[476] “Publications de la Société de l’Orient Latin,” Serie Géographique, 1882.
[477] Prof. Hayter Lewis, “Holy Places of Jerusalem,” p. 33; “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” 1883, Jerusalem vol., pp. 248, 249, 307–17; Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, 1873, p. 155. The beam with the date answering to 913–14 A. D. was found in 1873, on removal of the wooden ceiling put up in 1776 A. D.
[478] Carved slabs from some other building have been used up in this marble casing. One of them bears, in Greek uncial characters, the words “Huper Sotêrias Marias” being evidently Christian. “Ord. Survey Notes,” p. 33, and plates xiii., xiv. A Byzantine tombstone is also re-used in the paving of the floor of the Dome of the Rock. “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” Jerusalem vol., p. 426.
[479] See my volume, “Syrian Stone Lore,” 1st edit. 1886, pp. 352–62. In “Mem. East Pal. Survey,” 1889, pp. 57–63, I have given a full account, with the plans and drawings which I made of the kiosque and mosque in 1881.
[480] Guy le Strange, “Pal. under the Moslems,” 1890, p. 107.
CHAPTER XII
THE TURKS
THE EARLY TURKS
The Turks,[481] or “settlers,” were a branch of that strong Mongol race which first created civilisation in Mesopotamia, and which, through the courage and masterfulness that have always characterised this sturdy people, ruled Western Asia at least a thousand years before Abraham, as Akkadians and Hittites, who, though dominated by the Aryan and Semitic races after 1500 B. C., still clung, under their “tarkhans,” to North Syria as late as the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The Turks proper had penetrated, or had been driven, into Central Asia at some early period, and the home of the tribes—Huns, Uigurs, Khitai, and others—was beyond the Oxus. They were long held at bay by the Byzantines and the Persians, but broke out east into China, and west into Hungary as Huns in the fifth century. Justinian was allied with the Turks, called Khozars, on the Volga. In Turkestan they protected the silk caravans, and about 580 A. D. Dizavul (“the orderer”) sent his ambassadors to Justin II. of Byzantium. The civilisation of the Turks was primitive until they came under the influence of Buddhists from India, of Jews (who established a great trade in Central Asia), and of Chaldean Christians who had churches at Samarkand about 900 A. D. The old Uigur alphabet is evidence of the wide range of the race, which drove a wedge of Yakuts into Siberia. Their letters were those of the Aramean alphabet of Persia, and Uigur texts are found on the banks of the Yenissei; while farther east this alphabet reached Manchuria and China. Farther west the Khozars were converted to Judaism about 750 A. D., and are even said to have been ruled by Jewish kings. More than one empress of Byzantium was a Turkish princess, and the blood of the race thus ran in the veins of the Isaurian dynasty, Constantine VI. being the son of a Khozar mother.
After the death of El Mâmûn, the seventh of the ’Abbaside khalifs, the Arab empire began to crumble away. In his reign Crete and Sicily were conquered, and the power of Islâm extended to the borders of India. But the simple creed of Muḥammad was undermined by philosophy, scepticism, and mysticism in the East, while the Turkish mercenaries who guarded the khalîfah at Baghdâd soon became his masters. To the Turk the civilisation and philosophy of the age were of little value. He understood the Ḳorân, and became a fanatical Moslem on conversion; his influence was reactionary, and where he ruled, civilisation made little progress. Revolts in the provinces were frequent, and the khalifs became mere religious figure-heads. One of the first secret sects in Islâm appeared near Merv in 767 A. D., where El Moḳann’a, the “veiled” prophet, was joined by the Turks. A yet more formidable society was that of El Ḳarmat of Ḳûfa, appearing in 890 A. D. The Ḳarmathians pillaged Mekkah in 929 A. D., and their secret scepticism with exoteric mysticism was the origin of later Druze heresies which affected the history of Jerusalem. For two centuries the power of the Turks continued to increase in the East till Togrul entered Baghdâd in 1055 A. D.
In the West also the employment of Turks as governors led to the disruption of the Arab empire. Ibn Tulûn in Egypt renounced fealty to the khalîfah in 868 A. D., and his family reigned in Syria till 905 A. D. Again in 934 A. D. Ikshîd—also a Turk—revolted, and his successors held Egypt and Palestine till they were conquered by Mu’ezz-li-Dîn-Allah, the fourth of the Fâṭemites of Ḳairwân and the founder of Cairo. Thus in the last year of his reign (969 A. D.) Jerusalem came under the rule of this Egyptian Arab khalîfah, who claimed descent from the prophet’s daughter.