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The revolution of Arabia had not changed the character of
the Arabs: the death of Mahomet was the signal of
independence; and the hasty structure of his power and
religion tottered to its foundations. A small and faithful
band of his primitive disciples had listened to his
eloquence, and shared his distress; had fled with the
apostle from the persecution of Mecca, or had received the
fugitive in the walls of Medina. The increasing myriads,
who acknowledged Mahomet as their king and prophet, had been
compelled by his arms, or allured by his prosperity. The
polytheists were confounded by the simple idea of a solitary
and invisible God; the pride of the Christians and Jews
disdained the yoke of a mortal and contemporary legislator.
The habits of faith and obedience were not sufficiently
confirmed; and many of the new converts regretted the
venerable antiquity of the law of Moses, or the rites and
mysteries of the Catholic church; or the idols, the
sacrifices, the joyous festivals, of their Pagan ancestors.
The jarring interests and hereditary feuds of the Arabian
tribes had not yet coalesced in a system of union and
subordination; and the Barbarians were impatient of the
mildest and most salutary laws that curbed their passions,
or violated their customs. They submitted with reluctance
to the religious precepts of the Koran, the abstinence from
wine, the fast of the Ramadan, and the daily repetition of
five prayers; and the alms and tithes, which were collected
for the treasury of Medina, could be distinguished only by a
name from the payment of a perpetual and ignominious
tribute. The example of Mahomet had excited a spirit of
fanaticism or imposture, and several of his rivals presumed
to imitate the conduct, and defy the authority, of the
living prophet. At the head of the fugitives and
auxiliaries, the first caliph was reduced to the cities of
Mecca, Medina, and Tayef; and perhaps the Koreish would have
restored the idols of the Caaba, if their levity had not
been checked by a seasonable reproof. "Ye men of Mecca,
will ye be the last to embrace, and the first to abandon,
the religion of Islam?" After exhorting the Moslems to
confide in the aid of God and his apostle, Abubeker
resolved, by a vigorous attack, to prevent the junction of
the rebels. The women and children were safely lodged in
the cavities of the mountains: the warriors, marching under
eleven banners, diffused the terror of their arms; and the
appearance of a military force revived and confirmed the
loyalty of the faithful. The inconstant tribes accepted,
with humble repentance, the duties of prayer, and fasting,
and alms; and, after some examples of success and severity,
the most daring apostates fell prostrate before the sword of
the Lord and of Caled. In the fertile province of Yemanah,
(1) between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia, in a city not
inferior to Medina itself, a powerful chief (his name was
Moseilama) had assumed the character of a prophet, and the
tribe of Hanifa listened to his voice. A female prophetess
(A) was attracted by his reputation; the decencies of words
and actions were spurned by these favorites of Heaven; (2)
and they employed several days in mystic and amorous
converse. An obscure sentence of his Koran, or book, is yet
extant; (3) and in the pride of his mission, Moseilama
condescended to offer a partition of the earth. The
proposal was answered by Mahomet with contempt; but the
rapid progress of the impostor awakened the fears of his
successor: forty thousand Moslems were assembled under the
standard of Caled; and the existence of their faith was
resigned to the event of a decisive battle. (B) In the first
action they were repulsed by the loss of twelve hundred men;
but the skill and perseverance of their general prevailed;
their defeat was avenged by the slaughter of ten thousand
infidels; and Moseilama himself was pierced by an Aethiopian
slave with the same javelin which had mortally wounded the
uncle of Mahomet. The various rebels of Arabia without a
chief or a cause, were speedily suppressed by the power and
discipline of the rising monarchy; and the whole nation
again professed, and more steadfastly held, the religion of
the Koran. The ambition of the caliphs provided an immediate
exercise for the restless spirit of the Saracens: their
valor was united in the prosecution of a holy war; and their
enthusiasm was equally confirmed by opposition and victory.
From the rapid conquests of the Saracens a presumption will
naturally arise, that the caliphs (C) commanded in person the
armies of the faithful, and sought the crown of martyrdom in
the foremost ranks of the battle. The courage of Abubeker,
(4) Omar, (5) and Othman, (6) 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. The austere
and frugal measure of their lives was the effect of virtue
or habit, and the pride of their simplicity insulted the
vain magnificence of the kings of the earth. When Abubeker
assumed the office of caliph, he enjoined his daughter
Ayesha to take a strict account of his private patrimony,
that it might be evident whether he were enriched or
impoverished by the service of the state. He thought
himself entitled to a stipend of three pieces of gold, with
the sufficient maintenance of a single camel and a black
slave; but on the Friday of each week he distributed the
residue of his own and the public money, first to the most
worthy, and then to the most indigent, of the Moslems. The
remains of his wealth, a coarse garment, and five pieces of
gold, were delivered to his successor, who lamented with a
modest sigh his own inability to equal such an admirable
model. Yet the abstinence and humility of Omar were not
inferior to the virtues of Abubeker: his food consisted of
barley bread or dates; his drink was water; he preached in a
gown that was torn or tattered in twelve places; and the
Persian satrap, who paid his homage to the conqueror, found
him asleep among the beggars on the steps of the mosch of
Medina. Oeeconomy is the source of liberality, and the
increase of the revenue enabled Omar to establish a just and
perpetual reward for the past and present services of the
faithful. Careless of his own emolument, he assigned to
Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, the first and most ample
allowance of twenty-five thousand drachms or pieces of
silver. Five thousand were allotted to each of the aged
warriors, the relics of the field of Beder; and the last and
meanest of the companions of Mahomet was distinguished by
the annual reward of three thousand pieces. One thousand
was the stipend of the veterans who had fought in the first
battles against the Greeks and Persians; and the decreasing
pay, as low as fifty pieces of silver, was adapted to the
respective merit and seniority of the soldiers of Omar.
Under his reign, and that of his predecessor, the conquerors
of the East were the trusty servants of God and the people;
the mass of the public treasure was consecrated to the
expenses of peace and war; a prudent mixture of justice and
bounty maintained the discipline of the Saracens, and they
united, by a rare felicity, the despatch and execution of
despotism with the equal and frugal maxims of a republican
government. The heroic courage of Ali, (7) the consummate
prudence of Moawiyah, (8) excited the emulation of their
subjects; and the talents which had been exercised in the
school of civil discord were more usefully applied to
propagate the faith and dominion of the prophet. In the
sloth and vanity of the palace of Damascus, the succeeding
princes of the house of Ommiyah were alike destitute of the
qualifications of statesmen and of saints. (9) 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 Mahomet 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 councils 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 vigor 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. In the ten years of the
administration of Omar, the Saracens reduced to his
obedience thirty-six thousand cities or castles, destroyed
four thousand churches or temples of the unbelievers, and
edified fourteen hundred moschs for the exercise of the
religion of Mahomet. One hundred years after his 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, I. Persia; II. Syria; III. Egypt; IV. Africa;
and, V. Spain. Under this general division, I shall
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. Yet I must excuse my own defects by a
just complaint of the blindness and insufficiency of my
guides. The Greeks, so loquacious in controversy, have not
been anxious to celebrate the triumphs of their enemies. (10)
After a century of ignorance, the first annals of the
Mussulmans were collected in a great measure from the voice
of tradition. (11) Among the numerous productions of Arabic
and Persian literature, (12) our interpreters have selected
the imperfect sketches of a more recent age. (13) The art and
genius of history have ever been unknown to the Asiatics;
(14) they are ignorant of the laws of criticism; and our
monkish chronicle of the same period may be compared to
their most popular works, which are never vivified by the
spirit of philosophy and freedom. The Oriental library of a
Frenchman (15) would instruct the most learned mufti of the
East; and perhaps the Arabs might not find in a single
historian so clear and comprehensive a narrative of their
own exploits as that which will be deduced in the ensuing
sheets.
I. In the first year of the first caliph, his lieutenant
Caled, 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. (16)
The last of the Mondars (D) was defeated and slain by Caled;
his son was sent a captive to Medina; his nobles bowed
before the successor of the prophet; the people was 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: "In the same year," says
Elmacin, "Caled fought many signal battles: an immense
multitude of the infidels was slaughtered; and spoils
infinite and innumerable were acquired by the victorious
Moslems." (17) But the invincible Caled was soon transferred
to the Syrian war: the invasion of the Persian frontier was
conducted by less active or less prudent commanders: the
Saracens were repulsed with loss in the passage of the
Euphrates; and, though they chastised the insolent pursuit
of the Magians, their remaining forces still hovered in the
desert of Babylon.
The indignation and fears of the Persians suspended for a
moment their intestine divisions. By the unanimous sentence
of the priests and nobles, their queen Arzema 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
aera, which coincides with an astronomical period, (18) has
recorded the fall of the Sassanian dynasty and the religion
of Zoroaster. (19) 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 Rustam; and a remnant of thirty thousand
regular troops was swelled in truth, or in opinion, to one
hundred and twenty thousand subjects, or allies, of the
great king. The Moslems, whose numbers were reenforced from
twelve to thirty thousand, had pitched their camp in the
plains of Cadesia: (20) and their line, though it consisted
of fewer men, could produce more soldiers, than the unwieldy
host of the infidels. I shall here observe, what I must
often repeat, that the charge of the Arabs was not, like
that of the Greeks and Romans, the effort of a firm and
compact infantry: their military force was chiefly formed of
cavalry and archers; and the engagement, which was often
interrupted and often renewed by single combats and flying
skirmishes, might be protracted without any decisive event
to the continuance of several days. The periods of the
battle of Cadesia 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 succor. 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 clamors, which
were compared to the inarticulate sounds of the fiercest
animals. The morning of the succeeding day (E) determined
the fate of Persia; and a seasonable whirlwind drove a cloud
of dust against the faces of the unbelievers. The clangor
of arms was reechoed to the tent of Rustam, 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 were 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 seven thousand five hundred men;
(F) and the battle of Cadesia is justly described by the
epithets of obstinate and atrocious. (21) 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. (22) 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, (23) a place which ever commands the
trade and navigation of the Persians. As the distance of
fourscore miles from the Gulf, the Euphrates and Tigris
unite in a broad and direct current, which is aptly styled
the river of the Arabs. In the midway, between the junction
and the mouth of these famous streams, the new settlement
was planted on the western bank: the first colony was
composed of eight hundred Moslems; but the influence of the
situation soon reared a flourishing and populous capital.
The air, though excessively hot, is pure and healthy: the
meadows are filled with palm- trees and cattle; and one of
the adjacent valleys has been celebrated among the four
paradises or gardens of Asia. Under the first caliphs the
jurisdiction of this Arabian colony extended over the
southern provinces of Persia: the city has been sanctified
by the tombs of the companions and martyrs; and the vessels
of Europe still frequent the port of Bassora, as a
convenient station and passage of the Indian trade.
After the defeat of Cadesia, a country intersected by rivers
and canals might have opposed an insuperable barrier to the
victorious cavalry; and the walls of Ctesiphon or Madayn,
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. (24)
Some minute though curious facts represent the contrast of
riches and ignorance. From the remote islands of the Indian
Ocean a large provision of camphire (25) had been imported,
which is employed with a mixture of wax to illuminate the
palaces of the East. Strangers to the name and properties of
that odoriferous gum, the Saracens, mistaking it for salt,
mingled the camphire in their bread, and were astonished at
the bitterness of the taste. One of the apartments of the
palace was decorated with a carpet of silk, sixty cubits in
length, and as many in breadth: a paradise or garden was
depictured on the ground: the flowers, fruits, and shrubs,
were imitated by the figures of the gold embroidery, and the
colors of the precious stones; and the ample square was
encircled by a variegated and verdant border. (G) The Arabian
general persuaded his soldiers to relinquish their claim, in
the reasonable hope that the eyes of the caliph would be
delighted with the splendid workmanship of nature and
industry. Regardless of the merit of art, and the pomp of
royalty, the rigid Omar divided the prize among his brethren
of Medina: the picture was destroyed; but such was the
intrinsic value of the materials, that the share of Ali
alone was sold for twenty thousand drams. A mule that
carried away the tiara and cuirass, the belt and bracelets
of Chosroes, was overtaken by the pursuers; the gorgeous
trophy was presented to the commander of the faithful; and
the gravest of the companions condescended to smile when
they beheld the white beard, the hairy arms, and uncouth
figure of the veteran, who was invested with the spoils of
the Great King. (26) 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
(27) are composed of bricks baked in the sun, and joined by a
cement of the native bitumen. The name of Cufa (28)
describes a habitation of reeds and earth; but the
importance of the new capital was supported by the numbers,
wealth, and spirit, of a colony of veterans; and their
licentiousness was indulged by the wisest caliphs, who were
apprehensive of provoking the revolt of a hundred thousand
swords: "Ye men of Cufa," said Ali, who solicited their aid,
"you have been always conspicuous by your valor. You
conquered the Persian king, and scattered his forces, till
you had taken possession of his inheritance." This mighty
conquest was achieved by the battles of Jalula and Nehavend.
After the loss of the former, 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, one hundred and fifty thousand 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. If it be true that the flying
general of the Persians was stopped and overtaken in a crowd
of mules and camels laden with honey, the incident, however
slight and singular, will denote the luxurious impediments
of an Oriental army. (29)
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, Tauris, 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. (30) 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 Madayn 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: (31) 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 Chorasan 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 Mahomet was planted on the
walls of Herat, Merou, and Balch; 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. After a
noble defence, Harmozan, the prince or satrap of Ahwaz and
Susa, was compelled to surrender his person and his state to
the discretion of the caliph; and their interview exhibits a
portrait of the Arabian manners. In the presence, and by the
command, of Omar, the gay Barbarian was despoiled of his
silken robes embroidered with gold, and of his tiara
bedecked with rubies and emeralds: "Are you now sensible,"
said the conqueror to his naked captive - "are you now
sensible of the judgment of God, and of the different
rewards of infidelity and obedience?" "Alas!" replied
Harmozan, "I feel them too deeply. In the days of our
common ignorance, we fought with the weapons of the flesh,
and my nation was superior. God was then neuter: since he
has espoused your quarrel, you have subverted our kingdom
and religion." Oppressed by this painful dialogue, the
Persian complained of intolerable thirst, but discovered
some apprehension lest he should be killed whilst he was
drinking a cup of water. "Be of good courage," said the
caliph; "your life is safe till you have drunk this water: "
the crafty satrap accepted the assurance, and instantly
dashed the vase against the ground. Omar would have avenged
the deceit, but his companions represented the sanctity of
an oath; and the speedy conversion of Harmozan entitled him
not only to a free pardon, but even to a stipend of two
thousand pieces of gold. The administration of Persia was
regulated by an actual survey of the people, the cattle, and
the fruits of the earth; (32) and this monument, which
attests the vigilance of the caliphs, might have instructed
the philosophers of every age. (33)
The flight of Yezdegerd had carried him beyond the Oxus, and
as far as the Jaxartes, two rivers (34) of ancient and modern
renown, which descend from the mountains of India towards
the Caspian Sea. He was hospitably entertained by Takhan,
prince of Fargana, (35) 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. (36) The virtuous Taitsong, (37) 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 neighbors 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 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 drams 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. (38) (H) 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 Bucharia. (I) 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
Sassanides 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. (39)
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 Chorasan 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 Bochara. (40) But the
final conquest of Transoxiana, (41) as well as of Spain, was
reserved for the glorious reign of the inactive Walid; and
the name of Catibah, the camel driver, declares the origin
and merit of his successful lieutenant. While one of his
colleagues displayed the first Mahometan 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
Catibah to the obedience of the prophet and of the caliph.
