s have noticed that the numeral eight affected this
caliph in a singular manner. Between himself and Abbas, the head of his
house, there were eight generations; he was born in the month of Shaban,
the eighth month of the Mussulman year; he was the eighth Abbasidian
caliph, and ascended the throne in the year 218, aged thirty-eight years
and eight months; he reigned eight years, eight months, and eight days,
and died in the forty-eighth year of his age, leaving eight sons and
eight daughters. He fought in eight battles, and on his death eight
million dinars and eighty thousand dirhems were discovered in his
private treasury. It is this singular coincidence which gave him the
name Mutamma.

[Illustration: 351.jpg TOMB OF A SHEIKH]

But a sadder fatality exercised its influence over the Caliph Mutamma,
for from him dates the beginning of the decadence of his dynasty, and
to him its first cause may be ascribed. The fact is, Mutasim was
uneducated, without ability, and lacking in moral principles; he was
unable even to write. Endowed with remarkable strength and muscles
of iron, he was able, so Arab historians relate, to lift and carry
exceptionally heavy weights; to this strength was added indomitable
courage and love of warfare, fine weapons, horses, and warriors. This
taste led him, even before the death of his father, to organise a picked
corps, for which he selected the finest, handsomest, and strongest of
the young Turkish slaves taken in war, or sent as tribute to the caliph.

The vast nation, sometimes called Turks, sometimes Tatars, was
distributed, according to all Oriental geographers, over all the
countries of Northern Asia, from the river Jihun or Oxus to Kathay or
China. That the Turks and the Arabs, both bent upon a persistent
policy of conquest, should come into more or less hostile contact
was inevitable. The struggle was a long one, and during the numerous
engagements many prisoners were taken on both sides. Those Turks who
fell into the hands of the Arabs were sent to the different provinces
of their domain, where they became slaves of the chief emirs and of the
caliphs themselves, where, finding favour in the eyes of the caliphs,
they were soon transferred to their personal retinue. The distrust which
the caliphs felt for the emirs of their court, whose claims they were
only able to appease by making vassals of them, caused them to commit
the grave error of confiding in these alien slaves, who, barbaric