Muḥammadan tradition, which with rare exceptions is uniformly hostile to the Umayyad dynasty, regards Ḥusayn as a martyr and Yazíd as his murderer; while modern historians, for the most part, agree with Sir W. Muir, who points out that Ḥusayn, "having yielded himself to a treasonable, though impotent design upon the throne, was committing an offence that endangered society and demanded swift suppression." This was naturally the view of the party in power, and the reader must form his own conclusion as to how far it justifies the action which they took. For Moslems the question is decided by the relation of the Umayyads to Islam. Violators of its laws and spurners of its ideals, they could never be anything but tyrants; and being tyrants, they had no right to slay believers who rose in arms against their usurped authority. The so-called verdict of history, when we come to examine it, is seen to be the verdict of religion, the judgment of theocratic Islam on Arabian Imperialism. On this ground the Umayyads are justly condemned, but it is well to remember that in Moslem eyes the distinction between Church and State does not exist. Yazíd was a bad Churchman: therefore he was a wicked tyrant; the one thing involves the other. From our unprejudiced standpoint, he was an amiable prince who inherited his mother's poetic talent, and infinitely preferred wine, music, and sport to the drudgery of public affairs. The Syrian Arabs, who recognised the Umayyads as legitimate, thought highly of him: "Jucundissimus," says a Christian writer, "et cunctis nationibus regni ejus subditis vir gratissime habitus, qui nullam unquam, ut omnibus moris est, sibi regalis fastigii causa gloriam appetivit, sed communis cum omnibus civiliter vixit."[367] He deplored the fate of the women and children of Ḥusayn's family, treated them with every mark of respect, and sent them to Medína, where their account of the tragedy added fresh fuel to the hatred and indignation with which its authors were generally regarded. The Umayyads had indeed ample cause to rue the day of Karbalá. It gave the Shí‘ite faction a rallying-cry--"Vengeance for Ḥusayn!"--which was taken up on all sides, and especially by the Persian _Mawálí_, or Clients, who longed for deliverance from the Arab yoke. Their amalgamation with the Shí‘a--a few years later they flocked in thousands to the standard of Mukhtár--was an event of the utmost historical importance, which will be discussed when we come to speak of the Shí‘ites in particular. [Sidenote: Medína and Mecca desecrated (682-3 A.D.).] [Sidenote: Rebellion of Mukhtár (685-6 A.D.).]