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 Illustrations have been included from the print version. Cairo, Jerusalem, & Damascus: three chief cities of the Egyptian Sultans. With illus. in colour by W. S. S. Tyrwhitt, and additional plates by Reginald Barratt. Margoliouth, D. S. (David Samuel), 1858-1940

"Of this special edition ... one hundred and twelve copies have been printed ... No. 1."

 xiii, 473 p. incl. illus., 57 col. pl. col. front. 23 cm. Chatto and Windus; Dodd, Mead and Co. London; New York From Fondren Library, Rice University, DT 153 .M25 1907. 1907

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 Library of Congress Subject Headings 1907 English Tyrwhitt, Walter Spencer-Stanhope, 1859- (illustrator) Barratt, Reginald, 1861-1917(illustrator) Cairo (Egypt) Jerusalem Damascus (Syria) December 2005 LMS ed. Spellchecked, corrected tagging errors, verified and enhanced metadata. October 2006 LMS ed. Automatically added place name markup.

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CAIRO JERUSALEM & DAMASCUS

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LONDON:CHATTO & WINDUS

THE SPHINX By permission of the Hon. John Collier

Illustration of title-page
CAIRO JERUSALEM & DAMASCUS THREE CHIEF CITIES OF THE EGYPTIAN SULTANS. BY D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, D.Litt. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY W. S. S. TYRWHITT, R.B.A., AND ADDITIONAL PLATES BY REGINALD BARRATT, A.R.W.S. LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS MCMVII

The design on the side of the binding is reproduced after a Syrian tile of the XVIIIth Century from a Damascus mosque.

Copyright in the United States of America, 1907, by Dedd, Mead, and Co.

DEDICATED TO HER HIGHNESS PRINCESS NAZLI, DAUGHTER OF MUSTAFA FADL PASHA AND GREAT-GRAND-DAUGHTER OF MOHAMMED ALI PASHA

Madame,—I utilize your kindly permission to dedicate a book to you by offering this, in the confidence that the work of the artists will have your approval, whatever may be your judgment on the text. The scenes which they have painted, and which I have attempted to describe, are familiar to your Highness from childhood. In and about them your ancestors have played a great part, and two out of the three cities illustrated here are indissolubly connected with their names. It has long been your Highness's custom to judge with leniency and sympathy whatever comes from this country to yours; may the same charity be extended to this book.

Your Highness's humble servant, THE AUTHOR PREFACE

THE task of composing the letterpress to accompany Mr Walter Tyrwhitt's paintings of scenes at Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascus was offered to the present writer, an occasional visitor at those cities, as a relief from the labour of editing and translating Arabic texts. The chance of being associated at any time in his life with the Fine Arts constituted a temptation which he was unable to resist.

The account of Cairo has been based on the Khitat Taufikiyyab Jaddiah of Ali Pasha Mubarak, corrected and supplemented from various sources, especially the admirable memoirs published by the French Archaeological Mission at Cairo, and bearing the names of Ravaisse, Casanova, and Van Berchem. Monographs dealing with particular buildings have been used when available, especially those of Herz Bey: the author regrets that he has not been able to get access to all this eminent architect's works. Of historical treatises employed he need only mention the History of Modern Egypt (Arabic) by his friend, G. Zaidan, which has been of use especially for the Turkish period.

For Chapter XI (Jerusalem) the author must acknowledge his obligation to the works published by the Palestine Exploration Fund, especially those by Wilson, Warren, Conder, and Lestrange. For Chapter XII (Damascus) he has derived much help from the Déscription de Damas, translated, with an

excellent commentary, by M. Sauvaire of the Institut in the Journal Asiatique, sér, ix, vols 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

The architectural paragraphs have been either revised or written by Mrs Margoliouth, who has had training in architectural drawing. The treatises on Arabic Art of Gayet, Saladin, and Lane-Poole have been studied with profit. The author has, however, abstained from consulting the work of the last of these writers on Cairo: for, owing to Mr Lane-Poole's unique qualifications for dealing with this subject, the perusal of his book might have involved anyone else writing on the same theme in plagiarism.

Oxford, September, 1907. CONTENTS

Chap. I. Cairo before the Fatimides Page 1 II. The Fatimide Period 18 III. Buildings of the Fatimide Period 40 IV. The Ayyubid Period and its Buildings 49 V. The First Mamluke Sovereigns 65 VI. Nasir and his Sons 82 VII. The Early Circassian Mamlukes 102 VIII. The last of the Circassian Mamlukes 122 IX. The Turkish Period 136 X. The Khedivial Period 154 XL Jerusalem: an Historical Sketch 175 XII. The Praises of Damascus 228 XIII. Scenes from the History of Damascus 249 Appendix. The Massacre of 1860 275 Glossary 287 Index 291

ILLUSTRATIONS Coloured Plates

The Sphinx Frontispiece The Sentinel of the Nile Facing p. 2 Tooloon (Tulun) Mosque, Cairo 8 In a Cairene Street 12 Midan-el-Adaoui (Maidan El-Adawi) 24 Street Scene, Bab el Sharia (Bab Al-sha'Riyyah), Cairo 36 Old Gateway near Bab-al-Wazir, Cairo 42 Sharia el Azhar (Shari-al-Azhar), Cairo 44 Courtyard of the Mosque of El Azhar, University of Cairo 46 A Mosque in the Saida Zeineb (Sayyidah Zainab) Quarter, Cairo 48 The Citadel of Cairo 50 An Old Palace, Cairo 58 Door of a Mosque, Cairo 64 Mosque of Sultan Baibars, Cairo 70 The Khan El Gamaliyeh (Jamaliyyah), Cairo 84 A Street near El Gamaliyeh (Jamaliyyah), Cairo 86 Mosque of Almas; Interior, Cairo 88 Minaret of Ibrahim Agha's Mosque, Cairo 90 Outside the Mosque of Ibrahim Agha, Cairo 92 Ibrahim Agha's Mosque: the Interior 94 The Washing-place, Ibrahim Agha's Mosque 96 Interior of the Mosque of Shakhoun (Shaikhun), Cairo 98 The Tentmakers’ Bazaar, Cairo 102

An Old House near the Tentmakers' Bazaar, Cairo Facing p. 106 Tombs of the Caliphs, Cairo 108 The Dome of El Moaiyad (Muayyad) from Bab Zuweyleh (Zuwailah), Cairo 110 A Courtyard near the Tentmakers' Bazaar, Cairo 120 Palace of Kait Bey (Kaietbai), Cairo 130 The Mosque el Ghoree (Ghuri), Cairo 132 Mosques in the Sharia Bab al Wazir, Cairo 138 A Side Street in Cairo 142 A Street Scene in Cairo 148 Sharia el Kirabiyeh or Street of the Water Carriers, Cairo 154 The Khan el Dobabiyeh (Dubabiyyah), Cairo 160 Cairo: Shari Darb el Gamamiz (Jamamiz) 164 Souk Silah, the Armourers' Bazaar, Cairo 172 The Fair, Moolid el Ahmadee (Maulid Ahmadi), Cairo 174 Morning in Jerusalem: The Dome of the Rock on the Shaded Side 176 Jerusalem: The Dome of Kait Bey (Kaietbai) Haram-es-Shereef (Sharif) 204 The Gate of the Cotton Merchants, Jerusalem 208 South Porch of Mosque and Summer Pulpit, Jerusalem 210 Dome of the Rock from Al Aksa, Jerusalem 214 Haram es Shereef (Sharif ), Jerusalem 216 Damascus from the Salahiyeh (Salihiyyah): Sunset over the City 222

House of Naaman, Damascus Facing p. 224 Tomb of Sheik (Shaikh) Arslan, Damascus 226 Walls of the City and Barada River, Damascus 228 The Hamareh (Suk Ali Pasha), Damascus 230 A Khan in Damascus 234 (I) Syrian Tile of the XVIIIth Century, from a Damascus Mosque, (2) Syrian Tile, XVIth or XVIIth Century, from a Damascus Mosque 236 Minaret of the Bride, Damascus 238 Damascus, Minaret of Jesus 240 General View of Damascus in Early Spring 242 Traditional Site where St Paul was let down in a Basket, Damascus 246 Domes of Damascus 252 The Moslem Cemetery and View of Mount Hermon, Damascus 258 The Maidan, Damascus 262 Near the Maidan, Damascus 266

Line Drawings Hezekiah's Pool 181 Tower Antonia, Jerusalem 209 Dome of the Rock, Interior 217 Summer Pulpit, Haram Area 223

THE following illustrations have been reproduced by the courtesy of their owners:

Tooloon Mosque; In a Cairene Street; A Street Scene, Cairo; The Mosque El Ghoree, Cairo; and Door of a Mosque, Cairo, by kind permission of the owner, T. M. Kitchin, Esq.: and the Sentinel of the Nile, by kind permission of the owner, M. le Vicomte R. d'Humières.

ERRATA. The titles of the two plates “Morning in Jerusalem: The Dome of the Rock on the Shaded Side,” and “Minaret of Ibrahim Agha's Mosque,” are incorrectly given on the plates themselves as “Morning in Jerusalem: the Mosque of Omar on the Shaded Side,” and “Mosques in the Sharia Bab-el-Wazir.” Where the phonetic spelling of other titles differs in text and illustrations, the alternative titles are given in brackets in the list of illustrations and on the tissues.

Addendum

OF the Plates in this Volume the Frontispiece and those facing Pages 2, 8,12,50,64,132,148,174 are after Mr REGINALD BARRATT, A.R.W.S.; the remainder after Mr WALTER S. S. TYRWHITT, R.B.A.; the line drawings by Mr P. B. WHELPLEY.

CAIRO CHAPTER I Cairo before the Fatimides

IF modern Egypt is a doubly dependent country, tributary to one empire, and protected by another, a few centuries ago it claimed to be not only independent but imperial. Its capital, Cairo, was founded when the power of Baghdad was already declining, and for two centuries it maintained a Caliph who contested with his Eastern rival the possession of Syria, Palestine and Arabia. And when in the thirteenth century the Mongol storm wrecked the great metropolis of Islam on the Tigris, it was at Cairo that sovereigns arose capable of rebuilding an Islamic empire, and repelling the Mongols beyond the Euphrates. For two-and-a-half centuries Cairo remained the capital of western Islam, and the seat of the most powerful Mohammedan state, sending out governors to many provinces, and recognized as suzerain even where it did not appoint the ruler: being itself the laboratory of a political experiment perhaps never tried elsewhere. Its monarchs bore the title Slaves (Mamluke), not in mock humility like the Servus servorum Dei, but in the plain and literal sense of the term. The occupant of the throne was ordinarily a Turk, Circassian or Greek, who had been purchased in the market, and then climbed step by step, or at times by leaps and bounds, a ladder of honours at the top of which was the Sultan's throne. A slave with slaves for ministers constituted the

court, and men of the same origin officered the army. The talents which had raised the first sovereign to the first place were rarely, if ever, handed on to his offspring; the natural heir to the throne could seldom maintain himself on it for more than a few months or years. To have passed through the slave-dealer's hands seemed to be a necessary qualification for royalty.

In the country which gave them their title these rulers housed as strangers. To its religion they indeed conformed, but with its language they were usually unfamiliar. The life of the nation was affected by their justice or injustice, and the wisdom or unwisdom of their policy internal and external; but in the nation they took no root. Hence one battle displaced them for the Ottomans, just as one battle in our day put the country under the power of Great Britain.

Cairo then eclipsed Baghdad, to be eclipsed after two-and-a-half centuries by Constantinople; but to the dynasty under which it reached the zenith of its fame and power it did not owe its foundation. That took place in the tenth century A.D., when an army was sent to invade Egypt by the descendant of a successful adventurer, who, claiming to be of the Prophet Mohammed's line, had founded a dynasty in North Africa. The place where this army had encamped, after capturing the older metropolis, was chosen to be the site of the new one. And it was called Victoria (Káhirah) in commemoration of the conquest already achieved, and as an augury of others to be won.

Those who found cities to inaugurate new dynasties ordinarily keep near the beaten track. Cairo is but two miles to the north of Fostat, which had been the capital of the country from the time of the Mohammedan conquest. Its name is the Latin word Fossalum “an entrenchment”—and it was the camp of the conquering army which, under Amr son of al-As, had wrested Egypt from the Byzantine empire, and

THE SENTINEL OF THE NILE.
which was made the seat of government because the Caliph of the time would have no water between his capital, Medinah, and any Islamic city. This is why the capital of Greek and Roman times, Alexandria, lost its pre-eminence. Fostat itself was not far from the remains of the ancient Memphis, and a city called Babylon, supposed to date from Persian times.

For some time the new city kept growing by the side of the old city without the latter losing much of its importance or its populousness, of which fabulous accounts are given by persons professing to be eyewitnesses. At one time it was supposed to contain 36,000 mosques and 1,270 public baths. A description of the fourteenth century, when it had long been on the decline, still gives it 480 small and 14 large mosques, 70 public baths and 30 Christian churches or monasteries. Fostat was celebrated not only for its size, its populousness and the wealth of its stores, but also for the foulness of its air—for the mountains screened it from the fresh breezes of the desert—and the carelessness of its inhabitants with regard to the most elementary precautions of cleanliness. Dead animals were flung into the streets and left there; the gutters discharged into the same Nile whence water for drinking was raised in myriads of buckets. The cause, however, of the eventual desolation of Fostat was not its unhealthiness, but the act of ruler of Egypt. Shawar, nominally vizier but really sovereign, in the year 1163 having to defend the country at once against the Franks and against a rival from Syria, despaired of saving the double city; so he committed the older capital to the flames. Twenty thousand bottles of naphtha and ten thousand lighted torches were distributed by his orders in Fostat, whence all the population had been cleared, to be harboured in the mosques, baths and wherever else there was space in Cairo. For fifty days the ancient city blazed; when at last the flames

were extinguished, all that remained of the capital of the first Moslem conqueror of Egypt was a pile of ashes.

The history of Cairo falls into five main periods: the Fatimide, the Ayyubid, the Mamluke, the Turkish, and the Khedivial. The Fatimides, though the first independent Moslem dynasty both in fact and in name that governed Egypt, had been preceded by some rulers only nominally dependent on Baghdad. The first of these was Ahmad Ibn Tulun, whose mosque still remains. The example of governing Egypt for its own good with the aid of a foreign garrison was set by this predecessor of Mohammed Ali, and has been repeatedly followed.

The materials for his biography are fairly copious, and the figure which emerges is like those of many Oriental statesmen—a combination of piety, benevolence, shrewdness and unscrupulousness. His father, Tulun, was a Turk, who had been sent by the governor of Bokhara in the tribute to Baghdad, to the Caliph Mamun, son of the famous Harun al-Rashid, early in the ninth century; for at that time part of the tribute of those Eastern dependencies was paid in slaves. Ere long he was manumitted, and rose to a post of some importance at the Caliph's court, which was beginning to depend on Turkish praetorians. His son, Ahmad, the future ruler of Egypt, was born September 20, 835. At the age of twenty-two, after his father's death, he obtained leave to migrate to Tarsus, a frontier city, exposed to attacks from the Byzantines, on the chance of seeing active service and obtaining regular pay. But his taste for theology was no less keen than that for the profession of arms, and at Tarsus he found opportunities for the profoundest study. At last, however, an earnest summons from his mother decided him to return, and he started for Samarra, where at the time the Eastern Caliph had fixed his residence. On this journey he got the first chance of displaying his military

capacity. The caravan, five hundred strong, to which he had attached himself was conveying a great collection of contraband treasures from Constantinople to Samarra. After passing Edessa, and having reached what was supposed to be safe ground, it was attacked by Arab banditti, whom Ahmad succeeded in defeating, thereby rescuing the Caliph's treasure from their hands. This act placed him high in his sovereign's favour. Ere long a palace revolution led to this sovereign's deposition, and Ahmad Ibn Tulun accompanied him to exile at Wasit, in the capacity of guardian, in which he conducted himself with modesty and gentleness. A command from Samarra to dispatch his prisoner was disobeyed by him; but he made no difficulty about handing his former sovereign over to another executioner.

