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Title: Moslem and Frank; - or, Charles Martel and the rescue of Europe
Author: Strauss, Gustave Louis
Language: English
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
placed at the end of each chapter.
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on this device, to indicate the year of that person’s death.
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[Illustration: CHARLES MARTEL--BATTLE OF TOURS.
_From a Picture by Steuben in the Imperial Gallery at Versailles,
James Carter, Sc._]
MOSLEM
AND
FRANK;
FROM THE THREATENED YOKE
OF THE SARACENS.
BEING
VOLUME I. OF THE HISTORIC SKETCHES.
DESIGNED FOR THE INSTRUCTION AND AMUSEMENT OF
OLD AND YOUNG.
BY G. L. STRAUSS, PH.D.
In magnis voluisse sat est.
LONDON:
JOHN WEALE, 59, HIGH HOLBORN.
1854.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
PREFACE.
“Story! bless you--I have none to tell.”--_Canning’s Knifegrinder._
It is an old and trite saying: “Good wine needs no bush,” and even
the finest and most flourishing bush will fail to put either body or
flavor into the growth of a bad vintage. It is left to the reader of
this little volume to decide whether or not the author has succeeded
in producing an acceptable and readable book.
_July 1, 1854._
CONTENTS.
PART I.
THE MOSLEMIN.
Page
CHAPTER I.--Arabia and its inhabitants.--Life and doctrine
of Mohammed 1
” II.--The Khalifs from Abu Bekr to Hesham 53
PART II.
THE FRANKS.
CHAPTER I.--The Frank Confederacy.--Clovis, the Founder of
the Frank Monarchy 89
” II.--Decline of the Merovingian Princes.--The Mayors
of the Palace.--Pepin of Landen.--Pepin of
Heristal.--Charles Martel.--The Battle of
Tours 108
PART I.
THE MOSLEMIN.
CHAPTER I.
ARABIA AND ITS INHABITANTS.--LIFE AND DOCTRINE OF MOHAMMED.
The Arabian peninsula, called by the natives JESIRA-AL-ARAB, by the
Persians and Turks ARABISTAN, forms the south-westernmost part of
Asia. It is bounded on the north by Syria and the river Euphrates, on
the east by the Persian Gulf, on the south by the Indian Ocean, on
the west by the Red Sea, or Arabian Gulf. Including the north-eastern
desert, it occupies an area ten times the extent of that of Great
Britain and Ireland. The connecting link between Asia and Africa,
to which latter continent it is joined by the Isthmus of Suez, it
presents in its natural features, a faithful copy of its colossal
tropical neighbour, modified, however, by the imprint of a strongly
marked individual character, the result of its peculiar isolated
position. The attempted derivation of the name of the country from
EBER[1], the common progenitor of the Joctanites and Ismaelites--the
two races which are assumed to constitute the great bulk of the
native population of Arabia--is, at the best, but very problematical;
that from the word ARABA, the name of a district of the province
of Tehama, and which signifies a _level desert_, would seem to
rest on a safer and more rational foundation, the far greater part
of the country being indeed a dreary waste, a boundless level of
sand, destitute of rivers, intersected by naked mountains, and
barely relieved here and there by a shady grove or a green sward of
aromatic herbs. The date-palm is often the solitary representative
of vegetable life in these sterile tracts, which are scorched by
a tropical sun, and hardly ever refreshed by a grateful shower.
There are, however, some more favored districts, where the fertile
soil produces dates and other palms, tamarinds, vines, rice, sugar,
figs, tobacco, indigo, cotton, durra,[2] coffee, gum, benzoin,
frankincense, manna, balsam, aloe, myrrh, spices, &c. The high lands
in the south-west, that border on the Indian Ocean, are distinguished
in this respect, above all other parts of Arabia, by a more temperate
air, superior fertility, and comparative abundance of wood and
water. No wonder, then, that the appellation _happy_, bestowed upon
this blessed region by PTOLEMY, should have been generally adopted,
although originating in a mistranslation of the word YEMEN, the
Arabian name of this part of the peninsula, and which does not
signify happy, but is simply meant to designate the land lying, with
respect to the East, to the right of MECCA, just as AL-SHAM (Syria)
means the land to the left of that city. PTOLEMY’S division of the
country into the _sandy_, the _petraie_, and the _happy_ (_Arabia
Deserta_, _Petræa_, and _Felix_), is, however, unknown to the
Arabians themselves, who speak only of high land and low land. The
epithet _stony_, so generally applied by geographers to the petraic
division, is founded in error: PTOLEMY derived the word from PETRA,
the name of the then flourishing capital of the Nabathæans, and not
from the Greek word _petra_, a rock or stone. Ptolemy’s Arabia Petræa
forms now part of the province of HEJAZ, along the coast of the Red
Sea. YEMEN, as we have seen, occupies the south-western coast. On
the south-eastern coast lies the maritime district of OMAN; on the
Persian Gulf, the district of LAHSA: the inland space bears the name
of NEGED, or NAGED.
Arabia is the true native country of the horse, and remains even at
the present time the seat of the purest and noblest races of that
generous animal. Asses, oxen, sheep, goats, and the swift gazelle,
are also indigenous; and so is the _camel_, the “ship of the desert,”
nature’s most precious gift in the sands of Africa and Arabia.
Monkies, pheasants, and pigeons inhabit the fertile districts.
The lion, the panther, the hyena, the jackal, lurk in the desert.
Ostriches, and pelicans are among the birds of Arabia; locusts, that
“plague of the fields,” are among its insects. The coasts abound
in fishes and tortoises; and the pearl-fishery flourishes more
especially in the Persian Gulf.
Among the mineral products may be mentioned iron, copper, lead,
coals, asphaltum; and precious stones, as the agate, the onyx, the
carnelion, &c. Some of the ancient geographers speak also of the soil
of Arabia as being impregnated with gold; and though no mines of that
precious metal are at present known in the peninsula, who can say but
that the treasures of another California lie hidden there?
The inhabitants of Arabia, whose present number may be estimated at
about fifteen millions, are supposed to derive their origin partly
from JOCTAN (in the Arabian language KAHTAN), one of the sons of
EBER; and partly from ISMAEL, the son of Abraham and Hagar. The
Joctanites, as the supposed original inhabitants of the country, have
been called also true Arabians; the Ismaelites, as later immigrants,
_mixed_ Arabians. The ISMAELITES are the BEDOWEENS, or BEDOUINS,
of our time, who to the present day continue to rove through the
interior and the north of Arabia, as they did in the remote times
of Job and Sesostris, depending partly on their flocks, partly
on the transit trade of the caravans, but chiefly on plunder;[3]
which latter is by these wild sons of the desert looked upon in the
light of an honorable profession rather than of a disgraceful and
criminal pursuit. They are a fine race of men, of middle size, but
well proportioned, vigorous, and active; they have regular features;
their complexion is mostly dark, rarely of a lighter tint; their eyes
sparkle with a fire and lustre unknown among us. They are brave,
temperate, generous, and hospitable; enthusiastically addicted to
eloquence and poetry. Rapine and revenge are the only dark spots in
the national character of the Bedoween.
The JOCTANITES are the HADDHESIES, or _settled_ Arabians, who from
the earliest times have been collected into towns and villages, more
especially in the maritime districts of the peninsula, employed in
the labors of agriculture, trade, and commerce. Though the Arabian
house-dwellers cannot be said to possess all the noble qualities of
their brethren of the desert, still the description given above of
the physical and moral character of the latter applies in a great
measure equally to them; they are lively, intelligent, eloquent,
and witty; and, with all their habitual haughty demeanour, more
particularly to strangers, affable and agreeable in their manners and
conversation.
The principal nations of Arabia mentioned by the ancients, are,
besides the SKENITES (_tent-dwellers_, or wandering tribes), the
NABATHÆANS, in Arabia Petræa (Hejaz); the THAMUDITES and MINÆANS
in Hejaz; the SABÆANS and HOMERITES, in Yemen; the HADHRAMITES,
in Hadhramaut on the southern coast; the OMANITES, DACHARENIANS,
and GERRHÆANS, in Oman and Ul-Ahsa, or Lahsa; the SARANIANS, in
Neged; and the SARACENS, an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt,
and remarkable only from the circumstance that, perhaps from a
fallacious[4] interpretation of the meaning of the word,--viz: as
intended to indicate an Oriental situation--the application of the
name has been gradually extended, first to the inhabitants of the
Arabian peninsula generally, afterwards to all Mohammedans.
The early history of the Arabians is shrouded in obscurity. That the
JOCTANITES were not the true original inhabitants of the country,
but simply later immigrants into it, would appear to result from the
histories of the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian empires (however so
little reliance we may feel inclined to place in these mythical and
traditional histories); for we are told that Nimrod was attended by
Arabian tribes--and in the list of the Babylonian kings we find six
Arabian princes; and, again, among the auxiliaries of Ninus we find
Arabs, under a prince named Ariæus. The HYKSOS, or Shepherd Kings,
who are said to have invaded Egypt about 2075 B.C., and to have held
sway in that country during more than 500 years, are also generally
considered to have come from Arabia. The traditional history of
Arabia mentions several kingdoms and dynasties. The two most ancient
of these, dating their origin as far back as 2000 B.C., were, 1, the
HOMERITE kingdom in Yemen, which, after a time, split into the two
states of SABA, or SHEBA, and HADHRAMAUT. About 1572 B.C., these
were re-united into one empire, which about 1075 B.C. was governed by
BALKIS, the daughter of Hodhad, and who by some historians is thought
to have been identical with the Queen of Sheba, the cotemporary of
Solomon; 2, the State in Hejaz, in which the NABATHÆANS held superior
sway.
Protected on all sides by the seas of sand and water which encompass
the peninsula, the Arabian people--or, at all events, the great body
of the nation--had, at all times, escaped the yoke of a foreign
conqueror. King Sesostris, of Egypt, is said to have subjected some
tribes of Hejaz to his rule; but it would appear they speedily
recovered their independence. All the attempts made at different
times, by the rulers of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Persia, to
subjugate the Arabian peninsula, proved either altogether abortive,
or, even where they partially succeeded, the conquest was only
transient. Thus Arabia Petræa was subjugated, for a time, to the
Assyrian sway in the eighth century B.C. by Pul, or Phul, and
Sennacherib; but in the sixth century B.C. we find it in independent
alliance with the Persian kings Cyrus and Cambyses. Alexander the
Great had formed the plan to conquer and colonise the coasts of
Arabia, and to prepare in this way the ultimate subjugation of the
entire peninsula. The genius of the Græco-Macedonian conqueror, the
immense material means of which he could dispose, and the possession
of a powerful fleet (under Nearchus) promised a successful issue
to the intended expedition: the death of Alexander (11th June, 323
B.C.) averted the threatening danger.[5] The attempt which Antigonus
and Demetrius made upon Arabia in 312 B.C. was a failure; and the
trifling conquest achieved in 219 B.C. by Antiochus the Great, of
Syria, was speedily wrested again from him by the natives. At a
later period, the northern tribes of Arabia were engaged for a time,
with varying fortunes, in desultory feuds with the Jews under the
Maccabæans, or Makkabi.[6] The Romans also, that all-grasping nation,
cast their covetous eyes upon the flourishing state of Petræa; but
neither Scaurus nor Gabinius, neither Pompey nor Antony, nor even
Augustus, could prevail against the difficulties of the country,
and the stubborn valor of the roving tribes of the desert. Hunger,
thirst, fatigue, and disease thinned the ranks of the proud legions
more effectually still than the bow, the javelin, and the scymetar
of the Bedoween; and after a last vain attempt under Ælius Gallus,
Imperial Rome reluctantly relinquished for a time the coveted prize.
In 106 A.D., Cornelius Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, conquered
the cities of Bostra and Petra, and subdued the Nabathæans. Trajan
made, also, some naval inroads, and carried his incursions as far as
Katif. Petra lost from this time its importance and splendor; Bostra
becoming in its stead the principal seat of the commerce of the
Euphrates and the Tigris. After the death of Trajan, the conquered
tribes shook off again the Roman yoke. The Emperor Aurelian broke,
indeed, the power of the Nabathæans in his celebrated campaign
against Zenobia, the great Queen of Palmyra, (272 and 273 A.D.), and
his triumphal car was followed by captive Arabian chiefs; but the
Nabathæan _nation_, disdaining to bend to the Roman yoke, abandoned
their homes, and fled to that great asylum of Arabian freedom, the
desert.
At the commencement of the sixth century, (502 A.D.), the Homerite
kingdom of Yemen[7] was conquered by an Ethiopian prince, the Negus,
or King, of Abyssinia,[8] and remained subject or tributary to the
Christian princes of the latter country to the time of the conquest
of Arabia by Chosroes I. (Nushirvan) of Persia (about 574 A.D.).
Still, though Arabia was styled a Persian province, the sway of
the Sassanides over the peninsula was more nominal than real: the
tribes of the desert remained free, and even in Yemen, we find seven
Princes of the Homerites successfully asserting and maintaining the
independence of their mountains.[9]
There is some reason to suppose that the original worship of the
Arabs was that of _one_ God; clouded and tarnished, indeed, by many
superstitious usages, and perhaps even by human sacrifices, yet
free from gross idolatry. But this primitive religion was speedily
supplanted by the adoration of the sun, the moon, and the fixed
stars; a specious superstition which substitutes for the invisible,
all-pervading, universal God, the most glorious of his creations,
and may well find its excuse in the clear sky and boundless naked
plains of Arabia, where the heavenly luminaries shine with a
brighter lustre, displaying to the mind of the untutored son of
the desert the visible image of a Deity. Intimately connected with
this still primitive faith, was the belief in the wonderful powers
and attributes of _meteoric stones_. The most renowned of these,
called Hadjar-el-Aswad, is a square-shaped black stone, kept to the
present day in Mecca in the Temple of the KAABA, and which has from
time immemorial been, and remains still, the sacred object of the
devout pilgrimages and adoration of the Arabs of all tribes. The
Kaaba is a square building, thirty-four feet high, and twenty-seven
broad; built, according to the Mohammedan tradition, by Abraham,
and repeatedly restored, in after ages, by the Amalekites, by the
Jorhamites, by Kassa, of the tribe of Koreish, &c.; and the last
time by Sultan Mustapha, in 1630. Of the original building there
remains thus at present only a small portion of wall, which is
held most sacred. A spacious portico[10] encloses the quadrangle
of the Kaaba. The holy stone, which is about four feet high, and
set in silver, is fixed in the wall, in the southern corner. The
Mohammedan tradition relates that this stone was brought to Abraham
by the Angel Gabriel, whose tears over the sinfulness of man had
changed its original white color to black! Hence Mahomet was induced
to make it the Kebla[11] of prayer, and to enjoin the pilgrimage
of the faithful to it and the Kaaba. Verily, the idolatry of the
ancient Arabs, who worshipped the divine power in the _meteoric
stone_, that had fallen from the skies in a manner miraculous to
their untutored understanding, was more natural, and even far more
rational, than the present worship of the same stone, based upon
this wretched and most absurd legend! The transmigration of souls,
the resurrection of bodies, and the invocation of departed spirits,
formed also part of the religious belief of the ancient Arabs; the
cruel practice of human sacrifices prevailed among them even up to
the time of Mohammed, in the course of time the grossest idolatry
became an important, and, in the end, a preponderating ingredient
in Arabian worship; and the sacred Kaaba was defiled by the gradual
introduction of three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions,
and antelopes; among which stood most conspicuous the most popular of
them, the statue of Hobal, fashioned of red agate by a Syrian artist,
and holding in his hand seven arrows, without heads or feathers, the
instruments and symbols of profane divination.[12]
But, though each tribe, each family, nay every independent warrior,
might freely create new idols and new rites of his fantastic worship,
yet the nation, in every age, has bowed to the religion of Mecca, and
to the superior sanctity of the Kaaba. An annual truce of two, or,
according to some historians, four months, during which the swords
of the Arabs were sheathed, both in foreign and domestic warfare,
protected the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. The great fair held in
connection with this pilgrimage induced those to come whom religious
ardor failed to attract. This annual gathering of distant and hostile
tribes contributed greatly to harmonise and refine the wild sons
of the desert; the exchange of eloquence and poetry usual at these
periods, could only heighten the humanizing and elevating influence
of the custom. The fanaticism of the first Moslems abolished the
fair, inflicting thereby one of the many evils that came in the
train of Mohammed’s gigantic imposture. The rites which are, even in
the present day, accomplished by the devout Moslems, are still the
same they were in the days of the ancient idolators of Arabia. “At a
respectful distance from the temple, they threw off their garments;
seven times they went round the Kaaba, with quick steps, kissing each
time the holy stone with deep reverence;[13] seven times they visited
and adored the adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones
into the valley of Mina: and the pilgrimage was completed, as at the
present hour, by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of
their hair and nails in the consecrated ground.”[14]
It will be readily understood that the custody of the Kaaba must
at all times have proved a most lucrative affair. No wonder, then,
that the neighbouring tribes should have hotly contended for it.
Originally the ISMAELITES held it for a long time, together with the
dominion over Mecca, which resulted from it as a natural consequence.
The JORHAMITES, a branch of the Joctanites, succeeded at last in
ousting them from it; these again were expelled by the KHUZAITES,
who promoted idolatry to a most formidable extent. In the middle of
the fifth century, an Ismaelitic tribe, that of KOREISH, wrested the
custody of the Kaaba, by fraud or force, from the Khuzaites. The
sacerdotal office was entrusted by the Koreish to COSA, of the family
of the HASHEMITES, and devolved through four lineal descents to
ABDOL MOTALLEB, the grandfather of Mohammed.[15]
The freedom which Arabia enjoyed, promised a safe asylum to the
political and religious exiles and proscripts from the adjacent
kingdoms. The intolerance of the Magian Persians had overturned the
altars of Babylon, and compelled the votaries of Sabianism[16] to
seek a refuge in the desert. The same fate befell the Magians in
their turn, when the sword of Alexander had overthrown the Persian
monarchy. Multitudes of Jews fled into Arabia, to escape the cruel
persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, and greater numbers still
followed during the wars of Titus and Hadrian. To all these were
added, at a later period, numerous sects of Christians, fleeing
from that worst of all persecutions, that of their triumphant
co-religionists, from whom they might chance to differ in some
abstruse point of doctrine, or in some immaterial rite. Among
the persecuted sects, we may mention here more particularly the
Marcionites and the Manichæans, the Jacobites and Nestorians. The
latter two sects had gained many proselytes in Yemen, and succeeded
even in converting the princes of Hira and Gassan to their faith.
The Jews, also, had made numerous and important converts to the
Mosaic belief; and we have already seen how the intolerant zeal of a
bigoted Jewish neophyte, DUNAAN, prince of the Homerites, suddenly
interrupted the enjoyment of that absolute liberty of conscience
which the Arabian _idolaters_ had hitherto granted to all creeds and
all sects, and brought down upon Yemen an Abyssinian invasion to
avenge the wrongs of the persecuted Christians.
It was in this country, and among this people, so strangely and
peculiarly constituted, that arose the apostle of a new faith,
destined to knead the heterogeneous and hostile elements of the
nation into one compact mass, and to hurl this with irresistible
might against the adjacent empires, and even, far beyond the limits
of the latter, against countries and nations formerly scarcely known
by name even to the Arabian merchant.
MAHOMET, or more properly MOHAMMED or MUHAMMED, (i.e. _the very
famous_), the only son of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, on
the 20th April, 571.[17] His father, ABDALLAH, was the best beloved
of the thirteen sons of Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, and chief
of the family of that name; his mother, Amina, sprang from the noble
race of the Zahrites. He had the misfortune to lose in his infancy,
his father and mother, and his grandfather. His sole inheritance
consisted in a house, an old female slave, and five camels. After the
death of his grandfather, he was taken into the house of his uncle,
Abu Taleb, who had succeeded Abdol Motalleb in the sacerdotal office.
Here he was educated to commercial pursuits; and was, at the age of
thirteen, sent with the caravan of his uncle to the fairs of Bosra,
or Bostra,[18] and Damascus, in Syria. In his twentieth year[19] he
fought in the ranks of the Koreish against some hostile tribes, and,
by his valor, gained the appellation EL AMIN, i.e., _the faithful_,
one of the five hundred and more surnames that have gradually been
given to the Prophet of Islam. In his twenty-fifth year, Cadijah,
a rich and noble widow of Mecca (according to some historians, of
Bosra), engaged him as superintendent and manager to carry on the
commercial affairs of her late husband. In this capacity he made a
second journey to the fairs of Bosra and Damascus.[20]
Nature had bestowed upon Mohammed the gift of personal beauty. His
cotemporaries describe him as of commanding figure and majestic
aspect; he had regular and most expressive features, piercing black
eyes, an aquiline nose, and a well-formed mouth, with pearly teeth;
his cheeks were tinged with the ruddy glow of robust health.[21] Art
had imparted to his naturally black, flowing hair and beard a lighter
chestnut hue. His captivating smile, his rich and sonorous voice,
the graceful dignity of his gestures, the apparent frankness and
heartiness of his manner, gained him the favorable attention of those
whom he addressed. He possessed talents of a superior order--his
perception was quick and active, his memory capacious and retentive,
his imagination lively and daring, his judgment clear, rapid, and
decisive, his courage dauntless;--and, whatever may be our opinion
of the sincerity of his convictions, his tenacity of purpose in the
pursuit of the great object of his life, and his patient endurance,
cannot but extort our admiration. His natural eloquence was enhanced
by the use of the purest dialect of Arabia, and adorned by the charm
of a graceful elocution.
Cadijah was a widow for the second time; she was in the fortieth year
of her age--no wonder then, that a man so bountifully endowed by
nature should speedily have gained her affection. She bestowed upon
him her hand and her fortune, and restored him thereby to the station
of his ancestors. Placed, henceforth, above the petty wants and cares
of material subsistence, Mohammed had now full leisure to indulge
his love of poetry and eloquence, and his natural predilection for
contemplation. His marriage brought him into familiar contact with
WARAKA (VERKA) BEN NAUFIL, a cousin of Cadijah. This Waraka, it would
appear, had first exchanged the adoration of the heavenly bodies for
the belief in the two principles of Zoroaster, (Ormuzd and Ahriman).
This creed not satisfying his mind, he had embraced with fervor the
monotheism of the Jews; but, disgusted with the absurdities of the
Talmudists, he had seceded to the profession of the Christian faith,
in which he had even assumed the priestly office. That he must have
been a man of some talent and learning, is evident from the fact
of his having translated the Old and New Testament from the Hebrew
into the Arabic tongue. Now this man is usually mentioned by the
historians of the time as the _pupil_ of Mohammed, and the _second
convert_ to his new doctrine; but there are strong reasons to justify
a belief that he was his _master_ and _teacher_, rather than his
_pupil_ and _convert_.
It has been intimated already, that the history of the life of
Mohammed, up to the time when he proclaimed himself the apostle of
a new faith, is obscure and doubtful. From the scanty data, and the
conjectural and contradictory statements before us, we can only
gather one fact as pretty certain, viz: that the prophet of Islam had
enjoyed some rabbinical and priestly instruction. Now we have seen
that Mohammed was an illiterate barbarian, and not likely, therefore,
to derive from conversation with priests in foreign lands that
knowledge of the maxims, tenets, and traditions of other religious
communities, which is evidenced in the Koran and in the Sonna;[22]
whereas Waraka had actually had a practical training in the divers
beliefs of the Sabians, Magians, Jews, and Christians; and must, to
judge by his translation of the New Testament, have been tolerably
versed in the _letter_, at least, of the doctrine of Christ. From his
repeated, and apparently conscientious, changes of faith, we have,
perhaps, a right to conclude that he was a man sincerely in search of
a religion that might satisfy his mind; nor need we wonder that the
so-called “Christianity” of the seventh century should have failed
to answer his expectations on this head. It would not be too much
to say, indeed, that there existed really no “Christian” church at
that period; the multitudinous contending sects who professed the
_name_ of Christ had almost entirely forgotten his _pure doctrine_,
and, more especially, the divine principle preached by him of
universal charity and good-will to all men. The grossest idolatry
had usurped the place of the simple worship, instituted by Jesus, of
an All-wise, Almighty, and All-beneficent Being, without equal and
without similitude; a new Olympus had been imagined, peopled with a
crowd of martyrs, saints, and angels, in lieu of the ancient gods of
paganism. There were found Christian sects impious enough to invest
the wife of Joseph with the honors and attributes of a goddess;[23]
relics, and carved and painted images, were objects of the most
fervid adoration on the part of those whom the word of Christ
commanded to address their prayer to the Living God alone.
Surely, then, we may trust that it will not be imputed to us as a
violation of the laws of probability, if we venture to assume that
Waraka, finding his religious aspirations disappointed even in the
Christian faith, conceived the idea of founding and propagating
a doctrine of his own,--a species of eclectic extract from all
other religions which he had successively professed; that, void
perhaps of personal ambition, or conscious, rather, that he did not
himself possess the most indispensable attributes and qualities of
a religious and political reformer, he cast his eyes upon Mohammed,
who, with his mind attuned to contemplation and to mystic thought,
promised to prove a docile disciple, and whose personal beauty and
grace seemed made to “persuade ere he ope’d his mouth;” and that he
chose him as his organ, as the medium through which he might give
currency to the coinage of his mind, content if the people would
receive the fruits of his religious experience and ponderings as a
new gospel, and cheerfully consenting to yield up the honors of the
paternity to him who should succeed in rearing the infant religion.
Waraka found in Mohammed a most zealous disciple, who considerably
bettered the instructions which he received. From what we can gather
from the scanty sources of information at our command, we think
we may fix upon the year 606 A.D. as the period at which Mohammed
first became the pupil of Waraka; but it was only five years after,
in 611, that Waraka and himself had fully matured their plan to
institute a new religion. Worthily to prepare himself for the
assumption of the prophetic and apostolic office, Mohammed withdrew
this year (as he had indeed done repeatedly before), several weeks,
during the month of Ramadan, to the cave of Hera, three miles from
Mecca. On the morning of the 24th Ramadan, Mohammed appeared before
his wife, apparently greatly disturbed in mind. He called out to
her to “wrap him up, to affuse him with cold water, as his soul
was greatly troubled.” Having thus prepared her for his purpose,
by exciting at once both her conjugal solicitude and her female
curiosity, he proceeded to break to the amazed matron the great
secret of his divine mission. He told her the angel Gabriel had,
that night, appeared to him with a message from the Most High,
appointing him, Mohammed, the sixth, greatest, and last of His chosen
prophets,[24] to reveal His existence and to preach His law to the
nations of the world. The angel had brought down with him a paper
copy of the uncreated and eternal Koran, enclosed in a volume of
silk and gems, and had proposed to reveal to him successively and
at his (Mohammed’s) own discretion, the chapters and verses of that
everlasting record of the law of God.
Islam (i.e. _devout submission to the Divine Will_) he had been
commanded by the angel to call the new faith which it was to be
henceforward his mission to preach; and which, to use the felicitous
language of Gibbon, is compounded of an eternal truth--viz., that
_there is only one God_--and of a fiction necessary to further the
ambitious designs of the self-appointed missionary of this new
gospel--viz., that _Mohammed is the apostle and prophet of God_.
Cadijah believed readily and implicitly--and no marvel either.
Mohammed, to his honor be it written, had proved a most kind and
attentive husband to the elderly matron who had raised him above the
pressure of want. He had abstained--and till her death continued
to abstain--from availing himself of the right of polygamy. He had
proved his _truth_ to her by unvarying affection. How, then, could
she possibly have doubted his word? To her grateful and loving eyes,
he must have seemed more than a mere mortal; and she may even have
deemed it by no means extraordinary that the Most High should appoint
as his organ and missionary one so pure, so good, so _perfect_, as
her husband appeared in _her_ sight.
Cadijah’s conversion was speedily followed by the avowed declaration
of Waraka in favor of the new doctrine. The ex-priest of Christ
professed to see in Mohammed the _Paraclete_, or Comforter,
promised in the Gospel, and even ventured to support this view upon
etymological grounds of somewhat extraordinary character. The Arabic
word _Mohammed_ is synonymous with the Greek περικλῠτὸς (i.e. _very
famous_), which, by an easy change of letters, may be turned into
παράκλητος!
The next converts to Mohammed’s new faith were, his servant ZEID, who
was positively bribed to it by the promise of freedom; his youthful
cousin ALI BEN ABU TALEB, a boy of eleven, and not likely, therefore,
to entertain any very deep religious conviction either way; and the
wealthy and universally esteemed ABDALLAH BEN OTHMAN-AL-KOREISH,
called afterwards ABU BEKR (i.e. _the father of the maiden_); most
probably from the circumstance that his daughter AYESHA, born 613,
became one of Mohammed’s wives after the death of Cadijah. By the
weight and influence of Abu Bekr, ten of the most respectable
citizens of Mecca were induced to join the creed of Islam, among whom
were Othman, who became afterwards Mohammed’s son-in-law. It had
taken three years to accomplish these fourteen private conversions;
and, guided probably by the advice of Waraka, the prophet had not yet
ventured upon a public profession and propaganda of his creed. In
the beginning of 615, however, Waraka died; and the bolder spirit of
Mohammed, freed from the restraining influence hitherto exercised by
that cautious man, aspired henceforward openly to the dignity of the
apostolic office.
We have already seen that Mohammed had informed Cadijah, and, of
course, also his other disciples, that the chapters of the Koran were
to be communicated to him by the angel Gabriel successively, and at
his own discretion,--a master-stroke of policy evidently designed by
the crafty Waraka to afford full time for the gradual concoction of
the new creed, and worked out afterwards with such admirable skill by
his illustrious pupil; indeed, the ingenuity of this provision may be
said to be surpassed only by that of another saving maxim introduced
into the angelic revelation, viz., that any text of the Koran is
abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage,--which, of course,
at once removed the inconvenience of contradictory texts. Gabriel was
accordingly now made to descend again to Mohammed, and to command him
in the name of the Most High to throw off the reserve which he had
hitherto maintained, and to announce his mission in the open light
of day. In obedience to this pretended command, the prophet of Islam
invited forty members of the race of Hashem to a banquet. He placed
before them, it is said, a lamb and a bowl of milk, and, after the
frugal meal, addressed them as follows:--“Friends and kinsmen, I
offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of gifts--the
treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has commanded
me to call you to His service. Who among you will support my burthen?
