The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 08

by Unknown

CHAPTER V. THE SPREAD OF ISLAM

ABU BEKR, FIRST CALIPH AFTER MOHAMMED

[632-661 A.D.]

Mohammed, the founder of the Saracenic empire, died at Medina, on Monday the 8th of June, 632 A.D., being the twenty-second year of the reign of Heraclius the Grecian emperor. After he was dead, the next care was to appoint a successor; and it was indeed very necessary that one should be provided as soon as possible. Their government and religion being both in their infancy, and a great many of Mohammed’s followers no great bigots, not having yet forgotten their ancient rights and customs, but rather forced to leave them for fear, than upon any conviction, affairs were in such a posture as could by no means admit of an interregnum. Wherefore the same day that he expired the Mussulmans met together in order to elect a caliph or successor. In that assembly there had like to have been such a fray, as might, in all probability, have greatly endangered, if not utterly ruined, this new religion and polity, had not Omar and Abu Bekr timely interposed. For the prophet having left no positive directions concerning a successor, or at least none that were known to any but his wives, who in all probability might conceal them out of their partiality in favour of Omar, a hot dispute arose between the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina.

At last Omar being wearied out, and seeing no likelihood of deciding the matter, was willing to give over, and bade Abu Bekr give him his hand, which he had no sooner done than Omar promised him fealty. The rest followed his example, and by the consent of both parties Abu Bekr was at last saluted caliph, and being acknowledged the rightful successor of their prophet Mohammed, became the absolute judge of all causes both sacred and civil. Thus, after much ado, that difference was at last composed, which had like to have proved fatal to Mohammedanism. And certainly it was a very great oversight in Mohammed, in all the time of his sickness, never to have named a successor positively and publicly. If he had done so, without question, his authority would have determined the business, and prevented that disturbance which had like to have endangered the religion he had planted with so much difficulty and hazard.

Now though the government was actually settled upon Abu Bekr, all parties were not equally satisfied, for a great many were of opinion that the right of succession belonged to Ali, the son of Abu Talib. Upon which account the Mohammedans have ever since been divided; some maintaining that Abu Bekr, and Omar, and Othman, that came after him, were the rightful and lawful successors of the prophet; and others disclaiming them altogether as usurpers, and constantly asserting the right of Ali. Of the former opinion are the Turks at this day; of the latter, the Persians. And such consequently is the difference between those two nations, that notwithstanding their agreement in all other points of their superstition, yet upon this account they treat one another as most damnable heretics. Ali had this to recommend him, that he was Mohammed’s cousin-german, and was the first that embraced his religion, except his wife Khadija, and his slave Zaid, and was besides Mohammed’s son-in-law, having married his daughter Fatima. Abu Bekr was Mohammed’s father-in-law, by whom he was so much respected that he received from him the surname of As-Siddik (which signifies in Arabic, “a great speaker of truth”), because he resolutely asserted the truth of that story which Mohammed told of his going one night to heaven.

Ali was not present at this election, and when he heard the news was not well pleased, having hoped that the choice would have fallen on himself. Abu Bekr sent Omar to Fatima’s house, where Ali and some of his friends were, with orders to compel them by force to come in and do fealty to him, if they would not be persuaded by fair means. Omar was just going to fire the house, when Fatima asked him what he meant. He told her that he would certainly burn the house down unless they would be content to do as the rest of the people had done. Upon which Ali came forth and went to Abu Bekr, and acknowledged his sovereignty.

Abu Bekr being thus settled in his new government, had work enough to maintain it; for the Mohammedan religion had not as yet taken such deep root in the hearts of men but that they would very willingly have shaken it off had they known how. Accordingly the Arabians, a people of a restless and turbulent disposition, did not neglect the opportunity of rebelling, which they thought was fairly offered them by the death of Mohammed. Immediately taking up arms, they refused to pay the usual tribute, tithes, and alms, and no longer observed the rites and customs which had been imposed upon them by Mohammed.

[632-633 A.D.]

Abu Bekr sent Khalid ben Walid, with an army of forty-five hundred men, who, having routed them in a set battle, brought off a great deal of plunder, and made slaves of their children.

Khalid was the best general of his age, and it was chiefly to his courage and conduct that the Saracens owed the subduing of the rebels, the conquest of Syria, and the establishment of their religion and polity. His love and tenderness towards his own soldiers were only equalled by his hatred and aversion to the enemies of the Mohammedan religion. Of both he has given the most signal instances. To those who, having embraced the Mohammedan religion, afterwards apostatised, he was an irreconcilable and implacable foe; nor would he spare them, though they evinced the greatest signs of unfeigned repentance. For his great valour, the Arabs called him “the Sword of God”; which surname of his was known also to his enemies, and is mentioned as well by Greek as Arab authors.

About this time several persons, perceiving the success and prosperity of Mohammed and his followers, set up also for prophets too, in hope of meeting the like good fortune, and making themselves eminent in the world. Such were Aswad al-Ansi and Tulaihah ben Khuwailid, with several others, whose attempts however quickly came to nothing. But the most considerable of these impostors was Musailima, who had been the rival of Mohammed even in his life-time, and trumped up a book in imitation of the Koran. He had now gathered together a very considerable body of men in Yemen, a province of Arabia, and began to be so formidable that the Mussulmans began to feel alarmed at his growing greatness.

It is strange and surprising to consider from how mean and contemptible beginnings the greatest things have been raised in a short time. Of this the Saracenic empire is a remarkable instance. For if we look back but eleven years, we shall see how Mohammed, unable to support his cause, routed and oppressed by the powerful party of the Koreishites at Mecca, fled with a few desponding followers to Medina to preserve his life no less than his imposture. And now, within so short a period, we find the undertakings of his successor prospering beyond expectation, and making him the terror of all his neighbours; and the Saracens in a capacity not only to keep possession of their own peninsula of Arabia, but to extend their arms over larger territories than ever were subject to the Romans themselves. Whilst they were thus employed in Arabia, they were little regarded by the Grecian emperor, who awoke too late to a sense of their formidable power, when he saw them pouring in upon them like a torrent, and driving all before them. The proud Persian, too, who so very lately had been domineering in Syria, and sacked Jerusalem and Damascus, must be forced not only to part with his own dominions, but also to submit his neck to the Saracenic yoke. It may be reasonably supposed that, had the Grecian empire been in the flourishing condition it formerly was, the Saracens might have been checked at least, if not entirely extinguished. But besides that the western part of the empire had been rent from it by the barbarous Goths, the eastern also had received so many shocks from the Huns on the one side, and the Persians on the other, that it was not in a situation to stem the fury of this powerful invasion. Heraclius, indeed, was a prince of admirable courage and conduct, and did all that was possible to restore the discipline of the army, and was very successful against the Persians, not only driving them out of his own dominions, but even wresting from them a part of their own territories. But the empire seemed to labour under an incurable disease, and to be wounded in its very vitals. No time could have been more fatally adverse to its maintenance, nor more favourable to the enterprises of the Saracens.

Abu Bekr had now set affairs at home in pretty good order. The apostates who upon the death of Mohammed had revolted to the idolatry in which they were born and bred, were again reduced to subjection. The forces of Musailima, the false prophet, being dispersed and himself killed, there was now little or nothing left to be done in Arabia. For though there were a great many Christian Arabs, as particularly the tribe of Ghassan, yet they were generally employed in the service of the Greek emperor. The next business, therefore, that the caliph had to do, pursuant to the tenor of his religion, was to make war upon his neighbours, for the propagation of the truth (for so they call their superstition), and compel them either to become Mohammedans or tributaries. For their prophet Mohammed had given them a commission of a very large, nay, unlimited extent, to fight, viz., till all the people were of his religion. The wars which are entered upon in obedience to this command, they call holy wars, with no greater absurdity than we ourselves give the same title to that which was once undertaken against them by Europeans. With this religious object, Abu Bekr sent at this time a force under Khalid into Irak or Babylonia; but his greatest longing was after Syria, which delicious, pleasant, and fruitful country being near to Arabia, seemed to lie very conveniently for him.

[633-634 A.D.]

The news of his preparation quickly came to the ears of the emperor Heraclius, who despatched a force with all possible speed to check the advance of the Saracens, but with ill success; for the general, with twelve hundred of his men, was killed upon the field of the battle, and the rest routed, the Arabs losing only 120 men. A number of skirmishes followed, in most of which the Christians came off the worst.[b]

Damascus was besieged for months, and all sorties of the inhabitants crushed with heavy slaughter. Heraclius, at Antioch, sent a great army under Werdan to its relief. Khalid, raising the siege, went to meet it.[a]

Damascus

The two armies presently came within sight of each other, and the confidence of the Saracens was somewhat checked, when they perceived the strength of the emperor’s forces, which amounted to no less than seventy thousand. Those who had been in Persia, and seen the vast armies of Chosroes, confessed that they had never beheld an enemy equal to the present, either in number or military preparation. On the second morning they moved forward, and engaged in all parts with all imaginable vigour. The fight, or rather the slaughter, continued till evening. The Christian army was entirely routed and defeated. The Saracens killed that day fifty thousand men. Those that escaped fled, some of them to Cæsarea, others to Damascus, and some to Antioch. The Saracens took plunder of inestimable value, and a great many banners, and crosses made of gold and silver, precious stones, silver and gold chains, rich clothes, and arms without number; which Khalid said he would not divide until Damascus was taken.

The Saracens, returning to Damascus, continued vigorously to press the siege, and reduced the inhabitants to very great straits, who every day made a worse defence. For a while, at last, they begged of Khalid to stay the assault, that they might have a little time to deliberate. But he turned a deaf ear to them, for he had rather take the town by force, and put the inhabitants to the sword, and let his Saracens have the plunder, than that they should surrender, and have security for their lives and their property. At length, through treachery, Khalid entered at the east gate with his Saracens, putting all to the sword, and Christian blood streamed down the streets of Damascus.

Abu Bekr the caliph died the same day that Damascus was taken,[34] which was on Friday, the 23rd of August, 634 A.D. There are various reports concerning his death; some say that he was poisoned by the Jews, eating rice with Harith ben Kaldah, and that they both died of it within a twelvemonth after. But Aisha says, that he bathed himself upon a cold day, which threw him into a fever[35] of which he died within fifteen days.[b]

Abu Bekr particularly lamented the number of the prophet’s companions that fell in these campaigns, and fearing that the revelations of Mohammed might be dispersed and lost, he gave orders that they should be collected into the Koran. We shall later have occasion to notice the slovenly manner in which the persons employed performed their task; the compilation was subsequently revised in the reign of the caliph Othman, and it is probable that there are many passages far different from those which Mohammed wrote.

