be equally prolific: the
meanest individual was above the first and greatest of princes;
and the most eminent were supposed to excel the perfection of
angels. But their adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the
Mussulman empire, allowed an ample scope for every bold and
artful imposture, who claimed affinity with the holy seed: the
sceptre of the Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites,
in Egypt and Syria; ^184 of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the
Sophis of Persia; ^185 has been consecrated by this vague and
ambiguous title. Under their reigns it might be dangerous to
dispute the legitimacy of their birth; and one of the Fatimite
caliphs silenced an indiscreet question by drawing his cimeter:
"This," said Moez, "is my pedigree; and these," casting a handful
of gold to his soldiers, - "and these are my kindred and my
children." In the various conditions of princes, or doctors, or
nobles, or merchants, or beggars, a swarm of the genuine or
fictitious descendants of Mahomet and Ali is honored with the
appellation of sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the Ottoman
empire they are distinguished by a green turban; receive a
stipend from the treasury; are judged only by their chief; and,
however debased by fortune or character, still assert the proud
preeminence of their birth. A family of three hundred persons,
the pure and orthodox branch of the caliph Hassan, is preserved
without taint or suspicion in the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina, and still retains, after the revolutions of twelve
centuries, the custody of the temple, and the sovereignty of
their native land. The fame and merit of Mahomet would ennoble a
plebeian race, and the ancient blood of the Koreish transcends
the recent majesty of the kings of the earth. ^186

[Footnote 181: The general article of Imam, in D'Herbelot's
Bibliotheque, will indicate the succession; and the lives of the
twelve are given under their respective names.]

[Footnote 182: The name of Antichrist may seem ridiculous, but
the Mahometans have liberally borrowed the fables of every
religion, (Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 80, 82.) In the royal
stable of Ispahan, two horses were always kept saddled, one for
the Mahadi himself, the other for his lieutenant, Jesus the son
of Mary.]

[Footnote 183: In the year of the Hegira 200, (A.D. 815.) See
D'Herbelot, p. 146]

[Footnote 184: D'Herbelot, p. 342. The enemies of the Fatimites
disgraced them by a Jewish origin. Yet they accurately deduced
their genealogy from Jaafar, the sixth Imam; and the impartial
Abulfeda allows (Annal. Moslem. p. 230) that they were owned by
many, qui absque controversia genuini sunt Alidarum, homines
propaginum suae gentis exacte callentes. He quotes some lines
from the celebrated Scherif or Rahdi, Egone humilitatem induam in
terris hostium? (I suspect him to be an Edrissite of Sicily,)
cum in Aegypto sit Chalifa de gente Alii, quocum ego communem
habeo patrem et vindicem.]