A.H. 101–105.
extent the law and custom of Islam has been built, and which incidentally also give us a clear and generally authentic view of the Prophet’s life itself.
Hishām nominated successor.Early in his reign Yezīd was persuaded to nominate as successor his brother Hishām, and after him his own son Al-Welīd, then but eleven years of age. Homage was done to both accordingly throughout the Empire. A few years later he repented that he had not given the succession immediately to his son; but did not venture on a change.
Yezīd's passion for a slave-girl.Yezīd had even a greater passion for the ḥarīm than any of his predecessors, but it was more fixed and constant. We are told of a slave-girl Ḥabbāba and a songstress Sallāma, whose influence was supreme at Court. Even Ibn Hubeira was said to have obtained his high place through them. His attachment to the former was so great that he did not many days survive her death. He had retired with her for a season to a garden retreat in Palestine, and there casting playfully a grape-stone into her mouth, it choked her, and she died upon the spot. For three days he clung weeping to her relics. At last he was persuaded to let her be buried. The funeral service was performed by his brother Maslama, who feared that if the Caliph were seen by the people, they would be scandalised at the extravagance of his grief. He never recovered composure or self-control, and died within a week. The cry of Sallāma, who was tending his last moments, was the first intimation of the fact to his family and attendants.[1]
- ↑ The romantic tale of Ḥabbāba throws a strange light on the Royal ḥarīm, and the conditions of its domestic life. Some years before his accession, when on pilgrimage to Mecca, Yezīd purchased her for 4000 pieces of gold; but his brother Suleimān, then Caliph, was displeased at the purchase; and so he returned her to the merchant, who then sold her to an Egyptian. When Yezīd succeeded to the throne, his wife, a granddaughter of ʿOthmān, said one day to him,—"Is there yet any one thing in the world, my love, left thee to desire?" "Yes," he answered, "and it is Ḥabbāba." "So she sent to Egypt and bought the object of his heart's desire. Then having adorned her as a bride, she seated her on a couch in an inner chamber behind a curtain, and called her husband; and as they talked, again she asked 'Is there aught yet in the world left for thee to long after?' 'Yea, and thou knowest it all thyself.' So she drew the curtain aside, and saying 'Yes, I know it; there sits Ḥabbāba waiting for thee,' she arose and left them together. And Yezīd loved his wife all the more for it."