In the year 868 Ahmad's stepfather was appointed governor of Egypt, and sent his stepson thither to represent him. On September 15 he entered Fostat, the then capital of the country, at the head of an army. His authority did not stretch over the whole land, and the financial department, chiefly connected with the collection of the tribute to be sent to Baghdad, was under another official, independent of the governor and inclined to thwart him. This finance minister, like many of his successors, had rendered himself unpopular by a variety of ingenious extortions, and in order to protect his life had surrounded himself with a bodyguard of a hundred armed pages. Ahmad excited this man's suspicion by refusing a handsome present of money, and demanding of him instead his bodyguard, which he was compelled to hand over. In spite of the finance minister's consequent endeavours to blacken Ahmad's character at court, fortune continued to favour the deputy governor persistently. In 869 his stepfather was executed, but the government of Egypt was conferred upon his father-in-law, who not only retained Ahmad in office, but placed under him those Egyptian

districts which had previously been independent of him. By the suppression of various risings he won such a reputation for ability and loyalty that when in 872 the governor of Syria rebelled against the Caliph and appropriated the Egyptian tribute, Ahmad was summoned to Syria and authorized to gather forces sufficient to quell the rebellion. These forces were not actually employed for this purpose, but they were not disbanded, and Ahmad on his return to Egypt ordered a new suburb north of Fostat to be built for their accommodation. This suburb, which covered a site previously occupied by Jewish and Christian burial grounds, was called Kata'i “the fiefs,” and was divided into streets assigned to the different classes of which the army was formed; its area was about a square mile. It has been remarked that each epoch in the development of the Moslem capital of Egypt was marked by the fresh location of a permanent camp; and the origin of Fostat and Kata'i will be reproduced in the cases of Cairo and its citadel.

The next years were spent by Ahmad in consolidating his power, and by various devices, not unscrupulous for an Oriental, getting free from his enemies. Agents were maintained by him in Baghdad to intercept communications from Egypt directed against himself, and summary punishment meted out to those from whom the communications emanated. By bribes wisely administered at court he contrived that all to whom the governorship of Egypt was offered should decline it; and by lending money through agents on easy terms he gained a hold on many a potential enemy. The finance minister who had stood in his way was after a time induced to resign his post, and Ahmad, who took it over, released his subjects from the onerous imposts to which they had been subjected; an act of piety for which he is supposed to have been rewarded by luck in the discovery of treasures; but whether these discoveries actually took place or were

fictions of Ahmad himself or his biographers is unknown. In 876, owing to exorbitant demands made by the Caliph's brother then occupied in fighting with a pretender who had raised the standard of revolt in the marshes of the Euphrates, Ahmad definitely threw off his allegiance; an army was equipped against him, but owing to mutiny it never came near the Egyptian frontier. In the following year Ahmad seized Syria, and advanced as far as Tarsus, whence he withdrew after establishing peaceful relations with the Byzantine emperor.

To Ahmad Ibn Tulun three buildings were ascribed, of which only one remains intact. In 873 he founded the first hospital of Moslem Egypt: its site, in a quarter called Askar, south west of the new quarter Kata'i, is accurately described by the great mediaeval topographer of Cairo, by whose time it was already ruined. According to custom, the rents of a number of buildings were given it by way of endowment. Patients, during their stay in it, were to be fed and clothed at the expense of the hospital; when by eating a chicken and a roll one of them had given evidence of being restored to health, his garments and any money that he had brought were returned to him, and he was dismissed. Ahmad Ibn Tulun was a diligent visitor at his hospital until a practical joke played by a lunatic under treatment there gave the founder a distaste for further visits.

Another work ascribed to the same ruler is an aqueduct, by which water raised at a well on a spur of Mount Mokattam was brought northwards. The aqueduct, at its commencement not more than six metres high, gradually becomes level with the ground. The ruins of this engineering work were identified by Corbet-Bey (to whose article in the Journal of the Asiatic Society for 1891 we shall be indebted for part of the description of Ahmad's Mosque), with an aqueduct known as Migret al-Imam, commencing opposite

the village of Basatin. According to this writer the structure of the aqueduct confirms the legend which makes it the work of the same architect who afterwards built the Mosque, and who, for having allowed some fresh mortar to remain on which one day Ahmad's horse stumbled, was rewarded for his services with five hundred blows and imprisonment. The immediate purpose of the aqueduct was to furnish water to a mosque called the Mosque of the Feet, which, though renewed after Ahmad's time, seems to have disappeared. It served, however, for a much larger community than the keepers of the mosque, and like the rest of this ruler's institutions was well endowed. The excellence of the construction of the aqueduct caused it to be imitated afterwards, it is said, without success. In 1894 a small sum was devoted by the Committee for the Preservation of the Monuments of Arab Art to its repair.

More permanent than either of these works has been the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun, built during the years 877-879. Only two mosques for public worship preceded it in Egypt, if we may believe the chroniclers—one, the old Mosque of Amr, the conqueror of Egypt, of which the original has quite disappeared, though a building is still called by its name: another, long forgotten, in the quarter called Askar, the creation of which came between that of Fostat and Kata'i. The people of Fostat are said to have complained that the Mosque of Amr was not large enough to hold all Ahmad's black soldiers at Friday service; yet since Mohammedan potentates have ordinarily endeavoured to perpetuate their names by the erection of religious edifices, this motive is not required to explain the undertaking. Mr Lane Poole has observed that the older form of mosque consisted of an area enclosed by cloisters, which gave way to a form less wasteful of space, when ground became valuable. This was the design adopted by Ahmad Ibn Tulun,

TOOLON MOSQUE, CAIRO.
but a building of the size contemplated required a vast number of columns, such as could only be obtained by demolishing existing churches or oratories, since the supply to be had from ancient and disused edifices had run short; and it was only so that the Moslem builders supplied themselves with columns. The Coptic architect—if the legend may be believed—hearing in his prison of the ruler's difficulty, sent word to the effect that he could build the desired edifice without columns, or at least with only two. He could build with piers, and employ brick, a material better able to resist fire than marble. His offer was accepted, he was released and set to work.

The Mosque has been frequently represented and described, perhaps best by Corbet-Bey in the article to which reference has already been made. The hard red bricks of which it is constructed are eighteen centimetres long by eight wide, and about four thick, laid flat, and bound by layers of mortar from one-and-a-half to two centimetres thick, all covered with several layers of fine white plaster. The foundations are for the most part on the solid rock; the site being called the Hill of Yashkur, named after an Arab tribe who were settled there at the time of the conquest of Egypt, and employed before Ahmad's date as a trial ground for artillery. Owing to the nature of the foundation and the solidity of the building the whole Mosque, with slight exceptions, has resisted the effects of time, only one row of piers—the front row of the sanctuary—having fallen, in consequence of an earthquake on Sunday, June 8, 1814. The founder's desire that the edifice should survive fire and flood has therefore been fulfilled.

Besides the use of piers instead of columns, the building is noteworthy as exhibiting the first employment on a large scale in Moslem architecture of the pointed arch, which is said to be specially characteristic of Coptic architecture,

and indeed to be found in all Coptic churches and monasteries; the builder of the Mosque had already employed them in the Aqueduct. The arches (according to Corbet's measurements) spring from a height of 4.64 metres from the ground, rising at the apex to a perpendicular height of 3.70 metres from the spring; their span is 4.56 metres, and there is a slight return. Above the piers the space between the arches is pierced by a small pointed arch, rising to the same height as the main arches, and indicating that the architect was aware of the mechanical properties of the pointed arch.

Four cloisters then—three consisting of double rows and one of a fivefold row of piers—surround a square court, of which the sides measure ninety and ninety-two metres, while the whole Mosque covers an area of 143 by 119. On three sides the whole is enclosed by a surrounding wall at a distance of about fifteen metres from the cloisters. Various geometrical ornaments in low relief are worked in the stucco both round and above the arches, as they appear in the painting, which, however, represents not such arches as have been described, but windows in the wall of the same type as those which support the roof of the colonnades, but springing from engaged dwarf columns. A line of stucco ornament of a similar type runs above the small arches over the colonnades; the space between this and the roof of sycamore beams is filled with wooden planks, containing verses of the Koran in Cufic letters cut in wood and attached to the planking. Exaggerated accounts make this frieze contain the whole of the Koran; but Corbet-Bey's calculations show that they could never have contained more than a seventeenth part of the Moslem sacred book.

Two features of interest are the dome in the centre of the court and the minaret on the north side. The central space was originally occupied by a fountain, for ornament not for ablution, a ceremony for which the founder had already

made provision elsewhere. The fountain was in a marble basin, covered by a dome resting on ten marble columns and surmounted by another resting on sixteen. There were thus above the fountain two chambers, from each of which the Muezzin could utter the call to prayer; while the roof had a parapet of teak wood, and had on it something resembling a sundial. The whole of this marble erection was destroyed by fire on Thursday, September 7, 892, nine years after the founder's death, and more than a hundred years elapsed before it was replaced.

The original minaret begins as a square tower, above which there is a round tower, each of which has an external staircase, broad enough for two loaded camels to mount; to these, in later times, two octagonal towers with internal staircases, after the style of the ordinary minaret, have been added. In explanation of this remarkable shape the Moslems tell a story how Ahmad Ibn Tulun, who considered it beneath his dignity to trifle in council, once by accident played with a roll of paper, and to conceal his momentary lapse asserted that he was making the model after which theminaret of his mosque should be built. Other writers, however, state that both the Mosque and its minaret were copied from the great Mosque of Samarra, which in Ahmad Ibn Tulun's time had been the metropolis of the Caliphate; and though Samarra quickly went to ruins when the supremacy of Baghdad had been restored, we hear something of a wonderful minaret there, whence a view of the surrounding country could be obtained. Corbet-Bey imagines the form of the minaret to resemble that of Zoroastrian fire-towers; and this suggestion seems to account for the occurrence of the type at Samarra, which it was natural for a provincial governor to copy. The tower was at one time surmounted by a boat, standing by which, after the completion of his work, the Christian architect is said to have demanded his

reward, which this time was amply accorded. The same ornament continued till May, 1694, when it was blown off in a gale, but it was afterwards for a time replaced.

The total cost of the building is given unanimously by our authorities as a sum which works out at about $60,000; and when Ahmad's subjects doubted whether this money had been lawfully obtained, and therefore whether the Mosque could safely be used for worship, the founder is said to have silenced their scruples by assuring them that it had all been built out of treasure trove—money almost miraculously supplied by heaven's favour. Tales are told of the magnificence of the decoration and furniture provided for the inaugural ceremony; how it was even intended to encircle the Mosque with a line of ambergris, that the worshippers might always have a fragrant odour to delight their sense. The dedicatory inscription was engraved on more than one marble stele, and parts of one of these have recently been rediscovered and fixed to one of the pillars of the sanctuary, opposite the mihrab, or niche, marking the direction of prayer. It runs as follows:

“In the name of, etc. The Emir Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad Ibn Tulun, client of the Commander of the Faithful, whose might, honour and perfect favour God prolong in this world and the next, commanded that this holy, happy Mosque be built for the Moslem community, out of legitimate and well-gotten wealth granted him by God. Desiring thereby the favour of God and the future world, and seeking that which will conduce to the glory of religion and the unity of the believers, and aspiring to build a house for God and to pay His due and to read His Book, and to make perpetual mention of Him; since God Almighty says, In houses which God has permitted to be raised, wherein His name is mentioned, and wherein praise is rendered unto Him morning and evening by men that are distracted

IN A CAIRENE STREET.
neither by merchandise nor by selling from making mention of God, reciting prayer and giving alms, fearing a day wherein the hearts and eyes shall be troubled, that God may reward them for the good that they have wrought, and may give them yet more out of His bounty. And God bestows on whom He will without reckoning. In the month Ramadan of the year 265. Exalt thy Lord, the Lord of might, over that which they ascribe to Him. And peace be on the messengers and praise unto God the Lord of the worlds. O God, be gracious unto Mohammed, and Mohammed's family, and bless Mohammed and his family even according to the best of Thy favour and grace and blessing upon Abraham and his family. Verily Thou art glorious and to be praised.”

Of the history of the Mosque after Ahmad's time some notices are preserved. His suburb Kata'i, which contained not only his Mosque but also his vast palace and parade ground, was burned in 905; and as the surrounding locality became more and more deserted, the Mosque itself suffered from neglect. The second of the Fatimide Caliphs is said to have replaced the fountain, which, as we have seen, was burned soon after its erection; but the desolation of the region reached its climax during the long reign of the Fatimide Mustansir, and the Mosque came to be used as a resting-place for Moorish caravans on their way to Mecca, who stabled their camels in the cloisters. Its use as a hostel was countenanced by the Egyptian rulers of the twelfth century, who even provided food for those who made it their resting-place; such persons were also declared free from the ordinary tribunals, and told to appoint a judge of their own to settle any quarrels that might arise.

Systematic restoration was effected by the Mamluke Sultan Lajin, who, after murdering his master in the year 1294, took refuge in the then desolate Mosque, and there vowed

that, if he escaped his pursuers and eventually came to power, he would restore it. Two years later, being raised to the throne of Egypt, he was in a position to fulfil his promise; to which pious object he devoted a sum of about ten thousand pounds. He rebuilt the fountain in the centre of the court, turning it into a lavatory for the ceremonial ablution, and his building still remains; he provided a handsome mimbar or pulpit, of which some panels have found their way way into the South Kensington Museum; but the inscription which records his munificence is still there. He repaved the colonnades and restored the plastering of the walls. He also provided the Mosque with endowments sufficient to support a variety of officials, including professors of the chief Moslem sciences, and a school for children. Shortly after his time, early in the fourteenth century, the two minarets on the south side were built; and in 1370 the northern colonnade was rebuilt, and perhaps the arches which connect the minaret which has been described with the Mosque were constructed.

Under the dominion of the Turks the Mosque was again allowed to fall into neglect, and became a factory for the production of woollen goods; while in the nineteenth century it became a poorhouse for the aged and infirm, the arcades being built up and turned into a series of cells, and the interior profaned and desecrated in every possible way. The poorhouse was closed in 1877, and in 1890 the Committee for the Preservation of the Monuments of Arab Art succeeded in removing some traces of the injuries which the edifice had sustained, and it has ever since remained under their care.

The period between the death of Ahmad Ibn Tulun in 884 to the foundation of Cairo in 969 was in the highest degree eventful, but the events which it contained were of little consequence for the subject of this book. The last days of Ahmad

were embittered by the rebellion of one of his sons, who,being caught and imprisoned, was put to death shortly after the accession of another son, Khumaruyah, who reigned for thirteen years. He showed great competence both as a diplomatist and as a soldier; he restored friendly relations between the courts of Egypt and Baghdad, and received in fief from the Caliph for the period of thirty years a vast empire stretching from Barca to the Tigris. He was, however, more famous for his magnificence than for his statesmanship or his military skill. Wonderful tales are told of his palaces, his gardens and his menageries; of walls frescoed at his order with pictures of the ladies in his harem, with crowns on their heads; of trees set in silver, and exotics brought to Egypt from all parts; of a pond of mercury whereon was placed a bed of air-cushions, secured with silk and silver, that its perpetual rocking might give him the sleep which his physicians could not procure for him save by distasteful remedies; of the tame lion that guarded him sleeping; and of the wealth of Egypt expended on the dowry of his daughter, sent to Baghdad to wed the Caliph. The pond of mercury is apparently no fiction, since it is recorded that after his day men found the liquid metal all about the site where it had stood.

In 896 Khumaruyah was assassinated, it is said, in consequence of some indulgence; and his sons and other successors of his family were quite incapable of managing great affairs. Nine years after his death Egypt was conquered by a force sent from Baghdad, and the surviving members of the line of Ahmad Ibn Tulun were carried captive to the metropolis on the Tigris. Such parts of Kata'i as remained after the fire had only the status of an annex to Fostat. Once more the country was governed by a viceroy sent from Baghdad with a finance minister equal to him in authority.

The weakness of the Caliphate prevented this arrangement from working as it had worked in earlier times. Another Turk

from Farghanah, similar in a variety of ways to Ahmad Ibn Tulun, utilized the favour of a vizier with whom he had contracted an alliance to obtain by fraud an appointment to the governorship of Egypt. In August 935 this person entered Egypt as governor, having defeated other aspirants to the office; and shortly afterwards he obtained permission from headquarters to assume the title Ikhshid, which in his native country stood for “king”; somewhat as in the nineteenth century the Egyptian viceroy got from his Turkish suzerain the right to style himself Khedive. An enterprising chieftain deprived the Ikhshid of the provinces of Syria and Palestine by force of arms; and his being confirmed in their possession by the Caliph provoked such resentment in the mind of the Ikhshid that he bethought him of abandoning the Prophet's successor on the Tigris, and bestowing his homage on the pretender who was founding an empire in Western Islam.

The Ikhshidi dynastywas of even shorter duration than that of Ahmad Ibn Tulun, and left in Egypt even less to perpetuate its name. Its founder was charged by his contemporaries with avarice and cowardice, neither of them a quality which helps to secure immortality.

