During these early years the Arabs had not only made conquests by land, but had found an outlet for their energy at sea. In 640 Omar sent a fleet of boats across the Red Sea to protect the Moslems on the Abyssinian coast. Institution of navy. The boats were wrecked. Omar was so terrified by this that when Moawiya applied to him for permission to use ships for an attack on the islands of the Levant, he resolutely refused. Othman was less careful, and allowed a fleet from Africa to help in the conquests of the Levant and Asia Minor. In 649 he sanctioned the establishment of a maritime service, on condition that it should be voluntary. Abu Qais, appointed admiral, showed its usefulness by the capture of Cyprus. In 652 Abu Sarh with a fleet from Egypt won a naval battle over the Byzantine fleet near Alexandria.

2. Internal Affairs.—In the meantime what had become of Arabia and its unification? The first task of Abu Bekr had been to reduce those rebels who threatened to destroy that unity even before it was fully established. This he did by the aid of the great general Khālid. First he swept down on the Bani Hanīfa in Yemāma, who with their rival prophet Mosailama (Mosailima) and 40,000 men were in arms. The battle of Yemama (633) was fierce and decisive. Mosailama was slain. The Bani Hanīfa returned to Islam. Bahrein was influenced by this battle, and the rebellion there, which was threatening, was crushed. Oman was reconquered by Huddhaifa, who became its governor. Ikrima settled Māhra. Muhājir, with the help of Ikrima, succeeded with difficulty, but thoroughly, in defeating Amr ibn Ma’dikarib and Qais ibn ‛Abd Yaghūth in Yemen and Ashath ibn Qais in Hadramut. The Hejaz and Tehama were cleared of the plundering nomads by ‛Attāb and Ṭāhir. At the end of the first year of his caliphate Abu Bekr saw Arabia united under Islam. The new national feeling demanded that all Arabs should be free men, so the caliph ordained that all Arab slaves should be freed on easy terms. The solidarity of Arabia survived the first foreign conquests. It was not intended that Arabs should settle in the conquered lands except as armies of occupation. Thus it was at first forbidden that Arabs should buy or possess land in these countries. Kūfa was to be only a military camp, as was Fostat in Egypt. The taxes with the booty from conquests were to be sent to Arabia for distribution among the Moslems. Omar tried to prevent the advance of conquests lest Arabia should suffer. “I would rather the safety of my people than thousands of spoil and further conquest.” But men could not be prevented from pouring out from their homes in search of new conquests and more booty. Many of those who went forth did not return. They acquired property and rank in the new lands. Kūfa attracted chiefly men of south Arabia, Basra those of the north. Both became great cities, each with a population of 150,000 to 200,000 Arabians. Yet so long as the caliphs lived in Medina, the capital of Arabia was the capital of the expanding Arabian empire. To it was brought a large share of the booty. The caliphs were chosen there, and there the rules for the administration were framed. Thence went out the governors to their provinces. Omar was the great organizer of Arabian affairs. He compiled the Koran, instituted the civil list, regulated the military organization. He, too, desired that Mahomet’s wish should be carried out and that Arabia should be purely Moslem. To this end he expelled the Christians from Nejrān and gave them lands in Syria and Irak, where they were allowed to live in peace on payment of tribute. The Jews, too, were shortly after expelled from Khaibar. The secondary position that Arabia was beginning to assume in the Arabian empire is clearly marked in the progress of events during the caliphate of Othman. In his appointments to governorships and other offices, as well as in his distribution of spoil, Othman showed a marked preference for the members of his own tribe the Koreish (Quraish) and the members of his own family the Bani Omayya (Umayya). The other Arab tribes became increasingly jealous of the Koreish, while among the Koreish themselves the Hāshimite family came to hate the Omayyad, which now had much power, although it had been among the last to accept Islam and never was very strict in its religious duties. But the quarrels which led to the murder of Othmān were fomented not so much in Arabia as in Kūfa and Baṣra and Fostat. In these cities the rival parties were composed of the most energetic fighting men, who were brought into the most intimate contact with one another, and who kept up their quarrels from the home land. In Kūfa a number of the Koreish had settled, and their arrogance became insupportable. The governors of all these towns were of Othman’s own family. After some years of growing dissatisfaction deputies from these places came to Medina, and the result was the murder of the caliph. Syria alone remained loyal to the house of Omayya, and Othmān had been advised to take refuge there, but had refused. Arabia itself counted for little in the strife. Yet its prestige was not altogether lost. After the murder the rebels were unwilling to return home until a new caliph had been chosen in the capital. The Egyptian rebels managed to gain most influence, and, in accordance with their desire, ‛Alī was appointed caliph by the citizens of Medina. But Medina itself was being corrupted by the constant influx of captives, who, employed at first as servants, soon became powerful enough to dictate to their masters. In the struggle that ensued upon the election of ‛Alī, Arabia was involved. Ayesha, Ṭalḥa and Zobair, who were strong in Mecca, succeeded in obtaining possession of Baṣra, but were defeated in 656 at the battle of the Camel (see [Ali]). In the south of Arabia ‛Alī succeeded in establishing his own governor in Yemen, though the government treasure was carried off to Mecca. But the centre of strife was not to be Arabia. When ‛Alī left Medina to secure Basra, he abandoned it as the capital of the Arabian empire. With the success of Moawiya Damascus became the capital of the caliphate (658) and Arabia became a mere province, though always of importance because of its possession of the two sacred cities Mecca and Medina. Both these cities were secured by Moawiya in 660, and at the same time Yemen was punished for its adherence to ‛Alī. The final blow to any political pretensions of Medina was dealt by the caliph when he had his son Yazīd declared as his successor, thus taking away any claim on the part of the citizens of Medina to elect to the caliphate.