(42) A tribute of two millions of pieces of gold was imposed
on the infidels; their idols were burnt or broken; the
Mussulman chief pronounced a sermon in the new mosch of
Carizme; after several battles, the Turkish hordes were
driven back to the desert; and the emperors of China
solicited the friendship of the victorious Arabs. To their
industry, the prosperity of the province, the Sogdiana of
the ancients, may in a great measure be ascribed; but the
advantages of the soil and climate had been understood and
cultivated since the reign of the Macedonian kings. Before
the invasion of the Saracens, Carizme, Bochara, and
Samarcand were rich and populous under the yoke of the
shepherds of the north. (J) These cities were surrounded with
a double wall; and the exterior fortification, of a larger
circumference, enclosed the fields and gardens of the
adjacent district. 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
diffused from the manufacture of Samarcand over the western
world. (43)
II. No sooner had Abubeker restored the unity of faith and
government, than he despatched a circular letter to the
Arabian tribes. "In the name of the most merciful God, to
the rest of the true believers. Health and happiness, and
the mercy and blessing of God, be upon you. I praise the
most high God, and I pray for his prophet Mahomet. This is
to acquaint you, that I intend to send the true believers
into Syria (44) to take it out of the hands of the infidels.
And I would have you know, that the fighting for religion is
an act of obedience to God." His messengers returned with
the tidings of pious and martial ardor which they had
kindled in every province; and the camp of Medina was
successively filled with the intrepid bands of the Saracens,
who panted for action, complained of the heat of the season
and the scarcity of provisions, and accused with impatient
murmurs the delays of the caliph. As soon as their numbers
were complete, Abubeker ascended the hill, reviewed the men,
the horses, and the arms, and poured forth a fervent prayer
for the success of their undertaking. In person, and on
foot, he accompanied the first day's march; and when the
blushing leaders attempted to dismount, the caliph removed
their scruples by a declaration, that those who rode, and
those who walked, in the service of religion, were equally
meritorious. His instructions (45) to the chiefs of the
Syrian army were inspired by the warlike fanaticism which
advances to seize, and affects to despise, the objects of
earthly ambition. "Remember," said the successor of the
prophet, "that you are always in the presence of God, on the
verge of death, in the assurance of judgment, and the hope
of paradise. Avoid injustice and oppression; consult with
your brethren, and study to preserve the love and confidence
of your troops. When you fight the battles of the Lord,
acquit yourselves like men, without turning your backs; but
let not your victory be stained with the blood of women or
children. Destroy no palm-trees, nor burn any fields of
corn. Cut down no fruit-trees, nor do any mischief to
cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When you make any
covenant or article, stand to it, and be as good as your
word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons
who live retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves
to serve God that way: let them alone, and neither kill them
nor destroy their monasteries: (46) And you will find another
sort of people, that belong to the synagogue of Satan, who
have shaven crowns; (47) be sure you cleave their skulls, and
give them no quarter till they either turn Mahometans or pay
"tribute." All profane or frivolous conversation, all
dangerous recollection of ancient quarrels, was severely
prohibited among the Arabs: in the tumult of a camp, the
exercises of religion were assiduously practised; and the
intervals of action were employed in prayer, meditation, and
the study of the Koran. The abuse, or even the use, of wine
was chastised by fourscore strokes on the soles of the feet,
and in the fervor of their primitive zeal, many secret
sinners revealed their fault, and solicited their
punishment. After some hesitation, the command of the
Syrian army was delegated to Abu Obeidah, one of the
fugitives of Mecca, and companions of Mahomet; whose zeal
and devotion was assuaged, without being abated, by the
singular mildness and benevolence of his temper. But in all
the emergencies of war, the soldiers demanded the superior
genius of Caled; and whoever might be the choice of the
prince, the Sword of Godwas both in fact and fame the
foremost leader of the Saracens. He obeyed without
reluctance; (K) he was consulted without jealousy; and such
was the spirit of the man, or rather of the times, that
Caled professed his readiness to serve under the banner of
the faith, though it were in the hands of a child or an
enemy. Glory, and riches, and dominion, were indeed
promised to the victorious Mussulman; but he was carefully
instructed, that if the goods of this life were his only
incitement, they likewise would be his only reward.
One of the fifteen provinces of Syria, the cultivated lands
to the eastward of the Jordan had been decorated by Roman
vanity with the name of Arabia; (48) and the first arms of
the Saracens were justified by the semblance of a national
right. The country was enriched by the various benefits of
trade; by the vigilance of the em-perors it was covered with
a line of forts; and the populous cities of Gerasa,
Philadelphia, and Bosra (49) were secure, at least from a
surprise, by the solid structure of their walls. The last of
these cities was the eighteenth station from Medina: the
road was familiar to the caravans of Hejaz and Irak, who
annually visited this plenteous market of the province and
the desert: the perpetual jealousy of the Arabs had trained
the inhabitants to arms; and twelve thousand horse could
sally from the gates of Bosra, an appellation which
signifies, in the Syriac language, a strong tower of
defence. Encouraged by their first success against the open
towns and flying parties of the borders, a detachment of
four thousand Moslems presumed to summon and attack the
fortress of Bosra. They were oppressed by the numbers of the
Syrians; they were saved by the presence of Chaled, with
fifteen hundred horse: he blamed the enterprise, restored
the battle, and rescued his friend, the venerable Serjabil,
who had vainly invoked the unity of God and the promises of
the apostle. After a short repose the Moslems performed
their ablutions with sand instead of water; (50) and the
morning prayer was recited by Chaled before they mounted on
horseback. Confident in their strength, the people of Bosra
threw open their gates, drew their forces into the plain,
and swore to die in the defence of their religion. But a
religion of peace was incapable of withstanding the fanatic
cry of "Fight, fight! Paradise, paradise!" that re-echoed in
the ranks of the Saracens; and the uproar of the town, the
ringing of bells, (51) and the exclamations of the priests
and monks, increased the dismay and disorder of the
Christians. With the loss of two hundred and thirty men, the
Arabs remained masters of the field; and the ramparts of
Bosra, in expectation of human or divine aid, were crowded
with holy crosses and consecrated banners. The governor
Romanus had recommended an early submission: despised by the
people, and degraded from his office, he still retained the
desire and opportunity of revenge. In a nocturnal interview
he informed the enemy of a subterraneous passage from his
house under the wall of the city; the son of the caliph,
with a hundred volunteers, were committed to the faith of
this new ally, and their successful intrepidity gave an easy
entrance to their companions. After Chaled had imposed the
terms of servitude and tribute, the apostate or convert
avowed in the assembly of the people his meritorious
treason: " I renounce your society," said Romanus, "both in
this world and the world to come. And I deny him that was
crucified, and whosoever worships him. And I choose God for
my Lord, Islam for my faith, Mecca for my temple, the
Moslems for my brethren, and Mohammed for my prophet; who
was sent to lead us into the right way, and to exalt the
true religion in spite of those who join partners with God."
The conquest of Bosra, four days' journey from Damascus, (52)
encouraged the Arabs to besiege the ancient capital of
Syria. (53) At some distance from the walls they encamped
among the groves and fountains of that delicious territory,
(54) and the usual option, of the Mohammedan faith, of
tribute, or of war, was proposed to the resolute citizens,
who had been lately strengthened by a reinforcement of five
thousand Greeks. In the decline, as in the infancy of the
military art, a hostile defiance was frequently offered and
accepted by the generals themselves: (55) many a lance was
shivered in the plain of Damascus, and the personal prowess
of Chaled was signalised in the first sally of the besieged.
After an obstinate combat he had overthrown and made
prisoner one of the Christian leaders, a stout and worthy
antagonist. He instantly mounted a fresh horse, the gift of
the governor of Palmyra, and pushed forwards to the front of
the battle. "Repose yourself for a moment," said his friend
Derar, "and permit me to supply your place: you are fatigued
with fighting with this dog." "O Derar," replied the
indefatigable Saracen, "we shall rest in the world to come.
He that labours to-day shall rest tomorrow." With the same
unabated ardour Chaled answered, encountered, and vanquished
a second champion; and the heads of his two captives, who
refused to abandon their religion, were indignantly hurled
into the midst of the city. The event of some general and
partial actions reduced the Damascenes to a closer defence:
but a messenger, whom they dropped from the walls, returned
with the promise of speedy and powerful succour, and their
tumultuous joy conveyed the intelligence to the camp of the
Arabs. After some debate, it was resolved by the generals to
raise, or rather to suspend, the siege of Damascus till they
had given battle to the forces of the emperor. In the
retreat Chaled would have chosen the more perilous station
of the rear-guard; he modestly yielded to the wishes of Abu
Obeidah. But in the hour of danger he flew to the rescue of
his companion, who was rudely pressed by a sally of six
thousand horse and ten thousand foot, and few among the
Christians could relate at Damascus the circumstances of
their defeat. The importance of the contest required the
junction of the Saracens, who were dispersed on the
frontiers of Syria and Palestine; and I shall transcribe one
of the circular mandates which was addressed to Amrou, the
future conqueror of Egypt: "In the name of the most merciful
God: from Chaled to Amrou, health and happiness. Know that
thy brethren the Moslems design to march to Aiznadin, where
there is an army of seventy thousand Greeks, who purpose to
come against us, that they may extinguish the Light of God
with their mouths; but God preserveth his light in spite of
the infidels. (56) As soon therefore as this letter of mine
shall be delivered to thy hands, come with those that are
with thee to Aiznadin, where thou shalt find us if it please
the most high God." The summons was cheerfully obeyed, and
the forty-five thousand Moslems, who met on the same day, on
the-same spot, ascribed to the blessing of Providence the
effects of their activity and zeal.
About four years after the triumphs of the Persian war the
repose of Heraclius and the empire was again disturbed by a
new enemy, the power of whose religion was more strongly
felt than it was clearly understood by the Christians of the
East. In his palace of Constantinople or Antioch he was
awakened by the invasion of Syria, the loss of Bosra, and
the danger of Damascus. An army of seventy thousand
veterans, or new levies, was assembled at Hems or Emesa,
under the command of his general Werdan: (57) and these
troops, consisting chiefly of cavalry, might be
indifferently styled either Syrians, or Greeks, or Romans:
Syrians, from the place of their birth or warfare; Greeks,
from the religion and language of their sovereign; and
Romans, from the proud appellation which was still profaned
by the successors of Constantine. On the plain of Aiznadin,
as Werdan rode on a white mule decorated with gold chains,
and surrounded with ensigns and standards, he was surprised
by the near approach of a fierce and naked warrior, who had
undertaken to view the state of the enemy. The adventurous
valour of Derar was inspired, and has perhaps been adorned,
by the enthusiasm of his age and country. The hatred of the
Christians, the love of spoil, and the contempt of danger,
were the ruling passions of the audacious Saracen; and the
prospect of instant death could never shake his religious
confidence, or ruffle the calmness of his resolution, or
even suspend the frank and partial pleasantry of his humour.
In the most hopeless enterprises he was bold, and prudent,
and fortunate: after innumerable hazards, after being thrice
a prisoner in the hands of the infidels, he still survived
to relate the achievements, and to enjoy the rewards, of the
Syrian conquest. On this occasion his single lance
maintained a flying fight against thirty Romans, who were
detached by Werdan; and, after killing or unhorsing
seventeen of their lumber, Derar returned in safety to his
applauding brethren. When his rashness was mildly censured
by the general, he excused himself with the simplicity of a
soldier. "Nay," said Derar, "I did not begin first: but they
came out to take me, and I was afraid that God should see me
turn my back: and indeed I fought in ,good earnest, and
without doubt God assisted me against them; and had I not
been apprehensive of disobeying your orders, I should not
have come away as I did; and I perceive already that they
will fall into our hands." In the presence of both armies a
venerable Greek advanced from the ranks with a liberal offer
of peace; and the departure of the Saracens would have been
purchased by a gift to each soldier of l turban, a robe, and
a piece of gold; ten robes and a hundred pieces to their
leader; one hundred robes and a thousand pieces to the
caliph. A smile of indignation expressed the refusal of
Chaled. "Ye Christian dogs, you know your option; the Koran,
the tribute, or the sword. We are a people whose delight is
in war rather than in peace: and we despise your pitiful
alms, since we shall be speedily masters of your wealth your
families, and your persons." Notwithstanding this apparent
disdain, he was deeply conscious of the public danger: those
who had been in Persia, and had seen the armies of Chosroes,
confessed that they never beheld a more formidable array.
From the superiority of the enemy the artful Saracen derived
a fresh incentive of courage: "You see before you," said he,
"the united force of the Romans; you cannot hope to escape,
but you may conquer Syria in a single day. The event depends
on your discipline and patience. Reserve yourselves till the
evening. It was in the evening that the Prophet was
accustomed to vanquish." During two successive engagements,
his temperate firmness sustained the darts of the enemy and
the murmurs of his troops. At length, when the spirits and
quivers of the adverse line were almost exhausted, Chaled
gave the signal of onset and victory. The remains of the
Imperial army fled to Antioch, or Caesarea, or Damascus; and
the death of four hundred and seventy Moslems was
compensated by the opinion that they had sent to hell above
fifty thousand of the infidels. The spoil was inestimable;
many banners and crosses of gold and silver, precious
stones, silver and gold chains, and innumerable suits of the
richest armour and apparel. The general distribution was
postponed till Damascus should be taken; but the seasonable
supply of arms became the instrument of new victories The
glorious intelligence was transmitted to the throne of the
caliph - and the Arabian tribes, the coldest or most hostile
to the prophet's mission, were eager and importunate to
share the harvest of Syria.
The sad tidings were carried to Damascus by the speed of
grief and terror; and the inhabitants beheld from their
walls the return of the heroes of Aiznadin. Amrou led the
van at the head of nine thousand horse: the bands of the
Saracens succeeded each other in formidable review; and the
rear was closed by Chaled in person, with the standard of
the black eagle. To the activity of Derar he intrusted the
commission of patrolling round the city with two thousand
horse, of scouring the plain, and of intercepting all
succour or intelligence. The rest of the Arabian chiefs were
fixed in their respective stations before the seven gates of
Damascus; and the siege was renewed with fresh vigour and
confidence. The art, the labour, the military engines of the
Greeks and Romans are seldom to be found in the simple,
though successful, operations of the Saracens: it was
sufficient for them to invest a city with arms rather than
with trenches; to repel the sallies of the besieged; to
attempt a stratagem or an assault; or to expect the progress
of famine and discontent Damascus would have acquiesced in
the trial of Aiznadin, as a final and peremptory sentence
between the emperor and the caliph: her courage was
rekindled by the example and authority of Thomas, a noble
Greek, illustrious in a private condition by the alliance of
Heraclius. (58) The tumult and illumination of the night
proclaimed the design of the morning sally; and the
Christian hero, who affected to despise the enthusiasm of
the Arabs, employed the resource of a similar superstition.
At the principal gate in the sight of both armies, a lofty
crucifix was erected; the bishop, with his clergy,
accompanied the march, and laid the volume of the New
Testament before the image of Jesus; and the contending
parties were scandalised or edified by a prayer that the Son
of God would defend his servants and vindicate his truth.
The battle raged with incessant fury; and the dexterity of
Thomas, (59) an incomparable archer, was fatal to the boldest
Saracens, till their death was revenged by a female heroine.
