who was delivered by his impiety
and despotism from the fear either of God or man; and whose reign was a
wild mixture of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient customs
of Egypt, he imposed on the women an absolute confinement; the restraint
excited the clamors of both sexes; their clamors provoked his fury;
a part of Old Cairo was delivered to the flames and the guards and
citizens were engaged many days in a bloody conflict. At first the
caliph declared himself a zealous Mussulman, the founder or benefactor
of moschs and colleges: twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Koran
were transcribed at his expense in letters of gold; and his edict
extirpated the vineyards of the Upper Egypt. But his vanity was soon
flattered by the hope of introducing a new religion; he aspired above
the fame of a prophet, and styled himself the visible image of the Most
High God, who, after nine apparitions on earth, was at length manifest
in his royal person. At the name of Hakem, the lord of the living and
the dead, every knee was bent in religious adoration: his mysteries were
performed on a mountain near Cairo: sixteen thousand converts had signed
his profession of faith; and at the present hour, a free and warlike
people, the Druses of Mount Libanus, are persuaded of the life and
divinity of a madman and tyrant. In his divine character, Hakem hated
the Jews and Christians, as the servants of his rivals; while some
remains of prejudice or prudence still pleaded in favor of the law of
Mahomet. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton persecution
made some martyrs and many apostles: the common rights and special
privileges of the sectaries were equally disregarded; and a general
interdict was laid on the devotion of strangers and natives. The temple
of the Christian world, the church of the Resurrection, was demolished
to its foundations; the luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and
much profane labor was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock
which properly constitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this
sacrilege, the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted: but
instead of arming in the defence of the Holy Land, they contented
themselves with burning, or banishing, the Jews, as the secret advisers
of the impious Barbarian. Yet the calamities of Jerusalem were in some
measure alleviated by the inconstancy or repentance of Hakem himself;
and the royal mandate was sealed for the restitution of the chur