The Omayyads.—The early years of the Omayyads were years of constant strife in Arabia. The Kharijites who had opposed ‛Alī on the ground that he had no right to allow the appeal to arbitration, were defeated at Nahrawān or Nahrwān (658), but those who escaped became fierce propagandists against the Koreish, some claiming that the caliph should be chosen by the Faithful from any tribe of the Arabs, some that there should be no caliph at all, that God alone was their ruler and that the government should be carried on by a council. They broke up into many sects, and were long a disturbing political force in Arabia as elsewhere. On the death of ‛Alī his house was represented by his two sons Ḥasan and Ḥosain (Ḥusain). Ḥasan soon made peace with Moawiya. On the accession of Yazid, Ḥosain refused homage and raised an army, but was slain at Kerbela (680). ‛Ābdallah ibn Zobair (of the house of Hashim) immediately stepped forward in Mecca as the avenger of ‛Alī’s family and the champion of religion. The two sacred cities supported him. Medina was besieged and sacked by the troops of Yazīd (682) and Mecca was besieged the following year. The siege was raised in the third month on the news of the death of Yazīd, but not before the Ka‛ba had been destroyed. ‛Ābdallah remained in Mecca recognized as caliph in Arabia, and soon after in Egypt and even a part of Syria. He defeated the troops of Merwān I., but could not win the support of the Khārijites. In 691 Abdalmalik (‛Abdul-Malik) determined to crush his rival and sent his general Hajjāj against Mecca. The siege was begun in March 692, and in October the city was taken and ‛Ābdallah slain. Abdalmalik was now supreme in Arabia and throughout the Moslem world. During the remaining years of the Omayyad dynasty (i.e. until 750) little is heard of Arabia in history. The conquests of Islam in Spain on the one side and India on the other had little or no effect on it. It was merely a province.