The wife of Aban, who had followed him to the holy war,
embraced her expiring husband. "Happy," said she, "happy art
thou, my dear: thou art gone to thy Lord, who first joined
us together, and then parted us asunder. I will revenge thy
death, and endeavour to the utmost of my power to come to
the place where thou art, because I love thee. Henceforth
shall no man ever touch me more, for I have dedicated myself
to the service of God." Without a groan, without a tear, she
washed the corpse of her husband, and buried him with the
usual rites. Then grasping the manly weapons, which in her
native land she was accustomed to wield, the intrepid widow
of Aban sought the place where his murderer fought in the
thickest of the battle. Her first arrow pierced the hand of
his standard-bearer; her second wounded Thomas in the eye;
and the fainting Christians no longer beheld their ensign or
their leader. Yet the generous champion of Damascus refused
to withdraw to his palace: his wound was dressed on the
rampart; the fight was continued till the evening; and the
Syrians rested on their arms. In the silence of the night,
the signal was given by a stroke on the great bell; the
gates were thrown open, and each gate discharged an
impetuous column on the sleeping camp of the Saracens.
Chaled was the first in arms: at the head of four hundred
horse he flew to the post of danger, and the tears trickled
down his iron cheeks as he uttered a fervent ejaculation: "O
God, who never sleepest, look upon thy servants, and do not
deliver them into the hands of their enemies." The valour
and victory of Thomas were arrested by the presence of the
Sword of God, with the knowledge of the peril, the Moslems
recovered their ranks, and charged the assailants in the
flank and rear. After the loss of thousands, the Christian
general retreated with a sigh of despair, and the pursuit of
the Saracens was checked by the military engines of the
rampart. After a siege of seventy days, (60) the patience,
and perhaps the provisions, of the Damascenes were
exhausted; and the bravest of their chiefs submitted to the
hard dictates of necessity. In the occurrences of peace and
war, they had been taught to dread the fierceness of Chaled
and to revere the mild virtues of Abu Obeidah. At the hour
of midnight one hundred chosen deputies of the clergy and
people were introduced to the tent of that venerable
commander. He received and dismissed them with courtesy.
They returned with a written agreement, on the faith of a
companion of Mohammed, that all hostilities should cease;
that the voluntary emigrants might depart in safety, with as
much as they could carry away of their effects; and that the
tributary subjects of the caliph should enjoy their lands
and houses, with the use and possession of seven churches.
On these terms, the most respectable hostages, and the gate
nearest to his camp, were delivered into his hands: his
soldiers imitated the moderation of their chief: and he
enjoyed the submissive gratitude of a people whom he had
rescued from destruction. But the success of the treaty had
relaxed their vigilance, and in the same moment the opposite
quarter of the city was betrayed and taken by assault. A
party of a hundred Arabs had opened the eastern gate to a
more inexorable foe. " No quarter," cried the rapacious and
sanguinary Chaled, " no quarter to the enemies of the Lord:"
his trumpets sounded, and a torrent of Christian blood was
poured down the streets of Damascus. When he reached the
church of St. Mary, he was astonished and provoked by the
peaceful aspect of his companions; their swords were in the
scabbard, and they were surrounded by a multitude of priests
and monks. Abu Obeidah saluted the general: " God," said he,
" has delivered the city into my hands by way of surrender,
and has saved the believers the trouble of fighting." " And
am I not," replied the indignant Chaled, " am I not the
lieutenant of the commander of the faithful? Have I not
taken the city by storm? The unbelievers shall perish by the
sword. Fall on." The hungry and cruel Arabs would have
obeyed the welcome command; and Damascus was lost, if the
benevolence of Abu Obeidah had not been supported by a
decent and dignified firmness. Throwing himself between the
trembling citizens and the most eager of the barbarians, he
adjured them, by the holy name of God, to respect his
promise, to suspend their fury, and to wait the
determination of their chiefs. The chiefs retired into the
church of St. Mary; and after a vehement debate, Chaled
submitted in some measure to the reason and authority of his
colleague; who urged the sanctity of a covenant, the
advantage as well as the honour which the Moslems would
derive from the punctual performance of their word, and the
obstinate resistance which they must encounter from the
distrust and despair of the rest of the Syrian cities. It
was agreed that the sword should be sheathed, that the part
of Damascus which had surrendered to Abu Obeidah should be
immediately entitled to the benefit of his capitulation, and
that the final decision should be referred to the justice
and wisdom of the caliph. (61) A large majority of the people
accepted the terms of toleration and tribute; and Damascus
is still peopled by twenty thousand Christians. But the
valiant Thomas, and the free-born patriots who had fought
under his banner, embraced the alternative of poverty and
exile. In the adjacent meadow a numerous encampment was
formed of priests and laymen, of soldiers and citizens, of
women and children: they collected, with haste and terror,
their most precious movables; and abandoned, with loud
lamentations or silent anguish, their native homes and the
pleasant banks of the Pharpar. The inflexible soul of Chaled
was not touched by the spectacle of their distress: he
disputed with the Damascenes the property of a magazine of
corn; endeavoured to exclude the garrison from the benefit
of the treaty; consented, with reluctance, that each of the
fugitives should arm himself with a sword, or a lance, or a
bow; and sternly declared, that, after a respite of three
days, they might be pursued and treated as the enemies of
the Moslems. The passion of a Syrian youth completed the
ruin of the exiles of Damascus. A nobleman of the city, of
the name of Jonas, (62) was betrothed to a wealthy maiden;
but her parents delayed the consummation of his nuptials,
and their daughter was persuaded to escape with the man whom
she had chosen. They corrupted the nightly watchmen of the
gate Keisan; the lover, who led the way, was encompassed by
a squadron of Arabs; but his exclamation in the Greek
tongue, " the bird is taken," admonished his mistress to
hasten her return. In the presence of Chaled, and of death,
the unfortunate Jonas professed his belief in one God and
his apostle Mohammed; and continued, till the season of his
martyrdom, to discharge the duties of a brave and sincere
Musulman. When the city was taken, he flew to the monastery
where Eudocia had taken refuge; but the lover was forgotten;
the apostate was scorned; she preferred her religion to her
country; and the justice of Chaled, though deaf to mercy,
refused to detain by force a male or female inhabitant of
Damascus. Four days was the general confined to the city by
the obligation of the treaty and the urgent cares of his new
conquest. His appetite for blood and rapine would have been
extinguished by the hopeless computation of time and
distance; but he listened to the importunities of Jonas, who
assured him that the weary fugitives might yet be overtaken.
At the head of four thousand horse, in the disguise of
Christian Arabs, Chaled undertook the pursuit. They halted
only for the moments of prayer; and their guide had a
perfect knowledge of the country. For a long way the
footsteps of the Damascenes were plain and conspicuous: they
vanished on a sudden, but the Saracens were comforted by the
assurance that the caravan had turned aside into the
mountains, and must speedily fall into their hands. In
traversing the ridges of the Libanus they endured
intolerable hardships, and the sinking spirits of the
veteran fanatics were supported and cheered by the
unconquerable ardour of a lover. From a peasant of the
country they were informed that the emperor had sent orders
to the colony of exiles to pursue without delay the road of
the sea-coast and of Constantinople, apprehensive, perhaps,
that the soldiers and people of Antioch might be discouraged
by the sight and the story of their sufferings. The Saracens
were conducted through the territories of Gabala (63) and
Laodicea, at a cautious distance from the walls of the
cities; the rain was incessant, the night was dark, a single
mountain separated them from the Roman army; and Chaled,
ever anxious for the safety of his brethren, whispered an
ominous dream in the ear of his companion. With the dawn of
day the prospect again cleared, and they saw before them, in
a pleasant valley, the tents of Damascus. After a short
interval of repose and prayer Chaled divided his cavalry
into four squadrons, committing the first to his faithful
Derar, and reserving the last for himself. They successively
rushed on the promiscuous multitude, insufficiently provided
with arms, and already vanquished by sorrow and fatigue.
Except a captive, who was pardoned and dismissed, the Arabs
enjoyed the satisfaction of believing that not a Christian
of either sex escaped the edge of their scimitars. The gold
and silver of Damascus was scattered over the camp, and a
royal wardrobe of three hundred load of silk might clothe an
army of naked barbarians. In the tumult of the battle Jonas
sought and found the object of his pursuit: but her
resentment was inflamed by the last act of his perfidy; and
as Eudocia struggled in his hateful embraces, she struck a
dagger to her heart. Another female, the widow of Thomas,
and the real or supposed daughter of Heraclius, was spared
and released without a ransom; but the generosity of Chaled
was the effect of his contempt; and the haughty Saracen
insulted, by a message of defiance, the throne of the
Caesars. Chaled had penetrated above a hundred and fifty
miles into the heart of the Roman province: he returned to
Damascus with the same secrecy and speed. On the accession
of Omar, the Sword of God was removed from the command; but
the caliph, who blamed the rashness, was compelled to
applaud the vigour and conduct of the enterprise.
Another expedition of the conquerors of Damascus will
equally display their avidity and their contempt for the
riches of the present world. They were informed that the
produce and manufactures of the country were annually
collected in the fair of Abyla, (64) about thirty miles from
the city; that the cell of a devout hermit was visited at
the same time by a multitude of pilgrims; and that the
festival of trade and superstition would be ennobled by the
nuptials of the daughter of the governor of Tripoli.
Abdallah, the son of Jaafar, a glorious and holy martyr,
undertook, with a banner of five hundred horse, the pious
and profitable commission of despoiling the infidels. As he
approached the fair of Abyla, he was astonished by the
report of this mighty concourse of Jews and Christians,
Greeks, and Armenians, of natives of Syria and of strangers
of Egypt, to the number of ten thousand, besides a guard of
five thousand horse that attended the person of the bride.
The Saracens paused: "For my own part," said Abdallah, "I
dare not go back: our foes are many, our danger is great,
but our reward is splendid and secure, either in this life
or in the life to come. Let every man, according to his
inclination, advance or retire." Not a Mussulman deserted
his standard. "Lead the way," said Abdallah to his
Christian guide, "and you shall see what the companions of
the prophet can perform." They charged in five squadrons;
but after the first advantage of the surprise, they were
encompassed and almost overwhelmed by the multitude of their
enemies; and their valiant band is fancifully compared to a
white spot in the skin of a black camel. (65) About the hour
of sunset, when their weapons dropped from their hands, when
they panted on the verge of eternity, they discovered an
approaching cloud of dust; they heard the welcome sound of
the tecbir, (66) and they soon perceived the standard of
Caled, who flew to their relief with the utmost speed of his
cavalry. The Christians were broken by his attack, and
slaughtered in their flight, as far as the river of Tripoli.
They left behind them the various riches of the fair; the
merchandises that were exposed for sale, the money that was
brought for purchase, the gay decorations of the nuptials,
and the governor's daughter, with forty of her female
attendants. The fruits, provisions, and furniture, the
money, plate, and jewels, were diligently laden on the backs
of horses, asses, and mules; and the holy robbers returned
in triumph to Damascus. The hermit, after a short and angry
controversy with Caled, declined the crown of martyrdom, and
was left alive in the solitary scene of blood and
devastation.
24, 29, edit. Havercamp. Justin. xxxv& i. 2.]
Syria, (67) one of the countries that have been improved by
the most early cultivation, is not unworthy of the
preference. (68) The heat of the climate is tempered by the
vicinity of the sea and mountains, by the plenty of wood and
water; and the produce of a fertile soil affords the
subsistence, and encourages the propagation, of men and
animals. From the age of David to that of Heraclius, the
country was overspread with ancient and flourishing cities:
the inhabitants were numerous and wealthy; and, after the
slow ravage of despotism and superstition, after the recent
calamities of the Persian war, Syria could still attract and
reward the rapacious tribes of the desert. A plain, of ten
days' journey, from Damascus to Aleppo and Antioch, is
watered, on the western side, by the winding course of the
Orontes. The hills of Libanus and Anti-Libanus are planted
from north to south, between the Orontes and the
Mediterranean; and the epithet of hollow (Coelesyria) was
applied to a long and fruitful valley, which is confined in
the same direction, by the two ridges of snowy mountains.
(69) Among the cities, which are enumerated by Greek and
Oriental names in the geography and conquest of Syria, we
may distinguish Emesa or Hems, Heliopolis or Baalbec, the
former as the metropolis of the plain, the latter as the
capital of the valley. Under the last of the Caesars, they
were strong and populous; the turrets glittered from afar:
an ample space was covered with public and private
buildings; and the citizens were illustrious by their
spirit, or at least by their pride; by their riches, or at
least by their luxury. In the days of Paganism, both Emesa
and Heliopolis were addicted to the worship of Baal, or the
sun; but the decline of their superstition and splendor has
been marked by a singular variety of fortune. Not a vestige
remains of the temple of Emesa, which was equalled in poetic
style to the summits of Mount Libanus, (70) while the ruins
of Baalbec, invisible to the writers of antiquity, excite
the curiosity and wonder of the European traveller. (71) The
measure of the temple is two hundred feet in length, and one
hundred in breadth: the front is adorned with a double
portico of eight columns; fourteen may be counted on either
side; and each column, forty-five feet in height, is
composed of three massy blocks of stone or marble. The
proportions and ornaments of the Corinthian order express
the architecture of the Greeks: but as Baalbec has never
been the seat of a monarch, we are at a loss to conceive how
the expense of these magnificent structures could be
supplied by private or municipal liberality. (72) From the
conquest of Damascus the Saracens proceeded to Heliopolis
and Emesa: but I shall decline the repetition of the sallies
and combats which have been already shown on a larger scale.
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;
familiarized 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. In a recent action, under
the walls of Emesa, an Arabian youth, the cousin of Caled,
was heard aloud to exclaim, "Methinks I see the black-eyed
girls looking upon me; one of whom, should she appear in
this world, all mankind would die for love of her. And I
see in the hand of one of them a handkerchief of green silk,
and a cap of precious stones, and she beckons me, and calls
out, Come hither quickly, for I love thee." With these
words, charging the Christians, he made havoc wherever he
went, till, observed at length by the governor of Hems, he
was struck through with a javelin.
It was incumbent on the Saracens to exert the full powers of
their valor 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 Caesarea: the
light troops of the army consisted of sixty thousand
Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. Under the banner of
Jabalah, the last of their princes, they marched in the van;
and it was a maxim of the Greeks, that for the purpose of
cutting diamond, a diamond was the most effectual. Heraclius
withheld his person from the dangers of the field; but his
presumption, or perhaps his despondency, suggested a
peremptory order, that the fate of the province and the war
should be decided by a single battle. The Syrians were
attached to the standard of Rome and of the cross: but the
noble, the citizen, the peasant, were exasperated by the
injustice and cruelty of a licentious host, who oppressed
them as subjects, and despised them as strangers and aliens.
(73) A report of these mighty preparations was conveyed to
the Saracens in their camp of Emesa, and the chiefs, though
resolved to fight, assembled a council: the faith of Abu
Obeidah would have expected on the same spot the glory of
martyrdom; the wisdom of Caled advised an honorable retreat
to the skirts of Palestine and Arabia, where they might
await the succors of their friends, and the attack of the
unbelievers. A speedy messenger soon returned from the
throne of Medina, with the blessings of Omar and Ali, the
prayers of the widows of the prophet, and a reenforcement of
eight thousand Moslems. In their way they overturned a
detachment of Greeks, and when they joined at Yermuk the
camp of their brethren, they found the pleasing
intelligence, that Caled had already defeated and scattered
the Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. In the
neighborhood 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. (74) The
banks of this obscure stream were illustrated by a long and
bloody encounter. (L) On this momentous occasion, the public
voice, and the modesty of Abu Obeidah, restored the command
to the most deserving of the Moslems. Caled assumed his
station in the front, his colleague was posted in the rear,
that the disorder of the fugitive might be checked by his
venerable aspect, and the sight of the yellow banner which
Mahomet had displayed before the walls of Chaibar. 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. (75) 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.
