e, that they vanquished the Soffarian army, eight
times more numerous than their own. The captive Amrou was sent in
chains, a grateful offering to the court of Bagdad; and as the victor
was content with the inheritance of Transoxiana and Chorasan, the realms
of Persia returned for a while to the allegiance of the caliphs. The
provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by their Turkish
slaves of the race of _Toulon_ and _Ilkshid_. These Barbarians, in
religion and manners the countrymen of Mahomet, emerged from the bloody
factions of the palace to a provincial command and an independent
throne: their names became famous and formidable in their time; but the
founders of these two potent dynasties confessed, either in words or
actions, the vanity of ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the
mercy of God to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power:
the second, in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight
thousand slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where he
attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of kings;
and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by the Abbassides
during an interval of thirty years. In the decline of their empire,
Mesopotamia, with the important cities of Mosul and Aleppo, was occupied
by the Arabian princes of the tribe of _Hamadan_. The poets of their
court could repeat without a blush, that nature had formed their
countenances for beauty, their tongues for eloquence, and their hands
for liberality and valor: but the genuine tale of the elevation and
reign of the _Hamadanites_ exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and
parricide. At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was again
usurped by the dynasty of the _Bowides_, by the sword of three brothers,
who, under various names, were styled the support and columns of the
state, and who, from the Caspian Sea to the ocean, would suffer no
tyrants but themselves. Under their reign, the language and genius of
Persia revived, and the Arabs, three hundred and four years after the
death of Mahomet, were deprived of the sceptre of the East.

Rahadi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirty-ninth of the
successors of Mahomet, was the last who deserved the title of commander
of the faithful; the last (says Abulfeda) who spoke to the people,
or conversed with the learned; the last who, in the expense of his
household, represented the wealth and magnificence of the ancient
c