CHAPTER II.
THE KHALIFS[43]FROM ABU BEKR TO HASHEM (OR HESHAM).
After the death of the prophet, his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on the choice of his successor, as Mohammed had abstained from expressing any explicit command or wish in this respect. Several competitors presented themselves, of whom Ali, Abu Bekr, and Omar were the most important. The illustrious son of Abu Taleb seemed indeed to combine in his own person every possible claim to the vacant throne of Arabia; he was chief, in his own right, of the family of Hashem, and hereditary prince of the city, and custodian of the Temple, of Mecca; the husband of Fatima, Mohammed’s favorite and only surviving daughter, might reasonably claim for himself and his two sons the inheritance of the prophet, who had always delighted in calling him his vizir and vicegerent; his valor and prowess had shone conspicuous in many a hard-fought battle; and even his enemies could not impeach the purity of his private life. But it so happened that Ali had drawn upon himself the implacable hatred of Ayesha: the conduct of this lady had, on one occasion, been ratherindiscreet, to use the very mildest term, and Ali had urged his cousin to punish the frail fair. Mohammed was indeed inclined to jealousy, but the youth, beauty, and spirit of the daughter of Abu Bekr had established her empire over her husband’s affections so firmly that he rejected the clearest evidence of her faithlessness, inflicted a severe chastisement upon her accusers, and reproved Ali for his officiousness. Ayesha never forgave Ali the part hehad played in this delicate affair, and the enmity she bore him was still heightened by her jealousy of Fatima, to whom she grudged the prophet’s paternal affection. Mohammed would most probably have named Ali his successor—and against the explicit nomination of the prophet, no voice would have dared a protest—but the artful daughter of Abu Bekr besieged his bed of sickness; and, turning the ascendant she had acquired over the uxorious man to excellent account, obtained from him that on the third day before his death, when he was no longer able to proceed to the mosque, he deputed Abu Bekr in his place to perform the function of public prayer, instead of charging Ali with that most honorable and important duty. After the death of Mohammed, she boldly asserted that he had “appointed” her father his successor in the royal and sacerdotal office. The Koreish, and more especially the branch of Ommiyah, the old enemies of the line of Hashem, eagerly espoused the cause of Abu Bekr. The Ansars of Medina, and a few of the Mohagerians of Mecca voted for Ali; the crafty Omar was watching the event; a rash proposal made by one of Ali’s supporters tolet each party choosetheir own Khalif, and to divide the empire between them, brought the matter to an abrupt termination. Omar, discerning the danger which threatened the rising Saracen empire, if this proposal were acted upon, renounced his own pretensions; and, setting the regular forms of an election at naught, hailed Abu Bekr as the first Khalif. The people acquiesced, and Mecca, Medina, and most of the provinces of Arabia, acknowledged Abu Bekr as commander of the Faithful. The Hashemites, however, remained true to their chief, and Ali resisted for six months the cajoleries of the Khalif and the threats of Omar. But the death of his beloved Fatima subdued his haughty spirit, and he consented at length to submit to Abu Bekr’s rule. Strange enough, when Ali had made his submission, the old man offered to resign in his favor; an offer which was prudently declined.
During the later part of Mohammed’s life, several other prophets had arisen in various parts of Arabia, and among them one of some note, and of no mean skill in the apostolic trade. His name wasMoseilama; the powerful tribe ofHanifa, in the city of Yamanah, in Neged, listened to his voice. Confident in his power, he coolly offered Mohammed a partition of the earth between them. The prophet of Islam treated the offer with disdain; but after his death, several tribes, who had unwillingly embraced his creed, seceded to the standard of the new prophet, who speedily became a formidable rival to the Khalif. Mohammed’s uncle Abbas and the fierce Kaled were dispatched against him by Abu Bekr; but though forty thousand Moslems followed their banner, the first action against Moseilama ended in the defeat of Abbas and Kaled, and the former of the two generals was severely wounded with a javelin. This defeat was, however, fearfully avenged by Kaled; ten thousand infidels were made to bite the dust, and the same javelin that had pierced Abbas, was sent, a messenger of death, to Moseilama’s heart, by the hand of an Ethiopian slave. The submission of the revolted tribes speedily followed, and the dread name of theSword of Godwas in itself sufficient to disarm all the other rebels who had risen in various parts of the peninsula.
The victorious Kaled was now sent to the banks of the Euphrates, where he reduced the cities of Anbar and Hira (A.D.632), and, having slain the last of the Mondars of the Arabian colony of Hira, and sent his son a captive to Medina, prepared to invade the Persian empire; but in the midst of his triumphant career, he was recalled and sent into Syria, to take the command of the army there, and, in conjunction with Abu Obeidah, to effect the reduction of that province of the Greek empire. Bosra, a strong city situated four days’ journey from Damascus, fell by his valor and by the treachery of the Greek governorRomanus. Damascus was besieged (633); and an army of 70,000 Greeks, who came to the relief of the hard-pressed city, under the command ofWerdan, was totally defeated and dispersed by 45,000 Moslems under Kaled, Amru, and Abu Obeidah, atAiznadin(13th July, 633). Still Damascus resisted stoutly for many months, sustained chiefly by the valor of a noble Greek namedThomas. At length, however, the courage of the besieged gave way, and they surrendered to the mild Abu Obeidah (most probably in August, 634), whogranted them personal safety, and free possession of their lands and houses, and to such of them as should prefer exile to the Moslem rule, the permission to depart with as much of their effects as they could carry away with them. But the fierce and cruel Kaled refused to ratify these terms of his fellow-commander: he slaughtered thousands of the unfortunate Damascenes; and, though he consented at last to abide by the terms of the capitulation, he only gave three days respite to the band of voluntary exiles who left Damascus under the leadership of the valiant Thomas. At the expiration of this term, he set out in pursuit at the head of four thousand horsemen; a miserable renegade, namedJonas, acted as guide. The hapless fugitives were overtaken, and ruthlessly cut down to the last being of either sex, with the solitary exception of the widow of the brave Thomas, who was sent by Kaled to carry a message of defiance to the throne of the Cæsars.
Meanwhile the aged Abu Bekr, after a short reign of two years, had been gathered to his fathers; Ayesha’s influence and Omar’s craft had once more defeated Ali’s claims to the vacant throne; and Omar had gained the object of his ambition (24th July, 634). The new Khalif[44]proved himself worthy of this exalted position; his justice, his wisdom, his moderation, and his frugality form, even to the present day, among theSonnites, the theme of the most enthusiastic praise; though by theShiiteshis memory is as bitterly reviled, and the appellationShitan Omar, which the Persians so liberally bestow upon the second Khalif, shows the sense which they entertain of his machinations against the illustrious Ali. The son of Abu Taleb, however, submitted to Abu Bekr’s choice, and was comforted for the loss of empire by the most flattering marks of esteem and confidence on the part of the new commander of the Faithful.