When all things were ready, the caliph reviewed the troops and issued that celebrated code of regulations for the conduct of the army; it was addressed to the general Abu Sufyan, and contained the following directions: “Take care to treat your men with tenderness and lenity. Consult with your officers upon all pressing occasions, and encourage them to face the enemy with bravery and resolution. If you are victorious, spare all the aged, the women, and the children. Neither cut down palm trees nor burn any fields of corn. Spare all fruit trees; slay no cattle but such as are required for your own use. Adhere to your engagements inviolably; spare the inhabitants of monasteries; desecrate no houses of religious worship. Cleave the skulls of those members of the synagogue of Satan, who shave their crowns, give them no quarter, unless they embrace Islamism, or pay tribute.”

The character of the first caliph had a beneficial effect on the Mohammedan religion; for though the partisans of Ali accuse him of ambition, and of uniting with his daughter Aisha to suppress the prophet’s declarations in favour of Ali, yet they do not deny him the praise of disinterestedness, justice, and benevolence. Before his accession, he had bestowed the greater part of his estate to feed the poor, and had been publicly named by the prophet the most charitable of men. When placed at the head of affairs, he only took from the treasury the sum absolutely necessary for his daily support; before entering on the sovereignty, he ordered an exact account to be taken of his personal estate, and at his death it was found to be considerably diminished. In fact the absolute ruler of the richest countries of the world left behind him but a single camel and an Ethiopian slave, and even these he bequeathed to his successor. He dictated his will to Othman in the following terms: “In the Name of the Most Merciful God.—This is the last will and testament of Abu Bekr ben Abi Kohafa, when he was in the last hour of this world, and the first of the next; an hour in which the infidel must believe, the wicked be convinced of their evil ways, and liars speak the truth. I nominate Omar ben al-Khattab my successor; therefore, hearken to him, and obey him. If he acts right, he will confirm my expectations; if otherwise, he must render an account of his own actions. My intentions are good, but I cannot foresee the future results. However, those who do ill shall render a severe account hereafter. Fare-ye-well. May ye be ever attended by the divine favour and blessing.” When Abu Bekr had concluded this dictation, he fainted; on his recovery, he desired Othman to read the document, soon after which he expired. When information of the event was brought to Omar, he exclaimed, “The life of Abu Bekr has been such, that it will be impossible for those who come after, to imitate his sublime example.” Two proverbs attributed to him, deserve to be quoted: “Good actions are a sure protection against the blows of adversity.”—“Death is the most difficult of all things before it comes, and the easiest when it is past.”

THE CALIPH OMAR

[634-644 A.D.]

Omar was, like his predecessor, a native of Mecca; he had been originally a camel-herd, and never became quite free from the coarseness and rusticity incident to his humble origin. At first a zealous idolater, he proposed to extirpate all the followers of Mohammed; when he became afterwards a Mussulman, he was just as eager to massacre all who would not believe in the prophet. Violent on every occasion, he breathed nothing but slaughter; and countless anecdotes are related of his unrelenting temper. One of these must suffice. A Mussulman having a suit against a Jew, was condemned by Mohammed, and in consequence, carried his appeal before the tribunal of Omar; scarcely had he stated his case, when Omar, springing from his seat, struck the appellant dead with one blow of his sabre, exclaiming, “So perish all who will not submit to the decision of God’s chosen prophet.” Rigorous justice, as interpreted by the Mohammedan laws, and extreme severity, rendered his character more respected than beloved. Mohammed said of him, “Truth speaks by the mouth of Omar.” He added, that “if God had to send another prophet on the earth, Omar would be the object of his choice.”

When Abu Bekr informed Omar that he had chosen him as his successor, Omar, with mingled pride and humility, answered, “I have no need of the caliphate.” Abu Bekr replied, “But the caliphate has need of you,” and thus removed all further scruple. On his accession, he called himself the “Caliph of the Caliph of God’s apostle,” but finding the title inconveniently long, he changed it into that of “Commander of the Faithful”; and this became, subsequently, the favourite designation of his successors. When first he addressed his subjects, he stood a step lower on the pulpit than Abu Bekr had been accustomed to do; he informed his hearers that he would not have undertaken the arduous task of government, only that he reposed perfect confidence in their intention to observe the law, and adhere to the pure faith; he concluded with these remarkable words, “O Mussulmans, I take God to witness, that none of you shall be too strong for me to sacrifice the rights of the weak, nor too weak for me to neglect the rights of the strong.”

No sooner was Omar placed at the head of affairs than the armies of the Mohammedans seemed to have acquired tenfold vigour; and this was not diminished by the severe treatment which the gallant Khalid, for a trivial offence, received from the jealous caliph. The greater part of Syria and Mesopotamia had been subdued during the life of Abu Bekr, the conquest of these countries was now completed; the ancient empire of the Persians was overthrown at the battle of Kadisiya; Palestine, Phœnicia, and Egypt submitted to the Saracen yoke almost without a struggle; and the standard of the prophet floated in triumph from the sands of the Cyrenian desert to the banks of the Indus. “During the reign of Omar,” says Khondemir, “the Saracens conquered thirty-six thousand cities, towns, and castles, destroyed four thousand Christian, Magian, and pagan temples, and erected fourteen hundred mosques.”

The annals of the world present no parallel to this recital; the Arabs were animated by an enthusiasm which made them despise the most fearful odds; they had ever in their mouths the magnificent orientalism, traditionally ascribed to Mohammed, “in the shades of the scymitars is paradise prefigured”; they sought battle as a feast, and counted danger a sport. A fiercer spirit of course displayed itself in the Mohammedan creed; the sanguinary precepts of propagandism, to which the prophet had given utterance after his power was established at Medina, quite obscured the milder doctrine taught at Mecca; and even these were surpassed in ferocity by traditions which some of the sterner enthusiasts declared that they had derived from the prophet himself. Abu Horeira declared that he heard from Mohammed, “He who shall die without having fought for God, or who never proposed that duty to himself, verily consigns himself to destruction by his hypocrisy,” and also the singular declaration, “He who shall bestow a horse upon one who would enlist himself under the banner of the Most High, and be one who has faith in God and in his promises, surely, both the food of that horse and the sustenance of his rider, with the ordure of the former, shall be placed in the scales for his advantage on the day of judgment.” We shall add one more, preserved on the authority of Ibn Abbas: “There are two descriptions of eyes which the fire of hell shall not destroy; the eyes that weep in contemplating the indignation of God, and the eyes which are closed when in the act of combat for the cause of God.”[f]

THE CONQUEST OF PERSIA

From the rapid conquests of the Saracens a presumption will naturally arise, that the first caliphs commanded in person the armies of the faithful, and sought the crown of martyrdom in the foremost ranks of the battle. The courage of Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othman had indeed been tried in the persecution and wars of the prophet; and the personal assurance of paradise must have taught them to despise the pleasures and dangers of the present world. But they ascended the throne in a venerable or mature age, and esteemed the domestic cares of religion and justice the most important duties of a sovereign. Except the presence of Omar at the siege of Jerusalem, their longest expeditions were the frequent pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca; and they calmly received the tidings of victory as they prayed or preached before the sepulchre of the prophet.

In the sloth and vanity of the palace of Damascus, the succeeding princes of the house of Omayyah were alike destitute of the qualifications of statesmen and of saints. Yet the spoils of unknown nations were continually laid at the foot of their throne, and the uniform ascent of the Arabian greatness must be ascribed to the spirit of the nation rather than the abilities of their chiefs. A large deduction must be allowed for the weakness of their enemies. The birth of Mohammed was fortunately placed in the most degenerate and disorderly period of the Persians, the Romans, and the barbarians of Europe; the empires of Trajan, or even of Constantine or Charlemagne, would have repelled the assault of the naked Saracens, and the torrent of fanaticism might have been obscurely lost in the sands of Arabia.

In the victorious days of the Roman republic, it had been the aim of the senate to confine their consuls and legions to a single war, and completely to suppress a first enemy before they provoked the hostilities of a second. These timid maxims of policy were disdained by the magnanimity or enthusiasm of the Arabian caliphs. With the same vigour and success they invaded the successors of Augustus, and those of Artaxerxes; and the rival monarchies at the same instant became the prey of an enemy whom they had been so long accustomed to despise. One hundred years after Mohammed’s flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over the various and distant provinces which may be comprised under the names of, (1) Persia; (2) Syria; (3) Egypt; (4) Africa; and (5) Spain. Under this general division we may proceed to unfold these memorable transactions; despatching with brevity the remote and less interesting conquests of the East, and reserving a fuller narrative for those domestic countries, which had been included within the pale of the Roman Empire.

Persian Warrior of the Middle Ages

[634-637 A.D.]

In the first year of the first caliph, his lieutenant Khalid, the sword of God, and the scourge of the infidels, advanced to the banks of the Euphrates, and reduced the cities of Anbar and Hira. Westward of the ruins of Babylon a tribe of sedentary Arabs had fixed themselves on the verge of the desert; and Hira was the seat of a race of kings who had embraced the Christian religion, and reigned above six hundred years under the shadow of the throne of Persia. The last of the Mondars was defeated and slain by Khalid; his son was sent a captive to Medina; his nobles bowed before the successor of the prophet; the people were tempted by the example and success of their countrymen; and the caliph accepted as the first-fruits of foreign conquest, an annual tribute of seventy thousand pieces of gold. The conquerors, and even their historians, were astonished by the dawn of their future greatness.

The indignation and fears of the Persians suspended for a moment their intestine divisions. By the unanimous sentence of the priests and nobles, Queen Azarmidokht was deposed—the sixth of the transient usurpers who had arisen and vanished in three or four years, since the death of Chosroes and the retreat of Heraclius. Her tiara was placed on the head of Yezdegerd, the grandson of Chosroes; and the same era, which coincides with an astronomical period, has recorded the fall of the Sassanian dynasty and the religion of Zoroaster. The youth and inexperience of the prince—he was only fifteen years of age—declined a perilous encounter; the royal standard was delivered into the hands of his general Rustem; and a remnant of thirty thousand regular troops was swelled in truth, or in opinion, to 120,000 subjects, or allies, of the great king. The Moslems, whose numbers were reinforced from twelve to thirty thousand, had pitched their camp in the plains of Kadesiya; and their line, though it consisted of fewer men, could produce more soldiers than the unwieldy host of the infidels. The periods of the battle of Kadesiya were distinguished by their peculiar appellations. The first, from the well-timed appearance of six thousand of the Syrian brethren, was denominated the day of succour. The day of concussion might express the disorder of one, or perhaps of both, of the contending armies. The third, a nocturnal tumult, received the whimsical name of the night of barking, from the discordant clamours, which were compared to the inarticulate sounds of the fiercest animals.