Who among you will be my companion and my vizir?” A long silence of
doubt and amazement followed this extraordinary allocution; it was
broken at last by the impetuous Ali, then in the fourteenth year
of his age. “O prophet!” he cried, “I am the man: whosoever rises
against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his
legs, rip up his belly. O prophet! I will be thy vizir over them.”
This response on the part of one so young, and the fierce threats
which it contained, excited the merriment of the assembly, which
was increased when Mohammed fervently embraced his young cousin,
and declared most seriously that he accepted his offer. Abu Taleb,
the father of Ali, was ironically exhorted to respect the superior
dignity of his son, and to take care not to provoke his potent wrath.
The prince of Mecca took the matter in a more serious light: he
advised his nephew to relinquish his design, which he characterised
as impious. “Spare your remonstrances,” replied the son of Abdallah;
“were you to place the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left,
you should not divert me from my course.”
Braving the ridicule and the anger of the Hashemites, as well as the
more determined and malignant hostility of the family Ommiyah and
the other branches of the Koreish, Mohammed preached his doctrine
henceforward publicly, with unflinching courage and untiring zeal,
but for a long time with rather indifferent success, at least so far
as his native city was concerned.
Mecca was the sacred city of Arabia,--the seat of the great national
temple. The annual pilgrimage of the devout Arabians to the shrines
of the Kaaba, brought wealth to the coffers of the inhabitants of the
favored city; and it was but natural, therefore, that the tribe of
Koreish, who held the lucrative office of custodians of the sacred
temple, should behold with indignation and dismay the attempt made
by one from among themselves to subvert a religion so profitable to
their interests. No wonder, then, that when Mohammed, some time after
the banquet of the Hashemites, ventured to proclaim his pretended
mission before a general assembly of the Koreish, he was received
with a perfect storm of disapprobation, and ignominiously pelted with
mud and stones.
But the prophet of Islam was not the sort of man to be readily
diverted from his fixed purpose. The indifferent success of his
first public attempt rather increased his zeal than otherwise: in
private converse and in public discourse, he incessantly urged the
belief and worship of a sole Deity. He addressed impassioned orations
to the citizens and pilgrims gathered within the holy precincts of
the Kaaba, and the loudest clamor of his most violent antagonists
did not always succeed in silencing his potent voice; and, indeed,
after a time he had the satisfaction of beholding the gradual but
steady increase of his little congregation of Unitarians. But
the hostility of the Koreish assumed now a more decided and more
dangerous character; and, had it not been for the powerful protection
of Abu Taleb, who, though an uncompromising enemy to the attempted
innovation of his nephew, continued to bestow on the son of Abdallah
the affection of a parent, Mohammed would most probably have fallen
a sacrifice to the rage of his enemies. But even the weight and
influence of the Prince of Mecca could not always fully secure the
safety of the apostle of the new creed, and Mohammed was repeatedly
compelled to withdraw himself to various places of strength in the
town and country. The more timid of his disciples were forced to seek
in Ethiopia an asylum from the violence of religious faction. The
conversion of his uncle HAMZA, gave the new faith, most opportunely,
a powerful support in the family of Hashem; a perhaps still more
important acquisition was made in the person of the fierce and
inflexible OMAR, the PAUL of Islam. On the other hand, the branch of
Ommiyah, and the rest of the tribe of Koreish, resolved to put the
children of Hashem under a species of religious and civil interdict
of the most stringent nature, till they should consent to deliver
the person of Mohammed to the justice of the insulted gods. A decree
was passed to this effect, and was suspended in the Kaaba before the
eyes of the nation; the prophet and his most faithful followers were
besieged, and subjected to the greatest hardships. A hollow truce had
scarcely restored the appearance of concord, when the death of Abu
Taleb (621) left the prophet abandoned to the power of his enemies,
and compelled him to seek a refuge in Tayef, whither he proceeded,
attended by his faithful Zeid. His somewhat incautious attempts to
propagate his creed in that land of grapes excited against him the
indignation of the inhabitants, who pelted him with stones and drove
him back to Mecca, where he was permitted to dwell yet a little
while under the protection of an influential citizen. Three days
after the death of Abu Taleb, an equally severe loss had befallen
Mohammed--that of Cadijah, by which the ties which bound him to his
native city were greatly loosened.
It is in this period that we may place the miraculous night of
Mohammed’s ascension to heaven. Hitherto, Mohammed had been modestly
content to place an intermediary between the Deity and himself.
Probably reflecting, however, that the Jewish creed asserted direct
and personal converse between Jehovah and Adam, Noah, Abraham, and
Moses, and that he, the greatest and last of the prophets, and whose
doctrine was to supersede all others, could not well afford to stand
inferior in this respect to his predecessors, and anxiously desirous,
moreover, to gain over the Jews, whom he wished to believe him the
promised Messiah--he put forth one of the wildest flights of fancy
that ever issued even from an Oriental brain:--A mysterious animal,
the _Borak_ (the cherub of Islam), with human face, the ears of an
elephant, the neck of a camel, the body of a horse, the tail of a
mule, and the hoofs of a bullock, conveyed him at the dead of night
from the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem, Gabriel and legions
of angels attended him. From the temple of Jerusalem he was carried
to the rock upon which Abraham intended to sacrifice Isaac, and
thence on the wings of Gabriel successively to the seven heavens,
where he exchanged civilities with the patriarchs, the prophets, and
the angels. He saw the heavenly Lotos tree, with the four springs
under it, flowing with water, honey, milk, and wine. Of the three
former he tasted; the last he left untouched, in obedience to his
own precepts.[25] He saw, also, the heavenly tabernacle, pitched in
a straight line above the Kaaba, and hidden by a golden veil. The
angels sang, “There is only one God, and Mohammed is the prophet
of God.” The same resounded from behind the veil, and the voice of
the Lord was heard saying, “My servants speak the words of truth;
Mohammed is indeed the most beloved of my prophets and apostles,
the most pious of my servants, the most perfect of created beings.”
Beyond this part, Mohammed alone was permitted to proceed; he passed
through seventy thousand veils of light and darkness, each of
them a thousand years thick, and with a space of a thousand years
intervening between every two of them. At last he reached the green
barrier of green light with emerald lustre; he passed the veil of
the Divine unity, and approached within two bow-shots of the throne
of the Almighty, where he prostrated himself and adored. The hand
of the Lord touched his shoulder, which made a sensation of cold
come over him that pierced him to the heart. God commanded him now
to impose upon his disciples the daily obligation of fifty prayers;
which Mohammed would appear to have looked upon as an intolerable
burthen, since he pleaded hard for an alleviation of it.[26] By his
supplications he succeeded to reduce it, step by step, at last to
the number of five, viz., one prayer at daybreak, one at noon, one
in the afternoon, one in the evening, and one at the first watch
of the night; but from these five obligatory prayers there was to
be no dispensation of business or pleasure, of time or place. In
this most important conversation, the Lord enjoined or sanctioned,
also, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the bestowal of a certain
percentage of the property or revenue of a believer for the relief
of the indigent and unfortunate, and the thirty days fast during the
month of Ramadan. Then was given to Mohammed, with one drop from the
throne, all wisdom, science, and knowledge of the ages past and the
time to come; and the angelic choirs recited the two articles of
belief, “There is only one God, and Mohammed is the apostle of God.”
Mohammed was then finally dismissed; he again descended to Jerusalem,
remounted the Borak, and returned to Mecca, having thus performed in
the tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand years. Verily,
in this precious tale we do not know which to admire most,--whether
the audacity of the impostor who could concoct, or the gross
credulity of the people who could believe it! Indeed, many endeavours
have been made by some of the more rational of the Mohammedan doctors
to deny that the prophet of Islam ever ventured to palm off this
extravagant story upon his followers; and it has been attempted to
make it appear that the narration of it relates to a mere dream or
vision. These apologists overlook, however, the important fact that
this pretended vision was put forward with all the authority of a
divine revelation. Mohammed himself encouraged as much as in him lay
the belief in the actual occurrence of the fact; which, with the
Sonnites, indeed, is an article of faith, the pious AL JANNABI, among
others, declaring that to deny this nocturnal journey of the prophet
is to disbelieve the Koran.
ABU SOPHIAN, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah, and the mortal
foe of the line of Hashem, had succeeded to the principality of
the republic of Mecca. This man resolved to bring the long-pending
contest between the Koreish and the self-appointed apostle of the
new creed to a speedy and decisive issue. He convened an assembly of
the Koreishites and their allies, in which the death of Mohammed was
resolved. To baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites, it was agreed
that the guilt of his blood should be divided among the several
tribes. A spy (duly converted afterwards into an angel by the crafty
prophet) revealed the odious plot to Mohammed, who resolved on
flight as the only means of escape from the malice of his enemies.
In the night of the 13th September, 622,[27] Mohammed, accompanied
by his friend Abu Bekr, escaped silently from his house, whilst the
assassins, who were watching at the door, were deceived by the figure
of Ali, who, covered with the green vestment of the apostle, reposed
on the bed, securing thus, at the risk of his own life, the safe
retreat of his illustrious and beloved cousin. When the deception
practised upon them was at length revealed, the Koreishites dismissed
the heroic youth unharmed.
Mohammed and the companion of his flight took refuge first in the
cave of Thor, about three miles from Mecca. Three days they remained
concealed there, receiving every evening from the son and daughter of
Abu Bekr a supply of food, and intelligence of the movements of their
enemies. The Koreish explored every hiding-place in the neighbourhood
of the city, with the exception of the cave in which the fugitives
were hidden, and which the pious Moslem doctors would have us believe
was protected from their scrutiny by the providential deceit of a
spider’s web and a pigeon’s nest. When the first rigor of the pursuit
had somewhat abated, the fugitives left the protection of their cave,
and mounted their camels to pursue their flight to YATHREB, called
afterwards MEDINA, or MEDINA AL NABI (i.e. _city of the prophet_).
On the road, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish,
who were, however, diverted from their murderous purpose by the
eloquent appeals of the prophet: indeed it is stated by the Arabian
historians that one of his pursuers passed over to him with seventy
followers, and attended him to Medina.
The city of Yathreb was inhabited chiefly by the tribes of
the CHAREGITES and the AWSITES, and by two colonies of Jews,
of a sacerdotal race, and who had introduced among their Arab
fellow-citizens a taste for science and religion, which had gained
Medina the name of the City of the Book. Now whether it might be
that, owing to this circumstance, the preaching of Mohammed had made
a deeper impression upon the pilgrims and merchants from Medina than
upon his own fellow-citizens in Mecca; or that the Yathrebites,
who were envious of the flourishing commerce of the latter city,
would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the
bigoted zeal of the Koreish to attract to their own city the exiled
disciples of Mohammed, and in fine perhaps that illustrious man
himself--certain it is that at an early period of Mohammed’s mission,
some of the noblest citizens of Medina, in a pilgrimage to the Kaaba,
had been converted by his preaching, and had upon their return home
diffused among their fellow-citizens the belief of God and his
prophet. The Charegites and Awsites had hitherto lived in perpetual
feud, interrupted only by temporary truces, which were broken on the
slightest provocation. By the exhortations of these missionaries, the
two tribes were henceforth united in faith and love. Ten Charegites
and two Awsites were despatched to Mecca, where they held a secret
and nocturnal interview with Mohammed on a hill in the suburbs;
they protested for themselves and in the name of their wives, their
children, and their absent brethren, an inviolable attachment to
the person and doctrine of the prophet. At a later period, shortly
before Mohammed’s forced departure from Mecca, seventy-three men and
two women of Medina came to Mecca, and held a solemn conference with
Mohammed, his kinsmen, and his disciples, on the same spot where
the interview with the first embassy had taken place. They promised
the prophet in the name of their city that should he be compelled
to leave Mecca, they would receive him as their prince, and would
place their lives and fortunes at his service for the defence and
propagation of the new faith preached by him. Mohammed on his part
promised never to abandon his new allies, even though the Koreish
should repent and should recall him; he declared their blood to be
as his blood, their ruin as his ruin, their friends as his friends,
their foes as his foes; should they fall in his service, Paradise
was to be their reward. A solemn league and covenant was made there
and then between the two parties; this was ratified by the people of
Medina, who, with the exception of the Jews, unanimously embraced the
profession of Islam.
It was accordingly to Medina that the exiled prophet directed his
steps. After a rapid though perilous journey along the sea-coast,
he reached Medina sixteen days after his flight from Mecca. He was
received with acclamations of loyalty and devotion; his disciples
who at various times had fled from Mecca, gathered round his person.
To eradicate the seeds of jealousy that might spring up between
the Moslems of his native city, and his new allies of Medina, he
judiciously established a holy brotherhood between his principal
followers, coupling always a MOHAGERIAN, or fugitive of Mecca, with
an ANSAR, or auxiliary of Medina. It so falling out that Ali found
himself without a peer, the prophet declared himself the companion
and brother of the noble youth.
Mohammed assumed now the exercise of the regal and sacerdotal office.
He acquired by purchase a small piece of ground, on which he built a
house and a mosque. The loyalty and devotion of his followers, and
the unhesitating compliance and obedience which his decrees met with
on the part of the inhabitants of Medina, convinced him that he was
indeed the absolute prince and ruler of that city. But with this
conviction the range of his ambition widened, he resolved to extend
his creed and his power over all the tribes of Arabia, and even
beyond the limits of his native land. He now threw off the cloak of
toleration in which he had so carefully enfolded himself at Mecca.
_There_ he had asserted the liberty of conscience, and disclaimed
the use of religious violence; _here_, at Medina, he preached a war
of extermination against whomsoever should continue in idolatry.[28]
The commands and precepts, which Gabriel was now made to transmit
to him, breathed a fierce and sanguinary spirit; the creed of Islam
was to be propagated henceforth by the sword, and the unbelieving
nations of the earth were to be pursued without mercy. To excite in
his followers a spirit of martial ardor, he proclaimed the superior
sanctity of the sword. “In the shade of the crossing scymitars
Paradise is prefigured,” says Mohammed; “the sword is the key of
heaven and of hell: a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night
spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer.
Whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven: at the day of
judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as rubies, and odoriferous
as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings
of angels and cherubim.” Paradise was the glorious reward of the
faithful who fell in battle, and death might thus actually become
an object of hope and desire rather than of dread. Moreover, as the
Koran inculcates also, in the most absolute sense, the tenets of fate
and predestination, it would be little use for the devout Moslem to
shirk his military duties through fear of being wounded or killed
in battle, since his preordained fate would be sure to overtake
him, even in his bed. And as Paradise was the portion of the fallen
hero, so wealth and beauty rewarded the warrior who had escaped the
dangers of the fight: the apostle gave his followers the license
of embracing the female captives as their wives or concubines; he
regulated by a law, divine, of course, like all the rest of his
laws and precepts, the distribution of the spoil taken in battle,
or in a conquered place: the whole was faithfully collected in one
common mass, one-fifth of it was reserved for the prophet himself
(doubtless, for pious and charitable uses), the remainder was shared
among the soldiers, the shares of the slain devolving to their widows
and orphans: a horseman received double the share of a foot-soldier.
From the first months of his reign, he prepared for the holy warfare
against Jews, Christians, and idolators. At the beginning of the
year 623, his white banner was displayed before the gates of Medina.
Faithful to the national character, he, the holy prophet of a creed
which the nations of the world were invited to look upon as divine,
went forth at the head of his pious followers, the future denizens
of a Paradise which in his extravagant Oriental fancy he had placed
beyond the seventh heaven, to waylay the peaceful merchant, and to
rob and maim, or murder him, in the name and for the glory of the
Most High.
So he went forth at the head of three hundred and thirteen Moslems,
to intercept the return of the great caravan from Syria to Mecca, a
caravan of a thousand camels, led by Abu Sophian, with only thirty
or forty followers. But the Koreish, alarmed for the safety of their
merchandise and their provisions, hastened to the rescue. One hundred
horse, and eight hundred and fifty foot, advanced from Mecca to about
three stations from Medina. Here, in the fertile and famous vale
of Beder, they met the band of the prophet. The disproportion of
numbers was great; in Mohammed’s ranks were found only two horsemen:
informed by his scouts that the caravan was approaching from the one,
the Koreish from the other side, Mohammed had hesitated whether to
seize upon an easy prey, or to venture on an encounter with vastly
superior forces; but the reflection, that a success gained under
disadvantageous circumstances, would, with an impulsive people like
the Arabs, go far to prove his divine mission, and would embolden his
adherents and discourage his enemies, he resolved to give battle.
With Abu Bekr by his side, he took his station on a kind of throne or
pulpit. The white veil of Ayesha, and two black banners, were borne
before his host. “Courage, my children,” he exclaimed, “close your
ranks; discharge your arrows, and the day is your own.” Perceiving,
however, that the Moslems fainted in their onset, and were hard
pressed by the superior numbers of the Koreish, he betook himself
with a loud voice to pray the succour of Gabriel and a _legion_ of
angels.[29] He then started from his throne, mounted his horse,
and, casting a handful of sand into the air, exclaiming, “Let their
faces be covered with confusion,” dashed against the hostile ranks.
The Arabs were a most superstitious people; their fancy beheld the
angelic warriors, or rather _felt_ their presence; the thunder of
Mohammed’s voice revived the drooping spirits of his followers;
whilst it carried confusion into the ranks of his enemies. The
Koreish turned and fled. Seventy of the bravest were slain, and
seventy captives fell into the hands of the victorious prophet, who
had two of them put to death as a trifling instalment of the debt of
revenge which he meant to exact from his foes and revilers. The other
sixty-eight were restored for a ransom of four thousand drachms of
silver. From the field of Beder, Mohammed started in pursuit of Abu
Sophian’s caravan, which, despite of the swiftness of its flight,
and the skill of its guides, was overtaken and captured. A booty of
100,000 drachms of silver rewarded the pious robbers. But this great
success had well nigh proved fatal to Mohammed and his creed, and
to the city of refuge. The fierce resentment of Abu Sophian and of
the Koreish, brought into the field against Mohammed a body of three
thousand men, among whom were seven hundred armed with cuirasses,
and two hundred on horseback; three thousand camels attended the
march of this host. Abu Sophian advanced to within six miles of the
north of Medina, where he encountered the prophet at the head of
nine hundred and fifty followers, on Mount Ohud, (A.D. 624). The
Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent. The right wing of the
cavalry was led by Kaled, the fiercest and most redoubtable of the
Arab warriors. Mohammed had made his dispositions with considerable
skill; his troops were successful at first, and broke the centre of
the enemy; but their eagerness to seize upon the spoils threw their
ranks into disorder, and speedily deprived them of the advantage
gained. Kaled, with his cavalry, attacked them in the flank and rear;
Mohammed was wounded in the face with a javelin, and two of his teeth
were shattered with a stone; Kaled exclaimed, with a loud voice, that
the lying prophet was slain; and the followers of Islam, who looked
in vain for the appearance of Gabriel and his angelic legion, to
avenge the fall of “The beloved of God,” trembled and fled; still, in
the midst of tumult and dismay, was heard the thunder of Mohammed’s
voice, denouncing the impious tribe of the Koreish, as the murderers
of God’s apostle, and calling down upon them the vengeance of heaven.
Some of the most devoted followers of the prophet gathered bravely
around him, and conveyed him to a place of safety. Seventy of the
bravest defenders of Islam lay dead on the field, among them HAMZA,
one of Mohammed’s uncles. The inhuman females of Mecca, who had
accompanied the expedition, mangled their bodies, and the fierce
HENDA, Abu Sophian’s wife, tasted the entrails of Hamza, with the
relish of a cannibal. But Mohammed was not discouraged: his wounds
had hardly been dressed, when the convenient Gabriel revealed to him
that (for some unexplained cause) the powers of darkness had been
permitted to prevail against him this once, and that Satan himself
had fought in the ranks of the Koreish; he was, however, exhorted to
persevere in his propaganda, and was assured of ultimate success. He
rallied his troops, and even as early as the next day he led them
forth again to battle; on this occasion the fight was, however, only
of a desultory character, no great harm being done on either side.
Still the result of it was, that the Koreish, having experienced the
desperate valor of the Moslems, and more particularly of Ali and
Omar, despaired of carrying Medina with their present forces, and
retired to Mecca. But in the ensuing year (A.D. 625) Abu Sophian,
having formed a league between the Koreish and several tribes of the
desert, led a well-appointed host of ten thousand warriors against
Medina. The number of the Mussulmans, however, had also considerably
increased, and Mohammed’s army of three thousand men, awaited the
attack of their foes, securely encamped before the city, and
protected by a ditch and some field-works, which had been constructed
under the guidance and superintendence of a Persian engineer. A
general engagement being prudently declined by the prophet, the
hostilities were confined to a number of single combats, in which
Ali more especially signalised his formidable strength and prowess.
Twenty days passed away in this desultory warfare, the apostle of God
having, meanwhile, recourse to every artifice that his crafty mind
could devise, to sow disunion in the camp of his enemies. A tempest
of wind, rain, and hail, which overturned the tents of the besiegers,
and which was, of course, duly claimed as a direct interposition of
God in favor of his prophet, put the finishing stroke to the success
of this insidious policy: the Koreish, deserted by their allies, were
compelled to retire, and to relinquish, henceforth, the attempt to
overcome Mohammed by force of arms. This last attack upon Medina is
variously named from the _nations_ which marched under Abu Sophian’s
banner, and from the _ditch_ which protected the Mussulman camp.
During the earlier period of his mission, Mohammed had shown
considerable leaning towards the Jews; he had selected Jerusalem for
the _Kebla_ of prayer, and had endeavoured to form most of his tenets
and precepts upon the model of the Mosaic ordinances. Indeed, there
can be no doubt, but that it was for a time the great end and object
of his ambition to be accepted by the Jews as their promised Messiah;
nor can it be denied, that a deep political idea lay at the bottom of
this desire. Had he succeeded in persuading the Jews to believe in
his Messiahship, his apostolic course among the Arabs would have run
much smoother, and many of the so-called Christian sects might have
been readily gained over to his _mixtum compositum_, which might,
indeed, be called a creed of creeds in the literal acceptation of the
words.
But the imposture was too shallow to take with so clear-sighted a
people as the Jews unquestionably were: the pretended Messiah was
repudiated by them with disdain, and the hostility of the Koreish
against the son of Abdallah, was, in some degree, fomented and fanned
by the Jews of Mecca. Hence the implacable and unrelenting hatred
with which Mohammed pursued the unfortunate Israelites to the
last moment of his life. That he changed the kebla of prayer from
Jerusalem to Mecca, and that in his nocturnal journey to Heaven, he
beheld the divine tabernacle in a straight line above the latter
city, instead of Zion, where he undoubtedly originally intended to
behold it,--could, at the most, provoke a smile of contempt and
derision; but the appalling cruelties which he indicted, both upon
individuals and upon entire tribes of the doomed nation, must fill
the mind of the impartial explorer of history with deep indignation
against the man who could _so_ avenge his offended vanity. His
first exploit in this direction, was the expulsion of the KAINOKA
tribe from Medina, where they had hitherto been permitted to dwell
in peace, by the large toleration of the _Idolators_. The prophet
of Islam seized the occasion of an accidental tumult, in which the
Kainoka had taken part, to place before them the alternative of
embracing his religion, or contending with him in battle. A _brave_
challenge this, to the unfortunate Jews, to do battle with him,
and which displayed in the fullest, though certainly not in the
most favorable light, the _magnanimous_ disposition of the son of
Abdallah, that has been so highly extolled by some historians. Still,
even with the fearful odds of number and martial spirit against them,
the feeble and unwarlike Israelites preferred the unequal contest to
apostacy from the faith of their fathers. It was decided in fifteen
days, of course with the total overthrow and capture of the whole
tribe; and, had it not been that the Charegites, mindful of the
friendship which once existed between them and their humble allies,
the Kainoka, warmly interceded on behalf of the wretched captives,
the prophet of God would have slain every one of them. As it was,
they were despoiled of their homes and property; and driven forth,
to the number of seven hundred men, with their wives and children,
to seek a refuge on the confines of Syria, to which quarter the
blessings of the new creed had not yet extended. The NADHIRITES were
the next to feel the weight of his arm. In their case, indeed, some
provocation had been given, as they had conspired to assassinate the
prophet in a friendly interview. Protected by the walls of their
castle (situated about three miles from Medina), they fought with
such boldness and resolution, that Mohammed was fain to grant them an
honorable capitulation.
The war of the nations interrupted for a time Mohammed’s operations
against the Jews; but even on the day that the confederated nations
had abandoned the siege of Medina, he marched against the tribe of
KORAIDHA. A campaign of twenty-five days sufficed to compel their
surrender at discretion. They fondly believed that their old allies
of Medina would, by their intercession, preserve them at least from
the extreme measure of Mohammed’s wrath;--vain hope: fanaticism
had made rapid progress among the Ansars. A venerable elder of
the Charegite tribe, to whose judgment they referred their case,
pronounced the penalty of death against them for their hostility to
Islam. To the number of seven hundred they were led in chains to
the market-place of Medina, where a grave had been dug to receive
them; into this they were forced to descend, and the apostle of God
indulged his vengeful mind with the sight of their slaughter and
burial.... Verily, verily, the blackest and most atrocious of crimes
are committed in the name of God. A few years after the extirpation
of the Koraidha, Mohammed marched, at the head of two hundred horse,
and fourteen hundred foot, against the ancient city of CHAIBAR, the
seat of the Jewish power in Arabia. Chaibar was protected by eight
strong castles, which were successively reduced by the Moslems in
sixteen weeks, not, however, without considerable loss on the part of
the conquerors. After the fall of the castles, the city was forced to
surrender (628). The inhabitants had their lives granted to them, and
permission to dwell in the land, on condition that they should pay
to the prophet, an annual tribute of the one-half of their revenue.
But the chief of Chaibar was subjected to the most cruel tortures,
to force from him a confession of his hidden treasures; and when the
100,000 pieces of gold, which had been concealed, were delivered
up at last, he and several of the most notable of his people were
mercilessly butchered in cold blood. It was in this campaign against
Chaibar that Mohammed bestowed upon Ali, the surname of the “Lion
of God,” gained by the slaughter of 150 Hebrews, who are stated to
have fallen by the irresistible scymitar of Abu Taleb’s illustrious
son.[30]
The Jewess ASMA had offended the dignity of the prophet by some
satirical strictures on his private life; he bribed a miserable blind
Jew, named OMEIR, to assassinate her. This wretched tool murdered
the ill-fated woman in her chamber, and nailed her body to the
floor; having some misgivings of conscience, he accosted the prophet
next morning while at prayer, and asked him whether God might not,
perhaps, punish the crime perpetrated? whereupon the pious apostle
bade him to be of good cheer, as the killing of a Jew, even if not
at all times a meritorious act, was, at least, a matter of perfect
indifference to the Ruler of the Universe! In the same way he deputed
assassins to slay the learned Jew, ESHREF; in the name of God he
sent them on their bloody errand! The venerable ABU AAS was murdered
in his sleep at his bidding: the poor old man had reached his
hundredth year, and might safely have been permitted to die in peace,
but considerations of the kind weighed but little with the son of
Abdallah; an insult to his apostolic dignity could only be washed off
in the blood of the offender. But why sully our pages with the long
list of private and public murders perpetrated by the command, or at
the instigation of, this precious pretender to a divine mission, ...
sufficient has been stated to illustrate the cruel and sanguinary
disposition of the man.
Mohammed had left Mecca most reluctantly, and only when flight alone
could preserve his life from the swords of his then all-powerful
enemies. The thought to revisit as a conqueror, the city and the
holy temple of the Kaaba, was ever present to his mind. When the
Jews, by their disdainful rejection of his advances, had turned his
friendship into implacable hatred, he changed the kebla of prayer
from Jerusalem to Mecca, clearly indicating thereby, that, whatever
might be the merits of Medina, the holy city of the Kaaba stood still
foremost in his affections. As soon as he had firmly established
his empire over Medina, and some powerful tribes of the desert, and
had destroyed or expelled the Jewish tribes of the Kainoka, the
Nadhirites, and the Koraidha,[31] he projected a scheme for the
conquest of Mecca, (towards the end of 627). Conscious that his
power was not yet sufficiently great to prevail by force of arms, he
craftily disguised his expedition against the city of his birth, in
the form of a peaceful and pious pilgrimage. Seventy camels, chosen
and bedecked for sacrifice, preceded the van of his host of 1400
picked men. The captives who fell into his hands, in his advance to
the territory of the sacred city, were dismissed without ransom, to
carry to the Koreish the solemn assurance of his peaceful intentions.
All that the good man wanted, was to be permitted to enter the city,
with his 1400 armed followers, to sacrifice the camels which he
had brought with him for the purpose, and to perform the customary
seven circumambulations round the Kaaba. Of course, had the Koreish
conceded these points, the rest would have been a task of easy
accomplishment. But the Koreish had had opportunities sufficient to
know the crafty tongue and the false heart of the son of Abdallah.
They encountered him, therefore, in the plain, within a day’s journey
of the city, with such numbers and with such resolution, that he was
fain to abandon his purpose for the time, and even to consent to the
conclusion of a ten years’ truce, with the Koreish and their allies.
In the treaty drawn up to that effect,[32] he, the infallible
prophet of God, the favored mortal raised by the Divine will to an
equality with the cherubim and seraphim in the heavenly hierarchy,
the trusted leader who had solemnly promised his believing followers,
a triumphal entry into the stronghold of the most formidable and
most dreaded of the enemies of Islam,--was obliged even to waive
the title of Apostle of God, and to figure as plain Mohammed Abul
Kasem. Still the Koreish granted him, for the ensuing year, the
privilege of entering the city unarmed and as a friend, and of
remaining three days to accomplish the rites of the pilgrimage--a
fatal mistake on their part, and which they might have foreseen one
so crafty as Mohammed would turn to excellent account. For the time
being, however, the authority of the pretended prophet of God was
considerably shaken, and some of the newly converted Bedoween tribes
showed symptoms of disaffection. The successful campaign against
Chaibar revived the faith and courage of his followers, and restored
the wavering loyalty of the wandering tribes.