One of the first acts of Omar’s reign was to remove Kaled from the command of the Syrian army, under pretext of excessive cruelty, and of rashness in the pursuit of the Damascene exiles, but in reality because the Khalif bore apersonal enmity to his invincible lieutenant. This made, however, practically, no difference in the conduct of the war; Kaled could command and obey with equal readiness, and Abu Obeidah was modest and sensible enough to guide himself in all important operations by the advice of his former chief. After the reduction of Damascus, the Arabs laid siege to Heliopolis (Baalbec) and Emesa, and speedily compelled these important cities to surrender (635). Heraclius made one last great effort to free Syria from these most unwelcome visitors; he sent four-score thousand veteran soldiers by sea and land to Antioch and Cæsarea; this host was considerably increased by the remains of the Syrian army, and by new levies in Syria and Palestine, and joined also by 60,000 Christian Arabs under the banner ofJabalah,[45]the last of the Gassanide princes. Upon Kaled’s prudent advice, Abu Obeidah resolved to retire to the skirts of Palestine and Arabia, and there to await the attack of the enemy. In the vicinity of Bosra, on the banks of the obscure river Yermuk (Hieromax), a fierce and bloody encounter took place, in which the Greek forces were totally routed (636); their Gassanide allies had already previously met with the same fate at the hands of the intrepid Kaled. After the victory of Yermuk, Abu Obeidah resolved to investJerusalem(orÆlia, as the Romans called it); he first sentMoawiyah, Abu Sophian’s son, with the van of five thousand Arabs, to try a surprise; and this failing, he appeared himself, ten days after, with the whole army.
After having endured four months the hardships of a siege, the garrison and people of the holy city offered to capitulate; but they demanded as a guarantee for the articles of security, that the Khalif should ratify them inperson. Ali advised the Khalif to comply with this rather unusual demand; and Omar set out from Medina, 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! Jerusalem immediately surrendered (637), and the Khalif returned promptly to Medina in the same simple manner in which he had come. The conquest of Syria was achieved the year after (638) by Abu Obeidah and Kaled, who reduced Antioch, Aleppo, Tripoli, Tyre, Acca (St. Jean d’Acre), Cæsarea, Ascelon, Hierapolis, and many other cities and strong places. Abu Obeidah died 639, of a fatal disease which carried off twenty-five thousand of the conquerors of Syria; the hero Kaled, theSword of God, survived his fellow-commander about three years. The government of the conquered province was entrusted by Omar to the hands of Moawiyah, the chief of the family Ommiyah, and who became afterwards the founder of the Ommiade dynasty.
After Kaled’srecall from the Persianfrontier, the war against the empire of the Magians was carried on languidly for several years. In 636, however, Omar sent a new commander,Said, with considerable reinforcements to the army on the Euphrates. After the murder of Chosroes II. and Cobad II., in 628, eight kings of Persia had followed each other in rapid succession, in the short space of three years. At last, a woman,Arzema, seized upon the throne; but, in 632, she was deposed, and the tiara transferred from her head to that of the grandson of Chosroes,Yezdegerd(III.), a boy of fifteen. A dying effort was now made by the Persians to drive back the Saracen invaders. An army of 120,000 men, with 30,000 regulars among them, was collected underRustam, who, urged on by his youthful and inexperienced monarch, sought the Moslems in the plains ofCadesia, where Said had pitched his camp. The Mussulman forces numbered only 30,000; the fight was protracted for three whole days; it was bloody and obstinate in the extreme; the Saracens lost one clear fourth of their number; the fall of Rustam, on the third day, decided the fate of the battle and of Persia (636). The standard of the Sassanides (a leathern apron of a blacksmith, covered witha profusion of precious gems) fell into the hands of the conquerors. The province of Irak submitted to the Khalif, who secured his conquest by the foundation of the city ofBasra, orBassora, on the Shat-el-Arab (i.e., the river of the Arabs), which is formed by the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris. The Moslems crossed the latter river, and took and sackedMadayn, orCtesiphon, the capital of the Persian empire; immense treasures fell here into their hands, more than sufficient indeed to enrich the whole host of naked Arabians beyond their most sanguine expectations. Many splendid works of art were destroyed by the ruthless hands of the ignorant sons of the desert. In one of the apartments of the white palace of Chosroes Nushirvan, was found a magnificent carpet of silk, with the picture of a garden embroidered on it in gold and precious stones, imitating the natural colors of the flowers, fruits, and shrubs depicted; Said preserved this splendid piece of workmanship, and sent it to the commander of the Faithful; but the precious gift found little favor in the sight of Omar; that cynical gentleman quietly ordered the picture to be destroyed, and divided the materials among his brethren of Medina: the intrinsic value of these materials may be conjectured from the fact, that Ali’s share alone was sold for twenty thousand drachms of silver. A new city,Cufa, was founded on the western side of the lower Euphrates, and the seat of government was removed to it from the despoiled Madayn. One Persian province after the other was compelled to submit to the Moslem sway; at Jalula, Yezdegerd nobly contended once more for the empire of his ancestors; in vain! the fanaticism of the Arabs proved stronger than the despair of the Persians. Said had been recalled, andFiruzansent in his place; the courage of the Persian nation was not yet thoroughly subdued; 150,000 Persians attacked the Moslem host atNehavend, about 230 miles south of Hamadan; but though Firuzan had only 30,000Mussulmans to opposeto the overwhelming numbers of the Persians, and though the latter fought with true bravery, fate haddecreed the downfallof the monarchy of the Sassanides: the Arabians gained “the victory of victories,” and the hapless Yezdegerd, worthy of a betterfate, like Darius Codomannus, yielded up all hope of empire (642).[46]After the victory of Nehavend, the cities of Hamadan, Ispahan, Estachar (Persepolis), and many more, were readily reduced, and the conquest of Persia was achieved.