The morning of the succeeding day determined the fate of Persia; and a seasonable whirlwind drove a cloud of dust against the faces of the unbelievers. The clangour of arms was re-echoed to the tent of Rustem, who, far unlike the ancient hero of his name, was gently reclining in a cool and tranquil shade, amidst the baggage of his camp, and the train of mules that was laden with gold and silver. On the sound of danger he started from his couch; but his flight was overtaken by a valiant Arab, who caught him by the foot, struck off his head, hoisted it on a lance, and instantly returning to the field of battle, carried slaughter and dismay among the thickest ranks of the Persians. The Saracens confess a loss of 7,500 men; and the battle of Kadesiya is justly described by the epithets of obstinate and atrocious. The standard of the monarchy was overthrown and captured in the field—a leathern apron of a blacksmith, who, in ancient times, had arisen the deliverer of Persia; but this badge of heroic poverty was disguised, and almost concealed, by a profusion of precious gems. After this victory, the wealthy province of Irak or Assyria submitted to the caliph, and his conquests were firmly established by the speedy foundation of Bassora, a place which ever commands the trade and navigation of the Persians.

[637-651 A.D.]

After the defeat of Kadesiya, a country intersected by rivers and canals might have opposed an insuperable barrier to the victorious cavalry; and the walls of Ctesiphon or Madain, which had resisted the battering-rams of the Romans, would not have yielded to the darts of the Saracens. But the flying Persians were overcome by the belief that the last day of their religion and empire was at hand; the strongest posts were abandoned by treachery or cowardice; and the king, with a part of his family and treasures, escaped to Holwan at the foot of the Median hills. In the third month after the battle, Said, the lieutenant of Omar, passed the Tigris without opposition; the capital was taken by assault; and the disorderly resistance of the people gave a keener edge to the sabres of the Moslems, who shouted with religious transport, “This is the white palace of Chosroes, this is the promise of the apostle of God!” The naked robbers of the desert were suddenly enriched beyond the measure of their hope or knowledge. Each chamber revealed a new treasure secreted with art, or ostentatiously displayed; the gold and silver, the various wardrobes and precious furniture, surpassed (says Abulfeda) the estimate of fancy or numbers; and another historian defines the untold and almost infinite mass by the fabulous computation of three thousands of thousands of thousands of pieces of gold. The sack of Ctesiphon was followed by its desertion and gradual decay. The Saracens disliked the air and situation of the place, and Omar was advised by his general to remove the seat of government to the western side of the Euphrates.

In every age the foundation and ruin of the Assyrian cities has been easy and rapid; the country is destitute of stone and timber, and the most solid structures are composed of bricks baked in the sun, and joined by a cement of the native bitumen. After the loss of the battle of Jalula, Yezdegerd fled from Holwan, and concealed his shame and despair in the mountains of Farsistan, from whence Cyrus had descended with his equal and valiant companions. The courage of the nation survived that of the monarch; among the hills to the south of Ecbatana or Hamadan, 150,000 Persians made a third and final stand for their religion and country; and the decisive battle of Nehavend was styled by the Arabs the “victory of victories” (641).

The geography of Persia is darkly delineated by the Greeks and Latins; but the most illustrious of her cities appear to be more ancient than the invasion of the Arabs. By the reduction of Hamadan and Ispahan, of Caswin, Tabriz, and Rei, they gradually approached the shores of the Caspian Sea; and the orators of Mecca might applaud the success and spirit of the faithful, who had already lost sight of the Northern Bear, and had almost transcended the bounds of the habitable world. Again turning towards the west and the Roman Empire, they repassed the Tigris over the bridge of Mosul, and, in the captive provinces of Armenia and Mesopotamia, embraced their victorious brethren of the Syrian army. From the palace of Madain their eastern progress was not less rapid or extensive. They advanced along the Tigris and the gulf; penetrated through the passes of the mountains into the valley of Estachar or Persepolis; and profaned the last sanctuary of the Magian empire. The grandson of Chosroes was nearly surprised among the falling columns and mutilated figures; a sad emblem of the past and present fortune of Persia; he fled with accelerated haste over the desert of Kirman, implored the aid of the warlike Segestans, and sought an humble refuge on the verge of the Turkish and Chinese power. But a victorious army is insensible of fatigue; the Arabs divided their forces in the pursuit of a timorous enemy; and the caliph Othman promised the government of Khorasan to the first general who should enter that large and populous country, the kingdom of the ancient Bactrians. The condition was accepted; the prize was deserved; the standard of Mohammed was planted on the walls of Herat, Merou, and Balkh; and the successful leader neither halted nor reposed till his foaming cavalry had tasted the waters of the Oxus. In the public anarchy, the independent governors of the cities and castles obtained their separate capitulations; the terms were granted or imposed by the esteem, the prudence, or the compassion of the victors; and a simple profession of faith established the distinction between a brother and a slave. The administration of Persia was regulated by an actual survey of the people, the cattle, and the fruits of the earth; and this monument, which attests the vigilance of the caliphs, might have instructed the philosophers of every age.

The flight of Yezdegerd had carried him beyond the Oxus, and as far as the Jaxartes, two rivers of ancient and modern renown, which descend from the mountains of India towards the Caspian Sea. He was hospitably entertained by Tarkhan, prince of Fergana, a fertile province on the Jaxartes; the king of Samarcand, with the Turkish tribes of Sogdiana and Scythia, were moved by the lamentations and promises of the fallen monarch; and he solicited by a suppliant embassy, the more solid and powerful friendship of the emperor of China. The virtuous Taitsong, the first of the dynasty of the Tang, may be justly compared with the Antonines of Rome. His people enjoyed the blessings of prosperity and peace, and his dominion was acknowledged by forty-four hordes of the barbarians of Tartary. His last garrisons of Cashgar and Khoten maintained a frequent intercourse with their neighbours of the Jaxartes and Oxus; a recent colony of Persians had introduced into China the astronomy of the magi; and Taitsong might be alarmed by the rapid progress and dangerous vicinity of the Arabs. The influence and perhaps the supplies of China revived the hopes of Yezdegerd and the zeal of the worshippers of the fire; and he returned with an army of Turks to conquer the inheritance of his fathers. The fortunate Moslems, without unsheathing their swords, were the spectators of his ruin and death. The grandson of Chosroes was betrayed by his servant, insulted by the seditious inhabitants of Merou, and oppressed, defeated, and pursued by his barbarian allies. He reached the banks of a river, and offered his rings and bracelets for an instant passage in a miller’s boat. Ignorant or insensible of royal distress, the rustic replied, that four drachms of silver were the daily profit of his mill, and that he would not suspend his work unless the loss were repaid. In this moment of hesitation and delay, the last of the Sassanian kings was overtaken and slaughtered by the Turkish cavalry in the nineteenth year of his unhappy reign. His son Firuz, an humble client of the Chinese emperor, accepted the station of captain of his guards; and the magian worship was long preserved by a colony of loyal exiles in the province of Bokhara. His grandson inherited the regal name; but after a faint and fruitless enterprise, he returned to China and ended his days in the palace of Sigan. The male line of the Sassanids was extinct; but the female captives, the daughters of Persia, were given to the conquerors in servitude, or marriage; and the race of the caliphs and imams was ennobled by the blood of their royal mothers.

After the fall of the Persian kingdom, the river Oxus divided the territories of the Saracens and of the Turks. This narrow boundary was soon overleaped by the spirit of the Arabs; the governors of Khorasan extended their successive inroads; and one of their triumphs was adorned with the buskin of a Turkish queen, which she dropped in her precipitate flight beyond the hills of Bokhara. But the final conquest of Transoxiana, as well as of Spain, was reserved for the glorious reign of the inactive Walid; and the name of Katiba, the camel driver, declares the origin and merit of his successful lieutenant. While one of his colleagues displayed the first Mohammedan banner on the banks of the Indus, the spacious regions between the Oxus, the Jaxartes, and the Caspian Sea, were reduced by the arms of Katiba to the obedience of the prophet, and of the caliph. A tribute of two millions of pieces of gold was imposed on the infidels; their idols were burned or broken; the Mussulman chief pronounced a sermon in the new mosque of Khwarizm; after several battles, the Turkish hordes were driven back to the desert; and the emperors of China solicited the friendship of the victorious Arabs.

Before the invasion of the Saracens, Khwarizm, Bokhara and Samarcand were rich and populous under the yoke of the shepherds of the north. The mutual wants of India and Europe were supplied by the diligence of the Sogdian merchants; and the inestimable art of transforming linen into paper, has been transferred from the manufacture of Samarcand over the western world.

THE SYRIAN CONQUEST COMPLETED

[636-637 A.D.]

From the conquest of Damascus the Saracens proceeded to Heliopolis and Emesa. In the prosecution of the war, their policy was not less effectual than their sword. By short and separate truces they dissolved the union of the enemy; accustomed the Syrians to compare their friendship with their enmity; familiarised the idea of their language, religion, and manners; and exhausted, by clandestine purchase, the magazines and arsenals of the cities which they returned to besiege. They aggravated the ransom of the more wealthy or the more obstinate; and Chalcis alone was taxed at five thousand ounces of gold, five thousand ounces of silver, two thousand robes of silk, and as many figs and olives as would load five thousand asses. But the terms of truce or capitulation were faithfully observed; and the lieutenant of the caliph, who had promised not to enter the walls of the captive Baalbec, remained tranquil and immovable in his tent till the jarring factions solicited the interposition of a foreign master. The conquest of the plain and valley of Syria was achieved in less than two years. Yet the commander of the faithful reproved the slowness of their progress, and the Saracens, bewailing their fault with tears of rage and repentance, called aloud on their chiefs to lead them forth to fight the battles of the Lord.