After the conquest of Chaibar, Mohammed sent six embassies with
letters to the neighbouring princes, calling upon them to embrace
the religion of Islam: the seal of the letter bore the inscription,
“Mohammed, the Apostle of God.” The Greek emperor, HERACLIUS,
returning in triumph from the Persian war, received and entertained
one of these ambassadors with great urbanity at Emesa. KOBAD II.,
of Persia (SIROES)[33] tore the letter, and dismissed the envoy
with ignominy. MOKAWKAS, the Byzantine governor of Memphis, a born
Egyptian, and a Jacobite or Monophysite[34] in religion; and who, in
the disorder of the Persian war, had aspired to independence, and
thereby exposed himself to the resentment of Heraclius, declined,
indeed, the proposal of a new religion, but accompanied his refusal
with flattering compliments and with gifts; among other, two Coptic
damsels, one of whom, Mary, became the favorite concubine of the
prophet, to whom she bore a son, Ibrahim, who died, however, at the
tender age of fifteen months. The King of Abyssinia also returned a
polite answer. But HARIS, governor of Damascus, threatened war upon
the presumptuous Arabian; and AMRU, prince of Gassan, a vassal of the
Byzantine emperor, put the envoy to death, for which outrage Mohammed
sent afterwards an army into Syria, with what results we shall see
hereafter.
According to the stipulations of the treaty of Hodaibeh, Mohammed was
permitted to perform, towards the end of 628, at the head of a body
of pious pilgrims, his three days’ devotion in the Kaaba; the Koreish
retiring, meanwhile, to the hills. After the customary sacrifice,
he evacuated the city on the fourth day; but in this short space of
time, he had succeeded in sowing the seeds of division between the
hostile chiefs, and to gain over to his cause KALED and AMROU, or
AMRU, the future conquerors of Syria and Egypt. The interdiction of
wine, and of dice and lotteries, falls in this period.
It was after the return from this pilgrimage, that he sent an army
of 3000 Moslems against Amru, prince of Gassan, and the Greeks. The
army was led by ZEID, Mohammed’s freedman and one of his earliest
disciples. At Muta, three days’ journey from Jerusalem, they met the
Gassanides and the Greeks: a fierce and bloody battle ensued; Zeid
fell fighting in the foremost ranks; the holy banner, which escaped
from his relaxing grasp, was seized by JAAFAR, the leader appointed
by Mohammed to succeed Zeid, in the event of the decease of the
latter. Jaafar’s right hand was severed from his body by the sword
of a Roman soldier; he shifted the standard to the left hand: this
met the same fate; he embraced the holy banner with the bleeding
stumps, and thus upheld it, till the tide of life ebbed away from
fifty wounds. The vacant place was as worthily filled by ABDALLAH,
the second successor appointed by the prophet in case of accident.
He also fell, transfixed by the lance of a Roman. The battle was
lost, the flower of the Moslem host annihilated, and the ambitions
dreams of empire were dispelled at the very time when they seemed
to promise fairest,--had not KALED, the recent convert of Mecca, at
this critical juncture, rescued the falling standard, and assumed the
command, with the same bravery as his predecessors, but with still
greater prowess, and with greater success. Nine swords were broken
in his hand; and every enemy that dared to approach him, was made to
bite the dust by his invincible arm. Night put an end to the contest:
in the nocturnal council of the camp, Kaled was chosen, or rather
confirmed, leader of the gallant band of warriors, who had survived
the carnage of the day. Death had been fearfully busy in the ranks of
the Moslems; and the Greeks, though awed by the valor of Kaled, had
still an immense superiority of number in their favor. Kaled wisely
resolved, therefore, to save the wreck of his forces by a skilful
retreat. His admirable combinations, and the dread inspired by his
prowess, rescued the host of the faithful believers of Islam from
all but certain destruction; and the well-earned gratitude of the
prophet bestowed upon the hero of Muta, the glorious appellation of
the “Sword of God,” a name destined after to ring many a time and oft
as the knell of doom in the ears of the affrighted Christians.
Mohammed had never ceased to meditate the conquest of Mecca, and his
power was now, indeed, sufficiently great and solid to promise an
easy accomplishment of this, the darling object of his ambition; but
the ten years’ truce seemed an obstacle which it would not be easy to
surmount. Notwithstanding, however, he silently prepared the means
to carry his plans against the city of his birth into execution,
should a favorable opportunity offer. The reverse which his forces
had suffered at Muta, impelled the Koreish to furnish him with
the desired pretext; they attacked one of the tribes confederated
with Mohammed. Ten thousand soldiers were speedily gathered round
the banner of the prophet, and led by him against the offending
city. A rapid and secret march brought them almost within sight of
Mecca, before the Koreish had the least notion of their approach.
Unprepared as they were, it would have been sheer madness to contend
against the overwhelming forces which now encompassed the city of
the Kaaba: they resolved therefore to throw themselves upon the
clemency of their triumphant exile. On the 11th of January, 630,
the haughty chief of the house of Ommiyah presented the keys of the
city; and confessed, under the scymitar of Omar, that the son of
Abdallah was the apostle of the true God. The patriotic attachment
which Mohammed unquestionably bore the city of his birth, and
political considerations of a high order, stayed the avenging hand
of the victorious outcast. Kaled had, indeed, slain twenty-eight of
the inhabitants, ere the potent command of the prophet to spare the
vanquished, could restrain his ruthless arm; but Mohammed blamed
the cruelty of his lieutenant, and, though he proscribed eleven men
and six women, few only were put to death by him. Among these was
ABDOLUSA, who, after having embraced the faith of Islam, had relapsed
into idolatry. ABDALLAH, once the secretary of Mohammed, and who
had been employed by him to note down the fragmentary revelations
imparted by Gabriel, had a narrow escape. The clear-sighted man had
seen through the shallow imposture palmed upon the people by the
pretended apostle; and he had imprudently boasted, that he also might
claim the name and rank of a prophet, considering that he had it in
his power to change, or to suppress, the holy revelations dictated to
him by Mohammed. To escape the vengeance of his offended master, he
had fled to Mecca, where he had, however, still continued to provoke
his resentment by exposing and ridiculing his ignorance. When Mecca
was taken, Abdallah fell prostrate at the feet of Mohammed, and
implored his pardon. Othman, Abdallah’s foster-brother, entreated the
prophet to spare the life of the humble penitent, a request which was
at last most reluctantly granted, Mohammed declaring that he had so
long hesitated, to allow time for some zealous disciple to strike the
kneeling apostate dead at his feet.[35] The poet, HUIRES, paid the
penalty of his satires on the Apostle of God: but SOHEIR more wisely
purchased, not only forgiveness, but a rich reward in the bargain,
by one of the grossest and most extravagant pieces of adulation that
ever proceeded even from an Oriental pen.
The Koreish and the other inhabitants of Mecca, professed the
religion of Islam, and acknowledged the temporal and spiritual
supremacy of the prophet. The 360 idols of the Kaaba were
ignominiously broken; Mohammed assisting with his own hands, in the
work of destruction, nay, even lending his august shoulders for Ali
to mount upon, to accomplish the overthrow of some idols placed a
little above ordinary reach. This meritorious feat was performed on
a Friday; which day was, therefore, henceforward appointed by the
prophet as the holy day of Islam.
But it was by no means the intention of Mohammed to despoil the
city of his birth, of the lucrative trade in religion to which it
had hitherto been mainly indebted for its pre-eminence among the
cities of Arabia. The people of Mecca were agreeably disappointed,
when they beheld the Prophet of God solemnly consecrating again the
purified Kaaba, and performing the customary circumambulations and
sacrifices as of old. They were readily reconciled to the belief in a
sole Deity, since their astute townsman assigned a local habitation
on earth to the idea of the God whom he commanded them and the
nations of the world to worship, and placed this habitation within
the walls of their own city. Even the black stone was not forgotten
by the crafty politician: his reverential touch cleansed it from the
pollution of ages of idolatry, and restored it to the pristine purity
and holiness of Gabriel’s celestial gift to Abraham; and to crown
all, he still heightened the sanctity of the holy city, by enacting
a perpetual law that no unbeliever should ever dare to set his foot
within its sacred precincts.
The conquest of Mecca secured Mohammed the allegiance of many of
the Bedoween tribes, who, troubling themselves but little about
religious opinions and controversies, readily gave their adhesion
to the cause which the gods seemed to prosper. But some of the most
important tribes of Hejaz, and more especially the people of Tayef,
persisted in their idolatry, and a great confederacy was formed
among them to break the power of Mohammed. The prophet resolved to
meet the threatening danger; he collected a host of 12,000 men,
well-armed and well-appointed; the confederates had not one-half the
number to oppose him. But the skilful tactics of the pagans, and the
overweening confidence of the Mussulmans, brought the apostle and
his new faith to the verge of ruin. Having incautiously descended
into the valley of HONAIN, the Moslems were suddenly attacked on all
sides by the archers and slingers of the enemy, who occupied the
heights; the ranks of the faithful were thrown into confusion by
the unexpected and fierce onset of the foe; and the stoutest hearts
among them quailed, when they saw themselves caught as in a net.
The Koreish secretly rejoiced at the impending destruction of their
conquerors, and even prepared to go over to the enemy. All seemed
lost;--despairing of victory, the prophet, seeking a glorious death,
urged his white mule against the wall of spears that encompassed
him: his faithful followers dragged him back, and covered him with
their persons from the thrusts and darts aimed at his breast. Three
of these devoted followers fell dead at his feet;--but the moment of
weak despair was past, and soon the thunder of his voice was heard
again, reanimating the sinking courage of the Moslems, and striking
terror into the hearts of the idolators. The Koreish forgot their
treacherous intentions; the flying Mussulmans returned from all
sides to the holy standard; and the attacks of the enemy were now
everywhere vigorously repulsed. Defeat was changed into victory, and
a merciless slaughter of the conquered and flying pagans, avenged
the temporary disgrace of the followers of Islam. From the field
of Honain, Mohammed marched without delay to Tayef, the centre and
stronghold of the confederacy. He laid siege to that fortress; but
the desperate valor of the inhabitants defeated all his efforts to
effect its reduction; and after twenty days spent before it, he
deemed it the wisest course to rest satisfied for the time with the
victory of Honain, and not to court the chances of an inglorious
defeat. He, therefore, raised the siege, and marched back to Mecca.
In his operations against Tayef, he gave an instance of how cheap he
held his own laws and precepts, where they happened to clash with
his interests: he ordered the extirpation of all the fruit trees in
the fertile lands round the city.
In the division of the rich spoils of the expedition of Honain, he
acted with consummate skill. Instead of excluding the Koreish from
their share, to punish them for their ambiguous conduct during the
campaign, he bestowed double measure upon them; the most disaffected
of them all, Abu Sophian, being presented with no less than three
hundred camels and twenty ounces of silver: no wonder, then, that
that rapacious chief and his followers should have, henceforth,
become sincere adherents to so profitable a creed. The old companions
in arms of the prophet were reconciled to this manifest injustice
in the distribution of the spoil, by artful flatteries and promises
of heavenly rewards: his own share of the plunder (one-fifth) he
assigned to the soldiers.[36]
Although he had failed to reduce Tayef, yet by the extirpation of
the fruit trees he had struck a severe blow against the people of
that city; the fortifications had been considerably injured by the
battering rams and the mining operations, so that there was ample
reason to dread the event of a renewal of the siege. The people
of Tayef resolved, therefore, to sue for peace; their deputies
endeavoured to obtain favorable conditions, and, at least, the
toleration of their ancient worship, though even only for a short
period. Mohammed would not concede them even one day; at last they
simply entreated to be excused from the obligation of prayer to the
God of Islam; in vain: Mohammed was inexorable, and Tayef at length
submitted to the harsh conditions imposed by the prophet. The idols
were broken, their temples demolished, and all the tribes of Hejaz
acknowledged the supreme rule of the son of Abdallah. The ruler
of BAHREIN, the King of OMAN, and the King of the BENI GASSAN, in
Syria, confessed the God of Mohammed, and submitted to the sway of
the prophet. Yemen also, and the rest of the peninsula, was reduced
to obedience by his victorious lieutenants, and the ambassadors who
knelt before the throne of Medina, (631, hence called the year of the
embassies), were, in the words of the Arabian proverb, “as numerous
as the dates that fall from the palm-tree in the season of ripeness.”
Absolute master of the whole of Arabia, the son of Abdallah resolved
to subject Syria also to his sway; he solemnly declared war against
the Empire of the East, and summoned the faithful to the holy
standard. But the prospect of the difficulties and hardships of a
march through the desert, during the intolerable heat of the summer,
and, perhaps also, the recollection of Muta, discouraged the Moslems;
and the most urgent solicitations of the apostle were disregarded,
or met by more or less cogent excuses. Still the great champions of
the faith, Ali, Omar, Othman, Kaled, Amru, Abu Bekr, Abu Obeidah,
Abbas,[37] and many others, attended by trains of devoted followers,
gathered round the prophet, and enabled him thus to take the field,
at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot.[38] After
one of the most distressing marches through the desert, the Moslem
host was compelled to halt midway near TABUC, ten days’ journey
from Medina and Damascus. The hardships endured had considerably
cooled the ardor of the faithful, and wisely declining to engage
the disciplined forces of the Eastern empire with his wearied and
dispirited followers, Mohammed contented himself with inviting
the Greek Emperor once more to embrace his religion, and retired
to Arabia; leaving a body of picked men, under the command of the
intrepid Kaled, to prosecute the war. The valor and activity of that
leader secured the submission of the tribes and cities from the
Euphrates to Ailah, at the head of the Red Sea. Mohammed returned to
Medina, where he pronounced a sentence of excommunication for fifty
days against those who had been the most disobedient to his call. He
then prepared for a great pilgrimage to Mecca, which he accomplished
in the early part of 632, attended by 60,000 Moslems.[39] In this,
his last visit to the city of his birth, he gave a great number of
laws and precepts; and, among others, the interdiction of the private
revenge of murder and other injuries.
It has already been stated, that Mohammed’s health had been declining
ever since the campaign of Chaibar, (see page 34, note); yet such
was the strength and vigor of his constitution, that up to the time
of his last and fatal illness, he remained equal to the physical and
mental fatigues of his mission. However, soon after his return from
the last pilgrimage to Mecca, he fell ill of an inflammatory fever,
with occasional fits of delirium, which he endeavoured to combat
by frequent affusions with cold water. When he became conscious of
the fatal nature of his illness, he laid himself out to die, as
an accomplished actor, like Octavianus Augustus. Leaning on his
cousin and son-in-law, Ali,[40] and on his uncle, Abbas, or the son
of the latter, Fadl, he dragged himself to the mosque to perform
the functions of public prayer: from the pulpit he called upon his
subjects freely and boldly to state any grievance that any one of
them might have suffered at his hands, and to prefer any just claims
against his estate. A safe challenge indeed: the victims of his lust
of power and revenge were laid in their graves, and could not appear
against him _there_; nor could _they_ prefer any claim against his
estate, who had been despoiled by him or his lieutenants, in their
predatory expeditions. No wonder then that the immaculate justice and
piety of the Apostle of God, were fully attested by the silence of
the congregation in presence of this challenge,--excepting a paltry
claim of three drachms of silver, which was, of course, at once duly
settled by Mohammed, with a profusion of thanks into the bargain,
that the “creditor” had rather demanded payment in this world, than
waited to accuse him at the judgment-seat of God!
Up to the third day before his death, he continued to perform the
function of public prayer; on that day his strength failed him, and
he deputed Abu Bekr in his place, which was afterwards skilfully
laid hold of by the latter and Ayesha, to found a claim to the
successorship in the sacerdotal and regal office, in favor of Abu
Bekr, to the prejudice of Ali.
He then made his last dispositions, enfranchised his slaves,
(seventeen men and eleven women), had alms distributed to the poor of
Medina, and minutely directed the order of his funeral. He expressed
a desire to dictate to his secretary a new divine book, the sum
and accomplishment of all his revelations, and which, according to
Mohammed’s convenient maxim, would have superseded the authority of
the Koran, in all points in which its teachings might happen to clash
with the rules and precepts laid down in the latter. As Mohammed had
preached an eternal and immutable God, and had declared the substance
of the Koran to be uncreated and eternal, the gross absurdity of
attempting a new, revised, and amended edition of it, could not fail
to strike the more rational among his disciples. They, with Omar at
their head, firmly refused, therefore, to consent to the prophet’s
anxiously expressed wish--a curious comment on the sincerity of their
professed conviction of his divine mission, and his communings with
the messenger of heaven, and for which, their _assumed_ belief that
his mental faculties were, at the time, impaired by the effects of
illness, afforded but an indifferent apology. Be this however as it
may, the point was vehemently discussed between them and the more
devout followers of the prophet; and the dispute, which was carried
on in the chamber of the dying man, rose at last to such a pitch,
that Mohammed reluctantly desisting from his desire, was forced to
reprove the indecent vehemence of the disputants on either side.
Even to the last moment of his life, Mohammed consistently carried
out his system of deception. He told his friends about him, that
he had received a last visit of Gabriel, who had now bidden an
everlasting farewell to the earth. In a familiar discourse, he had
once boasted of the peculiar and exclusive prerogative granted
to him, that the angel of death should respectfully solicit his
permission before he was to be allowed to take his soul. When he
felt the near approach of his dissolution, he calmly informed the
Moslem chiefs assembled round him, that the Great Destroyer had
just preferred his request, and that he, Mohammed, had granted the
permission asked! Stretched on a carpet spread upon the floor, and
with his head reclining on the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of his
wives, he expired on the 7th day of June, 632.[41] His last words
were: “O God!... pardon my sins.... Yes, ... I come, ... among my
fellow-citizens on high.”
His death dismayed his followers; the more fanatical among them
could not bring themselves to believe in the actual departure of his
spirit from this world. The idea of a trance, or of a resurrection
after a few days’ apparent death, found ready credence with them.
Omar, unsheathing his scymitar, threatened to strike off the heads
of the infidels who should dare to affirm that the prophet was no
more!--a curious comment upon his refusal to allow the dying prophet
to re-write the Koran. At last, Abu Bekr succeeded in making them
listen to reason: “Is it Mohammed,” he said, “or Mohammed’s God whom
you worship? Has not the apostle himself predicted that he should
experience the common fate of mortality?” This calm and rational
address had the desired effect; the death of the prophet was admitted
by all, and his body was piously interred by the hands of Ali, on the
same spot on which he expired, and which is now surrounded by the
great mosque of Medina. The story of the hanging coffin at Mecca is a
vulgar and puerile invention, not worth the trouble of refutation.
I have been led by the superior importance and interest which attach
to the subject, to extend this chapter, perhaps, considerably beyond
the limits compatible with the nature and size of the present work;
still I cannot abstain from adding a short sketch of Mohammed’s
habits of life, and a few brief remarks on the Koran.
In his domestic life and intercourse, Mohammed was most simple
and unassuming. The ruler of Arabia fed usually upon barley bread
and dates; water was his ordinary drink, though he delighted, and
occasionally indulged, in the taste of milk and honey; he never
drank wine. The powerful chieftain who could command the services
of thousands, did not disdain performing the menial offices of the
household: he kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and
mended with his own hands, his shoes and his woollen garment (the
use of silk he rejected as too effeminate); nor was it an uncommon
circumstance to see the Apostle of God barefoot. He slept on the
bare ground, or on a carpet or straw mat spread upon the floor. He
always performed, with the most rigorous strictness, the prayers
and ablutions enjoined by the Koran. With the regal and sacerdotal
office, he had assumed the reserve and austerity that befitted
his high position; yet he would occasionally unbend in the circle
of his friends, when he enchanted all around him by the graceful,
though dignified, affability of his manners, and the charms of his
conversation. He was passionately fond of fairy tales. He delighted
in perfumes and cats, which latter partiality he shared with one of
his cotemporaries, the learned Abu Horaira, who gained for himself
the surname of “the father of a cat.” His hair, beard, and eyebrows,
were the objects of his most anxious care and solicitude; he dyed
them with considerable skill, a glossy light-chesnut color.
He was most passionately addicted to the fair sex: in the indulgence
of his amorous desires, he set his own laws at nought. The Arabians
had enjoyed, from time immemorial, an unbounded licence of polygamy;
the Koran limited the number of legitimate wives or concubines
to _four_, the prophet had _seventeen_ wives; but then, Gabriel
had descended with a special revelation, dispensing the favored
apostle from the laws which he had imposed on the nation. ZEINEB,
the beautiful wife of ZEID, his freedman and adopted son, excited
his desire. The grateful husband consented to a divorce, and the
prophet added her to the number of his wives; but as the filial
relation in which the young woman stood to Mohammed, even though
only by adoption, was likely to produce some scandal, and to
raise some scruples in the minds of the faithful, the complaisant
Gabriel descended with another verse of the Koran, appropriate to
the occasion. Again, in the case of Mary, the Egyptian slave, the
indefatigable angel was at hand to oblige the Apostle of God. Had
Mohammed liked wine, there can be no doubt, but that Gabriel would
have been ready with another verse of the Koran, to dispense the
prophet from the restriction imposed upon all other mortals. A
better proof than the nature of these successive “revelations,” so
entirely subservient to the gratification of his passions, could not
well be adduced, to show that Mohammed was not, as some good-natured
historians would fain believe him to have been, the enthusiastic dupe
of his own illusions, but simply a cool and calculating politician,
who made the institution of a new religious system the basis and
engine of his power and dominion; most probably, sincerely believing
also, that he was really conferring an immense boon upon his people.
His vengeful and sanguinary disposition, has been already fully
exposed in the narration of his life. The impartiality of history
relieves those darker touches in the picture of Mohammed’s character,
by a trait of unaffected humanity. His decree that, in the sale of
captives, mothers should never be separated from their children, may
well, as Gibbon says, moderate the censure of the historian. How
the thousands of hapless negro mothers that have had their children
ruthlessly torn from their arms in _Christian_ America, would bless
the memory of the Arabian legislator, could that humane decree of his
find force and application in the Western Hemisphere!
The KORAN is the sacred book of Islam; the successive “revelations”
imparted to Mohammed, were diligently recorded by his disciples
on palm-leaves, skins, and the shoulder-bones of mutton; and the
fragments, or “pages,” were thrown into a domestic chest, in the
custody of one of Mohammed’s wives. In 634, these fragments were
collected and published by Abu Bekr; the sacred volume was revised
by the Khalif Othman, in 651. It consists of 114 chapters (SURATS,
_i.e._ stages or degrees), of very unequal lengths, and jumbled
together without chronological order, or systematic arrangement.
The chapters are made up of plagiarisms from the Bible, rabbinical
and apocryphal legends, religious and moral precepts, descriptions
of the joys of paradise and the torments of hell, declamations
and rhapsodies. The style is, for the most part, inflated, rarely
poetical, never sublime; yet Mohammed had the cool audacity to
rest the truth of his mission on the incomparable merit of the
Koran, as an intellectual, linguistic, and poetical performance.
He blasphemously asserted, that God alone could have penned, or
dictated, its divine contents; as no human, nor even an angelic
intelligence, could possibly have conceived anything like them!!!
The dogmatic part of the Koran (the IMAN), comprises the two articles
of faith, viz., the belief in one God, and in his prophet Mohammed;
and the four practical duties of Islam, viz., prayer, ablutions,
fasting, and alms-giving: these duties are reduced to the level
of mere mechanical performances, without one atom of spontaneity
about them, and are looked upon by most Mohammedans as irksome
tasks, which must be accomplished, however, to secure the reward
of paradise; the formal permission granted to supply with sand the
scarcity of water, so that the prescribed lustration of the hands,
the face, and the body may be practised even in the arid desert,
shows how little capable the legislator must have been to conceive
and comprehend the true spirit and intention of his own ordinances.
The Koran pronounces--of course: is there a religion that does
not?--sentence of eternal damnation against all unbelievers; it
imagines a gradation of seven inconveniently hot places, of which the
highest and least uncomfortable is, of course, appropriated for the
exclusive use of Mohammedans who have been lacking in piety during
their mortal career; according to the less or greater gravity of
their respective offences, they are condemned to remain denizens of
this the mildest of the seven hells, for periods varying from 900 to
9000 years, after which they are admitted to the joys of paradise.
The place immediately beneath this purgatorial hell is assigned to
the Christians; the hell next to this is allotted to the Jews,
whom the prophet of Islam would indeed gladly have sent down lower,
had he dared to treat monotheists worse than idolators; the Sabians
inhabit the fourth, the Magians the fifth, the gross idolators the
sixth hell; the deepest and hottest hell is destined to receive
hypocrites in religion, and may therefore safely be assumed to be of
larger dimensions and infinitely greater capacity than the other six
together. The paradise of the Koran abounds in groves, fountains,
and rivers; the blessed Moslems who are permitted to enter its gates
will dwell in palaces of marble, eat artificial dainties and luscious
fruits presented in dishes of gold, drink rich wines,[42] dress in
robes of silk, adorned with pearls and diamonds, and have a numerous
retinue of attendants; and above all, each Moslem will enjoy the
society and possession of seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls,
of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite
sensibility--rather a pleasant picture for a sensual people like the
Arabians. To the female sex also the gates of paradise are open;
but the privileges and enjoyments which may await the ladies of the
Mohammedan faith, are not specified in the Koran. Still, we must not
be unjust: above the vulgar joys and sensual pleasures borrowed from
this world, Mohammed places the delights of familiar conversation
with the sages, and he expressly declares that all meaner happiness
will be forgotten and despised by the saints and martyrs who shall be
permitted to behold the face of God.
Mohammed’s assertion that the Koran was the production of the
highest intelligence, and comprised within it the knowledge of all
times, has, ever since the establishment of his creed, proved a bar
to the intellectual culture and progress of his people and of the
other nations who were induced or compelled to adopt his faith; his
interdiction to reproduce the human face and form on canvas or in
marble, or any other material, and which with singular poverty of
invention he had devised as the only possible check to idolatry, has
had the natural effect to suppress and extinguish in the Moslem
nations the love of the fine arts. True, when conquest had placed the
wealth of empires at the disposal of the sons of the Desert, many
of Mohammed’s followers could not resist the natural longing after
the treasures and enjoyments of science, art, and literature; and
indeed the republic of letters is vastly indebted to many of them
for their labors and researches in various fields of human lore,
more especially in geography, history, philosophy, medicine, natural
philosophy, chemistry, mathematics, and above all, arithmetic,
algebra, geometry, and astronomy. But then, as A. W. VON SCHLEGEL,
says, “All this was done, as it were, behind the back of the prophet,
and the votaries of art, science, and literature, among the Arabians
must, from a Koranic point of view, be regarded in the light of
free-thinkers.”
The ritual of the faith of Islam, and the interdictions decreed by
the prophet, have been already incidentally touched upon in various
parts of this chapter; we have therefore simply to add here that the
Koran commands every faithful Moslem to visit, at feast once in his
life, the holy city of Mecca, and the Kaaba.
One great redeeming feature of the religion of Islam was that it was
originally destitute of a priesthood, and repudiated monachism; the
_Ulemas_ were simply intended to be the expounders and interpreters
of the law.
On Friday, the appointed day of public worship, when the faithful are
assembled in the mosque, any respectable elder may ascend the pulpit
to begin the prayer and pronounce the sermon: there is no need of a
duly appointed priest. But, unfortunately, the Ulemas and Imams of
the present day act very much in the capacity of an actual clergy:
and there is indeed no great difference between fakirs and dervishes
and Roman Catholic monks.
The Koran contains also the civil and criminal code of the
Mussulmans; the punishments decreed in it for injuries, offences, and
crimes are mostly based upon the principle of retaliation.
Briefly to sum up: though it must be admitted that the religion of
Islam, calmly and dispassionately examined by the light of reason,
contains, by the side of the grossest absurdities, the most palpable
falsehoods, and the veriest rubbish, much also that is true and
of sterling worth; and that it has exercised a certain civilising
influence over the barbarous nations to whom it was first preached,
yet few only will venture to deny that it lacks altogether the
higher and most essential qualities of a universal faith. Even the
basis whereon it rests, the great eternal truth of a sole Deity, is
tarnished and clouded in it by the companionship which it is forced
to bear to a miserable fiction placed by the side of it, and with
equal attributes. There are some few, strange though it may appear,
who almost regret that the victorious career of the Moslems should
have been checked by LEO THE ISAURIAN and by CHARLES MARTEL. What
would have become of Europe--what of civilisation, had the Moslems
conquered? Let the admirers of Islam look at the state of the
Mussulman nations of the present day: the fruit shows the quality of
the tree. It is also a favorite argument with historians and others,
to point to the _numbers_ of believers in Islam, and to the twelve
centuries that the Mohammedan faith has endured, as convincing proofs
of the _truth_ of that creed, or, at all events, of a preponderating
amount of truth in it. If arguments of this kind are to apply, the
Mormon faith also may claim admission among the “received” creeds;
and the names of Joe Smith and Brigham Young may be expected, in
the course of fifty years or so, to figure among the “prophets and
apostles of religion.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Genesis, x. 25. EBER signifies a nomadic shepherd, one
leading a roving pastoral life; it signifies, also, in Hebrew,
_beyond_, _yon-side_, _the other side_: hence the name HEBREW, or
EBREW, has been supposed also to be intended to designate immigrants
into Canaan or Palestine from beyond the Euphrates.
[2] A species of millet, which compensates to some extent the
scarcity of European grains.
[3] “The Arabian tribes are equally addicted to commerce and rapine,”
as Pliny has it.
[4] True, in the Arabic tongue the meaning of the words, of which the
name _Saracens_ may be compounded, will bear out the signification of
an _Oriental situation_. But the _western_ position of the Saracen
tribe mentioned by Ptolemy, negatives the assumption of the Arabic
origin of the word as applied in this sense. As Gibbon sagaciously
remarks, the appellation being imposed by strangers, its meaning must
be sought, not in the Arabic, but in a foreign language.
[5] It would even appear that the confusion consequent upon the death
of the great Macedonian, and upon the feuds and struggles for empire
among his generals, was taken advantage of by the princes in the
north of Arabia, to extend their dominion beyond the frontier of the
peninsula. From the earliest times the wandering tribes had been in
the habit, more particularly during the scarcity of winter, to extort
the dangerous license of encamping on the skirts of Mesopotamia,
Syria, and Egypt, and had often extended their incursions to the
very heart of Chaldæa, or Babylonia (Irak). They now took formal
possession of a part of the latter country (hence called to the
present day IRAK-ARABI), and established in it a new Arabian state,
the kingdom of HIRA. Tribes from Yemen emigrated to the territory of
Syria, and established the state of GASSAN, in the country north of
Damascus. We must not omit to mention, however, that some historians
place the establishment of the states of Hira and Gassan at a much
later period.
[6] So named from Makkabi, i.e., _the hammer_; the appellation
bestowed upon Judas, the liberator of the Jews from the Syrian yoke.
[7] DUNAAN, prince of the Homerites, had been gained over to the
Mosaic faith by the Jewish exiles who had found an asylum in Yemen.