Whilst Persia was thus being added to the new Saracen empire, another province was snatched from the feeble emperor of Byzantium. Omar had cast his eyes upon Egypt. With only 4000 Arabs, the valiantAmruinvaded that country, in June, 638; after a siege of thirty days, he took possession of Farmah, or Pelusium, the key of Egypt. The reduction of Babylon, on the Eastern bank of the Nile, opposite Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, took Amru seven months, although he had received a reinforcement of 4000 men. On the spot where Amru’s army had pitched their tents during the siege of Babylon, a new city arose, which forms now part of an extensive suburb of Cairo, orAl Cahira,i.e., the victorious, founded by the Fatimite Khalifs (Moez), in 970. Notwithstanding the capture of Babylon and Memphis, Amru would probably have been compelled to relinquish his attempt to conquer Egypt, had not the Jacobite (Monophysite) Copts under Mokawkas, who would have preferred the devil’s rule to that of their Melchite[47]tyrants, joined the invaders heart and soul. Undertheirguidance, and withtheiraid, Amru, who had, meanwhile, been considerably reinforced from Syria, marched from Memphis toAlexandria; which latter city was, after a series of preliminary combats, at last closely invested on the land side. As the sea remained open, Heraclius might have saved the great provision store of Byzantium, had heacted with the least energy; but the feeble old man contented himself withprayingfor the relief of the besieged city, and thought, perhaps, he had enlisted God on his side by appointing apriest(the patriarchCyrus), to the præfecture of Egypt, and the conduct of the war. No wonder then that, notwithstanding a truly gallant defence by the inhabitants, the city was, after a siege of fourteen months, at length compelled to surrender (22nd of December, 640). Omar’s commands preserved Alexandria from the horrors of pillage. The story of the burning of the Alexandrian library by order of Omar, is absolutely void of foundation; the honor of the first invention of this calumnious lie belongs (of course) to a Christian historian,Abulpharagius, primate of the Jacobites, who wrote 600 years after the event: but a crowd of historians have since faithfully copied it, even to its most extravagantly absurd details.[48]
With the reduction of Alexandria, the conquest of Egypt was achieved, Amru carrying his victorious arms even beyond the boundaries of that country as far as Tripoli.To facilitate the communication between Egypt and Arabia, Omar constructed a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. Omar, the now mighty ruler of a most extensive empire, was revolving new plans of conquest, when the dagger ofFiruz, a Persian slave, who had been personally aggrieved by the Khalif, cut short his thread of life—and saved the world from subjugation; for what nation or empire could, at that time, have long or successfully withstood the impetuous tide, which, in the short space of ten years, had engulphed Syria, Persia, and Egypt; and was full vigorous enough to sweep over the whole earth, had but the master-mind which had hitherto with rare wisdom directed its enormous material force, continued to breathe an intelligent will into it. Omar died in November, 644: urged to name his successor, he had refused to do so, but had devolved the task of choosing a new Khalif, on Ali and five others of the most respectable companions of the prophet. The illustrious son of Abu Taleb might now, indeed, have ascended the vacant throne, had he deigned to promise a servile conformity, not only to the Koran and tradition, but also to the “sayings and doings” of his predecessors, Abu Bekr and Omar. This demand his proud spirit rejected with disdain.Othman, also a son-in-law of the prophet, and who had been his secretary, accepted the government with these restrictions. The new Khalif was but little made to sustain the weight of the Saracen empire. He was a weak and vacillating old man, and led entirely by unworthy favorites, more particularly by his secretary,Mervan; he was arrogant and overbearing withal, and in the space of a few brief years, he excited the dissatisfaction and indignation of even the most loyally disposed among his subjects. At last the universal discontent was gathering to a head. Resolved no longer to submit to the exactions of the wretched favorites on whom the Khalif had conferred power and station, the tribes rose in arms. From Cufa, from Bassora, from Egypt, from the Desert, they marched on Medina: they encamped about a league from the city, and dispatched a haughty summons to their sovereign to redress their grievances, or to give place to a more worthy prince. Othman promised reformation, and Ali’s generousintercession might have succeeded in healing the breach between the Khalif and his angry subjects; but Mervan’s perfidy, and the deep intrigues of the artful Ayesha, defeated all chances of reconciliation between the prince and the people. In vain Othman ascended the pulpit, publicly and solemnly to entreat Allah’s and the people’s forgiveness for his misrule; he was pelted with stones, and carried home half dead. The insurgents besieged him six weeks in his palace, intercepting his water and provisions. The helpless old man had to endure the grief of seeing himself forsaken and betrayed by those on whom his misplaced favor had bestowed wealth and power. Abandoning all hope, he calmly expected the approach of death: a desperate band of fanatical Charegites, with Mohammed, Ayesha’s brother, at their head, made their way into his palace. They found him seated, with the Koran in his lap; but neither the sacred book, nor his venerable aspect, could disarm the assassins. Othman fell, pierced with many wounds, 18th June, 655, in the eighty-second year of his age.
During the reign of Othman, the island of Cyprus was conquered by Moawiyah, in 647, and the island of Rhodes, in 654; from the latter island, the Saracens carried off the massy trunk and the huge fragments of the celebrated colossal statue of Apollo, which had been overthrown about 800 years before by an earthquake. The large and once populous country of Chorasan, the kingdom of the ancient Bactrians, was also “annexed” to the Saracen empire, during the reign of Othman. In 647,Abdallah[49]andZobeirwere sent with 40,000 Moslems to attempt the conquest of Africa. They advanced to the walls of Tripoli, and endeavoured to carry that maritime city by assault; they were, however, repulsed, and the approach of a numerous army under the Greek præfect Gregory, compelled them to raise the siege. By Zobeir’s skill and valor, the Arabs gained a complete and decisive victory over the hostile forces, the præfect himself being slain by the hand of Zobeir. The opulent city of Sufetula, situated 150 miles to the south of Carthage, fellinto the hands of the victorious Arabs. Abdallah prudently rested content with the advantages gained; he accepted the offer of submission and tribute made on all sides by the provincials, and retreated to the confines of Egypt (648).
Ali had made a perhaps somewhat lukewarm effort to effect a reconciliation between Othman and his insurgent subjects. When matters had proceeded to extremities, he had sent his two sons,HassanandHosein, to the rescue of the besieged Khalif; and Hassan, the eldest of his sons, had, indeed, been wounded in the defence of that unfortunate prince. Still Ali had not been very energetic in his opposition to the rebels; and it is not uncharitable to suppose, that the death of Othman caused him no very bitter grief. Five days after the murder of the aged Khalif, Ali was proclaimed his successor by acclamation. The illustrious son of Abu Taleb was, indeed, a poet and a hero, but a most indifferent statesman.Telhaand the valiantZobeir, two of the most powerful of the Arabian chiefs, who had had a hand in Othman’s overthrow and death, and whose doubtful allegiance Ali ought to have secured by rich gifts and greater promises, saw themselves treated with studied coldness by the new Khalif, of whom they had vainly solicited the government of Irak, as the reward of their services. This impolitic conduct of Ali made them inclined to lend a willing ear to the advice and suggestions of the artful Ayesha, to raise the standard of revolt against Ali, and to chargehimwith the perpetration of the very crime whichshehad instigated, andtheyhad lent their aid to execute! The two chiefs, and the widow of the prophet, escaped from Medina to Mecca, and from thence to Bassora; the unblushing woman, whose own brother had actually headed the assassins, had the almost incredible effrontery to send Othman’s bloody shirt to the governor of Syria, Moawiyah, Ali’s hereditary foe, and to call upon him to avenge Othman’s blood upon his murderer—Ali!The son of Abu Sophian was perfectly aware of the true circumstances of the case; but it suited his ambitious projects toappearto believe the infamous accusation against the august chief of the line of Hashem, the more so as Ali had expressed his intention to remove the head of the houseof Ommiyah from the government of Syria. Moawiyah, therefore, exposed the bloody shirt of Othman in the principal mosque of Damascus, and denouncing Ali as the instigator of the sacrilegious deed, called upon the Faithful to rise and avenge the death of the holy martyr, whose lawful successor in the Khalifate he declared himself to be, in obedience, as he pretended, to the express command of the dying Othman. The appeal was numerously responded to, and the ruler of Syria saw himself speedily at the head of a formidable army; his friend,Amru, whom Ali had removed from the government of Egypt, espoused his cause. Telha and Zobeir seized upon Irak; 50,000 Moslems marched under their banner. At the head of 20,000 of his loyal Arabs, and 9,000 auxiliaries of Cufa, the Lion of God went to encounter his enemies. Under the walls of Bassora (2nd and 3rd November, 656) was fought the first battle of this civil war, which, destroying in internecine strife the flower of the nation of the desert, may well be said to have saved the world from the yoke of Islam; for had Ali been sole and undisputed master of the Saracen empire, even the fire of Callinicus[50]would have proved no effectual protection against the then irresistible tide of Moslem conquest, and, mayhap, the Isaurian might have indulged his iconoclastic propensities at the head of a congenial host of image-haters; nor would the west of Europe have escaped, and the champion of the cross, theHammerof Christ, might, perchance, have figured in history as theIlderimof Islam.
