United States or Montserrat ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She replied, "And what is this compared with that I could tell thee tomorrow night?" Quoth the King, "What may it be?" And she said: It is a tale touching It is related that there was, in tide of yore and in times and years long gone before, at Damascus of Syria, a Caliph known as Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, the fifth of the Ommiade house.
One shudders at the perusal of such details, but they serve to portray the character of this Oriental conqueror. A solitary Ommiade escaped the miserable fate of his brethren; a prince named Abderamus. A fugitive wanderer, he reached Egypt, and concealed himself in the solitary recesses of its inhospitable deserts.
This Ommiade was surnamed Alhemar, that is to say, The Ass: an appellation which, in the East, is considered highly honourable, from the singular regard there entertained for that patient and indefatigable animal. Ariosto derived his touching episode of Isabella of Gallicia from the history of this prince.
The political supremacy of the party of Ali ceased with his existence, and the authority that had belonged to the immediate successors of Mohammed long continued to centre in the family of the Ommiade princes. Trans. A.D. 752, Heg. 134.
In the earliest days of the caliphate, after the accession of the Ommiade dynasty, the princes of Damascus were regarded as the heads of the Moslem faith; while the governors of Arabia successively obtained, as to civil rule, their independence. To this the widely-extended wars in which the caliphs were engaged no doubt contributed.
Moawyah, the founder of the Ommiade dynasty, who followed in 661, revolutionized the government. It had been elective, he made it hereditary. He removed its seat from Medina to a more central position at Damascus, and entered on a career of luxury and magnificence. He broke the bonds of a stern fanaticism, and put himself forth as a cultivator and patron of letters.
Not the sword of Charles Martel, but the internal dissension of the vast Arabian Empire, was the salvation of Europe. Though the Ommiade Khalifs were popular in Syria, elsewhere they were looked upon as intruders or usurpers; the kindred of the apostle was considered to be the rightful representative of his faith.
Abderamus foresaw the obstacles with which he would be compelled to struggle, but, guided by the impulses of a soul whose native greatness had been strengthened and purified by adversity, he did not hesitate to accept the proposal of the Moors. The Ommiade prince arrived in the Peninsula A.D. 755, Heg. 138.
Again operations were undertaken by Abdalmalek, the sixth of the Ommiade dynasty, A.D. 698; his lieutenant, Hassan, took Carthage by storm and destroyed it, the conquest being at last thoroughly completed by Musa, who enjoyed the double reputation of a brave soldier and an eloquent preacher.
Under the last monarch of the Ommiade race, the Arabian empire, excepting only an obscure part of Africa, of little account, embraced a compact territory equal to six months' march of a caravan in length and four in breadth, with innumerable tributary and dependant states.
Word Of The Day