Part 675

"While Egypt was won almost without a blow, Latin Africa [northern Africa beyond Egypt] took sixty years to conquer. It was first invaded under Othman in 647, but Carthage was not subdued till 698, nor was the province fully reduced for eleven years longer. And why? Doubtless because Africa contained two classes of inhabitants, not over-friendly to each other, but both of whom had something to lose by a Saracenic conquest. The citizens of Carthage were Roman in every sense, their language was Latin, their faith was orthodox; they had no wrongs beyond those which always afflict provincials under a despotism; wrongs not likely to be alleviated by exchanging a Christian despot at Constantinople for an infidel one at Medina or Damascus. Beyond them, in the inland provinces, were the native Moors, barbarians, and many of them pagans; they had fought for their rude liberty against the Cæsars, and they had no intention of surrendering it to the Caliphs. Romans and Moors alike long preferred the chances of the sword to either Koran or tribute; but their ultimate fate was different. Latin civilization and Latin Christianity gradually disappeared by the decay and extermination of their votaries. The Moors, a people not unlike the Arabs in their unconverted state, were at last content to embrace their religion, and to share their destinies and their triumphs. Arabs and Moors intermingled went on to further conquests; and the name of the barbarian converts was more familiarly used in Western Europe to denote the united nation than the terrible name of the original compatriots of the Prophet."

_E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 3._

"In their climate and government, their diet and habitation, the wandering Moors resembled the Bedoweens of the desert. With the religion they were proud to adopt the language, name, and origin of Arabs; the blood of the strangers and natives was insensibly mingled; and from the Euphrates to the Atlantic the same nation might seem to be diffused over the sandy plains of Asia and Africa. Yet I will not deny that 50,000 tents of pure Arabians might be transported over the Nile and scattered through the Libyan desert; and I am not ignorant that five of the Moorish tribes still retain their barbarous idiom, with the appellation and character of 'white' Africans."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 51._

"By 647 the Barbary coast was overrun up to the gates of Roman Carthage; but the wild Berber population was more difficult to subdue than the luxurious subjects of the Sasanids of Persia or the Greeks of Syria and Egypt. Kayrawan was founded as the African capital in 670; Carthage fell in 693, and the Arabs pushed their arms as far as the Atlantic. From Tangier they crossed into Spain in 710."

_S. Lane-Poole, The Mohammadan Dynasties, page 5._

ALSO IN: _W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, volume 2, chapters 35, 44, 54-55._

_R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Arabs, part 1, chapters 1-3._

See, also, CARTHAGE: A. D. 698; and MOROCCO.

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MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 661. Accession of the Omeyyads.

Abu Bekr, the immediate successor of Mahomet, reigned but two years, dying August, A. D. 634. By his nomination, Omar was raised to the Caliphate and ruled Islam until 644, when he was murdered by a Persian slave. His successor was Othman, who had been the secretary of the Prophet. The Caliphate of Othman was troubled by many plots and increasing disaffection, which ended in his assassination, A. D. 656. It was not until then that Ali, the nephew and son-in-law of Mahomet, was permitted to take the Prophet's seat. But the dissensions in the Moslem world had grown more bitter as the fields of ambitious rivalry were widened, and the factions opposed to Ali were implacable, "Now begins the tragic tale of the wrongs and martyrdoms of the immediate family of the Prophet. The province of Syria was now ruled by the crafty Moawiyah, whose father was Abu-Sofian, so long the bitterest enemy of Mahomet, and at last a tardy and unwilling proselyte. … Such was the parentage of the man who was to deprive the descendants of the Apostle of their heritage. Moawiyah gave himself out as the avenger of Othman; Ali was represented as his murderer, although his sons, the grandsons of the Prophet, had fought, and one of them received a wound, in the defence of that Caliph. … Ayesha, too, the Mother of the Faithful, Telha and Zobeir, the Prophet's old companions, revolted on their own account, and the whole of the brief reign of Ali was one constant succession of civil war." Syria adhered to Moawiyah. Ayesha, Zobeir and Telha gained possession of Bussorah and made that city their headquarters of rebellion. They were defeated there by Ali in a great battle, A. D. 656, called the Battle of the Camel, because the litter which bore Ayesha on the back of a camel became the center of the fight. But he gained little from the success; nor more from a long, indecisive battle fought with Moawiyah at Siffin, in July, A. D. 657. Amru, the conqueror of Egypt, had now joined Moawiyah, and his influence enlisted that great province in the revolt. At last, in 661, the civil war was ended by the assassination of Ali. His eldest son, Hassan, who seems to have been a spiritless youth, bargained away his claims to Moawiyah, and the latter became undisputed Caliph, founding a dynasty called that of the Ommiades, or Omeyyads (from Ommiah, or Omeyya, the great grandfather of Moawiyah), which occupied the throne for almost a century—not at Medina, but at Damascus, to which city the Caliphate was now transferred. "In thus converting the Caliphate into an hereditary monarchy he utterly changed its character. It soon assumed the character of a common oriental empire. … The Ommiads were masters of slaves instead of leaders of freemen; the public will was no longer consulted, and the public good as little; the Commander of the Faithful sank into an earthly despot, ruling by force, like any Assyrian conqueror of old. The early Caliphs dwelt in the sacred city of Medina, and directed the counsels of the Empire from beside the tomb of the Prophet. Moawiyah transferred his throne to the conquered splendours of Damascus; and Mecca and Medina became tributary cities to the ruler of Syria. At one time a rival Caliph, Abdallah, established himself in Arabia; twice were the holy cities taken by storm, and the Kaaba itself was battered down by the engines of the invaders. … Such a revolution however did not effect itself without considerable opposition. The partizans of the house of Ali continued to form a formidable sect. In their ideas the Vicarship of the Prophet was not to be, like an earthly kingdom, the mere prize of craft or of valour. It was the inalienable heritage of the sacred descendants of the Prophet himself. … This was the origin of the Shiah sect, the assertors of the rights of Ali and his house."