The ‛Abbāsids.—The accession of Abul ‛Abbās (of the house of Hāshim) and the transference of the capital of the caliphate from Damascus to Kūfa, then Anbar and soon after (in 760) to Bagdad meant still further degradation to Arabia and Arabs. From the beginning the ‛Abbāsids depended for help on Persians and Turks, and the chief offices of state were frequently filled with foreigners. In one thing only the Arabs conquered to the end; that was in their language. The study of Arabic was taken up by lexicographers, grammarians and poets (mostly of foreign origin) with a zeal rarely shown elsewhere. The old Arabian war spirit was dying. Although the Arabians, as a rule, were in favour of the Omayyad family, they could not affect the succession of the ‛Abbāsids. They returned more and more to their old inter-tribal disputes. They formed now not only a mere branch of the empire of the caliphate, but a branch deriving little life from and giving less to the main stock. In 762 there was a rebellion in favour of a descendant of ‛Alī, but it was put down with great severity by the army of the caliph Manṣūr. A more local ‛Alyite revolt in Mecca and Medina was crushed in 785. In the contest between the two sons of Harūn al Rashīd all Arabia sided with Mamūn (812). In 845-846 the lawless raids of Bedouin tribes compelled the caliph Wāthiq to send his Turkish general Bogha, who was more successful in the north than in the centre and south of Arabia in restoring peace.

The Carmathians.—Towards the close of the 9th century Arabia was disturbed by the rise of a new movement which during the next hundred years dominated the peninsula, and at its close left it shattered never to be united again. In the year 880 Yemen was listening to the propaganda of the new sect of the Carmathians (q.v.) or followers of Hamdān Qarmaṭ. Four years later these had become a public force. In 900 ‛Abū Sa‛id al-Jannābi, who had been sent to Bahrein by Hamdān, had secured a large part of this province and had won the city of Kaṭif (Ketif) which contained many Jews and Persians. The Arabs who lived more inland were mostly Bedouin who found the obligations of Islam irksome, and do not seem to have made a very vigorous opposition to the Carmathians who took Hajar the capital of Bahrein in 903. From this they made successful attacks on Yemāma (Yamama), and attempts only partially successful at first at Oman. In 906 the court at Bagdad learned that these sectaries had gained almost all Yemen and were threatening Mecca and Medina. Abū Sa‛īd was assassinated (913) in his palace at Laḥsa (which in 926 was fortified and became the Carmathian capital of Bahrein). His son Sa‛īd succeeded him, but proved too weak and was deposed and succeeded by his brother Abu Ṭāhir. His success was constant and the caliphate was brought very low by him. In Arabia he subjugated Oman, and swooping down on the west in 929 he horrified the Moslem world by capturing Mecca and carrying off the sacred black stone to Bahrein. The Fatimite caliph ‛Obaidallah (see [Fatimites]), to whom Abu Tahir professed allegiance, publicly wrote to him to restore the stone, but there is some reason to believe that he secretly encouraged him to retain it. In 939, however, the stone was restored and pilgrimages to the holy cities were allowed to pass unmolested on payment of a tax. So long as Abū Ṭāhir lived the Carmathians controlled Arabia. After his death, however, they quarrelled with the Fatimite rulers of Egypt (969) and began to lose their influence. In 985 they were completely defeated in Irak, and soon after lost control of the pilgrimages. Oman recovered its independence. Three years later Kaṭīf, at that time their chief city, was besieged and taken by a Bedouin sheik, and subsequently their political power in Arabia came to an end. It was significant that their power fell into the hands of Bedouins. Arabia was now completely disorganized, and was only nominally subject to the caliphate. The attempt of Mahomet to unify Arabia had failed. The country was once more split up into small governments, more or less independent, and groups of wandering tribes carrying on their petty feuds. Of the history of these during the next few centuries little is known, except in the case of the Hejaz. Here the presence of the sacred cities led writers to record their annals (cf. F. Wüstenfeld’s Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, 4 vols., Leipzig, 1857-1861). The two cities were governed by Arabian nobles (sherīfs), often at feud with one another, recognizing formally the overlordship of the caliph at Bagdad or the caliph of Egypt. Thus in 966 the name of the caliph Moti was banished from the prayers at Mecca, and an ‛Alyite took possession of the government of the city and recognized the Egyptian caliph as his master. About a century later (1075-1094) the ‛Abbāsid caliph was again recognized as spiritual head owing to the success in arms of his protector, the Seljuk Malik-Shah. With the fall of the Bagdad caliphate all attempts at control from that quarter came to an end. After the visit of the Sultaft Bibars (1269) Mecca was governed by an amir dependent on Egypt. Outside the two cities anarchy prevailed, and the pilgrimage was frequently unsafe owing to marauding Bedouins. In 1517 the Osmānlī Turkish sultan Selim conquered Egypt, and having received the right of succession to the caliphate was solemnly presented by the sherīf of Mecca with the keys of the city, and recognized as the spiritual head of Islam and ruler of the Hejaz. At the same time Yemen, which since the 9th century had been in the power of a number of small dynasties ruling in Zubed, San‛ā, Sa‛da and Aden, passed into the hands of the Turk.

