d the subjugation of Spain, till Walid
recalled him to Damascus. He obeyed after having appointed his son
Abdalaziz governor of Andalos (Andalusia), as the Arabs named the
peninsula, and assigned Seville as his residence. Abdalaziz consolidated
his power by marrying the widow of the late king Roderic. Musa left
Spain about August 714, and reached Damascus shortly before the death of
Walid. Notwithstanding the immense booty he brought, he did not receive
his due reward. Accused of peculation, he was threatened with
imprisonment unless he paid a fine of 100,000 pieces of gold. The old
man--he was born in the year 640--was released by Yazid b. Mohallab, the
then mighty favourite of the caliph Suleiman, but died in the same year
716 on his way to Mecca. His son Abdalaziz was an excellent ruler, who
did much for the consolidation of the new conquests, but he reigned only
one year and eleven months, when he was murdered. His death has been
falsely imputed by some historians to the caliph Suleiman.[19]

In the East the Moslem armies gained the most astonishing successes. In
the course of a few years Qotaiba b. Moslim conquered Paikend, Bokhara,
Samarkand, Khwarizm (mod. Khiva), Ferghana and Shash (Tashkent), and
even Kashgar on the frontiers of China. Meanwhile Mahommed b. Qasim
invaded Makran, took Daibol, passed the Indus, and marched, after having
beaten the Indian king Daher, through Sind upon Multan, which he
conquered and whence he carried off an immense booty.

Walid was the first caliph, born and trained as prince, who felt the
majesty of the imamate and wished it to be felt by his subjects. He
desired to augment the splendours of Islam and its sovereign, as
Abdalmalik had already done by building the dome of Jerusalem. In the
time of the conquest of Damascus, one half of the great church had been
made a mosque, while the remaining half had been left to the Christians.
Walid annexed this part, indemnifying the Christians elsewhere, and
restored the whole building sumptuously and magnificently. In his time
many fine palaces and beautiful villas were built in Syria, and Becker's
conjecture seems not altogether improbable, that from this period dates
the palace of Mashetta, the facade of which is now in the Kaiser
Friedrich Museum at Berlin, as perhaps also the country houses
discovered by Musil in the land of Moab. Walid also caused the mosque of
Medina to be enlarged. For this purpose, the apartments of the Prophet
and