wife encouraged phyfic. The climate of Arabia furnishes perfumes in abundance, as likewife fimples and plants proper to cure difeafes with. Aaron Rachid, defirous of every kind of knowledge useful to man, favorably received all those who had studied the means of rendering health and prolonging life: fo much fo, that he restored the Chriftians all the churches which his predeceffors had taken from them in Egypt, because Balathianus, a confummate phyfician and patriarch of Alexandria, had cured one of his wives of a dangerous disease. The caliph's love of letters no way abated his warlike ardour. The Aliians made under his reign new attempts to recover Arabia. Iaia, the chief of that houfe, was difarmed; and, if we may believe the Perfian hiftorians, was beheaded, though he had been promised his liberty and life. This account is improbable: Aaron Rachid was too generous, and even too enlightened, to blacken himself with an useless perfidy, for these fame historians admit that he let eighteen of Iaia fons live. Nicephor, the fucceffor of the empress Irene, having refused the caliph the tribute which he had imposed on that princefs, Aaron Rachid penetrated into the Greek territories as far as Heraclius, which he befieged; and he obliged the Greek emperor to purchase a peace with a new impoft, Nicephor had fent' by his ambaffadors feveral fwords as a prefent to the caliph. Rachid cut every one of them in two, in presence of the ambassadors, with that which he wore: "Tell your mafter what you have feen," faid he, " and affure him, that his arms will never refift "mine." Aaron Rachid gave the government of west Africa to Ibrahim, the son of Aglab. This is the origin of the Aglabites, who became fovereigns of Africa under the following caliphs; for, during the reign of Rachid, he knew how to keep all the governors of the provinces in fubjection. No Muffulman prince was ever more abfolute on the leaft fufpicion, or the flightest difcontent, he fuperfeded generals at the head of numerous armies, in the provinces most distant from Bagdad, and was punctually obeyed. During the war with the Greeks, a woman being come to complain to him, that fome foldiers had laid wafte her eftate, and pillaged and burnt her house: "Doft thou not know," faid Rachid to her, "that it is written in the Alcoran, "when princes go armed into a place, they "deftroy it?" "Yes, my lord," replied the afflicted woman; "but I have read there like"wife, that the houfes of the princes fhall be "defolated on account of the acts of injustice which they commit." The caliph, ftruck with this answer, ordered her to be given more than he had loft. Aaron Rachid died, after a reign of twenty-three years, feared and beloved by all his fubjects. Amina, his fon and fucceffor, inherited neither his talents, virtues, nor profperity. The empire of Mahomet was foon to be divided. The divifion of the fects preceded that of the provinces; the fpirit of dispute and controverfy crept in at the fame time as the love of letters among these rude Muffulmen, who, for fo long a time, had known only their arms and the book of their law. Under Amina, Almamon, %3 and their fucceffors, it was disputed if the Alcoran had been created, or were from all eternity with God. This difcuffion exercised at first the fubtilty of the new philofophers, and ended with exciting perfecutions. The caliphs, with the major part, admitted the creation of the Alcoran; they pursued thofe of the oppofite fect, and arguments that perplexed reafon were replied to with fire and fword. A Sunnite doctor, who was brought before the caliph Almamon, faid to him one day, that Mahomet had feveral times confirmed by oath, that he had not compofed the Alcoran, but that the chapters had defcended from Heaven one by one at different times, as he had announced them to the people: fince then, continued the doctor, these writings come from the hand of the Divinity, for whom there is no fucceffion of time, they must be eternal like him, at least you cannot tell tell when they were created, or if they have been created, fince God is invariable, and has thought from all eternity what he has written in this holy book. The caliph durft not deny the authority of Mahomet; but, as he knew how to use his fword better than his tongue, he ended the dif pute by feparating at a fingle ftroke his adverfary's head from his body. The perfecution, as it always happens, augmented the number of the fectaries. The opinion of the Alcoran uncreated . has fince been admitted by all the Sunnites; the Perfians, who form the fect of the Shiites, alone retain the contrary opinion, Almamon carried his zeal fo far for the belief of the Alcoran created, that the caliph would not have the Musfulmen who admitted the eternity of the Alcoran included in an exchange of prisoners made with 'the Greeks. This prince died, after a reign of four years. Motamafem, the eighth Abbafian caliph, was the first who intrufted the guard of his perfon to foreigners, miftrufting his own fubjects. He kept in his pay a numerous corps of Turks, or Turcomans, a ferocious, warlike people who came from Scythia; he attached them to the fervice of his fucceffors, who, in the sequel, experienced from this horde of barbarians more than Motamafem could ever have feared from his Arabians. In fact, the caliphs foon loft themfelves in effeminacy, and the Turks, attentive, feized on the reins of government as much by Under Moctader, the feventeenth Abbafian, J.c. 908. the fate of the houfe of Ali changed. Mahadi Heg. 286. Obdeillah, the chief of that illuftrious and unfortunate race, having gathered together a confiderable party, chafed away from Africa the ufurpers called Aglabites, and placed himself on the throne of Kirvan; he established the seat of his empire at Rakkadda; he took the furname of Mahadi, and became the founder of the dynasty of the Fatimites, from the name of Fatima, the wife of Ali, and only daughter of the prophet. Mahadi was called, as well as the Arabian caliph, the commander of the Faithful; he established the law of the Shiites, as well as his new power, with great fagacity and fuccefs, visiting all his provinces, at the head of an army, which found no opportunity to fignalize itfelf; he went like wife |