Not long afterwards a curious episode in his history disturbed the equanimity of the Moslem public. Muâvia formally recognised Ziâd as the son of his own father Abu Sofiân, and therefore as his brother. The open acknowledgment of the relationship created a serious scandal throughout Islam, because it was held to contravene the law of legitimacy, and still more because it made Omm Habîba, one of the ‘Mothers of the Faithful,’ and daughter also of Abu Sofiân, to be the sister of an adulterous issue. Even the Beni Omeyyad, Muâvia’s own kinsfolk, were displeased at the affront put upon the purity of their blood. But the feeling passed away when it was seen that a pillar of iron strength had been gained to the Omeyyad side.[579] [Sidenote: Ziâd appointed Governor of Bussorah, and eventually of Kûfa.]In the year 45 A.H., Ziâd was made Governor of Bussorah, and of the whole of Southern Persia, from the Straits of Omân to the river Indus. His strong hand fell heavily on the restless population of Bussorah: the city was patrolled incessantly by an armed police of a thousand men. None might venture abroad at night on pain of death; and so ruthless was the order, that an unlucky Arab, who had wandered unawares into the precincts of the town, was tried and deliberately executed for the involuntary offence. Both at the Mosque and the palace, and whenever he went abroad, Ziâd was attended in Oriental guise by silver-sticks and lictors, and a body-guard of five hundred soldiers waited at his gate. The supremacy of law, or, as it might perhaps be called, the reign of terror, was new at Bussorah, but it effectually repressed rebellion; and the same may also be said of Kûfa, to which, on Moghîra’s death, Ziâd was translated. This stern administration was but a foretaste of the hard and cruel régime which, later on, found its climax in the bloody rule of Hajjâj; the son of Yusûf. [Sidenote: Design of removing Mahomet’s pulpit to Damascus.] In the fiftieth year of the Hegira, we are told that Muâvia entertained a project for removing the pulpit and staff of the Prophet from Medîna, the rebellious scene of Othmân’s murder, to Damascus, now the capital of Islam. But the impious project was, by Divine interposition, checked. For, ‘on its being touched, the pulpit trembled fearfully, and the sun was darkened, so that the very stars shone forth, and men were terrified at the prodigies.’ The tradition is significant of the superstitious regard in which everything connected with the Prophet’s person was held. It is not unlikely that Muâvia did entertain the sacrilegious design; but, if so, he was dissuaded from it by Abu Horeira, who urged that where the Prophet had placed his pulpit and his staff, there they should remain. And so they were left as relics in the Great Mosque hard by the dwelling-place of Mahomet.[580] CHAPTER XLVIII.