History of the Moors of Spain | Page 8

A.D. 632, Hegira 2, and was the effect of poison, which had, some time before, been administered to this extraordinary man by a Jewess of Rhaibar.
The death of the Prophet arrested neither the progress of his religion nor the triumphs of the Moslem arms.
Abubeker, the father-in-law of Mohammed, became his successor, and assumed the title of Caliph, which simply signifies vicar. During his reign the Saracens penetrated into Syria, dispersed the armies of Heraclius, and took the {27} city of Damascus, the siege of which will be for ever celebrated in consequence of the almost superhuman exploits of the famous Kaled, surnamed the Sword of God.[8]
Notwithstanding these successive victories, and the enormous amount of booty thus taken from the enemy and committed to his keeping, Abubeker appropriated to his own particular use a sum scarcely equivalent to forty cents a day.
Omar, the successor of Abubeker, commanded Kaled to march against Jerusalem. That city soon became the prize of the Arabs; Syria and Palestine were subdued; the Turks and the Persians demanded peace; Heraclius fled from Antioch; and all Asia trembled before Omar and the terrible Mussulmans.
Modest, in spite of the triumphs that everywhere attended them, and attributing their success to God alone, these Moslems preserved unaltered their austere manners, their frugality, their severe discipline, and their reverence for poverty, though surrounded by the most corrupt of the nations of the earth, and exposed to the seductive influences of the delicious climates and the luxurious pleasures of some of the richest and most {28} beautiful countries in the world. During the sacking of a city, the most eager and impetuous soldier would be instantly arrested in the work of pillage by the word of his chief, and would, with the strictest fidelity, deliver up the booty he had obtained, that it might be deposited in the general treasury. Even the most independent and magnificent of the heroic chiefs would hasten, in accordance with the directions of the caliph, to take the command of an army, and would become successively generals, private soldiers, or ambassadors, in obedience to his slightest wish. In fine, Omar himself--Omar, the richest, the greatest, the most puissant of the monarchs of Asia, set forward upon a journey to Jerusalem; mounted upon a red camel, which bore a sack of barley, one of rice, a well-filled water-skin, and a wooden vase. Thus equipped, the caliph travelled through the midst of conquered nations, who crowded around his path at every step, entreating his blessing and praying him to adjudge their quarrels. At last he joined his army, and, inculcating precepts of simplicity, valour, and humility upon the soldiers, he made his entrance into the Holy City, liberated such of its former Christian possessors as had become {29} the captives of his people, and commanded the preservation of the churches. Then remounting his camel, the representative of the Prophet returned to Medina, to perform the duties of the high-priest of his religion.
The Mussulmans now advanced towards Egypt. That country was soon subdued. Alexandrea was taken by Amrou, one of the most distinguished generals of Omar. It was then that the famous library was destroyed, whose loss still excites the profound regrets of the learned. The Arabians, though such enthusiastic admirers of their national poetry, despised the literature of all the rest of the world. Amrou caused the library of the Ptolemies to be burned, yet this same Amrou was nevertheless celebrated for his poetical effusions. He entertained the sincerest affection and respect for the celebrated John the Grammarian, to whom, but for the opposing order of the caliph, he would have given this valuable collection of books. It was Amrou, too, who caused the execution of a design worthy of the best age of Rome, that of connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean by means of a navigable canal, at a point where the waters of the Nile might be diverted from {30} their course for its supply. This canal, so useful to Egypt, and so important to the commerce of both Europe and Asia, was accomplished in a few months. The Turks, in more modern times, have suffered it to be destroyed.
Amrou continued to advance into Africa, while the other Arabian commanders passed the Euphrates and conquered the Persians. But Omar was already no more, and Othman occupied his place.
It was during the reign of this caliph that the Saracens, banishing for ever its enfeebled Greek masters, conquered Mauritania, or the country of the Moors of Africa, A.D. 647, Heg. 27.
The invaders met with serious resistance only from the warlike tribes of the Bereberes.[9] That bold and pastoral people, the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Numidia, and preserving, even to this day, a species of independence, intrenched as they are in the Atlas Mountains, long and successfully