wife to the island of Sicily, where the Aglabites had made fome conquests, 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, these extremities could not induce Moctader to quit the delights of his feraglio; he fent Munes, one of his ableft generals, against Mahadi; and, whilft all thefe Turkish and Arabian warriors were fighting for the glory of the Abbafians, Moctader was pleafing 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. Moctader 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 themfelves like him neglected and forgotten at the court of Bagdad. He invested the palace with them, made himself master of the person of the caliph, his mother, wives, and concubines, and fhewed the people,

as fovereign, Mahomet, furnamed Kaher, brother 932

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 master and of himself. They fay he affected fome figns of grief and respect 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 himfelf 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 discovered 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

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

This fpectacle 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 confpirators 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 prifon; they put out his eyes, and obliged him, by bad treatment, to declare his abdication. Kaher reigned less than a year; and though, in that short space, he had fpilt 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 afked 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 Abbasians, 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 those of his predeceffors, but even refused him the annual fums, to which the laft 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 refused 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-oinra to read public prayers in the great mofque, and in the pulpit of Mahomet, a function 'till then indispensably reserved to the caliph, which neither Mahomet nor any of his fucceffors had ever executed by deputy. Ebn Raick, the first emir-al-omra, difgraced at the fame time both his new authority and the califate, by purchasing a peace of the general of the Karmates, prince of Air, the moft feared, though the leaft 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 firft 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.