of these barbarians hastened to the capital, they were unable to reduce it; and they delivered up the unfortunate Anastasius to the usurper who put him to death with his chief associates.

LEO III., the Isaurian, emperor of the east, was the son of a poor mechanic, but entering the army, became one of the body-guard to Justinian II.; and was made a general by Anastasius II., who, in 717, made him his colleague in the empire. The Saracens having ravaged Thrace, besieged Constantinople, but he bravely defended it, and repulsed them. Leo, in order to strengthen his throne, caused, in the fifth year of his reign, his young son Constantine, surnamed Copronymus, to be solemnly crowned. Leo wished to reform the church by removing image-worship. He began with assembling a council of senators and bishops, who concurred with him in directing the removal of images from the sanctuary and altar in churches; but proceeding in a second edict to enjoin the total expulsion of pictures and images, he was opposed by the patriarch Germanus, whom he exiled. The destruction of objects so much venerated, and especially of a statue of Jesus Christ placed over one of the gates of the city, struck the superstitious people with so much horror, that a serious insurrection was the consequence, which was not quelled without much bloodshed. Leo had authority enough to enforce his reform in the eastern empire, but in the west it encountered a more formidable opposition. Pope Gregory II. declared with great warmth against the imperial edict, and excommunicated the exarch of Ravenna, who attempted to put it in force. The people of Italy openly revolted; Ravenna fell under the power of the Lombards; the Roman people renounced their allegiance, and resolved to support the pope as their head. A fleet sent by Leo to chastise the revolters was wrecked in the Adriatic, which, of course, was interpreted by the orthodox as a divine interposition. Irritated by the resistance he met with, Leo, it is said, behaved with great cruelty against those of the opposite party who came under his power; and the Saracens took advantage of these dissensions to make incursions into the bordering provinces. To these calamities was added a destructive earthquake, which affected his capital, in the last years of his life. He died in 741, after an agitated reign of twenty-four years.

SARACENS, &c.

AKBAH, a celebrated Saracen conqueror, who overrun the whole of Africa, from Cairo to the Atlantic ocean. At the head of ten thousand of the bravest Arabs, he marched from Damascus, and gradually increased his army by numbers of

the barbarians, whom he had conquered and converted. Amid the fictions of oriental writers, it is not easy to follow Akbah through the line of his victories. We know merely that he penetrated with dauntless intrepidity the very heart of the country, and after traversing the wilderness, where his successors erected the capitals of Fez and Morocco, that he carried his arms to the Western ocean. Distressed at this limitation, which nature had set to his brilliant career, he spurred his horse into the ocean, and exclaimed, "Great God! if my course was not terminated by this sea, I would still advance to the unknown regions of the west, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and putting to the sword the rebellious nations that worship any other God but thee." A general revolt among the Greeks and Africans, recalled him from the west, and proved the means of his destruction. The insurgents trusted to the revenge of an ambitious chief, who had disputed the command, and having failed in his designs, was led about as a prisoner in the camp of Akbah. He revealed their design, however, to the Arabian general, who, under the impulse of gratitude, unloosed his fetters, and gave him leave to retire. The generous chief chose rather to die with his benefactor, and having embraced each other as fellow martyrs, and broken to pieces their scabbards, they fell by each other's side, after a glorious conflict with the insurgents. Akbah proposed to establish an Arabian colony in the interior of Africa, in order to check the barbarians, and secure a place of refuge to the families of the Saracens. He accordingly founded Cairoan, under the title of a Caravan Station, in the 50th year of the Hegira. He encompassed an area of 12,000 paces in diameter with a brick wall, and in five years the palace of the governor was encircled with a number of private dwellings; and a splendid mosque was erected upon five hundred columns of granite, porphyry and Numidian marble.

