foreshadowing the greatness of his administrative talent, that he sent him back with the full approval of his employment in the affairs of the province; but the girl was detained in confinement at Medîna. With Dhabba the Caliph was very angry. Out of malice he had sought to ruin Abu Mûsa by one-sided allegations. ‘Truth perverted is no better,’ Omar said, ‘than is a lie; and a lie leadeth to hell fire.’[401] [Sidenote: Sád deposed at Kûfa. A.H. XXI. A.D. 642.] Kûfa remained for several years under the rule of Sád, its founder, the conqueror of Chaldæa and Medâin. At length, in the ninth year of Omar’s Caliphate, a faction sprang up against him. The Bedouin jealousy of the Coreish had already begun to work; and Sád was accused of unfairness in distributing the booty. There was also imputed to him the lack of martial spirit and backwardness to show himself in the field, a revival of the old charge made slanderously against him at Câdesîya.[402] He was summoned, with his accusers, to Medîna; but the main offence of which he was found guilty was one of little concern to them. Sád in his public ministrations had cut short the customary prayers; and Omar, deeming the offence unpardonable, deposed him. [Sidenote: Changes in the government of Kûfa.] To fill a vacancy requiring, beyond all others in the empire, skill, experience, and power, Omar unwisely appointed Ammâr, who, having been, as a persecuted slave at Mecca, one of Mahomet’s earliest converts, possessed a merit second to none in the Faith, but was a man of no ability, and, moreover, advanced in years.[403] The citizens of Kûfa were not long in finding out his incapacity; and, at their desire, Omar transferred Abu Mûsa from Bussorah to rule over them. But it was no easy work to curb the factious populace. They took offence at his slave for buying fodder as it crossed the bridge; and for so slight a cause the Caliph, after he had been governor for a year, sent him back again to Bussorah. Another nomination had already been determined on, when the artful Moghîra, finding Omar alone in the Great Mosque, wormed the secret out of him; and dwelling on the grave burden of a hundred thousand turbulent citizens, suggested that the new candidate was not fit to bear it. ‘But,’ said Omar, ‘the men of Kûfa have pressed me to send them neither a headstrong tyrant, nor a weak and impotent believer.’ ‘As for a weak believer,’ answered Moghîra, ‘his faith is for himself, his weakness falleth on thee; as for a strong tyrant, his tyranny injureth himself alone, and his strength is all for thee.’ Omar was caught in the snare, and, the scandals of Bussorah notwithstanding, was weak enough to confer on Moghîra the government of Kûfa. With all his defects, Moghîra was, without doubt, the strong man needed for that stiff-necked city; and he held his position there during the two remaining years of Omar’s reign.[404] [Sidenote: Evil arising from change of governors.]