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Abdalla, despairing of effecting the destruction of the race of his enemies, dispersed as they were by terror, published a general amnesty to all the Ommiades who should present themselves before him on a certain day. Those ill-fated people, confiding in the fulfilment of his solemn promises, hastened to seek safety at the feet of Abdalla.
Wearied by these perpetual alarms, he bade farewell to his friendly Bedouins, and leaving Egypt behind, sought a safer refuge in Western Africa. The province of Barea was at that time governed by Aben Habib, who had risen to rank and fortune under the fostering favor of the Ommiades.
The illustrious house of Omeya had swayed the scepter at Damascus for nearly a century, when a rebellion broke out, headed by Aboul Abbas Safah, who aspired to the throne of the caliphs, as being descended from Abbas, the uncle of the prophet. The rebellion was successful. Marvau, the last caliph of the house of Omeya, was defeated and slain. A general proscription of the Ommiades took place.
The merciless inquisition of the conqueror eradicated the most distant branches of the hostile race: their bones were scattered, their memory was accursed, and the martyrdom of Hossein was abundantly revenged on the posterity of his tyrants. Fourscore of the Ommiades, who had yielded to the faith or clemency of their foes, were invited to a banquet at Damascus.
The acclamations of the people saluted his landing on the coast of Andalusia: and, after a successful struggle, Abdalrahman established the throne of Cordova, and was the father of the Ommiades of Spain, who reigned above two hundred and fifty years from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees.
During the supremacy of the Ommiades in the empire of the East, Spain had continued to be ruled by governors sent thither from Asia by those sovereigns; but it was now permanently separated from the great Arabian empire, and elevated into a powerful and independent state, acknowledging no farther allegiance to the Asiatic caliphs either in civil or religious matters.
This conqueror was assassinated at Jerusalem in 643; after which, the establishment of several califates in Arabia and Syria, the fall of the Ommiades, and the elevation of the Abassides involved Judea in trouble for more than two hundred years.
After the Ommiades had maintained their empire for the space of ninety-three years, Mervan II., the last caliph of the race, was deprived of his throne and his life through the instrumentality of Abdalla, a chief of the tribe of the Abbassides, who were, like the Ommiades, near relatives of Mohammed. Aboul-Abbas, the nephew of Abdalla, supplanted the former caliph.
The dynasty of the Ommiades, whose capital, as M. Florian informs us, was Damascus, is most familiarly known in history as that of the Caliphs of Syria; and the Abbassides, who succeeded them upon the throne of Islam, are usually designated as the Caliphs of Bagdad, which city they built, and there established the seat of their regal power and magnificence.
Mohammed-ben-Ommah, the new king whom they chose to direct their destinies, and who was said to have sprung from the cherished race of the Ommiades, several times gave battle to his opponents in the mountains of the Alpuxares, where he sustained the cause of his injured countrymen for the space of two years. At the end of that time he was assassinated by his own people.
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