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Later, too, the Ommiad and Abbaside Caliphs exercised this right of legislation by deputy; it was in their names that the Mujtaheddin, Abu Hanifeh and the rest, framed their first codes of law; and to the last the words of their mouth were listened to, as in some measure inspired utterances, by the faithful.
The struggle was a long one, and during the numerous engagements many prisoners were taken on both sides. Those Turks who fell into the hands of the Arabs were sent to the different provinces of their domain, where they became slaves of the chief emirs and of the caliphs themselves, where, finding favour in the eyes of the caliphs, they were soon transferred to their personal retinue.
By this time the Caliphs had removed from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia was the imperial province, and into Persia they were introduced for the reason I have mentioned, sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives taken in war, sometimes as mercenaries for the Saracenic armies: at length they were enrolled as guards to the Caliph, and even appointed to offices in the palace, to the command of the forces, and to governorships in the provinces.
Illegality was, however, checked to some extent by the generally wise and just influence of the chief justice, or kadi, whose probity often formed the best feature of the Arab government in Egypt. Nor did the caliphs extort taxes without giving something in return.
They had heard it said that, according to observations made in the time of the Caliphs, her revolution had become accelerated in a certain degree.
From that period, A.D. 749, Heg. 134, commences the second epoch of the empire of the Moors of Spain, which makes it necessary to revert briefly to the history of the Eastern caliphs. The Sabaei, according to the best ancient authorities, were the inhabitants of the extensive Arabian kingdom of Saba. Translator.
Their downfall was due to their own decline into imbecility, through which they fell into the hands of Turkish viziers who, keeping their nominal masters in subserviency, themselves assumed the actual rule. For several generations the caliphs of Bagdad, under whose sway the Fatimites were now reduced, had attracted to their capital slaves from Turcoman and Mongol hordes.
Who would then have said that William of Prussia, and Napoleon III., the Czar of Russia, and the successor of the caliphs, who, at the exhibition fetes, joined hands in apparent friendship, were so soon to be engaged in deadly strife? and that that capital, where so many great potentates came to honor Napoleon, should, in a year or two, know him no more, and even struggle with all the energy of desperation to obliterate every vestige of the improvements with which he had so enriched and beautified the city?
Egypt, Syria, and Palestine were annexed as dependencies to the great Arabic Empire of the caliphs. The religion of Mohammed became dominant in the Holy Land, the temples and chapels were converted into mosques. Numbers of pilgrims still continued each year to visit Palestine.
When they had entered the palace, Mhamood made the obeisance usual to the caliphs, and uttered a poetical invocation for the prosperity of the sultan, who returned his salute; and after desiring him to be seated, said, "Mhamood, my mind is uneasy, and as I hear you are acquainted with many curious events, I wish you to relate some of them to amuse me."
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