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ness in resource.-"Had there," said he, " been but a particle of virtue in the composition of these wretched deserters, their destiny would unquestionably have led them to share in my fortunes." P. 8.

Among the earliest and most virtuous of the converts and adherents of Mahommed, is to be named the venerated Abu Bekr, his father-in-law, and immediate successor in the supremacy both pontifical and civil. The interesting events of his reign are comprised in the second chapter of the Retrospect, towards the conclusion of which the following passages occur descriptive of his character and latter hours.

"After thus providing, to the best of his judgment, for the prosperity and repose of his government, Abû Bukker devoted the fleeting remains of life to considerations of a more domestic nature. Meek and modest, pious and humble beyond his cotemporaries, the first of the successors of Mahommed, in his vest of woollen, had but few private arrangements to embarrass his last moments. He only requested that his daughter Ayaishah would be responsible for the payment of the very trifling debt of a few dirhems, which he expressed his anxiety to discharge. He then desired that when the awful event should have taken place, from which no created being was exempted, his body should be conveyed to the entrance of the prophet's sepulchre; and if his hope to be laid by the side of his master were favourably received, its gates would be thrown spontaneously open.

"Without descending to a particular enumeration of that catalogue of virtues, which are recorded to have adorned the character of this prince; and which the illustrious Ally, in a species of funeral oration, addressed to the assembled chiefs of Medeinah, sealed by an affirmation, that after the death of their legislator, the community of Islam would, perhaps, never have to deplore a greater calamity than the loss of that man, of whose mild and pacific virtues the hand of death had then deprived them,' it will be sufficient to observe, that, however in points of doctrine otherwise hostile, all nations and sects of Mahommedans appear, in this respect, to have discarded all difference of opinion; and to have united in consecrating the memory of Abû Bukker in the general esteem and perpetual veneration of his country." P. 58.

Ayaishah, the turbulent and ambitious daughter of this meek and pious prince, was the only virgin espoused by Mahommed; and hence, as insufficiently noticed by Major Price, the change in her father's name. He is very seldom called by any other than Father of the virgin. Mahommed's other wives were widows; and taken by him, apparently, from considerations of their wealth and influence in furtherance of his ambitious projects. Notwithstanding the seditious and undignified features in the character and conduct of this ex

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traordinary woman, and the odium attached to her memory, the appellation by which she is usually designated is mother of the faithful: not, however, as it might seem on a cursory perusal of an eastern history, exclusively; for that appellation is extended to the other prolific wives of the prophet; but as their names are seldom mentioned or alluded to, the daring and obtrusive Ayaishah appears to monopolize that respectful title.

Fatimah, the offspring of the father and mother of the faithful, was espoused by Ally; by which connexion, through their sons Hussein and Husseyne who were massacred at Kerbela, hath proceeded the race of SEYEDS, or descendants of Mahommed. The word seems to have been formerly equivalent to Prince, but has now no such meaning. The Seyeds are, however, still respected as such in all Mahommedan countries; and generally distinguish themselves by green vestments, or a turban at least of that colour, deemed sacred to the prophet, as having been sanctified by his predilection and adoption. But very different is the estimation in which the character of their uterine progenitor is held; for whatever deference might naturally have been extended by his zealous followers to the person who stood in so tender a relationship with their prophet, had her conduct admitted of such extension, she lived a disreputable tool of the turbulent, and sunk disgracefully in her career of sedition. Thus the author, in concluding the narrative of the busy and interesting scenes in which she was so conspicuous, and in describing her appropriate death, remarks that " Ayaishah, having rendered herself odious to all parties, appears to have thus ultimately perished without the regret of any." P. 386.

Respecting the characters of Omar and Osman, the successors of Abu-Bekr, the history of whose reigns occupies the third, fourth and fifth chapters of the Retrospect, we will endeavour to find room for some extracts.

"To the prudence of Omar, or rather his singular talent for discernment, the prophet bore ample testimony when he bestowed upon him the appellative of Faurûk auzem, the great discriminator;' (between truth and falsehood;) and of his other virtues, if we may be permitted to form an opinion from the eulogium pronounced over his remains, by the competitor of his views on the sovereignty, the brave and liberal-minded Ally, the memorial would be abundantly flattering. In this he is made to affirm, that Omar was the person, the record of whose actions, and whose appearance

"He severed from his body the head of a Mahommedan, who, in a dispute with an Israelite, refused to abide by the decision of the prophet. Vide Sale's excellent trauslation of the Koran. Vol. I. p. 168,"

in the presence of his Creator, he wished his own to resemble : neither could he doubt, as they were inseparable in this world, that he should be again united to the favourite of Omnipotence, and the friend of his bosom the faithful Abû Bukker, in the mansions of eternal bliss.

"In short, apart from the lust of foreign conquest and usurpation, in which, unfortunately for mankind, he had too many examples to imitate, and to which he was, perhaps, gradually impelled by circumstances acting upon an intemperate zeal to promote the imposture in which he was engaged, the character assigned him, even by the historians of an adverse party, may in some respects justify us in considering the second successor of Mahommed, among those princes who, by an impartial distribution of justice, a rigid and prudent economy, and an inflexible integrity in the application of the resources of the state, have added substantial glory to the deceitful splendours which have been too frequently found to decorate the insignia of royal authority.

"We have already observed that Omar was the first that assumed the title of Ameir ul Moûmenein, the prince or commander of the faithful. He was also the first who adjudged the punishment of eighty lashes to such as disregarded the prohibition against wine; and he set the example, in which he was generally imitated by his successors, of perambulating the streets in disguise, to discover the temper and manners of his people. According to his request, he was buried in the chapel of Ayaishah by the side of Abû Bukker." P. 146.

