for a shorter period, at Aleppo. His love of travel led him
in his old age to visit different parts of Armenia and Asia
Minor, and he was setting out on a pilgrimage to Mecca when
he died at Bagdad in 1231. Abdallatif was undoubtedly a
man of great knowledge and of an inquisitive and penetrating
mind. Of the numerous works--mostly on medicine---which
Osaiba ascribes to bim, one only, his graphic and detailed
Account of Egypt (in two parts), appears to be known in
Europe. The manuscript, discovered by Edward Pococke the
Orientalist, and preserved in the Bodleian Library, contains
a vivid description of a famine caused, during the author's
residence in Egypt, by the Nile failing to overflow its banks.
It was translated into Latin by Professor White of Oxford in
1800, and into French, with valuable notes, by De Sacy in 1810.
ABD-AR-RAHMAN, the name borne by five princes of the Omayyad dynasty,
amirs and caliphs of Cordova, two of them being rulers of great capacity.
ABD-AR-RAHMAN I. (756-788) was the founder of the branch of
the family which ruled for nearly three centuries in Mahommedan
Spain. When the Omayyads were overthrown in the East by the
Abbasids he was a young man of about twenty years of age.
together with his brother Yahya, he took refuge with Bedouin
tribes in the desert. The Abbasids hunted their enemies
down without mercy. Their soldiers overtook the brothers;
Yahya was slain, and Abd-ar-rahman saved himself by fleeing
first to Syria and thence to northern Africa, the common
refuge of all who endeavoured to get beyond the reach of the
Abbasids. In the general confusion of the caliphate produced
by the change of dynasty, Africa had fallen into the hands
of local rulers, formerly amirs or lieutenants of the Omayyad
caliphs, but now aiming at independence. After a time
Abd-ar-rahman found that his life was threatened, and he
fled farther west, taking refuge among the Berber tribes of
Mauritania. In the midst of all his perils, which read like
stories from the Arabian Nights, Abd-ar-rahman had been
encouraged by reliance on a prophecy of his great-uncle Maslama
that he would restore the fortune of the family. He was
followed in all his wanderings by a few faithful clients of the
Omayyads. In 755 he was in hiding near Ceuta, and thence
he sent an agent over to Spain to ask for the support of
other clients of the family, descendants of the conquerors of
Spain, who were numerous in the province of Elvira, the modern
Granada. The country was in a state of confusion under the
weak rule of the amir Yusef, a mere puppet in the hands of a
faction, and was torn by tribal dissensions among the Arabs
and by race conflicts between the Arabs and Berbers. It
offered Abd-ar-rahman the opportunity he had falled to find in
Africa. On the invitation of his partisans he landed at
Almunecar, to the east of Malaga, in September 755. For a
time he was compelled to submit to be guided by his supporters,
who were aware of the risks of their venture. Yusef opened
negotiations, and offered to give Abdar-rahman one of his
daughters in marriage and a grant of land. This was far less
than the prince meant to obtain, but he would probably have
been forced to accept the offer for want of a better if the
insolence of one of Yusef's messengers, a Spanish renegade,
had not outraged a chief partisan of the Omayyad cause. He
taunted this gentleman, Obeidullah by name, with being unable
to write good Arabic. Under this provocation Obeidullah drew
the sword. In the course of 756 a campaign was fought in
the valley of the Guadalquivir, which ended, on the 16th of
May, in the defeat of Yusef outside Cordova. Abdar-rahman's
army was so ill provided that he mounted almost the only good
war-horse in it; he had no banner, and one was improvised by
unwinding a green turban and binding it round the head of a
spear. The turban and the spear became the banner of the Spanish
Omayyads. The long reign of Abd-arrahman I. was spent in a
struggle to reduce his anarchical Arab and Berber subjects to
order. They had never meant to give themselves a master, and
they chafed under his hand, which grew continually heavier.
The details of these conflicts belong to the general history of
Spain. It is, however, part of the personal history of
Abd-ar-rahman that when in 763 he was compelled to fight at the
very gate of his capital with rebels acting on behalf of the
Abbasids, and had won a signal victory, he cut off the heads
of the leaders, filled them with salt and camphor and sent
them as a defiance to the eastern caliph. His last years were
spent amid a succession of palace conspiracies, repressed with
cruelty. Abd-ar-rahman grew embittered and ferocious. He was
a fine example of an oriental founder of a dynasty, and did his
work so well that the Omayyads lasted in Spain for two centuries
and a half.
ABD-AR-RAHMAN II. (822-852) was one of the weaker of
the Spanish Omayyads. He was a prince with a taste for
music and literature, whose reign was a time of confusion.
It is chiefly memorable for having included the story of
the ``Martyrs of Cordova,'' one of the most remarkable
passages in the religious history of the middle ages.