For the history of Yemen during this period cf. H.C. Kay, Omarah’s History of Yaman (London, 1892), and S. Lane-Poole, The Mahommedan Dynasties, pp. 87-103 (Westminster, 1894). Little more than a century later (1630), a Yemen noble Khāṣim succeeded in expelling the Turk and establishing a native imāmate, which lasted until 1871. For descriptions of it in the 18th century cf. C. Niebuhr’s accounts of his travels in Arabia in 1761.

Oman.—Since the separation from the caliphate (before 1000 A.D.) Oman had remained independent. For more than a century it was governed by five elected imāms, who were chosen from the tribe of al-Azd and generally lived at Nizwa. After them the Bani Nebhān gained the upper hand and established a succession of kings (māliks) who governed from 1154 to 1406. During this time the country was twice invaded by Persians. The “kings of Hormūz” claimed authority over the coast land until the beginning of the 16th century. In 1435 the people rose against the tyranny of the Bani Nebhan and restored the imamate of the tribe al-Azd. In 1508 the Portuguese under Albuquerque seized most of the east coast of Oman. In 1624 a new dynasty arose in the interior, when Nāṣir ibn Murshid of the Yariba (Ya‛aruba) tribe (originally from Yemen) was elected imām and established his capital at Rustak. He was able to subdue the petty princes of the country, and the Portuguese were compelled to give up several towns and pay tribute for their residence at Muscat. About 1651 the Portuguese were finally expelled from this city, and about 1698 from the Omanite settlements on the east coast of Africa.

For the history of Oman from 661 to 1856 cf. G.P. Badger, History of the Imāms and Seyyids of Oman by Salil-ibn-Razik (London, Hakluyt Society, 1871).

(G. W. T.)

Wahhābi Movement.—Modern Arabian history begins with that of the Wahhabi movement in the middle of the 18th century. Its originator, Mahommed Ibn Abdul Wahhāb, was born (1691) at Ayana in Nejd, and after studying in Basra and Damascus, and making the pilgrimage to Mecca returned to his native country and settled down at Huremala near Deraiya. The abuses and corruptions which had overgrown the practice of orthodox Islam had deeply impressed him, and he set to work to combat them, and to inculcate on all good Moslems a return to the pure simplicity of their original faith. In 1742 Mahommed Ibn Saud, sheik of Deraiya, accepted his doctrines, and enforced them by his sword with such effect that before his death in 1765 the whole of eastern Nejd and El Hasa was converted to the faith of Abdul Wahhab, and accepted the political supremacy of Ibn Saūd. His son and successor, Abdul Aziz, in a rapid series of successful campaigns, extended his dominion and that of the reformed faith far beyond the limits of Nejd. His attacks on the pilgrim caravans, begun in 1783 and constantly repeated, startled the Mahommedan world,[2] and compelled the attention of the sultan, as the nominal protector of the faithful. In 1798 a Turkish force was sent from Bagdad into El Hasa, but was compelled to retreat without accomplishing anything, and its discomfiture added much to the renown of the Wahhābi power. In 1801 Saud, son of the amir Abdul Aziz, led an expedition to the Euphrates, and on the festival of Bairam, the 20th of April, stormed Kerbela, put the defenders to the sword, destroyed the sacred tomb, scattered the sacred relics and returned laden with the treasures, accumulated during centuries in the sanctuary of the Shiā faith. Mecca itself was taken; plundering was forbidden, but the tombs of the saints and all objects of veneration were ruthlessly destroyed, and all ceremonies which seemed in the eye of the stern puritan conqueror to suggest the taint of idolatry were forbidden.