General Notes

Alias:<ALIA> Yazid I of /Wines/
According to ARABICNEWS.COM: "....Yazid of Wines since he abandoned rose
sherbet for the grape, an amiable and democratic prince, sportsman,
musician, and poet, was for hundreds of years perhaps the most vilified
ruler in history. It was his misfortune to have sacked rebellious Medina
(in what is now Saudi Arabia) and borne the responsibility for the Battle
of Kerbala (in present-day Iraq) where Hussein, grandson of the Prophet
Muhammad together with his followers, was defeated and killed.  It was
difficult to see how Yazid could have acted differently: in Arabia the
rebellion was dangerous.  In spite of the opposition of the Shiites and
Muslim orthodoxy, the Ummayads continued to prosper...Their vitality must
be ascribed primarily to the instinct which promoted them constantly to
renew their vigor in the deserts.  There they found the toughness and
stamina to offset the delights of empire.   When Mu'Awia, the first
Caliph, sent the heir-apparent off into the deserts in the charge of his
Christian-Bedouin mother to acquire an education in desert endurance and
desert virtues, he set a precedent which subsequent caliphs
followed...The tolerant policies of the Umayyads and their cooperation
with the native Christian populations enabled the latter to play an
important role by handing on to the conquerors much of their
Greco-Aramaic culture and civilization.  What Greece had been to Rome,
Syria was to the Arabs, saving and transmitting a great culture."