Saracenic Glazed Jug and Lamp

It was incumbent on the Saracens to exert the full powers of their valour and enthusiasm against the forces of the emperor, who was taught by repeated losses, that the rovers of the desert had undertaken, and would speedily achieve, a regular and permanent conquest. From the provinces of Europe and Asia, fourscore thousand soldiers were transported by sea and land to Antioch and Cæsarea; the light troops of the army consisted of sixty thousand Christian Arabs of the tribes of Ghassan. In the neighbourhood of Bosra, the springs of Mount Hermon descend in a torrent to the plain of Decapolis, or ten cities; and the Hieromax, a name which has been corrupted to Yermuk, is lost after a short course in the lake of Tiberias. The banks of this obscure stream were illustrated by a long and bloody encounter. On this momentous occasion, the public voice, and the modesty of Abu Obaidah, restored the command to the most deserving of the Moslems. Khalid assumed his station in the front, his colleague was posted in the rear, that the disorder of the fugitives might be checked by his venerable aspect and the sight of the yellow banner which Mohammed had displayed before the walls of Khaibar.

The last line was occupied by the sister of Derar, with the Arabian women who had enlisted in this holy war, who were accustomed to wield the bow and the lance, and who in a moment of captivity had defended, against the uncircumcised ravishers, their chastity and religion. The exhortation of the generals was brief and forcible: “Paradise is before you, the devil and hell-fire in your rear.” Yet such was the weight of the Roman cavalry, that the right wing of the Arabs was broken and separated from the main body. Thrice did they retreat in disorder, and thrice were they driven back to the charge by the reproaches and blows of the women. Four thousand and thirty of the Moslems were buried in the field of battle; and the skill of the Armenian archers enabled seven hundred to boast that they had lost an eye in that meritorious service. The veterans of the Syrian war acknowledged that it was the hardest and most doubtful of the days which they had seen. But it was likewise the most decisive; many thousands of the Greeks and Syrians fell by the swords of the Arabs; many were slaughtered, after the defeat, in the woods and mountains; many, by mistaking the ford, were drowned in the waters of the Yermuk; and however the loss may be magnified, the Christian writers confess and bewail the bloody punishment of their sins.

After the battle of Yermuk, the Roman army no longer appeared in the field; and the Saracens might securely choose, among the fortified towns of Syria, the first object of their attack. They consulted the caliph whether they should march to Cæsarea or Jerusalem; and the advice of Ali determined the immediate siege of the latter. To a profane eye, Jerusalem was the first or second capital of Palestine; but after Mecca and Medina, it was revered and visited by the devout Moslems, as the temple of the Holy Land, which had been sanctified by the revelation of Moses, of Jesus, and of Mohammed himself.

The siege of Jerusalem lasted four months; not a day was lost without some action of sally or assault; the military engines incessantly played from the ramparts; and the inclemency of the winter was still more painful and destructive to the Arabs. The Christians yielded at length to the perseverance of the besiegers. The patriarch Sophronius appeared on the walls, and by the voice of an interpreter demanded a conference. After a vain attempt to dissuade the lieutenant of the caliph from his impious enterprise, he proposed, in the name of the people, a fair capitulation, with this extraordinary clause, that the articles of security should be ratified by the authority and presence of Omar himself. The question was debated in the council of Medina; the sanctity of the place, and the advice of Ali, persuaded the caliph to gratify the wishes of his soldiers and enemies, and the simplicity of Omar’s journey is more illustrious than the royal pageants of vanity and oppression. The conqueror of Persia and Syria was mounted on a red camel, which carried, besides his person, a bag of corn, a bag of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern bottle of water. By his command the ground of the temple of Solomon was prepared for the foundation of a mosque; and, during a residence of ten days, he regulated the present and future state of his Syrian conquests. Medina might be jealous, lest the caliph should be detained by the sanctity of Jerusalem or the beauty of Damascus; her apprehensions were dispelled by his prompt and voluntary return to the tomb of the apostle.

To achieve what yet remained of the Syrian war, the caliph had formed two separate armies; a chosen detachment, under Amru and Yazid, was left in the camp of Palestine; while the larger division, under the standard of Abu Obaidah and Khalid, marched away to the north against Antioch and Aleppo. The castle of Aleppo, distinct from the city, stood erect on a lofty artificial mound, and the sides were sharpened to a precipice, and faced with freestone. After the loss of three thousand men, the garrison was still equal to the defence. In a siege of four or five months, the hardest of the Syrian war, great numbers of the Saracens were killed and wounded. The exhortation of the commander of the faithful, not to give up the siege, was responded to by a supply of volunteers from all the tribes of Arabia, who arrived in the camp on horses or camels. Among these was Dames, of a servile birth, but of gigantic size and intrepid resolution. At the darkest hour of the night he scaled the most accessible height, a place where the stones were less entire, or the slope less perpendicular, or the guard less vigilant. Seven of the stoutest Saracens mounted on each other’s shoulders and the weight of the column was sustained on the broad and sinewy back of the gigantic slave.

The foremost in this painful ascent could grasp and climb the lowest part of the battlements; they silently stabbed and cast down the sentinels; and the thirty brethren, repeating a pious ejaculation, “O apostle of God, help and deliver us!” were successively drawn up by the long folds of their turbans. They overpowered the guard, unbolted the gate, let down the drawbridge, and defended the narrow pass till the arrival of Khalid, with the dawn of day, relieved their danger and assured their conquest. After the loss of this important post, and the defeat of the last of the Roman armies, the luxury of Antioch trembled and obeyed. Her safety was ransomed with three hundred thousand pieces of gold; but the throne of the successors of Alexander, the seat of the Roman government in the East, which had been decorated by Cæsar with the titles of free, and holy, and inviolate, was degraded under the yoke of the caliphs to the secondary rank of a provincial town.

The loss of Damascus and Jerusalem, the bloody fields of Aiznadin and Yermuk, may be imputed in some degree to the absence or misconduct of the sovereign. Instead of defending the sepulchre of Christ, he involved the church and state in a metaphysical controversy for the unity of his will; and while Heraclius crowned the offspring of his second nuptials, he was tamely stripped of the most valuable part of their inheritance. In the cathedral of Antioch, in the presence of the bishops, at the foot of the crucifix, he bewailed the sins of the prince and people; but his confession instructed the world, that it was vain, and perhaps impious, to resist the judgment of God. The Saracens were invincible in fact, since they were invincible in opinion. After bidding an eternal farewell to Syria, Heraclius secretly embarked with a few attendants, and absolved the faith of his subjects. From the north and south the Saracen troops of Antioch and Jerusalem advanced along the seashore, till their banners were joined under the walls of the Phœnician cities; Tripolis and Tyre were betrayed; and a fleet of fifty transports, which entered without distrust the captive harbours, brought a seasonable supply of arms and provisions to the camp of the Saracens. Their labours were terminated by the unexpected surrender of Cæsarea. The remainder of the province, Ramlah, Ptolemais or Acre, Nablus or Neapolis, Gaza, Askalon, Berytus, Sidon, Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea, Hierapolis, no longer presumed to dispute the will of the conqueror; and Syria bowed under the sceptre of the caliphs, seven hundred years after Pompey had despoiled the last of the Macedonian kings.

The sieges and battles of six campaigns had consumed many thousands of the Moslems. They died with the reputation and the cheerfulness of martyrs; and the simplicity of their faith may be expressed in the words of an Arabian youth, when he embraced, for the last time, his sister and mother; “It is not,” said he, “the delicacies of Syria, or fading delights of this world, that have prompted me to devote my life in the cause of religion. But I seek the favour of God and his apostle; and I have heard from one of the companions of the prophet, that the spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds, who shall taste the fruits, and drink of the rivers of paradise. Farewell, we shall meet again among the groves and fountains which God has provided for his elect.”

The more fortunate Arabs who survived the war, and persevered in the faith, were restrained by their abstemious leader from the abuse of prosperity. After a refreshment of three days, Abu Obaidah withdrew his troops from the pernicious contagion of the luxury of Antioch, and assured the caliph that their religion and virtue could only be preserved by the hard discipline of poverty and labour. The year of their triumph was marked by a mortality of men and cattle; and twenty-five thousand Saracens were snatched away from the possession of Syria. The death of Abu Obaidah might be lamented by the Christians; but his brethren recollected that he was one of the ten elect, whom the prophet had named heirs of paradise. Khalid survived his brethren about three years; and the tomb of the Sword of God is shown near Emesa. His valour, which founded in Arabia and Syria the empire of the caliphs, was fortified by the opinion of a special providence; and as long as he wore a cap which had been blessed by Mohammed he deemed himself invulnerable amidst the darts of the infidels.

[637-640 A.D.]

The place of the first conquerors was supplied by a new generation of their children and countrymen; Syria became the seat and support of the house of Omayyah; and the revenue, the soldiers, the ships of that powerful kingdom, were consecrated to enlarge on every side the empire of the caliphs. But the Saracens despise a superfluity of fame; and their historians scarcely condescend to mention the subordinate conquests which are lost in the splendour and rapidity of their victorious career. To the north of Syria, they passed Mount Taurus, and reduced to their obedience the province of Cilicia, with its capital Tarsus, the ancient monument of the Assyrian kings. Beyond a second ridge of the same mountains, they spread the flame of war, rather than the light of religion, as far as the shores of the Euxine and the neighbourhood of Constantinople. To the east they advanced to the banks and sources of the Euphrates and Tigris; the long-disputed barrier of Rome and Persia was forever confounded; the walls of Edessa and Amida, of Dara and Nisibis, which had resisted the arms and engines of Sapor or Nushirvan, were levelled in the dust; and the holy city of Abgarus might vainly produce the epistle or the image of Christ to an unbelieving conqueror. To the west the Syrian kingdom is bounded by the sea; and the ruin of Aradus, a small island or peninsula on the coast, was postponed during ten years. But the hills of Libanus abounded in timber; the trade of Phœnicia was populous in mariners; and a fleet of seventeen hundred barks was equipped and manned by the natives of the desert. The imperial navy of the Romans fled before them from the Pamphylian rocks to the Hellespont; but the spirit of the emperor, a grandson of Heraclius, had been subdued before the combat by a dream and a pun. The Saracens rode masters of the sea; and the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades, were successively exposed to their rapacious visits. Three hundred years before the Christian era, the memorable, though fruitless siege of Rhodes, by Demetrius, had furnished that maritime republic with the materials and the subject of a trophy. A gigantic statue of Apollo, or the sun, seventy cubits in height, was erected at the entrance of the harbour, a monument of the freedom and the arts of Greece. After standing fifty-six years, the Colossus of Rhodes was overthrown by an earthquake; but the massy trunk, and huge fragments, lay scattered eight centuries on the ground, and are often described as one of the wonders of the ancient world. They were collected by the diligence of the Saracens, and sold to a Jewish merchant of Edessa, who is said to have laden nine hundred camels with the weight of the brass metal: an enormous weight, though we should include the hundred colossal figures, and the three thousand statues which adorned the prosperity of the city of the sun.

