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Roderick being violently in love with the young Cava, daughter to count Julian, was rash enough to violate her. The fiery Julian punished his country for the faults of its mafter; he introduced the African Muffulmen into that part of Spain which he governed. Mufa, who commanded for the caliph in Africa, fent troops to the count; in less than three years the Muffulmen defeated Roderick's army, flew him, and made themselves mafters of all his kingdom. The barbarians having afterward revolted against their chief, formed as many states in Spain as there were governors; but they were unable to drive out the Christians, entirely, who, having thereon retired into the mountains of Afturias, disputed their ancient country with the Muffulmen for more than seven hundred years, with unequal fortune and rather flow fuccefs, and they did not entirely destroy the Mahometan empire in Spain 'till the end of the fifteenth century, under the reign of Ferdinand V. and Isabella, furnamed the Catholic.

After Walid I. eight caliphs of the Ommiasian race poffeffed the throne for about thirty years: they were called, Solyman I. Omar II. Iefid II. Hefam, Walid II. Iefid III. Ibrahim, and Mervan II. We fhall pafs over the feven first, as we have found nothing in their reigns which concerns the Muffulman religion.

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Mervan II. An empire founded folely on force must fooner or later yield to a fuperior force. The Syrians, the Egyptians, and particularly the Arabians, grew weary at length of being governed by ufurwhose throne was cemented with oceans of pers, blood only. The first year of the reign of Mervan, a prince exceffively cruel, the people revolted at Emeffa, Alexandria, and Cufa. At first the caliph was every where vanquisher, and every where inexorable: the affrighted Muffulmen deliberated with one another, why they obeyed thefe fanguinary masters, whilft the race of their prophet was groaning, like themselves, under oppreffion. But the eyes of these malecontents never turned towards the defcendants of Ali: they were funk into obfcurity.

The Abbafians, defcendants of Abbas, a cousin of Mahomet, grandson, like Ali, of his paternal grandfather, were become powerful by immense riches, for which they were indebted to commerce, and the little attention that, 'till then, the Ommiafians had paid to them. Those of the house of Abbas were not like the Aliians, fons of the daughter of the founder of the Muffulmen; but the people, dazzled with their riches, respected in them the blood of their prophet, much more than in the defcendants of Ali. The chief of this fortunate race, named Mahomet like him from whom he derived all his glory, was already far advanced in age: he had three fons left out

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of a numerous family; he fhewed them to the Muffulmen as the pillars of their faith, the restorers of their empire, and the lawful mafters that God had given them. A multitude of malecontents repaired to Moloima, the refidence of Mahomet, and took the oaths to that emir, who died a few days after, leaving Ibrahim, his eldest fon, at the head of this great enterprise. The revolt being well prepared, broke out at the fame time in the Korazan, Arábia, Egypt, Syria, and Mefopotamia. The Abbafian party was almost every where victorious; but their chief fell in the midst of his fuccefs. As Ibrahim was defirous of travelling through his new dominions, he undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca with more pomp than safety. His escort, fufficiently numerous for a prince who fhews himself to peaceable subjects, was infufficient for a conqueror who had not reduced all the enemies of his new power. He was attacked near Arran, a town that ftill held for Mervan II. and, after a vigorous refiftance, Ibrahim fell into the hands of his enemies, who loaded him with chains. He died the next day poifoned; but the Abbafian party did not perish with its chief.

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Abul Abbas, Mahomet's second son, was pro- AbulAbas, claimed at Cufa, and prepared to avenge the Abbasan. death of his brother. An army which Mervan II. had remaining in Irac was cut to pieces by Moflem the governor of that province. Mervan himself, at the head of another corps, his last reh 2 fource,

fource, was vanquished by this fame Moflem, He fled into Syria, and prefented himself unescorted before the gates of Damafcus, which he could not get opened to him; his late subjects granted him no other favor than not to deliver him to the conqueror. The unfortunate caliph retired into Egypt, where death attended him. The inhabitants of Bufirlair, having received him with a perfidious refpect, put him to death in their mofque, and carried his head to Abul Abbas. Thus ended, in the 132d year of the hegira, the 750th of Jefus Chrift, the dynasty of these fanguinary Ommiafians, who had ufurped the fovereign power from the house of Mahomet, and had, almost all, made ufe of his name and fceptre to opprefs his defcendants.

The Abbasian caliphs did not shed lefs blood than their predeceffors. The power of these princes could be established only by force. Mervan's head, exposed in the capital, feemed to promife his conqueror a peaceable reign, when the Aliians, drawn from their obscurity by fome malecontents, and even by the remaining partifans of the Ommiafians who had loft their parents and poffeffions, attempted to revive the pretenfions of the house of Ali. General Moslem reaffembled the army; for the Abbasians, like the Ommiafians, fought by their lieutenants: he gained a bloody battle at Calcidena in Syria, and obtained several other advantages. Three of

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Ali's defcendants loft their heads for this new attempt. Moflem, after having vanquished the fubjects of the caliph, fought with the fame fuccefs the Greeks, who attempted to make irruptions into Armenia. The califate of Abul Abbas is remarkable, only by the numerous victories won by Moflem. This prince reigned four years; history says but little of him perfonally.

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Almanfor, the brother and fucceffor of Abul Almanfor. Abbas, began his reign with caufing to be ftrangled, on a very flight fufpicion, this fame Moslem who had had fuch conftant fuccefs, and who, if the Arabian historians may be believed, had put fix hundred thousand men to the fword in the Abbafian cause. The inhabitants of Hafemia, a town where the caliph refided, irritated against this ungrateful prince, excited a revolt and attempted to take his life. Almanfor punished the rebels, and had several Aliians put to death with them, whom he believed or feigned to believe the authors of the fedition.

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This event induced Almanfor to change the feat of the empire: he laid the foundation of a city in the Babylonian Irac, on the confines of Perfia, at a day's journey from the ancient Babylon. This new city was named Bagdad, from the name of a hermitage found on the spot. The undertaking was executed with dispatch, notwithftanding the troubles which agitated the empire during the whole reign of Almanfor; for one

Mahomet,

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