ABD-AR-RAHMAN III. (912-961) was the greatest and the most
successful of the princes of his dynasty in Spain (for the
general history of his reign see SPAIN, History). He
ascended the throne when he was barely twenty-two and reigned
for half a century. His life was so completely identified
with the government of the state that he offers less material
for biography than his ancestor Abd-ar-rahman I. Yet it
supplies some passages which show the real character of an
oriental dynasty even at its best. Abd-ar-rahman III. was
the grandson of his predecessor, Abdallah, one of the weakest
and worst of the Spanish Omayyads. His father, Mahommed,
was murdered by a brother Motarrif by order of Abdallah The
old sultan was so far influenced by humanity and remorse
that he treated his grandson kindly. Abd-ar-rahman III.
came to the throne when the country was exhausted by more
than a generation of tribal conflict among the Arabs, and
of strife between them and the Mahommedans of native Spanish
descent. Spaniards who were openly or secretly Christians
had acted with the renegades. These elements, which formed
the bulk of the population, were not averse from supporting
a strong ruler who would protect them against the Arab
aristocracy. These restless nobles were the most serious
of Abd-ar-rahman's enemies. Next to them came the Fatimites
of Egypt and northern Africa, who claimed the caliphate,
and who aimed at extending their rule over the Mahommedan
world, at least in the west. Abd-ar-rahman subdued the nobles
by means of a mercenary army, which included Christians.
He repelled the Fatimites, partly by supporting their
enemies in Africa, and partly by claiming the caliphate for
himself. His ancestors in Spain had been content the the
title of sultan. The caliphate was thought only to belong
to the prince who ruled over the sacred cities of Mecca and
Medina. But the force of this tradition had been so far
weakened that Abd-ar-rahman could proclaim himself caliph on
the 16th of January 929, and the assumption of the title gave
him increased prestige with his subjects, both in Spain and
Africa. His worst enemies were always his fellow Mahommedans.
After he was defeated by the Christians at Alhandega
in 939 through the treason of the Arab nobles in his
army (see SPAIN, History) he never again took the
field. He is accused of having sunk in his later years
into the self-indulgent habits of the harem. When the
undoubted prosperity of his dominions is quoted as an
example of successful Mahommedan rule, it is well to remember
that he administered well not by means of but in spite of
Mahommedans. The high praise given to his administration may
even excite some doubts as to its real excellence. We are
told that a third of his revenue sufficed for the ordinary
expenses of government, a third was hoarded and a third spent on
buildings. A very large proportion of the surplus must
have been wasted on the palace-town of Zahra, built three
miles to the north of Cordova, and named after a favourite
concubine. Ten thousand workmen are said to have been employed
for twenty-five years on this wonder, of which no trace now
remains. The great monument of early Arabic architecture in
Spain, the mosque of Cordoya, was built by his predecessors,
not by him. It is said that his harem included six thousand
women. Abd-ar-rahman was tolerant, but it is highly probable
that he was very indifferent in religion, and it is certain
that he was a thorough despot. One of the most authentic
sayings attributed to him is his criticism of Otto I. of
Germany, recorded by Otto's ambassador, Johann, abbot of
Gorze, who has left in his Vita an incomplete account
of his embassy (in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Scriptores, iv.
355-377). He blamed the king of Germany for trusting his nobles,
which he said could only increase their pride and leaning to
rebellion. His confession that he had known only twenty happy
days in his long reign is perhaps a moral tale, to be classed
with the ``omnia fui, et nil expedit'' of Septimius Severus.
In the agony of the Omayyad dynasty in Spain, two princes
of the house were proclaimed caliphs for a very short time,
Abd-ar-rahman IV. Mortada (1017), and Abd-ar-rahman V. Mostadir
(1023-1024). Both were the mere puppets of factions, who
deserted them at once. Abd-ar-rahman IV. was murdered
in the year in which he was proclaimed, at Guadiz, when
fleeing from a battle in which he had been deserted by his
supporters. Abd-ar-rahman V. was proclaimed caliph in
December 1023 at Cordova, and murdered in January 1024 by a
mob of unemployed workmen, headed by one of his own cousins.
The history of the Omayyads in Spain is the subject of the Histoire
des Musulmans d'Espagne, by R. Dozy (Leiden, 1861). (D. H.)
ABD-EL-AZIZ IV. (1880- ), sultan of Morocco, son of Sultan
Mulai el Hasan III. by a Circassian wife. He was fourteen
years of age on his father's death in 1894. By the wise action
of Si Ahmad bin Musa, the chamberlain of El Hasan, Abd-el
Aziz's accession to the sultanate was ensured with but little
fighting. Si Ahmad became regent and for six years showed
himself a capable ruler. On his death in 1900 the regency
ended, and Abd-el-Aziz took the reins of government into his own
hands, with an Arab from the south, El Menebhi, for his chief
adviser. Urged by his Circassian mother, the sultan sought
advice and counsel from Europe and endeavoured to act up to
it. But disinterested advice was difficult to obtain, and
in spite of the unquestionable desire of the young ruler to
do the best for the country, wild extravagance both in action
and expenditure resulted, leaving the sultan with depleted
exchequer and the confidence of his people impaired. His
intimacy with foreigners and his imitation of their ways were
sufficient to rouse fanaticism and create dissatisfaction.
His attempt to reorganize the finances by the systematic levy
of taxes was hailed with delight, but the government was not
strong enough to carry the measures through, and the money
which should have been used to pay the taxes was employed
to purchase firearms. Thus the benign intentions of Mulai
Abdel-Aziz were interpreted as weakness, and Europeans were
accused of having spoiled the sultan and of being desirous of
spoiling the country. When British engineers were employed
to survey the route for a railway between Mequinez and