The new proselyte carried on a most vigorous persecution of the
Christians in his dominions, and more particularly in the city of
Negra, or Nag’ran, (situated between Saana and Mecca). The Christian
king of Abyssinia, who preferred an hereditary claim to the crown of
Yemen, as a descendant of BALKIS, Queen of Sheba, came to the rescue
of his oppressed fellow-believers, and speedily deprived the Jewish
proselyte of crown and life. He allied himself also with the Emperor
Justinian for the overthrow of the Persian power; but he failed
in his subsequent enterprise, and found himself incapable even of
defending his Arabian conquests, which were wrested from him by the
revolt and usurpation of ABRAHAH, once the slave of a Roman merchant
of Adulis. The payment of a slight tribute alone acknowledged the
supremacy of the Ethiopian prince. After a long and prosperous reign,
the power of Abrahah was overthrown before the gates of Mecca, by
Abdul Motalleb, the grandfather of Mohammed; and his children were
finally despoiled by Chosroes Nushirvan, of Persia.
[8] The Axumites, or Abyssinians, were, most probably, originally a
colony of Arabs who had settled in Africa.
[9] The same independence from the yoke of a foreign ruler is still
preserved to the present day by the Arabians. The Sultan of Turkey
exercises but a nominal sovereignty over Hedjaz and Neged; and the
rise and exploits of that formidable sect of religious reformers,
the WAHABYS, during the latter half of the last and in the present
century, indicate sufficiently that it may only require the
appearance of a great man among the Arabs, or the occurrence of some
great event, to unite the wild sons of the desert once more into a
mighty nation that may make its influence felt in the destinies of
the world. Had not Egypt’s great ruler, Mehemet Ali, and his warlike
son Ibrahim, stemmed for a time the progress, and crippled the power
of the Wahabys, who knows but that the champion of Greek orthodoxy
might have found his present ambitious projects opposed by a fiercer
and more formidable antagonist than the effete race of Osman?
[10] Called MEDJID-EL-HARAM, i.e., the holy Mosch.
[11] A visible point of the horizon.
[12] Gibbon.
[13] The constant repetition of this act of pious devotion by so many
myriads of pilgrims has had the effect of rendering the surface of
the stone quite uneven.
[14] Gibbon.
[15] It was in the time when Abdol Motalleb held the sacerdotal
office that Mecca was invested by an army of Africans, under the
command of the Christian usurper of Yemen, Abrahah, the nominal
vassal of the Abyssinian Negus. The valor of the Koreishites, or
perhaps the want of provisions, compelled the investing host to
a disgraceful retreat, and broke the power of the Abyssinians so
effectually that the kingdom of Yemen became soon after an easy prey
to the victorious arms of the great Chosroes of Persia. Had the
_Christian_ Abrahah prevailed, the early feeble efforts of Mohammed
to propagate his new doctrine would certainly have been crushed in
the bud, and the fate of the world would have been changed.
[16] Sabianism, though also based upon the adoration of the heavenly
bodies, must not be confounded with the primitive and simple faith of
the Arabians in the sun, the moon, and the stars; it was of a much
more complex and recondite nature.
[17] Some historians assign the year 569, others 570 (10th November),
as the date of Mahomet’s birth. The date given in the text is,
however, supported by the greater weight of historic authorities.
[18] This Syrian city has been most strangely confounded by
many historians with Bassora, or Basra, on the Shat-el-Arab, in
Irak-Arabi. The latter city was only founded in 636, A.D., by
the Khalif Omar, which makes the mistake the more glaring and
inexplicable.
[19] Some historians make Mohammed at the age of fourteen fight in
defence of the Kaaba, which a hostile tribe threatened to snatch from
the custody of the Koreish. They relate, also, how, at a later period
of his life, when the Kaaba, having been tumbled down by a formidable
torrent of rain, was rebuilding, the honor of fixing the sacred black
stone in the wall devolved upon him; and they endeavour to trace a
kind of causal connection between these incidents in the earlier
life of Mohammed and the religious bias of his later years. But the
_facts_ relied upon here partake too much of the nature of _fiction_,
to make these speculative notions of much moment. Before his marriage
with Cadijah, Mohammed was in a humble and dependent position; and
from the time of his marriage up to when he took upon himself the
apostolic office, he was simply a wealthy but obscure citizen.
[20] Here, again, historians have sent Mohammed on a great many
journeys through Syria, Irak-Arabi, and to the adjoining provinces of
Persia and the Eastern Empire. They make him visit the courts, the
camps, and the temples of the East, and hold converse with princes,
bishops, and priests, more particularly with the Christian monks
Bahira, Sergius, and Nestor. An attentive study of the historic
sources at our command, and a careful examination of the life and
writings of Mohammed, tend to negative altogether the truth of these
pretended journeys and visits, which look very much like fictions got
up by imaginative historians to supply some plausible explanation of
the origin of Mohammed’s pretended mission--an explanation which may
be found much nearer home, as I shall endeavour to show in the text.
Here I will simply add that Mohammed, with all his talent, genius,
and eloquence, was, like the immense majority of his fellow-citizens,
an illiterate barbarian, who had not even been taught to read and
write, and was totally unacquainted with any but his native tongue,
and not likely, therefore, to profit much from converse with other
nations.
[21] The assertion that Mohammed was subject to epileptic fits is
a base invention of the Greeks, who would seem to _impute_ that
morbid affection to the apostle of a novel creed as a stain upon
his moral character deserving the reprobation and abhorrence of
the Christian world. Surely, these malignant bigots might have
reflected that if Mohammed had really been afflicted with that dread
disorder, Christian charity ought to have commanded them to pity his
misfortune, rather than rejoice over it or pretend to regard it in
the light of a sign of Divine wrath.
[22] _Sonna_, custom or rule; the _oral law_ of the Mohammedans,--or,
more correctly speaking, of the four orthodox sects of the
Sonnites--a collection of 7275 traditions of the sayings and doings
of Mohammed, made about 200 years after the Hegira, by Al Bochari,
who selected them from a mass of three hundred thousand reports of a
more doubtful or spurious character.
[23] The so-called MARIANITES are even stated to have attempted the
introduction of a heretical trinity into the church, by substituting
the Virgin for the Holy Ghost.
[24] The five preceding prophets were, in due gradation, Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Moses, and Christus.
[25] The interdiction of wine appeared, however, at a much later
period, (628).
[26] By the advice of Moses, it is somewhat inconsistently asserted
considering that the founder of the Jewish creed, not being
permitted, according to the tradition of the nocturnal journey,
to proceed beyond the seventh heaven (if even so far, his proper
appointed mansion being the sixth heaven) must have been, on the most
moderate calculation, at 140,000,000 years’ distance from the throne
of God.
[27] This flight of the prophet, called the HEJIRA, (i.e.,
_emigration_,) was deemed afterwards of such importance that it was
instituted by Omar, the second Khalif, as the starting-point of the
Mohammedan era, which was, however, made to commence about two months
before, on the first day of that Arabian year, which coincides with
July 16th, 622, A.D.
[28] The conquered Christians were granted the security of their
persons, the freedom of their trade, the property of their goods, and
the toleration of their worship. For the treatment which the Jews met
with at Mohammed’s hands, see the text.
[29] Whether 1000, 3000, or 9000, the commentators of the Koran
cannot agree. Considering that there were only 1000 Koreish in the
field, of whom no more than seventy were slain, it would appear
that Mohammed must either have entertained a most exalted idea of
the valor of his former fellow-citizens, or rather a humble one of
angelic prowess.
[30] It was at the time of the expedition against Chaibar that
Mohammed prohibited the eating of pork, and of the flesh of the ass,
and also the cutting down of fruit-trees, more especially of palms.
“Revere your aunt, the palm-tree,” says the Koran, “for it is made of
the remainder of the clay of which Adam was formed.” Here in Chaibar,
a Jewish female, named Zainab, avenged the cruelties inflicted by
Mohammed upon her nation, by administering a slow poison to the
pretended apostle, whose prophetic knowledge was in this instance
lamentably at fault. To the effects of this poison he himself
attributed the gradual decline of his health from this time, and his
increasing infirmities; and both Abulfeda and Al Jannabi, zealous
votaries of Islam though they are, frankly admit the humiliating
fact. The hatred which he bore to the Jews, did not, however, prevent
his adding to the number of his wives the fair Jewess Shafiya, who,
upon the capitulation of Chaibar, was presented to him as worthy his
acceptance.
[31] The final campaign against Chaibar took place several months
after the first attempt upon Mecca; but for the sake of connection it
has been given in the text a little out of its chronological order.
[32] Known as the treaty of Hodaibeh.
[33] Chosroes II., who is mentioned in most histories as the monarch
who received the envoys of Mohammed, had been murdered by his son
Siroes, on the 28th February, 628, and could not therefore well have
received the ambassador of Mohammed, who started at a later period of
the year.
[34] The sect of the _Monophysites_ asserted one incarnate nature
in Christ; the name of Jacobites, by which they are mostly known,
is derived from Jacobus Baradæus, Bishop of Edessa, who revived the
expiring faction of the Monophysites (about 530).
[35] Some historians dispose of Abdallah on this occasion by the
scymitar of BESCHR, and assign to the Abdallah who in 647 invaded
North Africa, a different origin (some assert the latter to have been
the son of the martyr Jaafar who fell in the battle of Muta).
[36] Mohammed’s vices were of a regal cast; avarice, the beggar’s
vice, yet which so often sullies crowned heads, was not among his
failings.
[37] One of the uncles of the prophet, whose vigorous arm and
immensely powerful voice had done good service to the cause in the
fight of Honain.
[38] Even this number reads very much like Oriental exaggeration, and
may safely be reduced by the half.
[39] Some writers say 90,000, others, 110,000; others, 114,000; some
raise the number even to 130, 140, or 150,000; but then due allowance
must be made for Oriental exaggeration; I think the number given in
the text may be considered to come tolerably near the mark.
[40] Ali was married to Fatima, the only one of Mohammed’s children
who survived the prophet.
[41] Some historians give the 6th, others the 8th, and others the
17th of June, as the last day of Mohammed’s life.
[42] Rather a curious comment on the interdiction of wine in this
world.
CHAPTER II.
THE KHALIFS[43] FROM ABU BEKR TO HASHEM (OR HESHAM).
After the death of the prophet, his companions convened an assembly
to deliberate on the choice of his successor, as Mohammed had
abstained from expressing any explicit command or wish in this
respect. Several competitors presented themselves, of whom Ali, Abu
Bekr, and Omar were the most important. The illustrious son of Abu
Taleb seemed indeed to combine in his own person every possible claim
to the vacant throne of Arabia; he was chief, in his own right,
of the family of Hashem, and hereditary prince of the city, and
custodian of the Temple, of Mecca; the husband of Fatima, Mohammed’s
favorite and only surviving daughter, might reasonably claim for
himself and his two sons the inheritance of the prophet, who had
always delighted in calling him his vizir and vicegerent; his valor
and prowess had shone conspicuous in many a hard-fought battle; and
even his enemies could not impeach the purity of his private life.
But it so happened that Ali had drawn upon himself the implacable
hatred of Ayesha: the conduct of this lady had, on one occasion, been
rather _indiscreet_, to use the very mildest term, and Ali had urged
his cousin to punish the frail fair. Mohammed was indeed inclined
to jealousy, but the youth, beauty, and spirit of the daughter of
Abu Bekr had established her empire over her husband’s affections so
firmly that he rejected the clearest evidence of her faithlessness,
inflicted a severe chastisement upon her accusers, and reproved Ali
for his officiousness. Ayesha never forgave Ali the part he had
played in this delicate affair, and the enmity she bore him was
still heightened by her jealousy of Fatima, to whom she grudged the
prophet’s paternal affection. Mohammed would most probably have
named Ali his successor--and against the explicit nomination of the
prophet, no voice would have dared a protest--but the artful daughter
of Abu Bekr besieged his bed of sickness; and, turning the ascendant
she had acquired over the uxorious man to excellent account, obtained
from him that on the third day before his death, when he was no
longer able to proceed to the mosque, he deputed Abu Bekr in his
place to perform the function of public prayer, instead of charging
Ali with that most honorable and important duty. After the death of
Mohammed, she boldly asserted that he had “appointed” her father
his successor in the royal and sacerdotal office. The Koreish, and
more especially the branch of Ommiyah, the old enemies of the line
of Hashem, eagerly espoused the cause of Abu Bekr. The Ansars of
Medina, and a few of the Mohagerians of Mecca voted for Ali; the
crafty Omar was watching the event; a rash proposal made by one of
Ali’s supporters to let each party choose their own Khalif, and to
divide the empire between them, brought the matter to an abrupt
termination. Omar, discerning the danger which threatened the rising
Saracen empire, if this proposal were acted upon, renounced his own
pretensions; and, setting the regular forms of an election at naught,
hailed Abu Bekr as the first Khalif. The people acquiesced, and
Mecca, Medina, and most of the provinces of Arabia, acknowledged Abu
Bekr as commander of the Faithful. The Hashemites, however, remained
true to their chief, and Ali resisted for six months the cajoleries
of the Khalif and the threats of Omar. But the death of his beloved
Fatima subdued his haughty spirit, and he consented at length to
submit to Abu Bekr’s rule. Strange enough, when Ali had made his
submission, the old man offered to resign in his favor; an offer
which was prudently declined.
During the later part of Mohammed’s life, several other prophets had
arisen in various parts of Arabia, and among them one of some note,
and of no mean skill in the apostolic trade. His name was MOSEILAMA;
the powerful tribe of Hanifa, in the city of Yamanah, in Neged,
listened to his voice. Confident in his power, he coolly offered
Mohammed a partition of the earth between them. The prophet of Islam
treated the offer with disdain; but after his death, several tribes,
who had unwillingly embraced his creed, seceded to the standard
of the new prophet, who speedily became a formidable rival to the
Khalif. Mohammed’s uncle Abbas and the fierce Kaled were dispatched
against him by Abu Bekr; but though forty thousand Moslems followed
their banner, the first action against Moseilama ended in the defeat
of Abbas and Kaled, and the former of the two generals was severely
wounded with a javelin. This defeat was, however, fearfully avenged
by Kaled; ten thousand infidels were made to bite the dust, and
the same javelin that had pierced Abbas, was sent, a messenger of
death, to Moseilama’s heart, by the hand of an Ethiopian slave. The
submission of the revolted tribes speedily followed, and the dread
name of the _Sword of God_ was in itself sufficient to disarm all the
other rebels who had risen in various parts of the peninsula.
The victorious Kaled was now sent to the banks of the Euphrates,
where he reduced the cities of Anbar and Hira (A.D. 632), and, having
slain the last of the Mondars of the Arabian colony of Hira, and
sent his son a captive to Medina, prepared to invade the Persian
empire; but in the midst of his triumphant career, he was recalled
and sent into Syria, to take the command of the army there, and,
in conjunction with Abu Obeidah, to effect the reduction of that
province of the Greek empire. Bosra, a strong city situated four
days’ journey from Damascus, fell by his valor and by the treachery
of the Greek governor ROMANUS. Damascus was besieged (633); and an
army of 70,000 Greeks, who came to the relief of the hard-pressed
city, under the command of WERDAN, was totally defeated and dispersed
by 45,000 Moslems under Kaled, Amru, and Abu Obeidah, at AIZNADIN
(13th July, 633). Still Damascus resisted stoutly for many months,
sustained chiefly by the valor of a noble Greek named THOMAS. At
length, however, the courage of the besieged gave way, and they
surrendered to the mild Abu Obeidah (most probably in August, 634),
who granted them personal safety, and free possession of their lands
and houses, and to such of them as should prefer exile to the Moslem
rule, the permission to depart with as much of their effects as they
could carry away with them. But the fierce and cruel Kaled refused to
ratify these terms of his fellow-commander: he slaughtered thousands
of the unfortunate Damascenes; and, though he consented at last to
abide by the terms of the capitulation, he only gave three days
respite to the band of voluntary exiles who left Damascus under the
leadership of the valiant Thomas. At the expiration of this term, he
set out in pursuit at the head of four thousand horsemen; a miserable
renegade, named JONAS, acted as guide. The hapless fugitives were
overtaken, and ruthlessly cut down to the last being of either sex,
with the solitary exception of the widow of the brave Thomas, who was
sent by Kaled to carry a message of defiance to the throne of the
Cæsars.
Meanwhile the aged Abu Bekr, after a short reign of two years,
had been gathered to his fathers; Ayesha’s influence and Omar’s
craft had once more defeated Ali’s claims to the vacant throne;
and Omar had gained the object of his ambition (24th July, 634).
The new Khalif[44] proved himself worthy of this exalted position;
his justice, his wisdom, his moderation, and his frugality form,
even to the present day, among the _Sonnites_, the theme of the
most enthusiastic praise; though by the _Shiites_ his memory is
as bitterly reviled, and the appellation _Shitan Omar_, which the
Persians so liberally bestow upon the second Khalif, shows the sense
which they entertain of his machinations against the illustrious Ali.
The son of Abu Taleb, however, submitted to Abu Bekr’s choice, and
was comforted for the loss of empire by the most flattering marks
of esteem and confidence on the part of the new commander of the
Faithful.
One of the first acts of Omar’s reign was to remove Kaled from the
command of the Syrian army, under pretext of excessive cruelty,
and of rashness in the pursuit of the Damascene exiles, but in
reality because the Khalif bore a personal enmity to his invincible
lieutenant. This made, however, practically, no difference in
the conduct of the war; Kaled could command and obey with equal
readiness, and Abu Obeidah was modest and sensible enough to guide
himself in all important operations by the advice of his former
chief. After the reduction of Damascus, the Arabs laid siege to
Heliopolis (Baalbec) and Emesa, and speedily compelled these
important cities to surrender (635). Heraclius made one last great
effort to free Syria from these most unwelcome visitors; he sent
four-score thousand veteran soldiers by sea and land to Antioch and
Cæsarea; this host was considerably increased by the remains of the
Syrian army, and by new levies in Syria and Palestine, and joined
also by 60,000 Christian Arabs under the banner of JABALAH,[45] the
last of the Gassanide princes. Upon Kaled’s prudent advice, Abu
Obeidah resolved to retire to the skirts of Palestine and Arabia, and
there to await the attack of the enemy. In the vicinity of Bosra,
on the banks of the obscure river Yermuk (Hieromax), a fierce and
bloody encounter took place, in which the Greek forces were totally
routed (636); their Gassanide allies had already previously met with
the same fate at the hands of the intrepid Kaled. After the victory
of Yermuk, Abu Obeidah resolved to invest JERUSALEM (or ÆLIA, as the
Romans called it); he first sent MOAWIYAH, Abu Sophian’s son, with
the van of five thousand Arabs, to try a surprise; and this failing,
he appeared himself, ten days after, with the whole army.
After having endured four months the hardships of a siege, the
garrison and people of the holy city offered to capitulate; but they
demanded as a guarantee for the articles of security, that the Khalif
should ratify them in person. Ali advised the Khalif to comply with
this rather unusual demand; and Omar set out from Medina, mounted on
a red camel, which carried, besides his person, a bag of corn, a bag
of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern bottle of water! Jerusalem
immediately surrendered (637), and the Khalif returned promptly to
Medina in the same simple manner in which he had come. The conquest
of Syria was achieved the year after (638) by Abu Obeidah and Kaled,
who reduced Antioch, Aleppo, Tripoli, Tyre, Acca (St. Jean d’Acre),
Cæsarea, Ascelon, Hierapolis, and many other cities and strong
places. Abu Obeidah died 639, of a fatal disease which carried off
twenty-five thousand of the conquerors of Syria; the hero Kaled, the
_Sword of God_, survived his fellow-commander about three years. The
government of the conquered province was entrusted by Omar to the
hands of Moawiyah, the chief of the family Ommiyah, and who became
afterwards the founder of the Ommiade dynasty.
After Kaled’s recall from the Persian frontier, the war against the
empire of the Magians was carried on languidly for several years.
In 636, however, Omar sent a new commander, SAID, with considerable
reinforcements to the army on the Euphrates. After the murder of
Chosroes II. and Cobad II., in 628, eight kings of Persia had
followed each other in rapid succession, in the short space of three
years. At last, a woman, ARZEMA, seized upon the throne; but, in 632,
she was deposed, and the tiara transferred from her head to that
of the grandson of Chosroes, YEZDEGERD (III.), a boy of fifteen. A
dying effort was now made by the Persians to drive back the Saracen
invaders. An army of 120,000 men, with 30,000 regulars among them,
was collected under RUSTAM, who, urged on by his youthful and
inexperienced monarch, sought the Moslems in the plains of CADESIA,
where Said had pitched his camp. The Mussulman forces numbered only
30,000; the fight was protracted for three whole days; it was bloody
and obstinate in the extreme; the Saracens lost one clear fourth of
their number; the fall of Rustam, on the third day, decided the fate
of the battle and of Persia (636). The standard of the Sassanides
(a leathern apron of a blacksmith, covered with a profusion of
precious gems) fell into the hands of the conquerors. The province
of Irak submitted to the Khalif, who secured his conquest by the
foundation of the city of BASRA, or BASSORA, on the Shat-el-Arab
(_i.e._, the river of the Arabs), which is formed by the junction
of the Euphrates and Tigris. The Moslems crossed the latter river,
and took and sacked MADAYN, or CTESIPHON, the capital of the Persian
empire; immense treasures fell here into their hands, more than
sufficient indeed to enrich the whole host of naked Arabians beyond
their most sanguine expectations. Many splendid works of art were
destroyed by the ruthless hands of the ignorant sons of the desert.
In one of the apartments of the white palace of Chosroes Nushirvan,
was found a magnificent carpet of silk, with the picture of a garden
embroidered on it in gold and precious stones, imitating the natural
colors of the flowers, fruits, and shrubs depicted; Said preserved
this splendid piece of workmanship, and sent it to the commander of
the Faithful; but the precious gift found little favor in the sight
of Omar; that cynical gentleman quietly ordered the picture to be
destroyed, and divided the materials among his brethren of Medina:
the intrinsic value of these materials may be conjectured from the
fact, that Ali’s share alone was sold for twenty thousand drachms
of silver. A new city, CUFA, was founded on the western side of
the lower Euphrates, and the seat of government was removed to it
from the despoiled Madayn. One Persian province after the other was
compelled to submit to the Moslem sway; at Jalula, Yezdegerd nobly
contended once more for the empire of his ancestors; in vain! the
fanaticism of the Arabs proved stronger than the despair of the
Persians. Said had been recalled, and FIRUZAN sent in his place;
the courage of the Persian nation was not yet thoroughly subdued;
150,000 Persians attacked the Moslem host at NEHAVEND, about 230
miles south of Hamadan; but though Firuzan had only 30,000 Mussulmans
to oppose to the overwhelming numbers of the Persians, and though the
latter fought with true bravery, fate had decreed the downfall of
the monarchy of the Sassanides: the Arabians gained “the victory of
victories,” and the hapless Yezdegerd, worthy of a better fate, like
Darius Codomannus, yielded up all hope of empire (642).[46] After
the victory of Nehavend, the cities of Hamadan, Ispahan, Estachar
(Persepolis), and many more, were readily reduced, and the conquest
of Persia was achieved.
Whilst Persia was thus being added to the new Saracen empire, another
province was snatched from the feeble emperor of Byzantium. Omar
had cast his eyes upon Egypt. With only 4000 Arabs, the valiant
AMRU invaded that country, in June, 638; after a siege of thirty
days, he took possession of Farmah, or Pelusium, the key of Egypt.
The reduction of Babylon, on the Eastern bank of the Nile, opposite
Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, took Amru seven months,
although he had received a reinforcement of 4000 men. On the spot
where Amru’s army had pitched their tents during the siege of
Babylon, a new city arose, which forms now part of an extensive
suburb of Cairo, or AL CAHIRA, _i.e._, the victorious, founded by
the Fatimite Khalifs (MOEZ), in 970. Notwithstanding the capture
of Babylon and Memphis, Amru would probably have been compelled
to relinquish his attempt to conquer Egypt, had not the Jacobite
(Monophysite) Copts under Mokawkas, who would have preferred the
devil’s rule to that of their Melchite[47] tyrants, joined the
invaders heart and soul. Under _their_ guidance, and with _their_
aid, Amru, who had, meanwhile, been considerably reinforced from
Syria, marched from Memphis to ALEXANDRIA; which latter city was,
after a series of preliminary combats, at last closely invested on
the land side. As the sea remained open, Heraclius might have saved
the great provision store of Byzantium, had he acted with the least
energy; but the feeble old man contented himself with _praying_
for the relief of the besieged city, and thought, perhaps, he had
enlisted God on his side by appointing a _priest_ (the patriarch
CYRUS), to the præfecture of Egypt, and the conduct of the war.
No wonder then that, notwithstanding a truly gallant defence by
the inhabitants, the city was, after a siege of fourteen months,
at length compelled to surrender (22nd of December, 640). Omar’s
commands preserved Alexandria from the horrors of pillage. The story
of the burning of the Alexandrian library by order of Omar, is
absolutely void of foundation; the honor of the first invention of
this calumnious lie belongs (of course) to a Christian historian,
ABULPHARAGIUS, primate of the Jacobites, who wrote 600 years after
the event: but a crowd of historians have since faithfully copied it,
even to its most extravagantly absurd details.[48]
With the reduction of Alexandria, the conquest of Egypt was achieved,
Amru carrying his victorious arms even beyond the boundaries of
that country as far as Tripoli. To facilitate the communication
between Egypt and Arabia, Omar constructed a canal from the Nile to
the Red Sea. Omar, the now mighty ruler of a most extensive empire,
was revolving new plans of conquest, when the dagger of FIRUZ, a
Persian slave, who had been personally aggrieved by the Khalif, cut
short his thread of life--and saved the world from subjugation; for
what nation or empire could, at that time, have long or successfully
withstood the impetuous tide, which, in the short space of ten
years, had engulphed Syria, Persia, and Egypt; and was full vigorous
enough to sweep over the whole earth, had but the master-mind which
had hitherto with rare wisdom directed its enormous material force,
continued to breathe an intelligent will into it. Omar died in
November, 644: urged to name his successor, he had refused to do
so, but had devolved the task of choosing a new Khalif, on Ali and
five others of the most respectable companions of the prophet. The
illustrious son of Abu Taleb might now, indeed, have ascended the
vacant throne, had he deigned to promise a servile conformity, not
only to the Koran and tradition, but also to the “sayings and doings”
of his predecessors, Abu Bekr and Omar. This demand his proud spirit
rejected with disdain. OTHMAN, also a son-in-law of the prophet,
and who had been his secretary, accepted the government with these
restrictions. The new Khalif was but little made to sustain the
weight of the Saracen empire. He was a weak and vacillating old man,
and led entirely by unworthy favorites, more particularly by his
secretary, MERVAN; he was arrogant and overbearing withal, and in
the space of a few brief years, he excited the dissatisfaction and
indignation of even the most loyally disposed among his subjects. At
last the universal discontent was gathering to a head. Resolved no
longer to submit to the exactions of the wretched favorites on whom
the Khalif had conferred power and station, the tribes rose in arms.
From Cufa, from Bassora, from Egypt, from the Desert, they marched on
Medina: they encamped about a league from the city, and dispatched a
haughty summons to their sovereign to redress their grievances, or
to give place to a more worthy prince. Othman promised reformation,
and Ali’s generous intercession might have succeeded in healing
the breach between the Khalif and his angry subjects; but Mervan’s
perfidy, and the deep intrigues of the artful Ayesha, defeated all
chances of reconciliation between the prince and the people. In
vain Othman ascended the pulpit, publicly and solemnly to entreat
Allah’s and the people’s forgiveness for his misrule; he was pelted
with stones, and carried home half dead. The insurgents besieged him
six weeks in his palace, intercepting his water and provisions. The
helpless old man had to endure the grief of seeing himself forsaken
and betrayed by those on whom his misplaced favor had bestowed wealth
and power. Abandoning all hope, he calmly expected the approach of
death: a desperate band of fanatical Charegites, with Mohammed,
Ayesha’s brother, at their head, made their way into his palace. They
found him seated, with the Koran in his lap; but neither the sacred
book, nor his venerable aspect, could disarm the assassins. Othman
fell, pierced with many wounds, 18th June, 655, in the eighty-second
year of his age.
During the reign of Othman, the island of Cyprus was conquered by
Moawiyah, in 647, and the island of Rhodes, in 654; from the latter
island, the Saracens carried off the massy trunk and the huge
fragments of the celebrated colossal statue of Apollo, which had
been overthrown about 800 years before by an earthquake. The large
and once populous country of Chorasan, the kingdom of the ancient
Bactrians, was also “annexed” to the Saracen empire, during the reign
of Othman. In 647, ABDALLAH[49] and ZOBEIR were sent with 40,000
Moslems to attempt the conquest of Africa. They advanced to the walls
of Tripoli, and endeavoured to carry that maritime city by assault;
they were, however, repulsed, and the approach of a numerous army
under the Greek præfect Gregory, compelled them to raise the siege.
By Zobeir’s skill and valor, the Arabs gained a complete and decisive
victory over the hostile forces, the præfect himself being slain by
the hand of Zobeir. The opulent city of Sufetula, situated 150 miles
to the south of Carthage, fell into the hands of the victorious
Arabs. Abdallah prudently rested content with the advantages gained;
he accepted the offer of submission and tribute made on all sides by
the provincials, and retreated to the confines of Egypt (648).