The rebels were totally defeated; Telha and Zobeir, with 10,000 of their host, were slain; and Ayesha, who, seatedin a litter perched on the back of a camel,[51]had braved the dangers of the field, animating the troops by her presence, and cheering them on with her voice, fell a captive into the hands of the man whom, with implacable hatred, she had pursued so many years, and whom she had so grievously injured; but the generous Ali disdained warring with women. Mohammed’s widow was treated with every respect due to her rank, and speedily dismissed to her proper station at the tomb of the prophet. The victorious Khalif, having in vain offered the most favorable terms of accommodation to Moawiyah and Amru, took the field against them at the head of 70,000 men, in the spring of 657. The plain ofSiffin, on the western bank of the Euphrates, formed the field of ninety actions or skirmishes, in a desultory warfare of one hundred and ten days. The forces of the Ommiyah chief, are said to have amounted to more than 120,000 men; among them many of the veterans of the Persian, Syrian, and Egyptian campaigns; 45,000 of that gallant band paid with their lives for the ambition of their chief; 25,000 of Ali’s brave and loyal followers lay slain by their side—a rare crop of blossoms for the garden of the destroyer. The Lion of God was everywhere foremost in the fight; his ponderous two-edged sword, wielded with irresistible force, made fearful havoc in the hostile ranks; every time he smote a rebel, he shouted his war-cry “Allah Akbar!”[52]and the Arabian and Persian historians tell us with all gravity, that “in the tumult of a nocturnal battle, that tremendous exclamation was heard no less than four hundred times.” Making all due allowance for Oriental exaggeration, and striking one nought off the account, enough still remains to make the feat a most respectable achievement indeed.
The magnanimous Ali had proposed to settle the dispute between him and Moawiyah by single combat; but to encounter so formidable a champion would truly have beensheer madness on the part of the prince of Damascus; he therefore declined the Khalif’s courteous invitation. The chief of the line of Ommiyah was not so redoubtable a warrior as Ali, but he was a much better politician than the true and lawful commander of the Faithful; clearly foreseeing that the decision of the sword must in the end inevitably turn against him, he devised a stratagem to discomfit his dreaded antagonist, which being based upon a crafty appeal to the reverential and superstitious feelings of Ali’s followers, might reasonably be expected to have a fair chance of success. The Khalif had resolved to terminate the long-pending struggle by a decisive battle; the troops were in presence, and the fight was on the point of being engaged, when a solemn appeal to the books of the Koran, which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances, made a considerable portion of Ali’s forces pause in their onset; emissaries of the prince of Damascus had long been busy in the unsuspecting Ali’s ranks; his refusal to hold the tradition, and the sayings and acts of Abu Bekr and Omar as equally binding with the precepts of the Koran, was regarded by many of his own followers as rank heresy; and so it occurred that at the very time when victory seemed secure in his grasp, the Khalif saw himself suddenly abandoned by the greater half of his forces, and even compelled by the vile rabble to submit his indefeasible right to a so-called “arbitration;” Moawiyah being permitted to appoint his friend and fellow-rebel, Amru, as arbiter onhispart, whilst Ali was forced by the treacherous crew around him to nameMusa, the cadi of Cufa, a mixture in equal parts of stupidity and conceit, to act on his behalf. The result was such as might have been foreseen; the decision was in favor of Moawiyah. Ali indignantly refused to be bound by it, as it was but too patent that the whole “arbitration” had been a disgraceful juggle from the beginning. But he was abandoned by a great many of his former adherents, and compelled to retreat to Cufa. Still he nobly carried on the struggle against the vastly superior forces of his enemies, and though Amru snatched Egypt from him, though Persia and Yemen were subdued or seduced by his crafty rival of Damascus, the final issue of the struggle might yet havebeen in his favor, had he not been foully murdered by a Charegite,[53]who with two other fanatics had agreed to give peace to their troubled country by the removal of Ali, Moawiyah, and Amru. Each of the three assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger, and secretly repaired to the scene of action; but the stroke was fatal only to the lawful Khalif, though the prince of Damascus also was dangerously hurt, and the deputy of the viceroy of Egypt paid with his life for the honor of being mistaken for the illustrious Amru (661).[54]The dying Ali mercifully commanded his children to dispatch his murderer by a single stroke. His eldest son,Hassan, was indeed saluted Khalif, by the party who had faithfully adhered to the banner of the Lion of God, but he was prevailed upon by Moawiyah to resign his pretensions, and the son of Abu Sophian was acknowledged the lawful commander of the Faithful; and Ali’s name was ordered to be cursed from the pulpit.[55]
The rule of the new Khalif was marked, upon the whole, by wisdom and moderation. Moawiyah disdained the simplicity of manners which had distinguished his predecessors; he dressed in costly silks, surrounded himself with a brilliant court, kept eunuchs for the guard of his harem, and set the prophet’s precepts at naught in the matter of wine-drinking. He would indeed shrink from no crime where his political interests were or seemed concerned; and the poisoning of Hassan, who had fondly, but foolishly,hoped that the son of Abu Sophian would forget that the title of Khalif had graced his name for however so short a period of time, and the base murders of Kaled’s son, Abderrahman, and of the bold-spoken Hadjir Ben Hadad, who had dared publicly to protest against the cursing of Ali’s name and memory, are by no means the only blots on the reputation of the founder of the Ommiade dynasty; but he was not cruel and blood-thirsty from mere wantonness of disposition, and, as princes go, he was altogether rather a favorable sample of the class than otherwise.
The first acts of his reign were to put down the rebellious Charegites, and to quell an insurrection of the people of Bassora. The three first Khalifs had resided at Medina; political and strategic considerations had induced Ali to transfer the seat of his government to Cufa. Moawiyah made Damascus his capital, partly because Syria was the stronghold of his power, and partly—and this was unquestionably the principal reason—because his residence at Medina would have materially interfered with the accomplishment of the project nearest and dearest to his heart; viz., to change the elective monarchy to an hereditary kingdom. When he had firmly established his throne, he prepared a powerful expedition by sea and land against Constantinople (668); he entrusted the chief command to the veteranSophian, and sent his own son Yezid to encourage the troops by his presence and example. But though the supineness of the Greeks permitted them to invest the city of the Cæsars by sea and land, the Saracens met with a more vigorous resistance than they had anticipated; the solid and lofty walls of Byzantium, energetically defended by a numerous and well-disciplined army, and by a people aroused for a time to deeds of heroic devotion, by the danger which threatened to overthrow the last bulwark of their nationality and their religion, and the prodigious effect of the fire of Callinicus, defeated all attempts to carry the city by assault; and the Arabs, finding it a much easier task to plunder the European and Asiatic coasts of the Propontis, carried on the operations of the siege more and more languidly, till, at last, having kept the sea from April to September, they retreated, on the approach of winter, tothe isle of Cyzicus, about eighty miles from the capital. However, they renewed the attempt six successive summers, until the enormous losses which they had suffered by fire and sword, and by the mischances of shipwreck and disease, compelled them finally to abandon the bootless enterprise (675). This failure dimmed for a time the glory of the Saracen arms, whilst it seemed to restore the former prestige of the Roman name. The destruction of his fleets, and the annihilation of his armies, had subdued the proud spirit of Moawiyah; the aged Khalif had the mortification of seeing himself insulted in his city and palace of Damascus by the warlike Maronites, or Mardaites, of Mount Lebanon; and he felt desirous of ending his days in tranquillity and repose: he consented therefore to a peace, or truce, of thirty years with the emperor Constantine IV. Pogonatus, in which he indeed was permitted to retain possession of the north-western part of Asia Minor, the island of Cyprus, and the isles of the Greek Archipelago, but in which the majesty of the commander of the Faithful was wofully degraded, by the stipulation of an annual tribute to the Court of Byzantium of three thousand pieces of gold, fifty slaves, and fifty horses of a noble breed (677).