EGYPT CAPTURED (639 A.D.)

[639-654 A.D.]

The conquest of Egypt may be explained by the character of the victorious Saracen, one of the first of his nation in an age when the meanest of the brethren was exalted above his nature by the spirit of enthusiasm. The birth of Amru was at once base and illustrious; his reason or his interest determined him to renounce the worship of idols; he escaped from Mecca with his friend Khalid, and the prophet of Medina enjoyed at the same moment the satisfaction of embracing the two firmest champions of his cause. His merit was not overlooked by the first two successors of Mohammed; they were indebted to his arms for the conquest of Palestine; and in all the battles and sieges of Syria, he united with the temper of a chief the valour of an adventurous soldier.

From his camp, in Palestine, Amru had surprised or anticipated the caliph’s leave for the invasion of Egypt. The magnanimous Omar trusted in his God and his sword, which had shaken the thrones of Chosroes and Cæsar; but when he compared the slender force of the Moslems with the greatness of the enterprise, he condemned his own rashness and listened to his timid companions. At the head of only four thousand Arabs, the intrepid Amru had marched away from his station of Gaza when he was overtaken by the messenger of Omar. “If you are still in Syria,” said the ambiguous mandate, “retreat without delay; but if, at the receipt of this epistle, you have already reached the frontiers of Egypt, advance with confidence, and depend on the succour of God and of your brethren.” The experience, perhaps the secret intelligence, of Amru had taught him to suspect the mutability of courts; and he continued his march till his tents were unquestionably pitched on Egyptian ground. He there assembled his officers, broke the seal, perused the epistle, gravely inquired the name and situation of the place, and declared his ready obedience to the commands of the caliph.

After a siege of thirty days, he took possession of Farmah or Pelusium, and that key of Egypt, as it has been justly named, unlocked the entrance of the country, as far as the ruins of Heliopolis and the neighbourhood of the modern Cairo.

On the western side of the Nile, at a small distance to the east of the pyramids, at a small distance to the south of the Delta, Memphis, 150 furlongs in circumference, displayed the magnificence of ancient kings. The siege was protracted to seven months; and the rash invaders were encompassed and threatened by the inundation of the Nile. Their last assault was bold and successful; they passed the ditch, which had been fortified with iron spikes, applied their scaling-ladders, entered the fortress with the shout of “God is victorious!” and drove the remnant of the Greeks to their boats, and the isle of Rouda. The spot was afterwards recommended to the conqueror by the easy communication with the gulf and the peninsula of Arabia; the remains of Memphis were deserted; the tents of the Arabs were converted into permanent habitations, and the first mosque was blessed by the presence of fourscore companions of Mohammed. A new city arose in their camp on the eastward bank of the Nile. But the name of Cairo, the town of victory, more strictly belongs to the modern capital, which was founded in the tenth century by the Fatimite caliphs. It has gradually receded from the river; but the continuity of buildings may be traced by an attentive eye from the monuments of Sesostris [Ramses II] to those of Saladin.

Yet the Arabs, after a glorious and profitable enterprise, must have retreated to the desert, had they not found a powerful alliance in the heart of the country.

The persecution of the emperors had converted a sect into a nation, and alienated Egypt from their religion and government. The Saracens were received as the deliverers of the Jacobite church; and a secret and effectual treaty was opened during the siege of Memphis between a victorious army and a people of slaves. A rich and noble Egyptian of the name of Mukawkas, had dissembled his faith to obtain the administration of his province; in the disorders of the Persian War he aspired to independence; the embassy of Mohammed ranked him among princes; but he declined, with rich gifts and ambiguous compliments, the proposal of a new religion.

Cairo

In his first conference with Amru, he heard without indignation the usual option of the Koran, the tribute or the sword; and he cheerfully submitted to pay tribute and obedience to his temporal successors. The tribute was ascertained at two pieces of gold for the head of every Christian; but old men, monks, women, and children of both sexes, under sixteen years of age, were exempted from this personal assessment. At the pressing summons of Amru, their patriarch Benjamin emerged from his desert; and, after the first interview, the courteous Arab affected to declare that he had never conversed with a Christian priest of more innocent manners and a more venerable aspect. In the march from Memphis to Alexandria, the lieutenant of Omar entrusted his safety to the zeal and gratitude of the Egyptians; the roads and bridges were diligently repaired; and in every step of his progress, he could depend on a constant supply of provisions and intelligence. The Greeks of Egypt, whose numbers could scarcely equal a tenth of the natives, were overwhelmed by the universal defection; they had ever been hated, they were no longer feared; the magistrate fled from his tribunal, the bishop from his altar; and the distant garrisons were surprised or starved by the surrounding multitudes. Had not the Nile afforded a safe and ready conveyance to the sea, not an individual could have escaped who, by birth, or language, or office, or religion, was connected with their odious name.

By the retreat of the Greeks from the provinces of Upper Egypt, a considerable force was collected in the island of Delta; the natural and artificial channels of the Nile afforded a succession of strong and defensible posts; and the road to Alexandria was laboriously cleared by the victory of the Saracens in two-and-twenty days of general or partial combat. In their annals of conquest, the siege of Alexandria is perhaps the most arduous and important enterprise. The first trading city in the world was abundantly replenished with the means of subsistence and defence. Her numerous inhabitants fought for the dearest of human rights, religion and property; and the enmity of the natives seemed to exclude them from the common benefit of peace and toleration. The sea was continually open; and if Heraclius had been awake to the public distress, fresh armies of Romans and barbarians might have been poured into the harbour to save the second capital of the empire.

In every attack, the sword, the banner of Amru, glittered in the van of the Moslems. On a memorable day, he was betrayed by his imprudent valour: his followers who had entered the citadel were driven back; and the general, with a friend and a slave, remained a prisoner in the hands of the Christians. When Amru was conducted before the prefect, he remembered his dignity and forgot his situation; a lofty demeanour and resolute language revealed the lieutenant of the caliph, and the battle-axe of a soldier was already raised to strike off the head of the audacious captive. His life was saved by the readiness of his slave, who instantly gave his master a blow on the face, and commanded him, with an angry tone, to be silent in the presence of his superiors. The credulous Greek was deceived; he listened to the offer of a treaty, and his prisoners were dismissed in the hope of a more respectable embassy, till the joyful acclamations of the camp announced the return of their general, and insulted the folly of the infidels. At length, after a siege of fourteen months, and the loss of three-and-twenty thousand men, the Saracens prevailed.

The commander of the faithful rejected with firmness the idea of pillage, and directed his lieutenant to reserve the wealth and revenue of Alexandria for the public service and the propagation of the faith; the inhabitants were numbered; a tribute was imposed; the zeal and resentment of the Jacobites were curbed, and the Melchites, who submitted to the Arabian yoke, were indulged in the obscure but tranquil exercise of their worship. The intelligence of this disgraceful and calamitous event afflicted the declining health of the emperor; and Heraclius died of a dropsy about seven weeks after the loss of Alexandria.[36] Under the minority of his grandson, the clamours of a people deprived of their daily sustenance compelled the Byzantine court to undertake the recovery of the capital of Egypt. In the space of four years, the harbour and fortifications of Alexandria were twice occupied by a fleet and army of Romans. They were twice expelled by the valour of Amru, who was recalled by the domestic peril from the distant wars of Tripolis and Nubia. But the facility of the attempt, the repetition of the insult, and the obstinacy of the resistance provoked him to swear that, if a third time he drove the infidels into the sea, he would render Alexandria as accessible on all sides as the house of a prostitute. Faithful to his promise, he dismantled several parts of the walls and towers, but the people were spared in the chastisement of the city, and the mosque of Mercy was erected on the spot where the victorious general had stopped the fury of his troops.

THE ALLEGED BURNING OF THE LIBRARY

[641 A.D.]

We should deceive the expectation of the reader if we passed in silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described by the learned Abul-Faraj. The spirit of Amru was more curious and liberal than that of his brethren, and in his leisure hours the Arabian chief was pleased with the conversation of John, the last disciple of Ammonius, and who derived the surname of Philoponus from his laborious studies of grammar and philosophy. Emboldened by this familiar intercourse, Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his opinion, contemptible in that of the barbarians—the royal library, which alone among the spoils of Alexandria had not been appropriated by the visit and the seal of the conqueror. Amru was inclined to gratify the wish of the grammarian, but his rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without the consent of the caliph; and the well-known answer of Omar was inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic: “If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.” The sentence was executed with blind obedience; the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand baths of the city; and such was their incredible multitude, that six months was barely sufficient for the consumption of this precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of Abul-Faraj have been given to the world in a Latin version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius of antiquity.

For our own part, we are strongly tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences. The fact is indeed marvellous. “Read and wonder!” says the historian himself; and the solitary report of a stranger, who wrote at the end of six hundred years on the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the silence of two annalists of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of Egypt, and the most ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the conquest of Alexandria. The rigid sentence of Omar is repugnant to the sound and orthodox precept of the Mohammedan casuists: they expressly declare that the religious books of the Jews and Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never be committed to the flames; and that the works of profane science, historians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be lawfully applied to the use of the faithful. A more destructive zeal may perhaps be attributed to the first successors of Mohammed; yet, in this instance, the conflagration would have speedily expired in the deficiency of materials. We shall not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian library, the involuntary flame that was kindled by Cæsar in his own defence, or the mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who studied to destroy the monuments of idolatry.[37] But if we gradually descend from the age of the Antonines to that of Theodosius, we shall learn from a chain of contemporary witnesses that the royal palace and the temple of Serapis no longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred thousand volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and magnificence of the Ptolemies. Perhaps the church and seat of the patriarchs might be enriched with a repository of books; but if the ponderous mass of Arian and monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public baths, a philosopher may allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind. We sincerely regret the more valuable libraries which have been involved in the ruin of the Roman Empire; but when we seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our losses, are the object of our surprise. Many curious and interesting facts are buried in oblivion; the three great historians of Rome have been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are deprived of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and dramatic poetry of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember that the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic works to which the suffrage of antiquity had adjudged the first place of genius and glory; the teachers of ancient knowledge who are still extant had perused and compared the writings of their predecessors; nor can it fairly be presumed that any important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature, has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

Arabic Weapons

In the administration of Egypt, Amru balanced the demands of justice and policy. In the management of the revenue he disapproved the simple but oppressive mode of a capitation, and preferred with reason a proportion of taxes, deducted on every branch from the clear profits of agriculture and commerce. A third part of the tribute was appropriated to the annual repairs of the dikes and canals, so essential to the public welfare. Under this administration the fertility of Egypt supplied the dearth of Arabia; and a string of camels, laden with corn and provisions, covered almost without an interval the long road from Memphis to Medina. But the genius of Amru soon renewed the maritime communication which had been attempted or achieved by the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, or the Cæsars; and a canal, at least eighty miles in length, was opened from the Nile to the Red Sea. This inland navigation, which would have joined the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, was soon discontinued as useless and dangerous: the throne was removed from Medina to Damascus; and the Grecian fleets might have explored a passage to the holy cities of Arabia.[g]

[637-644 A.D.]