Ali had made a perhaps somewhat lukewarm effort to effect a
reconciliation between Othman and his insurgent subjects. When
matters had proceeded to extremities, he had sent his two sons,
HASSAN and HOSEIN, to the rescue of the besieged Khalif; and Hassan,
the eldest of his sons, had, indeed, been wounded in the defence of
that unfortunate prince. Still Ali had not been very energetic in
his opposition to the rebels; and it is not uncharitable to suppose,
that the death of Othman caused him no very bitter grief. Five days
after the murder of the aged Khalif, Ali was proclaimed his successor
by acclamation. The illustrious son of Abu Taleb was, indeed, a poet
and a hero, but a most indifferent statesman. TELHA and the valiant
ZOBEIR, two of the most powerful of the Arabian chiefs, who had had a
hand in Othman’s overthrow and death, and whose doubtful allegiance
Ali ought to have secured by rich gifts and greater promises, saw
themselves treated with studied coldness by the new Khalif, of whom
they had vainly solicited the government of Irak, as the reward of
their services. This impolitic conduct of Ali made them inclined
to lend a willing ear to the advice and suggestions of the artful
Ayesha, to raise the standard of revolt against Ali, and to charge
_him_ with the perpetration of the very crime which _she_ had
instigated, and _they_ had lent their aid to execute! The two chiefs,
and the widow of the prophet, escaped from Medina to Mecca, and
from thence to Bassora; the unblushing woman, whose own brother had
actually headed the assassins, had the almost incredible effrontery
to send Othman’s bloody shirt to the governor of Syria, Moawiyah,
Ali’s hereditary foe, and to call upon him to avenge Othman’s blood
upon his murderer--_Ali!_ The son of Abu Sophian was perfectly aware
of the true circumstances of the case; but it suited his ambitious
projects to _appear_ to believe the infamous accusation against the
august chief of the line of Hashem, the more so as Ali had expressed
his intention to remove the head of the house of Ommiyah from the
government of Syria. Moawiyah, therefore, exposed the bloody shirt
of Othman in the principal mosque of Damascus, and denouncing Ali as
the instigator of the sacrilegious deed, called upon the Faithful to
rise and avenge the death of the holy martyr, whose lawful successor
in the Khalifate he declared himself to be, in obedience, as he
pretended, to the express command of the dying Othman. The appeal was
numerously responded to, and the ruler of Syria saw himself speedily
at the head of a formidable army; his friend, AMRU, whom Ali had
removed from the government of Egypt, espoused his cause. Telha and
Zobeir seized upon Irak; 50,000 Moslems marched under their banner.
At the head of 20,000 of his loyal Arabs, and 9,000 auxiliaries of
Cufa, the Lion of God went to encounter his enemies. Under the walls
of Bassora (2nd and 3rd November, 656) was fought the first battle of
this civil war, which, destroying in internecine strife the flower of
the nation of the desert, may well be said to have saved the world
from the yoke of Islam; for had Ali been sole and undisputed master
of the Saracen empire, even the fire of Callinicus[50] would have
proved no effectual protection against the then irresistible tide
of Moslem conquest, and, mayhap, the Isaurian might have indulged
his iconoclastic propensities at the head of a congenial host of
image-haters; nor would the west of Europe have escaped, and the
champion of the cross, the _Hammer_ of Christ, might, perchance, have
figured in history as the _Ilderim_ of Islam.
The rebels were totally defeated; Telha and Zobeir, with 10,000 of
their host, were slain; and Ayesha, who, seated in a litter perched
on the back of a camel,[51] had braved the dangers of the field,
animating the troops by her presence, and cheering them on with her
voice, fell a captive into the hands of the man whom, with implacable
hatred, she had pursued so many years, and whom she had so grievously
injured; but the generous Ali disdained warring with women.
Mohammed’s widow was treated with every respect due to her rank, and
speedily dismissed to her proper station at the tomb of the prophet.
The victorious Khalif, having in vain offered the most favorable
terms of accommodation to Moawiyah and Amru, took the field against
them at the head of 70,000 men, in the spring of 657. The plain of
SIFFIN, on the western bank of the Euphrates, formed the field of
ninety actions or skirmishes, in a desultory warfare of one hundred
and ten days. The forces of the Ommiyah chief, are said to have
amounted to more than 120,000 men; among them many of the veterans of
the Persian, Syrian, and Egyptian campaigns; 45,000 of that gallant
band paid with their lives for the ambition of their chief; 25,000
of Ali’s brave and loyal followers lay slain by their side--a rare
crop of blossoms for the garden of the destroyer. The Lion of God
was everywhere foremost in the fight; his ponderous two-edged sword,
wielded with irresistible force, made fearful havoc in the hostile
ranks; every time he smote a rebel, he shouted his war-cry “Allah
Akbar!”[52] and the Arabian and Persian historians tell us with all
gravity, that “in the tumult of a nocturnal battle, that tremendous
exclamation was heard no less than four hundred times.” Making all
due allowance for Oriental exaggeration, and striking one nought off
the account, enough still remains to make the feat a most respectable
achievement indeed.
The magnanimous Ali had proposed to settle the dispute between him
and Moawiyah by single combat; but to encounter so formidable a
champion would truly have been sheer madness on the part of the
prince of Damascus; he therefore declined the Khalif’s courteous
invitation. The chief of the line of Ommiyah was not so redoubtable
a warrior as Ali, but he was a much better politician than the true
and lawful commander of the Faithful; clearly foreseeing that the
decision of the sword must in the end inevitably turn against him,
he devised a stratagem to discomfit his dreaded antagonist, which
being based upon a crafty appeal to the reverential and superstitious
feelings of Ali’s followers, might reasonably be expected to have
a fair chance of success. The Khalif had resolved to terminate the
long-pending struggle by a decisive battle; the troops were in
presence, and the fight was on the point of being engaged, when a
solemn appeal to the books of the Koran, which Moawiyah exposed on
the foremost lances, made a considerable portion of Ali’s forces
pause in their onset; emissaries of the prince of Damascus had long
been busy in the unsuspecting Ali’s ranks; his refusal to hold the
tradition, and the sayings and acts of Abu Bekr and Omar as equally
binding with the precepts of the Koran, was regarded by many of
his own followers as rank heresy; and so it occurred that at the
very time when victory seemed secure in his grasp, the Khalif saw
himself suddenly abandoned by the greater half of his forces, and
even compelled by the vile rabble to submit his indefeasible right
to a so-called “arbitration;” Moawiyah being permitted to appoint
his friend and fellow-rebel, Amru, as arbiter on _his_ part, whilst
Ali was forced by the treacherous crew around him to name MUSA, the
cadi of Cufa, a mixture in equal parts of stupidity and conceit, to
act on his behalf. The result was such as might have been foreseen;
the decision was in favor of Moawiyah. Ali indignantly refused to be
bound by it, as it was but too patent that the whole “arbitration”
had been a disgraceful juggle from the beginning. But he was
abandoned by a great many of his former adherents, and compelled
to retreat to Cufa. Still he nobly carried on the struggle against
the vastly superior forces of his enemies, and though Amru snatched
Egypt from him, though Persia and Yemen were subdued or seduced by
his crafty rival of Damascus, the final issue of the struggle might
yet have been in his favor, had he not been foully murdered by a
Charegite,[53] who with two other fanatics had agreed to give peace
to their troubled country by the removal of Ali, Moawiyah, and Amru.
Each of the three assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger,
and secretly repaired to the scene of action; but the stroke was
fatal only to the lawful Khalif, though the prince of Damascus also
was dangerously hurt, and the deputy of the viceroy of Egypt paid
with his life for the honor of being mistaken for the illustrious
Amru (661).[54] The dying Ali mercifully commanded his children to
dispatch his murderer by a single stroke. His eldest son, HASSAN, was
indeed saluted Khalif, by the party who had faithfully adhered to the
banner of the Lion of God, but he was prevailed upon by Moawiyah to
resign his pretensions, and the son of Abu Sophian was acknowledged
the lawful commander of the Faithful; and Ali’s name was ordered to
be cursed from the pulpit.[55]
The rule of the new Khalif was marked, upon the whole, by wisdom
and moderation. Moawiyah disdained the simplicity of manners which
had distinguished his predecessors; he dressed in costly silks,
surrounded himself with a brilliant court, kept eunuchs for the
guard of his harem, and set the prophet’s precepts at naught in the
matter of wine-drinking. He would indeed shrink from no crime where
his political interests were or seemed concerned; and the poisoning
of Hassan, who had fondly, but foolishly, hoped that the son of
Abu Sophian would forget that the title of Khalif had graced his
name for however so short a period of time, and the base murders of
Kaled’s son, Abderrahman, and of the bold-spoken Hadjir Ben Hadad,
who had dared publicly to protest against the cursing of Ali’s
name and memory, are by no means the only blots on the reputation
of the founder of the Ommiade dynasty; but he was not cruel and
blood-thirsty from mere wantonness of disposition, and, as princes
go, he was altogether rather a favorable sample of the class than
otherwise.
The first acts of his reign were to put down the rebellious
Charegites, and to quell an insurrection of the people of Bassora.
The three first Khalifs had resided at Medina; political and
strategic considerations had induced Ali to transfer the seat of
his government to Cufa. Moawiyah made Damascus his capital, partly
because Syria was the stronghold of his power, and partly--and this
was unquestionably the principal reason--because his residence at
Medina would have materially interfered with the accomplishment
of the project nearest and dearest to his heart; viz., to change
the elective monarchy to an hereditary kingdom. When he had firmly
established his throne, he prepared a powerful expedition by sea and
land against Constantinople (668); he entrusted the chief command
to the veteran SOPHIAN, and sent his own son Yezid to encourage the
troops by his presence and example. But though the supineness of the
Greeks permitted them to invest the city of the Cæsars by sea and
land, the Saracens met with a more vigorous resistance than they had
anticipated; the solid and lofty walls of Byzantium, energetically
defended by a numerous and well-disciplined army, and by a people
aroused for a time to deeds of heroic devotion, by the danger which
threatened to overthrow the last bulwark of their nationality and
their religion, and the prodigious effect of the fire of Callinicus,
defeated all attempts to carry the city by assault; and the Arabs,
finding it a much easier task to plunder the European and Asiatic
coasts of the Propontis, carried on the operations of the siege more
and more languidly, till, at last, having kept the sea from April
to September, they retreated, on the approach of winter, to the
isle of Cyzicus, about eighty miles from the capital. However, they
renewed the attempt six successive summers, until the enormous losses
which they had suffered by fire and sword, and by the mischances of
shipwreck and disease, compelled them finally to abandon the bootless
enterprise (675). This failure dimmed for a time the glory of the
Saracen arms, whilst it seemed to restore the former prestige of the
Roman name. The destruction of his fleets, and the annihilation of
his armies, had subdued the proud spirit of Moawiyah; the aged Khalif
had the mortification of seeing himself insulted in his city and
palace of Damascus by the warlike Maronites, or Mardaites, of Mount
Lebanon; and he felt desirous of ending his days in tranquillity and
repose: he consented therefore to a peace, or truce, of thirty years
with the emperor Constantine IV. Pogonatus, in which he indeed was
permitted to retain possession of the north-western part of Asia
Minor, the island of Cyprus, and the isles of the Greek Archipelago,
but in which the majesty of the commander of the Faithful was wofully
degraded, by the stipulation of an annual tribute to the Court of
Byzantium of three thousand pieces of gold, fifty slaves, and fifty
horses of a noble breed (677).
Moawiyah’s arms were more successful in other quarters. His
lieutenant, OBEIDAH, invaded the territories of the Turks, in
673, and made considerable conquests in Central Asia; and a large
portion of North Africa was added to the Saracen empire by AKBAH,
who conquered Tripoli and Barca, founded the city of Cairoan, about
fifty miles south of Carthage,[56] in 671, and advanced to the verge
of the Atlantic and the Great Desert. But the universal defection of
the Africans and Greeks, whom he had conquered, recalled him from the
shores of the Atlantic, where he was already meditating a descent on
Spain. Surrounded on all sides by hostile multitudes, and despairing
of succour, the gallant Akbah, and his small force of brave men, had
no other resource left them but to die an honorable death,--they
fell to the last man. ZUHEIR, sent with a new army, avenged the fate
of his predecessor; he vanquished the natives in many battles, but
was himself overthrown in the end by a powerful army, sent from
Constantinople to the relief of Carthage which he was besieging.
Moawiyah died on the 6th April, 680. Ten years before his death he
had seen his aspiring wishes crowned by the proclamation of his son,
YEZID, as presumptive heir of the Saracen empire.[57] True, there
had been some murmurs of discontent, and it had even required an
armed demonstration against the holy cities of Mecca and Medina to
enforce submission to the will of the Khalif: but Moawiyah’s vigor
and address had triumphed over every obstacle. Accordingly, after
the father’s death, the son was acknowledged as Khalif in every
province of the vast empire; with some partial exceptions, indeed, in
Arabia proper, and more particularly in Mecca and Medina. But Yezid
had inherited none of his father’s qualities; he was a dissolute
voluptuarian, and of a most tyrannical disposition withal. In the
short time of a few months, the discontent of his subjects had risen
to a threatening height; more especially in Arabia proper, and in
the province of Irak, People’s eyes began to turn towards HOSEIN,
the younger and only surviving son of Ali and Fatima, and head of
the line of Hashem. Hosein had served with distinction in the siege
of Constantinople; he had inherited some of his father’s spirit,
and had disdainfully refused to acknowledge Yezid’s title. He was
invited by a large body of the discontented in Irak, to come and
place himself at their head; against the advice of his wife and many
of his friends, he resolved to obey the call, and set out with a
small retinue, consisting, chiefly of women and children. When he
reached the confines of Irak, OBEIDOLLAH, the watchful and energetic
governor of Cufa, had already crushed the insurrection in the bud.
In the plains of Kerbela, Hosein found himself surrounded on all
sides by a body of five thousand horse. Unconditional surrender or
death was the only alternative offered to him; he chose the latter,
and, after deeds of the most heroic valor, his generous band of
devoted adherents were all slain, basely butchered from afar with
arrows by their cowardly assailants: he, alone, still survived,
though bleeding from many a wound. He seated himself at the door of
his tent, enfolding his youngest son and his nephew, two beautiful
children, in his arms; they were slain there, and their warm
life-blood overflowed the hands of the hapless man. With a cry of
grief and despair, he started up and threw himself in the midst of
the foe. The soldiers fell back on every side, and, for a time, none
dared to lay hands on the grandson of the prophet; but, at last, one
of their leaders, the remorseless SHAMER, urged them to the attack,
and the heroic Hosein was slain, with three-and-thirty strokes of
lances and swords. The dead body was trampled under foot by the
inhuman wretches, and the severed head carried to the castle of Cufa,
and thence forwarded to Damascus, that Yezid might look upon it and
sleep in peace. An expedition was sent against the holy cities,
which, after Hosein’s death, had acknowledged for _their_ Khalif,
ABDALLAH,[58] the son of the valiant Zobeir. Medina was taken, and
the sisters and children of Hosein and Hassan were sent in chains to
the throne of Damascus. Yezid was urged by his advisers to bury his
fears for ever in the grave of the race of Ali and Fatima. Now, had
Yezid been one of the _Christian_ Cæsars of Byzantium, who “thought
it no very great harm” to slay even their own kindred, or to deprive
them of sight, or mutilate them in some other way, if undisputed
empire could but be secured thereby, no doubt the advice would have
been followed to the letter: but the grandson of the wild Henda was
not altogether without some of the better feelings of human nature,
and the _Saracen_ Khalif had no convenient “patriarch,” or bishop, at
hand to lull his troublesome conscience by the mockery of priestly
absolution. The mourning family were honorably dismissed to Medina,
and Yezid even strove to console them for the irreparable losses they
had suffered at his father’s and his own hands.
The partial successes of Yezid’s generals against Abdallah did not
prevent that indefatigable warrior from seizing upon Yemen, and
establishing his power in Egypt. After a troubled reign of three
years, Yezid died (683); and a few months after his death, his son
and successor, MOAWIYAH II., preferred voluntary abdication to the
desperate struggle which he foresaw it would cost to oust Abdallah
from his usurped position. For a time, complete anarchy ensued:
Obeidollah, the governor of Irak, attempted to found a new empire
and a new dynasty, in Bassora, but he was ignominiously expelled
by the people; and the provinces of Irak, Yemen, Hejaz, and Egypt,
acknowledged the name and sovereignty of Abdallah. Even in Syria, a
creature of Abdallah’s, DEHAC, was, for a time, obeyed as vicegerent.
At last, however, MERVAN, of the line of Ommiyah, was saluted Khalif
in Damascus (684), on condition, however, as he bound himself by
oath, to name Kaled, Yezid’s younger son, his successor. Mervan
speedily succeeded in subjecting Syria and Egypt to his sway. The
people of Chorasan, where the Hashemites had gained considerable
ascendancy, renounced their allegiance to the empire, proclaimed
their independence, and elected the noble SALEM their king. SOLIMAN,
the son of Zarad, excited a formidable insurrection in Arabia Proper,
and in part of Syria, and proclaimed the deposition of both rival
Khalifs; but he was defeated by Obeidollah. Mervan, forgetful of his
oath, proclaimed his son, ABD-EL-MALEK, his successor; he fell by
the dagger of his offended kinsman, Kaled (685). But Abd-el-Malek
made good his claim to the succession, and set diligently about
to strengthen his position in the provinces which his father had
wrested from Abdallah’s grasp. In Abd-el-Malek the latter found an
antagonist worthy of himself, both in valor and wile. The actual
struggle between the two rivals was, however, postponed for a season
by the appearance of a third party on the scene,--MOKHTAR, another
inspired prophet, and whose chances of establishing _another_ new
creed seemed, for a time, to promise rather fair; in fact, the city
of Cufa, and part of the province of Irak, had acknowledged his
divine mission, when Abdallah’s good sword proved him an impostor
(686). The Greeks had, meanwhile, taken advantage of the distress
and fears of the house of Ommiyah, but in their own paltry and
pettifogging way; for instead of boldly drawing the sword to wrest
Asia Minor, Palestine, and Syria from the enfeebled grasp of the
divided Saracens, they were content with obtaining from Abd-el-Malek
a considerable increase of the tribute.
Abd-el-Malek, relieved thus from his apprehensions of a war with
the Eastern empire, could now turn his undivided attention to the
impending struggle with the rival Khalif of Mecca. After five years’
fierce and doubtful contest, Abdallah was at length defeated in a
decisive battle, and compelled to take refuge in Mecca; here he
defended himself for seven months against Abd-el-Malek’s vastly
superior forces. At last, in a general assault, the valiant son of
Zobeir was slain; his fall decided that of the city, and the Saracen
empire was thus again united under one ruler (692). As soon as
Abd-el-Malek saw himself sole and undisputed Khalif, he threw off
the badge of servitude to the Eastern empire, which the internal
dissensions and troubles of the preceding years had compelled him to
submit to. He discontinued the payment of the stipulated tribute, and
even wrested another province, Armenia, from the feeble hands of the
Byzantine Cæsars.
HASSAN, the governor of Egypt, was charged with the task to reconquer
the north of Africa. That brave and skilful commander, after having
subdued the provinces of the interior, carried his victorious arms
to the sea-coast, and took, by a sudden assault, the fortifications
of Carthage, the metropolis of Africa (697). However, the unexpected
arrival of a powerful Greek fleet, with a numerous and well-appointed
army[59] on board, compelled the Arabian general to evacuate his
recent conquest, and to retire to Cairoan. But Abd-el-Malek had
resolved to annex North Africa to his dominions at any cost; he
prepared therefore during the winter a powerful armament by sea and
land, and in spring, 698, Hassan appeared once more before Carthage,
and compelled the præfect and patrician John, who commanded the Greek
forces, to evacuate the city; soon after, he defeated him again in
the neighbourhood of Utica, and a precipitate embarkation alone
saved the remains of the Byzantine army from absolute annihilation.
Carthage was reduced to a heap of ruins. But Hassan had soon to
encounter a more formidable enemy: a prophetess arose among the
MOORS, or BERBERS, of the interior, and boldly challenged the Arabian
invaders to make good their claim to the land which they had fondly
deemed subdued with the expulsion of the Greeks. CAHINA was the name
of this extraordinary woman, who seemed to have discovered the secret
of breathing into her people a spirit of enthusiasm superior even
to the fanaticism of the Moslems. In a single day Africa was lost
again to the Saracens, and the humbled Hassan retired to the confines
of Egypt, where he expected, five years, the promised succour of
the Khalif. But Queen Cahina’s order to destroy the cities, and to
cut down the fruit-trees, filled the Christian population of the
coast with apprehension and anger; and when Hassan at last made his
reappearance in the province, he was hailed, even by the most zealous
Catholics, as a deliverer and saviour. The royal prophetess boldly
accepted battle; but she was slain, and her army was put to the
rout (705). Still the spirit of resistance survived, and Hassan’s
successor, the aged but fiery MUSA BEN NASSIR, had to quell a new
insurrection of the Moorish tribes. He and his two sons, ABDALLAH and
ABDELAZIZ, succeeded so well, however, that not only did the Berbers
submit to the Khalif, but they even embraced the religion of Islam,
and became henceforth as one people with their Arabian conquerors.
Abd-el-Malek was the first Khalif to establish a national mint, both
for silver and gold coin (695); the gold coins were imitations of
the Roman gold denar, with an inscription proclaiming the unity of
the God of Mohammed; the Arabs called these gold coins, _dinars_;
their value was about eight shillings sterling. It would appear they
struck also double, and half, dinars. The silver coin might represent
a value of fivepence or sixpence English money. Abd-el-Malek died in
705. He was succeeded by his son WALID, a prince who, indeed, did not
inherit the activity, vigor, and decision of his father; but was, on
the other hand, free also from the cruelty and the low avarice that
stained the character of Abd-el-Malek. Walid loved and encouraged
arts and sciences, and more especially architecture: he built the
splendid mosque of the Ommiades at Damascus, at an expense of half
a million sterling; he rebuilt also Mohammed’s mosque at Medina,
on a larger and more magnificent scale. He had the good fortune to
be served by clever ministers and great generals, whose energy,
valor, and enterprise amply made up for the personal indolence
and inactivity of the Khalif, and imparted a glory to his reign,
rivalling that of Omar’s. One of his lieutenants, CATIBAH (_the camel
driver_), added to the Saracen empire the spacious regions between
the Oxus, the Jaxartes, and the Caspian sea, with the rich and
populous commercial cities Carizme, Bochara, and Samarcand (707-710).
From Samarcand, the victorious general sent his master a daughter of
PHIROUZ, or FIRUZ, the son of the unfortunate Yezdegerd, the last of
the Sassanide rulers of Persia, who became Walid’s wife. Mohammed,
one of Catibah’s colleagues, displayed the banner of Islam on the
opposite banks of the Indus (712); and in the same year, Fargana,
the residence of the Chagan of the Turks, was taken by Catibah,
who advanced as far as Cashgar, where he received an embassy from
the Emperor of China. Walid’s brother, MOSLEMAH, one of the most
redoubtable of the Mussulman warriors known to history, defeated
the Chazars in the Caucasus, and annexed Galatia and other parts
of Asia Minor to the empire of his brother (710). But the greatest
and most glorious conquest was that of Spain. As early as the time
of Othman, the Arabs had cast a longing eye upon the fair land of
_Handalusia_,[60] and their piratical squadrons had more than once
ravaged the Spanish coast. The Gothic king, WAMBA, had defeated one
of their expeditionary corps in 675. Since that time no further
attempt had been made on the kingdom of the Visigoths; but the
latter, beholding with apprehension the establishment of the Arabian
power in North Africa, had, in 697, aided the Byzantine emperor in
the attempted relief of Carthage. The king of Spain possessed on the
African coast the fortress of CEUTA (_Septa_ or _Septum_), one of
the columns of Hercules, which is divided by a narrow strait from
the opposite pillar or point on the European coast. This fortress
was held at the beginning of the eighth century by the Gothic Count
JULIAN, brother-in-law of OPPAS, archbishop of Toledo and Seville,
whose brother, WITIZA, was then king of Spain. In 709, Musa made an
attempt to reduce Ceuta, and subdue the small portion of Mauritania
which was still wanting to the conquest of North Africa; but he was
repulsed by Count Julian with considerable loss, and would most
probably have relinquished his project upon Spain, had not internal
dissensions among the Gothic magnates unexpectedly opened to him a
fair prospect of success. King Witiza had attempted to reform the
truly appalling licentiousness of the Spanish clergy, and to curb
the overgrown power of the nobility; but lacking both the crafty
wile of the eleventh Louis of France, and the strong despotic will
of the Tudors of England, his well-meant efforts simply led to his
own deposition (710), which he survived only a few months. The clergy
and nobility elected a king after their own heart, in the person of
RODERIC, a grandson of King RECCASWINTH (or Receswinth[61]). The two
sons of Witiza, and their uncle Oppas, conspired to overthrow the
new monarch, who, it would appear, had been indiscreet enough to
express his intention of removing Count Julian from his Andalusian
and Mauritanian commands, the moment he should think himself
sufficiently powerful to give due force to his royal decrees.[62]
The threatened count was readily induced to join the party of the
conspirators; but dreading lest the force which they could bring
into the field, should prove unavailing against the monarch’s power,
he, who had hitherto been the staunchest defender of his country, did
not hesitate to betray her to the Saracen foe, and to open wide the
portals that had been entrusted to his honor and patriotism to guard.
He and his fellow-conspirators endeavored to soothe the misgivings of
conscience with Musa’s deceptive assurance, that he did not intend to
establish himself in Spain, but would rest content with a share of
the spoil.
As soon as Musa had obtained Walid’s sanction to the contemplated
enterprise, he sent off an expedition of only four vessels, with
five hundred men on board, to explore the coast of the coveted land.
TARIF ABU ZARA, the commander of this force, landed on the opposite
side of the strait, and marched eighteen miles into the interior,
to the castle and town of the traitor Count of Ceuta[63] (July
710). His glowing report of the wealth of the country, decided Musa
to send over a more powerful expedition under the command of his
freedman, TARIK BEN ZAYAD. The miserable Julian supplied the means of
transport. Five thousand Arabs and seven thousand Moors landed at the
European pillar of Hercules, Mount Calpe, which became, henceforth,
the Mountain of Tarik--_Gebel al Tarik_, a name corrupted afterwards
into the present appellation of Gibraltar (April, 711). Here Tarik
formed a strongly entrenched camp, and gathered around him the
friends of Julian, and also many Jews who were fired with the most
deadly hatred against their Christian persecutors, that had, for more
than a century, oppressed and hunted down this doomed people with a
malignity such as religious fanaticism alone can excite and sustain.
Counts EDECO and THEODEMIR, who had been commanded by the king to
expel the intruders, were defeated with great slaughter; and a
seasonable reinforcement from Africa swelled Tarik’s ranks to above
30,000 men. Roderic, conscious at last of the magnitude of the danger
that threatened to overwhelm his throne and his people, gathered the
flower of the Gothic nation around him, and marched at the head of
100,000 men to encounter the foreign invaders. In the neighbourhood
of Cadiz, at Xeres de la Frontera, on the Guadelete, the hostile
armies met. Three days were spent in desultory, though bloody
fighting; on the fourth day, the actual battle commenced. When night
spread her sable wings, and bade the slaughter cease for a while,
more than half of the Saracen forces lay stretched dead on the ground
they had come to conquer; and had not the vile defection of the
most reverend father in God, the Archbishop of Toledo, and his two
nephews, to whom Roderic’s generous or foolish (it may be read both
ways) confidence had entrusted the most important post, broken the
ranks of the Christians, the severed head of Musa’s freedman might
have graced the battlements of Toledo. As it was, it took three days
to scatter the remains of the Gothic army; and many a Saracen, and
many a Christian traitor to his country, had to bite the dust before
Tarik could pen his laconic “Praise be to Allah!--we have conquered.”
(July 19-26, 711). The hapless king of the Goths was either slain in
the fight or drowned in the waters of the Guadalquivir. The field
of Xeres decided the fate of the Gothic monarchy; nearly the whole
of Spain submitted to Tarik with such extraordinary rapidity, that
the good old Musa, envious of his freedman’s success and fame, bade
him arrest his victorious course, until he himself should arrive to
gather the last and fairest fruits of the victory. Tarik, however,
added Cordova and Toledo, the capital of the Gothic kingdom, to the
list of his conquests, and advanced as far as the Bay of Biscay,
where the failure of land at last compelled him to stop. Here he
received an angry and imperious summons from his jealous chief; who
had, meanwhile, himself crossed over from Africa, at the head of ten
thousand Arabs and eight thousand Moors, and had taken Seville, and
was besieging Merida. The latter city, though valiantly defended,
was at last compelled to surrender. Midway between Merida and
Toledo, Tarik met his chief, who received him with cold and stately
formality, and demanded a strict account of the treasures of the
conquered kingdom. The unfortunate lieutenant speedily found that
Musa would not readily forgive his presumption of subduing Spain in
the absence of his general: he saw himself ignominiously deprived of
his command, and thrown into prison; and Musa carried his resentment
so far, that he ordered the conqueror of Spain to be publicly
scourged. Walid’s imperative commands compelled Musa to restore Tarik
to his position; and the valiant man, who had been so ungenerously
and unworthily treated by the jealous old chief, assisted him with
his accustomed zeal, in achieving the conquest of the still unsubdued
parts of the peninsula. At the end of 712, all resistance had ceased
on the part of the Christians, with the exception of the valiant
prince THEODEMIR, who defended himself several months longer in
Orihuela, and obtained, at last, most favorable terms from Musa’s
son, Abdelaziz, (5th April, 713); and the invincible PELAGIUS, or
PELAYO, and PETRUS, who, in the Asturian, Gallician, and Biscayan
vallies, laid the foundation of a new Christian empire in Spain;
destined, after a time, to renew the struggle and ultimately to expel
the foreign invaders.
MUSA was a very old man--but though the coloring of his beard, and
other little expedients of art, might fail to obliterate the physical
ravages wrought by eighty-eight years of life, and by the fatigues
and privations of fifty campaigns[64]--yet the vigor of his mind,
and the youthful ardor that fired his breast, remained unimpaired:
and, like that marvellous old man of a later period, great DANDOLO,
the approach of ninety found him revolving enterprises of stupendous
magnitude; aye, no less than the conquest of Gaul, Italy, Germany,
and the Greek empire. He was preparing to pass the Pyrenees,[65]
and bid the kingdom of the Franks cease to exist, when an imperious
command from Damascus, called both him and Tarik thither, to render
an account of their proceedings to the commander of the faithful.
Tarik obeyed; Musa delayed complying with the Khalif’s summons, until
a second and still more peremptory message left the old chief no
other alternative but obedience or open rebellion: and, as his own
loyalty, or that of his troops, put the latter out of question, he
set at once diligently about preparing for his return to Damascus.
He confided the government of Spain to his son, ABDELAZIZ; that of
Africa, to his son, ABDALLAH. Taking with him immense treasures in
gold and silver, and, among others, the famous emerald table of
Solomon, encircled with pearls and gems--a spoil of the Romans from
the east, and which, it would appear, had fallen into the hands of
Alaric, in the sack of Rome[66] (410, A.D.); and attended by thirty
Gothic princes, 400 nobles, and 18,000 male and female captives of
humbler degree, he set out from Ceuta on his way to Damascus. At
Tiberias, in Palestine, he received a private message from SULEIMAN,
or SOLIMAN, the brother and presumptive heir of Walid, informing him
that the Khalif was dying, and commanding him, as he valued Soliman’s
friendship, to reserve his triumphal entry into Damascus for the
inauguration of the new reign.