The system of slave rule, which, as has been seen, gave Egypt its best days, was anticipated in the interval between the death of the Ikhshid and the accession of the Fatimides. Of two negroes brought from the Sudan to the Egyptian market one aspired to employment in a cook shop, that he might never want food, the other aspired to become ruler of the country, and each obtained his wish. Purchased for a small sum, and passing through the lowest stages of misery and degradation, the latter rose finally by force of character to be the Ikhshid's first minister and general of his forces; and on his master's death he contrived to keep the heirs in a state of tutelage to himself, and afterwards to seat himself on their throne; displaying throughout capacity

for the management of great affairs. Kafur, “Camphor,” whose name of itself indicated the servile condition of its owner, was not only master of Egypt, Syria and Arabia, but in one respect was the most fortunate of all Oriental sovereigns. He obtained as his encomiast the most famous of Arabic poets, known as al-Mutanabbi “the Prophetaster,” at a time when the poet's powers were at their ripest; and although in consequence of a dispute these brilliant panegyrics were speedily followed by no less brilliant and scathing satires, the portrait of Kafur that results is more complete and more familiar than that provided by the paid eulogizer of any other Sultan.

It might be difficult to point out in Cairo any relic of the Ikhshidi period, though the idea of expanding Fostat towards the north appears to have found support while it lasted. Kafur laid out a vast park on the eastern bank of the Great Canal, containing a palace which formed his favourite residence. Afterwards, when Cairo was built, this park formed the garden of the Lesser Palace, constructed by the second of the Fatimide Sultans. And the Tibri Zawiyah, restored by Shafak Nur, mother of the late Khedive Tewfik, is on the site of a small mosque built by one of Kafur's ministers.

CHAPTER II The Fatimide Period

THE rights of members of the Prophet's house appeal to all Moslems, and there have always been multitudes among them holding that the succession should have fallen to the sons of his daughter rather than to the descendants of his uncle. At the time when the representatives of the latter in Baghdad had become puppets of foreign commanders, and the hold of Baghdad on Egypt as well as other provinces had become so lax as almost to be non-existent, a pretender to the succession through the Prophet's daughter had founded a kingdom in North Africa, which by conquest was steadily approaching the Egyptian frontier. To the Moslem population of Egypt allegiance to such a monarch seemed far less humiliating than to such foreigners and slaves as had ruled over them since the fall of the Tulunids. During the disorders that broke out after the death of Kafur, a Jew who had been employed in some government office, and received rough treatment from one of Kafur's ephemeral successors, betook him to the capital of the North African dynasty, a place called Mahdiyyah (or city of the Mahdi), and informed the professed descendant of Ali and Fatimah there reigning that the time was ripe for the occupation of Egypt. On Feb. 6, 969, an army was despatched under one Jauhar, said to be a Greek by origin, who by July 9 of the same year had crushed all resistance, and taken possession of the old capital Fostat. A formal procession of the troops was made on that day through the city, and they were quartered for the night on the plain to the north, where on the following night the lines of the

new city were drawn. The troops, for whom the new city was to provide a residence, numbered a hundred thousand mounted men.

The lines of the new city were determined by the canal, called the Canal of the Commander of the Faithful, which ran from Fostat towards the south-east, discharging at the port of Kulzum or Klysma. That is the dry canal (now the route of a tram-line) which bisects Cairo from south to north, the city having afterwards expanded on its western side, in the direction of the Nile, whose bed has since receded considerably in the same direction. For many centuries the view over this canal was the favourite sight in Cairo, and wealthy persons used to build their houses where they could enjoy it. The eastern boundary was also a canal, called the canal of the Red Mountain; it must have silted up at no great length of time after the building of Cairo, and no trace of it exists. The southern boundary of the new city was Mount Mokattam, with the two ruined suburbs of Fostat called al-Askar and al-Kata'i. There was also a canal on this side, supposed to have been dug by the first Moslem conqueror of Egypt. To the north there was no limit quite so definite, but the line was drawn well to the south of Ain Shams, and a canal was afterwards dug on this side also, so that the new city had moats on all four sides.

The lines drawn by Jauhar for the walls of the new city were found next morning to contain certain obliquities, but his belief in the auspiciousness of the moment chosen for their drawing prevented his afterwards rectifying them. These obliquities were in any case very slight; the walls when built enclosed a city that was practically foursquare, and nearly true to the cardinal points. We shall try under the guidance of Casanova to trace the remains of the ancient walls and gates.

The southern wall that looked towards Fostat was pierced

by the double gate called Zuwailah about the middle, and at the S.W. angle by the gate called Faraj (deliverance). On the West side there was a gate called Sa'adat, after one of the Fatimide generals who had entered the city thereby. Two other gates were afterwards cut in this wall: one called Khukhah (the wicket) near the bridge by which the Mouski passes over the canal, and another the Gate of the Bridge by which the canal was crossed at an earlier time. On the north side there were two gates, known as Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Futuh (both meaning Gates of Victory). On the east side there were also two, called Barkiyyah and Mahruk respectively: the second of these names belongs to a later time.

Rather more than a hundred years later—in 1087 A.D.—it wasfound necessary to rebuild the walls, this time with burned bricks, the original walls having probably been of mud. This was done by the order of the Fatimide Caliph Mustansir, and under the direction of his minister Badr al-Jamali, commonly called Emir al-Juyush (Prince of the Armies). The lines of Jauhar's wall were closely followed, except that the northern wall was extended so as to include the Mosque of Hakim, which had been built outside the old wall. This involved the displacing of the Nasr and Futuh Gates. The southern wall was also displaced, so that the Zuwailah Gate was given its present position. These three gates were, it is said, built by three brothers from Edessa, probably Syrian Christians. An inscription which at one time stood on the Bab Zuwailah stated that it had been erected in the year corresponding to 1091, whereas the Bab al-Nasr had been completed four years earlier. The former of these two gates was regarded as a masterpiece, unrivalled in the world for the size of its doors and the massiveness of the towers which defended it. A legend made the leaves revolve on pivots stuck in disks of glass. When the Muayyad Mosque was built in 1416, these

towers were employed as the foundation of the minarets, and much of the original construction on the side of the Mosque was reduced. The increase of traffic with the older town led to the wall at the side being demolished. The Committee has done much work upon the remains of the Gate, and in 1900 brought to light part of a Cufic inscription, which is, however, purely religious in character and contains neither the name of the founder nor the date.

Under the vault of the arch there used to be two chambers, of which that to the west is still in existence and communicates with the Muayyad Mosque. These chambers were used by the Egyptian sovereigns to watch various spectacles of which this part of the city formed the theatre, especially the starting and return of the Sacred Carpet (mahmil). Owing to the populousness of the region the gate was used for a variety of purposes which demanded publicity, notably the execution of criminals. Processions regularly had their route between the Futuh and Zuwailah Gates.

Eighty years later the great Saladdin finding the wall of Jauhar in ruins resolved to repair it. His idea was to build a single wall, which, starting from the Nile, should enclose both Fostat and Cairo and return to the Nile. The commencement of the wall, as planned by the great Sultan, was from Maks or Maksim (a name derived probably from a Roman named Maximus), the port of Cairo on the Nile, where Hakim built a Mosque, called afterwards the Mosque of the Gate of the Nile, or of the Sons of Anan. From this point the new wall went directly to the Great Canal. West of the Canal it was pierced by the Bab Sha'riyyah, still marked on the plans, named, it is said, after a Berber tribe encamped in the neighbourhood. Traces of the wall of Saladdin have been discovered by Casanova at various other points. From the north-east corner of the old wall the northern wall was continued for some hundreds of metres,

as far as a point called Burj Zafar (Tower of Victory), a name apparently chosen to accord with those of the gates already piercing the north wall; the extended line after a space went back to resume the line of the older wall, slightly north of the Bab al-Barkiyyah. That gate was, however, shifted to the east, as was also the case with the gate called Bab Mahruk, while two new gates were constructed called the New Gate and the Vizier's Gate. The southern wall, running from the Citadel to the Nile, so as to enclose the Mosque of Amr, had four gates, called respectively after the Cemetery, Safa, Old Cairo and the Bridge.

Of the gates that have been mentioned three, Zuwailah, (now usually called Mutwalli), Futuh and Nasr are fairly well preserved; the remainder no longer exist, but their names are preserved in the plans, and streets or spaces are called after them. The gate which has been mentioned above with the name Mahruk (the Burned) is said to have been previously called the Forage-dealers’ and to have changed its name owing to the following circumstance: On Thursday, September 27, 1254, the Emir Aktai, who had been planning to usurp the throne of the reigning Mamluke Aibek, was treacherously seized by the latter and assassinated within the Citadel. His followers, some seven hundred in number, determined the following night to leave Cairo and start in the direction of Syria. Finding the Foragedealers’ Gate locked, as usual at night, they set fire to it; when the gate was afterwards replaced, it was known as the Burned Gate.

A relic of Jauhar's work is left in the name Bain al-Kasrain “Between the two Palaces,” sometimes given to the Nahhasin Street. One of the general's first tasks was to build a palace for his master, and the site selected was on the eastern side of the great avenue which bisected the new city. Opposite, on the other side of the avenue, were the

gardens of Kafur, also containing the palace which that former sovereign of Egypt had occupied. The Great Eastern Palace, as this was called, to distinguish it from the Western Palace built by the second Fatimide Caliph, was commenced the same night as that on which the lines of the walls were drawn. The vast building, or series of buildings, was a city in itself, capable of containing 30,000 persons. A high wall, pierced with a number of gates, whose names are still preserved in some local appellations, screened it from the gaze of the population; and from a distance it seemed comparable to a mountain. Dissatisfied with this great palace, the second of the Fatimide Caliphs built himself a smaller one opposite. It was an open rectangle, embracing a recreation ground, which fronted the avenue “Between the two Palaces.”

These palaces, of which M. Ravaisse has endeavoured to reconstruct the general plan, were occupied by the Fatimide Caliphs till the fall of the dynasty. When Saladdin resolved to put an end to it, he found, it is said, in the Great Eastern Palace 12,000 persons, all of them women, with the sole exception of the Caliph and his sons, and other males of the imperial family. It was assigned by Saladdin to his ministers to dwell in; and it speedily went to rack and ruin. This was due to the building of the Citadel, which not only became the residence of the ruler, but of necessity that of the chief ministers as well.

The troops brought by Jauhar were assigned different quarters in the new city, where they proceeded to build. On the western side of the great avenue there were four quarters or Harahs—called respectively after Burjuwan, the Emirs, Jaudar and Zuwailah. Four other quarters lay to the west of these, and between them and the canal; these were called Farahiyyah, Murtahiyyah, Akrad (Kurds) and Mahmudiyyah. These names are mainly taken from either detachments of the army of Jauhar or from their captains. East of the

Avenue there were the upper and lower quarter of the Greeks, to the north and south respectively; east of the grand palace the quarter of the chief general; south of it the quarters of the Dailemites and Turks; north-east of it the quarter called after Utuf, a black captain; west of it the Barkiyyah quarter. Other quarters were built by less fortunate troops outside the walls.

According to the calculations of Ali Pasha Mubarak, the length of each side of Jauhar's city was about 1,200 metres, and the area 340 feddans,* of which 70 feddans were occupied by the great palace, thirty-five by the garden of Kafur, thirty-five by the two parade grounds, and the remaining 200 by the soldiers’ quarters. Between the western wall and the canal there was a distance of thirty metres. The new walls built by Emir al-Juyush gave the city a further extension of sixty feddans. The addition to Cairo of the space west of the canal towards the Nile and to the south towards the city of Ahmad Ibn Tulun took place during the period of the Mamlukes. Meanwhile the bed of the Nile has moved to a distance of something like a mile and a half west of its ancient course. The recovered land has gradually been built over, and by these repeated extensions the area of Cairo has reached something like six times that of the original city. * 4,200 square metres.

The early years of the Fatimide Caliphs were disturbed by the attacks of the Carmathians, against whom, as we have seen, Jauhar found it necessary to fortify Cairo with a series of trenches in addition to his wall. In origin the Carmathians and the Fatimides appear to have been the same, but the sects had become divided in the course of the century during which the former had been thriving in the West, while the original community had been devastating Arabia and the Eastern provinces of the Caliphate. Both followed a system of mysticism, one part of which was to

MIDAN EL-ADAOUI.
assign rights, more or less approximating to the divine, to the family of Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law; but whereas the practice of statesmanship had reduced the fanaticism of the Fatimides, their Eastern brethren were iconoclasts and persecutors of as vehement a sort as ever arose in Islam. At the period of the Fatimide conquest of Egypt the leader of the Carmathians, al-A'sam, had his headquarters in al-Ahsa on the Persian Gulf, but was in relations with the Caliph of Baghdad, and even employed forces nominally subject to the Caliph in wresting from Egyptian rule Damascus and other Syrian cities. The disturbed state of the region formerly held by the Ikhshidis enabled the Carmathian leader to gain a series of victories, till in October, 971, his army was encamped at Ain Shams in the immediate neighbourhood of Cairo. The skill of the Fatimide general was now put to a greater test than it had to undergo when he was sent to conquer Egypt, but it proved equal to the occasion. Sorties were organized by him on November 19 and 20, in the second of which a severe defeat was inflicted on the Carmathian leader, who was compelled to retreat to al-Ahsa, finding that in consequence of his failure he was deserted by various Arab tribes who had gladly joined his plundering expeditions. The land victory was followed by one over the Carmathian fleet at Tinnis, and in Syria, too, attempts were made to shake off the Carmathian yoke. Al-A'sam, however, had no intention of giving way without another struggle, and the Fatimide Caliph, whose arrival was hastened by the representations made to him by his general concerning the Carmathian trouble, found himself a year after his enthronement besieged in his capital, while various Carmathian corps ravaged lower Egypt. Al-A'sam was again compelled to raise the siege, chiefly through the timely administration by the enemy of bribes to some of his shifty allies.

Egypt was thus delivered from the Carmathians; but the possession of Syria was not yet secured for the Egyptian sovereigns. When the first Caliph Muizz died at the end of 975, his son and successor Aziz found himself threatened in Syria by an enemy who had succeeded to the inheritance of the Carmathians. This was a Turk, Aftakin, who, as commander of a force of mercenaries which had been in the employ of the Eastern Sultan and had mutinied, had in the spring of 975 become master of Damascus, where by justice and capacity he had made himself popular, and presently found himself strong enough, with the aid of disaffected Carmathians, to endeavour to extend his rule over all Syria. In July, 976, Jauhar was sent by the advice of Jacob, son of Killis (the Jew who had originally summoned the Fatimides to invade Egypt), to deal with this new enemy, and he besieged Damascus for two months. Aftakin was finally persuaded by the Damascenes to invoke the aid of the Carmathians, who were now under another chief. The result of this alliance was that Jauhar had presently to raise the siege of Damascus, and was soon himself shut up in Askalon where his army suffered great privations. Jauhar in these circumstances in some way got the ear of Aftakin, who, against the judgement of his Carmathian colleague, was persuaded to allow Jauhar's army to depart without apparently having made any conditions of peace. They were met on their return by a new army equipped by the Caliph Aziz, who advanced with them to Ramlah, where in the summer of 977 a fierce engagement took place, ending in the defeat of Aftakin and the Carmathians, who are said to have lost 20,000 men. In spite of this success, the Egyptian Caliph was content to stave off further attacks by the offer of a yearly tribute. Aftakin, who through treachery was taken captive by the Caliph, was treated honourably and even admitted to the circle of the Caliph's advisers: a

fact which is said to have so roused the jealousy of the Vizier Jacob, son of Killis, that he caused this possible rival to be poisoned about four years after his capture. We should gladly try to exonerate this capable proselyte from so grave a charge, but his career makes it improbable that he was troubled with more scruples than Marlowe's Jew of Venice. Still he seems to have served his Caliph faithfully, who found him indispensable, being obliged to restore him to office whenever he tried to cashier him, and who, on his death in 990, fasted for three days and gave him the most honourable interment.

The accounts that are handed down of this person's possessions give a vivid idea of the amount which it was possible for a minister of state to accumulate. He left jewels, coined wealth, goods of various kinds and estates valued at about two million pounds; his harem, containing 800 wives, came near rivalling Solomon's; and there was a dowry of about 100,000 pounds left for his daughter. Besides this he had followed the plan adopted by yet earlier ministers, and destined to influence the destinies of Egypt in the future, of forming a bodyguard, which in his case had risen to the number of 4,000 Mamlukes; they were housed in barracks which formed a street called Vizier Street, and even after Jacob's death were not disbanded.

The other founder of the Fatimide Empire in Egypt, Jauhar, survived him rather more than a year, dying at the beginning of 992. His relations with his master continued friendly to the end, but his ill-success in the Syrian expedition appears to have definitely tarnished his laurels.

For several years Aziz was occupied with the conquest of Syria, where the Hamdanide Saad al-daulah, whose capital was at Aleppo, managed to maintain himself, and on his death in 991 was succeeded by his son, Abu'l-Fada'il. This sovereign endeavoured to obtain the help of the Greek

emperor against the Egyptian invaders, and such help was readily given, since the maintenance of Antioch in Christian hands depended on the possibility of playing off one Moslem power against the other. Aleppo after a siege of thirteen months by Aziz's general was set free by the timely aid of the Emperor Basil. The plans, however, of this Caliph were interrupted by his death in the year 996, when his son Mansur, known as Hakim, was placed on the throne, being eight years of age.