Amru, being now possessed of Egypt, began to look a little further towards the western part of Africa; and in a short time made himself master of all that country which lies between Barcah and Zeweilah. Shortly after this he took Tripolis. If we consider the extent of his success, it alone is great enough to command our admiration even though nothing else had been accomplished in any other part. But in the East, also, the victorious arms made no less progress, and the Mohammedan crescent now began to shed its malignant influence upon as large and considerable dominions as the Roman eagle ever soared over. About this time, Aderbaijan, Ainwerdah, Harran, Roha, Rakkah, Nisibin, Ehwaz, Siwas, and Khorasan were all brought under subjection to the Saracens.

About two years after this, Omar, the caliph, was killed. The account of his death is as follows: One Firuz, a Persian, of the sect of the magi, or Parsees, as being of a different religion from the Mussulmans, had a daily tribute of two pieces of silver imposed upon him by his master, and made his complaint to Omar, demanding to have a part of it remitted. Omar told him he did not think it at all unreasonable, considering he could well afford it out of what he earned. With his answer Firuz was so provoked that he did as good as threaten the caliph to his face, who, however, took little notice of his passion. Firuz watched his opportunity; and not long after, whilst Omar was saying the morning prayer in the mosque, stabbed him thrice in the belly with a dagger. The Saracens in the mosque rushing upon him immediately, he made a desperate defence, and stabbed thirteen of them, of whom seven died. At last, one that stood by threw his vest over him, and seized him; when, perceiving himself caught, he stabbed himself. Omar lived three days after the wound, and then died, in the month of Dhul-haj, in the twenty-third year of the Hegira, 644 A.D., after he had reigned ten years, six months, and eight days, and was sixty-three years old; which is the same age at which, according to some authors, Mohammed, Abu Bekr, and Aisha, Mohammed’s wife, died.

The conquests gained by the Saracens in his reign were so considerable that, though they had never been extended, the countries they had subdued would have made a very formidable empire. He drove all the Jews and Christians out of Arabia; subdued Syria, Egypt, and other territories in Africa, besides the greater part of Persia. And yet all this greatness, which would have been too weighty for an ordinary man to bear, especially if, as in Omar’s case, it did not descend to him as an hereditary possession, for which he had been prepared by a suitable education, but was gotten on a sudden by men who had been acquainted with, and used to, nothing great before, had no effect upon the caliph.[b]

Neither splendid victories nor extensive dominions changed the stern character of Omar; he still preserved the rustic simplicity of his manners and his ancient contempt for luxurious ornament. When he departed from Medina to receive the submission of Jerusalem, he was mounted on a red camel, having for his entire equipage two sacks, one containing corn and the other fruit; before him was a leathern vessel of water, and behind him a large platter from which he used to take his meals. In this guise he travelled the entire road from Medina to Jerusalem, punishing the Mussulmans who led a scandalous life, and providing for a rigorous administration of justice.

On his arrival, the inhabitants prepared a splendid palace for his reception; but he refused to enter the city, and had a tent erected outside the walls. In this tent the deputies found the master of their destinies sitting on the naked earth. The terms granted to the citizens of Jerusalem are remarkable for their moderation; the security of the persons and properties of the inhabitants was guaranteed, the free exercise of religion permitted, and the churches allowed to remain with their present possessors. Even when the caliph was anxious to erect a mosque, he requested the patriarch to point him out an appropriate situation; that prelate led him to the spot where Solomon’s temple once stood, which was then covered with filth, and the caliph readily accepted the ground as it was. He himself set the example of clearing the rubbish; the army followed with eager emulation, and the mosque of Omar, erected on this spot, is one of the most beautiful specimens of Arabian architecture. But though tolerant to the Christians, the caliph showed himself severe to those of his own followers who had departed from the rigour of the national manners. Having learned that some of his men wore flowing robes of silk, he ordered them to be extended on the earth, with their faces to the ground, and their silken robes to be torn from their shoulders. He punished with the bastinado those convicted of drinking wine; he made proclamation that those who had transgressed, should accuse themselves, and such was the influence he possessed over his troops, that many voluntarily confessed their guilt, and submitted to the degrading punishment.

In the history of Mohammedanism, Omar is a person second only in importance to the founder of Islam. His strict severity was useful at a time when unprecedented success seemed to excuse military violence; his impartiality greatly abated the calamities of the conquest. He did not spare the gallant Khalid, but it is probable that, in his conduct to that hero, he was actuated more by jealousy than by a love of justice; it must however be added, that in no instance did he permit high station to shelter oppressors. A curious circumstance, characteristic of the age, is recorded. Omar carried a cane with which he personally chastised officers even of the highest rank, whom he detected in any guilty action, and hence arose the proverb, “Omar’s cane is more terrible than the sword of the bravest warrior.”

His strictness in enforcing religious ordinances was carried to the very extreme of fanaticism; by his orders the splendid library which the Ptolemies had collected in Alexandria, was said to have been burned to heat the public baths; and the invaluable records of Persia, assembled by the zeal of the Sassanides in Madain, were hurled into the waters of the Tigris. His early education had rendered him insensible to the charms of literature or art; when his generals sent him, from the palace of the Persian kings, an unrivalled piece of tapestry, representing a flower garden, worked with gold and precious stones, he ordered this elaborate piece of workmanship to be cut in pieces, and the fragments distributed to his soldiers. For his own use, he had neither palace, nor court, nor house; during the time of prayer, he publicly officiated in the mosque; the remainder of the day he spent in the streets and squares, and it was there he gave audience to the ambassadors of the most powerful cotemporary princes. His dress was not better than that of his meanest subjects; when reproached for the deficiencies of his appearance, he replied, “I would rather please the Lord by my conduct, than men by my dress.” He was more indiscriminate in his charity than Abu Bekr; the first caliph relieved none whose distress had been occasioned by vicious conduct, Omar gave to all who asked. When reproached for making no distinction, he replied, “Man is placed upon the earth, only to do good to his brethren; the judgment of man’s worthiness should be left to his Creator.” The temperance of Omar was as remarkable as his simplicity; his ordinary food was coarse barley bread seasoned with salt, and on days of abstinence the salt was laid aside; his only beverage was water. When at meals, he invited all who chanced to be present, to take a share.

But the splendour of his public works was a strange contrast to the meanness of his private life. We have already mentioned the mosque he caused to be erected in Jerusalem; he also greatly enlarged and beautified that which Mohammed had built in Medina. By his orders, the foundations were laid of cities that rapidly grew to greatness, Old Cairo, Cufa, and Bassora. He caused the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea to be repaired and opened, in order to facilitate the importation of corn into Arabia, which the recent enlargement of the cities had rendered a matter of prime necessity. It was Omar, who first introduced the custom of dating from the Hegira; before his time the Arabians dated from the last great event which had interested the whole nation,—a war, a famine, or a plague,—and thus rendered their chronology a mass of inextricable confusion. To him also is owing the institution of a police force in Mecca and Medina, the establishment of a fund to provide for the pay of the army, and the preparation of an equitable scale of rewards for those who had distinguished themselves in the propagation of Islam. It is no wonder that, with such claims to admiration, the name of Omar should be so celebrated among the most rigid sects of the Mohammedans. But while the Sunnites labour to extend the fame of Omar, his memory is detested by the partisans of Ali; his name is the proverbial expression for all that is base in the countries where the Shiite principles prevail; no person that bears it, dare own it in public; and to such excess do the Persians carry their hatred, that they celebrate the day of Omar’s assassination as a public festival.

[644 A.D.]

Omar, finding death approaching, was at a loss whom to nominate his successor; and, to remedy the difficulty, devised the most extraordinary expedient that can be imagined. He directed that a council of six should be assembled after his death, that three days should be allowed them for deliberation, and that if, at the end of that time, they had not agreed on a new caliph, they should all be slain. The six who met to deliberate under these circumstances, were Ali, cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, Othman, likewise his son-in-law, Zobair, the cousin of the prophet, and Abd ar-Rahman, Talha, and Saad, his favourite companions. After some deliberation, they elected Othman, and he was installed third caliph.

OTHMAN, THE THIRD CALIPH

[644-656 A.D.]

Othman was, like his predecessors, a native of Mecca, sprung from a different branch of the same tribe that had given birth to the prophet. He married successively two daughters of Mohammed, long acted as his secretary, and enjoyed his intimate confidence. It is said, that Mohammed was so delighted with the generosity displayed by his secretary, that he exclaimed, “O my God, I am satisfied with Othman, be thou also satisfied with him.” On another occasion, seeing Othman approach, he covered his face with his robe, and said, “Should not I be ashamed before a man whose merits would put angels to the blush?” At the time of his accession, he was more than eighty years of age, but his health was unshaken, and the vigour of his faculties unabated.

The third caliph pursued the warlike policy of his predecessors; by his orders the Mussulman armies completed the conquest of Persia, and extended the sway of the Saracens to the river Oxus, and the borders of India. Northern Africa, as far as the shores of the Atlantic, was subdued by another army; and a fleet, equipped in the harbours of Egypt and Syria, subdued the island of Cyprus, and menaced the northern coasts of the Mediterranean. But this success produced its natural effect; it required all the energies of Omar’s stern character to resist the progress of luxury and dissipation; the weak Othman was utterly incapable of any similar exertion. The wild sons of the desert began to rival in magnificence the most wealthy monarchs; they became ambitious of palaces and titles, they preferred the splendour of the court, to the glory of the field. Othman’s gentleness and facility accelerated the progress of corruption; naturally generous, he was unwilling to refuse any applicant, and as the foremost candidates for office are generally those least fitted for its duties, the administration fell into the hands of the designing and the profligate. With some show of reason, the old companions of Mohammed complained that they were set aside to make room for the family of Othman; and, with still more justice, that the imprudence and wantonness of youth was preferred to their experience.