Moawiyah’s arms were more successful in other quarters. His lieutenant,Obeidah, invaded the territories of the Turks, in 673, and made considerable conquests in Central Asia; and a large portion of North Africa was added to the Saracen empire byAkbah, who conquered Tripoli and Barca, founded the city of Cairoan, about fifty miles south of Carthage,[56]in 671, and advanced to the verge of the Atlantic and the Great Desert. But the universal defection of the Africans and Greeks, whom he had conquered, recalled him from the shores of the Atlantic, where he was already meditating a descent on Spain. Surrounded on all sides by hostile multitudes, and despairing of succour, the gallant Akbah, and his small force of brave men, had no other resource left them but to die an honorable death,—they fell to the last man.Zuheir, sent with a new army, avenged the fate of his predecessor; he vanquished thenatives in many battles, but was himself overthrown in the end by a powerful army, sent from Constantinople to the relief of Carthage which he was besieging.
Moawiyah died on the 6th April, 680. Ten years before his death he had seen his aspiring wishes crowned by the proclamation of his son,Yezid, as presumptive heir of the Saracen empire.[57]True, there had been some murmurs of discontent, and it had even required an armed demonstration against the holy cities of Mecca and Medina to enforce submission to the will of the Khalif: but Moawiyah’s vigor and address had triumphed over every obstacle. Accordingly, after the father’s death, the son was acknowledged as Khalif in every province of the vast empire; with some partial exceptions, indeed, in Arabia proper, and more particularly in Mecca and Medina. But Yezid had inherited none of his father’s qualities; he was a dissolute voluptuarian, and of a most tyrannical disposition withal. In the short time of a few months, the discontent of his subjects had risen to a threatening height; more especially in Arabia proper, and in the province of Irak, People’s eyes began to turn towardsHosein, the younger and only surviving son of Ali and Fatima, and head of the line of Hashem. Hosein had served with distinction in the siege of Constantinople; he had inherited some of his father’s spirit, and had disdainfully refused to acknowledge Yezid’s title. He was invited by a large body of the discontented in Irak, to come and place himself at their head; against the advice of his wife and many of his friends, he resolved to obey the call, and set out with a small retinue, consisting, chiefly of women and children. When he reached the confines of Irak,Obeidollah, the watchful and energetic governor of Cufa, had already crushed the insurrection in the bud. In the plains of Kerbela, Hosein found himself surrounded on all sides by a body of five thousand horse. Unconditional surrender or death was the only alternative offered to him; he chose the latter, and, after deeds of the most heroic valor, his generous band of devoted adherents were all slain, basely butchered from afar with arrows by theircowardly assailants: he, alone, still survived, though bleeding from many a wound. He seated himself at the door of his tent, enfolding his youngest son and his nephew, two beautiful children, in his arms; they were slain there, and their warm life-blood overflowed the hands of the hapless man. With a cry of grief and despair, he started up and threw himself in the midst of the foe. The soldiers fell back on every side, and, for a time, none dared to lay hands on the grandson of the prophet; but, at last, one of their leaders, the remorselessShamer, urged them to the attack, and the heroic Hosein was slain, with three-and-thirty strokes of lances and swords. The dead body was trampled under foot by the inhuman wretches, and the severed head carried to the castle of Cufa, and thence forwarded to Damascus, that Yezid might look upon it and sleep in peace. An expedition was sent against the holy cities, which, after Hosein’s death, had acknowledged fortheirKhalif,Abdallah,[58]the son of the valiant Zobeir. Medina was taken, and the sisters and children of Hosein and Hassan were sent in chains to the throne of Damascus. Yezid was urged by his advisers to bury his fears for ever in the grave of the race of Ali and Fatima. Now, had Yezid been one of theChristianCæsars of Byzantium, who “thought it no very great harm” to slay even their own kindred, or to deprive them of sight, or mutilate them in some other way, if undisputed empire could but be secured thereby, no doubt the advice would have been followed to the letter: but the grandson of the wild Henda was not altogether without some of the better feelings of human nature, and theSaracenKhalif had no convenient “patriarch,” or bishop, at hand to lull his troublesome conscience by the mockery of priestly absolution. The mourning family were honorably dismissed to Medina, and Yezid even strove to console them for the irreparable losses they had suffered at his father’s and his own hands.
The partial successes of Yezid’s generals against Abdallah did not prevent that indefatigable warrior from seizing uponYemen, and establishing his power in Egypt. After a troubled reign of three years, Yezid died (683); and a few months after his death, his son and successor,Moawiyah II., preferred voluntary abdication to the desperate struggle which he foresaw it would cost to oust Abdallah from his usurped position. For a time, complete anarchy ensued: Obeidollah, the governor of Irak, attempted to found a new empire and a new dynasty, in Bassora, but he was ignominiously expelled by the people; and the provinces of Irak, Yemen, Hejaz, and Egypt, acknowledged the name and sovereignty of Abdallah. Even in Syria, a creature of Abdallah’s,Dehac, was, for a time, obeyed as vicegerent. At last, however,Mervan, of the line of Ommiyah, was saluted Khalif in Damascus (684), on condition, however, as he bound himself by oath, to name Kaled, Yezid’s younger son, his successor. Mervan speedily succeeded in subjecting Syria and Egypt to his sway. The people of Chorasan, where the Hashemites had gained considerable ascendancy, renounced their allegiance to the empire, proclaimed their independence, and elected the nobleSalemtheir king.Soliman, the son of Zarad, excited a formidable insurrection in Arabia Proper, and in part of Syria, and proclaimed the deposition of both rival Khalifs; but he was defeated by Obeidollah. Mervan, forgetful of his oath, proclaimed his son,Abd-el-Malek, his successor; he fell by the dagger of his offended kinsman, Kaled (685). But Abd-el-Malek made good his claim to the succession, and set diligently about to strengthen his position in the provinces which his father had wrested from Abdallah’s grasp. In Abd-el-Malek the latter found an antagonist worthy of himself, both in valor and wile. The actual struggle between the two rivals was, however, postponed for a season by the appearance of a third party on the scene,—Mokhtar, another inspired prophet, and whose chances of establishinganothernew creed seemed, for a time, to promise rather fair; in fact, the city of Cufa, and part of the province of Irak, had acknowledged his divine mission, when Abdallah’s good sword proved him an impostor (686). The Greeks had, meanwhile, taken advantage of the distress and fears of the house of Ommiyah, but in their own paltry and pettifogging way;for instead of boldly drawing the sword to wrest Asia Minor, Palestine, and Syria from the enfeebled grasp of the divided Saracens, they were content with obtaining from Abd-el-Malek a considerable increase of the tribute.
Abd-el-Malek, relieved thus from his apprehensions of a war with the Eastern empire, could now turn his undivided attention to the impending struggle with the rival Khalif of Mecca. After five years’ fierce and doubtful contest, Abdallah was at length defeated in a decisive battle, and compelled to take refuge in Mecca; here he defended himself for seven months against Abd-el-Malek’s vastly superior forces. At last, in a general assault, the valiant son of Zobeir was slain; his fall decided that of the city, and the Saracen empire was thus again united under one ruler (692). As soon as Abd-el-Malek saw himself sole and undisputed Khalif, he threw off the badge of servitude to the Eastern empire, which the internal dissensions and troubles of the preceding years had compelled him to submit to. He discontinued the payment of the stipulated tribute, and even wrested another province, Armenia, from the feeble hands of the Byzantine Cæsars.