The practice of proclaiming minors was destined to be followed many times, chiefly during the Mamluke dynasties, when it usually led to the throne being seized after a few days or months by an ambitious minister. Such a coup d'état was suggested on this occasion to the minister Burjuwan the Slav, who had been appointed regent by the last Caliph's dying dispositions; but he did not consent to carry it out. He was, however, soon involved in a struggle with his colleague, the Commander of the Forces, which again were divided into two camps of Moors and Syrians, including Turks. Burjuwan succeeded in getting the upper hand, and displacing his colleague, who was presently assassinated by the Turks.

Burjuwan maintained his regency for about four years, and managed affairs successfully. He recovered Syria, pacified Damascus, and after defeating the Greeks made a truce with their emperor for ten years. But his protégé Hakim developed the qualities of an eastern tyrant at an early age, and finding the restraint of Burjuwan intolerable, intrigued with two other ministers, who assassinated him. Hakim was at this time twelve years of age. Though compelled to tolerate another regent, as usual the assassin of the last, he required that all petitions should be addressed to himself, and that the new regent should make no pretentions to independence. Ere his thirteenth year was at an

end, he began the series of extravagant ordinances and regulations which were continued through the whole of his reign and have won him the title Caligula of the East. His delight in bloodshed was utilized by his ministers for the purpose of getting rid of rivals, but those who gratified their resentments in this way quickly fell victims in their turn. Thus Burjuwan's assassin survived him little more than three years.

As this Caliph began to assert his independence, the people of Egypt became subjected to as much cruelty and purposeless annoyance as can ever have fallen to the lot of any nation; though the instability of the tyrant's purpose and the perpetual veering of his inclinations may have done something to relieve them. At times he amused himself with oppressing Jews and Christians, at times they were the objects of his favour. At times he ordered that day should be turned into night, and vice versa; at times no one was to be allowed about after dark. Dumb animals, and even plants, were often the object of his resentment.

One whim of Hakim's cost the Christians many churches, for at one period he demanded that all those in Egypt should be demolished, and he extended his iconoclasm to the ancient and much venerated Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. Jews and Christians were compelled to adopt Islam under penalty of having to carry heavy weights in the form of a calf or a cross. An amusement of this monster was the hacking of young children to pieces; a remonstrance against this cruelty cost a general who had saved Hakim's throne his life. Viziers and other officers were honoured, tortured or executed according to the Caliph's caprice.

In spite of the character of Hakim's rule few serious attempts seem to have been made to rid Egypt of him. Apparently the hatred between the Moorish and Syrian

elements in his army was so great that he could always rely on one or other of them in the event of disaffection spreading. Nor does it appear that any opponent of tyranny could build on the ordinary resentment inspired by the Caliph's acts; anyone who opposed him on the ground of nearer descent from the prophet could perhaps get together some allies. Two attempts to substitute a new dynasty for that of Hakim on this principle were made by pretenders from Barcah and Meccah respectively; the former of these came near succeeding, but Hakim found a general capable of defeating him. The latter was rendered innocuous by administering bribes. The persons who joined in these revolts were, moreover, not the sufferers from the Caliph's tyranny but hordes of free Arabs, whose fickleness ruined any cause that they temporarily took up. Nor can we find that Hakim's cruelties inspired much, if any, horror in his contemporaries, since various princes voluntarily put themselves under his suzerainty.

Towards the end of his reign he was possessed of the same ambition as had formerly seized Caligula—the desire to be regarded as a god. Missionaries sprang up in Cairo who taught the new doctrine of the divinity of Hakim, and demanded that it should be recognized. This claim seemed at last to rouse the submissive people of Cairo to indignation, and several of the missionaries and their adherents were murdered. Hakim avenged himself by again taking the Jews and Christians into favour, allowing the forced converts to return to their former religions, and rebuild their churches and synagogues; and, in addition, permitting his Sudanese troops to indulge in all sorts of excesses with the Moslem population. At times the other troops took the side of the populace against the Sudanese, and in the course of the skirmishes which ensued much destruction was wrought.

The deliverance of the people of Egypt came by the hand of an assassin in the year 1021. All that is known is that Hakim rode out one evening to the Karafah, or cemetery, on an ass with a small escort, and never returned. The ass was afterwards found in a mutilated condition, and the tracking of footsteps led to the discovery of Hakim's clothes. The assassination is ascribed to a sister of Hakim's, who was indignant at his resolve to appoint a distant relation as his successor to the exclusion of his own son. She is credited with having organized the assault, and afterwards got rid of the persons who carried it out. As she further had a number of innocent persons murdered, because they refused to acknowledge to having had a share in the assassination, she appears to have been a worthy sister to the tyrant. The rumour that Hakim still lived and would return at some time was even more persistent than a similar fancy about Nero. There are sects that still believe in Hakim's existence and destined return. It is marvellous that they should desire it.

His successor, who took the name al-Zahir, was rather more than fourteen years of age, and was put on the throne by his aunt who, like so many Egyptian princesses, from immemorial times, took an active part in politics. She managed to maintain herself in the regency for four years, during which she showed more skill in organizing executions than in securing Egyptian rule over the provinces; still neither she nor her nephew exercised whimsical tyranny after the style of Hakim, except on rare occasions. Zahir reigned in all fifteen years and eight months, and before his death recovered nearly all Syria, which in the early years of his reign had been the prey of a variety of usurpers.

The fourth Fatimide Caliph died of the plague in 1036; his successor Mustansir was aged seven years at the time of his accession, so that the real power fell to his

mother, who was a black slave, and her former master, a Jewish curiosity dealer, named Abraham. For a time this person, through the Caliph's mother, appointed the viziers, among them a former co-religionist who had adopted Islam; this person, however, found the means of getting rid of his benefactor, and presently himself fell a victim to the resentment of the Caliph's mother. The reign of Mustansir was distinguished by the commencement of a bodyguard of black freedmen, got together by the Caliph, it is supposed because, being of the same race as his mother, their fidelity could be trusted.

Mustansir was particularly favoured by having his cause taken up by various adventurers in different parts of the Moslem Empire, of whom one incorporated Yemen in the Egyptian realm, while another even took Baghdad, and for a time obtained recognition of the Fatimide Caliph in the metropolis of his rival. This event, which had been caused by dissensions in the family of the Seljukes, who at that time were supreme in the Eastern Caliphate, was of short duration, partly because the adventurer who had taken Baghdad excited the envy of Mustansir's vizier, who refused further supplies to his rival, partly because the military talents of the Seljuek prince were equal to the emergency.

Meanwhile Egypt was troubled by the rivalries between the Turkish and negro elements of the Caliph's bodyguard, which broke out into open war. The result was long doubtful, but finally was in favour of the Turks, commanded by Nasir al-daulah. The claims of the Turkish praetorians became, in consequence of their victory, excessive, and a dispute arose between their commander Nasir al-daulah and the Caliph, which ended in the latter falling completely under the former's control, who even threatened to restore Egypt to the suzerainty of Baghdad. This person's rule, which ended with his assassination in 1073, was accompanied

by great misery; the palace of the Caliph was repeatedly plundered, and its vast library partly burned and partly handed over to pillagers; and the Caliph himself was reduced to absolute poverty, so that his wife and daughters had finally to flee to Baghdad to avoid starvation. It is uncertain whether Nasir al-daulah's ambition was to become governor of Egypt for the Abbasids, or whether he aimed at founding a dynasty of his own. After his assassination the condition of the Caliph did not at first better itself; in despair he put himself into the hands of Badr al-Jamali, an Armenian freedman who had served as Governor of Damascus and Acre, and who had provided himself with an Armenian bodyguard; this person accepted the Caliph's invitation to settle the affairs of Egypt, which he began in old Arab style by summoning all the existing officials to a feast and murdering them. With his unscrupulousness, however, he combined both military and administrative ability of a high order, and by quelling rebellion everywhere and seeing to the proper administration of justice he brought back a fair degree of prosperity.

During the rule of Badr al-Jamali the walls of Cairo were, as we have seen, rebuilt; but though Egypt prospered, the Fatimides lost Syria, which was first conquered by an adventurer named Atsiz, who went so far as to invade Egypt, where Badr defeated him; his Syrian conquests then fell into the power of the Seljuke Tutush, from whom Badr was able to recover a few towns. But Damascus remained in Seljuke hands.

Mustansir died in 1094, having reigned over sixty years, longer than any other Oriental Caliph or Sultan. Like Khumaruyah he appears to have displayed some ingenuity in devising new forms of pleasure, but otherwise he exhibited no competence. Before order was restored by the Armenian troops, the country was devastated by the Berbers, negroes,

Turks and Syrians who formed the different corps of the Caliph's army; Egyptian troops nowhere figure in the list.

The death of Mustansir was followed by a struggle for the succession, in which, however, the youngest son of the late Caliph, being supported by Badr's son and successor, al-Afdal, was victorious; he was proclaimed with the title Musta'li. Al-Afdal put himself into communication with the Crusaders, and undertook to aid them in defeating the Seljukes; and, indeed, he succeeded in retaking Jerusalem and some other places in Syria. This was before he was aware of the intentions of the Crusaders with regard to Jerusalem; when that place, in 1099, fell into their hands, and the whole population of Moslems was massacred, al-Afdal found his dominions threatened by the Franks, and had to retire to Egypt, leaving Syria to the invaders. By 1101 the bulk of the towns which had had Egyptian garrisons had fallen into their hands. The same year Musta'li died, and was succeeded by his son al-Amir, then an infant five years old. Al-Afdal acted as regent, and governed Egypt well for twenty years. His attempts, however, to withstand the Franks in Syria and in Palestine were unsuccessful, and towns which had remained in Egyptian hands, such as Ptolemais and Tripoli, were compelled to surrender.

In 1117 the Crusaders for the first time invaded Egypt itself, but had to quit it the next year, having effected little. In 1121 the Caliph, who was now of age, feeling tired of the regent, found means to have him assassinated; his possessions were then confiscated, and it was found that he had enriched himself even beyond the by no means contemptible performances of previous viziers. He was succeeded in his office by the man who had been employed to organize the murder, Ibn Fatik al-Bata'ihi, who had risen from the the ranks. In 1125, he too was got rid of by the Caliph, though only imprisoned, and the latter proceeded to govern

personally without the aid of a vizier. His rule was exceedingly arbitrary and vexatious, and he involved himself in much bloodshed; his end was, however, brought on, not by the resentment of his subjects, but by fanatics of a sect who held that his father's elder brother Nizar had been wrongly displaced. By one of these he was assassinated in 1130.

He was succeeded by a cousin who took the title Hafiz, and was compelled to employ as his vizier Ahmad the son of the murdered al-Afdal and grandson of Badr al-Jamali. This vizier enjoyed his honours for a little more than a year, during which he had made himself detested by insolence towards the Caliph, and an endeavour to modify the current form of religion; like his father he was got out of the way by assassination. According to custom an Armenian freedman Yanis, who had organized the attack on the former vizier, was installed in his victim's place. A year's time brought him into conflict with the Caliph, who resorted to a subtle form of poison to relieve himself of the vizier. Hafiz shortly after had to deal with an Absalom in the shape of his son Hasan, who fought pitched battles with his younger brother and then with troops summoned to defend his father; he was victorious and forced his father to name him successor, and to hand over to him the reins of authority, but his conduct quickly gave offence. He was compelled to take refuge with his father within the palace, and a Jewish and a Christian physician were summoned to administer poison to him; the Jew refused, but the Christian provided what was required. In consequence the Christian was presently executed by the Caliph's order, and his property given to the Jew who became sole court physician. The army, which by this time claimed the right to make all appointments of a political nature, gave the post of vizier to an Armenian Christian, named Bahram, and he filled most of the subordinate posts with Armenians, who, in spite of their religion, have frequently

formed the cabinets of Moslem rulers. His power lasted from 1135 to 1137. An adventurer named Ridwan then gathered an army and displaced him; his power also lasted two years only, after which he was compelled by Hafiz to flee from Cairo to Syria, where he collected an army in the hope of recovering Egypt; after a variety of adventures, combining successes and failures, he was assassinated in 1148. The Caliph himself died in 1149.

He was followed by his youngest son Ismail, called Zafir, who was seventeen years old at the time. In character he was no stronger than his predecessors, and the vizierate was seized by an ambitious governor of Alexandria, named Ibn Sallar, who presently was murdered by his stepson, who in his turn was installed in the dangerous office. This episode cost the Fatimides Askalon, their last possession in Palestine, which owing to the disputes between the rival parties was taken by the Crusaders.

Zafir was, after a reign of four years, murdered by his favourite Nasr, the son of the Vizier Abbas, who then proceeded to make away with the brothers of the Caliph, and to place on the throne his infant son, Isa, called Fa'iz. He attempted to govern independently, but gave dissatisfaction and was shortly compelled to flee before a South Egyptian governor, Tala'i Ibn Ruzzik, who came with an army to Cairo and usurped the office of vizier. The youthful Caliph, who suffered from epileptic fits, occasioned by the violence which accompanied his accession, died at the age of eleven in the year 1160.

The vizier, after the ordinary custom, appointed to the vacant Caliphate a child, cousin of the deceased, who was nine years of age, and was given the title Adid; with him the Fatimide Caliphate was destined to terminate. According to the ordinary custom also the Caliph soon grew tired of the regency of the vizier, and hired persons to assassinate

STREET SCENE, BAB-EL-SHARIA, CAIRO.
him, and as the vizier lived after the attempt on his life long enough to avenge himself, the Caliph had the baseness to lay the blame on his aunt and hand her over to execution. The vizierate was seized by the son of the murdered man, who, however, was speedily displaced by the governor of Upper Egypt, Shawar, a man who had already figured as a person of importance in previous reigns; who ere long had to give way to another usurper, Dirgham, head of a corps formed by Tala'i, whose conduct soon made his followers wish Shawar back. The disturbed state of Egypt gave the Crusaders an opportunity to effect a landing, do much damage, and only retire on promise of tribute. Meanwhile Shawar had found an ally in the Prince of Damascus, and in 1164 returned to Egypt with an army commanded by a general of the latter named Shirguh; after a month's resistance Dirgham found himself deserted, and both he and his brothers met their deaths. After the joint enterprise of Shawar and Shirguh had been crowned with success, the two fell out, and since Shawar did not shrink from applying for the help of the Crusaders, Shirguh was compelled to return to Syria. Early in 1167 he returned with an army of 2,000 picked men, with whose aid he won a decisive victory over the united forces of Shawar and the Franks at Ushmunain in the same year. It is in this battle that we first hear of Saladdin, sent by Nur al-din, the Prince of Damascus, accompanying and aiding his uncle Shirguh. After the battle Saladdin was appointed by his uncle governor of Alexandria, where he was presently besieged by the united forces of Shawar and his Frankish allies. The news that Shirguh had commenced the siege of Cairo induced the parties to make peace, and by the end of the year Shirguh had withdrawn to Damascus. Meanwhile a Frankish garrison was admitted into Cairo to make sure of the tribute which had been promised the Crusaders as the price of their assistance,
and treated the inhabitants with great harshness. The ill-content of the inhabitants led to the summoning of Nur al-din from Syria by the Caliph, while on the other hand a Frankish army came from the north of Egypt and began to lay siege to Cairo. On this occasion occurred the burning of Fostat, which was described above. The Franks were bribed by Shawar to retire; but Shirguh's forces were received with joy by the people of Cairo, and in a short time after their arrival Shawar was, at Saladdin's instance, attacked and put to death. Shirguh, who got his place, occupied it only two months, since in March, 1168, he fell a victim to gluttony. After some claims being put forward by other candidates, Saladdin was chosen to succeed him as vizier and governor of the Egyptian Empire. Saladdin was an earnest follower of the Sunni doctrines, on opposition to which the Fatimide throne was based; he therefore appointed persons of his own persuasion to the chief posts in Egypt, and constantly reduced the sphere of activity of the Caliph. As usual he was threatened by an insurrection, but was able to suppress it; and with the aid of his chief, Nur al-din, raised the siege of Damietta, which had been besieged by the Franks with a powerful force. His further exploits in dealing with the Crusaders are well known. At the beginning of 1171 Saladdin finally consented to a step which Nur al-din had been long urging on him, that of substituting in the Friday prayer the name of the Baghdad Caliph for that of the Fatimide Adid; and Adid, who was ill at the time, fortunately died a few days after, and never heard of his dethronement and the loss of the imperial title to his family. Meanwhile steps had been taken to substitute orthodox for Shi'ite judges, and also to found schools and colleges where the younger generation should be brought up in Sunnite principles. Though Adid was but twenty-one years old at his death, he left several children, two of whom
found some partisans; but their attempts to regain the throne were unsuccessful and disastrous to their followers.