Musa, who might deem Soliman’s anger less dangerous than the
resentment of the Khalif should he recover, disregarded the
injunction, and pursued his march to Damascus, where he arrived just
in time to afford the dying Walid the gratification of beholding
the spoils of Africa and of Spain,[67] soon after which, the most
powerful of the Khalifs bowed his head to the stroke of the mighty
master of kings and emperors (October, 714). His successor, SOLIMAN,
was an able and energetic prince, but of a despotic and ruthless
disposition. Musa was arraigned at the judgment seat of the new
Khalif, for abuse of power and disobedience to orders. The unworthy
treatment which the victor of Xeres had suffered at the hands of his
jealous chief, was avenged by a similar indignity inflicted upon the
latter: the veteran commander was publicly scourged, and then kept
waiting a whole day before the palace gate, till the “_mercy_” of
Soliman accorded him a sentence of exile to Mecca. He was, moreover,
adjudged to pay to the public treasury, a fine of 200,000 pieces of
gold. Afraid lest the sons of the despoiled and insulted old man,
should attempt to avenge the injuries of their father, the worthy
son of Abd-el-Malek secretly dispatched to Africa and Spain, decrees
commanding the extermination of Musa’s family; and, by a refinement
of cruelty worthy of a Caligula, Caracalla, or Justinian II., he
had the head of Abdelaziz presented to the bereaved father, with an
insulting question, whether he knew the features of the rebel? “I
know his features,” exclaimed the hapless old man, in a paroxysm of
grief and indignation; “he was loyal and true. May the same fate
overtake the base authors of his death!” -- -- -- Musa’s death, a
few weeks after, of the anguish of a broken heart, spared Soliman an
additional crime. The victor of Xeres fared but little better than
his ancient commander; though, indeed, he was not made to expiate
by death, imprisonment, or exile, the great services which he had
rendered his country. CATIBAH, who had every reason to dread a
similar fate as Musa’s and Tarik’s, rose in arms against the jealous
tyrant of Damascus, and had the good fortune to meet with a glorious
death on the battle field.
Soliman resolved to render his reign famous by the overthrow of the
Greek empire, and the conquest of Constantinople. His preparations,
both by land and sea, were made on a gigantic scale. His brother,
the redoubtable MOSLEMAH, invaded Asia Minor at the head of 70,000
foot and 50,000 horse, with an immense train of camels, (716). The
city of Tyana fell into the hands of the Moslems, and Amorium was
closely besieged by them. The troops in Amorium were commanded at
the time by General LEO, a native of Isauria. The original name of
this remarkable man, was KONON; his father had come over from Asia
Minor to Thrace, and had settled as a grazier there. He must have
acquired considerable wealth in that lucrative business, since he
could afford a gift of 500 sheep to the Imperial camp, to procure
for his son admission into the guards of Justinian. The personal
strength of the young soldier, and his dexterity in all martial
exercises attracted the notice of the emperor, who speedily advanced
him to the higher grades of military rank. Anastasius II. confided
to him the command of the Anatolian legions, and it was in this
capacity that he defended Amorium against the Saracens. One of those
sudden revolutions so frequent in the Byzantine court, compelled
Anastasius to hand over the sceptre to an obscure officer of the
revenue, who assumed the name of Theodosius III. General Leo refused
to acknowledge the new emperor, and managed so skilfully, that
not only did the troops under his command invest _him_ with the
imperial purple, but the Arabs, it would appear, accorded him and
his army free and undisturbed departure from Amorium. He marched
upon Constantinople, and Theodosius seeing himself in danger of
being abandoned by the very troops who had so recently exalted him,
willingly resigned to the hands of the general and emperor of the
Oriental troops, the sceptre which, moreover, he had accepted with
extreme reluctance only. He was permitted to retire with his son
to the shelter of a monastery, where he had ample time to paint
golden letters, an occupation which marvellously suited the natural
indolence of his disposition.
LEO, third of the name, who figures in history usually as the
_Isaurian_, or the _Iconoclast_, was fully aware of the intention of
the Arabs to attempt the reduction of Constantinople; he, therefore,
made every preparation which military experience could suggest,
or engineering skill devise, to give them a fitting reception. In
July, 717, after the reduction of Pergamus, Moslemah transported
his army from Asia to Europe, across the Hellespont or Dardanelles,
at the most narrow part of the passage (from Abydos to Sestos); and
thence, wheeling his troops round Gallipoli, Heraclea, and the other
Thracian cities of the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara, he invested
Constantinople on the land side. An offer made by the Greeks, to
purchase the withdrawal of the besieging forces by the payment of a
piece of gold for each inhabitant of the city, was contemptuously
rejected; and Moslemah pushed on the operations of the siege with the
greatest vigor, but without any corresponding success, the Isaurian
repelling every attack with a bravery and determination, such as the
Saracens had but little expected to see displayed by the apparently
effete Greeks. Moslemah’s hopes were swelled high, however, by the
arrival of the navies of Syria and Egypt, to the number of 1800
vessels,[68] with 50,000 men on board. The Saracen commander fixed a
night for a general assault by land and sea, and proudly boasted that
by the morning the city should be his. When that morning came, the
Greek fire had done its work; and scarce a vestige remained of the
proud fleet, or of those who had manned it; and ten thousand Arabs
and Persians slain, bore witness how fiercely Moslemah had assaulted
the defences of Byzantium, and how bravely and vigorously the
Isaurian and his gallant troops had repulsed the hostile multitudes.
From this check, Moslemah essayed in vain to recover: he became soon
painfully conscious that the conviction of invincibility, which had
hitherto so materially contributed to the great successes of the
Saracen arms, was, if not altogether destroyed, at least considerably
shaken. His assaults were now repulsed with apparent ease almost,
and all his attempts at surprises were defeated by the ever watchful
Isaurian. One hope still remained to restore the ancient supremacy
of the Moslem arms: Khalif Soliman had gathered a formidable host
of Arabians, Persians, and Turks, and was preparing to lead them
to his brother’s assistance. The eyes of both the besiegers and
the besieged were anxiously turned towards the Khalif’s camp near
Chalcis (or Kinnisrin) in Syria; and Leo was endeavoring, by gifts
and promises, to attract an army of Bulgarians from the Danube to pit
them against the Saracens; and thus, perchance, to free the Byzantine
empire from all danger, by the mutual destruction of its Barbarian
foes. But it so happened that the Commander of the Faithful could
not command his appetite; a meal of two scores or so of eggs, and
a matter of six or seven pounds of figs, followed up by a dessert
of marrow and sugar, proved too much for even his well-seasoned
stomach; he paid with his life the penalty of his gluttony (717).
He had appointed his cousin, OMAR BEN ABDELAZIZ, to succeed him in
the khalifate. Omar, second of the name, was a most estimable man,
but a very indifferent prince; much fitter, indeed, to be the head
of a monastery of ascetics, than of a powerful empire. The first act
of his reign was to order the cessation of the Syrian armaments,
which might have been a wise measure, had it been accompanied by the
recall of Moslemah and his forces from the siege of Constantinople.
His neglect of the latter measure entailed upon the unfortunate
natives of the sultry climes of Egypt and Arabia, the unspeakable
hardships of a most severe winter, passed in a frozen camp. In spring
(718), he made an effort to relieve their wants, and to fill up the
gaps which cold, famine, and disease had made in the ranks of the
besieging army. Two numerous fleets were sent on this errand, one
from Alexandria, the other from the ports of Africa. They succeeded,
indeed, in landing the stores and reinforcements, but they found it
as vain to contend against the Greek fire, as the armada which, the
year before, had so proudly threatened to erase the Roman name from
among the nations. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians had been bribed into an
alliance with the Greek emperor, and these savage auxiliaries proved
formidable antagonists to the exhausted and half-starved Asiatics.
Still the intrepid Moslemah was not dismayed, and although he was
compelled to relinquish all further attempts upon the defences of the
city, he defeated, on his part, all attacks made on his camp: until,
at length, Khalif Omar sent him the welcome order to raise the siege,
(August, 718). The retreat of the Arabian forces was effected without
delay or molestation; but of the fleet, tempests destroyed what the
fire of Callinicus had spared, and of 700 vessels that had proudly
sailed forth, five only returned to the port of Alexandria, to tell
the sad tale of the disastrous loss of their companions. Byzantium
was saved, and the victorious Isaurian found himself at liberty to
prepare for his meditated warfare against canvas, wood, brass, and
marble.
The good and pious Omar distinguished his reign chiefly by the
abolition or “repeal” of the curse against Ali and his adherents
which had for nearly sixty years been daily pronounced from the
pulpits (719). By this act of simple justice, and by his somewhat
hasty and incautious attempts to reform the fearful abuses which had
crept into the administration of the empire under his predecessors,
he excited the determined hostility of his own family, and of the
Vizirs and high officers of state. A dose of poison removed him
(720). His successor, YEZID II., had none of his virtues, but most
of the vices of his other predecessors of the line of Ommiyah. It
was in the reign of this prince, and in that of his successor, that
the family Hashem, in two of its branches, viz. the ALIDES, or
FATIMITES, i.e. the descendants of Ali and Fatima, and the ABASSIDES,
that is the descendants of Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, began to
urge their claims to the throne of the Khalifa. Indeed, Mohammed,
the great grandson of Abbas, was secretly acknowledged as the true
commander of the Faithful, by a considerable body of the inhabitants
of Chorasan, and his son IBRAHIM was even enabled to hoist the black
flag of the Abassides[69] in that province; the gloomy banner was
triumphantly borne onward by ABU MOSLEM, the intrepid and invincible
champion of the Abassides, the _King-maker_ of the East, but, who
was fated at last, like the English King-maker, to experience the
usual gratitude of princes. From the Indus to the Euphrates, the
East was convulsed by the fearful struggle between the white and the
black factions, and the fairest provinces of Asia were deluged with
blood to void the ancient quarrel between Ommiyah and Hashem, and to
decide which of two equally vile races of despots had the _better
right_ to trample on God’s fair creation. The struggle terminated for
a time in 750, with the overthrow and almost total extirpation of the
Ommiades--but of this hereafter.
YEZID died in 722 or 723, of grief for the death of a favorite
concubine. He was succeeded by his brother HESHAM, a prince not
altogether destitute of good qualities. Hesham had to contend against
the Fatimite ZEID, the grandson of Hassan, who was, however, speedily
overcome, and had to pay with his life the penalty of his ambition.
The struggle against the more successful Abassides has been mentioned
in the preceding paragraph.
After Musa’s departure from Spain, and the murder of his son
Abdelaziz, AJUB was proclaimed by the Arabian and Moorish troops,
governor of the Spanish peninsula; he fixed his residence at Cordova.
Under him and his more immediate successors numerous colonies came
over to Spain from various parts of the Saracen dominions in Asia and
Africa; of these the royal legion of Damascus was planted at Cordova;
that of Emesa at Seville; that of Chalcis at Jaen; that of Palestine
at Algezire and Medina Sidonia. The Egyptian bands were permitted to
share with the original conquerors their establishments of Murcia
and Lisbon. The immigrants from Yemen and Persia were located round
Toledo, and in the inland country; and ten thousand horsemen of Syria
and Irak, the children of the purest and most noble Arabian tribes,
settled in the fertile seats of Grenada.[70]
AJUB’S successor in the government of Spain, EL HORR BEN ABDERRAHMAN
resolved to annex to the dominions under his sway the Gallic
province of Septimania or Languedoc, of which the eastern part,
with Narbonne and Carcassone, was still remaining in the hands of
the Visigoths; the western part, Aquitaine and Thoulouse having
been severed from the Gothic kingdom in 508, by Clovis. But he was
defeated and driven back by the Christians; in consequence of the
ill-success of his operations, the Khalif removed him from the
command, and named EL ZAMA governor in his stead. That bold and
skilful general speedily succeeded in reducing the whole of the
Narbonnese province (720); whence he marched into Aquitaine, and
laid siege to Thoulouse. Here he found a more formidable foe to
encounter--the FRANKS, who were ultimately to check the further
advance of Islam and its followers into the fairest provinces of
Europe. The history of that nation, and of its successful leader
against the Saracen invaders, forms the subject of the second part of
this volume.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] _Khalifet Resul Allah_, i.e. lieutenant, or representative of
the prophet of God.
[44] Omar was the first to assume the additional title of _Emir al
Mumenin_, i.e. prince, or commander, of the faithful.
[45] Jabalah had embraced the religion of Islam. On the occasion of
the pilgrimage to Mecca, the irascible prince had dealt an Arabian,
who had accidentally trod on the skirt of his long robe, a severe
blow with his fist, which broke the bridge of the nose of the
assaulted man. The Khalif Omar having demanded satisfaction for the
aggrieved Moslem, and threatened the proud Gassanide chief with the
application of the lex talionis, Jabalah, feeling highly indignant
at the notion, fled, and returned to the profession of the Christian
faith.
[46] Yezdegerd fled finally to the territory of Tergana, on the
Jaxartes. In an attempt which he made in 651, to invade his lost
empire at the head of some Turkish tribes, he met his death, it would
appear, at the hands of his barbarian allies. One of the daughters of
Yezdegerd married Hassan, the son of Ali, and the other, Mohammed,
the son of Abu Bekr.
[47] The Nestorians and Jacobites bestowed on the self-styled
Catholics of the Greek and Roman church, the name of _Melchites_,
or _Royalists_, to mark that their faith, instead of resting on the
basis of Scripture, reason, or tradition, had been established solely
by the power of a temporal monarch.
[48] “Six months,” the Worthy Jacobite says, “the 4000 baths of the
city were heated with the volumes of paper and parchment.” These
volumes must have been bulky indeed, and must have contained a
surprising amount of latent heat, considering that, even admitting
the library to have existed at the time, and conceding to it the
largest number of volumes claimed by the most extravagant writers,
viz., 720,000, one single volume per day must have sufficed to heat
a public bath! Verily, verily, history is made the most inexact
of all sciences. The flames which Cæsar was compelled to kindle
in his defence, in the Bruchion (the Belgravia or Tyburnia of the
city of Alexander); the havoc and depredation committed by the
Alexandrian mob during the troubles of the _shoes_ (so called from
the circumstance that these terrible troubles, which are said to
have lasted above twelve years [from 261 to 273 A.D.], were first
occasioned by a dispute between a soldier and a townsman about a pair
of shoes); and the destruction inflicted on the Bruchion by Aurelian,
in 273, cannot have left much behind of that portion of the splendid
library of the Ptolemies which was kept in the museum. And the other
portion of it, which was kept in the Temple of Serapis, to which
latter place it is most probable the celebrated Pergamese library,
presented by Marcus Antonius to Cleopatra, had also been sent, was
totally destroyed in 389, in the reign of Theodosius I., by a bigoted
Christian mob, under the leadership of the Archbishop Theophilus, a
much more ignorant and brutal zealot than either Omar or Amru.
[49] Othman’s foster-brother, the same whom Mohammed had so
reluctantly pardoned after the taking of Mecca. He was renowned as
the boldest and most dexterous horseman of Arabia.
[50] Callinicus was either a native of Heliopolis, in Syria, or of
Egypt. This clever chemist had been for a while in the service of the
Khalif; but, offended at the slight estimation in which his science
was held by the ignorant sons of the desert, he went over to the
emperor, and placed in the hands of the Christians that marvellous
and mysterious agent, the _Greek fire_, which afterwards repeatedly
saved Constantinople from falling into the hands of its barbarian
besiegers. It is certainly a curious coincidence, that, at a later
period of history, Sultan Mohammed II. was most materially assisted
in the reduction of the city of the Cæsars, by another man of
science, the Hungarian URBAN, who, having been almost starved in the
Greek service, had deserted to the Moslems, for whom he cast cannons
of enormous size and weight of metal.
[51] The victory of Bassora is therefore usually called the Day of
the Camel; seventy men who successively held the bridle of the camel
which carried Ayesha’s litter, were all either killed or more or less
severely wounded.
[52] That is, “God is great,” or “God is victorious.”
[53] Abder-Rahman.
[54] January; according to some historians, Midsummer, 660; others
place the event in August, 661.
[55] But many of the tribes revered the name and memory of Ali. His
refusal to be bound by the tradition, or Sonna, became a kind of
religious creed, and a wide and deep gulf was opened between two
rival sects, the _Sonnites_, or believers in the tradition, and the
_Schiites_, or sectaries, who reject the tradition, regard Ali as the
_Vicar of God_, and his three predecessors as execrable usurpers. The
religious discord of the friends and enemies of Ali may be said to be
actually maintained still to the present day in the immortal hatred
of the Schiite Persians, and the Sonnite Turks. The twelve Imams,
or pontiffs, of the Persian church are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the
lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. The curse
against Ali and his adherents was abolished by Omar II., in 719.
[56] The ruins of the ancient city of Carthage are about ten miles
east of Tunis.
[57] At least in Syria and Irak.
[58] One of the most remarkable men of the period; he was said to
unite the fierceness of the lion with the subtlety of the fox; his
eventful life would furnish ample material for ten historic romances.
[59] It would appear, from Leo Africanus, that a considerable body of
Goths formed part of the army of relief.
[60] Handalusia signifies, in Arabic, the country of the West;
and the Arabs applied the name not only to the modern province
of Andalusia, but to the whole peninsula of Spain. The attempted
derivation of the name of Andalusia from the Vandals (Vandalusia)
is most improbable. LEMBKE travels still farther out of the way of
all rational probability, by assigning the etymological paternity
of the name to _Andalos_, whom the Arabians number among Noah’s
grandchildren.
[61] 649-672.
[62] This would certainly seem to have been the true cause of
Julian’s defection; the story of the seduction or violation of his
daughter Florinda (surnamed _la Cava_, i.e., the wicked), lacks all
true historic foundation. _Mariana_, the Jesuit historian, to whom we
are chiefly indebted for this pretty tale, was too apt to draw on his
lively imagination, where historical evidence failed him.
[63] The place on which the Arabs landed is marked to the present day
by the name of their chief Tarif (Tarifa); on the coast they bestowed
the name of the Green Island (_Algesiras_ or _Algezire_).
[64] Musa had fought in Syria; he had assisted Moawiyah in the
reduction of Cyprus (648), and had held the government of that
island; he had subsequently been governor of Irak, and after this,
governor of Egypt; Sardinia, Majorca, and Minorca, also had felt his
presence.
[65] Though some historians lead Musa (in 712) into the Narbonnese
Gaul, there are strong reasons to reject this as an erroneous
supposition; it is more than doubtful whether the old chief ever
passed the Pyrenees.
[66] The statement made by some historians, that _Ætius_ presented
this table as a gift to _Torismund_, after the victory of Chalons
(451), seems to rest on a very slender foundation; and so, I am
inclined to think, do the 365 feet of gems and massive gold so
liberally bestowed upon the table by Oriental writers. Another
tradition substitutes, as the gift of the Roman patrician, the famous
Missorium, or great golden dish for the service of the communion
table, which is stated to have weighed 500 pounds, and to have been
adorned with a profusion of gems.
[67] Some historians make Musa arrive _after_ the death of Walid;
and some place the latter event a year later (715). The records of
the period of the early Khalifs are so confused and contradictory
that it is by no means easy always to ascertain the correct date of
an event; the difficulty is considerably increased by the error into
which some historians have fallen, of confounding the lunar year of
the Mohammedans with the solar year of the Julian era. The common
lunar year of the Hegira has 354 days; but the Mohammedans count,
in a cyclus of 30 years, 11 leap years of 355 days (the 2nd, 5th,
7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 24th, 25th and 29th years of the
cyclus).
[68] Of small size, of course.
[69] In the separation of parties, the _green_ color was adopted
by the Alides, or Fatimites, the _black_ color by the Abassides,
and the _white_ color by the Ommiades; these colors were displayed
respectively by the several parties, not only in their standards but
also in their garments and turbans.
[70] Gibbon.
PART II.
THE FRANKS.
CHAPTER I.
THE FRANK CONFEDERACY.--CLOVIS, THE FOUNDER OF THE FRANK MONARCHY.
A great deal of labor and ingenuity has been wasted in futile
endeavors to trace the origin of a _distinct_ Frank nation; however,
after exhausting every possible means of research, and every probable
and improbable suggestion of fancy, the most rational writers are
now agreed in looking upon the supposed existence of a distinct
FRANK nation as a myth,[71] and in believing that the name of
_Franks_ or _Freemen_ was assumed, most probably about the middle
of the third century after Christ, by a _league of several Germanic
nations_, of whom the most important were the SIGAMBRIANS and the
CATTI. The former constituted, with the BRUCTERI, the CHAMAVIANS,
the CHATTUARII, and perhaps also part of the BATAVIANS, the _lower_
branch of the confederacy; towards the end of the third century their
settlements extended along the eastern bank of the Rhine, from the
Lippe down to the mouth of the great German river; they occupied
also the island of the Batavians, and the land between the Rhine and
Meuse, and down to the Scheld. From the settlement of the Sigambrians
on the _Yssel_ or _Sala_, this branch of the confederacy received
the name of the _Salian_[72] Franks. The CATTI, the AMBSIVARIANS,
and some other tribes, (including perhaps even the HERMUNDURI, or
THURINGIANS?) constituted the _upper_ branch of the confederacy.
The upper Franks extended their settlements from the lands between
the Mein and Lippe gradually along both banks of the Rhine, from
Mayence to Cologne; and, although repeatedly driven back by the
Romans, they ultimately retained possession of the left bank of the
river; whence they were also called _Riparian_ or _Ripuarian_ Franks
(from the Latin _ripa_, bank, shore).
The Franks repeatedly invaded Gaul, more particularly in the reigns
of Valerian[73] (253-260), and of Gallienus (260-268); and though
the Romans boast of numerous victories achieved at the time against
them, under the leadership of Posthumus, the general of Valerian,
but who afterwards usurped the empire in Gaul,[74] yet it is certain
that the Franks not only carried their devastations from the Rhine
to the foot of the Pyrenees, but numbers of them actually crossed
these mountains, and ravaged Spain during twelve years; when they had
exhausted that unfortunate country, they seized on some vessels in
the ports of Spain, and crossed over to the coast of Africa, where
their sudden appearance created the utmost consternation. The Emperor
Probus defeated the Franks in 277, and transported a colony of them
to the sea-coast of Pontus, where he established them with a view
of strengthening the frontier against the inroads of the Alani. But
impelled by their unconquerable love of country and freedom, they
seized on a number of vessels in one of the harbors of the Euxine,
sailed boldly through the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, and, cruising
along the coast of the Mediterranean, made frequent descents upon
the coasts of Asia, Greece, and Africa, and actually took and sacked
the opulent city of Syracuse, in the island of Sicily; whence they
proceeded to the Columns of Hercules, where they made their way into
the Atlantic, and coasting round Spain and Gaul, reached the British
Channel, sailed through it, and landed ultimately in safety, and
richly laden with spoil, on the Batavian shore.
In 287, the Menapian CARAUSIUS, who usurped the imperial purple in
Britain, granted to the Franks the island of the Batavians, and the
land between Meuse and Scheld. CONSTANTIUS (293), and CONSTANTINE
(313), expelled them from these provinces; the Ripuarians also felt
the heavy hand of Constantine, and of his son CRISPUS; the latter
expelled them for a time from the left bank of the Rhine. But Julian
found both the Salians and the Ripuarians in their old places; and,
though successful against both (357 and 358), contented himself with
the partial expulsion of the Ripuarians and the Chamavians, leaving
the Sigambrians in quiet possession of the island of the Batavians,
and the extensive district of Brabant, which they had occupied, on
condition that they should henceforth hold themselves subjects and
auxiliaries of the Roman empire. However, the expelled tribes soon
made their reappearance on the banks of the Rhine, and, at the end of
the fourth century, the Franks had regained complete possession of
their old quarters.
Stilicho, the great minister and general of the contemptible
Honorius, made it one of the first acts of his administration to
secure the alliance of the warlike Franks against the enemies of
Rome (395). He succeeded so well, it would appear, that the Franks
actually handed over to the discretion of his justice, one of their
kings or dukes,[75] Marcomir, who was accused of having violated the
faith of treaties; the accused prince was exiled to Tuscany, his
brother SUNNO, who attempted to avenge the insult which he deemed
had been put upon the nation by this degradation of the dignity of
one of its chiefs, met with a harsher fate at the hands of his own
countrymen: he was slain by them; and the princes whom Stilicho had
appointed, were cheerfully acknowledged. The fact that Stilicho
himself was of German (Vandalian) extraction, may account in some
degree for this extraordinary subserviency of the Franks to the will
and wishes of the master of the Western Empire. On this occasion, the
Franks had engaged to protect the province of Gaul against invasion
from the side of Germany. An opportunity of proving their sincerity
and fidelity to Rome, or perhaps rather to the great minister who
had made the treaty of alliance with them, offered in the year 406,
when the confederated nations of the VANDALS, the ALANI, the SUEVI,
and the BURGUNDIANS, were moving in a body to the Rhine with the
intention of invading Gaul; and most honestly and valiantly indeed
did the Franks acquit themselves of the duty undertaken by them. It
so happened that the Vandals were the first to make their appearance
on the bank of the river; proudly relying on their numbers they
attempted to force the passage, without awaiting the coming up of
the other confederated nations. They paid the penalty of their
rashness; twenty thousand of them were slain, among them their king,
GODIGISCLUS; and the opportune arrival of the ALANI, whose squadrons
trampled down the infantry of the Franks, alone saved the nation of
the Vandals from total destruction. Attacked by the combined forces
of the confederates, the Franks were at last compelled to give way.
On the 31st December, 406, the Suevi, the Alani, the Vandals, and the
Burgundians, crossed the frozen Rhine without further opposition, and
thus entered the defenceless provinces of Gaul, where the Burgundians
formed a lasting settlement, the other nations of the confederacy
proceeding subsequently further on to Spain and Lusitania.
History leaves us in the dark as to the period when the Franks first
submitted to the sway of _hereditary_ princes; but this much seems
certain, that it must have been long before the time of Pharamond;
and also that their long-haired kings[76] did not derive the name of
_Merovingians_, from Meroveus, the grandson of Pharamond, but either
from some more ancient Meroveus; or perhaps from _Merve_, the name
which the Meuse receives after its union with the Waal (an arm of the
Rhine); or from the same name of a castle near Dortrecht, supposed to
have been the family seat of the Frankian kings.
It would appear that PHARAMOND, the son of Marcomir, was elevated
on the buckler,[77] about 410, and that his son CLODION succeeded
him in 428. It is somewhat doubtful whether these two kings held
sway over the Ripuarians as well as over the Salians, or even over
all the nations which constituted the league of the latter. Clodion
had his residence at _Dispargum_ (Duisborch?[78]), in Brabant,
somewhere between Louvain and Brussels. Soon after his accession,
this prince invaded Belgic Gaul, took Tournay and Cambray, and
advanced as far as the river Somme. He was surprised and defeated in
the plains of Artois, by ÆTIUS, the general of the Western empire
(430); but that astute politician deemed it the wiser course to
secure the friendship of the powerful leader of the warlike Franks,
and therefore conceded to him free possession of the conquered
province. _Clodion_ died about 448 (450?) He left two sons who
disputed his succession. All we can gather from the very confused and
contradictory accounts of this period, is that the younger of the two
sons, whose name is not mentioned, was raised on the buckler by the
Ripuarian, the elder, MERVEY or MEROVEUS,[79] by the Salian Franks;
and that the former joined ATTILA in his invasion of Gaul, and fought
on the side of the Huns in the great battle of Chalons (451); whilst
Meroveus, with his Salians joined the standard of Ætius, and combated
on the side of the Romans and Visigoths. Mervey’s son, CHILDERIC,
offended the Franks by his excesses and his arbitrary proceedings:
he was deposed by them, and was compelled to seek a refuge at the
court of the King of the Thuringians, BISINUS or BASINUS. The
Franks having thus disposed of their king, proceeded to bestow the
royal dignity upon ÆGIDIUS, the Roman master-general of Gaul, who,
after the compelled abdication and the most suspicious death of the
Emperor MAJORIAN, in 461, had refused to acknowledge the successor
forced upon the acceptance of the Roman Senate by the all-powerful
Patrician RICIMER, the instigator of Majorian’s fall, and had
assumed the sovereignty over the _remnant_ of the Gallic province
which still obeyed the Roman sway. However, a few years after, the
Franks, who found the Roman system of taxation more oppressive and
objectionable than any act of Childeric’s, recalled that prince,
and, under his guidance, expelled the “tax-gatherers” (465). Ægidius
acquiesced with a good grace in a change which he had not the power
to oppose. Childeric had been most hospitably entertained by King
BISINUS; but the _hospitality_ extended to him by the wife of that
monarch, Queen BASINA, was, by all accounts, still more _liberal_
than that shown to the interesting guest by her worthy husband.
After Childeric’s restoration, Basina left her husband, and rejoined
her lover: the fruit of this voluntary union was CLOVIS, who, at
the age of fifteen, succeeded, by his father’s death, to the rule
of that portion of the Salian territory, over which Childeric had
held sway, and which was confined to the island of the Batavians,
with the ancient dioceses of Tournay and Arras; for the custom of
the Franks to divide the treasures and territories of a deceased
duke or king equally among his sons, had had the natural effect
to split the kingdom of Pharamond into several parts independent
of each other. CLOVIS combined with an insatiable ambition, all
the qualities requisite to satisfy that all-absorbing passion. His
personal bravery was controlled and directed by cool and consummate
prudence. He wielded the _francisca_ (the battle-axe of the Franks)
with formidable strength and skill; and he did not hesitate, when
occasion required, to make his own soldiers feel the weight of
his arm and the precision of his aim. He subjected the barbarians
whom he commanded to the strict rules of a severe discipline which
he enforced with unbending rigor. A crafty and astute politician,
he was endowed with the most essential requisites for success,
_patience_ and _perseverance_. In the pursuit and accomplishment of
his ambitious designs, he trampled on every law of God and nature: no
feeling of pity ever stayed, no fear of retribution ever restrained,
his murderous hands. He was indeed the worthy progenitor of a line of
princes fit to take the proudest place among the highest aristocracy
of crime, to put to the blush the _Neros_, the _Caligulas_, the
_Domitians_, the _Caracallas_, the _Elagabalus_ of imperial Rome, and
to rank with the _Bourbons_, the _Hapsburgs_ and the _Tudors_. At the
age of twenty, he made war upon SYAGRIUS, the son of Ægidius, who had
inherited from his father the city and diocese of Soissons, and whose
sway was acknowledged also by the cities and territories of Rheims,
Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens. In alliance with his cousin RAGNACHAR,
King of the Franks of Cambray, and some other Merovingian princes,
he defeated Syagrius at Soissons, and reduced in the brief space of
a few months the remnant of the Roman dominion in Gaul, and which
had survived ten years the extinction of the Western empire (486).
