Note 459 — Chapter XXXI · DOMESTIC EVENTS DURING THE CALIPHATE OF OTHMAN. HIS GROWING UNPOPULARITY.
Reading edition
On this subject historians say very little; and it is chiefly from incidental notices in fragments of early poetry that Von Kremer has so ably traced the inroads of profligacy and the practice of forbidden pastimes—music, wine, and gambling. The brief notice of Ibn al Athîr on this matter is as follows: ‘The prevalence of a worldly spirit first showed itself at Medîna in the flying of doves and shooting with pellets (with a gaming aim); and in the eighth year of his Caliphate Othmân appointed an officer to stop the same, who clipped the birds’ wings, and broke the cross-bows.’ A citizen was rebuked by the Caliph for playing at ‘oranges’ (apparently some game of chance); and he thereupon got angry and joined the hostile party. The anti-Omeyyad tendency of the tradition on this subject is evident from Welîd (the drunkard) being named as the person employed by the Caliph to administer the rebuke.