The history of the Fatimides bears a close resemblance to that of the Baghdad Caliphs, except that the Abbasid family appears to have produced far more able men, and the mayors of the palace in the latter case succeeded in founding dynasties of some duration, unlike the ephemeral vizierates of the Fatimide Empire. The plan of appointing infants to the throne in order to permit the ministers a free hand will meet us repeatedly. The results were ordinarily disastrous to both minister and sovereign.

CHAPTER III Buildings of the Fatimide Period

ONE of the earliest cares of Jauhar, the conqueror of Egypt for the Fatimides, was to build a mosque for public worship, and this project was the commencement of the famous al-Azhar. It took about two years to erect, and was finished June 14, 972. It was not at first a literary institution any more than any other mosque; all such places had from the beginning of Islam served as rendez-vous for savants, and places where those who undertook to interpret the Koran or recite traditions could establish themselves. The line between religious and secular studies was not drawn during the early centuries of Islam; men made circles in the mosques for the purpose of reciting verses, or telling literary anecdotes as well as for instruction of a more decidedly edifying character. The first mosque ever built in Islam, that of the Prophet at Medinah, had served a number of purposes for which separate buildings were deemed necessary in more specializing days: it had not only been church and school, but town hall, hospice and hospital as well. Since politics and religion could not be kept distinct, the mosque was the place where announcements of importance respecting the commonwealth might be made. The ideas connected with it in some ways resembled those which attach to a church, in others were more like those which are connected with a synagogue, but the peculiar evolution of Islam furnished it with some which those other buildings do not share.

The person who conceived the idea of turning the first mosque of the new city into a university was the astute convert

from Judaism who had suggested to the Fatimide sovereign that the time was ripe for the conquest of Egypt, and had been rewarded for his advice by being made vizier. Having been born in Baghdad in the year 930, he had come to Egypt in 942, where he got employment in the office of one of Kafur's ministers; in this capacity he obtained the notice of Kafur, who promoted him from one office to another till he became chief treasurer. In 967 he embraced Islam, and took into his house a tutor who could give him regular instruction in the matters which a Moslem gentleman should know. Once vizier, he followed the example of many who had previously held that high office, in becoming a patron of learning and belles lettres; on Thursday evenings he regularly held a salon in his house for the recitation of his own compositions, but also for reunion of all the savants of Cairo.

The notion, however, of Jacob, son of Killis, in encouraging learning was somewhat deeper than that which had inspired many other viziers. Since the Fatimide dynasty had succeeded in virtue of its religious claims, it was necessary to provide for its maintenance by a body of literature comparable with that which the supporters of the rival Caliph could display, and which enjoyed widespread respect and authority owing to the long series of venerated names concerned with its composition and perpetuation. These authoritative books once provided, and arrangements being made whereby their study could be encouraged and maintained, no mean dam would be provided against inundation from without. The books, therefore, he composed himself; the University was to secure that they should be properly studied and interpreted.

In 988, when the second Fatimide Caliph was reigning, Jacob Ibn Killis requested his master to provide a grant for the maintenance of a fixed number of scholars. The

Caliph Aziz assented; provisions were made for thirty-five students, and a house adjoining Jauhar's Mosque secured for their lodging.

Thus began al-Azhar, whose name is thought to have been selected out of compliment to the supposed foundress of the Fatimide line, Fatimah, honourably called al-Zahra (the luminous), of which word Azhar is the masculine. This year's statistics give 9,758 as the present number of students, with 317 professors. At times the numbers of both have been still greater. Political events led to its diversion from its original purpose as a school of heresy to its becoming the great centre of Moslem orthodoxy; but what circumstance it was that enabled it to eclipse all its rivals is not so clear. We understand why the University of Cairo should have survived those of Spain and those of Irak. Cairo was the metropolis of Islam when those countries could no longer contain one, and the city to which it handed over its headship, Constantinople, spoke a foreign tongue and not the original language of Mohammedanism. But in Cairo itself there were many rivals at all periods; in the period of the later Mamlukes almost every sovereign built and liberally endowed a college to perpetuate his name. Probably al-Azhar superseded the others in virtue of its antiquity and the reputation which it won. Its name was known all over the Mohammedan world; the others scarcely got the chance to become fashionable.

The second founder of al-Azhar was the mad Hakim, whose madness did not prevent his understanding the importance of learning. He himself founded three mosques, and got together a great Library, which once occupied part of the Eastern Palace. The purpose of this last institution was in the main to spread the tenets of his dynasty and his own variations of them. His deed of gift is preserved in full, and contains a number of details as to the nature of the moneys

OLD GATEWAY OF A RUINED MOSQUE NEAR BAB-EL-WAZIR, CAIRO.
bestowed and the mode in which they were to be administered. The deed contains his benefactions to his three mosques, to al-Azhar, and to his public library or academy. To the share of the Azhar there fell, besides books, three public buildings in the older city; for it was the custom at this time and long after in Egypt to settle on religious institutions not lands, but the rents of houses or shops. The trustees were, whenever necessary, to advertise the buildings for hire, to keep them in good repair with the proceeds, and to make a number of specified payments out of the remainder. The Preacher of the Mosque was to have seven dinars (perhaps 75 francs) a month; other sums were to be expended on matting, glass, incense and other scents, camphor, wax, etc., and certain sums were to be set aside for payment of persons employed in sweeping, repairing, cleaning, etc. Three leaders of prayer, four other religious officials and fifteen mueddins were to have between them 556 dinars; other sums were set apart for the hospice. Even such details as dusters for cleaning the lamps, buckets for scouring and brooms for sweeping were provided for by specified payments to come out of the benefactions.

The plan of the original Mosque bore some resemblance to that of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, being a rectangle with the sanctuary side wider and therefore supported by more rows of columns than the rest; but in the case of al-Azhar piers were not used, their place being taken by 380 columns of different materials, marble, porphyry and granite, with bases and capitals of different styles. Though it was frequently restored and repaired, additions seem to have been made only in comparatively late times. The Caliph Mustansir is mentioned as one of its benefactors; and in the time of the Mamluke Baibars I an Emir Izz al-din Idumir restored walls and columns, plastered the former afresh, and repaired roof and pavement. In 1303 it, with several other

mosques, was partly demolished by an earthquake; the Emir Sallar undertook the restoration of what had fallen. A fresh restoration was undertaken in the year 1360 by Bashir the cup-bearer; he built an establishment for the provision of drinking-water on the south side, with a school for poor children above it. In 1382 fresh emoluments were provided by a law that of all intestate residents of the Mosque the property should fall to it.

From the first it had been the custom of students who had no other lodging in Cairo to live in the Mosque, and the spaces between the columns were more and more fitted as dormitories for that purpose; different parts being assigned to different nationalities, and in after times to different sects. Various legacies were left for the maintenance of these students, while pious persons undertook the duty at different times of supplying them with necessaries or luxuries. An attempt was made in the year 1415 by an officious Kadi to turn these poor students out, doubtless with the view of rendering the condition of the Mosque cleaner and more sanitary; this measure had only temporary effect, though great annoyance seems to have been caused by it at the time. A fresh restoration took place in the year 1495 and another in 1596; on this last occasion a benefaction of lentils was assigned to all students for daily consumption, and this caused a great inflow of scholars. Ten years afterwards it was freshly paved and otherwise repaired. Iywaz Bey, who died in the year 1724, renewed the roof which was falling in, and since then a variety of additions and improvements have been effected. The improvements of Abd al-Rahman in 1777 included two minarets, an erection of fifty marble columns containing a school, a cistern, and a mausoleum for himself; a dormitory for students from Upper Egypt, and a new gate of vast dimensions made so as to introduce the Taibarsi and Akbogha

SHARIA-EL-AZHAR, CAIRO.
colleges within the precincts of al-Azhar. Other dormitories or cloisters have been added for students from Baghdad, Meccah, Hindustan, etc.

The Mosque has eight gates, of which the largest is called the Barbers’ Gate, opposite the opening of Boxmakers’ Street; this gate, which is double, has above it a school and a minaret. It was erected by the Abd al-Rahman mentioned above. The inscription on the older gate which occupied the same site is still preserved, and is to the effect that the gate was erected in 1469 by the Sultan Kaietbai. The remaining gates are named after the Moors, Syrians, Upper Egyptians, etc. The Maksurah (a kind of private pew surrounded with a grating in which eminent personages take part in devotions) is represented in al-Azhar by several erections; the oldest is the work of Jauhar and extends from the Gate of the Syrians to the Cloister of the Orientals, and is on seventy-six pillars of white marble; it communicates with the quadrangle of the Mosque by three doors. The second Maksurah built by Abd al-Rahman is separated from Jauhar's by a court, and its roof is some two metres higher than that of Jauhar.

The great university of al-Azhar has recently been accurately described in French by M. Arminjean (L'Enseignement, la Doctrine, et la Vie dans les Universités Musulmanes d'égypte, Paris, 1907) in a manner that leaves little to be desired, whether in regard to the structure of the buildings, the nature of the studies or the mode in which the students spend their time. Two of its denizens furnished him with autobiographies, and these give a vivid impression of the character of a Mohammedan “University Career.” Our notion of a course of study, limited in time, followed by a degree after which the student ceases to be a student, must be removed from the mind, if we would familiarize ourselves with the ways of al-Azhar—at least the al-Azhar of all but the most recent times —for here too it would seem that the examination system and

European hurry are beginning to make themselves felt. The underlying theory of the Oriental University is that there is nothing new under the sun. It is therefore the purpose of the teacher to communicate as accurately as possible what he has himself learned; of the student to master it with the same thoroughness, to leave nothing out, but never to add anything of his own. The sciences, as they are called, of al-Azhar were all perfected in past time—before the fall of the Caliphate of Baghdad; what the student has to do is to acquire mastery of the manuals in which that old learning was finally incorporated, or some abridgement of them, or else an abridgement of an abridgement. He may perhaps take his whole life over accomplishing this task; in any case it will take him a number of years. For what the Oriental learns he usually learns very thoroughly indeed.

Next in importance to the Mosque al-Azhar among Fatimide edifices is the Mosque of Hakim, outside the first but inside the second wall of Cairo. Built on piers, and with brisé or slightly pointed arches, it bore considerable resemblance to the Tulunid Mosque, and even the minaret is not wholly unlike that which has been described in dealing with that building; but it has long been in ruins, certain piers and arches only standing beside the dismantled minaret. Commenced by the second Fatimide Caliph, it was finished by the mad Hakim in 1012; and richly furnished and endowed by him. The floors were covered with 36,000 square yards of matting. In the year 1303 it was wrecked by the earthquake which, as has already been seen, did considerable havoc to the buildings in Cairo; it was then repaired by the Sultan Baibars, who in addition to fresh revenues for its maintenance appointed professors of the four schools of law to lecture in it, and furnished endowments for scholars. In 1359 it was restored by the Sultan Hasan who paved the whole afresh; and an endowment of 560 feddans was added to its estates.

COURTYARD OF THE MOSQUE OF EL AZHAR, UNIVERSITY OF CAIRO.

Nevertheless for some reason the Mosque became deserted soon after this, and appears to have been so in Makrizi's time. In the early part of the last century it was occupied by Syrian artisans of different sorts, such as makers of glass lamps, silk-weavers etc. Of the original seven gates two remained open, the rest being walled up. For some part of the last century it was used as an Arab museum, but even this service to learning and religion it no longer renders.

Tala'i son of Ruzzik, of whom a short account was given above, vizier of the last Fatimide Caliph, built a mosque somewhat to the south of the Zuwailah Gate. Its purpose was to harbour the head of Husain, son of Ali, hero of the Muharram Miracle plays; this precious relic had been kept at Ascalon, and it was feared that it might fall into the hands of the Crusaders. The Caliph, however, refused to let it be housed anywhere save in the Palace, and the Mosque built for its reception remained neglected till the brief reign of Aibek, under whom, in 1252, service began to be performed in it. It fell in the great earthquake of 1303, but was rebuilt. The place where the head was actually deposited is said to be where the great Mosque of Sayyiduna Husain now stands. A magnificent building was, immediately after its arrival, built to hold it, and travellers of the sixth century speak with enthusiasm of this Mashhad (or saint's grave). Marble, silk, gold, silver and other precious materials were lavished upon it, as if they were of no account. The Mosque was repeatedly enlarged in the time of Abd al-Rahman Ketkhuda, and more recently in that of the Khedive Abbas Pasha, and afterwards in that of Isma'il. Ali Pasha Mubarak, in his account of the Mosque, complains that an excellent plan drawn by himself had been spoiled in the execution; in consequence of which the building was out of correct orientation, and by the time he himself came to be head of the public works’ department, it could not be rectified. Its revenue

in his time—about twenty years ago—amounted to about $1,000 yearly; and more trouble was taken there than with any other Mosque to keep everything in a state of the most perfect purity.

It is, of course, highly improbable that the head which it contains really belonged to the Prophet's grandson; though of the ultimate fate of the real head there seems to be some doubt. Perhaps the claims of the relic to be genuine were not more preposterous than those of the Fatimides to be connected with the mother of Husain. Moreover, it pleased the Fatimides to maintain the doctrine that large numbers of the Alid family in early times found their final resting-places in the neighbourhood of Cairo. The Sayyidah Zainab, indeed, presumably a daughter of Ali himself, who gives her name to a quarter of Cairo, appears to be a very late importation—later even than the end of the Fatimide period; but the story that another Zainab, daughter of a much later Ali who was, however, one of the twelve Imams, was buried in Cairo goes back probably to Fatimide times.

One more mosque dating from this period should be mentioned, the modest building called al-Akmar, in the Nahhassin Street. It dates from the time of the Caliph Amir, though it has repeatedly undergone repairs and alterations. M. Herz, the highest authority on Moslem architecture, observes that it is the only example of a Fatimide building in which the façade corresponds with the disposition of the edifice. Prior to that time the façade played an unimportant part; the small dimensions of this Mosque may have permitted the architect to experiment. The doorway is surmounted by a shallow niche, with fluting for ornament round it, and with a central rosette made up of letters; the decoration, afterwards so familiar, the stalactite, is said to appear in this mosque for the first time.

A MOSQUE IN THE SAIDA ZEINEB QUARTER, CAIRO.

CHAPTER IV The Ayyubid Period and its Buildings

EACH dynasty that got control over Egypt founded a new capital, ordinarily within easy distance of the last; the dynasty established by Saladdin and destined to control the nearer East for something less than a hundred years did not abandon this precedent. From Cairo itself the seat of government was to shift to the south-east, the high ground between the city and Mount Mokattam, where a site was found for a Citadel. The idea of such a structure is said to have been suggested by the Crusaders’ procedure. The soldiers of the Cross, when they had conquered a hostile country, shut themselves up in fortresses such as their chiefs possessed in Europe, where safe from attack they could retain and enjoy their mastery. Saladdin, chiefly remembered in history for his successful resistance to the Crusaders, learned from his enemies, and built himself a fortress similar to theirs.

The selection by Saladdin or his minister Karakush of a point dominated as the Cairene Citadel is by a mountain has been criticized by European writers as a strategic blunder; and defended on the ground that a fortress actually on the top of Mount Mokattam would have been too far removed from the city to be of much use for either protecting the inhabitants of Cairo or keeping them in order, and would, besides, have involved the fortification of the eminence on which the Citadel was built, to prevent the mountain being isolated by some enterprising enemy who chose to

occupy that intervening height. And this defence seems unanswerable.

The site of the Citadel is supposed to have originally had the name “Cupola of the Air,” and to have directly overlooked a parade ground established by Ahmad Ibn Tulun; the whole place was after his time turned into a cemetery (karafah), in which numerous mosques were erected. Here Saladdin ordered Karakush to build a fortress, which he was never destined to inhabit himself. His residence, when Sultan, was the old Palace of the Viziers, and the first Sultan who inhabited the Citadel itself was al-Kamil, who came to the throne many years after Saladdin's death.

The Citadel in all the plans is divided into two distinct portions: the Northern, rectangular in shape (at least on three sides), and the South-Eastern, separated from the former by a thick wall. Casanova suggests that the former was what was intended in Saladdin's original plan. After the work had made some progress, he bethought him of building himself a palace under the shelter of the Citadel.

Access to the northern enclosure was given by a gate called by various names, among them the Step Gate, owing to the nature of the approach—a part of this ancient flight of stairs was discovered and identified by Casanova. The material for the Citadel was supplied by some pyramids near Memphis, which Karakush had no hesitation in demolishing, while thousands of Frankish prisoners were employed in forced labour.

To Saladdin is ascribed the excavation of the Well of Joseph, called, according to some authorities, after Saladdin's own name, while others fancy it to be named after the Patriarch, a favourite with the Moslems of Egypt. The well was regarded as one of the wonders of engineering architecture, and was frequently described by Arab writers. Three hundred steps (where there is now an inclined plane) were

THE CITADEL OF CAIRO.
supposed to lead to the bottom; the well itself was in two divisions, with a reservoir in the middle; the water was raised by oxen in the ordinary manner, first from the well to the reservoir, then from the reservoir to the level of the Citadel.

