LI. been tried in the persecution and wars of the CHAP. 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, the 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 maintainance 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 LI. CHAP. consisted of barley-bread or dates; his drink was water; he preached in a gown that was torn or tattered in twelve places; and a Persian satrap who paid his homage to the conqueror, found him asleep among the beggars on the steps of the mosch of Medina. Economy 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 drams 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 expences 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 LI. of Ali, the consummate prudence of Moawiyah," CHAP. 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. 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 repub- Their con lic, it had been the aim of the senate to confine quest. their consuls and legions to a single war, and completely to suppress a first enemy before they provoked the hostilities of a second. These His reign in Eutychius, p. 343; Elmacin, p. 51; Abulpharagius, p. 117; Abulfeda, p. 83; d'Herbelot, p. 89. His reign in Eutychius p. 344; Elmacin. p. 54; Abulpharagius, p. 123; Abulfeda, p. 101; d'Herbelot, p. 586. i Their reigns in Eutychius, tom. ii, p. 360-395; Elmacin, p. 59-108; Abulpharagius, Dynast. ix, p. 124-139; Abulfeda, p. 111-141; d'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 691, and the particular articles of the Ommiades. LI. CHAP. timid maxims of policy were disdained by the magnanimity or enthusiam of the Arabian caliphs. With the same vigour 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 exer cise 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. After a k * For the viith and viiith century, we have scarcely any original evidence of the Byzantine historians, except the Chronicles of Theophanes, (Theophanis Confessoris Chronographiâ, Gr. et Lat. cum notis Jacobi Goar Paris, 1655, in folio); and the Abridgment of Nicephorus, (Nicephori LI. century of ignorance, the first Annals of the CHAP. Mussulmans were collected in a great measure from the voice of tradition. Among the numerous productions of Arabic and Persian literature, our interpreters have selected the imperfect sketches of a more recent age." The art (Nicephori Patriarchæ C. P. Breviarum Historicum, Gr. et Lat. Paris, 1648, in folio), who both lived in the beginning of the ixth century, (see Hanckius de Scriptor. Byzant. p. 200-246). Their contemporary Photius does not seem to be more opulent. After praising the style of Nicephorus, he adds, Και όλως πολλές εςι τον προ αυτό αποκρυπτόμενος τηδε της ίςορια, τη συγγραφή, and only complains of his extreme brevity, (Phot. Bibliot. cod. lxvi, p. 100). Some additions may be gleaned from the more recent histories of Cedrenus and Zonaras of the xiith century. 'Tabari, or Al Tabari, a native of Taborestan, a famous imam of Bagdad, and the Livy of the Arabians, finished his general history in the year of the Hegira 302, (A. D. 914). At the request of his friends, he reduced a work of 30,000 sheets to a more reasonable size. But his Arabic original is known only by the Persian and Turkish versions. The Saracenic history of Ebn Amid, or Elmacin, is said to be an abridgment of the great Tabari, (Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii, preface, p. xxxix, and, list of authors, d'Herbelot, p. 866, 870, 1014). TM Besides the list of authors framed by Prideaux, (Life of Mahomet, p. 179-189), Ockley, (at the end of his second volume), and Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 525-550), we find in the Bibliotheque Orientale Tarikh, a catalogue of two or three hundred histories or chronicles of the East, of which not more than three or four are older than Tabari. A lively sketch of oriental literature is given by Reiske, (in his Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalifæ librum memorialem ad calcem Abulfed Tabulæ Syriæ, Lipsiæ, 1766); but his project and the French version of Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Timur Bec, tom. i, preface, p. xiv) have fallen to the ground. "The particular historians and geographers will be occasionally introduced. The four following titles represent the annals, which have guided me in this general narrative.-1. Annales Eutychii, Patriarcha Alexandrini, ab Edwardo Pocockio, Oxon. 1656, 2 vols. in 4to; a pompous edition of an indifferent author, translated by Pocock to gratify the presbyterian prejudice of his friend Selden. 2. Historia Saracenica Georgii Elmacina, operâ et studio Thomæ Erpenii, in 4to, Lugd. Butarorum, 1625. He is said to have hastily translated a corrupt MS. and nis version is often deficient in style and sense 3. Historia compendiosa Dynastiarum a Gregorio Abulpharagio, interprete Edward Pocockio, in 4to, Oxon. 1663; more useful for the literary than the civil history of |