NUMBER XV. Such the gay splendor, the luxurious state, Held their bright court, where was of ladies store; Thomson. At the commencement of the eighth century of the christian era, the empire of the Caliphs was of immense extent, stretching from the confines of India to the shores of the Atlantic ocean. Over this vast tract a similarity of religion diffused a similarity of manners and opinions, and became a bond of union to the various, but otherwise discordant, nations, on its surface, and the inhabitants of Bagdad and Cordova, of Cairo and Samarcand, were alike believers in the mission of the Prophet, and in the eternity of the Koran. Uncircumscribed in prerogative, uncontrolled by nobles, or commons, combining the sacerdotal and the regal functions, the caliphs reigned the most powerful monarchs on the globe. That There Is Only One God, was the salutary and eternal truth imprinted by Mohammed on the minds of the rudest Idolators, and prayer, fasting and alms were the duties he enjoined; the simplicity of his doctrine and precepts has never been corrupted, and in the splendid dome of St. Sophia as in the humble tabernacle erected by the hands of the Prophet, the pure creed of Islam is preserved and pro fessed inviolate. To the Son of Abdallah the Arabs were indebted for an union of action and sentiment of which they had no conception in any age previous to his existence; their idols, the causes of religious difference, always the most implacable, "were broken before the the throne of God," and a system of rewards and punishments admirably adapted to their ignorance and appetites, stimulated the enthusiasm, and inflamed the imagination of these lords of the desert. Their valour was now solely directed against the unbelievers, and the sword of the Prophet, resistless as his tenets of fate and predestination, flashed terror to the hearts of his opponents; "a drop of blood" says the martial apostle, "shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven: at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion and odoriferous as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim." Fired by representations such as these, and by the powerful temptations of a sensual paradise, the roving tribes of Arabia awakened from their inglorious and solitary independence, coalesced, and with the view of extirpating polytheism, conquered half the globe. Greatly however as the Koran owes its extension to the power of the sword, it can boast of a morality very pure; the mild virtues of hospitality and charity are inculcated as indispensable duties, and its doctrines of the unity and perfections of the deity, and of a resurrection to immortal life, are at once rational and sublime. The Musulman who wishes to be respectable must fulfil the law of bestowing a tenth of his property, and, by strict temperance and frequent ablution, prepare his soul and body in con formity to the commands of God and his apostle; and though the idea of a carnal paradise has called forth the indignation of the Ascetic, yet has the Prophet expressly declared that all meaner happiness of this kind will be abjured and despised by those holy men who shall be admitted to the beatitude of the divine vision. Let us consider moreover, that from the rational faith and practice of Islam, all worship of saints, martyrs, relics and images, all mystery and metaphysical subtlety, all monastic seclusion, and enthusiastic pennance, were banished, and that it superseded the idolatrous worship of the Caaba, the rites of Sabianism, and the altars of Zoroaster. After these cursory remarks on the religion of Mohammed, I shall proceed to the more immediate purposes of this paper, and give a short account of the magnificence and manners,' literature and science of the Caliphats of Bagdad and Cordova, during the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, a period in which christian Europe, as we have seen, was immersed in the profoundest ignorance and superstition.Upon the expulsion of the Ommiades, Almansor, the second Caliph of the race of Abbas, not willing to reside at Damascus, the former capitol of the house of Ommiah, laid the foundations of Bagdad A. D. 762, the seat of his posterity during a reign of five hundred years. Nearly about the same time A. D. 755, Abdalrahman, a royal youth of the race of the Ommiades, escaping from the proscription of his kindred, took refuge in Spain, was received with triumph by the people of Andalusia, and after a glorious struggle, planted the throne of Cordova, and gave origin to the Ommiades of Spain, under whose prosperous sway this country attained a population and fertility which has not since been equalled. Bagdad was built on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and its population during the ninth. century was so great that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended by eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women of Bagdad and the neighbouring villages. Here, amid the luxuries of the east, the once temperate and simple Caliphs of Arabia, aspired to rival and to surpass the magnificence of the Persian Kings. The treasure left by Almansor, amounting to thirty millions sterling, was in a few years exhausted by the munificence |