The minister who built both the Citadel and the new walls of Cairo is a figure of some interest. His name is Turkish, and means “Black Bird”; he was the slave, and afterwards the freed man of either Saladdin or Shirguh. When the former obtained control of Cairo, Karakush was given command of the guards of the palace where the Fatimide Caliph still retained some shadowy authority. On the death of al-Adid in 1171 he was still in control of the palace, and adopted some severe measures towards the surviving Fatimides. In 1175 he was entrusted by his master with the double task of refortifying Cairo and building the Citadel, while uniting all three parts of the city, Fostat, Cairo and the Citadel by a wall. This scheme in its entirety was never accomplished. In 1188 he was summoned by Saladdin to Acre to settle the question whether it should be destroyed or not; he decided for the latter alternative, was made governor of the place, and rebuilt the walls. The next year he had to stand a siege, and two years later, when Acre was retaken, he was made captive to be ransomed by Saladdin. After the death of the great Sultan he inherited the confidence of his successor, and in 1194 was even appointed regent during the Sultan's absence from Egypt, and on the same Sultan's death became regent during the minority of his son. For a post of this importance he does not appear to have possessed the necessary qualifications, and was unable either to maintain himself in power, or to prevent his charge being displaced by his great-uncle, Saladdin's brother. Besides various buildings and engineering works designed by him, his name was perpetuated by a quarter of Cairo, Harat

Karakush, situated outside the Futuh Gate. Owing to the vehement hatred of a scribe belonging to one of the rival parties the memory of Karakush was blackened by a virulent pamphlet in which he was made responsible for a string of decisions ludicrous for their folly and injustice, so that his name has become proverbial for the Unjust Judge. The confidence placed in him by such a man as Saladdin is of itself sufficient to dispose of these slanders, the piquancy of which has caused them to survive in a marvellous fashion. English readers who wish to know their character will find them in a work bearing the name of A. Hanauer, called Tales told in Palestine.

After Saladdin's death the work on the Citadel appears to have ceased to be resumed by al-Kamil in 1207. In this year the Sultan definitely abandoned the old Vizier's Palace and moved into a new palace built in the southern enclosure, while the market for horses, camels and asses was transferred to Rumailah (sometimes called Place Mohammed Ali), below the city; between this place and the Citadel were built the royal stables which had a secret communication with the Palace. In the Palace itself the Sultan constructed a hall of justice called Iwan, a library and a mosque. A celestial globe belonging to al-Kamil's library is still extant in the Museo Borgia of Velletri, though the process whereby it came into Italian hands is uncertain. None of this sovereign's work otherwise remains.

Of the Citadel of al-Kamil nothing then is left at the present time beyond the location of the gates, which has never varied. Al-Malik al-Salih abandoned the Citadel of Saladdin for a citadel on the island Raudah which he had built. The first Mamluke Sultan Aibek returned to the Citadel of the Mountain, but does not appear to have built there afresh. On the other hand the enterprising Rukn al-din Baibars built in the citadel of the mountain the “House of

Gold” with two towers, crowned by a cupola supported by pillars of coloured marble, and further a great audience room for the hearing of cases. The tower near the Karafah (or Eastern) gate was by this Sultan assigned to the Caliph as his residence; at a later period the Caliphs were removed from the Citadel and lodged in the Kabsh Palace. The Sultan Kala'un added a cupola on the “Red Palace,” said to be one of the wonders of the world. It rested on ninety-four pillars outside the peristyles. These peristyles were frescoed with representations of the fortresses in the possession of the Sultan, with all their natural surroundings. He also built a house for the Viceroy, an official who acted for the Sultan during his absence.

A greater builder than any of his predecessors was Mohammed, son of Kala'un, known as al-Nasir; he even added four or five new quarters to the original environment of the Fatimide city, besides building a vast number of bridges, canals, mosques, etc. It has been observed that the greater number of products of Saracenic art to be found in European museums bear the name of this Sultan, and so emanated from his time. The Mamluke architecture dates from him. Among the monuments that bear his name we include those that were erected by his emirs. He so thoroughly rebuilt the Citadel that with the exception of the actual lines little of the work of his predecessors remained after him.

The Mosque of the Sultan Nasir stands in the central court of the Citadel, and in plan is approximately square. An arcade runs round the whole of the interior, having four rows of columns on the east, and two upon each of the other sides. In the centre of the eastern arcade and over the Kiblah the pillars are replaced by ten granite monoliths of very large size; these columns supported the magnificent dome described by Makrizi, which fell in 1522. The dome

columns are surmounted by arches composed of alternate red and white stones, and above these is an inscription upon a broad wooden band, which runs round the base of the dome. The smaller pillars of the arcades all exist, with the exception of five on the western side, which with the arches above them have completely disappeared. The square pillars of rubble masonry which have taken their place are modern work. The floor was originally paved with marble, and the ceilings illuminated with gold. The Kiblah and the minarets were formerly covered with green faience. It was begun in 1318 and rebuilt in 1334.

Apparently the revenues of the mosque which were originally very large were gradually absorbed by various governors, and the building fell into ruin about the time of the Turkish occupation. For a considerable period it was used as a prison, and during the middle of the nineteenth century was a military storehouse. High walls of rubble masonry were built between the pillars in order to divide the space into compartments suitable for prison or store purposes. Shortly after the British occupation it was cleared by order of Major C. M. Watson.

The chief work of the Sultan Nasir on the Citadel was the Iwan, or Palace, occupying the place at present covered by the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. It was a great hall rebuilt by Nasir after two of his predecessors, very high, long and wide, and containing the royal throne. A magnificent cupola which crowned it fell in 1522. Later visitors speak of the dome as being still supported by thirty-four columns of marble of prodigious width and height, being at least forty-five feet between base and capital.

Of a palace called the Parti-coloured Palace, a few remains were left when the Mosque of Mohammed Ali was built; in those ruins there are to be found black and yellow stones, and the juxtaposition of these gave its name to the

building. It comprised, it is said, three palaces in one. During the Turkish period this Parti-coloured Palace served to give shelter to the workmen engaged in making the carpets to be sent to Meccah. Powerful descriptions are given by travellers of the enormous eminence on which this palace was built, and the magnificent view of Cairo which it commanded.

The Karamaidan, though it existed from the time of Ahmad Ibn Tulun, was to some extent the work of Nasir, as he built a wall round it, had arrangements made for a supply of water, and planted trees; he regularly used the place himself as a recreation ground. Besides this he had constructed a vast system of aqueducts for supplying the Citadel with water.

After the time of al-Nasir the Sultans gradually abandoned the Citadel itself and took up their abode in the lower parts called the Hosh or “pens” and the mews.

The Sultans who reigned between the time of Mohammed al-Nasir and the Ottoman occupation most of them did something for the Citadel in the way of either restoration or fresh building, without, however, seriously altering the work of that ruler. Various inscriptions have been found by Casanova and van Berchem which refer to these restorations. A picture preserved in the Louvre represents the last Mamluke Sultan but one (Kansuh al-Ghuri) sitting in the garden which he had laid out and receiving the Venetian ambassador.

In the Turkish period the Janissaries occupied the military citadel, while the Pashas were installed in the palaces at the foot. The grand buildings of Nasir and his successors were allowed to fall into ruin, and indeed, according to a French traveller of the seventeenth century, the Egyptian Pashas were expressly forbidden by their Turkish masters to hold their audiences in the Great Hall, lest the magnificence

thereof should inspire them with the desire to become independent. Many beautiful marbles were removed by the Sultans from the buildings of the Citadel and taken to Constantinople; the Turkish conqueror of Egypt, Selim, dismantled some of the edifices immediately. The Mosque of Nasir being neglected, other mosques were built on the Citadel for the use of the Janissaries, and the governors continued to build themselves palaces thereon. Much damage is said to have been done to the buildings which remained on the Citadel at the time of the French occupation; but the Citadel received a new lease of life when Mohammed Ali built his mosque and his palace there; and though the ruined Mosque of al-Nasir and the much-frequented Mosque of Mohammed Ali are the only show buildings that now remain on the Citadel, its military importance is still considerable.

We now return to a summary of the history of the Ayyu-bids, as the dynasty inaugurated by Saladdin is called after the father of its founder. It held the throne of Egypt for eighty-three years, from 1169 to 1252, and consisted of nine sovereigns; but other branches of the family ruled simultaneously, and for some time after the power of the Egyptian Ayyubids had fallen, in various parts of Syria and Arabia. Perhaps during the greater part of this time Damascus rather than Cairo would have been called the chief city of the Empire; for Saladdin during the life of Nur al-din recognized the latter's suzerainty, while after his death he contrived to gain possession of his empire and to extend it by fresh conquests in order to bring a united Islam to deal with the Frankish invaders of the East. In the Mamluke period the governors of the Syrian cities were the “Deputies” of the Egyptian Sultan; but in Ayyubid times this relation did not yet exist.

Although the greater part of Saladdin's time was spent in Syria, he found time to arrange for the construction in Cairo

of a number of buildings religious or philanthropic in character. One of these was a College or School (madrasah) in the neighbourhood of the grave of al-Shafi'i, known as the Imam, or founder of an orthodox system of Law. Provision was made in this School for teaching that great jurist's doctrine, it being of importance that facilities should be provided for bringing Egypt back to orthodoxy after so many years of Fatimide government. This college was of enormous size, equal according to one enthusiastic visitor, to a town; the site on which it was built had previously been a prison. Saladdin's successor apparently made some additions, but in Makrizi's time it was in ruins, and in 1761 Abd al-Rahman Ketkhuda, whose name has already met us in connexion with al-Azhar, pulled down what was left of it, and built on the site the present Mosque of Shafi'i. Another prison which had occupied part of the old Fatimide Palace was turned by him into a hospital; and—a yet greater innovation—a house called after a former owner Sa' id al-Su' ada, west of the old Avenue of the Two Palaces, was turned into a hospice (khanagah) for poor ascetics. At a latter time, as we shall see, the ideas of mosque, school and hospice all became confused; but in Saladdin's time they were still distinct, and the appurtenances of a mosque, a minaret, a pulpit and a washing place, were added to the hospice in much later times. It also served as a final resting-place for many of the saints.

A visitor to Cairo in Saladdin's time has in his diary left us his impressions of the place—the Spaniard Ibn Jubair. The Citadel and the surrounding wall had been begun in his time; and the intentions of the Sultan in the matter were well known. What interested him most in the city or its neighbourhood was the great number of mausoleums containing the remains of members of the Prophet's house, men and women, companions of the prophet, jurists and saints. Over the sanctuary which contained the head of Husain he is ecstatic; he

confesses that no words can give an adequate description of its magnificence. But he has a good deal to say too of the arrangements of Saladdin's School and especially his Hospital; with its separate establishments for men and women, with beds provided with coverings, all under the management of a custodian with a staff of assistants; while hard by is an asylum for the insane, who too have their comfort thoroughly studied, but whose windows have to be secured with iron gratings. No detail in his description is more striking than the apparently speedy recovery of Fostat from its ashes. The traces of the great fire were indeed apparent, but building was proceeding continuously.

Saladdin died in Damascus at the beginning of March 1193; he had made Egypt once more nominally dependent on Baghdad, but had in reality substituted a new dynasty for the effete Fatimide family, whose Palace he had ruined. The reign of his son and successor was disturbed by family disputes, which for a time were settled by the division of Saladdin's empire; one son (Aziz) retaining Egypt, while another (Afdal) reigned in Syria. The former, however, had to submit to the direction of his uncle Adil, who at the death of Aziz after five years’ reign, was easily able in 1199 to supplant his infant son.

The reign of Aziz is notable in the history of Cairo for the commencement of a residential quarter on the west bank of the Great Canal, the site of European Cairo of our time. Ibn Jubair speaks with great admiration of the embankment of the Nile by Saladdin, of course before the river had shifted its bed towards the west. The region west of the Bab al-Sha'riyyah and north of the present Ezbekiyyeh quarter was at that time a plantation of date-palms; the Sultan Aziz, in the year 1197, ordered these palms to be cut down, and an exercising ground to be laid out where they had stood. This proceeding led to the adjoining land being

AN OLD PALACE, CAIRO.
parcelled out and built on. The now fashionable region further south was not occupied till Mamluke days. Eight months of the preceding year are said to have been occupied by this prince in a futile attempt at treasure-hunting in the pyramids of Gizeh; after a time it was known that the cost of undoing the ancient builders’ work was greater than the value of the expected treasure.

The Sultan Adil, like his brother Saladdin, spent little of his time in Egypt, where he appointed as his deputy his son, called al-Kamil. We have seen how this sovereign completed the Citadel which his uncle had begun. The transference thither of the seat of government led to the south and south-east of Cairo becoming fashionable and populous.

The Sultan Kamil gave his name to the Kamiliyyah School, in the Nahhasin Street, built by him in the year 1225; it was long known as the House of Tradition (dar al-hadith), and was said to be the second edifice with that title, the first being one built in Damascus. From its erection perhaps we are to infer that orthodox books of Tradition were not yet studied in al-Azhar. Like so many of these pious edifices a fanciful account had to be given of the source of the funds employed in its elevation. The workmen who dug the foundations were fortunate enough to discover a golden image, which, molten down, served to defray all expenses! In Mamluke times it got crowded out by a number of religious and educational edifices erected in the immediate neighbourhood, and in Makrizi's time instruction in Tradition had already ceased to be given in it, and it was turned into an ordinary mosque.

Kamil's successor Adil II reigned only two years; he was superseded by his brother Salih, called also Najm al-din Ayyub, who reigned nine years (1240-1249). His reign was notable for several events.

Like previous sovereigns he took to purchasing slaves of

various nationalities, suitable to form a bodyguard, and at first housed them in the Citadel or in Cairo itself. Like the old Praetorians of Baghdad, their disregard for the rights of ordinary citizens made them a source of annoyance to the populace; and just as one of the Baghdad Caliphs had built a city Samarra to keep his praetorians at a distance from the metropolis, so the Sultan Kamil built a fortress on the Island of Raudah to hold his Mamlukes. These troops thence got the name Bahris, i.e., Mamlukes of the Nile or Sea, as the Arabs ordinarily call the river of Egypt. The site of these barracks was chosen not only with a view to the comfort of the Cairenes; with vessels at their disposal the Mamlukes were constantly ready to descend the Nile in case of a Frankish invasion. Our chroniclers regale us with a story how a party of deserters from the fortress of Raudah came in the desert across an abandoned city, with streets and houses and cisterns containing water that was sweeter than honey; green marble was the material chiefly used in the construction of the town. Coins were found in some of the shops, with legends in an ancient script; the archaeologists to whom they were shown read thereon the name of Moses, on whom be peace! Like the cities of the Takla-makan desert which have been unearthed in our day, it had been covered with sand; at times, however, the winds uncover such buried habitations of men, and this had occurred in the year 1244, when the Mamlukes deserted; another wind then covered the city as it was before, and those that looked for it could not find it.

The erection of the barracks on the Island of Raudah led to the building of more houses on the western bank of the Great Canal; and the Bab al-Khark (of which the name survives as Bab al-Khalk) formed the head of the avenue which led from the city to the new fortification. The heaps of ruins which are to the left of the traveller from Cairo to

Old Cairo belong to a period when several causes led to this being a fashionable quarter.

Relics of buildings by this Sultan exist in the shape of a mausoleum and a school, both in the old avenue between the two palaces. Their site is where part of the ancient Eastern Palace stood, and indeed included the famous gate of the palace called Bab al-Zuhumah, supposed to be named after the “odour of cooking.” On May 16, 1242, the demolition of the older structure commenced, and in two years time the school was ready. Chairs were provided in it—for the first time—for the four orthodox systems of Law, and this principle continued to be followed in the colleges built by Egyptian Sultans, though it appears to have been in the first Mamluke period that a Sultan cynically confessed that the public maintenance of four systems was to give the sovereign the better chance of getting his rulings authorized. The practice of having these separate systems taught in annexes to the four liwans or cloisters gives such buildings a shape approximating to the cruciform.

Architecturally, Herz Bey tells us, the College of the Sultan Salih is of interest for the development of the façade. In the Fatimide period the façade began to be ornamented by a niche over the door, which served no other purpose than that of decoration. In the Mamluke period it develops into a series of windows. The College of Salih offers the earliest example of the introduction of a window, whereby the niche is given a definite purpose. In the façade of the mausoleum of the same sovereign the niches extend to the full height of the wall.

The building originally consisted of two schools, separated by a long passage to which access was given by the gate under the minaret; this was of iron, ornamented with a marble slab, bearing the name Salihiyyah. Each of the schools consisted of an open court, surrounded by four

cloisters. Of the southern school nothing now remains except the façade. Of the northern there remains the western cloister and part of the wall belonging to the eastern. The old passage has now become a street.