Syagrius fled to Thoulouse, where he flattered himself to find a safe
asylum; but in vain: ALARIC II., the son of the great EURIC, was a
minor, and the men who governed the kingdom of the Visigoths in his
name, were but too readily intimidated by the threats of Clovis, and
pusillanimously delivered up the hapless fugitive to certain death. A
few years after (491), Clovis enlarged his dominions towards the east
by the ample diocese of Tongres. In 498, he married the Burgundian
princess CLOTILDA, who, in the midst of an Arian court, had been
educated in the Nicean faith.[80] Clotilda’s endeavors to convert her
husband to Christianity were not very successful at first, though he
consented to the baptism of his first-born son; the sudden death of
the infant, which the ignorant and superstitious Pagan was inclined
to attribute to the anger of his gods, had well-nigh proved fatal to
any further attempt at conversion; still the beauty and blandishments
of the pious queen succeeded at last in overcoming the scruples and
apprehensions of her husband, and gaining his consent to a repetition
of the experiment: this time the infant survived, and Clovis began
to listen with greater favor to the exhortations of his Christian
spouse.
In the year 496, the Alemanni,[81] who occupied both banks of the
Rhine, from the source of that river to its conflux with the Mein and
the Moselle, and had spread themselves over the modern provinces of
Alsace and Lorraine, invaded the territories of SIGEBERT, the king of
the Ripuarian Franks, who had his seat at Cologne. Sigebert, unable
to resist the invaders single-handed, invoked the powerful aid of his
cousin, Clovis, and the latter hastened at once to the rescue. He
encountered the invaders in the plain of TOLBIAC (_Zülpich_), about
twenty-four miles from Cologne. A fierce battle ensued. For several
hours it raged with unabated fury, without any decided advantage
being gained by either party; at length the Franks gave way, and the
Alemanni raised shouts of victory. Clovis saw his dream of power and
ambition rapidly fading away; in his extremity he invoked the God
of Clotilda and the Christians, to grant him the victory over his
enemies, which service he vowed duly to acknowledge, by consenting
to be baptised.[82] Resolved, however, to do his share also towards
the achievement of the victory which he was imploring the Christian
Lord of Hosts to vouchsafe him, he rallied his discomfited troops,
and placing himself at their head, led them on again to the attack,
and by his valor and conduct, succeeded in restoring the battle. The
franciscas, and the heavy swords of the Franks, made fearful havoc
in the hostile ranks; the king, and many of the most valiant chiefs
of the Alemanni, were slain, and ere evening the power of one of
the fiercest and most warlike nations of Germany, was annihilated.
Pursued by the victorious Franks into the heart of their forests, the
Alemanni were forced to submit to the yoke of the conqueror; some
of their tribes fled to the territory of the Gothic king of Italy,
THEODORIC, who assigned them settlements in Rhætia, and interceded,
with his brother-in-law,[83] in favor of the conquered nation.
In his distress, Clovis had vowed to adore the God of the Christians,
if He would succour him; the danger past, and the victory achieved,
the perfidious Frank would gladly have made light of his vow, but
for the incessant importunities of Clotilda, and of Remigius, the
Catholic bishop of Rheims. On the day of Christmas in the same year,
(496), Clovis was baptised in the Cathedral of Rheims with 3000 of
his warlike subjects; and the remainder of the Salians speedily
followed the example. As the kings of the Goths, Burgundians, and
Vandals were Arians, and even the Greek emperor, Anastasius, was not
quite free from the taint of heresy; the Bishop of Rome, ANASTASIUS
II., overjoyed at the conversion of the powerful king of the Franks
to the Nicean faith, hailed the neophyte as the “_Most Christian
King_.”
The conversion of Clovis to the Catholic faith stood him in excellent
need in his schemes of further aggrandisement. His arms were
henceforward supported by the favor and zeal of the Catholic clergy,
more especially in the discontented cities of Gaul, under the sway of
the Arian kings of the Visigoths and the Burgundians. The Armoricans,
or Bretons, in the north-western provinces of Gaul, who had hitherto
bravely and successfully resisted all attempts of the _Pagan_ chief
to conquer them, were now gradually induced to submit to an equal and
honorable union with a Christian people, governed by a _Catholic_
king (497-500); and the remnants of the Roman troops (most of them
of barbarian extraction), also acknowledged the sway of Clovis,
on condition of their being permitted to retain their arms, their
ensigns, and their peculiar dress and institutions.
Clotilda had never ceased to urge her husband to make war upon
her uncle Gundobald, the murderer of her father. Her other uncle,
GODEGESIL, had been permitted by his rapacious brother to retain the
dependent principality of Geneva. But fearful lest Gundobald should
treat him in the end the same as he had his other brothers, he lent
a willing ear to the suggestions of his niece, and the tempting
offers of the Frankish king, and entered into a secret compact with
the latter to betray and abandon the cause of his brother on the
first favorable opportunity. Hereupon Clovis declared war against
the King of Burgundy, and invaded his territories: in the year 500
or 501, the armies of the Franks and the Burgundians met between
Langres and Dijon. The treacherous desertion, at the decisive moment,
of Godegesil and the troops of Geneva, saved Clovis from defeat.
Apprehensive of the disaffection of the Gauls, Gundobald abandoned
the castle of Dijon, and the important cities of Lyons and Vienna,
to the king of the Franks, and continued his flight till he had
reached Avignon; but here he made a stand, and defended the city
with such skill and vigor, that Clovis ultimately consented to a
treaty of peace, which made the king of Burgundy tributary to him,
and stipulated the cession of the province of Vienna to Godegesil,
as a reward for his treachery. A garrison of 5000 Franks was left
at Vienna, to secure the somewhat doubtful allegiance of Godegesil,
and also to protect the latter against the vengeance of his offended
brother. But Gundobald, unscrupulous and truculent though he was
in the pursuit of his grasping policy, was yet not lacking wisdom.
As soon as the conclusion of the peace with Clovis had restored
to him the remnant of his kingdom, he applied himself to gain the
affections of his Roman and Gallic subjects, by the promulgation of
a code of wise and impartial laws[84] (502), and to conciliate the
Catholic prelates by artful promises of his approaching conversion
from the errors of the Arian heresy. Having strengthened his
position, moreover, by alliances with the kings of the Ostrogoths
and Visigoths, he suddenly invaded the territories which Clovis had
compelled him to cede to his brother, and surprised Vienna and its
Frankish garrison ere his brother was even fully aware of his hostile
intentions. Godegesil sought refuge in a church; but the protection
of the holy precincts availed him nought; he was struck down dead at
the altar by his remorseless brother. The provinces of Geneva and
Vienna were re-united to the Burgundian kingdom; the captive Franks
were sent to the king of the Visigoths, who settled them in the
territory of Thoulouse. Clovis, who could now no longer rely upon the
assistance of a traitor in the camp of Gundobald, deemed it the wiser
course to submit to the altered state of affairs, and to content
himself with the alliance and the promised military service of the
King of Burgundy.
Already before the Burgundian war, Clovis had cast his covetous
eyes upon the fair provinces of the south of Gaul, which were
held by ALARIC II., the King of the Visigoths. Here, also, the
disaffection of the Catholic Gauls and Romans promised the best
chances of success. Some paltry border-squabble was eagerly laid
hold of by Clovis to pick a quarrel with the King of the Visigoths,
and war seemed at the time inevitable between the two nations; when
Theodoric, Alaric’s father-in-law,[85] interposed his good offices,
and succeeded, by a well-timed threat of an armed intervention,
in restraining the aggressive spirit of the Frankish King, (498).
A personal interview was proposed between Clovis and Alaric: it
was held on the border of the two states, in a small island of the
Loire, near Amboise. The two kings met in right royal fashion: they
embraced, feasted together, indulged in a profusion of protestations
of mutual regard and brotherly affection, and parted full of
smiles--and mutual hatred and distrust.
Had Alaric pursued the same wise course as Gundobald, he might have
found in the affection of the people under his sway, a safe shield
against Frank aggression. But, unfortunately, the Arian could not
forbear from inflicting upon his dissenting subjects, those petty
acts of tyranny in which dominant sects delight, and which are always
sure to create a deeper and more lasting disaffection than any act
of political oppression. The Catholic clergy in Aquitaine laid
their complaints against their Arian sovereign, before the Catholic
King of the Franks; and besought the latter to come to the aid of
his co-religionists, and free them from the yoke of their Gothic
tyrants. Clovis eagerly seized the pretext. In a general assembly
of the Frankish chiefs and the Catholic prelates held at Paris, he
declared his intention not to permit the Arian heretics to retain
possession any longer of the fairest portion of Gaul. Alaric did his
best to prepare for the coming struggle; the army which he collected
was much more numerous, indeed, than the military power which
Clovis could bring against him; but, unfortunately, a long peace
had enervated the descendants of the once so formidable warriors of
the first Alaric. They were unable to sustain the fierce shock of
the Franks, who totally overthrew and routed them in the battle of
Vouglé, near Poitiers, in 507. Alaric himself fell by the hand of his
rival; Angoulême, Bordeaux, Thoulouse, submitted to the conqueror,
and the whole of Aquitaine acknowledged his sway, (508); and he
would have succeeded in driving the Visigoths beyond the Pyrenean
mountains, had not the King of Italy thrown the shield of his power
over the discomfited nation. The Franks and their Burgundian allies
were besieging Arles and Carcassone, when the valiant HIBBAS,
Theodoric’s general, appeared on the scene with a powerful and
well-appointed army of Ostrogoths. He defeated the victors of Vouglé,
and compelled the ambitious King of the Franks to raise the siege
of the two cities, and to lend a willing ear to proposals of an
advantageous peace. He then overthrew and slew the bastard GESALIC,
who had usurped the throne of the Visigoths, to the exclusion of
Alaric’s infant son, AMALARIC. The latter was now proclaimed King
of Spain and Septimania, under the guardianship of his grandfather,
Theodoric: Clovis being permitted to retain possession of the land
from the Cevennes and the Garonne to the Loire, whilst the Provence
was annexed to the dominions of the King of Italy, who thus did not
disdain despoiling his own grandson of one of the finest provinces of
his kingdom.
The Emperor Anastasius, overjoyed at the humiliation inflicted by
Clovis upon the Goths, bestowed upon the King of the Franks the
dignity and ensigns of the Roman consulship! (510); which, though
in reality a mere empty title, yet invested that monarch, in the
eyes of his Roman and Gallic subjects, with the prestige of Imperial
authority.
Clovis seeing himself thus in undisputed possession of the greater
part of Gaul, thought the time had come to unite the several Frankish
tribes into one nation, under his sceptre. But, knowing full well
that his Franks would not follow him in an open war against his own
kindred of the race of Pharamond, he coolly planned the assassination
of the whole family. SIGEBERT, the king of the Ripuarians, had proved
himself a most faithful ally of his Salian cousin; and in the last
campaign against the Visigoths, he had sent to his aid a powerful
contingent of his Ripuarians, under the command of his own son,
CHLODERIC. Clovis excited the ambition and cupidity of the latter,
and succeeded in persuading him to murder his own father; when the
horrid deed was perpetrated, the wretched son, intent upon securing
the powerful support of the Salian king, offered him part of the
treasures of the murdered man. The “fair cousin” sent him word to
keep his treasures, and simply to show them to his ambassadors,
that he, Clovis, might rejoice in the prosperity of his cousin;
but, when the assassin of his father had lifted up the heavy lid
of one of the boxes, and was bending down to take out some of the
precious articles which it held, he was slain in his turn by one of
the _ambassadors_ of Clovis. That most Christian king afterwards
solemnly protested to the Ripuarians that Chloderic, the assassin of
his father, had fallen by the hand of some unknown avenger, and that
he, Clovis, was innocent of the death of either of them. “Surely,”
he exclaimed, with well affected horror and indignation, “no one
would dare to deem _me_ guilty of that most horrible of all crimes,
the murder of my own kindred!” The Ripuarians believed him, and
acknowledged him their king, by raising him on a shield. The next
victims were CHARARIC, the king of the Morinic Franks, in Belgium,
and his son. Chararic, had refused his aid to Clovis, in the campaign
against Syagrius; the fact had, indeed, occurred rather long ago, but
still it answered the purpose of the unscrupulous son of Childeric.
Chararic and his son, having fallen into his hands by the grossest
treachery, were despoiled of their treasures and their long hair, and
ordained priests. When the son, endeavoring to console his father,
could not refrain from indignant invectives against the author of
their misery, the pious king of the Salians calmly ordered both
of them to be slain, as they had “dared to rebel against the will
of the Most High!” There remained still the family of the Cambray
princes, consisting of three brothers, viz., RAGNACHAR, RICHAR, and
RIGNOMER. The pretext in their case was that they still continued
Pagans. Clovis bribed some of the chiefs of the tribe with _spurious_
gold; they fell unawares upon Ragnachar and Richar, bound them, and
delivered them into the hands of their “loving cousin.” Addressing
the hapless Ragnachar, that monstrous villain exclaimed, “How dare
you bring disgrace upon our noble family, by submitting to the
indignity of bonds!” and, with a blow of his battle-axe, he spared
the wretched captive the trouble of a reply; then turning to the
brother of the butchered man, “Hadst thou defended thy brother,” he
cried, “they could not have bound him;” and an instant after, the
blood and brains of the brothers had mingled their kindred streams
on the weapon of the most Christian king. When the wretches who had
betrayed their princes into the hands, of the assassin, came to
complain that the price of their treachery had been paid in _base
coin_, he told them, traitors deserved no better reward, and bade
them be gone, lest he should feel tempted to avenge upon them the
blood of his murdered relations.
Rignomer was disposed of by private assassination, and Clovis might
now exclaim: “At last I am king of the Franks.” The worthy bishop
of Tours, the chronicler of this, and some of the following reigns
of the Merovingians, whilst coolly relating these horrid crimes of
his hero, piously informs us that success in all his undertakings
was vouchsafed to Clovis by the Most High, and that his enemies
were delivered up into his hands, _because he walked with a sincere
heart in the ways of the Lord, and did that which was right in his
sight_!![86] What a pity that this godly monarch was not permitted to
walk a little longer in the ways of the Lord: an additional score or
so of murders would surely have achieved canonisation for him. But
the most orthodox and most Christian king was suddenly called away
from the scene of his glorious exploits; at the very time when he was
revolving mighty schemes of further aggrandisement, and planning,
as preliminary step, the assassination of Gundobald, the king of
Burgundy, and of Theudes, the regent of Spain, (511). His four sons
divided his kingdom between them; THEODORIC, (Thierry) the eldest,
received the Eastern part, _Austrasia_,[87] (Francia orientalis),
and also part of Champagne, and the conquests of Clovis south of the
Loire; he established the seat of his government at Metz; CLODOMIR’S
seat was at Orleans; CLOTAIRE’S at Soissons; CHILDEBERT’S at Paris;
the share of the latter was called _Neustria_ or _Neustrasia_
(Francia occidentalis), a name which was afterwards used to designate
the whole of the territories occupied by the Franks between the
mouths of the Rhine and the Loire, the Meuse, and the sea.
It is not my intention to smear my pages with the blood and mire
of the lives and acts of the Merovingian princes. We will content
ourselves here with a brief glance at the principal events and
incidents connected with the progress of the Frank empire during the
two hundred years that intervene between the death of Clovis and the
accession of Charles, afterwards surnamed _Martel_, as Mayor of the
Palace.
In the year 523, the three sons of Clotilda, invited by their
unforgiving mother, invaded Burgundy, and attacked the son and
successor of Gundobald, SIGISMOND, whose conversion to the Catholic
faith has gained him, in the lying annals penned by the clerical
historians of the period, the name of a saint and a martyr, though
he had imbrued his hands in the blood of his own son, an innocent
youth whom he had basely sacrificed to the pride of his second
wife! Sigismond lost a battle and fell soon after into the hands
of the sons of Clotilda, who carried him to Orleans, and had him
buried alive together with his wife and two of his children--an
excellent proof that they had not _degenerated_. Sigismond’s
brother, GONDEMAR, defeated the invaders in the battle of Vienna,
where Clodomir fell. This gave Gondemar a few years’ respite, as
the two brothers, Clotaire and Childebert, were busy sharing the
inheritance of Clodomir.[88] But, in 534, the brothers invaded
Burgundy again; when Gondemar lost his crown and his liberty, and
the fair Burgundian provinces became the patrimony of the Merovingian
princes. In the year 530, Theodoric and Clotaire conquered and
annexed the territories of the Thuringians, thus extending their
dominion to the banks of the Unstrut. Rhætia and Provence also fell
into the hands of the successors of Clovis. Theudobald, the grandson
and second successor of Theodoric, or Thierry, died in 554; as he
left no heir, Clotaire and Childebert shared his dominions between
them; Childebert’s death, in 558, without male heirs, left Clotaire
in sole and undisputed possession of the Frankish empire, which now
extended from the Atlantic and the Pyrenees to the Unstrut. After
having added to the list of his crimes the murder of his son Chramus,
and also of the wife and the two daughters of the latter, King
Clotaire died in 560. His kingdom was again divided between his four
sons, CHARIBERT, GUNTRAM, SIGEBERT, and CHILPERIC; the eldest of the
brothers, Charibert, died in 567. As he left no heir, his territories
were divided between the three surviving brothers. But Chilperic was
dissatisfied with his share, and this led to a series of civil wars,
which terminated only in 613, when Clotaire II., the son of Chilperic
and Fredegonda, re-united in his hands the entire empire of the
Franks.
It would be difficult to crowd a greater number of more appalling
and atrocious crimes, within the short space of half a century,
than were committed by the Merovingians, from the time of the death
of Charibert up to the re-union of the empire under Clotaire II.;
the names of Chilperic, of Fredegonda,[89] of Brunehilda,[90] of
Theuderic,[91] and last, though not least, of the monster Clotaire
(second of the name) deserve, indeed, prominent places in the great
criminal calendar of the world’s history.
FOOTNOTES:
[71] Still we must not omit to state that the lays of ancient
Germany, and the old Chronicles of the country, exhibit singular
agreement in the reproduction of the popular tradition which makes
the _nation of the Franks_ come from Troy. However, after all, this
makes no great difference, as even the most strenuous believers in
the existence of a distinct nation of Franks, fully admit that as
early as the third century (the time when the name of the Franks
first appears in history) that name included _several_ Germanic
nations. By some the Thuringians are given as a _branch_ of the Frank
nation.
[72] Some, however, derive the name from the Old German word
_saljan_, i.e. to grant, in reference to part of the territory
occupied by the Salian Franks having been _granted_ to them by the
Romans (by CARAUSIUS, in 287, confirmed at a later period by JULIAN
the Apostate). LEO derives the name from the Celtic word, _Sal_, i.e.
the sea.
[73] Valerian was taken prisoner by SAPOR, King of Persia, in 260,
who is said to have treated the fallen emperor with the greatest
indignity. Valerian died in captivity.
[74] He was one of the _nineteen_ usurpers who rose against Gallienus
in the several provinces of the empire. The writers of the Augustan
history have magnified the number to _thirty_.
[75] History names PHARAMOND as the first _King_ of the Franks;
the author of the _Gesta Francorum_ makes that prince the son of
Marcomir, the king mentioned in the text; and there appears to be
little doubt indeed, but that the Franks had established the right
of hereditary succession somewhat before the time of Clodion, the
reputed son of Pharamond.
[76] The fashion of long hair was among the Franks for a time, the
somewhat exclusive privilege of the royal family; the members of
which wore their locks hanging down in flowing ringlets on their back
and shoulders; while the rest of the nation were obliged to shave the
hind part of the head, and to comb the hair over the forehead.
[77] Elevation on a buckler was the ceremony by which the Franks
invested their chosen leader with military command.
[78] According to some historians and geographers, Duisburg, on the
right bank of the Rhine.
[79] Most historians make Meroveus, the _younger_ of the two sons
of Clodion; and, after his father’s death, they send him to Rome
to implore the protection of Ætius. Now, it is next to impossible
that the _beardless youth_, whom Priscus states to have seen at Rome
(about 449 or 450), could have been Meroveus, since the _son_ of that
prince, CHILDERIC, was within ten years after exiled by the Franks
on account of his excesses and his despotic sway. The young man whom
Priscus saw was most probably Childeric, who may have been sent to
Rome by his father, Meroveus, to renew the alliance which Clodion had
made with Ætius.
[80] The kingdom of the Burgundians, which had been established in
407 (see page 93), was divided, in 470, among the four sons of king
GONDERIC; HILPERIC, or CHILPERIC, the father of Clotilda, fixed his
residence at Geneva; GUNDOBALD at Lyons; GODEGESIL at Besançon,
and GODEMAR at Vienne (in Dauphiné). A war broke out between the
brothers, in which Gundobald conquered and took prisoner Hilperic
and Godemar; the latter committed suicide; the former was put to
death by his inhuman brother Gundobald, and his wife and his two sons
shared his fate; his two daughters were spared, and one of them,
Clotilda, was brought up at the court of Lyons; and, as chance would
have it, in the _Catholic_ faith, though Gundobald himself, like most
of the Christian princes of the time, professed the Arian doctrine,
Gundobald would gladly have refused Clovis the hand of his niece,
had he dared to brave the anger of the powerful Frankish chief.
Clotilda, on her part, was overjoyed at the prospect of an alliance
with a King, whose ambition might be turned to good account for the
pursuit of her own vengeful projects against the murderer of her
father; with a pagan, whose conversion to the Nicean creed would gain
her beloved Catholic church a formidable champion against the hated
Arian heretics. Gundobald had scarcely parted with his niece, and her
father’s treasures, when the pious princess displayed her Christian
spirit, by ordering her Frankish escort to burn down the Burgundian
villages through which they were passing, and when she saw the flames
rising, and heard the despairing cries of the unfortunates who were
thus being deprived of their homes, she lifted up her voice, and
praised the God of Athanasius--the _holy_ Chlotildis!
[81] The Alemanni were also, like the Franks, a league of several
Germanic nations, among whom the Teneteri, the Usipetes, and most
probably a portion of the Suevi, were the most important. The
favorite etymology of the name, _Allemanni_ or _All-Men_, as meant
to denote at once the various lineage, and the common bravery of
the component members of the league, is a little fanciful perhaps,
yet not more so, or rather not quite so much so, as some other
etymologies of the name indulged in by the learned.
[82] The invocation as given by Gregory of Tours, is rather _naïve_.
Jesu Christe, quem Chlotildis prædicat esse filium Dei vivi, qui
dare auxilium laborantibus, victoriamque in te sperantibus tribuere
diceris, tuæ opis gloriam devotus efflagito: ut si mihi victoriam
super hos hostes indulseris, et expertus fuero illam virtutem, quam
de te populus tuo nomine dicatus probasse se prædicat, credam tibi et
in nomine tuo baptizer. _Invocavi enim deos meos, sed ut experior,
elongati sunt ab auxilio meo: unde credo eos nullius potestatis, qui
tibi obedientibus non succurrunt._ A pretty plain hint: no victory,
no belief, no baptism!
[83] Theodoric had lately married ALBOFLEDA (Audofleda, or
Andefleda), the sister of Clovis.
[84] _Lex Gudebalda_--“_La loy Gombette_.”--Drawn up by AREDIUS.
[85] Alaric was married to Theodoric’s daughter THEUDOGOTHA, or
THEODICHUSA.
[86] Prosternabat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius,
et augebat regnum ejus, _eo quod ambularet recto corde coram eo, et
faceret, quæ placita erant in oculis ejus_. Gregor. Hist. lib. II.,
cap. 40.
[87] Austrasia comprised the old Salian possessions in Belgium, and
the territories of the Ripuarians and the Alemanni.
[88] Clodomir had left three sons, who were brought up by their
grandmother, Clotilda. The two brothers having got possession of two
of their nephews, calmly resolved to kill them. Clotaire sheathed
his dagger in the breast of one of them, the other embraced the
knees of his uncle Childebert, and besought him to spare his life.
The tears of the innocent child moved even the harsh Childebert
to pity; he entreated his brother to spare him; but that monster
remained deaf to all prayers, and threatened even to make Childebert
share the fate of the helpless boy, should he continue any longer to
withhold him from his murderous hands: Childebert thereupon pushed
back the poor innocent, and Clotaire’s dagger speedily sent him to
rejoin his brother (532). The third of the children of Clodomir was,
indeed, saved from his uncle’s clutches; but he deemed it necessary
afterwards to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, in order to
secure his safety.
[89] Fredegonda was first Chilperic’s concubine, subsequently,
after the murder of Galsuintha, his wife. After a career of blood
and crime, of which history affords but few parallels, she died in
579, at the height of prosperity and power, tranquilly in her bed,
properly shriven, of course, and with a promise of paradise. Had the
female monster been but a little more liberal to the _Church_, who
knows but the Calendar of the Saints might contain an additional name.
[90] Brunehilda was the daughter of Athanagild, King of Spain,
and the wife of Sigebert, King of Austrasia. She was in every
respect a worthy pendant to Fredegonda; but her final fate was very
different from that of her more fortunate rival, whom she survived
about sixteen years. In the year 613, she fell into the hands of
Fredegonda’s son, Clotaire, who inflicted upon the aged woman the
most horrible tortures, and had her finally tied, with one arm
and one leg, to the tail of a wild horse, and thus dragged along
over a stony road until death took mercy upon her. And all these
people _professed_ the religion of Christ, and were surrounded by
numbers of _most pious_ bishops! but then, the _Church_ has always
been indulgent to those who could and would remember her with rich
endowments. Moreover, many of the bishops of that period were
themselves such monstrous villains that little or no remonstrance
could be expected from _them_ against any royal crime, however so
atrocious.--To give one instance out of many: a bishop of Clermont,
wishing to compel a priest of his diocese to cede to him a small
estate held by the latter, and which he refused to part with, had the
unfortunate man shut up in a coffin, with a decaying corpse, and the
coffin placed in the vault of the church!
[91] Theuderic, or Thierry, was the younger son of Sigebert’s son
Childebert; he murdered his elder brother, Theudebert, and the infant
son of the latter, Meroveus (612). He died a year after, and two of
his own boys, Sigebert and Corbus, met the same fate at the hands of
Clotaire.
CHAPTER II.
DECLINE OF THE MEROVINGIAN PRINCES.--THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE.--PEPIN
OF LANDEN.--PEPIN OF HERISTAL.--CHARLES MARTEL.--THE BATTLE OF TOURS.
When the Roman empire had ceased to exist, the Frankish kings had,
in imitation of the Roman rulers, begun to surround themselves
with a court, and a great many high officers, and charges had been
created, among the most important of which may be mentioned the
office of Lord High Chancellor (archicancellarius, referendarius);
Lord High Chamberlain, or High Treasurer (thesaurarius, camerarius);
Master of the royal stables (marescalchus); Lord Justice (comes
palatii); Steward of the royal household (senescalchus); and more
particularly that of Mayor of the palace (præfectus palatii, or
major-domus, or comes domûs regiæ). The functions of the latter
officer had originally been confined to the general superintendence
of the palace, and the administration of the royal domains; but had
speedily been extended also to the command of the household troops.
In the course of the domestic wars between the Merovingian princes,
the mayors of the palace had gradually acquired a power and influence
second only to that of the king; so that, after the assassination of
Sigebert, in 575, GOGO, the then mayor of the palace of Austrasia,
had actually been named regent during the minority of Sigebert’s son,
Childebert. So powerful indeed had these domestic officers grown,
that Clotaire II. was positively forced to bind himself by oath to
WARNACHAR, the mayor of the palace of Burgundy, to leave him for his
life in undisturbed possession of his office; he was obliged also to
acknowledge the learned and valiant ARNULF, the Austrasian, mayor
of the palace, and subsequently--when that officer embraced the
ecclesiastical profession, and became Bishop of Metz--the energetic
Pepin of Landen,[92] as his representative with sovereign powers in
Austrasia. Even when Clotaire had ceded the kingdom of Austrasia to
his son DAGOBERT (622), Pepin continued to exercise almost unlimited
sway in that part of the Frankish empire. After Clotaire’s death,
in 623, Dagobert succeeded also to the Neustrian kingdom; and in
631, after his brother Charibert’s death,[93] who had held some
of the south-western provinces, he became sole king of France. He
died in 638; he was a compound of sensuality and indolence; still
his character and life were not stained with the horrible crimes
perpetrated by his predecessors, and more particularly by his own
father; he was the last of the descendants of Clovis, who exhibited
even the faintest spark of that fierce and energetic spirit which
made the founder of the Frank monarchy, however so abhorrent as a
_man_, yet _respectable_, and even _great_, as a _king_. Dagobert
built and richly endowed the Church of St. Denys, which gained him
the surname “The Great,” from a grateful clergy; but history has
refused to register the ill-deserved epithet. Pepin of Landen died a
year after his king (689). His son, _Grimoald_, deemed the power of
his family already so firmly established, that, taking advantage of
the tender age of Dagobert’s sons, Sigebert (second of the name in
the list of the Merovingian kings), and Clovis (II.), he attempted to
deprive them of their father’s succession, and to place his own son
(Childebert) on the throne; both father and son paid with their lives
the failure of the ambitious plan. But the overthrow of Grimoald led
simply to a change of persons; the power of the mayors of the palace
remained undiminished, and from this time forward, the Merovingian
kings were mere ciphers. “They ascended the throne without power, and
sunk into the grave without a name.” (Gibbon.) Sigebert died in 650;
his brother Clovis six years after. One of the sons of the latter,
Clotaire (III.), succeeded to the Neustrian, another, Childeric
(II.), to the Austrasian part of the empire. After Clotaire’s death,
in 670, the third brother, Theodoric, or Thierry (III.), was for a
short time king of Neustria; but he was speedily dispossessed by his
brother Childeric (or to speak more correctly, _his_ mayor of the
palace was compelled to give way to Childeric’s mayor of the palace).
Childeric was murdered in 673; when Thierry was reinstated in
Neustria, Austrasia being given to Dagobert (II.), a son of Sigebert
II., but who had hitherto been kept out of his inheritance.
