A.H. 86–96.
demands upon him, that he was reduced to poverty, and when released, forced to beg from his friends the means of living.Mūsa's son murdered,
97 A.H.
715 A.D. To add to his misfortune, his son ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, whom he had left to succeed him in Spain, was assassinated, as is supposed, but without sufficient grounds, by secret orders from Damascus; and the heartless Suleimān sent his head to the father with an insulting message:—"a grievous error on the Caliph’s part," justly adds the Arabian annalist. Ṭāriḳ also must have retired into private life, for we hear no more of him. It is sometimes said that Al-Welīd leaned towards Ḳeis and Suleimān towards the Yemenis; but their treatment of Mūsa and his son, who were Yemenis, shows that their partisanship was not very deep. The fall of both resembles that of Khālid—an ungrateful end for the three great conquerors of their age.[1]
The era of Al-Welīd was glorious both at home and abroad. There is no other reign, not excepting even that of
- ↑ Another, but more romantic, and less likely, narrative is as follows:—
Mūsa reached Damascus while Al-Welīd was yet alive (which, if we look only to the dates, is not improbable). He vaunted himself at court, in depreciation of Ṭāriḳ, as the conqueror of Spain; and among the spoils belonging to himself and as such presented to the Caliph, was "Solomon’s table." Ṭāriḳ upon this claimed that the prize was his, which Mūsa denied. "Ask him, then," said Ṭāriḳ, "what has become of the lost foot" (see former note). Mūsa could not tell; whereupon Ṭāriḳ (who had kept it by him for just such an occasion) produced the wanting piece. And so Al-Welīd was satisfied that Mūsa had really treated Ṭāriḳ badly.
A curious account is also given of the death of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Mūsa's son. Himself an excellent man, he fell under the influence of Roderic's widow, who persuaded him to adopt the princely habits of the country. His followers being slow to make courtly obeisance (as resembling prostration at prayer), she had a low threshold made, through which all had to stoop as they approached the throne. She also made him wear Roderic's jewelled crown. His followers on this conspired to slay him as a renegade, 97 A.H. Others held that Suleimān, probably fearing that ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz might assume regal and independent power, sent orders for his death at the time his father came to grief at court, and that his enemies fell upon him as he was praying in his chamber with the Ḳorʾān before him. "When the head was sent to his father with the Caliph's cruel question, 'Dost thou recognise it?' he exclaimed—'Welcome to thy martyrdom, my son; for truly they did slay thee in thy piety and uprightness.' And it was counted as one of Suleimān's chief misdeeds."
