Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/774

750 750 EGYPT [HISTOHY. him publicly as a traitor from the pulpits throughout his dominions. Yet that he secretly favoured him is proved by his vain attempt to escape to Egypt from the tyranny of liis warlike brother. Ahmad founded the dynasty of the Benee-Tooloon, which Lasted for a period of 37 years. He built the royal city of El-Katae, between El- Askar and Mount Mukattam, enriched it with splendid buildings, and constituted it the seat of his government. Its site is now covered with ruins, only his great mosque remaining a proud ex ample of his wealth and magnificence, still the largest mosque of Cairo, and, as presenting the earliest specimens of the pointed arch, noteworthy in the history of architecture. The reign of this vigor ous and wise prince was remarkable for prosperity at home and conquests abroad. He took Barkih, and in Syria in 264 cap tured Damascus, Ilims (Emessa), Hamah, and Aleppo ; after which he proceeded to Antioch, and the governor refusing to surrender, he took that city by storm. He then advanced towards Tarsus, but his supplies failing he was compelled to retire. About five years later, Lu-lu, his deputy and governor of Aleppo and other towns in Syria and in Mesopotamia, revolted and entered into a league with El-Muwaffik. It was apparently after an expedition against this rebel that Ahmad died, in the year 270 (A.I). 884). During the latter years of his reign, he had abandoned that sim plicity of life which had distinguished his youth, and had given himself up to boundless luxury. At his death, there was found in his treasury ten millions of deenars, and his establishment was dis covered to consist of 7000 mounted memiooks, 300 picked horses for his own use, a body-guard of 24,000 slaves, besides 6000 asses and mules, 10,000 camels, and 100 wherries. By what oppression the revenue necessary to maintain such a household was raised some idea may be formed, when it is stated that at the time of his death 18,000 persons were confined in llm-Tooloon s prisons. Khumaraweyh, on the death of his father, was appointed his successor by the army, he being then twenty years old, and he inherited a kingdom extending from the Euphrates to Nubia. He fought a battle with the forces of the caliph, commanded by a son of El-Muwaffik (afterwards the caliph El-Moatadid), between Damascus and Ranileh ; in which his army gained the victory, although he himself, never having seen a battle, before, fled the scene of action in a panic, drawing a large part of his troops after him. But he soon reversed the independent policy of his father, and making peace with the caliph in 273 he not only put the latter s name with that of his brother El-Muwaffik in the public prayers, but entirely omitted his own ; though it must be allowed he did not pursue the same servile course in his coinage. On the accession of El-Moatadid in 279, Khumaraweyh continued his con ciliatory policy and offered his daughter Katr-en-Neda (Dewdrops) in marriage to the caliph s son. In 282 he made an incursion into the Greek territory, and died at Damascus. It is said that he was fearful of assassination ; to avoid which he had trained a lion to guard him while he slept on his bed of quicksilver. His fears were justified ; for he was put to death by his women, or according to some by his eunuchs. His eldest son, Geysh Abu-l- Asakir, not yet fourteen years old, succeeded him. This prince was killed in less than eight months : his youth, which rendered him unfit to govern, occasioned his fall ; for he had discarded from his society those who were in favour with his father, and associated with none but worthless men. He was succeeded in 283 by his brother Haroon, the principal events of whose rule were a great tempest and earthquake in Egypt in 286, and a treaty which he concluded with the caliph, by which the provinces of Awasim and Kinnesreen were ceded to him and the annual tribute from Egypt was fixed at 450,000 deenars. He reigned upwards of eight years, but gave himself up to pleasure, and, as some say, was put to death in 292 by his uncles Sheyban and Adee, sons of the founder of the dynasty, the former of whom suc ceeded to the government. In the meantime, at the instigation of the generals of Haroon, Mohammad Ibn-Suleyman, a scribe of Lu-lu, advanced against Egypt with a numerous and heavily equipped army. Sheyban went forth to meet him with all the forces he could muster, but numbers of his troops deserted to the invader, and lie was soon compelled to surrender. Mohammad Ibn-Suleyman burned El-Katae, and sacked El-Eustat, reducing the women to slavery, committing many atrocities, and exiling the family of Ahmad Ibn-Tooloon, with all their adherents (A.H. 292, A.D. 905). Having thus completed his conquest, and restored the province of Egypt to the house of Abbas, Ibn-Suleyman yielded the govern ment to Eesa En-N6sharee, appointed by El-Muktefee. He died in 297, and was followed by Tekeen El-Gezeree, under whose rale Egypt was invaded by the forces of Obeyd-Allah El-Mahdee, first prince of the dynasty of the Fatimees, which had succeeded the Benee-1-Aghlab in the dominion of Northern Africa. His general Hubasheh, having taken Barkah, advanced (in 302), with an army of 100,000 men, to Alexandria, which he found deserted, and thence marched to the Feiyoom, where Tekeen, reinforced with troops from El-Irak, gave battle, and defeated the enemy in a sanguinary con flict. In the following year, he was succeeded