After a reign of a little more than ten years, Omar, while in the performance of his religious duties in the public mosque of Medeinah, received a mortal wound from the dagger of a Christian slave named Abû Lûlû, whose memory is hence deservedly execrated by the Sûnnihs, or tribe of Omar. But, in the true spirit of sectarian illiberality, the adverse party, the Sheiahs, or adherents of Ally, extol the act, and have dignified the villain its perpetrator with the name of Shuja-ud-dein, the hero of the faith: though by no one more than by the generous leader whose memory is thus disgraced by his partisans, would such an act have been duly reprobated.

The puissant empire of the Khalifs attained, under the reign of Omar, pretty nearly to those limits which, in actual sovereignty at least, it doth not appear to have exceeded in any period of its history. Not, however, as is remarked by the author in the review which he takes of this vast boundary, that the countries within it were yet in any permanent state of security.

"The great province Khorassaun was not finally subjugated until the reign of Òthm: and many formidable insurrections in different parts of the Pers in territory, evinced, on a variety of occasions, that abhorrence of foreign dominion, and regard for the

religious rites of their ancestors, which continued to animate the disciples of pyrolatry, until repeated discomfitures, massacre and expulsion, succeeded in blending at length, with a very trifling exception, the vanquished with their oppressors, under the united and powerful sway of the Korân," P. 147.

Passing, however, this eventful reign, we proceed to extract a passage delineating the character of Othman.

"To the virtues of this prince, when he was no more, his enemies appeared to have done ample justice; the bitterest of whom, even Ayaishah, so strongly suspected of having hastened his destruction, and Saud e Wekauss, seem to have mourned his death with unfeigned sorrow. But if his character were to be estimated from the recorded testimony of his own party, there is scarcely a human excellence in which he will be found wanting. Of surpassing clemency, beneficence and piety; in integrity of mind and purity of manners most eminent; an exemplar to the orthodox, and a most upright and incorruptible judge, he was an inflexible enemy to every species of vice; in vigilance so persevering, and of such patient devotion, that he not unfrequently repeated the whole Korân in the course of one genuflexion. And lastly, though, during the period of a long life, he had exhibited repeated proofs of the most undaunted courage, yet so fixed was his repugnance to the effusion of Mahommedan blood, that even when he saw his life at stake, he persisted to the last moment in forbidding his friends to combat in his defence."

"Othman derived his name of Zul Nurein, the possessor of the two stars, from enjoying the envied distinction of having been the husband of two of the prophet's daughters, Rukkeiah and Omme Kelthum, by whom, and six other wives, he was the father of eleven sons and six daughters." P. 184.

Notwithstanding the panegyrics which we have, from among many others, extracted from the work before us on the three successful rivals of Ally in the succession to the Khelàfet, the character of that illustrious prince still rises above them in our estimation: and indeed on the whole, above that of any exalted individual offered to our contemplation in the copious chronicles of Islàm. His name awakens in our minds the most respectful remembrance; and the sad fate of his family cannot but excite the deepest sympathy and compassion. He was the fourth, and, as the transient authority exercised by Imam Hussun scarcely entitles him to be included among them, the last of the Kholfa rashedein, the orthodox or legitimate successors of Mahommed.

The actions of a person so dear to all of the Sheiah sect, are of course recorded with commensurate enthusiasm by writers of that party but, while making due allowance for the feeling which describes Ally as killing in one night five hundred and

twenty-three, or, according to another authority, more than nine hundred, of his enemies, we easily recognise in him the most heroic valour, as well as exemplary generosity and disinterestedness. In the sanguinary proceeding alluded to, in which upwards of thirty thousand combatants were slain, Ally is stated to have repeated the rekbeir at each mortal sweep of his celebrated double-edged sword zùlfekàr; which, committed to memory by an attendant, was considered as competent proof of the extent of the execution. On such slight grounds do oriental historians record as facts, statements of a highly improbable nature. The tekbeir consists in uttering Allàh Akhbar!-God is great-an exclamation very common in the mouth of Mussulmans, and which served sometimes as a sort of war-whoop, and parole, among the early converts to the faith.

On his death-bed, Ally is said to have acknowledged that, including infidels, and those of his own persuasion against whom the cause of justice had unsheathed his sword, not less than ten thousand individuals had on different occasions fallen by his hand an acknowledgment that we may also be permitted to receive with much qualification. Still the inference evidently deducible militates against the received impressions of the magnanimity, and generosity, and mildness of his character; opposed to which, however, no reproach of cruelty is exhibited, even by his political or religious antagonists. Whatever numbers he may have slain, fell fairly, it is averred, in fight, and in contests not sought by him; but provoked by what he might reasonably consider as rebellions against his, and other legitimate authority.

"He died at the age of sixty-three, after a turbulent and unsettled reign of four years and nine months. His virtues and extraor dinary qualifications have been the subject of voluminous panegyrics; and his warlike exploits, from his youth upwards, have been particularly celebrated in the *Khawernamah, a poem well known in the east, and which may, perhaps, contend in extravagance with the wildest effusions of European romance. With his acknowledged talents and magnanimity, it is, however, difficult to account for that train of civil mischief and perpetual discontent, which continued to disturb him through the whole of his reign. His gallant spirit was probably incapable of bending to the ordinary shifts of political craft; and it is perhaps true, that the Arabian chiefs were not yet sufficiently disciplined to quietly see the sovereign authority monopolized by any particular family."

This hero was, like his two immediate predecessors in the

"This work, illuminated by numerous paintings, is, or ought to be, in the EastIndia Company's Oriental Library."

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