ALI, or HALI, the son of Abutalib, cousin-german and son-in-law of Mahomet, being married to his daughter Fatima. He was the fourth caliph after him, as he did not succeed till after the death of Othman in 655, though he stood competitor with Abu Becr, upon Mahomet's death, A.D. 632, which occasioned a civil war among the Mussulmans. He was murdered in the fifth year of his reign, and the sixtieth of his age, A.D. 660, near Cafa, in Arabia Felix, by Moawiyah, the sixth caliph; who, to obtain that dignity, murdered Ali's son and successor, Hosein, along with his brother Hassan, and eleven of Ali's grandsons, within six months after his death. Here, it is worth remarking, that the four first successors of Mahomet, Abu Becr, Omar, Othman, and Ali, whom he had employed during his life as his chief agents in establishing his religion, by extirpating unbelievers, and whom on that account

he styled the cutting swords of God, like the successors of Alexander, all died violent deaths; and that this bloody impostor's family, as well as that of the mad monarch of Macedonia, was nearly, if not totally, extirpated within thirty years after his death. The Persian emperors, of the race of the Sophis, claim to be lineally descended from his grandson Musa Caim, the only one of the family who escaped the massacre of Muavius. He is said to have been the author of several works, particularly one entitled "Centiloquium," which is much esteemed among the Arabs and Persians; and part of which has been translated into English by M. Ocley. He also wrote an interpretation of the Koran, different from that of Omar.

KHAULA, an Arabian heroine. Amongst this warlike and unsettled nation, when the flower of any tribe went upon a distant enterprise, some hostile neighbours would often attack those they had left behind; and thence arose, perhaps, the custom of the Arabian women, even of the highest rank, attending their husbands, fathers, and brothers, in their military expeditions, and fighting, often with a degree of heroism not inferior to the fabled achievements of the ancient Amazons. We have many instances of the day having been restored by them after the men had fled; but none more remarkable than the famous battle of Yermonks, which proved decisive of the fate of Syria, and of the Greek empire of the East.

The Grecians greatly out-numbered the Arabians, and their onset was so impetuous that they drove them to their tents; there the fugitives were stopped by the women, who alternately encouraged and reproached them; they threatened even to join the Greeks; and one of the bravest officers appearing disposed for flight, a lady knocked him down with a tent-pole, saying, "Advance, paradise is before your face! Fly, and the fire of hell is at your back!" The chief women then took the command, and made head, till night parted the combatants, The next day they led them again to the attack, Khaula, sister to one of the principal commanders, acting as general. In leading the van, she was beaten to the ground by a Greek; when Wafeira, one of her female friends, striking off his head at a blow, brought the heroine off. Animated by the noble behaviour of the women, the Arabs soon became irresistible, and routed the Grecian army whose loss, it is said, amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand killed, and about fifty thousand prisoners. Khaula was afterwards espoused by the caliph Ali.

Nothing is more disgusting than to see women rush into unnecessary danger. They have seldom an opportunity, or rather need, of being heroines, except by suffering with patience and fortitude whatever pains or misfortunes may fall to their lot in this life. But sometimes there are occasions which awaken active courage; and when duty or compassion call for more

than customary exertions, they must want even feminine excellence to be deaf to the call; and bereft of generosity, sense, and feeling, to be helpless at such a juncture.

HASSAN, eldest son of Ali, by Fatima, daughter of Mahomet, was born in the third year of the Hegira, A. D. 625. He was advanced to the caliphate in 660, without any opposition, though the mildness of his temper ill fitted him for the turbulent scenes in which he was likely to be engaged. Scarcely had he ascended the throne, when he was obliged to contend with Moawiyah, at the head of a powerful army. The caliph was defeated, and took refuge in a strong castle, the governor of which was strongly solicited to put Hassan to death, which he peremptorily refused. Hassan, shocked at the scenes of devastation and blood to which he had been an eye-witness, determined to abdicate his office; which he accomplished, in the presence of the general assembly of the people of Cufa, in the great mosque, and which he attributed to his anxious desire of sparing the blood of his people. He now retired to Medina, with ample provision for his future support. Of this, he expended the greater part in acts of charity; sometimes he did not even leave himself sufficient to alleviate the common wants of nature. Twice he stripped himself of all he possessed; and thrice he divided half his substance among the poor. Hassan passed eight years in a private condition, and obtained universal respect from his countrymen, on account of his many virtues, and was venerated for his resemblance of his grandfather Mahomet, who had been particularly kind to him when he was a child. He died in the year 669; his death was imputed to poison. Being pressed to name the person whom he suspected of the foul deed, he replied, "The life of this world is made up of the nights that vanish away. Let him alone till he and I meet before the tribunal of God."