Religion did not escape from the general corruption; new sects began to be formed; and the jealousy of the partisans of Ali daily acquired fresh strength. Abu Dar, an old companion of the prophet, misrepresenting some passages of the Koran, declared that the riches of this world were the source of every crime, and that the wealthy should be compelled by force to give their superfluities to the poor. Such doctrine was sure to obtain a favourable hearing in a half-civilised country, where, from the unequal distribution of plunder, a few had been suddenly enriched, but the great bulk of the population reduced to comparative poverty. At the same time another sectary announced that Mohammed was about to reappear, and execute justice on the wicked and cruel men who tyrannised over the Mussulmans. The people, expecting an approaching regeneration, despised their rulers, and neglected the duties of social life. The second revision of the Koran, ordained by Othman, was regarded by many of the Mussulmans as a corruption of the true religion; they suspected that the caliph did not pay sufficient deference to the authority of the prophet; especially as in certain prayers he made four prostrations where Mohammed only used two; and he had rebuilt a chapel destroyed by Mohammed’s special command.

We have been so long accustomed to see the Mohammedan religion united with despotic government, that we are naturally surprised to find a pure democracy under the caliphate; from the very beginning, every affair of importance was submitted to the general assembly; and all, except slaves, were permitted to state their opinions freely. No practical inconvenience arose from this custom, whilst disorder was checked by the sacred character of the prophet, the dignified demeanour of Abu Bekr, or the stern severity of Omar. But Othman possessed no such influence; when he attempted to stem the popular tide, he was attacked in his very pulpit, and driven by volleys of stones from the assembly. Satires and lampoons, “those straws,” which, as Lord Bacon says, “show the direction of the wind,” appeared in countless abundance.

Parties and factions were formed on every side; each province demanded a new governor, every faction desired a new caliph. The leaders in these disturbances were the ancient companions of the prophet; and many of the most devoted Mussulmans were ready to join in a revolution. At length a part of the Egyptian army marched suddenly to Medina and demanded an immediate reform of abuses. By a liberal use of promises and persuasions, they were induced to retire; but it was only to return the following year, irritated by disappointment, and strengthened by large bodies of partisans from Cufa and Bassora. Othman once more soothed the mutineers, but as they were returning home, they learned that the caliph’s secretary had sent official orders that they should be massacred. It is not quite certain that the caliph had sanctioned this perfidy, but that it was meditated does not admit of doubt. The soldiers, justly enraged, again appeared before Medina, demanding the head of the secretary; when that was refused, they slew Othman himself.

[656 A.D.]

The fatal day on which this atrocity occurred was Friday, which the Mohammedans keep holy. It was Othman’s custom on this day to fast until he had read through the entire Koran, and he was engaged in the perusal of the sacred volume, when the approach of the assassins was announced. Some of the caliph’s friends advised him to make some preparations for resistance, but he replied that he had seen Mohammed in a dream, and had been informed that they should break their fast together that day in paradise.

In the meantime, the conspirators advanced sword in hand. Five hundred guards attempted to check their progress, but were cut to pieces; the caliph’s wife threw herself in their path and had her hand cut off; the sons of Ali, and some of the old companions of the prophet, endeavoured to propitiate the mutineers, but were forced to consult their own safety by flight. Othman tranquilly read the Koran in the midst of the confusion; he scarcely deigned to raise his head when the enraged soldiers burst into his apartment. At their head was a son of Abu Bekr, named Muhammed, who seized Othman by the beard, and prepared to strike a fatal blow. The caliph, looking him steadily in the face, asked, “O Muhammed! what think you that your sainted father would say, if he saw my beard in your grasp?” Struck with the words, Muhammed drew back in silence; but his companions, less scrupulous, rushed upon Othman, and he fell covered with wounds. His blood gushed upon the Koran which he held in his hand; it is said to be still preserved as a relic in the mosque of Damascus. So great was the terror diffused by this event, that no one dared to perform the funeral obsequies; the body remained three days unburied; at length Ali gave orders for its sepulture, but it was buried by night, and in a private cemetery.

The orthodox Mussulmans reverence Othman in the present day for the action which excited most resentment in his own, namely, the revision of the Koran. They cite respecting him, the following traditionary saying of the prophet, “I have seen the name of Othman written on the gate of paradise; I have seen it marked behind the throne of God, and on the wings of the archangel Gabriel.” The Shiites regard him as a usurper, but they do not execrate his memory so much as that of Omar.

At first the horror inspired by this murder was so great, that all parties were reduced to silence. The surviving companions of Mohammed took advantage of this interval of tranquillity, and nominated Ali fourth caliph.

Ali was the son of Abu Talib, that uncle of Mohammed who had so faithfully watched over his childhood. He had been the first to acknowledge the divine mission of his cousin, and he ever manifested the most devoted attachment to his person. When Mohammed fled from Mecca, Ali disguised himself in the prophet’s robes, and placed himself on his bed, that the Meccans might not suspect his escape. When he followed his patron to Medina, he married the prophet’s favourite daughter Fatima, by whom he had several children. Mohammed on many occasions showed a strong love for Ali; he appointed him his lieutenant in his first expedition against the Greeks, at Tabuc, and during occasional absence, entrusted to him the government of Medina. It is supposed, on very plausible grounds, that Ali was actually nominated his successor by the prophet, but that Aisha prevented the circumstance from being known. This injustice was deeply felt by the son of Abu Talib and his partisans, but particularly by Mohammed’s relations, who thought themselves neglected by the three first caliphs. In vain, however, did his friends endeavour to persuade Ali to attempt the forcible seizure of the reins of government; he replied constantly, that he would never reign except by the free suffrages of the Mussulmans. During the reign of Omar, his loyalty was so notorious, that he was appointed governor of Arabia during the caliph’s absence at Jerusalem; he refused to join those who conspired against Othman, and one of his sons was severely wounded in defence of that sovereign. Finally, when elected, he very reluctantly consented to accept the dignity of caliph, which had twice already proved fatal to its possessors.

ALI (656-661 A.D.)

[656-657 A.D.]

Ali commenced his reign by deposing all the governors of the provinces. Amongst these were several men of great influence; especially Moawiyah the son of that Abu Sufyan, who had been long the chief of the Meccan idolaters, and the most bitter enemy of Mohammed. After Mecca had submitted, Mohammed made Moawiyah one of his private secretaries; the caliph Omar had raised him to the government of Syria, and he had now ruled that important province during fifteen years. Crafty, subtle, intriguing, possessing inflexible obstinacy, and boundless ambition, he received Ali’s mandate for his deposition with violent indignation. As he was a near relative of Othman, he resolved to declare himself his avenger, and though that sovereign had left children, Moawiyah claimed to be his heir and successor. He found allies in the centre of Arabia; and while the Syrians were preparing to take arms, Aisha, with a numerous body of followers, was already in the field. Though she had notoriously shared in the conspiracy against Othman, she now proclaimed herself his avenger, and she denounced Ali as the author of his death.

Joined with her were Talha and Zobair, two of Mohammed’s old companions, who well knew the falsehood of Aisha’s allegations. They had been the foremost to swear allegiance to Ali, but not having obtained all that they desired, they ranged themselves in the ranks of the rebels, to whom their presence gave additional confidence. The obligation of their oaths they evaded by the expiatory offerings prescribed in the fifth chapter of the Koran, which is one of the greatest blots on the character both of the book and its author.

Aisha, contrary to the established custom of Arabia, led her forces in person, mounted on a strong camel, and protected by an escort of picked men. When she approached a small village named Jowab, all the dogs in the place rushed out and barked at her with great fury. This she regarded as an evil omen, and declared that Mohammed had told her, “One of my wives, engaged in an evil design, shall be attacked by dogs in Jowab; take care that you be not the wicked person.” Full of alarm, she wished to return; but Zobair and Talha, knowing how important was her presence, suborned fifty false witnesses to swear that the village was never known by the name of Jowab. As she still seemed anxious to depart, they spread a report, that the army of Ali had gained a position in their rear, and consequently that she could not return in safety. “This,” say the Moslem historians, “was the first public lie told since the promulgation of Islam.”

The two armies met at Khoraiba, a place in the neighbourhood of Bassora; Ali’s forces amounted to twenty thousand men, all picked soldiers, those of Aisha were more numerous, but they were, for the most part, raw and undisciplined levies. After a brief contest, the rebels were routed; Talha fell wounded mortally from his horse, and with his dying breath besought pardon from God for his share in the murder of Othman and his treachery to Ali. When told of this, the generous conqueror exclaimed that God had granted Talha time for repentance before receiving his soul into heaven. Zobair escaped from the battle, but was overtaken on the road to Mecca by his pursuers, who cut off his head, and brought it as an acceptable present to the caliph. Ali expressed so much indignation at the sight, that the bearers assailed him with bitter reproaches, saying, “You are the evil genius of the Mussulmans; you consign to hell those who deliver you from your enemies, and you name those who attack your men companions of Satan.” The victory, however, could not be regarded as complete until Aisha had been forced to submission; the strictest orders were given to respect her person, but also it was desired that no pains should be spared to make her prisoner. Seventy men had their hands cut off attempting to seize her camel by the bridle; the pavilion in which she sat, was stuck so full of arrows that it resembled a porcupine; at length a soldier cut the back sinew of the camel, the animal fell helpless on his knees, and Aisha remained a captive. Muhammed, the son of Abu Bekr, was sent to take charge of her; she loaded him with the fiercest invectives, but he did not make any reply. When she was brought before Ali, he received her in the most courteous manner, recommended her to forbear from meddling with public affairs for the future, and sent her under a faithful escort to Medina. Thus ended the first great battle between the opponents and the partisans of Ali; it is frequently called by eastern writers “the battle of the camel” from the animal on which Aisha rode; it was the prelude to many and fearful scenes of slaughter.

The rebellion in Syria next engaged the attention of Ali; Moawiyah had not only rejected his offers of accommodation, but denied his title to the caliphate: in order to justify this rebellion, and strike the eyes of the multitude, Moawiyah procured the bloody robe in which Othman was murdered, and caused it to be borne in solemn procession through the streets of Damascus. This sight so powerfully inflamed the popular passions, that though it was then the middle of summer, more than thirty thousand persons bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to taste fresh water, until they had avenged the death of Othman. Among the leading partisans of the Syrian governor was Amru, the conqueror of Egypt, who seemed to share the general excitement, though well aware that Ali was innocent of the imputed crimes.