_E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 3._

ALSO IN: _Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapters 31-46._

_R. D. Osborn, Islam Under the Arabs, part 3._

_S. Lane-Poole, The Mohammadan Dynasties, pages 9-11._

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 680. The Tragedy at Kerbela.

When Ali, or Aly, the nephew and son-in-law of Mahomet, had been slain, A. D. 661, and the Caliphate had been seized by Moawiyah, the first of the Ommiades, "the followers of 'Aly proclaimed his elder son, Hasan, Khalif; but this poor-spirited youth was contented to sell his pretensions to the throne. … On his death, his brother Hoseyn became the lawful Khalif in the eyes of the partisans of the House of 'Aly, who ignored the general admission of the authority of the 'Ommiades.' … For a time Hoseyn remained quietly at Medina, leading a life of devotion, and declining to push his claims. But at length an opportunity for striking a blow at the rival House presented itself, and Hoseyn did not hesitate to avail himself of it. He was invited to join an insurrection which had broken out at Kufa [A. D. 680], the most mutinous and fickle of all the cities of the empire; and he set out with his family and friends, to the number of 100 souls, and an escort of 500 horsemen, to join the insurgents. As he drew nigh to Kufa, he discovered that the rising had been suppressed by the 'Ommiade' governor of the city, and that the country round him was hostile instead of loyal to him. And now there came out from Kufa an army of 4,000 horse, who surrounded the little body of travellers [on the plain of Kerbela], and cut them off alike from the city and the river. … A series of single combats, in which Hoseyn and his followers displayed heroic courage, ended in the death of the Imam and the men who were with him, and the enslaving of the women and children."

_S. Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, chapter 7._

"The scene [of the massacre of Hosein and his band] … is still fresh as yesterday in the mind of every Believer, and is commemorated with wild grief and frenzy as often as the fatal day, the Tenth of the first month of the year [tenth of Moharram—October 10], comes round. … The tragedy of Kerbala decided not only the fate of the Caliphate, but of Mahometan kingdoms long after the Caliphate had waned and disappeared. … The tragedy is yearly represented on the stage as a religious ceremony"—in the "Passion Play" of the Moharram Festival.

_Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapter 49, with foot-note._

See, also, ISLAM.

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MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 668-675. First repulse from Constantinople.

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 668-675.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 710. Subjugation of the Turks.

"After the fall of the Persian kingdom, the river Oxus divided the territories of the Saracens and of the Turks: This narrow boundary was soon overleaped by the spirit of the Arabs; the governors of Chorassan extended their successive inroads; and one of their triumphs was adorned with the buskin of a Turkish queen, which she dropped in her precipitate flight beyond the hills of Bochara. But the final conquest of Transoxana, as well as of Spain, was reserved for the glorious reign of the inactive Walid; and the name of Catibah, the camel-driver, declares the origin and merit of his successful lieutenant. While one of his colleagues displayed the first Mahometan banner on the banks of the Indus, the spacious regions between the Oxus, the Jaxartes, and the Caspian sea were reduced by the arms of Catibah to the obedience of the prophet and of the caliph. A tribute of two millions of pieces of gold was imposed on the infidels; their idols were burned or broken; the Mussulman chief pronounced a sermon in the new mosch [mosque] of Carizme; after several battles the Turkish hordes were driven back to the desert; and the emperors of China solicited the friendship of the victorious Arabs. To their industry the prosperity of the province, the Sogdiana of the ancients, may in a great measure be ascribed; but the advantages of the soil and climate had been understood and cultivated since the reign of the Macedonian kings. Before the invasion of the Saracens, Carizme, Bochara, and Samarcand were rich and populous under the yoke of the shepherds of the North."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 51._

ALSO IN: _E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 3._

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 711-713. Conquest of Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.