This school was at times used as a court of justice. We have a record of a scene occurring in the year 1521, in the early days of Turkish rule, when on the occasion of festivities in Cairo, owing to the victories of the Sultan Sulaiman, some Christians who had got drunk in honour thereof and indulged in unseemly language were taken there to be tried. Two of the judges decided that though they might not be executed they ought to be scourged for drunkenness; two other judges raised a protest against this, and thereupon the mob interfered, and nearly stoned the judges. A party of Janissaries rushed to the rescue, seized the Christians, and cut two of them in pieces; a third turned Moslem, and so with difficulty saved his skin. The remains of the murdered Christians were then burned by the fanatical mob, who tore down beams from the shops for the purpose.

The mausoleum of the Sultan Salih, which adjoins his school, is the first of a series of mosque-tombs built for themselves by the Egyptian Sultans, as though the air which had inspired the erection of the Pyramids were still suggesting some similar ideas. It was built seven years later than the school, to the northern section of which it is attached by an opening made in the wall of the western cloister. The influence of the west is, Herz Bey tells us, exceedingly apparent in this mausoleum.

The Sultan Salih died in Mansurah, whither he had gone after the seizure of Damietta by the Crusaders under St Louis, in order to organize a force to deal with the invader. He had gone thither while suffering from an ulcer, believed to be his punishment for the murder of his brother and predecessor on the throne. According to a custom of which most monarchies furnish illustrations, his death was concealed

until his son Turanshah, then at Hisn Kaifa, was safely seated on the vacant throne; the widowed queen meanwhile undertook the management of affairs: it was given out that the Sultan was still ailing, physicians continued to pay their visits and report on his progress, and despatches continued to be issued in his name. Turanshah's reign began brilliantly, owing rather to the valour and skill of the Emir Rukn al-din Baibars with the Mamlukes, than to his own. The Christian fleet was destroyed, and the retreat of the Crusaders cut off. The French King was himself taken prisoner, to be released afterwards for a great ransom. Damietta itself was restored to the Egyptian Sultan, and lest it should again harbour an invader, utterly destroyed. All that was left of it for the time was a group of fishermen's huts. But Turanshah offended the Mamlukes of his father by preferring his own satellites above them, and committed the still greater error of underrating the ability of his father's widow Shajar al-durr, who proved a formidable adversary. This woman, reviving the traditions of old Egyptian and Ethiopian queens, replied to the threats of her stepson by organizing a conspiracy among his father's servants. An assault was made upon him at a banquet given at Mansurah. From the sword he fled into a wooden refuge, soon to be devoured by flame; and thence he flung himself into the water, where he was ultimately dispatched. His reign lasted forty days only, and with its end the Ayyubid period practically closed.

The great relic of the Ayyubid period is then the Citadel; from the time of Saladdin till the nineteenth century the history of Egypt centres round that of the fortress which commanded Cairo. The religious importance of the Ayyubid dynasty is also very great. By restoring Moslem orthodoxy in Egypt, they fitted that country to serve as the headquarters of Islam during the centuries which elapsed between the fall of Baghdad and the consolidation of the power

of the Ottomans. They made Cairo the University of Islam, and that position it holds to this day. Politically they accustomed the people of Egypt to government by aliens and Turks, taking on therein a tradition which had commenced before the Fatimide dynasty had begun.

Historically their importance otherwise is to be found in the fact that they bore the brunt of the Crusades; to recover the cities which the Frankish invader had taken was the problem which they had to face, and before the dynasty was over this problem had practically been solved. The founder of the line, Saladdin, towers far above the others; the admirable biography of him by Mr Lane Poole enables the general reader to estimate him aright. When he first took part in affairs there was a prospect of Egypt being annexed to the Frankish Empire, and indeed we find the Franks in actual occupation of Cairo. Aided partly by circumstances, such as the dissensions of the Frankish chiefs, and the want of suitable successors to the throne of Jerusalem,but chiefly through his own ability as a statesman and general, Saladdin was able to reconquer Jerusalem, and so write the death-warrant of the Frankish occupation of the nearest East. Al-Kamil was, by the invasion of Egypt in the years 1218 to 1221, brought into greater straits than Saladdin had been. But the loss of Damietta, after its long and heroic resistance, was compensated in the following year by the Sultan's well-planned and successful resistance to the Crusaders’ expedition against Cairo, which ended in the Franks being driven from Egypt. The Sultan on the occasion of his brilliant victory showed that the chivalrous spirit which sheds a halo round the memory of Saladdin was in his nature too. The heroism of his successor Salih is sufficiently indicated by the circumstances of his end. Few, if any, of the dynasties of Islam have in so short a time brought to the front so many capable rulers.

DOOR OF A MOSQUE, CAIRO.

CHAPTER V The First Mamluke Sovereigns

AFTER the murder of Turanshah the Emirs accepted the government of the woman who had organized the coup, and she was enthroned in the same style as male sovereigns, except that a curtain separated her from the ministers who kissed the ground as their act of homage. To the rule of infants the Islamic peoples were accustomed; but it was to them a great rarity to hear the preachers in the mosques name after the Caliph “the wife of the Sultan Salih, the Queen of the Moslems, the Protectress of the world and of the faith, the screened and veiled Mother of the deceased Khalil”—for in that name she chose to reign, since her own name, “Pearl-tree,” too obviously suggested the slave-girl—both male and female slaves being commonly called after gems.

In spite of her eminent qualifications for the sovereignty, she could not long resist the popular objections to a woman holding such a post; and the Caliph himself sent from Baghdad to tell the Egyptians that if they had not among them a man qualified to be Sultan, they might apply to him, and he would send them some one. After three months’ sovereignty she consented to a compromise whereby she abdicated, only, however, to continue to rule as the wife of Izz al-din Aibek, whom she had employed as chief minister. This person had originally been a slave purchased by the Sultan Salih, and enrolled in the force of Raudah Island, presently manumitted and promoted to high office.

The praetorians were, however, not yet accustomed to seeing one of their number Sultan: they clamoured for a

member of the Ayyubid family. Aibek, perhaps by the direction of his wife, sent for such a person, a youth of tender years, who agreed to be joint Sultan with Aibek, the names of both figuring on coins and being recited in the public prayer; but the husband of Shajar al-durr was resolved to be sole master, and utilized the treasures at his disposal for the purchase of armed men. When sufficiently strong, he entrapped one of the leaders of the opposition in the Citadel, had him assassinated and his head flung to his friends in the Rumailah Place. The rest of the opposition fled into Syria, among them two men, afterwards prominent as Egyptian Sultans, Baibars and Kala'un. The Ayyubid prince was then imprisoned, and Aibek reigned alone.

He now considered himself strong enough to displace his wife, Shajar al-durr, and sent to solicit the hand of a daughter of Badr al-din Lulu, prince of Mausil. This proceeding was followed by violent recriminations on the part of the ex-Queen, to escape which Aibek abandoned the Citadel and went to reside in the new quarter called Luk, which, in consequence of the innovations of al-Aziz and al-Kamil was springing up between the Great Canal and the Nile. Shajar al-durr contrived, however, by various blandishments to allure him back to the Citadel, where she had arranged that five of her Byzantine eunuchs should murder him in his bath.

The tragedy was not yet finished. Aibek had left a son, Ali, by another wife, whom Shajar al-durr had forced him to put away when she raised him with herself to the throne. This son, having his father's praetorians at his command, handed his stepmother over to the tender mercies of his mother, who ordered her handmaids to beat the fallen Queen to death with their shoes. She was then stripped, dragged by the feet, and flung into a ditch, where she remained unburied three days. At the end of this time she was taken out and interred in the mausoleum which she had built for herself, and which

still exists between the Mashhads of Sayyidah Nafisah and Sayyidah Sakinah. M. van Berchem shows by the evidence of an inscription—in modern letters, but doubtless copied from an older one—that this mausoleum must have been built after Shajar al-durr had become queen, but before she married Aibek; for among her official titles she is there called Mother of Khalil, but not wife of Aibek. The present building is modern, being a restoration dating from the year 1873. It also contains the tomb of one of the shadowy Caliphs, of whom we shall hear more. Her death took place April 15, 1257: she had ascended the throne May 14, 1250.

Aibek is said to have destroyed the barracks built by his predecessor on Raudah Island, and to have cleared away many dwellings in the parts of Cairo that stretch from Bab Zuwailah to the Citadel, and westward to the Bab al-Luk. He built a college in Old Cairo called Mu'izziyyah, after his title Malik Mu'izz.

The new Sultan, who had dealt such vengeance on his stepmother, was eleven years of age: a regent had to be appointed, and a Mamluke of his father, named Kotuz, was chosen. The next year Baghdad was taken by the Mongol Hulagu, who now threatened to advance westward; and just as it had been the business of the Ayyubids to arrest the progress of the Crusaders, so it became that of the Mamluke dynasty to check this more terrible enemy. A council was held at which the chief jurist of the time declared that the occasion called for a man, and not a child, to be at the head of affairs; and on Nov. 4, 1259, Ali, called al-Mansur, son of Aibek, was deposed, and the regent installed Sultan in his place. Such events were destined to occur with great frequency during this dynasty, and the fate of the deposed monarch was ordinarily unenviable. In some cases, as that of Ali, it was lifelong imprisonment: sometimes it was honourable banishment, and more frequently still it was

execution. For a man to whom allegiance had once been sworn could generally be suspected of harbouring designs against his successor.

The command of the forces was given by the new Sultan to Baibars al-Bundukdari, an officer who was credited with much of the merit of the great victory over Louis IX. Almost immediately after the enthronement of Kotuz there arrived a missive from Hulagu couched in the style of Sennacherib of old; and by tremendous efforts, coupled with ruthless extortions, an army was equipped and despatched to Syria to meet the Tartars. On Sept. 3, 1260, a battle was fought at Ain Jalut, in which the victory remained with the Egyptians. This was presently confirmed by another victory, and Kotuz not only repelled the Mongol invasion, but secured for Egypt the suzerainty over the whole of Saladdin's old empire. But on his triumphant return to Egypt, he was attacked and slain by the Emir Baibars, who approached the Sultan ostensibly to kiss his hand for the present of a slave girl. Since the officers decided that Baibars, by way of compensation for this act, should be made sovereign in his victim's stead, it is probable that the assassination was the outcome of a widespread conspiracy. The contemporary biographer of Baibars, who fills pages with eulogies of his master's virtues, can only say of this act that there happened what did happen. The date is given as Nov. 21, 1260.

Baibars reigned for seventeen years, and showed great capacity as both a warrior and administrator, though utterly unscrupulous in his dealings. He re-established in theory, as we have seen, the Caliphate of the Abbasids by recognizing the claim of one Abu' l-Kasim Ahmad to be the heir of the Baghdad potentates, and installing him in the Citadel as Caliph with the title Mustansir. Mustansir then proceeded to confer on Baibars the title Sultan, and invest him with all Islamic lands and any lands that might afterwards

become Islamic by conquest. The address in which this shadowy Caliph instructs Baibars in his duties is a curious document. It appears that Baibars at one time intended to restore his Caliph to Baghdad, and to equip him with a force which might have been sufficient to enable him to reconquer that capital. But he was advised in time not to make his creature powerful enough to become his master, and sent with him so small a force that he was easily defeated and slain by the troops of the Mongol governor of Baghdad. After his death a substitute was speedily found in another person who claimed descent from the Abbasid family: but this Caliph remained in Cairo, and, though one of his successors was actually Sultan for a few days, the greater number of these Egyptian Caliphs served no other purpose than to confer legitimacy on their Mamluke masters.

The reign of Baibars was spent largely in successful wars against the Crusaders, from whom he took many cities, notably Safad, Caesarea and Antioch; the Armenians, whose territory he repeatedly invaded, burning their capital Sis; and the Seljucids of Asia Minor. All these were to some extent the allies of the Mongols. He further reduced the Isma'ilians, better known as the Assassins, whose existence as a community lasted on in Syria after it had practically come to an end in Persia. He established friendly relations with some of the Christian powers of Europe, e.g. the Emperor of Constantinople, the King of Naples, and the King of Castile. He made Nubia tributary to Egypt, thereby extending Moslem arms further south than they had been extended by any earlier sovereign.

He was, as has been noticed, the first sovereign who acknowledged the equal authority of the four orthodox systems of law, and appointed judges belonging to each of them in Egypt and Syria.

Two buildings in Cairo commemorate the reign of the Sultan

Baibars, whose title was at first al-Kahir, and afterwards al-Zahir. One of these is a disused mosque at the end of the Zahir Street, which leads out of the Faggalah. The materials employed for this building were largely taken from the Crusaders’ Castle at Jaffa, which was seized by him on March 7, 1268, by surprise, he being supposed to be at peace with its governor. The building materials, including columns and marble slabs, were piled on a vessel and conveyed by water to Cairo. The site selected for the mosque was the exercise-ground named after Saladdin's minister Karakush. The cupola over the Kiblah (or mihrab) was in imitation of the cupola over Shafi'i's à the doorway was copied from the door of his own school (madrasah) which had already been built.

Ali Pasha has been able to produce few notices of the fate of this great building—which Baibars does not appear to have ever intended for his own mausoleum—before the time of the French expedition, when the invaders turned it into a fortress. The place was then desecrated and various dwellings erected within and around it. In Mohammed Ali's time a military bake-house was instituted inside the old mosque: this was removed in the time of Isma'il Pasha, but has been renewed since the British occupation. Three inscriptions that still remain have been published by M. van Berchem, in which the name, date and titles of the founder are preserved. An interesting title is that of “Copartner with the Commander of the Faithful,” by whom the Abbasid is meant, whose installation at Cairo constituted one of Baibars's masterstrokes. These Mamluke Sultans seem to have been quite ready to acknowledge their original status; and one of the adjectives employed as a title of the founder means that he was the freedman of the Ayyubid Sultan Salih.

The same Sultan was also the founder of a school (madrasah) called the Zahiriyyah, which used to be in the Nahhasin Street, forming part of the ancient avenue “Between

MOSQUE OF SULTAN BIBARS, CAIRO.
the two Palaces.” This was erected in 1263, when the Sultan was in Syria, on the site of part of the old Fatimide Palace called the Golden Gate. It had four liwans, one for each school of law, according to the system already prevailing; it was furnished with a rich library, and beside it was built a school for instructing poor orphans in the Koran. The buildings in the space between the Zuwailah and Faraj Gates (outside the city) were settled on the madrasah, which was to be supported by their rents. In Makrizi's time it had been superseded by the numerous other institutions of the same kind which had been erected in the neighbourhood; till 1870 some ruins still remained; but in 1874 they were almost entirely removed, owing to the cutting of a new street to the Bait al-Kadi. One of the doors in finely wrought bronze was discovered by M. van Berchem in the French Consulate-general, whither it had been taken apparently at the time when the ruins were cleared away. It bears an inscription with the name of the Sultan, and a date in somewhat later style.

One chronicler credits Baibars with rebuilding al-Azhar “after it had been in ruins since the time of Hakim,” but this must be a gross exaggeration. He also built a bridge over the Great Canal, long famous as “The Lions’ Bridge,” so called after some stone lions with which it was adorned, and which were put there because the animal figured on the Sultan's coat of arms. This bridge was near Sayyidah Zai-nab, and was of great height. The great builder Mohammed al-Nasir replaced it by a bridge that was lower and wider, not, Makrizi states, because there was anything the matter with it, but because this Sultan envied any architectural or engineering glory enjoyed by his predecessors. Baibars also restored the barracks on the Island of Raudah, and compelled his bodyguard to establish themselves there.

The Bab al-Luk quarter also, we are told, received an

access of population owing to the policy of the Sultan in welcoming Tartar colonists. Quite at the beginning of his reign emissaries, sent by him into Syria to discover the plans of Hulagu, found a detachment of Mongols who were anxious to seek the protection of the Egyptian Sultan, being in number about a thousand horsemen with their families. On Nov. 11, 1262, these refugees were given a public reception by the Sultan, who had ordered houses to be built for their habitation in the region that has been mentioned, and the welcome granted to these Mongols with the promotion that was speedily accorded them in the Sultan's service led to many more of their brethren following their example. An exercise-ground was laid out in the same region, and there every Tuesday and Saturday the Sultan rode to play ball. The origin of the name Luk appears to be quite obscure; the grammarians try to show that it means land originally submerged, but afterwards recovered, a description which would suit this part of Cairo accurately.

Another quarter that grew up in Baibars's time was in the region between Sayyidah Zainab and the Nile, and another in the region yet further south, adjoining the river, called Dair al-Tin, or Clay Monastery, where brick-kilns had previously occupied the ground.