by Abu-1-Hasan Zekee Kj-Koornee, in whose time El-Mahdee again attempted the conquest of ^ Egypt with an army under the command of his son, Abu-l- Kasim ; Alexandria fell into his hands in 307 ; its inhabitants iled, and Zekee entrenched himself in El-Geezeh, on the western bank of the Nile, and shortly afterwards died. In this emergency Tekeen was reinstated in his office; and a fleet of twenty-five sail was sent from Tarsus by the caliph, which meeting with the flotilla of the enemy off Resheed almost annihilated it. Tekeen, meanwhile, had defeated the Africans, but without decisive effect. At length, being twice reinforced from Baghdad, he drove Abu- Kasim back to Barkah. After rendering this important service Tekeen was again recalled. Three other governors were then suc cessively appointed ; but the troops revolting, and much sedition and rapine ensuing, Tekeeu was once more despatched to Egypt, where he remained until his death in the year 321 (A.D. 933). He was followed by Aboo-bekr Mohammad El-Ikhsheed Ibn-Ta- ghag, afterwards the founder of the dynasty of the Ikhsheedees, who was almost immediately superseded by another governor ; and for one year more Egypt continued to be a province of the caliphs of Baghdad. In the year 323, El-lkhsheed again succeeded to the government. About this time little remained to the caliph of his once broad empire beyond the province of Baghdad, and even there his power was but nominal. Khurasan, Fars, Kanuaii, Rei, Ispahan, Mosul, and the provinces of Mesopotamia, were either in a state of revolt, or nearly or wholly lost to him. Spain was governed by the Dynasty of Umeiyeh, and Africa by that of El-Mahdee ; and we have seen the distracted state of Egypt since the fall of the Benee-Tooloon. El-Ikhsheed availed himself of these circumstances to make himself the independent sovereign of Egypt and Syria, continuing, however, to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the caliph. Shortly after, he defeated the forces of El-Mahdee, who had again made an inroad into the country : and in 327 he was decorated by Er-Radee with the title of El-lkhsheed, a name borne by the rulers of the province of Ferghaneli in Transoxania, from whom he was descended. In the following year Ibn-Raik subdued a great part of Syria, and having taken Damascus advanced to the froH- tier of Egypt, where after a very severe engagement he was utterly routed and pursued by the troops of El-lkhsheed as far as Damas cus. There, however, the fortune of war turned against El-lkh sheed, and for a time he was deprived of the province of Syria, though he subsequently regained possession of it. During his reign, the caliphs of Baghdad were daily losing power, and in the year 333, El-Muktefee wrote to him lamenting his miserable state : whereupon El-Ikhsheed immediately repaired to him at Itakkuh with valuable presents and offered him assistance and an asylum in Egypt, of which the caliph was too timid to avail himself. About this time, also, he conducted a war with various success against Seyf-ed-Dowleh the Hamdanee, who had attacked Syria. He died at Damascus in 334 (A.D. 946), in the 66th year of his ago, and was buried, as were his sons, in the mosquo of Omar at Jerusalem. Of El-lkhsheed s two sons and successors, Abu-1-Kasim Oongoor (who died in 349), and Abu-1-Hasau Alee, little is known, their vizir Kafoor, a black eunuch, being the actual ruler. In the reign of the former, in the year 343, a great fire occurred in El- Fustat, which destroyed 1700 houses and much merchandise. Kafoor succeeded to the throne in 355, and was acknowledge! throughout Egypt, Syria, and the Higaz. He ruled with great ability, and was a patron of literature ; his name is celebrated by the poet El-Mutanebbee, who was his boon-companion, and whom, as well as other learned men, he rewarded with magnificent present*. On his death in 357, internal dissensions respecting the succession of Abu-1-Fuwaris, a son of Alee, presented a favourable opportunity to the Fatimee caliph to renew the often-repeated invasions of Egypt. Hitherto, with few exceptions, the most notable of which are the reigns of Ibn-Tooloon, Khumaraweyh, El-Ikhsheed, and Kafoor, the Muslim rulers of Egypt had not much benefited the country, or rescued it from the anarchy and troubles in which it had become involved under the Lower Empire. But the incidents of the time are so little known that they have been deemed worthy of more mention in this article than perhaps their importance would other wise warrant. From the period at which we have now arrived, however, the annals of Egypt contain much important matter, and are so closely interwoven with the events of the Crusades as to render them deeply interesting to the student of European history. The rise of the schismatic caliphs of Africa is a remarkable episode in the early days of El-Islam, and most of the princes of that dynasty were not unworthy of their successors, the renowned Sal.i- din and his family, and the Mem look sultans. In the year 358 (A.D. 969) El-Mo izz li-deeni-llah, the fouith Fatimee caliph, equipped a large and well-armed force, with a formidable body of cavalry, the whole under the command of Ahu- 1-Hoseyn Gohar el-Kaid, a native of Greece, and a slave of Lis father El-Mansoor. This general, on his arrival near Alexandria, received a deputation from the inhabitants of El-Fustdt, charged to negotiate a treaty. Their overtures were favourably entertained, and the conquest of the country seemed probable without bloodshed.