[Page 2073 and 2074 are placed here to avoid interrupting the next article, "The repulse from Gaul.".]

SEVENTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

A.D. 602. Revolt in Constantinople; fall and death of Maurice; accession of Phocas.

604. Death of Pope Gregory the Great. Death of St. Augustine of Canterbury. [Uncertain date.]

608. Invasion of Asia Minor by Chosroes II., king of Persia.

610. Death of the Eastern Emperor Phocas; accession of Heraclius. Venetia ravaged by the Avars.

614. Invasion of Syria by Chosroes II.; capture of Damascus.

615. Capture of Jerusalem by Chosroes; removal of the supposed True Cross.

616. First expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Advance of the Persians to the Bosphorus.

622. The flight of Mahomet from Mecca (the Hegira). Romans under Heraclius victorious over the Persians.

626. Siege of Constantinople by Persians and Avars.

627. Victory of Heraclius over Chosroes of Persia, at Nineveh. Conversion of Northumbria to Christianity.

628. Recovery of Jerusalem and of the supposed True Cross, from the Persians, by Heraclius.

630. Submission of Mecca to the Prophet.

632. Death of Mahomet; Abu Bekr chosen caliph.

634. Death of Abu Bekr; Omar chosen caliph. Battle of Hieromax or Yermuk; Battle of the Bridge. [Uncertain date.] Defeat of Heraclius. Compilation and arrangement of the Koran. [Uncertain date.]

635. Siege and capture of Damascus by the Mahometans; invasion of Persia; victory at Kadisiyeh. [Uncertain date.] Defeat of the Welsh by the English in the battle of the Heavenfield.

636. Mahometan subjugation of Syria; retreat of the Romans.

637. Siege and conquest of Jerusalem by the Moslems; their victories in Persia.

639. Publication of the Ecthesis of Heraclius.

640. Capture of Cæsarea by the Moslems; invasion of Egypt by Amru.

641. Death of the Eastern Emperor Heraclius; three rival emperors; accession of Constans II. Victory at Nehavend and final conquest of Persia by the Mahometans; end of the Sassanian kingdom; capture of Alexandria, [Uncertain date.] founding of Cairo.

643. Publication of the Lombard Code of Laws.

644. Assassination of Omar; Othman chosen caliph.

646. Alexandria recovered by the Greeks and lost again.

648. Publication by Constans II. of the edict called "The Type."

649. Mahometan invasion of Cyprus.

650. Conquest of Merv, Balkh, and Herat by the Moslems. [Uncertain date.]

652. Conversion of the East Saxons in England.

653. Seizure and banishment of Pope Martin I. by the Emperor Constans II.

656. Murder of Caliph Othman; Ali chosen caliph; rebellion of Moawiyah; civil war; Battle of the Camel.

657. Ali's transfer of the seat of government to Kufa.

658. Syria abandoned to Moawiyah; Egypt in revolt.

661. Assassination of Ali; Moawiyah, first of the Omeyyads, made caliph; Damascus his capital.

663. Visit of the Emperor Constans to Rome.

668. Assassination of Constans at Syracuse; [Uncertain date.] accession of Constantine IV. to the throne of the Eastern Empire. Beginning of the siege of Constantinople by the Saracens.

670. The founding of Kairwan, or Kayrawan. [Uncertain date.]

673. First Council of the Anglo-Saxon Church, at Hereford. Birth of the Venerable Bede [Uncertain date.] (died 735).

677. The raising of the siege of Constantinople; treaty of peace. [Uncertain date.]

680. Sixth General Council of the Church, at Constantinople; condemnation of the Monothelite heresy. Massacre at Kerbela of Hoseyn, son of Ali, and his followers.

685. Death of the Eastern Emperor, Constantine IV., and accession of Justinian II. The Angles of Northumbria, under King Ecgfrith, defeated by the Picts at Nectansmere.