Hassan, the governor of Egypt, was charged with the task to reconquer the north of Africa. That brave and skilful commander, after having subdued the provinces of the interior, carried his victorious arms to the sea-coast, and took, by a sudden assault, the fortifications of Carthage, the metropolis of Africa (697). However, the unexpected arrival of a powerful Greek fleet, with a numerous and well-appointed army[59]on board, compelled the Arabian general to evacuate his recent conquest, and to retire to Cairoan.But Abd-el-Malek hadresolved to annex North Africa to his dominions at any cost; he prepared therefore during the winter a powerful armament by sea and land, and in spring, 698, Hassan appeared once more before Carthage, and compelled the præfect and patrician John, who commanded the Greek forces, to evacuate the city; soon after, he defeated him again in the neighbourhoodof Utica, and a precipitate embarkation alone saved the remains of the Byzantine army from absolute annihilation. Carthage was reduced to a heap of ruins. But Hassan had soon to encounter a more formidable enemy: a prophetess arose among theMoors, orBerbers, of the interior, and boldly challenged the Arabian invaders to make good their claim to the land which they had fondly deemed subdued with the expulsion of the Greeks.Cahinawas the name of this extraordinary woman, who seemed to have discovered the secret of breathing into her people a spirit of enthusiasm superior even to the fanaticism of the Moslems. In a single day Africa was lost again to the Saracens, and the humbled Hassan retired to the confines of Egypt, where he expected, five years, the promised succour of the Khalif. But Queen Cahina’s order to destroy the cities, and to cut down the fruit-trees, filled the Christian population of the coast with apprehension and anger; and when Hassan at last made his reappearance in the province, he was hailed, even by the most zealous Catholics, as a deliverer and saviour. The royal prophetess boldly accepted battle; but she was slain, and her army was put to the rout (705). Still the spirit of resistance survived, and Hassan’s successor, the aged but fieryMusa Ben Nassir, had to quell a new insurrection of the Moorish tribes. He and his two sons,AbdallahandAbdelaziz, succeeded so well, however, that not only did the Berbers submit to the Khalif, but they even embraced the religion of Islam, and became henceforth as one people with their Arabian conquerors.
Abd-el-Malek was the first Khalif to establish a national mint, both for silver and gold coin (695); the gold coins were imitations of the Roman gold denar, with an inscription proclaiming the unity of the God of Mohammed; the Arabs called these gold coins,dinars; their value was about eight shillings sterling. It would appear they struck also double, and half, dinars. The silver coin might represent a value of fivepence or sixpence English money. Abd-el-Malek died in 705. He was succeeded by his sonWalid, a prince who, indeed, did not inherit the activity, vigor, and decision of his father; but was, on the otherhand, free also from the cruelty and the low avarice that stained the character of Abd-el-Malek. Walid loved and encouraged arts and sciences, and more especially architecture: he built the splendid mosque of the Ommiades at Damascus, at an expense of half a million sterling; he rebuilt also Mohammed’s mosque at Medina, on a larger and more magnificent scale. He had the good fortune to be served by clever ministers and great generals, whose energy, valor, and enterprise amply made up for the personal indolence and inactivity of the Khalif, and imparted a glory to his reign, rivalling that of Omar’s. One of his lieutenants,Catibah(the camel driver), added to the Saracen empire the spacious regions between the Oxus, the Jaxartes, and the Caspian sea, with the rich and populous commercial cities Carizme, Bochara, and Samarcand (707-710). From Samarcand, the victorious general sent his master a daughter ofPhirouz, orFiruz, the son of the unfortunate Yezdegerd, the last of the Sassanide rulers of Persia, who became Walid’s wife. Mohammed, one of Catibah’s colleagues, displayed the banner of Islam on the opposite banks of the Indus (712); and in the same year, Fargana, the residence of the Chagan of the Turks, was taken by Catibah, who advanced as far as Cashgar, where he received an embassy from the Emperor of China. Walid’s brother,Moslemah, one of the most redoubtable of the Mussulman warriors known to history, defeated the Chazars in the Caucasus, and annexed Galatia and other parts of Asia Minor to the empire of his brother (710). But the greatest and most glorious conquest was that of Spain. As early as the time of Othman, the Arabs had cast a longing eye upon the fair land ofHandalusia,[60]and their piratical squadrons had more than once ravaged the Spanish coast. The Gothic king,Wamba, had defeated one of their expeditionary corps in 675. Since that time nofurther attempt had been made on the kingdom of the Visigoths; but the latter, beholding with apprehension the establishment of the Arabian power in North Africa, had, in 697, aided the Byzantine emperor in the attempted relief of Carthage. The king of Spain possessed on the African coast the fortress ofCeuta(SeptaorSeptum), one of the columns of Hercules, which is divided by a narrow strait from the opposite pillar or point on the European coast. This fortress was held at the beginning of the eighth century by the Gothic CountJulian, brother-in-law ofOppas, archbishop of Toledo and Seville, whose brother,Witiza, was then king of Spain. In 709, Musa made an attempt to reduce Ceuta, and subdue the small portion of Mauritania which was still wanting to the conquest of North Africa; but he was repulsed by Count Julian with considerable loss, and would most probably have relinquished his project upon Spain, had not internal dissensions among the Gothic magnates unexpectedly opened to him a fair prospect of success. King Witiza had attempted to reform the truly appalling licentiousness of the Spanish clergy, and to curb the overgrown power of the nobility; but lacking both the crafty wile of the eleventh Louis of France, and the strong despotic will of the Tudors of England, his well-meant efforts simply led to his own deposition (710), which he survived only a few months. The clergy and nobility elected a king after their own heart, in the person ofRoderic, a grandson of KingReccaswinth(or Receswinth[61]). The two sons of Witiza, and their uncle Oppas, conspired to overthrow the new monarch, who, it would appear, had been indiscreet enough to express his intention of removing Count Julian from his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, the moment he should think himself sufficiently powerful to give due force to his royal decrees.[62]The threatened count was readily induced to join the party of the conspirators; but dreadinglest the force which they could bring into the field, should prove unavailing against the monarch’s power, he, who had hitherto been the staunchest defender of his country, did not hesitate to betray her to the Saracen foe, and to open wide the portals that had been entrusted to his honor and patriotism to guard. He and his fellow-conspirators endeavored to soothe the misgivings of conscience with Musa’s deceptive assurance, that he did not intend to establish himself in Spain, but would rest content with a share of the spoil.
