deficiency, ordered the prefect of Khorasan,
Sa'id-al-Harashi, to take tribute from the Sogdians in Transoxiana, who
had embraced Islam on the promise of Omar II. The Sogdians raised a
revolt in Ferghana, but were subdued by Sa'id and obliged to pay. A
still more questionable measure of Ibn Hobaira was his ordering the
successor of Sa'id Harashi to extort large sums of money from several of
the most respectable Khorasanians. The discontent roused thereby became
one of the principal causes of the fall of the Omayyads.

In Africa serious troubles arose from the same cause. Yazid b. Abi
Moslim, who had been at the head of the financial department in Irak
under Hajjaj, and had been made governor of Africa by Yazid II., issued
orders that the villagers who, having adopted Islam, were freed from
tribute according to the promise of Omar II., and had left their
villages for the towns, should return to their domiciles and pay the
same tribute as before their conversion. The Berbers rose in revolt,
slaughtered the unfortunate governor, and put in his place the former
governor Mahommed b. Yazid. The caliph at first ratified this choice,
but soon after dismissed Mahommed from his post, and replaced him by
Bishr b. Safwan, who under Hisham made an expedition against Sicily.

Yazid II. was by natural disposition the opposite of his predecessor. He
did not feel that anxiety for the spiritual welfare of his subjects
which had animated Omar II. Poetry and music, not beloved by Suleiman
and condemned by Omar, were held by him in great honour. Two
court-singers, Sallama and Hababa, exercised great influence, tempered
only by the austerity of manners that prevailed in Syria. He was so
deeply affected by the death of Hababa, that Maslama entreated him not
to exhibit his sorrow to the eyes of the public. He died a few days
later, on the 26th of January 724, according to the chroniclers from
grief for her loss. As his successor he had appointed in the first place
his brother Hisham, and after him his own son Walid.

10. _Reign of Hisham_.--Hisham was a wise and able prince and an enemy
of luxury, not an idealist like Omar II., nor a worldling like Yazid
II., but more like his father Abdalmalik, devoting all his energy to the
pacification of the interior, and to extending and consolidating the
empire of Islam. But the discontent, which had been sown under his
predecessors, had now developed to such an extent that he could not
suppress it in