the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of Mahomet. In CHAP. the temple of Mecca, three Charegites, or enthusiasts, dis

L. coursed of the disorders of the church and state: they soon agreed, that the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion. Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger, devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action. Their resolution was equally desperate: but the first mistook the person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second: the lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from the hand of the third. He expired in the sixtythird year of his age, and mercifully recommended to his children, that they would dispatch the murderer by a single stroke. The sepulchre of Ali 175 was concealed from the tyrants of the house of Ommiyah;176 but in the fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a city, arose near the ruins of Cufa 177. Many thousands of the Schiites repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God; and the desart is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than the pilgrimage of Mecca.

The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of Reign of his children; and the champions of idolatry became the su-vah, preme heads of his religion and empire. The opposition of A. D. 655,

or 661... Abu Sophian had been fierce and obstinate ; his conversion 680. was tardy and reluctant; his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest; he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and the sins of the time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits of the family of Ommiyah. Moawiyah,

Moawi

a

175 Abulfeda, a moderate Sonnite, relates the different opinions concerning the burial of Ali, but adopts the sepulchre of Cufa, hodie famâ numeroque religiose frequentantium celebratum. This number is reckoned by Niebuhr to amount annually to 2000 of the dead, and 5000 of the living (iom. ii. p. 208, 209).

176 All the tyrants of Persia, froin Adhad el Dowlat (A. D. 977, d'Her. belot, p. 58, 59. 95.) to Nadir Shah (A. D. 174), Hist. de Nadir Shah, tom.

. p. 155), have enriched the tomb of Ali with the spoils of the people. The dome is copper, with a bright and massy gilding, which glitters to the sun at the distance of many a mile.

L.

CHAP, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the cruel Henda, was dige

nified in his early youth with the office or title of secretary of the prophet: the judgment of Omar entrusted him with the government of Syria ; and he administered that important province above forty years either in a subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of valour and liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity and moderation: а grateful people were attached to their benefactor; and the victorious Moslems were enriched with the spoils of Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of Othman was the engine and pretence of his ambition. The bloody shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the emir deplored the fate of his injured kinsman; and sixty thousand Syrians were engaged in his service by an oath of fidelity and revenge. Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the first who saluted the new monarch, and divulged the dangerous se. cret, that the Arabian caliphs might be created elsewhere than in the city of the prophet.178 The policy of Moawiyah eluded the valour of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he negotiated the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was either above or below the government of the world, and who retired without a sigh from the palace of Cufa to an humble cell near the tomb of his grandfather. The aspiring wishes of the caliph were finally crowned by the important change of an elective to an hereditary kingdom. Some murmurs of freedom or fanaticism attested the reluctance of the Arabs, and four citizens of Medina refused the oath of fidelity; but the designs of Moawiyah were conducted with vigour and address; and his son Yezid, a feeble and dissolute youth, was proclaimed as the commander of the faith

ful and the successor of the apostle of God. Death of A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of Hosein, A.D. 680,

the sons of Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadverOct. 10. tently dropt a dish of scalding broth on his master: the heed.

less wretch fell prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and repeated a verse of the Koran: “Paradise is for those who

command their anger:". “ I am not angry,"...." and for

a

178 I borrow, on this occasion, the strong sense and expression of Tacitus (Hist. i. 4): Evulgato imperii arcano posse imperatorem alibi quam Roma fieri.

L.

« those who pardon offences:”....I pardon your offence:.... CHAP. " and for those who return good for evil:”...." I give you

your liberty, and four hundred pieces of silver.” With an equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan, inherited a remnant of his father's spirit, and served with honour against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople. The primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy character of grandson of the apostle, had centered in his person, and he was at liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid the tyrant of Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never deigned to acknowledge. A list was secretly transmitted from Cufa to Medina, of one hundred and forty thousand Moslems, who professed their attachment to his cause, and who were eager to draw their swords so soon as he should appear on the banks of the Euphrates. Against the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved to trust his person and family in the hands of a perfidious people. He traversed the desart of Arabia with a timorous retinue of women and children; but as he approached the confines of Irak, he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country, and suspected either the defection or ruin of his party. His fears were just; Obeidollah, the governor of Cufa, had extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hosein, in the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of five thousand horse, who intercepted his communication with the city and the river. He might still have escaped to a fortress in the desart, that had defied the power of Cæsar and Chosroes, and confided in the fidelity of the tribe of Tai, which would have armed ten thousand warriors in his defence. In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the option of three honourable conditions; that he should be allowed to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid. But the commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and absolute; and Hosein was informed that he must either submit

; as a captive and a criminal to the commander of the faithful, or expect the consequences of his rebellion.“ Do you " think,” replied he, “ to terrify me with death?” And, during the short respite of a night, he prepared with calm and solemn resignation to encounter his fate. He checked

L.

CHAP. the lamentations of his sister Fatima, who deplored the ims

pending ruin of his house. “Our trust," said Hosein, is “ in God alone. All things, both in heaven and earth, must “ perish and return to their Creator. My brother, my fa“ther, my mother, were better than me; and every Musul

man has an example in the prophet.” He pressed his friends to consult their safety by a timely flight: they unanimously refused to desert or survive their beloved master; and their courage was fortified by a fervent prayer and the assurance of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in the other; his generous band of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty foot; but their flanks and rear were secured by the tent-ropes, and by a deep trench which they had filled with lighted faggots, according to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance; and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to claim the partnership of inevitable death. In every close onset, or single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but the surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with a cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain: a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the battle at length expired by the death of the last of the companions of Hosein. Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at the door of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the mouth with a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths, were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven, they were full of blood, and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians, that he would not suffer Hosein to be murdered before his eyes: a tear trickled down his venerable beard; and the boldest of his soldiers fell back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them. The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful, reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain with three and thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a cane: “ Alas!" exclaimed an aged Musul

L.

a

man,“ on these lips have I seen the lips of the apostle of CHAP. “ God!” In a distant age and climate the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.179 On the annual festival of his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of sorrow and indignation.'80 When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in Posterity

of Maho. chains to the throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to

met and extirpate the enmity of a popular and hostile race, whom he Ali. had injured beyond the hope of reconciliation. But Yezid preferred the councils of mercy; and the mourning family was honourably dismissed to mingle their tears with their kindred at Medina. The glory of martyrdom superseded the right of primogeniture; and the twelve IMAMS,181 or pontiffs, of the Persian creed are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without arms, or treasures, or subjects, they sucessively enjoyed the veneration of the people, and provoked the jealousy of the reigning caliphs: their tombs at Mecca or Medina, on the banks of the Euphrates, or in the province of Chorasan, are still visited by the devotion of their sect. Their names were often the pretence of sedition and civil war; but these royal saints despised the pomp of the world, submitted to the will of God and the injustice of man, and devoted their innocent lives to the study and practice of religion. The twelfth and last of the Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or the Guide, surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad : the time and place of his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend, that he still lives, and will appear before the day of judgment to over

179 I have abridged the interesting narrative of Ockley (tom. ii.p. 170... 231). I' is long and minute ; but the pathetic, almost always, consisis in the detail of little circumstances.

180 Niebuhr the Dane (Voyages en Arabie,&c. tom. ii. p. 208, &c.) is per. haps the only European traveller who has dared to visit Meshed Ali and Meshed Hosein. The two sepulchres are in the hands of the Turks, who to. lerate and tax the devotion of the Persian heretics. The festival of the death of Hosein is amply described by Sir John Chardin, a traveller whom I have often praised.

181 The general article of Imam, in d’llerbelot’s Bibliotheque, will indicate the succession; and the lives of the twelve are given under their respective names. VOL. VI.

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