Haroun Al
Raschid, Almamon, and the Bermasides.[5]

The Abbassides retained the caliphate during five successive
centuries.[6] At the termination of {49} that period, they were
despoiled of their power by the Tartar posterity of Gengis Khan, after
{50} having witnessed the establishment of a race of Egyptian caliphs
named _Fatimites_, the pretended descendants of Fatima, the daughter of
Mohammed.

Thus was the Eastern empire of the Arabs eventually destroyed: the
descendants of Ishmael returned to the country from which they had
originally sprung, and gradually reverted to nearly the same condition as
that in which they existed when the Prophet arose among them. {51} These
events, from the founding of the dynasty of the Abbassides, have been
anticipated in point of time in the relation, because henceforth the
history of Spain is no longer intermingled with that of the East.

After having dwelt briefly upon an event intimately connected as well
with the establishment of the Abbassides upon the Moslem throne as with
the history of Spain, we will enter continuously upon the main subject of
our work.

To return, then, for a moment, to the downfall of the Ommiade caliphs.

When the cruel Abdalla had placed his nephew, Aboul-Abbas, on the throne
of the Caliphs of Damascus, he formed the horrible design of
exterminating the Ommiades. These princes were very numerous. With the
Arabs, among whom polygamy is permitted, and where numerous offspring are
regarded as the peculiar gift of Heaven, it is not unusual to find
several thousand individuals belonging to the same family.

Abdalla, despairing of effecting the destruction of the race of his
enemies, dispersed as they were by terror, published a general amnesty to
all the Ommiades who should present themselves before him on a certain
day. Those ill-fated {52} people, confiding in the fulfilment of his
solemn promises, hastened to seek safety at the feet of Abdalla. The
monster, when they were all assembled, caused his soldiers to surround
them, and then commanded them all to be butchered in his presence. After
this frightful massacre, Abdalla ordered the bloody bodies to be ranged
side by side in close order, and then to be covered with boards spread
with Persian carpets. Upon this horrible table he caused a magnificent
feast to be served to his officers. One shudders at the perusal of such
details, but they serve to portray the character of this Oriental
conquer