As soon as Musa had obtained Walid’s sanction to the contemplated enterprise, he sent off an expedition of only four vessels, with five hundred men on board, to explore the coast of the coveted land.Tarif Abu Zara, the commander of this force, landed on the opposite side of the strait, and marched eighteen miles into the interior, to the castle and town of the traitor Count of Ceuta[63](July 710). His glowing report of the wealth of the country, decided Musa to send over a more powerful expedition under the command of his freedman,Tarik Ben Zayad. The miserable Julian supplied the means of transport. Five thousand Arabs and seven thousand Moors landed at the European pillar of Hercules, Mount Calpe, which became, henceforth, the Mountain of Tarik—Gebel al Tarik, a name corrupted afterwards into the present appellation of Gibraltar (April, 711). Here Tarik formed a strongly entrenched camp, and gathered around him the friends of Julian, and also many Jews who were fired with the most deadly hatred against their Christian persecutors, that had, for more than a century, oppressed and hunted down this doomed people with a malignity such as religious fanaticism alone can excite and sustain. CountsEdecoandTheodemir, who had been commanded by the king to expel the intruders, were defeated with great slaughter; and a seasonable reinforcement fromAfrica swelled Tarik’s ranks to above 30,000 men. Roderic, conscious at last of the magnitude of the danger that threatened to overwhelm his throne and his people, gathered the flower of the Gothic nation around him, and marched at the head of 100,000 men to encounter the foreign invaders. In the neighbourhood of Cadiz, at Xeres de la Frontera, on the Guadelete, the hostile armies met. Three days were spent in desultory, though bloody fighting; on the fourth day, the actual battle commenced. When night spread her sable wings, and bade the slaughter cease for a while, more than half of the Saracen forces lay stretched dead on the ground they had come to conquer; and had not the vile defection of the most reverend father in God, the Archbishop of Toledo, and his two nephews, to whom Roderic’s generous or foolish (it may be read both ways) confidence had entrusted the most important post, broken the ranks of the Christians, the severed head of Musa’s freedman might have graced the battlements of Toledo. As it was, it took three days to scatter the remains of the Gothic army; and many a Saracen, and many a Christian traitor to his country, had to bite the dust before Tarik could pen his laconic “Praise be to Allah!—we have conquered.” (July 19-26, 711). The hapless king of the Goths was either slain in the fight or drowned in the waters of the Guadalquivir. The field of Xeres decided the fate of the Gothic monarchy; nearly the whole of Spain submitted to Tarik with such extraordinary rapidity, that the good old Musa, envious of his freedman’s success and fame, bade him arrest his victorious course, until he himself should arrive to gather the last and fairest fruits of the victory. Tarik, however, added Cordova and Toledo, the capital of the Gothic kingdom, to the list of his conquests, and advanced as far as the Bay of Biscay, where the failure of land at last compelled him to stop. Here he received an angry and imperious summons from his jealous chief; who had, meanwhile, himself crossed over from Africa, at the head of ten thousand Arabs and eight thousand Moors, and had taken Seville, and was besieging Merida. The latter city, though valiantly defended, was at last compelled to surrender. Midway between Merida and Toledo, Tarik met his chief,who received him with cold and stately formality, and demanded a strict account of the treasures of the conquered kingdom. The unfortunate lieutenant speedily found that Musa would not readily forgive his presumption of subduing Spain in the absence of his general: he saw himself ignominiously deprived of his command, and thrown into prison; and Musa carried his resentment so far, that he ordered the conqueror of Spain to be publicly scourged. Walid’s imperative commands compelled Musa to restore Tarik to his position; and the valiant man, who had been so ungenerously and unworthily treated by the jealous old chief, assisted him with his accustomed zeal, in achieving the conquest of the still unsubdued parts of the peninsula. At the end of 712, all resistance had ceased on the part of the Christians, with the exception of the valiant princeTheodemir, who defended himself several months longer in Orihuela, and obtained, at last, most favorable terms from Musa’s son, Abdelaziz, (5th April, 713); and the invinciblePelagius, orPelayo, andPetrus, who, in the Asturian, Gallician, and Biscayan vallies, laid the foundation of a new Christian empire in Spain; destined, after a time, to renew the struggle and ultimately to expel the foreign invaders.
Musawas a very old man—but though the coloring of his beard, and other little expedients of art, might fail to obliterate the physical ravages wrought by eighty-eight years of life, and by the fatigues and privations of fifty campaigns[64]—yet the vigor of his mind, and the youthful ardor that fired his breast, remained unimpaired: and, like that marvellous old man of a later period, greatDandolo, the approach of ninety found him revolving enterprises of stupendous magnitude; aye, no less than the conquest of Gaul, Italy, Germany, and the Greek empire. He was preparing to pass the Pyrenees,[65]and bid the kingdom of the Franks cease to exist, when an imperious commandfrom Damascus, called both him and Tarik thither, to render an account of their proceedings to the commander of the faithful. Tarik obeyed; Musa delayed complying with the Khalif’s summons, until a second and still more peremptory message left the old chief no other alternative but obedience or open rebellion: and, as his own loyalty, or that of his troops, put the latter out of question, he set at once diligently about preparing for his return to Damascus. He confided the government of Spain to his son,Abdelaziz; that of Africa, to his son,Abdallah. Taking with him immense treasures in gold and silver, and, among others, the famous emerald table of Solomon, encircled with pearls and gems—a spoil of the Romans from the east, and which, it would appear, had fallen into the hands of Alaric, in the sack of Rome[66](410,A.D.); and attended by thirty Gothic princes, 400 nobles, and 18,000 male and female captives of humbler degree, he set out from Ceuta on his way to Damascus. At Tiberias, in Palestine, he received a private message fromSuleiman, orSoliman, the brother and presumptive heir of Walid, informing him that the Khalif was dying, and commanding him, as he valued Soliman’s friendship, to reserve his triumphal entry into Damascus for the inauguration of the new reign.
Musa, who might deem Soliman’s anger less dangerous than the resentment of the Khalif should he recover, disregarded the injunction, and pursued his march to Damascus, where he arrived just in time to afford the dying Walid the gratification of beholding the spoils of Africa and of Spain,[67]soon after which, the most powerful of the Khalifs bowed his head to the stroke of the mighty master of kings and emperors (October, 714). His successor,Soliman, was an able and energetic prince, but of a despotic and ruthless disposition. Musa was arraigned at the judgment seat of the new Khalif, for abuse of power and disobedience to orders. The unworthy treatment which the victor of Xeres had suffered at the hands of his jealous chief, was avenged by a similar indignity inflicted upon the latter: the veteran commander was publicly scourged, and then kept waiting a whole day before the palace gate, till the “mercy” of Soliman accorded him a sentence of exile to Mecca. He was, moreover, adjudged to pay to the public treasury, a fine of 200,000 pieces of gold. Afraid lest the sons of the despoiled and insulted old man, should attempt to avenge the injuries of their father, the worthy son of Abd-el-Malek secretly dispatched to Africa and Spain, decrees commanding the extermination of Musa’s family; and, by a refinement of cruelty worthy of a Caligula, Caracalla, or Justinian II., he had the head of Abdelaziz presented to the bereaved father, with an insulting question, whether he knew the features of the rebel? “I know his features,” exclaimed the hapless old man, in a paroxysm of grief and indignation; “he was loyal and true. May the same fate overtake the base authors of his death!” — — — Musa’s death, a few weeks after, of the anguish of a broken heart, spared Soliman an additional crime. The victor of Xeres fared but little better than his ancient commander; though, indeed, he was not made to expiate by death, imprisonment, or exile, the great services which he had rendered his country.Catibah, who had every reason to dread a similar fate as Musa’s and Tarik’s, rose in arms against the jealous tyrant of Damascus, and had the good fortune to meet with a glorious death on the battle field.