In the intervals of action, Abu Obeidah visited the tents of
his brethren, prolonged their repose by repeating at once
the prayers of two different hours, bound up their wounds
with his own hands, and administered the comfortable
reflection, that the infidels partook of their sufferings
without partaking of their reward. 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,
(76) the Christian writers confess and bewail the bloody
punishment of their sins. (77) Manuel, the Roman general, was
either killed at Damascus, or took refuge in the monastery
of Mount Sinai. An exile in the Byzantine court, Jabalah
lamented the manners of Arabia, and his unlucky preference
of the Christian cause. (78) He had once inclined to the
profession of Islam; but in the pilgrimage of Mecca, Jabalah
was provoked to strike one of his brethren, and fled with
amazement from the stern and equal justice of the caliph
These victorious Saracens enjoyed at Damascus a month of
pleasure and repose: the spoil was divided by the discretion
of Abu Obeidah: an equal share was allotted to a soldier and
to his horse, and a double portion was reserved for the
noble coursers of the Arabian breed.
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 Caesarea 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
Mahomet himself. The son of Abu Sophian was sent with five
thousand Arabs to try the first experiment of surprise or
treaty; but on the eleventh day, the town was invested by
the whole force of Abu Obeidah. He addressed the customary
summons to the chief commanders and people of Aelia. (79)
"Health and happiness to every one that follows the right
way! We require of you to testify that there is but one God,
and that Mahomet is his apostle. If you refuse this,
consent to pay tribute, and be under us forthwith. Otherwise
I shall bring men against you who love death better than you
do the drinking of wine or eating hog's flesh. Nor will I
ever stir from you, if it please God, till I have destroyed
those that fight for you, and made slaves of your children."
But the city was defended on every side by deep valleys and
steep ascents; since the invasion of Syria, the walls and
towers had been anxiously restored; the bravest of the
fugitives of Yermuk had stopped in the nearest place of
refuge; and in the defence of the sepulchre of Christ, the
natives and strangers might feel some sparks of the
enthusiasm, which so fiercely glowed in the bosoms of the
Saracens. 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. (M) 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 his 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. Wherever he halted, the company, without
distinction, was invited to partake of his homely fare, and
the repast was consecrated by the prayer and exhortation of
the commander of the faithful. (80) But in this expedition or
pilgrimage, his power was exercised in the administration of
justice: he reformed the licentious polygamy of the Arabs,
relieved the tributaries from extortion and cruelty, and
chastised the luxury of the Saracens, by despoiling them of
their rich silks, and dragging them on their faces in the
dirt. When he came within sight of Jerusalem, the caliph
cried with a loud voice, "God is victorious. O Lord, give
us an easy conquest!" and, pitching his tent of coarse hair,
calmly seated himself on the ground. After signing the
capitulation, he entered the city without fear or
precaution; and courteously discoursed with the patriarch
concerning its religious antiquities. (81) Sophronius bowed
before his new master, and secretly muttered, in the words
of Daniel, "The abomination of desolation is in the holy
place." (82) At the hour of prayer they stood together in the
church of the resurrection; but the caliph refused to
perform his devotions, and contented himself with praying on
the steps of the church of Constantine. To the patriarch he
disclosed his prudent and honorable motive. "Had I
yielded," said Omar, "to your request, the Moslems of a
future age would have infringed the treaty under color of
imitating my example." By his command the ground of the
temple of Solomon was prepared for the foundation of a
mosch; (83) 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. (84)
To achieve what yet remained of the Syrian war the caliph
had formed two separate armies; a chosen detachment, under
Amrou and Yezid, was left in the camp of Palestine; while
the larger division, under the standard of Abu Obeidah and
Caled, marched away to the north against Antioch and Aleppo.
The latter of these, the Beraea of the Greeks, was not yet
illustrious as the capital of a province or a kingdom; and
the inhabitants, by anticipating their submission and
pleading their poverty, obtained a moderate composition for
their lives and religion. But the castle of Aleppo, (85)
distinct from the city, stood erect on a lofty artificial
mound the sides were sharpened to a precipice, and faced
with free-stone; and the breadth of the ditch might be
filled with water from the neighboring springs. After the
loss of three thousand men, the garrison was still equal to
the defence; and Youkinna, their valiant and hereditary
chief, had murdered his brother, a holy monk, for daring to
pronounce the name of peace. In a siege of four or five
months, the hardest of the Syrian war, great numbers of the
Saracens were killed and wounded: their removal to the
distance of a mile could not seduce the vigilance of
Youkinna; nor could the Christians be terrified by the
execution of three hundred captives, whom they beheaded
before the castle wall. The silence, and at length the
complaints, of Abu Obeidah informed the caliph that their
hope and patience were consumed at the foot of this
impregnable fortress. "I am variously affected," replied
Omar, "by the difference of your success; but I charge you
by no means to raise the siege of the castle. Your retreat
would diminish the reputation of our arms, and encourage the
infidels to fall upon you on all sides. Remain before
Aleppo till God shall determine the event, and forage with
your horse round the adjacent country." The exhortation of
the commander of the faithful was fortified 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.
The forty-seventh day of his service he proposed, with only
thirty men, to make an attempt on the castle. The
experience and testimony of Caled recommended his offer; and
Abu Obeidah admonished his brethren not to despise the baser
origin of Dames, since he himself, could he relinquish the
public care, would cheerfully serve under the banner of the
slave. His design was covered by the appearance of a
retreat; and the camp of the Saracens was pitched about a
league from Aleppo. The thirty adventurers lay in ambush at
the foot of the hill; and Dames at length succeeded in his
inquiries, though he was provoked by the ignorance of his
Greek captives. "God curse these dogs," said the illiterate
Arab; "what a strange barbarous language they speak!" At the
darkest hour of the night, he scaled the most accessible
height, which he had diligently surveyed, 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. With bold and cautious footsteps,
Dames explored the palace of the governor, who celebrated,
in riotous merriment, the festival of his deliverance. From
thence, returning to his companions, he assaulted on the
inside the entrance of the castle. They overpowered the
guard, unbolted the gate, let down the drawbridge, and
defended the narrow pass, till the arrival of Caled, with
the dawn of day, relieved their danger and assured their
conquest. Youkinna, a formidable foe, became an active and
useful proselyte; and the general of the Saracens expressed
his regard for the most humble merit, by detaining the army
at Aleppo till Dames was cured of his honorable wounds. The
capital of Syria was still covered by the castle of Aazaz
and the iron bridge of the Orontes. After the loss of those
important posts, and the defeat of the last of the Roman
armies, the luxury of Antioch (86) 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 of the East, which had been
decorated by Caesar 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. (87)
In the life of Heraclius, the glories of the Persian war are
clouded on either hand by the disgrace and weakness of his
more early and his later days. When the successors of
Mahomet unsheathed the sword of war and religion, he was
astonished at the boundless prospect of toil and danger; his
nature was indolent, nor could the infirm and frigid age of
the emperor be kindled to a second effort. The sense of
shame, and the importunities of the Syrians, prevented the
hasty departure from the scene of action; but the hero was
no more; and 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; and the desertion of Youkinna, his false repentance
and repeated perfidy, might justify the suspicion of the
emperor, that he was encompassed by traitors and apostates,
who conspired to betray his person and their country to the
enemies of Christ. In the hour of adversity, his
superstition was agitated by the omens and dreams of a
falling crown; and after bidding an eternal farewell to
Syria, he secretly embarked with a few attendants, and
absolved the faith of his subjects. (88) Constantine, his
eldest son, had been stationed with forty thousand men at
Caesarea, the civil metropolis of the three provinces of
Palestine. But his private interest recalled him to the
Byzantine court; and, after the flight of his father, he
felt himself an unequal champion to the united force of the
caliph. His vanguard was boldly attacked by three hundred
Arabs and a thousand black slaves, who, in the depth of
winter, had climbed the snowy mountains of Libanus, and who
were speedily followed by the victorious squadrons of Caled
himself. From the north and south the troops of Antioch and
Jerusalem advanced along the sea-shore till their banners
were joined under the walls of the Phoenician cities:
Tripoli and Tyre were betrayed; and a fleet of fifty
transports, which entered without distrust the captive
harbors, brought a seasonable supply of arms and provisions
to the camp of the Saracens. Their labors were terminated
by the unexpected surrender of Caesarea: the Roman prince
had embarked in the night; (89) and the defenceless citizens
solicited their pardon with an offering of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold. The remainder of the province,
Ramlah, Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or Neapolis, Gaza,
Ascalon, 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. (90)
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 the
fading delights of this world, that have prompted me to
devote my life in the cause of religion. But I seek the
favor 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
faithful captives might exercise a passive and more arduous
resolution; and a cousin of Mahomet is celebrated for
refusing, after an abstinence of three days, the wine and
pork, the only nourishment that was allowed by the malice of
the infidels. The frailty of some weaker brethren
exasperated the implacable spirit of fanaticism; and the
father of Amer deplored, in pathetic strains, the apostasy
and damnation of a son, who had renounced the promises of
God, and the intercession of the prophet, to occupy, with
the priests and deacons, the lowest mansions of hell. 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 Obeidah 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 labor. But the virtue of
Omar, however rigorous to himself, was kind and liberal to
his brethren. After a just tribute of praise and
thanksgiving, he dropped a tear of compassion; and sitting
down on the ground, wrote an answer, in which he mildly
censured the severity of his lieutenant: "God," said the
successor of the prophet, "has not forbidden the use of the
good things of this worl to faithful men, and such as have
performed good works. Therefore you ought to have given
them leave to rest themselves, and partake freely of those
good things which the country affordeth. If any of the
Saracens have no family in Arabia, they may marry in Syria;
and whosoever of them wants any female slaves, he may
purchase as many as he hath occasion for." The conquerors
prepared to use, or to abuse, this gracious permission; but
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 Obeidah
might be lamented by the Christians; but his brethren
recollected that he was one of the ten elect whom the
prophet had named as the heirs of paradise. (91) Caled
survived his brethren about three years: and the tomb of the
Sword of God is shown in the neighborhood of Emesa. His
valor, 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 Mahomet, he deemed himself invulnerable amidst
the darts of the infidels. (N)
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 Ommiyah; 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 splendor 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 neighborhood of Constantinople. To the east
they advanced to the banks and sources of the Euphrates and
Tigris: (92) 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 Phoenicia 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. (93) 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 aera, the
memorable though fruitless siege of Rhodes (94) 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 harbor, 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, (95) and the
three thousand statues, which adorned the prosperity of the
city of the sun.
II. 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 Amrou
was at once base and illustrious; his mother, a notorious
prostitute, was unable to decide among five of the Koreish;
but the proof of resemblance adjudged the child to Aasi, the
oldest of her lovers. (96) The youth of Amrou was impelled by
the passions and prejudices of his kindred: his poetic
genius was exercised in satirical verses against the person
and doctrine of Mahomet; his dexterity was employed by the
reigning faction to pursue the religious exiles who had
taken refuge in the court of the Aethiopian king. (97) Yet he
returned from this embassy a secret proselyte; his reason or
his interest determined him to renounce the worship of
idols; he escaped from Mecca with his friend Caled; and the
prophet of Medina enjoyed at the same moment the
satisfaction of embracing the two firmest champions of his
cause. The impatience of Amrou to lead the armies of the
faithful was checked by the reproof of Omar, who advised him
not to seek power and dominion, since he who is a subject
to-day, may be a prince to-morrow. Yet his merit was not
overlooked by the two first successors of Mahomet; 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 valor of an adventurous soldier. In a
visit to Medina, the caliph expressed a wish to survey the
sword which had cut down so many Christian warriors; the son
of Aasi unsheathed a short and ordinary cimeter; and as he
perceived the surprise of Omar, "Alas," said the modest
Saracen, "the sword itself, without the arm of its master,
is neither sharper nor more weighty than the sword of
Pharezdak the poet." (98) After the conquest of Egypt, he was
recalled by the jealousy of the caliph Othman; but in the
subsequent troubles, the ambition of a soldier, a statesman,
and an orator, emerged from a private station. His powerful
support, both in council and in the field, established the
throne of the Ommiades; the administration and revenue of
Egypt were restored by the gratitude of Moawiyah to a
faithful friend who had raised himself above the rank of a
subject; and Amrou ended his days in the palace and city
which he had founded on the banks of the Nile. His dying
speech to his children is celebrated by the Arabians as a
model of eloquence and wisdom: he deplored the errors of his
youth but if the penitent was still infected by the vanity
of a poet, he might exaggerate the venom and mischief of his
impious compositions. (99)
From his camp in Palestine, Amrou had surprised or
anticipated the caliph's leave for the invasion of Egypt.
(100) The magnanimous Omar trusted in his God and his sword,
which had shaken the thrones of Chosroes and Caesar: 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. The pride and the
greatness of Pharaoh were familiar to the readers of the
Koran; and a tenfold repetition of prodigies had been
scarcely sufficient to effect, not the victory, but the
flight, of six hundred thousand of the children of Israel:
the cities of Egypt were many and populous; their
architecture was strong and solid; the Nile, with its
numerous branches, was alone an insuperable barrier; and the
granary of the Imperial city would be obstinately defended
by the Roman powers. In this perplexity, the commander of
the faithful resigned himself to the decision of chance, or,
in his opinion, of Providence. At the head of only four
thousand Arabs, the intrepid Amrou 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 succor of
God and of your brethren." The experience, perhaps the
secret intelligence, of Amrou 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 neighborhood 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, one hundred and fifty furlongs in
circumference, displayed the magnificence of ancient kings.
Under the reign of the Ptolemies and Caesars, the seat of
government was removed to the sea-coast; the ancient capital
was eclipsed by the arts and opulence of Alexandria; the
palaces, and at length the temples, were reduced to a
desolate and ruinous condition: yet, in the age of Augustus,
and even in that of Constantine, Memphis was still numbered
among the greatest and most populous of the provincial
cities. (101) The banks of the Nile, in this place of the
breadth of three thousand feet, were united by two bridges
of sixty and of thirty boats, connected in the middle stream
by the small island of Rouda, which was covered with gardens
and habitations. (102) The eastern extremity of the bridge
was terminated by the town of Babylon and the camp of a
Roman legion, which protected the passage of the river and
the second capital of Egypt. This important fortress, which
might fairly be described as a part of Memphis or Misrah,
was invested by the arms of the lieutenant of Omar: a
reenforcement of four thousand Saracens soon arrived in his
camp; and the military engines, which battered the walls,
may be imputed to the art and labor of his Syrian allies.