After the death of Dagobert in 678, the Austrasians refused to submit
to Thierry, the King of Neustria and Burgundy, or rather to his
haughty mayor of the palace, EBROIN. PEPIN D’HERISTAL, the grandson
of Pepin of Landen, and his cousin, MARTIN, were at the head of the
insurgent Austrasian nobility. Martin fell into the hands of Ebroin,
and was killed. Ebroin himself was soon after assassinated, (682).
His successor, GISELMAR, defeated Pepin at Namur, but the Austrasian
notwithstanding maintained his position. The Neustrian nobility,
discontented with the rule of Giselmar’s successor, BERTHAR or
BERCHAR, ultimately called Pepin to their aid.
Berthar, and his puppet, Thierry, were defeated by the Austrasian
ruler in the famous battle of Testry, near Peronne and St. Quentin,
in 687. Berthar was slain as he fled from the field of battle: and
although the _name_ of king was left to Thierry, he was compelled
to acknowledge Pepin as _sole_, _perpetual_, and _hereditary_ Mayor
of the Palace, in the three kingdoms of Neustria, Austrasia, and
Burgundy, under the style and title of Duke and Prince of the Franks,
(Dux et Princeps Francorum). Pepin was now, to all intents and
purposes, the actual ruler of the Frankish empire--king in all but
the name. The nominal sovereigns had, henceforth, a residence[94]
assigned them, which they dared not even quit without the sanction
of their master; nay, even the paltry consolation of the pomp and
glitter of royalty was not vouchsafed them--except once a year in
the month of March,[95] when the royal puppet was conducted in state
in the old Frankish fashion, in a waggon drawn by two oxen, to the
great annual assembly of the nation; to give audience to foreign
ambassadors, or to receive plaints and petitions--and to place his
organ of speech, for a time, at the disposal of the Mayor of the
Palace, and give utterance to the replies or decisions of the real
ruler of France. The assembly over, the “King” was reconducted to
his residence or prison, where a feeble retinue and a strong guard
insulted the fallen majesty of the house of Clovis. It would even
appear, that the civil list assigned to the “King,” was only a
precarious grant, and that the nominal master of three kingdoms,
was often left without the means of defraying the expenses of his
_humble_ household.[96] The epithet of the “_do-nothing kings_,” (les
rois fainéans) has been felicitously applied to the last princes of
the Merovingian line. Besides Thierry III, (✠621), three of them
lived in the reign of Pepin of Heristal, viz: Clovis III, (✠695);
Childebert III, (✠711); and Dagobert III., all of them minors.
Pepin was an able and energetic ruler; he restored in some measure
the respect of the law. Liberal rewards secured him the allegiance
of the nobility; munificent endowments to churches and monasteries,
and the aid and encouragement which he gave to the Christian
missionaries, who were endeavoring to convert the heathen Germans,
gained him the favor and support of the clergy: his good sword put
down the discontented; and last, though certainly not least, he
deserved the grateful affection of the people by alleviating their
burthens, and by protecting them, in some measure, against the
despotic oppression of the nobility. The expulsion of some Christian
missionaries from Friesland, gave Pepin a pretext for endeavoring to
subject the Frisons to the Frankish sway. He invaded Friesland in
689, and defeated the Frison duke, or prince, Radbodus, at Dorestadt,
or Dorsted; in consequence of which defeat, the latter was compelled
to cede West Friesland to the Duke of the Franks; but all attempts to
obtain the conversion of Radbodus[97] to Christianity failed.
In 697, a new war broke out between the Duke of the Franks and the
Prince of the Frisons,[98] in which the latter is stated to have been
again defeated, and compelled to acknowledge, by the payment of an
annual tribute, the supremacy of the Franks. It is added, also, that
he gave his daughter in marriage to Pepin’s son Grimoald.
Pepin of Heristal made also several expeditions, though, it would
appear, with indifferent success only, against the Alemanni, the
Thuringians, and the Bojoarii, or Bavarians, who had taken advantage
of the internal dissensions and disorder of the Frankish empire, to
shake off the yoke of their masters.
In the beginning of the year 714, Pepin fell seriously ill, at
his estate Jopila, on the Meuse. He sent for his only surviving
(legitimate) son, GRIMOALD, whom he had made (after the death of his
friend Nordbert) major domûs in Neustria, and (after the death of
DROGO, another of his sons) Duke of Burgundy and Champagne, and whom
he intended to name his successor in the government of the entire
monarchy. But on his way to his father, Grimoald was assassinated at
Liège, in the church of St. Lambert, by a Frison; at the instigation,
it would appear, of some discontented nobles. He left an illegitimate
infant son, Theudoald, or Theudebaud. Pepin was unfortunately
persuaded by his wife, the ambitious PLECTRUDIS[99], who expected
to wield the government during the minority of her little grandson,
to name this infant his successor, instead of either of his own two
illegitimate sons (Charles and Childebrand)[100], and of whom the
latter, more especially, possessed his father’s great qualities, and
that amount of physical and intellectual vigor indispensable to keep
together and to rule over an empire composed of such heterogeneous
and antagonistic elements, as the Frankish. Soon after this fatal
step, which, we may safely assume the love of his country and of his
glory, would never have permitted the aged ruler to take, had not his
faculties been greatly impaired at the time by long illness and by
the bitter grief of his son’s death, Pepin of Heristal died on the
16th of December, 714.
He had scarcely departed life when Plectrudis, who dreaded the
aspiring genius of Charles, had the latter seized, and confined
in the city of Cologne. She now deemed herself in safe possession
of the government; but she was soon awakened from her ambitious
dream. The Neustrians were indignant that they should thus be handed
over to the sway of a child and to the rule of a woman: they could
bear _infant-kings_, indeed, but they refused to put up with an
_infant mayor of the palace_. They, therefore, made RAGANFRIED, a
powerful Neustrian noble, their mayor of the palace, and prepared
to resist by force of arms, any attempt which Plectrudis might
make to compel their submission. The widow of Pepin showed indeed
that, if she had had the ambition to seize the sceptre, she had
also the spirit to wield, and the requisite energy to defend it.
She collected a powerful army, and sent the puppet-King Dagobert
(III.), and his infant minister Theudebaud, with it against, what she
was pleased to call, the Neustrian rebels. But the fortune of war
declared against her: the Austrasian forces were totally routed by
Raganfried, and “King” Dagobert fell into the hands of the Neustrian
mayor of the palace. The infant on whose tiny shoulders Pepin’s
ill-judged partiality, or uxoriousness, had thrown the burthen of
three kingdoms, died soon after this reverse (715). Radbodus took
advantage of the position of affairs, to re-annex West Friesland
to his dominions; and, in conjunction with the Saxons, invaded the
Frankish territories from the north east, whilst the Merovingian
princes of Aquitaine ravaged them in the south west; the Alemanni and
the Bavarians threw off the Frankish yoke, and resumed their ancient
independence. Matters were looking dark indeed for the house of the
Pepins, and though Mistress Plectrudis most gallantly braved the
storm, her utmost efforts could have availed but little against such
a multitude of foes, had not Pepin’s son, Charles, meanwhile found
his way out of the prison to which the ambition of his father’s widow
had confined him.
CHARLES, who was destined afterwards to play so important a part in
history, was, at this time, about 25 years of age (he was born in
690). Nature had been most bountiful to him: tall even among the tall
nation of the Franks, of a most commanding figure, and of a compact
and beautifully symmetrical frame, he might be said to present in
his physical conformation a compound of Hercules and Antinöus; his
features were regular and expressive, and the lightning glance of
his large blue eyes reflected, as in a mirror, the energy of his
mind and the vigor of his intellect. He possessed enormous bodily
strength combined with surprising agility. The remembrance of his
great father, and his own manly beauty and grace, gained him the
hearts of the Austrasians; and he soon found himself at the head
of a formidable body of troops, with which he proceeded first to
attack the Frisons, but with rather indifferent success, it would
appear, as, we find Radbodus and his Frisons soon after laying siege
to Cologne, in conjunction with the Neustrians under Raganfried.
Plectrudis, however, purchased the retreat of the besieging forces;
and the Frisons and Neustrians having separated again, Charles fell
upon the latter at Ambleva. But, although he exhibited all the
qualities of a great general, and that the fearful execution which
his heavy sword did in the hostile ranks struck terror into the foe,
and made ever after his war-cry “Here Charles and his sword,” ring
as the prelude of inevitable defeat on the affrighted ears of his
enemies: yet the superiority of numbers was too great on the side
of Raganfried, and the battle terminated at last rather in favor of
the Neustrians than otherwise (716). Soon after his capture by the
Neustrians, Dagobert had passed from his royal prison to the grave
(715), and another unlucky scion of the race of Pharamond, the Monk
Daniel, had been dragged from the repose of his cloistral cell, to
figure, as Chilperic II., in the line of the “titular” kings of
France. Charles would have acquiesced in the arrangement, had not
Raganfried steadily refused to acknowledge him as Duke of Austrasia;
he determined, therefore, to appeal once more to the decision
of arms. A fierce and sanguinary battle was fought between the
Austrasians and the Neustrians, at Vincy, between Arras and Cambray
(21st of March, 717): and this time, Charles’ valor and generalship
were rewarded with a brilliant and decisive victory, which made him
master of the country up to Paris. But, wisely declining to pursue
his conquests in this quarter, and to court perhaps the chance of
a defeat far away from his resources, he led his victorious army
swiftly back to the Rhine, and compelled Plectrudis to give up to
him the city of Cologne, and his paternal treasures; which latter he
turned to excellent account in increasing the number and efficiency
of his forces. Plectrudis took refuge in Bavaria.
Though the Merovingian princes had lost all real power in the state,
yet there still attached to the name of the family a prestige in the
eyes of the nation, which rendered the continued existence of “Kings”
chosen from among the descendants of Clovis, a matter of political
necessity. Charles wisely resolved therefore, to put himself in this
respect on equal terms with Raganfried; and he accordingly invested
with the insignia of a sham royalty another scion of the long-haired
line, yclept Clotaire, fourth of that name. An expedition against
the Saxons, to chastise them for their predatory incursions into the
Frankish territories, was eminently successful, and the son of Pepin
displayed his victorious banner on the Weser (718); but receiving
information that Raganfried had made an alliance against him with
the valiant EUDES, Duke of Aquitaine (of Merovingian descent), and
dreading lest the united power of the two might prove too strong
for him, he resolved to attack the former before a junction of the
allied forces could be effected, and accordingly led his army with
his accustomed celerity from the banks of the Weser to the banks of
the Seine. After totally routing Raganfried at Soissons (719), he
compelled Paris to surrender. The wretched Chilperic[101] sought
refuge with his ally, Eudes. Charles marched on to the Loire, and
was preparing to carry his arms into Aquitaine, when the death of
Clotaire led to an arrangement with Chilperic, who, acknowledging
Charles as major domûs in the three kingdoms, was permitted to
continue in the enjoyment of his fictitious royalty. In the same
year still (719), Charles was delivered by death from another of his
opponents, Radbodus, the brave duke of the Frisons. He promptly took
advantage of this event to re-annex West Friesland to the Frankish
dependencies, and to induct Bishop Willibrod into his see of Utrecht,
from which Radbodus had kept him excluded.
In the year 720, Chilperic was gathered to his fathers; Charles
replaced him by a child of the Merovingian race, taken from the
monastery of Lala (Thierry IV.) In 721 Charles crossed the Rhine at
the head of a powerful army, to subject the Alemanni, the Bavarians,
and the Thuringians again to the Frankish sway. As he saw in the
conversion of these stubborn nations to Christianity one of the
most efficient means to secure their allegiance in future, he had
himself attended by Winifried,[102] and other missionaries, who,
now that they were supported by the arms of the Frankish chief, were
brilliantly successful in their missionary labors, in some of the
very places among others, where they had on former occasions been
treated with derision and contumely, or whence they had been forcibly
expelled.
In 722, Charles drove the Saxons from the Hassian (Hessian) district
which they had invaded; but when he followed them into their own
country, with the intention of subjecting them altogether to his
sway, he experienced such determined resistance that he wisely
resolved to leave them alone. In 725, he compelled the Suabians and
Alemanni, and their duke, LANTFRIED, to acknowledge his sovereignty.
Since 553, after the extinction of the Gothic kingdom of Italy, the
Agilolfingian dukes of Bavaria “enjoyed” the “protection”[103] of the
Frankish kings; although, whenever the dissensions among the members
of that amiable family, or the contentions among the mayors of the
palace, afforded a fitting opportunity, the Bavarians invariably
took occasion to “thank” them for their protection, and to decline
further favors. But the persuasive force of Pepin of Heristal, and
of his son Charles, fully succeeded in the end in restoring the
amicable relations between the two nations, to the old footing. Duke
Theodo II., a most pious prince, who greatly favored and furthered
the extension of Christianity in his dominions, committed the
capital blunder so common at the time (and so natural withal)--to
divide his dominions between his three sons, Theodoald (Theudebaud),
Theudebert, and Grimoald. Theudebaud had married Pilitrudis, the fair
daughter of Plectrudis; he died in 716, and his brother Grimoald
deemed it no harm to marry the beautiful widow of the departed; but
Saint Corbinian happened to think very differently; and his zealous
exhortations, and the fearful picture which he drew of the pains
and penalties that awaited him who should have committed, what
the holy man was pleased to call, “incest,”[104] frightened poor
Duke Grimoald into giving his consent to a divorce from his dearly
beloved wife. Mistress Pilitrudis, however, was by no means pleased
with the pusillanimous conduct of her second husband; and the exile
of the meddlesome ecclesiastic speedily showed him, that a woman
offended may prove more than a match _even_ for a priest and a saint.
Theudebert also died (724), leaving behind a son, named HUGIBERT, and
a daughter, named GUNTRUDIS, and who was married to LIUTPRAND, King
of the Lombards. After his second brother’s death, Grimoald seized
upon his dominions to the prejudice of his nephew. Hugibert, finding
all his remonstrances disregarded, claimed the intercession of the
Duke of the Franks, in his capacity as Protector of Bavaria. Charles
accepted the offer of mediator between the contending parties; and
called upon Grimoald to deliver up to Hugibert the provinces which he
was unjustly withholding from him. Grimoald refusing, Charles entered
Bavaria at the head of his army, and the Bavarian duke was defeated
and slain in the first battle (725). Hugibert now succeeded to the
government of all Bavaria,[105] with the exception, however, of a
large slice of the Northern provinces, which he ceded to Charles in
reward of his services.[106] The unfortunate Pilitrudis was despoiled
by the “magnanimous” victor of all she possessed, except a mule, or
donkey, to carry her to Pavia to her relations. A new irruption of
the Saxons, called Charles again to the Weser; he defeated and drove
back the invaders (729). Whilst he was thus occupied on the Saxon
frontier, the Suabians and Alemanni took advantage of his absence,
to throw off once more the yoke of the Franks. Charles confounded
them, however, by the rapidity of his movements; he appeared on the
Mein before they were well aware that he had left the banks of the
Weser. The battle which ensued, terminated in the total defeat of the
“rebels;” Duke Lantfried was slain, and the humbled nation submitted
to the rule of the conqueror (730).
We are now approaching the most important and most interesting
period in the life and career of Charles, viz., his encounter with
the Saracens; we will, therefore, resume here the thread of the
history of the Moslem invasion, broken off at page 88, where we
left the Saracen general, El Zama, laying siege to Thoulouse. A
branch of the Merovingian family, descended from Clotaire’s (II.)
younger son Charibert (631), had established the independent[107]
duchy of Aquitaine in the south of France. At the time of the Arab
invasion, EUDES (Eudo, or Odo), an able and energetic prince, was
Duke of Aquitaine. This prince, seeing his capital threatened by the
Moslems, collected a numerous army of Gascons, Goths, and Franks, and
marched bravely to the rescue. He attacked the Arabs under the walls
of Thoulouse, and succeeded in inflicting on them a most disastrous
defeat (721). El Zama fell in the battle, and the discomfited Moslems
were saved from total destruction only by the prudence and valor
of ABDALRAHMAN BEN ABDALLAH (Abderrahman, or Abderame), a veteran
officer, whom they had elected by acclamation in the place of their
late general.
The Khalif, however, did not ratify the choice of the army, but named
ANBESA to the government of Spain. The new governor advanced again
into Aquitaine in 725; he took Carcassone by storm, and penetrated
as far as Burgundy; but the valiant Eudes succeeded ultimately in
driving him back, and also in defeating several subsequent attempts
of the Arabs to gain possession of Aquitaine.
In the year 730, the Khalif Hesham, yielding to the wishes of the
people and the army of Spain, restored Abdalrahman to the government
of that part of the Arab dominions. That daring and ambitious
commander proposed to subject to his sway, not only Aquitaine, but
the entire Frank empire; and collected a formidable host to carry his
resolve into execution. But, at the very threshold of his enterprise,
he met with an obstacle which, though he indeed triumphantly overcame
it, yet cannot be denied to have exercised a powerful adverse
influence upon its final issue. This was the rebellion of OTHMAN,
or MUNUZA, a Moorish chief, who, as governor of Cerdagne, held the
most important passes of the Pyrenees. The fortune of war had placed
the beauteous daughter of Eudes in the hands of Munuza; and the
political Duke of Aquitaine, justly appreciating the advantages of
an alliance with the man who might be said to hold the keys of his
house, had willingly consented to accept the African misbeliever for
his son-in-law. The skill, rapidity, and decision, of Abdalrahman’s
movements undoubtedly disconcerted the strategic combinations of
the two allies, and Munuza was overcome and slain, ere Eudes could
hasten to his assistance; the head of the rebel, and the daughter of
the Duke of Aquitaine, were sent to Damascus. But much precious time
was consumed, and a great number of combatants were lost, in this
unexpected prelude to the invasion of France. However, immediately
after the overthrow of Munuza, Abdalrahman advanced rapidly to the
Rhone, crossed that river, and laid siege to Arles; Eudes attempted
to relieve the beleaguered city, but his army was totally routed, and
Arles fell into the hands of the invaders (731). Abdalrahman speedily
conquered the greater part of Aquitaine, and advanced to Bordeaux.
The intrepid Eudes met him once more, at the head of a numerous army;
but neither the valor and skill of the Christian leader nor the
bravery of his troops could save them from a most disastrous defeat.
Bordeaux fell, and the Saracens overran the fairest provinces of
France (732). Charles, who would most probably have remained deaf to
the most urgent entreaties of Eudes, whom he regarded in the light
of a rival, comprehended the necessity of a speedy and vigorous
action, from the moment that he saw his own dominions threatened.
He, therefore, rapidly collected his faithful Austrasians and the
auxiliary contingents of the Alemanni, the Thuringians, and the
Bavarians; and ordered the Neustrian and Burgundian nobles to join
him with their followers; and although many of the _Burgundian_
nobles hung back, yet a most powerful host of the nations of Germany
and Gaul gathered under the banner of the Christian leader, who was
joined also by Eudes and the remains of the Aquitanian army. In the
centre of France, between Tours and Poitiers, the Franks and the
Moslems met, in the month of October, 732. Six days were spent in
desultory warfare, and many a gallant heart had ceased to beat, ere
as the red sun of the seventh day rose, the day on which it was to
be decided whether mosque or cathedral should prevail in Europe. The
battle raged fiercely from noon till eventide; the fiery sons of the
South fought with tenfold their accustomed valor, and Abdalrahman
emulated the glory of Kaled “the Sword of God.” The Germans stood
firm as rocks, and fought as heroes; and the heavy battle-axe of
Charles, wielded with irresistible strength, spread death and
dismay in the Arabian ranks; the mighty strokes which the Christian
hero dealt with that formidable weapon, gained him the epithet of
_Martel_, the _Hammer_. Eudes, burning with the resentment of former
defeats, strove to rival the prowess of his ally. Still, for many
hours, the balance hung equipoised. The life-blood of thousands of
Christians and thousands of Moslems, that had ere just raced so
fiercely through its channels, mingled in sluggish streams on the
ground. Evening set in, and still the contest raged with unabated
fury; the Orientals had, indeed, repeatedly been forced to give
way to the superior weight and strength of the Germans but their
heroic chief had as often rallied them and led them on again to death
and glory. At length, a German spear struck him to death: his fall
decided the fate of the battle; the Saracens, disheartened by the
loss of their great commander, retired to their camp. There was no
leader left among them of sufficient renown and authority to replace
the fallen hero; despairing of their ability to renew the fight next
day with the slightest chance of success, they resolved upon a hasty
retreat; and taking with them the richest and most portable portion
of their spoil, they abandoned their camp in the middle of the night.
Next morning, when Charles was marshalling forth his troops to
renew the contest, his spies both surprised and rejoiced him with
the welcome intelligence that the enemy were in full retreat to the
south. The victory gained was decisive and final: the torrent of
Arabian conquest was rolled back; and Europe was rescued from the
threatened yoke of the Saracens. But the losses of the Christians
also had been very great, and Charles wisely declined incurring
with his sadly diminished forces, the possible mischances of a
pursuit.[108]
Leaving to Eudes the task of reconquering his own land from the
flying foe, Charles proceeded now to call the Burgundian nobles
to account for their hesitation and lukewarmness in his cause. To
secure their future allegiance, he placed officers of his into
the Burgundian cities and castles; to little purpose, however, it
would appear, as their presence did not prevent the discontented
Burgundian nobles, a few years after, from calling in the Saracens,
and actually delivering the city of Avignon into the hands of JUSSUF
BEN ABDALRAHMAN, the Arabian governor of Narbonne (735).
In 734, Charles defeated Poppo, the Duke of the Frisons, and regained
the western part of Friesland. In 735, Duke Eudes died, and as his
two sons, HUNOLD and HATTO, quarrelled about the succession, Charles
proffered his “armed mediation,” and settled the dispute finally by
naming Hunold Duke of Aquitaine, after having exacted and obtained
from that prince an oath of allegiance, not to the nominal king of
the Franks, but to himself personally, and to his two sons of his
first marriage, Carloman and Pepin. In 736, Charles had to repel
another invasion of the Saxons, which prevented him from proceeding
to Burgundy against the disaffected nobles and their allies, the
Arabs; he sent, however, his brother Childebrand. In 737, he came
himself; he speedily reduced Avignon, and expelled the Arabs from the
Burgundian territory; the nobility and clergy, who had treasonably
conspired against him with the enemy, or had acted in a hostile
manner to him, he deprived of their possessions, bishoprics, &c.,
which he bestowed upon his friends and followers.[109] In 738 he
advanced into Septimania, and laid siege to Narbonne. He totally
defeated Omar Ben Kaled, the Arabian general, who was marching to the
relief of the beleaguered city; but the governor of Narbonne defended
the place so valiantly and successfully, that the Franks were
compelled to raise the siege. However, though Septimania remained
in the hands of the Arabs till 755, when Pepin, the son of Charles
Martel, recovered it, an effectual and final check had been put to
their further advance into France.
In 737, King Thierry died; but so firmly was the power of Charles
Martel established now, that he could safely neglect to name a
successor to the dead “monarch;” nay, in 741, he actually proceeded
before a general assembly of the nobility and the army, to divide his
dominions between his two sons of his first marriage (with Rotrudis),
bestowing Austrasia, with Suabia and Thuringia, upon the elder,
Carloman; Neustria, Burgundy, and Provence, upon the younger, Pepin.
His son Grypho, whom Suanehilda had borne him, he excluded at first
from all participation in his succession; subsequently he assigned
him also a portion, which, after his death, led to the oppression and
imprisonment of the youth by his elder brothers. In the same year
(741) Charles was, on his return from a kind of pilgrimage to St.
Denys, seized with a violent fever, of which he died at Carisiacum,
or Quiercy, on the Oise, on the 22nd October.
FOOTNOTES:
[92] Pepin of Landen was the son of Carloman, a Frank noble of
Brabant. Pepin’s daughter, Begga, was married to Arnulf’s son,
Ansgesil; from this marriage sprang Pepin d’Heristal, the father of
Charles Martel.
[93] However, two natural sons of Charibert founded, after the death
of the latter, the semi-independent duchy of Aquitaine, in a more
restricted sense, with the capital, Thoulouse.
[94] Mamaccæ (Mommarques) on the Oise between Compiègne and Noyon.
[95] Pepin of Heristal restored the annual national assembly of the
Franks, which had fallen in desuetude since the days of Ebroin; when
the younger Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, finally added the _name
of King_ to the exercise of the royal power which he wielded, he
changed the month of meeting from March to May; the _Campus Martius_
became accordingly a _Campus Majus_.
[96] Nam et opes et potentia regni penes palatii præfectos, qui
Majores Domûs dicebantur, et _ad quos summa imperii pertinebat_,
tenebantur; neque regi aliud relinquebatur quam ut regis tantum
nomine contentus, speciem dominantis effingeret, legatos audiret,
eisque abeuntibus _responsa, quæ erat edoctus vel etiam_ JUSSUS, _ex
sua velut potestate redderet_; cum præter inutile regis nomen et
_præcarium vitæ stipendium_, quod ei præfectus aulæ, prout videbatur,
exhibebat, nihil aliud proprium possideret.--Einhardi, (Eginhart,)
Vita Caroli Magni; Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Tomus II., p.
444.
[97] At one time, it would appear, the Frison prince was on the point
of consenting to his baptism; he had already placed one foot in
the baptismal font, when it occurred to him to ask the officiating
bishop (Wolfram, of Sens), “where his ancestors were gone to?” “To
Hell,” was the unhesitating reply of the bigoted priest; whereupon
the honest heathen exclaimed: “Then I will rather be damned with them
than saved without them,” and withdrew his foot.
[98] Perhaps in some measure in consequence of the consecration of
the missionary WILLIBROD, as bishop of Utrecht (696)?
[99] Of the race of the Bojoarian Agilolfingians.
[100] ALPAIS, or ALPHEIDA, was the mother of these two sons.
[101] Raganfried had most likely perished on his flight.
[102] Better known as Boniface, the Apostle of the Germans. He was
sent by Charles to Rome to obtain the episcopal ordination, that
he might be able to act with greater ecclesiastical authority in
the newly converted districts; on the 30th November, 723, Pope
Gregory II. (715-731) ordained him bishop, after he had given in
his “profession of faith,” which was approved of by Gregory as
strictly orthodox. The pope furnished him then with letters and
credentials to Christian princes and ecclesiastics, and to the
heathen princes and nations of Germany, and also with faithful
copies of the ordinances, creed, ritual, and regulations of the
Romish Church; and the Christian missionary was thus converted into
the Popish legate. By his base monkish truckling to the authority
of Rome this narrow-minded zealot, who sought in idle formalities
and ceremonies the _spirit_ of the word of Christ, which he was
totally unable to conceive and comprehend, turned the new Christian
church in Germany into a dependence of the Papal see, and thus
prepared ages of bloodshed and misery for that devoted country. He
carried his “submissiveness” to Rome so far that he actually asked
instructions in that quarter as to whether, on which part of the
body, and with which finger he might, or was to, make the sign of
the cross during the delivery of his sermons. No wonder, indeed, his
“mission” succeeded only when backed by the sword. He was murdered by
the Frisons, in 755. Apart from his narrow-minded bigotry, he was an
estimable man, full of honest and disinterested zeal.
[103] The ingenuity displayed by man in the invention of specious
terms to disguise the plain and simple fact of the domination of one
being or nation over another, is truly marvellous.
[104] What a blessing a Primate like St. Corbinian would have been to
that tender-conscienced casuist, Henry VIII. of England.
[105] Of course, under Frankish protection.
[106] Or as the dower of SUANEHILDA, Theudebaud’s daughter of a
former marriage, whom Charles espoused on this occasion.
[107] Virtually independent.
[108] The idle and incredibly extravagant tale told by Paul
Warnefried and Anastasius of 350,000 or 375,000 Arabs slain in this
battle, to 1500 Christians, has been faithfully copied by most
historians. One should think a moment’s reflection would suffice to
show the absolute impossibility of these numbers. Where on earth
was a governor of Spain, a recent conquest of the Saracens, to find
the 450,000 men (for 100,000 are stated to have escaped) to lead
into France; and where was he to find, in a thinly populated region,
such as that country was in the time of Charles Martel, the means of
subsistence for such a host? His chief of the commissariat must have
been a rare genius indeed. And as to the number of _fifteen hundred_
Christians slain, this looks very much like the “one man killed and
four men slightly wounded,” to “one thousand of the enemy slain,” of
some of our modern bulletins. Striking off a nought from the number
of the Saracens, and adding one to that of the Christians may bring
us somewhat nearer the truth.
[109] Charles Martel was not over-nice, it would appear, in the
bestowal of ecclesiastical preferments and estates; it mattered very
little indeed to him whether the recipient was a priest or a layman,
or even whether he could read and write. He also laid his impious
hands repeatedly upon the revenues of the church, and applied them
to the necessities of the state, or to pay his soldiers. No wonder
then that a sainted bishop of the times, EUCHERIUS, of Orleans,
should have been indulged with a pleasant vision of the body and soul
of the wicked prince burning in the deepest abyss of hell--rather
scurvy treatment, though, on the part of a Christian clergy, of a
prince who, whatever might be his foibles as a man, and his vices as
a king--(and it must be admitted, he had a goodly share of them)--had
yet the merit of being the saviour of Christendom. (A synod held
at Quiercy, in 858, had the calm impudence to communicate this
interesting and flattering statement, accompanied by some others of
the same stamp, to Lewis, King of Germany, grandson of Charlemagne!)
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 11: ‘same fate befel’ replaced by ‘same fate befell’.
Pg 16: ‘attuned to comtemplation’ replaced by
‘attuned to contemplation’.
Pg 39: ‘granted, Mahommed’ replaced by ‘granted, Mohammed’.
Pg 54: ‘let each party chose’ replaced by ‘let each party choose’.
Pg 58: ‘recal from the Persian’ replaced by ‘recall from the Persian’.
Pg 59: ‘Musulmans to oppose’ replaced by ‘Mussulmans to oppose’.
Pg 59: ‘decreed the downfal’ replaced by ‘decreed the downfall’.
Pg 74: ‘But Abd-eb-Malek had’ replaced by ‘But Abd-el-Malek had’.
Pg 85: ‘by the recal of’ replaced by ‘by the recall of’.
Pg 104: ‘CHLODOMIR’S seat’ replaced by ‘CLODOMIR’S seat’.
Pg 124: ‘the beleagured city’ replaced by ‘the beleaguered city’.
Footnote 88: ‘children of Coldomir’ replaced by ‘children of Clodomir’.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Moslem and Frank; - or, Charles Martel and the rescue of Europe" ***
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