ogenitor, as the Aglabite
dynasty. Early in the ninth century, {239} the throne of Mauritania,
Massilia, and Carthage was seized by Obeidollah, whose successors
assumed the title of Mihidi, or directors of the faithful. The
districts of Fez and Tangiers, which had been already wrested from the
princes of Bagdad by the real or pretended posterity of Ali, were soon
brought under his dominion; and, before the end of the tenth century,
all acknowledgment of the Abbassidan rule was obliterated by the
suppression of public prayers for the princes of that race. A
succession of changes distracted the country for some five centuries
afterward; but, about the year 1516, the descendants of Mohammed were
raised to the throne of Morocco, which has been transmitted, without
interruption, in the same line, to its present possessors. Moez, the
last of the African princes of the house of Obeidollah, who seems to
have depended for his dominion more on his prowess than on his supposed
descent from Mohammed,[3] transferred his court to Grand Cairo, a city
which he had built in Egypt after his conquest of that country. Africa
was to be held as a fief of this new empire. Large tracts of Syria and
the whole of Palestine acknowledged the {240} supremacy of his
descendants, commonly known as Fatimites, from their supposed
relationship to Ali, and to Fatima, the Prophet's daughter. They
possessed also the sovereignty of the Holy Land; against them,
therefore, the crusades of Europe were chiefly directed. During these
formidable wars the caliphs of Egypt sought assistance from those of
Bagdad; and Noureddin, a prince of that empire, protected them against
their Western assailants. The weakness of Egypt, however, came thus to
be known to the crafty and powerful caliphs of Bagdad, and in a short
time its Asiatic dominions were seized upon by Noureddin and Saladin.
As Adhed, the last caliph of Egypt, was dying in the mosque of Cairo,
these generals proclaimed Morthadi, the thirty-third caliph of Bagdad,
as his successor. Saladin, whose name, from his activity, courage, and
success against the crusaders, is better known to the readers of
European history than that of almost any other Mohammedan prince, soon
made himself master of Egypt; but his successors could not maintain the
power he had acquired. The country is now governed by the celebrated
Mohammed Ali, nominally as viceroy of the Turkish emperor, though he is
in reality a sovereign a