Yet the siege was protracted to seven months; and the rash
invaders were encompassed and threatened by the inundation
of the Nile. (103) 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 mosch was blessed by the presence of fourscore
companions of Mahomet. (104) A new city arose in their camp,
on the eastward bank of the Nile; and the contiguous
quarters of Babylon and Fostat are confounded in their
present decay by the appellation of old Misrah, or Cairo, of
which they form an extensive suburb. 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. (105) It has gradually receded from the
river; but the continuity of buildings may be traced by an
attentive eye from the monuments of Sesostris to those of
Saladin. (106)
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 rapid
conquest of Alexander was assisted by the superstition and
revolt of the natives: they abhorred their Persian
oppressors, the disciples of the Magi, who had burnt the
temples of Egypt, and feasted with sacrilegious appetite on
the flesh of the god Apis. (107) After a period of ten
centuries, the same revolution was renewed by a similar
cause; and in the support of an incomprehensible creed, the
zeal of the Coptic Christians was equally ardent. I have
already explained the origin and progress of the Monophysite
controversy, and the persecution of the emperors, which
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 Mokawkas, 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 Mahomet ranked him among princes; but he
declined, with rich gifts and ambiguous compliments, the
proposal of a new religion. (108) The abuse of his trust
exposed him to the resentment of Heraclius: his submission
was delayed by arrogance and fear; and his conscience was
prompted by interest to throw himself on the favor of the
nation and the support of the Saracens. In his first
conference with Amrou, he heard without indignation the
usual option of the Koran, the tribute, or the sword. "The
Greeks," replied Mokawkas, "are determined to abide the
determination of the sword; but with the Greeks I desire no
communion, either in this world or in the next, and I abjure
forever the Byzantine tyrant, his synod of Chalcedon, and
his Melchite slaves. For myself and my brethren, we are
resolved to live and die in the profession of the gospel and
unity of Christ. It is impossible for us to embrace the
revelations of your prophet; but we are desirous of peace,
and cheerfully submit 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:
the Copts above and below Memphis swore allegiance to the
caliph, and promised a hospitable entertainment of three
days to every Mussulman who should travel through their
country. By this charter of security, the ecclesiastical
and civil tyranny of the Melchites was destroyed: (109) the
anathemas of St. Cyril were thundered from every pulpit; and
the sacred edifices, with the patrimony of the church, were
restored to the national communion of the Jacobites, who
enjoyed without moderation the moment of triumph and
revenge. At the pressing summons of Amrou, 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. (110) In the march from
Memphis to Alexandria, the lieutenant of Omar intrusted 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 (111) 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 harbor to save the second capital of the empire. A
circumference of ten miles would have scattered the forces
of the Greeks, and favored the stratagems of an active
enemy; but the two sides of an oblong square were covered by
the sea and the Lake Maraeotis, and each of the narrow ends
exposed a front of no more than ten furlongs. The efforts of
the Arabs were not inadequate to the difficulty of the
attempt and the value of the prize. From the throne of
Medina, the eyes of Omar were fixed on the camp and city:
his voice excited to arms the Arabian tribes and the
veterans of Syria; and the merit of a holy war was
recommended by the peculiar fame and fertility of Egypt.
Anxious for the ruin or expulsion of their tyrants, the
faithful natives devoted their labors to the service of
Amrou: some sparks of martial spirit were perhaps rekindled
by the example of their allies; and the sanguine hopes of
Mokawkas had fixed his sepulchre in the church of St. John
of Alexandria. Eutychius the patriarch observes, that the
Saracens fought with the courage of lions: they repulsed the
frequent and almost daily sallies of the besieged, and soon
assaulted in their turn the walls and towers of the city. In
every attack, the sword, the banner of Amrou, glittered in
the van of the Moslems. On a memorable day, he was betrayed
by his imprudent valor: his followers who had entered the
citadel were driven back; and the general, with a friend and
slave, remained a prisoner in the hands of the Christians.
When Amrou was conducted before the praefect, he remembered
his dignity, and forgot his situation: a lofty demeanor, 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, (112) and the loss of three-and-twenty thousand men,
the Saracens prevailed: the Greeks embarked their dispirited
and diminished numbers, and the standard of Mahomet was
planted on the walls of the capital of Egypt. "I have
taken," said Amrou to the caliph, "the great city of the
West. It is impossible for me to enumerate the variety of
its riches and beauty; and I shall content myself with
observing, that it contains four thousand palaces, four
thousand baths, four hundred theatres or places of
amusement, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable
food, and forty thousand tributary Jews. The town has been
subdued by force of arms, without treaty or capitulation,
and the Moslems are impatient to seize the fruits of their
victory." (113) 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. (114) Under the minority of his grandson, the
clamors 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
harbor and fortifications of Alexandria were twice occupied
by a fleet and army of Romans. They were twice expelled by
the valor of Amrou, who was recalled by the domestic peril
from the distant wars of Tripoli 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 was
spared in the chastisement of the city, and the mosch of
Mercy was erected on the spot where the victorious general
had stopped the fury of his troops.
I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed
in silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is
described by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou
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. (115) 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. Amrou 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 were barely sufficient for the consumption of this
precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of Abulpharagius (116)
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
my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both the fact and
the consequences. (O) 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 annalist 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. (117) The rigid sentence of Omar is
repugnant to the sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan
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. (118) A more destructive zeal may perhaps be
attributed to the first successors of Mahomet; yet in this
instance, the conflagration would have speedily expired in
the deficiency of materials. I should not recapitulate the
disasters of the Alexandrian library, the involuntary flame
that was kindled by Caesar in his own defence, (119) or the
mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who studied to
destroy the monuments of idolatry. (120) 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. (121) 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, (122) a philosopher
may allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to
the benefit of mankind. I sincerely regret the more
valuable libraries which have been involved in the ruin of
the Roman empire; but when I seriously compute the lapse of
ages, the waste of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our
treasures, rather than our losses, are the objects of my
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
(123) 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;
(124) 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.
In the administration of Egypt, (125) Amrou balanced the
demands of justice and policy; the interest of the people of
the law, who were defended by God; and of the people of the
alliance, who were protected by man. In the recent tumult
of conquest and deliverance, the tongue of the Copts and the
sword of the Arabs were most adverse to the tranquillity of
the province. To the former, Amrou declared, that faction
and falsehood would be doubly chastised; by the punishment
of the accusers, whom he should detest as his personal
enemies, and by the promotion of their innocent brethren,
whom their envy had labored to injure and supplant. He
excited the latter by the motives of religion and honor to
sustain the dignity of their character, to endear themselves
by a modest and temperate conduct to God and the caliph, to
spare and protect a people who had trusted to their faith,
and to content themselves with the legitimate and splendid
rewards of their victory. 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 his
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. (126) But the genius of Amrou soon
renewed the maritime communication which had been attempted
or achieved by the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the Caesars;
and a canal, at least eighty miles in length, was opened
from the Nile to the Red Sea. (P) 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. (127)
Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect
knowledge from the voice of fame and the legends of the
Koran. He requested that his lieutenant would place before
his eyes the realm of Pharaoh and the Amalekites; and the
answer of Amrou exhibits a lively and not unfaithful picture
of that singular country. (128) "O commander of the faithful,
Egypt is a compound of black earth and green plants, between
a pulverized mountain and a red sand. The distance from
Syene to the sea is a month's journey for a horseman. Along
the valley descends a river, on which the blessing of the
Most High reposes both in the evening and morning, and which
rises and falls with the revolutions of the sun and moon.
When the annual dispensation of Providence unlocks the
springs and fountains that nourish the earth, the Nile rolls
his swelling and sounding waters through the realm of Egypt:
the fields are overspread by the salutary flood; and the
villages communicate with each other in their painted barks. The retreat of the inundation deposits a fertilizing mud for
the reception of the various seeds: the crowds of husbandmen
who blacken the land may be compared to a swarm of
industrious ants; and their native indolence is quickened by
the lash of the task-master, and the promise of the flowers
and fruits of a plentiful increase. Their hope is seldom
deceived; but the riches which they extract from the wheat,
the barley, and the rice, the legumes, the fruit-trees, and
the cattle, are unequally shared between those who labor and
those who possess. According to the vicissitudes of the
seasons, the face of the country is adorned with a silver
wave, a verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden
harvest." (129) Yet this beneficial order is sometimes
interrupted; and the long delay and sudden swell of the
river in the first year of the conquest might afford some
color to an edifying fable. It is said, that the annual
sacrifice of a virgin (130) had been interdicted by the piety
of Omar; and that the Nile lay sullen and inactive in his
shallow bed, till the mandate of the caliph was cast into
the obedient stream, which rose in a single night to the
height of sixteen cubits. The admiration of the Arabs for
their new conquest encouraged the license of their romantic
spirit. We may read, in the gravest authors, that Egypt was
crowded with twenty thousand cities or villages: (131) that,
exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts alone were
found, on the assessment, six millions of tributary
subjects, (132) or twenty millions of either sex, and of
every age: that three hundred millions of gold or silver
were annually paid to the treasury of the caliphs. (133) Our
reason must be startled by these extravagant assertions; and
they will become more palpable, if we assume the compass and
measure the extent of habitable ground: a valley from the
tropic to Memphis seldom broader than twelve miles, and the
triangle of the Delta, a flat surface of two thousand one
hundred square leagues, compose a twelfth part of the
magnitude of France. (134) A more accurate research will
justify a more reasonable estimate. The three hundred
millions, created by the error of a scribe, are reduced to
the decent revenue of four millions three hundred thousand
pieces of gold, of which nine hundred thousand were consumed
by the pay of the soldiers. (135) Two authentic lists, of the
present and of the twelfth century, are circumscribed within
the respectable number of two thousand seven hundred
villages and towns. (136) After a long residence at Cairo, a
French consul has ventured to assign about four millions of
Mahometans, Christians, and Jews, for the ample, though not
incredible, scope of the population of Egypt. (137)
IV. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic
Ocean, (138) was first attempted by the arms of the caliph
Othman. The pious design was approved by the companions of
Mahomet and the chiefs of the tribes; and twenty thousand
Arabs marched from Medina, with the gifts and the blessing
of the commander of the faithful. They were joined in the
camp of Memphis by twenty thousand of their countrymen; and
the conduct of the war was intrusted to Abdallah, (139) the
son of Said and the foster-brother of the caliph, who had
lately supplanted the conqueror and lieutenant of Egypt. Yet
the favor of the prince, and the merit of his favorite,
could not obliterate the guilt of his apostasy. The early
conversion of Abdallah, and his skilful pen, had recommended
him to the important office of transcribing the sheets of
the Koran: he betrayed his trust, corrupted the text,
derided the errors which he had made, and fled to Mecca to
escape the justice, and expose the ignorance, of the
apostle. After the conquest of Mecca, he fell prostrate at
the feet of Mahomet; his tears, and the entreaties of
Othman, extorted a reluctant pardon; out the prophet
declared that he had so long hesitated, to allow time for
some zealous disciple to avenge his injury in the blood of
the apostate. With apparent fidelity and effective merit,
he served the religion which it was no longer his interest
to desert: his birth and talents gave him an honorable rank
among the Koreish; and, in a nation of cavalry, Abdallah was
renowned as the boldest and most dexterous horseman of
Arabia. At the head of forty thousand Moslems, he advanced
from Egypt into the unknown countries of the West. The sands
of Barca might be impervious to a Roman legion but the Arabs
were attended by their faithful camels; and the natives of
the desert beheld without terror the familiar aspect of the
soil and climate. After a painful march, they pitched their
tents before the walls of Tripoli, (140) a maritime city in
which the name, the wealth, and the inhabitants of the
province had gradually centred, and which now maintains the
third rank among the states of Barbary. A reenforcement of
Greeks was surprised and cut in pieces on the sea-shore; but
the fortifications of Tripoli resisted the first assaults;
and the Saracens were tempted by the approach of the
praefect Gregory (141) to relinquish the labors of the siege
for the perils and the hopes of a decisive action. If his
standard was followed by one hundred and twenty thousand
men, the regular bands of the empire must have been lost in
the naked and disorderly crowd of Africans and Moors, who
formed the strength, or rather the numbers, of his host. He
rejected with indignation the option of the Koran or the
tribute; and during several days the two armies were
fiercely engaged from the dawn of light to the hour of noon,
when their fatigue and the excessive heat compelled them to
seek shelter and refreshment in their respective camps. The
daughter of Gregory, a maid of incomparable beauty and
spirit, is said to have fought by his side: from her
earliest youth she was trained to mount on horseback, to
draw the bow, and to wield the cimeter; and the richness of
her arms and apparel were conspicuous in the foremost ranks
of the battle. Her hand, with a hundred thousand pieces of
gold, was offered for the head of the Arabian general, and
the youths of Africa were excited by the prospect of the
glorious prize. At the pressing solicitation of his
brethren, Abdallah withdrew his person from the field; but
the Saracens were discouraged by the retreat of their
leader, and the repetition of these equal or unsuccessful
conflicts.
A noble Arabian, who afterwards became the adversary of Ali,
and the father of a caliph, had signalized his valor in
Egypt, and Zobeir (142) was the first who planted the
scaling-ladder against the walls of Babylon. In the African
war he was detached from the standard of Abdallah. On the
news of the battle, Zobeir, with twelve companions, cut his
way through the camp of the Greeks, and pressed forwards,
without tasting either food or repose, to partake of the
dangers of his brethren. He cast his eyes round the field:
"Where," said he, "is our general?" "In his tent." "Is the
tent a station for the general of the Moslems?" Abdallah
represented with a blush the importance of his own life, and
the temptation that was held forth by the Roman praefect.
"Retort," said Zobeir, "on the infidels their ungenerous
attempt. Proclaim through the ranks that the head of Gregory
shall be repaid with his captive daughter, and the equal sum
of one hundred thousand pieces of gold." To the courage and
discretion of Zobeir the lieutenant of the caliph intrusted
the execution of his own stratagem, which inclined the
long-disputed balance in favor of the Saracens. Supplying by
activity and artifice the deficiency of numbers, a part of
their forces lay concealed in their tents, while the
remainder prolonged an irregular skirmish with the enemy
till the sun was high in the heavens. On both sides they
retired with fainting steps: their horses were unbridled,
their armor was laid aside, and the hostile nations
prepared, or seemed to prepare, for the refreshment of the
evening, and the encounter of the ensuing day. On a sudden
the charge was sounded; the Arabian camp poured forth a
swarm of fresh and intrepid warriors; and the long line of
the Greeks and Africans was surprised, assaulted,
overturned, by new squadrons of the faithful, who, to the
eye of fanaticism, might appear as a band of angels
descending from the sky. The praefect himself was slain by
the hand of Zobeir: his daughter, who sought revenge and
death, was surrounded and made prisoner; and the fugitives
involved in their disaster the town of Sufetula, to which
they escaped from the sabres and lances of the Arabs.
