CHAPTER LI
CALIPHATE OF AL-WELĪD. CONQUESTS IN CENTRAL ASIA,
SIND, ASIA MINOR, AFRICA, SPAIN. DEATH OF AL-ḤAJJĀJ
86–96 A.H. 705–715 A.D.
Welīd,
86 A.H.
705 A.D.Having performed the funeral service over his father's grave, Al-Welīd returned to the Great Mosque of Damascus, and ascending the pulpit, delivered an address lamenting the loss of his father and blessing his memory.
ʿOmar beautifies the Holy Cities.Al-Welīd, reposing the same trust as his father in Al-Ḥajjāj, maintained him in the Viceroyalty of the Fast. But Arabia he made over to his own cousin, the pious ʿOmar, son of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, under whom, for several years, Mecca and Medīna enjoyed, in marked contrast to the rule of Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl, a mild and beneficent administration. Aided by a council of learned citizens, his government of Medīna was also popular. He beautified and enlarged the Mosque by embracing within its court the apartments of the Prophet's wives, and others, originally built around it. Artificers were furnished by Syria; and the Emperor, informed of the pious undertaking, sent a gift of gold, forty camel-loads of mosaics, and 100 Byzantine masons.[1] Under Al-Welīd's instructions, ʿOmar also had the roads and passes on the Pilgrim routes made easy, wells dug about the desert
- ↑ The Emperor presented 100,000 mithḳāls of gold. It all reads somewhat oddly immediately after the following:—"In the same year, Maslama, the Caliph's brother, warred against the Greeks, took three fortresses, one being the Fort of Constantine, and slew of the mongrel Arabs 1000, carrying off at the same time heavy spoil." But we are also told that in the year 90 A.H. (708 A.D.) the Muslim admiral was taken prisoner, and as a matter of grace restored to the Caliph.
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