[657-658 A.D.]

The hostile forces met in the plains of Siffin, on the western bank of the Euphrates, not far from the city of Racca. Neither leader was prepared for general action, and ninety days were wasted in desultory skirmishes between divisions. His impetuous valour gave Ali the victory in most of these encounters; he challenged his rival to decide the dispute by single combat; but Moawiyah would not venture to enter the lists. The last action at Siffin continued all night, to the great disadvantage of the Syrians; they would have been driven from their very entrenchments, had not the crafty Moawiyah made an appeal to the superstitious feelings of Ali’s followers. He ordered some of his men to place copies of the Koran on the points of their lances, and advancing to the front of the lines, exclaim, “This is the book that ought to decide all differences between us; this is the word of God, and the code of our faith; it expressly forbids the shedding of Moslem blood.” Coarse as was the artifice, it had the most complete success; the troops of Irak, the flower of the caliph’s forces, threw down their arms, and clamorously demanded that a negotiation should be commenced. In vain did Ali command them to continue the fight, assuring them that Moawiyah disregarded the Koran, and was equally the enemy of God and man; the soldiers clamorously replied that they would not fight against the book of God, and threatened the caliph with the well-known fate of Othman.

From the moment that he was checked in the midst of victory, Ali seems to have despaired of the issue of the contest; when required to name an arbitrator, he coldly answered, “He that is not at liberty, cannot give his advice; you must now conduct the affair as you think proper.” His soldiers took him at his word, and nominated on the part of the caliph, Abu Musa, whose chief merit was, that he had written a faulty copy of the Koran, and whose fidelity had been long more than suspected. Moawiyah appointed a much more subtle negotiator, Amru, universally regarded as the most able statesman of the period. The arbitrators were enjoined to decide the dispute according to the Koran and the traditions of the prophet, and to pronounce judgment in the next month of Ramadhan.

Amru persuaded Abu Musa, that the best plan that could be adopted, was to declare the throne vacant, and proceed to a new election. When the day for giving judgment arrived, Abu Musa, as had been agreed, first ascended the pulpit, and with a loud voice pronounced the following words; “I depose both Ali and Moawiyah from the caliphate, in the same manner that I draw this ring from my finger.” Amru next ascended, and said, “You have heard Abu Musa pronounce the deposition of Ali: I confirm it; and I invest Moawiyah with the supreme authority in the same manner that I now draw this ring upon my finger. I hail him as the legal successor of Othman, the avenger of his blood, and the most worthy of the Moslems to command the faithful.”

This unexpected declaration created a violent tumult. Abu Musa accused Amru of breach of faith, called him a wretch, a dog, an unclean beast, and imprecated on his grave all nameless desecrations; Amru replied, that his co-arbitrator was a learned blockhead, a jackass loaded with books, and the grandfather of stupidity; at the same time, he stoutly maintained his sentence.

This event was fatal to the cause of Ali; his soldiers, who had forced him to commence the imprudent negotiation, felt that their fidelity must for the future be suspected, and began to desert in whole battalions. The new and formidable sect of the Kharijites, that is, “the deserters,” appeared in the midst of Arabia, declaring that both the rivals had forfeited their right to reign, by submitting to human judgment what God alone should determine. It was necessary to march a large army against these fanatics, and the time which Ali wasted in their subjugation, was employed by Moawiyah in new conquests. It would be difficult to form an idea of the vindictive rage which filled all parties at this period.

We have already mentioned the view taken of affairs, by the fanatical Kharijites. Three of this sect happened to meet at Mecca, and after some discourse agreed that if the three chief causes of discontent were removed, namely, Ali, Moawiyah, and Amru, the affairs of the Mussulmans would soon be restored to their ancient flourishing condition. Finally, they resolved to devote themselves for the common advantage, and agreed, that on a stated day, one should slay Ali at Cufa; another, Moawiyah at Damascus; and the third, Amru in Egypt. The attempt was made; Amru on that day did not appear in public; Moawiyah escaped with a few slight wounds; Ali alone received a mortal stroke.

The respect which the Shiites have for the memory of Ali, borders on idolatry. All the Mussulmans, however, now join in commiserating his calamities, and blaming the violence of which he was the victim. Every time that they pronounce his name, they accompany it with the benediction, “May God render his face glorious.”

[659-661 A.D.]

From the contest between Ali and Moawiyah, the first of the Omayyad caliphs, arose the distinction of the Mohammedans into Sunnites and Shiites. The chief points at issue between them, are the following; (1) The Shiites, or as they call themselves, the Adalians, or “lovers of justice,” assert that the three first caliphs were usurpers; the Sunnites declare that they were legitimate monarchs, elected according to the sunna, or traditional law of the prophet. (2) The Shiites regard Ali as the equal of Mohammed; some even assert his superiority, but the Sunnites deny that he possessed any special dignity. (3) The Shiites assert that the Koran is made void by the authority attributed to tradition; the Sunnites say that tradition is necessary to complete and explain the doctrines of the Koran.

The Turks, Egyptians, and Arabs belong to the Sunnite sect; the tenets of the Shiites are professed by the Persians, a great portion of the Tatars, and several of the Mohammedan princes in India.

Ali was buried at Cufa, but the exact place of his sepulchre cannot be determined. A magnificent mosque has been erected in the neighbourhood of the city, which is called Meshed-Ali, the place of Ali’s martyrdom; it is, to this day, a favourite object of pilgrimage to devout Mussulmans.[f]

So, after a most turbulent and unhappy caliphate, Ali died of his wound, in the sixty-third year of his age, and the fifth of his reign, 661 A.D., and the thirty-eighth year of the Hegira; making the third caliph slain within twenty years by the hand of an assassin.

Ali was an upright and honourable man, a patron of literature and the fine arts, and himself a poet. He certainly merited better treatment at the hands of his own subjects, having been a just judge, and a kind and paternal governor; oftener forgiving than punishing the misdeeds of those who were so frequently conspiring against his life and interests. His lineal descendants are sheriffs and emirs; permitted to wear their turbans and hair in a peculiar fashion, differing from the usages of all other Moslems.

Ali left two sons, Hassan and Hosein. Hassan was in his thirty-fifth year when he succeeded his father, as the fifth caliph of the Moslems. The people chose Hassan without opposition, owing to his having been a favourite of his grandfather, the prophet; whom also he is said to have resembled in features. Moreover, he was a benevolent, upright, and devout man; but he grievously lacked the energy so indispensable for a ruler in troubled times. The new caliph would willingly have disbanded the army ready to march upon Syria; for he was no lover of warfare, and would rather have forfeited the Syrian provinces than mixed in battle.

His brother Hosein, however, was a warrior; and so were many of the veteran generals who had sworn allegiance to his father, and whose plans he was therefore compelled to follow up. He accordingly marched upon Syria; sending forward twelve thousand light troops, under Kais, to check the progress of Moawiyah, who was advancing to meet Hassan’s army. Kais succeeded in repelling the Syrians; and secured a position, where he might await the arrival of the main body of the army, which, however, never reached its destination. The troops of Hassan were chiefly from Irak, and not inclined to enter upon the campaign; moreover, they knew him to be an inefficient commander. A revolt broke out amongst the soldiery, in which Hassan was wounded. This occurred at Madain, and the caliph was compelled to seek refuge with the governor in the citadel. He ultimately sent proposals to Moawiyah, offering to abdicate in his favour, under certain stipulations, to which Moawiyah readily agreed. So, to the great indignation of Hosein, Hassan abdicated; and eventually the two brothers settled in Medina, where Moawiyah supplied them liberally with funds.

This act doubtless saved a good deal of bloodshed; and, in the thirty-ninth year of the Hegira, the sixth caliph, Moawiyah I, began to reign. His first act was to almost exterminate the sect of Seceders; a people even more dangerous than the modern Janissaries, and against whom the caliph Moawiyah had deep hatred, owing to the stab he had received in Damascus.[t]

FOOTNOTES

[34] Respecting the date of the capture of Damascus, authorities differ, some placing it in 634 A.D., and others in 635 A.D. The duration of the siege, too, is equally uncertain, El-Makin[c] stating it to be six months, while Abulfeda[d] gives seventy days.

[35] Dr. Weil,[e] on authority of the Zaban, says, that this latter account is the most probable, it being related by Aisha and Abd ar-Rahman, the son and daughter of Abu Bekr.

[36] [Other authorities state that Alexandria fell nine months after Heraclius’ death.]

[37] [The loss sustained in Cæsar’s time was repaired by Antony’s gift to Cleopatra of the library of Pergamus. Alexandria possessed two libraries: one, that of the Bruchion, which was destroyed during the popular tumults in the reign of Gallienus, 263 A.D.; the other, that of the Serapeum, which experienced the same fate from the violence of Theophilus, as related in ch. 28, to which Gibbon[g] has here referred. These valuable collections had, therefore, disappeared 250 years before the invasion of Egypt by Amru; nor in that interval does history record a prince, patriarch, or prefect, who had either the means or the will to replace them. The tale of Abul-Faraj[h] would not have been so industriously circulated, had it not served the purpose of those who wished to impute to the barbarian conquerors of Rome the guilt of darkening the world. Gibbon says he felt strongly tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences of this irreparable shipwreck of learning, as being founded on the simple authority of Abul-Faraj, whilst Eutychius[i] and El-Makin[c] are both silent on the subject. Milman,[j] however, adds that since this period several new Mohammedan authorities have been adduced to support Abul-Faraj: that of (1) Abd al-Latif,[k] by Professor White[l]; (2) of Makrisi[m]; (3) of Ibn Khaldun[n]; and after them Haji Khalfa.[o] Reinhard in a German dissertation, printed at Göttingen, 1792, and St. Croix (Magasin Encyclop., tom. IV, p. 433), have examined the question. Among oriental scholars, Professor White, M. St. Martin,[q] Von Hammer,[r] and Silv. de Sacy[s] consider the fact of the burning of the library, by the command of Omar, beyond question. A Mohammedan writer brings a similar charge against the crusaders. The library of Tripolis is said to have contained the incredible number of three millions of volumes. On the capture of the city, Count Bertram of St. Gilles, entering the first room, which contained nothing but the Koran, ordered the whole to be burned, as the works of the false prophet of Arabia.]

---