Sufetula was built one hundred and fifty miles to the south
of Carthage: a gentle declivity is watered by a running
stream, and shaded by a grove of juniper-trees; and, in the
ruins of a triumpha arch, a portico, and three temples of
the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet admire the
magnificence of the Romans. (143) After the fall of this
opulent city, the provincials and Barbarians implored on all
sides the mercy of the conqueror. His vanity or his zeal
might be flattered by offers of tribute or professions of
faith: but his losses, his fatigues, and the progress of an
epidemical disease, prevented a solid establishment; and the
Saracens, after a campaign of fifteen months, retreated to
the confines of Egypt, with the captives and the wealth of
their African expedition. The caliph's fifth was granted to
a favorite, on the nominal payment of five hundred thousand
pieces of gold; (144) but the state was doubly injured by
this fallacious transaction, if each foot-soldier had shared
one thousand, and each horseman three thousand, pieces, in
the real division of the plunder. The author of the death
of Gregory was expected to have claimed the most precious
reward of the victory: from his silence it might be presumed
that he had fallen in the battle, till the tears and
exclamations of the praefect's daughter at the sight of
Zobeir revealed the valor and modesty of that gallant
soldier. The unfortunate virgin was offered, and almost
rejected as a slave, by her father's murderer, who coolly
declared that his sword was consecrated to the service of
religion; and that he labored for a recompense far above the
charms of mortal beauty, or the riches of this transitory
life. A reward congenial to his temper was the honorable
commission of announcing to the caliph Othman the success of
his arms. The companions the chiefs, and the people, were
assembled in the mosch of Medina, to hear the interesting
narrative of Zobeir; and as the orator forgot nothing except
the merit of his own counsels and actions, the name of
Abdallah was joined by the Arabians with the heroic names of
Caled and Amrou. (145)
The Western conquests of the Saracens were suspended near
twenty years, till their dissensions were composed by the
establishment of the house of Ommiyah; and the caliph
Moawiyah was invited by the cries of the Africans
themselves. The successors of Heraclius had been informed of
the tribute which they had been compelled to stipulate with
the Arabs, but instead of being moved to pity and relieve
their distress, they imposed, as an equivalent or a fine, a
second tribute of a similar amount. The ears of the
Byzantine ministers were shut against the complaints of
their poverty and ruin; their despair was reduced to prefer
the dominion of a single master; and the extortions of the
patriarch of Carthage, who was invested with civil and
military power, provoked the sectaries, and even the
Catholics, of the Roman province, to abjure the religion as
well as the authority of their tyrants. The first lieutenant
of Moawiyah acquired a just renown, subdued an important
city, defeated an army of thirty thousand Greeks, swept away
fourscore thousand captives, and enriched with their spoils
the bold adventurers of Syria and Egypt. (146)But the title
of conqueror of Africa is more justly due to his successor
Akbah. He marched from Damascus at the head of ten thousand
of the bravest Arabs; and the genuine force of the Moslems
was enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many
thousand barbarians. It be difficult, nor is it necessary,
to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah. The
interior regions have been peopled by the Orientals with
fictitious armies and imaginary citadels. In the warlike
province of Zab, or Numidia, four-score thousand of the
natives might assemble in arms; but the number of three
hundred and sixty towns is incompatible with the ignorance
or decay of husbandry;(147) and a circumference of three
leagues will not be justified by the ruins of Erbe or
Lambesa, the ancient metropolis of that inland country. As
we approach the sea-coast, the well-known cities of Bugia
(148) and Tangier (149) define the more certain limits of the
Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still adheres to the
commodious harbour of Bugia, which in a more prosperous age
is said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and
the plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains
might have supplied a braver people with the instruments of
defence. The remote position and venerable antiquity of
Tingi, or Tangier, have been decorated by the Greek and
Arabian fables; but the figurative expressions of the
latter, that the walls were constructed of brass, and that
the roofs were covered with gold and silver, may be
interpreted as the emblems of strength and opulence. The
provinee of Mauritania Tingitana,(150) which assumed the name
of the capital, had been imperfectly discovered and settled
by the Romans; the five colonies were confined to a narrow
pale, and the more southern parts were seldom explored
except by the agents of luxury, who searched the forests for
ivory and the citron-wood,(151) and the shores of the ocean
for the purple shell-fish. The fearless Akbah plunged into
the heart of the country, traversed the wilderness in which
his successors erected the splendid capitals of Fez and
Morocco,(152) and at length penetrated to the verge of the
Atlantic and the great desert. The river Sus descends from
the western sides of Mount Atlas, fertilises, like the Nile,
the adjacent soil, and falls into the sea at a moderate
distance from the Canary, or Fortunate, islands. Its banks
were inhabited by the last of the Moors, a race of savages,
without laws or discipline or religion: they were astonished
by the strange and irresistible terrors of the Oriental
arms; and as they possessed neither gold nor silver, the
richest spoil was the beauty of the female captives, some of
whom were afterwards sold for a thousand pieces of gold. The
career, though not the zeal, of Akbah was checked by the
prospect of a boundless ocean. He spurred his horse into the
waves, and, raising his eyes to heaven, exclaimed with the
tone of a fanatic, "Great God ! if my course were not
stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to the unknown
kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of thy holy name,
and putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship
any other gods than thee."(153) Yet this Mohammedan
Alexander, who sighed for new worlds, was unable to preserve
his recent conquests. By the universal defection of the
Greeks and Africans he was recalled from the shores of the
Atlantic, and the surrounding multitudes& left him only the
resource of an honourable death. The last scene was
dignified by an example of national virtue. An ambitious
chief, who had disputed the command and failed in the
attempt, was led about as a prisoner in the camp of the
Arabian general. The insurgents had trusted to his
discontent and revenge; he disdained their offers and
revealed their designs. In the hour of danger the grateful
Akbah unlocked his fetters and advised him to retire; he
chose to die under the banner of his rival. Embracing as
friends and martyrs, they unsheathed their scimitars, broke
their scabbards, and maintained an obstinate combat till
they fell by each other's side on the last of their
slaughtered countrymen. The third general or governor of
Africa, Zuheir, avenged and encountered the fate of his
predecessor. He vanquished the natives in many battles; he
was overthrown by a powerful army which Constantinople had
sent to the relief of Carthage.
It had been the frequent practice of the Moorish tribes to
join the invaders, to share the plunder, to profess the
faith, and to revolt to their savage state of independence
and idolatry on the first retreat or misfortune of the
Moslems. The prudence of Akbah had proposed to found an
Arabian colony in the heart of Africa a citadel that might
curb the levity of the barbarians, a place of refuge to
secure, against the accidents of war, the wealth and the
families of the Saracens. With this view, and under the
modest title of the station of a caravan, he planted this
colony in the fiftieth year of the Hegira. In its present
decay, Cairoan (154) still holds the second rank in the
kingdom of Tunis, from which it is distant about fifty miles
to the south:(155) its inland situation, twelve miles
west-ward of the sea, has protected the city from the Greek
and Sicilian fleets. When the wild beasts and serpents were
extirpated, when the forest, or rather wilderness, was
cleared, the vestiges of a Roman town were discovered in a
sandy plain: the vegetable food of Cairoan is brought from
afar; and the scarcity of springs constrains the inhabitants
to collect in cisterns and reservoirs a precarious supply of
rain-water. These obstacles were subdued by the industry of
Akbah; he traced a circumference of three thousand and six
hundred paces, which he encompassed with a brick wall; in
the space of five years the governor's palace was surrounded
with a sufficient number of private habitations; a spacious
mosch was supported by five hundred columns of granite,
porphyry, and Numidian marble; and Cairoan became the seat
of learning as well & as of empire. But these were the
glories of a later age; the new colony was shaken by the
successive defeats of Akbah and Zuheir, and the western
expeditions were again interrupted by the civil discord of
the Arabian monarchy. The son of the valiant Zobeir
maintained a war of twelve years, a siege of seven months,
against the house of Ommiyah. Abdallah was said to unite the
fierceness of the lion with the subtlety of the fox; but if
he inherited the courage, he was devoid of the generosity,
of his father.(156)
The return of domestic peace allowed the caliph Abdalmalek
to resume the conquest of Africa; the standard was delivered
to Hassan, governor of Egypt, and the revenue of that
kingdom, with an army of forty thousand men, was consecrated
to the important service. In the vicissitudes of war, the
interior provinces had been alternately won and lost by the
Saracens. But the sea-coast still remained in the hands of
the Greeks; the predecessors of Hassan had respected the
name and fortifications of Carthage; and the number of its
defenders was recruited by the fugitives of Cabes and
Tripoli. The arms of Hassan were bolder and more fortunate:
he reduced and pillaged the metropolis of Africa; and the
mention of scaling-ladders may justify the suspicion that he
anticipated by a sudden assault the more tedious operations
of a regular siege. But the joy of the conquerors was soon
disturbed by the appearance of the Christian succours. The
praefect and patrician John, a general of experience and
renown, embarked at Constantinople the forces of the Eastern
empire ;(157) they were joined by the ships and soldiers of
Sicily, and a powerful reinforcement of Goths(158) was
obtained from the fears and religion of the Spanish monarch.
The weight of the confederate navy broke the chain that
guarded the entrance of the harbour; the Arabs retired to
Cairoan, or Tripoli; the Christians landed; the citizens
hailed the ensign of the cross, and the winter was idly
wasted in the dream of victory or deliverance. But Africa
was irrecoverably lost; the zeal and resentment of be
commander of the faithful(159) prepared in the ensuing spring
a more numerous armament by sea and land; and the patrician
in his turn was compelled to evacuate the post and
fortificat& ions of Carthage. A second battle was fought in
the neighbourhood of Utica: the Greeks and Golhs were again
defeated; and their timely embarkation saved them from the
sword of Hassan, who had invested the slight a and
insufficient rampart of their camp. Whatever yet rema& ined
of Carthage was delivered to the flames, and the colony of
Dido(160) and Caesain lay desolate above two hundred years,
till a part, perhaps a twentieth, of the old circumference
was repeopled by the first of the Fatimite caliphs. In the
beginning of the sixteenth -century the second capital of
the West was represented by a mosch, a college without
students, twenty-five or thirty shops, and the huts of five
hundred peasants, who, in their abject poverty, displayed
the arrogance of the Punic senators. Even that paltry
village was swept away by the Spaniards whom Charles the
Fifth had stationed n the fortress of the Goletta. The ruins
of Carthage have perished; and the place might be unknown if
some broken arches of an aqueduct did not guide the
footsteps of the inquisitive traveller.(161)
The Greeks were expelled, but the Arabians vere not yet
masters of the country. In the interior provinces the Moors
or Berbers,(162) so feeble under the first Caesars, so
formidable to the Byantine princes, maintained a disorderly
resistance to the religion and power of the successors of
Mohammed. Under the standard of their queen Cahina the
independent tribes acquired some degree of union and
discipline; and as the Moors respected in their females the
character of a prophetess, they attacked the invaders with
an enthusiasrn similar to their own. The veteran bands of
Hassan were inadequate to the defence of Africa: the
conquests of an age were lost in a single day; and the
Arabian chief overwhelmed by the torrent, retired to the
confines of Egypt, and expected, five years, the promised
succours of the caliph. After the retreat of the Saracens,
the victorious prophetess assembled the Moorish chiefs, and
recommended a measure of strange and savage policy. "Our
cities," said she, "and the gold and silver which they
contain, perpetually attract the arms of he Arabs. These
vile metals are not the objects of our ambition; we content
ourselves with the simple productions of the earth. Let us
destroy these cities; let us bury in their ruins those
pernicious treasures; and when the avarice of our foes shall
be destitute of temptation, perhaps they will cease to
disturb the tranquillity of a warlike people." The proposal
was accepted with unanimous applause. From Tangier to
Tripoli the buildings, or at least the fortifications, were
demolished, the fruit-trees were cut own, the means of
subsistence were extirpated, fertile and populous garden was
changed into desert, and the historians of a more recent
period could discern the frequent traces of the prosperity
and devastation of their ancestors. Such is the tale of the
modern Arabians. Yet I strongly suspect that their ignorance
of antiquity, the love of the marvellous, and the fashion of
extolling the philosophy of barbarians, has induced them to
describe, as one voluntary act, the calamities of three
hundred years since the first fury of the Donatists and
Vandals. In the progress of the revolt Cahina had most
probably contributed her share of destruction, and the alarm
of universal ruin might terrify and alienate the cities that
had reluctantly yielded to her unworthy yoke. They no longer
hoped, perhaps they no longer wished, the return of their
Byzantine sovereigns: their present servitude was not
alleviated by the benefits of order and justice; and the
most zealous Catholic must prefer the imperfect truths of
the Koran to the blind and rude idolatry of the Moors. The
general of the Saracens was again received as the saviour of
the province: the friends of civil society conspired against
the savages of the land and the royal prophetess was slain
in the first battle, which overturned the baseless fabric of
her superstition and empire. The same spirit revived under
the successor of Hassan: it was finally quelled by the
activitv of Musa and his two sons; but the number of the
rebels may be presumed from that of three hundred thousand
captives; sixty thousand of whom, the caliph's fifth, were
sold for the profit of the public treasury. Thirty thousand
of the barbarian youth were enlisted in the troops; and the
pious labours of Musa, to inculcate the knowledge and
practice of the Koran, accustomed the Africans to obey the
apostle of God and the commander of the faithful. In their
climate and government, their diet and habitation, the
wandering Moors resembled the Bedoweens of the desert. With
the religion they were proud to adopt the language, name,
and origin of Arabs: the blood of the strangers and natives
was insensibly mingled; and from the Euphrates to the
Atlantic the same nation might seem to be diffused over the
sandy plains of Asia and Africa. Yet I will not deny that
fifty thousand tents of pure Arabians might be transported
over the Nile, and scattered through the Libyan desert; and
I am not ignorant that five of the Moorish tribes still
retain their barbarous idiom, with the appellation
and character of white Africans.(163)
V. In the progress of conquest from the north and south, the
Goths and thc Saracens encountered each other on the
confines of Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter,
the difference of religion is a reasonable ground of enmity
and warfare.(164)
As early as the time of Othman,(165) their piratical
squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia,(166) nor had
they forgotten the relief of Ca& rthage by the Gothic
succours. In that age, as well as in the present, the kings
of Spain were possessed of the fortress of Ceuta; one of the
Columns of Hercules, which is divided by a narrow strait
from the opposite pillar or point of Europe. A small portion
of Mauritania was still wanting to the African conquest; but
Musa, in the pride of victory, was repulsed from the walls
of Ceuta, by the vigilance and courage of Count Julian, the
general of the Goths. From his disappointment and perplexity
Musa was relieved by an unexpected message of the Christian
chief, who offered his place, his person, and his sword to
the successors of Mohammed, and solicited the disgraceful
honour of introducing their arms into the heart of
Spain.(167) If we inquire into the cause of his treachery,
the Spaniards will repeat the popular story of his daughter
Cava;(168) of a virgin who was seduced, or ravished, by her
sovereign; of a father who sacrificed his religion and
country to the thirst of revenge. The passions of princes
have often been licentious and destructive; but this
well-known tale, romantic in itself, is indifferently
supported by external evidence; and the history of Spain
will suggest some motives of interest and policy more
congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman.(169) After
the decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were
supplanted by the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose
father, the duke or governor of a province, had fallen a
victim to the preceding tyranny. The monarchy was still
elective; but the sons of Witiza, educated on the steps of
the throne, were impatient of a private station. Their
resentment was the more dangerous, as it was varnished with
the dissimulation of courts; their followers were excited by
the remembrance of favours and the promise of a revolution;
and their Uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and Seville, was
the first person in the church, and the second in the state.