MOAWIYAH, sixth caliph of the Arabians, was the son of Abu Sofian, a chief of the Koreish, and an eminent commander under Mahomet. He was first appointed secretary to Mahomet, which office he held several years. Omar made him governor of Syria, which important office he continued to hold under the caliph Othman. He gained several victories over the Greek emperors; and in the thirty-fifth year of the Hegira, A.D. 654, he conquered the island of Rhodes, and demolished the famous colossus of the sun. Possessing great wealth and influence, as well as reputation, he became, on the death of Othman, in 655, a competitor for the caliphate. When Ali was chosen, Moawiyah declared against him, and prevailed upon Amru to join him. He was proclaimed caliph at Mecca and Medina, and maintained a civil war against Ali, till the assassination of that caliph in 660. Moawiyah himself was severely wounded by one of the three conspirators, who undertook to restore peace among

Mussulmans by the assassination of the two rivals and of Amru, but he escaped with his life. Hassan, the son and successor of Ali, took the field againt Moawiyah; but the mildness of his character would not permit him to involve the empire in war on his personal account, therefore, in 661, he resigned the caliphate to his competitor; and Moawiyah succeeded to the government, being the first prince of the dynasty of the Ommiyans. In the year 668, Moawiyah sent his son Yezid with an army to besiege Constantinople, so formidable had the Mussulman power become only forty-eight years after the flight of the founder from Mecca! The undertaking, however, was beyond their military skill; and after spending seven years in a series of repeated summer attacks, attended with a variety of petty events, but signalized by no great action, they relinquished the enterprise. The caliph's arms were successful in another quarter, in the defeat of the Usbeks, and the taking of Sarmacand. He fixed his residence at Damascus. He was very anxious to secure the crown to his son Yezid, and for this purpose he associated him as his colleague. Moawiyah expired at Damascus, in the year 679, being the twentieth of his age, and about the seventyfifth of his age. He is accounted one of the most eminent of the Saracen caliphs; and is extolled for his capacity, his courage, generosity, and clemency. He was the first of the caliphs who wore rich garments, and affected royal splendour. He also drank wine without scruple, and in other respects deviated from the strictness of the Mahometan law. Though not learned, he favoured the sciences, and was particularly fond of poetry, to the proficients in which, he shewed singular kindness, on several occasions.

HOSEIN, the second son of Ali, by Fatima, Mahomet's daughter, equalled his elder brother Hassan in piety and beneficence, and inherited more of the martial spirit of his father. After the death of the caliph Moawiyah, A. D. 679, when his son Yezid was acknowledged for his successor, Hosein prepared to assert his own right to the succession. He received assurances of support from the citizens of Cufa, who promised to rise in his favour as soon as he should appear on the banks of the Euphrates. Relying upon the fidelity of the Cufites, contrary to the advice of his best friends, he resolved to comply with their invitation. With a train composed of his wives, children, and servants, and a few warriors who followed his fortunes, he crossed the Arabian desart, and approached the confines of Irak. He was there met by a large force sent by Obeidollah, the governor; and Hosein, with his small company, found himself surrounded in the plain of Kerbela, with five thousand horse, who cut off his communication with the Euphrates. He was now willing to submit on reasonable conditions; but the governor insisted upon unconditional submis