3511 ([return])
[ He is called Abdullah or Abul Abbas in the Tarikh Tebry. Price vol. i. p. 600. Saffah or Saffauh (the Sanguinary) was a name which be required after his bloody reign, (vol. ii. p. 1.)—M.]
36 ([return])
[ Al Hemar. He had been governor of Mesopotamia, and the Arabic proverb praises the courage of that warlike breed of asses who never fly from an enemy. The surname of Mervan may justify the comparison of Homer, (Iliad, A. 557, &c.,) and both will silence the moderns, who consider the ass as a stupid and ignoble emblem, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 558.)]
37 ([return])
[ Four several places, all in Egypt, bore the name of Busir, or Busiris, so famous in Greek fable. The first, where Mervan was slain was to the west of the Nile, in the province of Fium, or Arsinoe; the second in the Delta, in the Sebennytic nome; the third near the pyramids; the fourth, which was destroyed by Dioclesian, (see above, vol. ii. p. 130,) in the Thebais. I shall here transcribe a note of the learned and orthodox Michaelis: Videntur in pluribus Aegypti superioris urbibus Busiri Coptoque arma sumpsisse Christiani, libertatemque de religione sentiendi defendisse, sed succubuisse quo in bello Coptus et Busiris diruta, et circa Esnam magna strages edita. Bellum narrant sed causam belli ignorant scriptores Byzantini, alioqui Coptum et Busirim non rebellasse dicturi, sed causam Christianorum suscepturi, (Not. 211, p. 100.) For the geography of the four Busirs, see Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt. p. 9, vers. Michaelis, Gottingae, 1776, in 4to.,) Michaelis, (Not. 122-127, p. 58-63,) and D’Anville, (Memoire sua l’Egypte, p. 85, 147, 205.)]
38 ([return])
[ See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 136-145,) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 392, vers. Pocock,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 109-121,) Abulpharagius, (Hist. Dynast. p. 134-140,) Roderic of Toledo, (Hist. Arabum, c. xviii. p. 33,) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 356, 357, who speaks of the Abbassides) and the Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, in the articles Ommiades, Abbassides, Moervan, Ibrahim, Saffah, Abou Moslem.]
Yet the thousands who were swept away by the sword of war might have been speedily retrieved in the succeeding generation, if the consequences of the revolution had not tended to dissolve the power and unity of the empire of the Saracens. In the proscription of the Ommiades, a royal youth of the name of Abdalrahman alone escaped the rage of his enemies, who hunted the wandering exile from the banks of the Euphrates to the valleys of Mount Atlas. His presence in the neighborhood of Spain revived the zeal of the white faction. The name and cause of the Abbassides had been first vindicated by the Persians: the West had been pure from civil arms; and the servants of the abdicated family still held, by a precarious tenure, the inheritance of their lands and the offices of government. Strongly prompted by gratitude, indignation, and fear, they invited the grandson of the caliph Hashem to ascend the throne of his ancestors; and, in his desperate condition, the extremes of rashness and prudence were almost the same. The acclamations of the people saluted his landing on the coast of Andalusia: and, after a successful struggle, Abdalrahman established the throne of Cordova, and was the father of the Ommiades of Spain, who reigned above two hundred and fifty years from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees. [39] He slew in battle a lieutenant of the Abbassides, who had invaded his dominions with a fleet and army: the head of Ala, in salt and camphire, was suspended by a daring messenger before the palace of Mecca; and the caliph Almansor rejoiced in his safety, that he was removed by seas and lands from such a formidable adversary. Their mutual designs or declarations of offensive war evaporated without effect; but instead of opening a door to the conquest of Europe, Spain was dissevered from the trunk of the monarchy, engaged in perpetual hostility with the East, and inclined to peace and friendship with the Christian sovereigns of Constantinople and France. The example of the Ommiades was imitated by the real or fictitious progeny of Ali, the Edrissites of Mauritania, and the more powerful fatimites of Africa and Egypt. In the tenth century, the chair of Mahomet was disputed by three caliphs or commanders of the faithful, who reigned at Bagdad, Cairoan, and Cordova, excommunicating each other, and agreed only in a principle of discord, that a sectary is more odious and criminal than an unbeliever. [40]