wife to the island of Sicily, where the Aglabites had made fome conquefts, and he appeared every where more like a prince who fucceeds to lawful rights, than a conqueror who makes himself, formidable, Such a rival as Mahadi ought to have perplexed the Arabian caliph, more than any of those who had ufurped the fovereignty in their governments. The caliph Mahadi had already made himself mafter of feveral important places in Egypt. Nevertheless, thefe extremities could not induce Moctader to quit the delights of his feraglio; he fent Munes, one of his ablest generals, against Mahadi; and, whilst all thefe Turkish and Arabian warriors were fighting for the glory of the Abbasians, Moctader was pleasing himself with having fent against his enemies lions by whom he was every day in fear of being torn to pieces. After a long and bloody war, Mahadi was overcome; the Arabian general vanquished the Africans in a pitched battle, and the latter no longer thought but how to defend their own country from the incurfions of the vanquisher. Mahadi Obdeillah took refuge in his capital; but Moez, his fourth fucceffor, took Egypt in the year 696 of Jefus Chrift, 358 of the hegira, and established the feat of his empire there.

This Munes, fo formidable to the Fatimite caliph, was ftill much more fo to the Arabian one, whom he had defended. Moftader would

not

not allow him in his court the credit which his important fervices feemed to merit. This warrior, irritated at feeing the country which he had defended governed by women and eunuchs, thought the caliph unworthy of the fceptre; he communicated his fentiments to all the warriors, who, after having participated his dangers and glory in Egypt, confidered themselves like him neglected and forgotten at the court of Bagdad. He invefted the palace with them, made himself mafter of the person of the caliph, his mother, wives, and concubines, and fhewed the people, as fovereign, Mahomet, furnamed Kaher, brother to the depofed caliph. This revolution was not made without much bloodshed. Munes was even obliged to facrifice the late caliph to the fafety of his new mafter and of himself. They fay he affected fome figns of grief and refpect at the fight of this head which had borne the crown; but it was expofed, notwithstanding, to the eyes of the multitude in all the ftreets of Bagdad. Kaher did not fhew himself more worthy of the throne than the prince that he had replaced.

This fame Munes, who had made him caliph, afhamed of his work, thought of nothing but how to destroy it. A confpiracy was difcovered in the very moment that it was about to break out; Munes, and his accomplices, already armed and in a state of defence, furrendered on the faith of a treaty only, which was to preferve them their liberty

k

Rhadi.

liberty and property; the caliph granted it with facility, and broke it with ftill more facility: the head of Munes, who was treacherously put to death, and those of fome chiefs, were exposed the second day after in different public places at Bagdad.

This spectacle produced the contrary effect to what the caliph had expected from it. His perfidy and cruelty irritated more and more the foldiers and people: the blood of the first conspirators raised up a greater number. The Turks befieged the palace, and roused their caliph from the flumber into which he had been plunged by debauchery, to drag him to prison; they put out his eyes, and obliged him, by bad treatment, to declare his abdication. Kaher reigned lefs than a year; and though, in that short space, he had Ipilt much blood, he was not put to death. After feveral years captivity, Mothaki, one of his fucceffors, fet him at liberty; but, it is faid, he was reduced to fuch mifery, that he asked alms the rest of his life at the door of a mofque. Such a beggar ought to be more an object of horror than of pity.

Rhadi Billah, fon to Moktader, the eldest of the Abbafians, was taken from the prifon in which he had been confined by his uncle Kaher. This prince afcended the throne in the 322d year of the hegira, the 934th of Jesus Christ. He completed the lofs of the authority of the caliphs already fo tottering. The provincial governors, become

become hereditary, not only difregarded the orders of Radi, as they had already done thofe of his predeceffors, but even refufed him the annual fums, to which the last caliphs had been confined by degrees, and who had made tributary fovereigns of those that originally were only officers removeable at pleasure.

Fourteen fovereigns, among which the Fatimite caliph was the most powerful, had reduced the Arabian califate to the territory that furrounded its capital. The power of Mahomet's fucceffor was confined to things fpiritual, to fome decifions on points of doctrine, and to vain honors, which the Fatimite caliph, who pretended with more reason to the fucceffion of Mahomet, always refufed him.

Rhadi was even incapable of exercising the authority which he had left him in Bagdad. Small as was this fceptre, it became too weighty for his hands. A vizier, charged with giving an account to the caliph of every important affair, and to enforce the execution of his orders, was infufficient for the effeminacy or rather incapacity of Rhadi. The only act of abfolute fovereignty that he ventured on during his reign, was to ftrip himself of it. He appointed an officer between_himself and the vizier, who, charged with all the weight of government, became the real monarch. This new mafter was called Emir-alOmra, that is, in Arabic, emir of emirs, or prince

of princes. The caliph, in order to rid himself entirely of every kind of trouble, permitted the emir-al-omra to read public prayers in the great mofque, and in the pulpit of Mahomet, a function 'till then indifpenfably reserved to the caliph, which neither Mahomet nor any of his fucceffors had ever executed by deputy. Ebn Raick, the firft emir-al-omra, difgraced at the fame time both his new authority and the califate, by purchafing a peace of the general of the Karmates, prince of Air, the most feared, though the least of the Mahometan fovereigns: the commander of the Faithful fubmitted to pay tribute to this prince, who, properly speaking, was nothing more than a chief of freebooters. After this' period, the dignity of caliph loft all its power. But as the empire of Mahomet feemed to be founded principally on the Alcoran, the ufurpers of the different provinces, which at first had formed all together but one ftate, ftill continued a long time, for form fake, to receive the inveftiture from this pretended chief, who ftiled himself the fucceffor of the prophet.

Mahomet had likewife in Egypt another fucceffor, defcended from his daughter Fatima, who alfo conferred inveftitures on the princes his neighbours, and who, in the fequel, was reduced to the functions of the priesthood, like the caliph of Bagdad. But the latter groaned under the yoke of ufurpation much fooner than his com

petitor.