Soliman resolved to render his reign famous by the overthrow of the Greek empire, and the conquest of Constantinople. His preparations, both by land and sea, were made on a gigantic scale. His brother, the redoubtableMoslemah, invaded Asia Minor at the head of 70,000 foot and 50,000 horse, with an immense train of camels, (716). The city of Tyana fell into the hands of the Moslems, and Amorium was closely besieged by them. The troops in Amorium were commanded at the time by GeneralLeo, a native of Isauria. The original name of this remarkable man, wasKonon; his father had come over from Asia Minor to Thrace, and had settled as a grazier there. He must have acquired considerable wealth in that lucrative business, since he could afford a gift of 500 sheep to the Imperial camp, to procure for his son admission into the guards of Justinian. The personal strength of the young soldier, and his dexterity in all martial exercises attracted the notice of the emperor, who speedily advanced him to the higher grades of military rank. Anastasius II. confided to him the command of the Anatolian legions, and it was in this capacity that he defended Amorium against the Saracens. One of those sudden revolutions so frequent in the Byzantine court, compelled Anastasius to hand over the sceptre to an obscure officer of the revenue, who assumed the name of Theodosius III. General Leo refused to acknowledge the new emperor, and managed so skilfully, that not only did the troops under his command investhimwith the imperial purple, but the Arabs, it would appear, accorded him and his army free and undisturbed departure from Amorium. He marched upon Constantinople, and Theodosius seeing himself in danger of being abandoned by the very troops who had so recently exalted him, willingly resigned to the hands of the general and emperor of the Oriental troops, the sceptre which, moreover, he had accepted with extreme reluctance only. He was permitted to retire with his son to the shelter of a monastery, where he had ample time to paint golden letters, an occupation which marvellously suited the natural indolence of his disposition.
Leo, third of the name, who figures in history usually as theIsaurian, or theIconoclast, was fully aware of the intentionof the Arabs to attempt the reduction of Constantinople; he, therefore, made every preparation which military experience could suggest, or engineering skill devise, to give them a fitting reception. In July, 717, after the reduction of Pergamus, Moslemah transported his army from Asia to Europe, across the Hellespont or Dardanelles, at the most narrow part of the passage (from Abydos to Sestos); and thence, wheeling his troops round Gallipoli, Heraclea, and the other Thracian cities of the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara, he invested Constantinople on the land side. An offer made by the Greeks, to purchase the withdrawal of the besieging forces by the payment of a piece of gold for each inhabitant of the city, was contemptuously rejected; and Moslemah pushed on the operations of the siege with the greatest vigor, but without any corresponding success, the Isaurian repelling every attack with a bravery and determination, such as the Saracens had but little expected to see displayed by the apparently effete Greeks. Moslemah’s hopes were swelled high, however, by the arrival of the navies of Syria and Egypt, to the number of 1800 vessels,[68]with 50,000 men on board. The Saracen commander fixed a night for a general assault by land and sea, and proudly boasted that by the morning the city should be his. When that morning came, the Greek fire had done its work; and scarce a vestige remained of the proud fleet, or of those who had manned it; and ten thousand Arabs and Persians slain, bore witness how fiercely Moslemah had assaulted the defences of Byzantium, and how bravely and vigorously the Isaurian and his gallant troops had repulsed the hostile multitudes. From this check, Moslemah essayed in vain to recover: he became soon painfully conscious that the conviction of invincibility, which had hitherto so materially contributed to the great successes of the Saracen arms, was, if not altogether destroyed, at least considerably shaken. His assaults were now repulsed with apparent ease almost, and all his attempts at surprises were defeated by the ever watchful Isaurian. One hope still remained to restore the ancient supremacy of the Moslem arms: Khalif Soliman had gathered a formidablehost of Arabians, Persians, and Turks, and was preparing to lead them to his brother’s assistance. The eyes of both the besiegers and the besieged were anxiously turned towards the Khalif’s camp near Chalcis (or Kinnisrin) in Syria; and Leo was endeavoring, by gifts and promises, to attract an army of Bulgarians from the Danube to pit them against the Saracens; and thus, perchance, to free the Byzantine empire from all danger, by the mutual destruction of its Barbarian foes. But it so happened that the Commander of the Faithful could not command his appetite; a meal of two scores or so of eggs, and a matter of six or seven pounds of figs, followed up by a dessert of marrow and sugar, proved too much for even his well-seasoned stomach; he paid with his life the penalty of his gluttony (717). He had appointed his cousin,Omar Ben Abdelaziz, to succeed him in the khalifate. Omar, second of the name, was a most estimable man, but a very indifferent prince; much fitter, indeed, to be the head of a monastery of ascetics, than of a powerful empire. The first act of his reign was to order the cessation of the Syrian armaments, which might have been a wise measure, had it been accompaniedby the recall ofMoslemah and his forces from the siege of Constantinople. His neglect of the latter measure entailed upon the unfortunate natives of the sultry climes of Egypt and Arabia, the unspeakable hardships of a most severe winter, passed in a frozen camp. In spring (718), he made an effort to relieve their wants, and to fill up the gaps which cold, famine, and disease had made in the ranks of the besieging army. Two numerous fleets were sent on this errand, one from Alexandria, the other from the ports of Africa. They succeeded, indeed, in landing the stores and reinforcements, but they found it as vain to contend against the Greek fire, as the armada which, the year before, had so proudly threatened to erase the Roman name from among the nations. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians had been bribed into an alliance with the Greek emperor, and these savage auxiliaries proved formidable antagonists to the exhausted and half-starved Asiatics. Still the intrepid Moslemah was not dismayed, and although he was compelled to relinquish all further attempts upon the defences of the city, he defeated, on his part, all attacksmade on his camp: until, at length, Khalif Omar sent him the welcome order to raise the siege, (August, 718). The retreat of the Arabian forces was effected without delay or molestation; but of the fleet, tempests destroyed what the fire of Callinicus had spared, and of 700 vessels that had proudly sailed forth, five only returned to the port of Alexandria, to tell the sad tale of the disastrous loss of their companions. Byzantium was saved, and the victorious Isaurian found himself at liberty to prepare for his meditated warfare against canvas, wood, brass, and marble.
The good and pious Omar distinguished his reign chiefly by the abolition or “repeal” of the curse against Ali and his adherents which had for nearly sixty years been daily pronounced from the pulpits (719). By this act of simple justice, and by his somewhat hasty and incautious attempts to reform the fearful abuses which had crept into the administration of the empire under his predecessors, he excited the determined hostility of his own family, and of the Vizirs and high officers of state. A dose of poison removed him (720). His successor,Yezid II., had none of his virtues, but most of the vices of his other predecessors of the line of Ommiyah. It was in the reign of this prince, and in that of his successor, that the family Hashem, in two of its branches, viz. theAlides, orFatimites, i.e. the descendants of Ali and Fatima, and theAbassides, that is the descendants of Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, began to urge their claims to the throne of the Khalifa. Indeed, Mohammed, the great grandson of Abbas, was secretly acknowledged as the true commander of the Faithful, by a considerable body of the inhabitants of Chorasan, and his sonIbrahimwas even enabled to hoist the black flag of the Abassides[69]in that province; the gloomy banner was triumphantly borne onward byAbu Moslem, the intrepid and invincible champion of theAbassides, theKing-makerof the East, but, who was fated at last, like the English King-maker, to experience the usual gratitude of princes. From the Indus to the Euphrates, the East was convulsed by the fearful struggle between the white and the black factions, and the fairest provinces of Asia were deluged with blood to void the ancient quarrel between Ommiyah and Hashem, and to decide which of two equally vile races of despots had thebetter rightto trample on God’s fair creation. The struggle terminated for a time in 750, with the overthrow and almost total extirpation of the Ommiades—but of this hereafter.
Yeziddied in 722 or 723, of grief for the death of a favorite concubine. He was succeeded by his brotherHesham, a prince not altogether destitute of good qualities. Hesham had to contend against the FatimiteZeid, the grandson of Hassan, who was, however, speedily overcome, and had to pay with his life the penalty of his ambition. The struggle against the more successful Abassides has been mentioned in the preceding paragraph.