It is probable that Julian was involved in the disgrace of
the unsuccessful faction; that he had little to hope and
much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king
could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and
his family had sustained. The merit and influence of the
count rendered him a useful or formidable subject; his
estates were ample, his followers bold and numerous; and it
was too fatally shown that, by his Andalusian and
Mauritanian commands, he held in his hand the keys of the
Spanish monarchy. Too feeble, however, to meet his sovereign
in arms, he sought the aid of a foreign power; and his rash
invitation of the Moors and Arabs produced the calamities of
eight hundred years. In his epistles, or in a personal
interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness of his
country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the degeneracy
of an effeminate people. The Goths were no longer the
victorious barbarians, who had humbled the pride of Rome,
despoiled the queen of nations, and penetrated from the
Danube to the Atlantic Ocean. Secluded from the world by the
Pyrenaean mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered
in a long peace; the walls of the cities were mouldered into
dust: the youth had abandoned the exercise of arms; and the
presumption of their ancient renown would expose them in a
field of battle to the first assault of the invaders. The
ambitious Saracen was fired by the ease and importance of
the attempt; but the execution was delayed till he had
consulted the commander of the faithful-and his messenger
returned with the permission of Walid to annex the unknown
kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the
caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and
caution, continued his correspondence and hastened his
preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was
soothed by the fallacious assurance that he should content
himself with the glory and spoil, without aspiring to
establish the Moslems beyond the sea that separates Africa
from Europe.(170)
Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to the
traitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less
dangerous trial of their strength and veracity. One hundred
Arabs, and four hundred Africans, passed over, in four
vessels, from Tangier or Ceuta: the place of their descent
on the opposite shore of the strait is marked by the name of
Tarif their chief; and the date of this memorable event(171)
is fixed to the month of Ramadan, of the ninety-first year
of the Hegira, to the month of July, seven hundred and
forty-eight years from the Spanish era of Caesar,(172) seven
hundred and ten after the birth of Christ. From their first
station, they marched eighteen miles through a hilly country
to the castle and town of Julian;(173) on which (it is still
called Algezire) they bestowed the name of the Green Island,
from a verdant cape that advances into the sea. Their
hospitable entertainment, the Christians who joined their
standard, their inroad into a fertile and unguarded
province, the richness of their spoil, and the safety of
their return, announced to their brethren the most
favourable omens of victory. In the ensuing spring five
thousand veterans and volunteers were embarked under the
command of Tarik, a dauntless and skilful soldier, who
surpassed the expectation of his chief; and the necessary
transports were provided by the industry of their too
faithful ally. The Saracens landed (174) at the pillar or
point of Europe, the corrupt and familiar appellation of
Gibraltar (Gebel a1 Tarik) describes the mountain of
Tarik; and the entrenchments of his camp were the first
outline of those fortifications which, in the hands of our
countrymen, have resisted the art and power of the house of
Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed the court of Toledo
of the descent and progress of the Arabs; and the defeat of
his lieutenant Edeco, who had been commanded to seize and
bind the presumptuous strangers, admonished Roderic of the
magnitude of the danger. At the royal summons, the dukes and
counts, the bishops and nobles of the Gothic monarchy,
assembled at the head of their followers; and the title of
King of the Romans, which is employed by an Arabic
historian, may be excused by the close affinity of language,
religion, and manners, between the nations of Spain. His
army consisted of ninety or a hundred thousand men; a
formidable power, if their fidelity and discipline had been
adequate to their numbers. The troops of Tarik had been
augmented to twelve thousand Saracens; but the Christian
malcontents were attracted by the infiuence of Julian, and a
crowd of Africans most greedily tasted the temporal
blessings of the Koran. In the neighbourhood of Cadiz, the
town of Xeres(175) has been illustrated by the encounter
which determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the
Guadalete, which falls into the bay, divided the two camps,
and marked the advancing and retreat-ing skirmishes of three
successive and bloody days. On the fourth day the two armies
joined a more serious and decisive issue; but Alaric would
have blushed at the sight of his unworthy successor,
sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls, encumbered with a
flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and reclining on
a litter or car of ivory drawn by two white mules.
Notwithstanding the valour of the Saracens, they fainted
under the weight of multitudes, and the plain of Xeres was
overspread with sixteen thousand of their dead bodies. "My
brethren," said Tarik to his surviving companions, "the
enemy is before you, the sea is behind; whither would ye
fly? Follow your general: I am resolved either to lose my
life or to trample on the prostrate king of the Romans."
Besides the resource of despair, he confided in the secret
correspondence and nocturnal interviews of Count Julian with
the sons and the brother of Witiza. The two princes and the
archbishop of Toledo occupied the most important post: their
well-timed defection broke the ranks of the Christians; each
warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion to consult his
personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were
scattered or destroyed in the flight and pursuit of the
three following days. Amidst the general disorder Roderic
started from his car, and mounted Orelia, the fleetest of
his horses; but he escaped from a soldier's death to perish
more ignobly in the waters of the Baetis or Guadalquivir.
His diadem, his robes, and his courser were found on the
bank, but as the body of the Gothic prince was lost in the
waves, the pride and ignorance of the caliph must have been
gratified with some meaner head, which was exposed in
triumph before the palace of Damascus. "And such," continues
a valiant historian of the Arabs, "is the fate of those
kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle.''(176)
Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and infamy, that
his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After the
battle of Xeres he recommended the most effectual measures
to the victorious Saracen. "The king of the Goths is slain;
their princes have fled before you, the army is routed, the
nation is astonished. Secure with sufficient detachments the
cities of Baetica; but in person, and without delay, march
to the royal city of Toledo, and allow not the distracted
Christians either time or tranquillity for the election of a
new monarch." Tarik listened to his advice. A Roman captive
and proselyte, who had been enfranchised by the caliph
himself, assaulted Cordova with seven hundred horse. he swam
the river, surprised the town, and drove the Christians into
the great church, where they defended themselves above three
months. Another detachment reduced the sea-coast of Baetica,
which in the last period of the Moorish power has comprised
in a narrow space the populous kingdom of Granada. The march
of Tarik from the Baetis to the Tagust(177) was directed
through the Sierra Morena, that separates Andalusia and
Castille, till he appeared in arms under the walls of
Toledo.(178) The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped
with the relics of their saints; and if the gates were shut,
it was only till the victor had subscribed a fair and
reasonable capitulation. The voluntary exiles were allowed
to depart with their effects; seven churches were
appropriated to the Christian worship; the archbishop and
his clergy were at liberty to exercise their functions, the
monks to practise or neglect their penance- and the Goths
and Romans were left in all civil and criminal cases to the
subordinate jurisdiction of their own laws and magistrates.
But if the justice of Tarik protected the Christians, his
gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews, to whose secret or
open aid he was indebted for his most important
acquisitions. Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain,
who had often pressed the alternative of banishment or
baptism, that outcast nation embraced the moment of revenge:
the comparison of their past and present state was the
pledge of their fidelity; and the alliance between the
disciples of Moses and of Mohammed was maintained till the
final era of their common expulsion.From the royal seat of
Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his conquests to the
north, over the modern realms of Castille and Leon: but it
is needless to enumerate the cities that yielded on his
approach, or again to describe the table of emerald,(179)
transported from the East by the Romans, acquired bv the
Goths among the spoils of Rome, and presented by the Arabs
to the throne of Damascus. Beyond the Asturian mountains,
the maritime town of Gijon was the term(180) of the
lieutenant of Musa, who had performed, with the speed of a
traveller, his victorious march of seven hundred miles, from
the rock of Gibraltar to the Bay of Biscay. The failure of
land compelled him to retreat; and he was recalled to
Toledo, to excuse his presumption of subduing a kingdom in
the absence of his general. Spain, which, in a more savage
and disorderly state, had resisted, two hundred years, the
arms of the Romans, was overrun in a few months by those of
the Saracens; and such was the eagerness of submission and
treaty, that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only
chief who fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their
hands. The cause of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in
the field of Xeres; and, in the national dismay, each part
of the monarchy declined a contest with the antagonist who
had vanquished the united strength of the whole.(181) That
strength had been wasted by two successive seasons of famine
and pestilence; and the governors, who were impatient to
surrender, might exaggerate the difficulty of collecting the
provisions of a siege. To disarm the Christians,
superstition likewise contributed her terrors: and the
subtle Arab encouraged the report of dreams, omens, and
prophecies, and of the portraits of the destined conquerors
of Spain, that were discovered on breaking open an apartment
of the royal palace. Yet a spark of the vital flame was
still alive; some invincible fugitives preferred a life of
poverty and freedom in the Asturian valleys; the hardy
mountaineers repulsed the slaves of the caliph- and the
sword of Pelagius has been transformed into the sceptre of
the Catholic kings.(182)
edit. Salmas.), the Carthage of Dido stood either 677 or 737
years - a various reading, which pro-ceeds from the
difference of MSS. or editions (Salmas. Plin. Exercit. tom.
i. p. 228). The former of these accounts, which gives 823
years before Christ, is more consistent with the
well-weighed testimony of Velleius Paterculus; but the
latter is preferred by our chronologist (Marsham, Canon.
Chron. p. 398) as more agreeable to the Hebrew and Tyrian
annals.]
On the intelligence of this rapid success, the applause of
Musa degenerated into envy; and he began, not to complain,
but to fear, that Tarik would leave him nothing to subdue.
At the head of ten thousand Arabs and eight thousand
Africans, he passed over in person from Mauritania to Spain:
the first of his companions were the noblest of the Koreish;
his eldest son was left in the command of Africa; the three
younger brethren were of an age and spirit to second the
boldest enterprises of their father. At his landing in
Algezire, he was respectfully entertained by Count Julian,
who stifled his inward remorse, and testified, both in words
and actions, that the victory of the Arabs had not impaired
his attachment to their cause. Some enemies yet remained
for the sword of Musa. The tardy repentance of the Goths
had compared their own numbers and those of the invaders;
the cities from which the march of Tarik had declined
considered themselves as impregnable; and the bravest
patriots defended the fortifications of Seville and Merida.
They were successively besieged and reduced by the labor of
Musa, who transported his camp from the Boetis to the Anas,
from the Guadalquivir to the Guadiana. When he beheld the
works of Roman magnificence, the bridge, the aqueducts, the
triumphal arches, and the theatre, of the ancient metropolis
of Lusitania, "I should imagine," said he to his four
companions, "that the human race must have united their art
and power in the foundation of this city: happy is the man
who shall become its master!" He aspired to that happiness,
but the Emeritans sustained on this occasion the honor of
their descent from the veteran legionaries of Augustus (183)
Disdaining the confinement of their walls, they gave battle
to the Arabs on the plain; but an ambuscade rising from the
shelter of a quarry, or a ruin, chastised their
indiscretion, and intercepted their return. The wooden
turrets of assault were rolled forwards to the foot of the
rampart; but the defence of Merida was obstinate and long;
and the castle of the martyrs was a perpetual testimony of
the losses of the Moslems. The constancy of the besieged
was at length subdued by famine and despair; and the prudent
victor disguised his impatience under the names of clemency
and esteem. The alternative of exile or tribute was allowed;
the churches were divided between the two religions; and the
wealth of those who had fallen in the siege, or retired to
Gallicia, was confiscated as the reward of the faithful. In
the midway between Merida and Toledo, the lieutenant of Musa
saluted the vicegerent of the caliph, and conducted him to
the palace of the Gothic kings. Their first interview was
cold and formal: a rigid account was exacted of the
treasures of Spain: the character of Tarik was exposed to
suspicion and obloquy; and the hero was imprisoned, reviled,
and ignominiously scourged by the hand, or the command, of
Musa. Yet so strict was the discipline, so pure the zeal,
or so tame the spirit, of the primitive Moslems, that, after
this public indignity, Tarik could serve and be trusted in
the reduction of the Tarragonest province. A mosch was
erected at Saragossa, by the liberality of the Koreish: the
port of Barcelona was opened to the vessels of Syria; and
the Goths were pursued beyond the Pyrenaean mountains into
their Gallic province of Septimania or Languedoc. (184) In
the church of St. Mary at Carcassone, Musa found, but it is
improbable that he left, seven equestrian statues of massy
silver; and from his term or column of Narbonne, he returned
on his footsteps to the Gallician and Lusitanian shores of
the ocean. During the absence of the father, his son
Abdelaziz chastised the insurgents of Seville, and reduced,
from Malaga to Valentia, the sea-coast of the Mediterranean:
his original treaty with the discreet and valiant Theodemir
(185) will represent the manners and policy of the times.
"The conditions of peace agreed and sworn between Abdelaziz,
the son of Musa, the son of Nassir, and Theodemir prince of
the Goths. In the name of the most merciful God, Abdelaziz
makes peace on these conditions: that Theodemir shall not be
disturbed in his principality; nor any injury be offered to
the life or property, the wives and children, the religion
and temples, of the Christians: that Theodemir shall freely
deliver his seven (Q) cities, Orihuela, Valentola, Alicanti
Mola, Vacasora, Bigerra, (now Bejar,) Ora, (or Opta,) and
Lorca: that he shall not assist or entertain the enemies of
the caliph, but shall faithfully communicate his knowledge
of their hostile designs: that himself, and each of the
Gothic nobles, shall annually pay one piece of gold, four
measures of wheat, as many of barley, with a certain
proportion of honey, oil, and vinegar; and that each of
their vassals shall be taxed at one moiety of the said
imposition. Given the fourth of Regeb, in the year of the
Hegira ninety- four, and subscribed with the names of four
Mussulman witnesses." (186) Theodemir and his subjects were
treated with uncommon lenity; but the rate of tribute
appears to have fluctuated from a tenth to a fifth,
according to the submission or obstinacy of the Christians.
(187) In this revolution, many partial calamities were
inflicted by the carnal or religious passions of the
enthusiasts: some churches were profaned by the new worship:
some relics or images were confounded with idols: the rebels
were put to the sword; and one town (an obscure place
between Cordova and Seville) was razed to its foundations.
Yet if we compare the invasion of Spain by the Goths, or its
recovery by the kings of Castile and Arragon, we must
applaud the moderation and discipline of the Arabian
conquerors.
The exploits of Musa were performed in the evening of life,
though he affected to disguise his age by coloring with a
red powder the whiteness of his beard. But in the love of
action and glory, his breast was still fired with the ardor
of youth; and the possession of Spain was considered only as
the first step to the monarchy of Europe. With a powerful
armament by sea and land, he was preparing to repass the
Pyrenees, to extinguish in Gaul and Italy the declining
kingdoms of the Franks and Lombards, and to preach the unity
of God on the altar of the Vatican. From thence, subduing
the Barbarians of Germany, he proposed to follow the course
of the Danube from its source to the Euxine Sea, to
overthrow the Greek or Roman empire of Constantinople, and
returning from Europe to Asia, to unite his new acquisitions
with Antioch and the provinces of Syria. (188) But his vast
enterprise, perhaps of easy execution, must have seemed
extravagant to vulgar minds; and the visionary conqueror was
soon reminded of his dependence and servitude. The friends
of Tarik had effectually stated his services and wrongs: at
the court of Damascus, the proceedings of Musa were blamed,
his intentions were suspected, and his delay in complying
with the first invitation was chastised by a harsher and
more peremptory summons. An intrepid messenger of the caliph
entered his camp at Lugo in Gallicia, and in the presence of
the Saracens and Christians arrested the bridle of his
horse. His own loyalty, or that of his troops, inculcated
the duty of obedience: and his disgrace was alleviated by
the recall of his rival, and the permission of investing
with his two governments his two sons, Abdallah and
Abdelaziz. His long triumph from Ceuta to Damascus
displayed the spoils of Africa and the treasures of Spain:
four hundred Gothic nobles, with gold coronets and girdles,
were distinguished in his train; and the number of male and
female captives, selected for their birth or beauty, was
computed at eighteen, or even at thirty, thousand persons.
As soon as he reached Tiberias in Palestine, he was apprised
of the sickness and danger of the caliph, by a private
message from Soliman, his brother and presumptive heir; who
wished to reserve for his own reign the spectacle of
victory. Had Walid recovered, the delay of Musa would have
been criminal: he pursued his march, and found an enemy on
the throne. In his trial before a partial judge against a
popular antagonist, he was convicted of vanity and
falsehood; and a fine of two hundred thousand pieces of gold
either exhausted his poverty or proved his rapaciousness.
The unworthy treatment of Tarik was revenged by a similar
indignity; and the veteran commander, after a public
whipping, stood a whole day in the sun before the palace
gate, till he obtained a decent exile, under the pious name
of a pilgrimage to Mecca. The resentment of the caliph
might have been satiated with the ruin of Musa; but his
fears demanded the extirpation of a potent and injured
family. A sentence of death was intimated with secrecy and
speed to the trusty servants of the throne both in Africa
and Spain; and the forms, if not the substance, of justice
were superseded in this bloody execution. In the mosch or
palace of Cordova, Abdelaziz was slain by the swords of the
conspirators; they accused their governor of claiming the
honors of royalty; and his scandalous marriage with Egilona,
the widow of Roderic, offended the prejudices both of the
Christians and Moslems. By a refinement of cruelty, the
head of the son was presented to the father, with an
insulting question, whether he acknowledged the features of
the rebel? "I know his features," he exclaimed with
indignation: "I assert his innocence; and I imprecate the
same, a juster fate, against the authors of his death." The
age and despair of Musa raised him above the power of kings;
and he expired at Mecca of the anguish of a broken heart.