687. Battle of Testri; victory of Pippin of Heristal over the Neustrians.

695. Fall and banishment of Justinian II.

696. Founding of the bishopric of Salzburg.

697. Election of the first Doge of Venice.

698. Conquest and destruction of Carthage by the Moslems. [Uncertain date]

EIGHTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

A.D. 704. Recovery of the throne by the Eastern Emperor Justinian II.

705. Accession of the Caliph Welid.

709. Accession of Roderick to the Gothic throne in Spain.

711. Invasion of Spain by the Arab-Moors. Moslem conquest of Transoxiana and Sardinia. Final fall and death of the Eastern Emperor Justinian II.

712. Surrender of Toledo to the Moslem invaders of Spain.

717. Elevation of Leo the Isaurian to the throne of the Eastern Empire. Second siege of Constantinople by the Moslems. Great defeat of the Moslems at the Cave of Covadonga in Spain.

718. Victory of Charles Martel at Soissons; his authority acknowledged in both Frankish kingdoms.

719. Mahometan conquest and occupation of Narbonne.

721. Siege of Toulouse; defeat of the Moslems.

725. Mahometan conquests in Septimania.

726. Iconoclastic edicts of Leo the Isaurian; tumult and insurrection in Constantinople.

731. Death of Pope Gregory II.; election of Gregory III.; last confirmation of a Papal election by the Eastern Emperor.

732. Great defeat of the Moslems by the Franks under Charles Martel at Poitiers, or Tours. Council held at Rome by Pope Gregory III.; edict against the Iconoclasts.

733. Practical termination of Byzantine imperial authority.

735. Birth of Alcuin (died 804).

740. Death of Leo the Isaurian, Emperor in the East; accession of Constantine V.

741. Death of Charles Martel. Death of Pope Gregory III.; election of Zacharias.

742. Birth of Charlemagne (died 814).

744. Defeat of the Saxons by Carloman; their forced baptism. Death of Liutprand, king of the Lombards.

747. The Plague in Constantinople. Pippin the Short made Mayor in both kingdoms of the Franks.

750. Fall of the Omeyyad dynasty of caliphs and rise of the Abbassides.

751. Extinction of the Exarchate of Ravenna by the Lombards.

752. End of the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings; assumption of the crown by Pippin the Short. Death of Pope Zacharias; election of Stephen II.

754. First invasion of Italy by Pippin the Short. Rome assailed by the Lombards.

755. Subjugation of the Lombards by Pippin; his donation of temporalities to the Pope. Martyrdom of Saint Boniface in Germany.

756. Founding of the caliphate of Cordova by Abderrahman.

757. Death of Pope Stephen II.; election of Paul I.

758. Accession of Offa, king of Mercia.

759. Loss of Narbonne, the last foothold of the Mahometans north of the Pyrenees.

763. Founding of the capital of the Eastern Caliphs at Bagdad. [Uncertain date.]

767. Death of Pope Paul I.; usurpation of the anti-pope, Constantine.

768. Conquest of Aquitaine by Pippin the Short. Death of Pippin; accession of Charlemagne and Carloman. Deposition of the anti-pope Constantine; election of Pope Stephen III.

771. Death of Carloman, leaving Charlemagne sole king of the Franks.

772. Charlemagne's first wars with the Saxons. Death of Pope Stephen III.; election of Hadrian I.

774. Charlemagne's acquisition of the Lombard kingdom; his enlargement of the donation of temporalities to the Pope. Forgery of the "Donation of Constantine." [Uncertain date.]

775. Death of the Eastern Emperor Constantine V.; accession of Leo IV.

778. Charlemagne's invasion of Spain; the "dolorous rout" of Roncesvalles.

780. Death of the Eastern Emperor Leo IV.; accession of Constantine VI.; regency of Irene.

781. Italy and Aquitaine formed into separate kingdoms by Charlemagne.

785. Great struggle of the Saxons against Charlemagne; submission of Wittikind.

786. Accession of Haroun al Raschid in the eastern caliphate.

787. Seventh General Council of the Church (Second Council of Nicæa). First incursions of the Danes in England.

788. Subjugation of the Bavarians by Charlemagne. Death of Abderrahman.

790. Composition of the Caroline books. [Uncertain date.]

791. Charlemagne's first campaign against the Avars.

794. Accession of Cenwulf, king of Mercia.

795. Death of Pope Hadrian I.; election of Leo III.

797. Deposition and blinding of the Eastern Emperor Constantine VI., by his mother Irene.

800. Imperial coronation of Charlemagne; revival of the Empire. Accession of Ecgberht, king of Wessex, the first king of all the English.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-732. The repulse from Gaul.