His rival was more favorably treated: his services were
forgiven; and Tarik was permitted to mingle with the crowd
of slaves. (189) I am ignorant whether Count Julian was
rewarded with the death which he deserved indeed, though not
from the hands of the Saracens; but the tale of their
ingratitude to the sons of Witiza is disproved by the most
unquestionable evidence. The two royal youths were
reinstated in the private patrimony of their father; but on
the decease of Eba, the elder, his daughter was unjustly
despoiled of her portion by the violence of her uncle
Sigebut. The Gothic maid pleaded her cause before the
caliph Hashem, and obtained the restitution of her
inheritance; but she was given in marriage to a noble
Arabian, and their two sons, Isaac and Ibrahim, were
received in Spain with the consideration that was due to
their origin and riches.
A province is assimilated to the victorious state by the
introduction of strangers and the imitative spirit of the
natives; and Spain, which had been successively tinctured
with Punic, and Roman, and Gothic blood, imbibed, in a few
generations, the name and manners of the Arabs. The first
conquerors, and the twenty successive lieutenants of the
caliphs, were attended by a numerous train of civil and
military followers, who preferred a distant fortune to a
narrow home: the private and public interest was promoted by
the establishment of faithful colonies; and the cities of
Spain were proud to commemorate the tribe or country of
their Eastern progenitors. The victorious though motley
bands of Tarik and Musa asserted, by the name of Spaniards,
their original claim of conquest; yet they allowed their
brethren of Egypt to share their establishments of Murcia
and Lisbon. The royal legion of Damascus was planted at
Cordova; that of Emesa at Seville; that of Kinnisrin or
Chalcis at Jaen; that of Palestine at Algezire and Medina
Sidonia. The natives of Yemen and Persia were scattered
round Toledo and the inland country, and the fertile seats
of Grenada were bestowed on ten thousand horsemen of Syria
and Irak, the children of the purest and most noble of the
Arabian tribes. (190) A spirit of emulation, sometimes
beneficial, more frequently dangerous, was nourished by
these hereditary factions. Ten years after the conquest, a
map of the province was presented to the caliph: the seas,
the rivers, and the harbors, the inhabitants and cities, the
climate, the soil, and the mineral productions of the earth.
(191) In the space of two centuries, the gifts of nature were
improved by the agriculture, (192) the manufactures, and the
commerce, of an industrious people; and the effects of their
diligence have been magnified by the idleness of their
fancy. The first of the Ommiades who reigned in Spain
solicited the support of the Christians; and in his edict of
peace and protection, he contents himself with a modest
imposition of ten thousand ounces of gold, ten thousand
pounds of silver, ten thousand horses, as many mules, one
thousand cuirasses, with an equal number of helmets and
lances. (193) The most powerful of his successors derived
from the same kingdom the annual tribute of twelve millions
and forty-five thousand dinars or pieces of gold, about six
millions of sterling money; (194) a sum which, in the tenth
century, most probably surpassed the united revenues of the
Christians monarchs. His royal seat of Cordova contained
six hundred moschs, nine hundred baths, and two hundred
thousand houses; he gave laws to eighty cities of the first,
to three hundred of the second and third order; and the
fertile banks of the Guadalquivir were adorned with twelve
thousand villages and hamlets. The Arabs might exaggerate
the truth, but they created and they describe the most
prosperous aera of the riches, the cultivation, and the
populousness of Spain. (195)
The wars of the Moslems were sanctified by the prophet; but
among the various precepts and examples of his life, the
caliphs selected the lessons of toleration that might tend
to disarm the resistance of the unbelievers. Arabia was the
temple and patrimony of the God of Mahomet; but he beheld
with less jealousy and affection the nations of the earth.
The polytheists and idolaters, who were ignorant of his
name, might be lawfully extirpated by his votaries; (196) but
a wise policy supplied the obligation of justice; and after
some acts of intolerant zeal, the Mahometan conquerors of
Hindostan have spared the pagods of that devout and populous
country. The disciples of Abraham, of Moses, and of Jesus,
were solemnly invited to accept the more perfect revelation
of Mahomet; but if they preferred the payment of a moderate
tribute, they were entitled to the freedom of conscience and
religious worship. (197) In a field of battle the forfeit
lives of the prisoners were redeemed by the profession of
Islam; the females were bound to embrace the religion of
their masters, and a race of sincere proselytes was
gradually multiplied by the education of the infant
captives. But the millions of African and Asiatic converts,
who swelled the native band of the faithful Arabs, must have
been allured, rather than constrained, to declare their
belief in one God and the apostle of God. By the repetition
of a sentence and the loss of a foreskin, the subject or the
slave, the captive or the criminal, arose in a moment the
free and equal companion of the victorious Moslems. Every
sin was expiated, every engagement was dissolved: the vow of
celibacy was superseded by the indulgence of nature; the
active spirits who slept in the cloister were awakened by
the trumpet of the Saracens; and in the convulsion of the
world, every member of a new society ascended to the natural
level of his capacity and courage. The minds of the
multitude were tempted by the invisible as well as temporal
blessings of the Arabian prophet; and charity will hope that
many of his proselytes entertained a serious conviction of
the truth and sanctity of his revelation. In the eyes of an
inquisitive polytheist, it must appear worthy of the human
and the divine nature. More pure than the system of
Zoroaster, more liberal than the law of Moses, the religion
of Mahomet might seem less inconsistent with reason than the
creed of mystery and superstition, which, in the seventh
century, disgraced the simplicity of the gospel.
In the extensive provinces of Persia and Africa, the
national religion has been eradicated by the Mahometan
faith. The ambiguous theology of the Magi stood alone among
the sects of the East; but the profane writings of Zoroaster
(198) might, under the reverend name of Abraham, be
dexterously connected with the chain of divine revelation.
Their evil principle, the daemon Ahriman, might be
represented as the rival, or as the creature, of the God of
light. The temples of Persia were devoid of images; but the
worship of the sun and of fire might be stigmatized as a
gross and criminal idolatry. (199) The milder sentiment was
consecrated by the practice of Mahomet (200) and the prudence
of the caliphs; the Magians or Ghebers were ranked with the
Jews and Christians among the people of the written law;
(201) and as late as the third century of the Hegira, the
city of Herat will afford a lively contrast of private zeal
and public toleration. (202) Under the payment of an annual
tribute, the Mahometan law secured to the Ghebers of Herat
their civil and religious liberties: but the recent and
humble mosch was overshadowed by the antique splendor of the
adjoining temple of fire. A fanatic Iman deplored, in his
sermons, the scandalous neighborhood, and accused the
weakness or indifference of the faithful. Excited by his
voice, the people assembled in tumult; the two houses of
prayer were consumed by the flames, but the vacant ground
was immediately occupied by the foundations of a new mosch.
The injured Magi appealed to the sovereign of Chorasan; he
promised justice and relief; when, behold! four thousand
citizens of Herat, of a grave character and mature age,
unanimously swore that the idolatrous fane had never
existed; the inquisition was silenced and their conscience
was satisfied (says the historian Mirchond (203)) with this
holy and meritorious perjury. (204) But the greatest part of
the temples of Persia were ruined by the insensible and
general desertion of their votaries. It was insensible,
since it is not accompanied with any memorial of time or
place, of persecution or resistance. It was general, since
the whole realm, from Shiraz to Samarcand, imbibed the faith
of the Koran; and the preservation of the native tongue
reveals the descent of the Mahometans of Persia. (205) In the
mountains and deserts, an obstinate race of unbelievers
adhered to the superstition of their fathers; and a faint
tradition of the Magian theology is kept alive in the
province of Kirman, along the banks of the Indus, among the
exiles of Surat, and in the colony which, in the last
century, was planted by Shaw Abbas at the gates of Ispahan.
The chief pontiff has retired to Mount Elbourz, eighteen
leagues from the city of Yezd: the perpetual fire (if it
continues to burn) is inaccessible to the profane; but his
residence is the school, the oracle, and the pilgrimage of
the Ghebers, whose hard and uniform features attest the
unmingled purity of their blood. Under the jurisdiction of
their elders, eighty thousand families maintain an innocent
and industrious life: their subsistence is derived from some
curious manufactures and mechanic trades; and they cultivate
the earth with the fervor of a religious duty. Their
ignorance withstood the despotism of Shaw Abbas, who
demanded with threats and tortures the prophetic books of
Zoroaster; and this obscure remnant of the Magians is spared
by the moderation or contempt of their present sovereigns.
(206)
The Northern coast of Africa is the only land in which the
light of the gospel, after a long and perfect establishment,
has been totally extinguished. The arts, which had been
taught by Carthage and Rome, were involved in a cloud of
ignorance; the doctrine of Cyprian and Augustin was no
longer studied. Five hundred episcopal churches were
overturned by the hostile fury of the Donatists, the
Vandals, and the Moors. The zeal and numbers of the clergy
declined; and the people, without discipline, or knowledge,
or hope, submissively sunk under the yoke of the Arabian
prophet Within fifty years after the expulsion of the
Greeks, a lieutenant of Africa informed the caliph that the
tribute of the infidels was abolished by their conversion;
(207) and, though he sought to disguise his fraud and
rebellion, his specious pretence was drawn from the rapid
and extensive progress of the Mahometan faith. In the next
age, an extraordinary mission of five bishops was detached
from Alexandria to Cairoan. They were ordained by the
Jacobite patriarch to cherish and revive the dying embers of
Christianity: (208) but the interposition of a foreign
prelate, a stranger to the Latins, an enemy to the
Catholics, supposes the decay and dissolution of the African
hierarchy. It was no longer the time when the successor of
St. Cyprian, at the head of a numerous synod, could maintain
an equal contest with the ambition of the Roman pontiff. In
the eleventh century, the unfortunate priest who was seated
on the ruins of Carthage implored the arms and the
protection of the Vatican; and he bitterly complains that
his naked body had been scourged by the Saracens, and that
his authority was disputed by the four suffragans, the
tottering pillars of his throne. Two epistles of Gregory
the Seventh (209) are destined to soothe the distress of the
Catholics and the pride of a Moorish prince. The pope
assures the sultan that they both worship the same God, and
may hope to meet in the bosom of Abraham; but the complaint
that three bishops could no longer be found to consecrate a
brother, announces the speedy and inevitable ruin of the
episcopal order. The Christians of Africa and Spain had long
since submitted to the practice of circumcision and the
legal abstinence from wine and pork; and the name of
Mozarabes (210) (adoptive Arabs) was applied to their civil
or religious conformity. (211) About the middle of the
twelfth century, the worship of Christ and the succession of
pastors were abolished along the coast of Barbary, and in
the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, of Valencia and
Grenada. (212) The throne of the Almohades, or Unitarians,
was founded on the blindest fanaticism, and their
extraordinary rigor might be provoked or justified by the
recent victories and intolerant zeal of the princes of
Sicily and Castille, of Arragon and Portugal. The faith of
the Mozarabes was occasionally revived by the papal
missionaries; and, on the landing of Charles the Fifth, some
families of Latin Christians were encouraged to rear their
heads at Tunis and Algiers. But the seed of the gospel was
quickly eradicated, and the long province from Tripoli to
the Atlantic has lost all memory of the language and
religion of Rome. (213)
After the revolution of eleven centuries, the Jews and
Christians of the Turkish empire enjoy the liberty of
conscience which was granted by the Arabian caliphs. During
the first age of the conquest, they suspected the loyalty of
the Catholics, whose name of Melchites betrayed their secret
attachment to the Greek emperor, while the Nestorians and
Jacobites, his inveterate enemies, approved themselves the
sincere and voluntary friends of the Mahometan government.
(214) Yet this partial jealousy was healed by time and
submission; the churches of Egypt were shared with the
Catholics; (215) and all the Oriental sects were included in
the common benefits of toleration. The rank, the immunities,
the domestic jurisdiction of the patriarchs, the bishops,
and the clergy, were protected by the civil magistrate: the
learning of individuals recommended them to the employments
of secretaries and physicians: they were enriched by the
lucrative collection of the revenue; and their merit was
sometimes raised to the command of cities and provinces. A
caliph of the house of Abbas was heard to declare that the
Christians were most worthy of trust in the administration
of Persia. "The Moslems," said he, "will abuse their
present fortune; the Magians regret their fallen greatness;
and the Jews are impatient for their approaching
deliverance." (216) But the slaves of despotism are exposed
to the alternatives of favor and disgrace. The captive
churches of the East have been afflicted in every age by the
avarice or bigotry of their rulers; and the ordinary and
legal restraints must be offensive to the pride, or the
zeal, of the Christians. (217) About two hundred years after
Mahomet, they were separated from their fellow- subjects by
a turban or girdle of a less honorable color; instead of
horses or mules. they were condemned to ride on asses, in
the attitude of women. Their public and private building
were measured by a diminutive standard; in the streets or
the baths it is their duty to give way or bow down before
the meanest of the people; and their testimony is rejected,
if it may tend to the prejudice of a true believer. The
pomp of processions, the sound of bells or of psalmody, is
interdicted in their worship; a decent reverence for the
national faith is imposed on their sermons and
conversations; and the sacrilegious attempt to enter a
mosch, or to seduce a Mussulman, will not be suffered to
escape with impunity. In a time, however, of tranquillity
and justice, the Christians have never been compelled to
renounce the Gospel, or to embrace the Koran; but the
punishment of death is inflicted upon the apostates who have
professed and deserted the law of Mahomet. The martyrs of
Cordova provoked the sentence of the cadhi, by the public
confession of their inconstancy, or their passionate
invectives against the person and religion of the prophet.
(218)
At the end of the first century of the Hegira, the caliphs were the most potent and absolute monarchs of the globe.
Their prerogative was not circumscribed, either in right or
in fact, by the power of the nobles, the freedom of the
commons, the privileges of the church, the votes of a
senate, or the memory of a free constitution. The authority
of the companions of Mahomet expired with their lives; and
the chiefs or emirs of the Arabian tribes left behind, in
the desert, the spirit of equality and independence. The
regal and sacerdotal characters were united in the
successors of Mahomet; and if the Koran was the rule of
their actions, they were the supreme judges and interpreters
of that divine book. They reigned by the right of conquest
over the nations of the East, to whom the name of liberty
was unknown, and who were accustomed to applaud in their
tyrants the acts of violence and severity that were
exercised at their own expense. Under the last of the
Ommiades, the Arabian empire extended two hundred days'
journey from east to west, from the confines of Tartary and
India to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. And if we
retrench the sleeve of the robe, as it is styled by their
writers, the long and narrow province of Africa, the solid
and compact dominion from Fargana to Aden, from Tarsus to
Surat, will spread on every side to the measure of four or
five months of the march of a caravan. (219) We should vainly
seek the indissoluble union and easy obedience that pervaded
the government of Augustus and the Antonines; but the
progress of the Mahometan religion diffused over this ample
space a general resemblance of manners and opinions. The
language and laws of the Koran were studied with equal
devotion at Samarcand and Seville: the Moor and the Indian
embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of
Mecca; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular
idiom in all the provinces to the westward of the Tigris.
(220)