The character of Baibars is one of great psychological interest, and in some ways resembles that of Napoleon. His victories, like Napoleon's, were won by his great rapidity of movement: he went from Egypt to Syria and Syria to Egypt in times that constituted records for that age. Where his personal ambition was concerned, he appears to have recognized no moral obligations. The indictment against him drawn up by the German historian Weil leaves a most painful impression on the reader. Perfidy and cunning can nowhere be better illustrated. Apparently, however, the Moslem world of those days, owing to the terrible catastrophes

which it had undergone, could not easily be shocked; and we find that the murder of Turanshah with which his career commenced, horrified the imprisoned Crusaders much more than Turanshah's subjects; and the calmness with which the people of Egypt permitted Baibars to seat himself on the throne of the meritorious Sultan whom he had assassinated could not easily be paralleled either in earlier or later times. That such a man as Baibars should have been a founder of religious edifices is not surprising; what astonishes us more is that he appears in many ways to have led a blameless life, and to have sincerely interested himself in the reformation of public morals. The growth of Cairo in his time was largely due to the scrupulousness with which he looked after the administration of justice. His services to Islam in repelling the Mongols and bringing the Frankish kingdom established by the Crusaders to the verge of extinction, were very great; and, probably, the elaborate hierarchy of officials which characterizes Mamluke times was at least in part due to his genius for organization.

On July 1, 1277, Baibars died and was buried in Damascus. He was succeeded by an incompetent son, Barakah Khan, otherwise called al-Malik al-Sa'id, who soon became involved in disputes with both his provincial governors and his bodyguard in Egypt. M. van Berchem identified a mosque in the old street Khurunfush, which had been built by the maternal uncle of the Sultan, of whom we read that he was imprisoned for ten days for the offence of representing to the Sultan's sister that unless he acted with greater prudence he would lose his throne. This mosque was in ruins when the Swiss archaeologist first saw it, and has since been displaced by a café. Sa'id himself is said to have built a bath, but of this there appears to be no trace.

Sa'id found first a mentor and presently a dangerous rival in the Emir Kala'un al-Alfi, who was in command of

the Syrian forces, and had been promoted and highly trusted by Baibars. The Queen-mother endeavoured to mediate between them, but, though treated with respect, she succeeded only partially, and after some negotiations Kala'un marched against Cairo, and besieged the Citadel in the Sultan's absence. Kala'un permitted the Sultan to join his besieged adherents, in order thereby to get him more easily into his power. The Sultan found himself unable to stand a siege, and was soon induced to abdicate, on condition of being allowed possession of Kerak, a city which played a rather important part in Mamluke times as a refuge for deposed sovereigns. There shortly afterwards he died of a fall from his horse.

Kala'un did not at first venture to proclaim himself sovereign, thinking it safer to make an infant brother of Sa'id nominal Sultan. His confederates, however, represented to him that this arrangement would lead them into danger, since the bodyguard of Baibars would probably group round the son of their former chief and eventually oust the usurper. To this argument he yielded, and allowed himself to be installed as Sultan on November 18, 1279.

An Under-secretary of State, who has left us a biography, or rather panegyric of this Sultan, gives an account of an interview that proceeded the proclamation. He had already taken possession of the Palace of the Sultan Sa'id on the Citadel, and had opened a window in the Great Hall, where he sat to discharge his duties as regent: He commanded me, says the Under-secretary, to write out the names of a number of earlier kings—doubtless with the view of selecting a suitable name. The Under-secretary refused to make out such a list in the palace of a king who was reigning, and could not be prevailed upon to do so until all the ministers were assembled: so great was his fear of being an accomplice in a coup which might after all fail. When the ministers

were all present, the Under-secretary made out his list; and Kala'un selected the name Mansur as his royal title. He had been manumitted from slavery thirty-three years before.

His first years of sovereignty were occupied with troubles in Syria, where a governor of Damascus rebelled; and though this rebellion was crushed in the spring of 1280, the disaffected Syrians entered into relations with the Mongols, who repeatedly invaded and ravaged the country, but were defeated by Kala'un in a great battle under the walls of Homs on October 30, 1281.

During his residence in Damascus Kala'un had been cured of the colic by remedies prepared at the hospital that had been founded there by the Sultan Nur al-din. Kala'un resolved to provide his Egyptian capital with a similar institution, and the name of this still remains in the Muristan (an abbreviation of the Persian word Bimaristan) or hospital in the Nahhasin Street. The name is ordinarily made to include three buildings, the hospital, the school and the mausoleum of the Sultan, which lay behind the others. The building which they replaced belonged originally to the daughter of the Fatimide Sultan Aziz, and when taken over by Kala'un was in the possession of an Ayyubid princess, to whom the Emerald Palace, part of the ancient Fatimide Palace, was given in exchange. The Fatimide princess had been served in it by 8,000 slave girls (if Oriental figures are to be trusted)—a statement which indicates its size. A story similar to that connected with the Tulun Mosque was excogitated to conceal the source whence funds had been supplied for covering the expense. The workmen when digging the soil fortunately discovered sealed boxes containing jewels and coin in sufficient quantities to defray the whole. The reason for this fiction was that great violence had been used by the contractor in employing forced labour for the building. All the artisans, we are told, in Cairo and Fostat were

compelled to work at this and nothing else, no other orders in either city being allowed to be attended to while it was being erected. Passers-by were compelled to stop, or if mounted to descend from their horses and carry stones, and in order to supply materials, buildings in the Island of Raudah were pulled down. Besides this it was generally supposed that the Ayyubid princess had been turned out of her palace against her will; though Makrizi observes about this that no resentment could justly be felt for the robbery of the Ayyubids, who themselves had robbed the Fatimides. It would seem, however, that the mode in which the transformation of the building was carried out gave great offence, and means had to be devised to allay the agitation. The arrangements when the hospital was complete were said to be superior to those of any similar institution. It was to be open to any number of persons for any length of time, whether male or female, bond or free. Separate wards were assigned to different diseases; arrangements were made for the treatment of out-patients as well as in-patients; and medical courses were to be given for the benefit of students who “walked the hospital.” From the rents which were settled upon it, amounting to a million dirhems, a whole staff of officials, including bed-makers, male and female, were to be paid; and materials of various sorts required for the compounding of drugs were liberally supplied. Arrangements on a similar scale were made in connexion with the school, the orphanage and the sepulchral cupola which was to be the Sultan's own resting-place; fifty readers of the Koran were employed to recite the Sacred Volume in turns without ceasing day or night; and a library was, as usual, added to the foundation. Van Berchem shows by the evidence of inscriptions that the hospital took five months, the mausoleum four months, and the school three months to build: a fact which agrees with what we are told of the violent
methods employed by the contractor for hurrying on the work. The date of the completion of the whole was August, 1285.

The scene which is described as taking place after the completion of the buildings gives us an idea of the liberty of speech permitted at this time in Egypt, which we could scarcely have gleaned from the history. The jurists declared prayer in such a place unlawful. The chief ecclesiastical authority of the time long refused to preach an inaugural sermon, and when at last he consented to do so, it contained some bitter reproaches levelled both at the Sultan and the minister who had been entrusted with the work of erection. Even the principal finally appointed to the new institution expressed his opinion of both quite freely before he accepted the post.

The hospital remained in use for many centuries, and received benefactions from Ezbek, after whom the Ezbekiyyeh is named, and also from some of the Turkish Sultans. It appears to have fallen into neglect at the time of the French occupation, and never afterwards recovered. A school of Malekite law still remains. In the earthquake of 1303 a minaret was damaged, but was immediately afterwards restored by that great builder, the Sultan Nasir, who also placed the railing round the Sultan Kala'un's tomb. That Kala'un should have set about building his Mosque-mausoleum so soon after his accession to the throne shows how quickly the idea of such a form of monument, which was originally quite alien to Islam, had taken root.

Two obelisks now in the British Museum, covered with hieroglyphics, were found by the French in the school of Kala'un, and sent off to France. The vessel by which they were conveyed was captured by an English man-of-war, which brought the obelisks to England.

The conversion to Islam of the Ilchan (the title by which

the Mongol ruler of Baghdad was known) and the consequent troubles in the Mongol Empire led to a cessation of hostilities between Egypt and the Ilchanate, through the Mongol rulers did not cease to agitate in Europe for a renewal of the Crusades with little result. Kala'un did not at first pursue any career of active conquest, though he did much to consolidate his dominions, and especially to extend Egyptian commerce, for which purpose he started a system of passports enabling merchants who possessed them to travel with safety through Egypt and Syria and as far as India. After the danger from the Mongols had ceased, he directed his energies towards capturing the last places in Syria that were still occupied by the Franks. In 1290 he planned an attack on Acre, but died (Nov. 10) in the middle of his preparations. During the greater part of his reign he took one of his sons as associate in the government, and indeed left him to take care of Egypt, while himself absent in Syria; on the death of his son Musa, in 1288, he associated with himself his son Khalil who was his successor. The Under-secretary has preserved a very elaborate set of instructions given by Kala'un to his viceroy for the conduct of affairs during his absence. The pigeon-post, the telegraph of the time, was to be organized so as to convey to headquarters early tidings of the rising of the Nile; and great trouble was to be taken to see that all bridges and embankments were in good order. The viceroy must also see that every patch of ground in which cultivation was possible should be cultivated.

The viceroy's first business, we read in one of these sets of instructions, when he returns to the Citadel after bidding his father farewell and Godspeed on one of his warlike expeditions, is to look carefully after the disaffected Emirs who happen to be imprisoned in the Citadel, to see that they are properly fed and clothed, and that if any of them are ill, they should receive proper medical attendance, and by fair promises to endeavour

to win their loyalty. Great care is to be taken that the gates of the Citadel are properly guarded, and indeed the Eastern or Cemetery Gate is to be kept locked the whole time of Our absence. The municipal authorities are to keep special guard on such parts of both cities as are likely to be rendezvous to evil-doers: such places are in particular the Nile-bank, the Cemeteries, and the Ponds, i.e. the Elephant's Pool, the Abyssinian's Pool and some others now dried up. At night both cities should be patrolled and the Dispensaries locked up; and especially certain public halls in the Husainiyyah quarter, called Halls of Chivalry (ka'ât al-futuwah) which were frequented by turbulent persons. All persons practising astrology are to be inhibited, and their instruments seized, while the public are to be warned to place no confidence in their arts. The judges appointed to settle religious questions are to sit in the liwans of the various schools every day, Fridays not excepted, both morning and evening, and are to avoid all mutual rivalry. The provincial governors are to be perpetually reminded that no one must be allowed to get more or less than his fair share of Nile water. The viceroy is advised not to ride out much, and when he does so to keep to the highway, only to admit to his neighbourhood persons in whom he has complete confidence; and when in the course of his promenades petitions are handed to him, to see that justice is done to the petitioners.

Kala'un appears to have built barracks on the Citadel for the large numbers of guards whom he purchased, whilst still retaining some on the Island of Raudah: the former class came to be entitled the Mamlukes of the Tower (Burjis), and when Kala'un's dynasty was overthrown that which succeeded it was called by that name. The native historians praise him for giving the Mamlukes a less hideous uniform than they had previously been compelled to wear. The old uniform had included a dull blue cap, the hair being allowed to grow in long tresses which were tied

up in a bag of red or yellow silk; the tunics were fastened with a buckle of leather and brass, to which were attached great bags of black leather, containing a wooden spoon and a long knife. Kala'un abolished this eccentric attirc, and adorned his officers with fur and velvet.

He was succeeded by his son Khalil, who carried out his father's policy of driving the Franks out of Palestine and Syria, and proceeded with the siege of Acre, which he took (May 18, 1291) after a siege of forty-three days. The capture and destruction of this important place was followed by the capture of Tyre, Sidon, Haifa, Athlith and Beyrut; and thus the nearer East was cleared of the Crusaders.

Acre was utterly destroyed by Khalil, and its fine buildings came to be a quarry for building materials. Khalil's brother Nasir, who reigned after him, got thence the marble doorway of his school; it had originally adorned a church in Acre. Others were used by Khalil himself for edifices which he caused to be constructed in Damascus and elsewhere. His own tomb, to which a school was once attached, in the Sayyidah Nefisah region, was built before this event, and while he was associated with his father, who is named in the epitaph with such titles as are assigned only to living sovereigns. Close by is the tomb of his stepmother, the mother of his brother Salih, who had originally been appointed to succeed.

The triumphal entry of Khalil into Cairo after his return from the holy war must have been one of the most glorious processions in which Moslem Sultan ever figured. “He entered at the Nasr Gate, and went across the City, the Emirs walking before him, while the Viceroy carried the parasol with the bird over his head, and the caparisons were shaken before him; and when he arrived at the hospital, he turned his horse, and went to visit his father's à after which he rode up to the Citadel, and distributed decorations.”

The name Saladdin which was one of his titles of honour, while he reigned under the name of al-Ashraf, had not been given him in vain. Yet it does not appear that he shared with his illustrious namesake the qualities which have rendered the latter a type of chivalry. And the glory of having achieved what his predecessors for two hundred years had vainly striven to accomplish, is said to have turned his head.

The career of the Conqueror of the Franks was brought to an abrupt conclusion at the beginning of the fourth year of his reign (December 12, 1293). In the disputes between his favourite Ibn Sa'lus and his Viceroy Baidara, he took the part of the former, and the Viceroy, who appears to have peculated on a tremendous scale, organized a conspiracy against his master. Baidara and his party fell upon the Sultan when he was hunting without escort at Tarujah, near Damanhur; they killed and mutilated him, and proceeded to elect Baidara Sultan in his place, after the precedent set in the time of Baibars. But thirty years of orderly government had changed men's ideas on this subject; the ministers and guards of the murdered Sultan met the assassins on the left bank of the Nile, as they were returning to Cairo, and routed them. Baidara was himself killed, and the avengers of al-Ashraf regaled themselves in primitive and savage style on his liver. But the corpse of the victim remained three days in the desert, and was gnawed by wolves before what was left of it could be taken up and deposited in the mausoleum that had been built none too soon.

CHAPTER VI Nasir and his Sons

THE younger son of Kala'un, who was now placed on the throne, had the singular fortune of reigning three times, being twice dethroned. He was first appointed Sultan on Dec. 14, 1293, when he was nine years old, and the affairs of the kingdom were undertaken by a Cabinet, consisting of a vizier, a viceroy, a war minister, a prefect of the palace and a secretary of state. Three of these five were destined to enjoy ephemeral sovereignty; the first, Sanjar al-Shuja'i, though never a sovereign, is known to history as the general employed by the Sultan Khalil in his wars against the remnant of the Franks. According to the historian, he aspired to be Sultan, and went so far as to offer a price for the head of any follower of the Viceroy Ketbogha: the latter got together a force, defeated the Vizier's troops in the Horse-market between Cairo and the Citadel, and besieged his rival, who had retreated into the fortress. The Queen-mother then addressed the besiegers from the wall of the Citadel, and asked what they wanted: the reply was the deposition of the Vizier. To this the Queen-mother assented, and the Vizier's fickle followers turned against him and beheaded him. A man carried his head out to the besiegers in a silk wrapper. “What have you there?” asked the guardian of the gate, an adherent of the fallen Vizier. “Hot bread, to show them that they are not likely to starve us out,” was the reply. The head was then carried round the city; and since it was this Vizier who had organized the forced labour in connexion with the building of Kala'un's Hospital, the Cairenes paid the carriers money to let them have

the head in their houses to beat it with sandals. The conqueror Ketbogha assumed the reins, and after a short time, was strong enough to depose the infant Sultan, whose first reign was eleven stormy months. The new Sultan was a Mongol, who had been taken prisoner by Kala'un in one of his battles.

This Sultan's reign was rather less than two years, and was clouded by famine and pestilence. The occasion of his absence was seized by his viceroy, Lajin, who, after the murder of Khalil, had hidden in the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun, and afterwards been promoted by Ketbogha, to oust his benefactor and master. During Ketbogha's time the population of Cairo was increased by a fresh colony of Mongols, who settled in the Husainiyyah quarter, to the north of the Futuh Gate; while in the south, overlooking the Elephant's Pool, some building was occasioned by the Sultan laying out an exercise-ground, as a substitute for that which Baibars had selected at the Bab al-Luk. This exercise-ground soon had to give way to a palace, built by the Sultan Nasir.

Lajin himself fell a victim to a conspiracy of the praetorians when he had reigned two years and two months. The murderer was almost immediately executed by a commander who returned to Cairo the day after the event; and the Emirs decided on the recall of al-Nasir, then in exile at Kerak. Feb. 11, 1298, was the day on which he commenced his second term of sovereignty.

M. van Berchem has discovered some curious vestiges of the quick succession of rulers in the school of the Sultan Nasir, which is to the north of the mausoleum of the Sultan Kala'un. An inscription contains the contradictory statement that it was built by the Sultan Mohammed al-Nasir in the year of the Hijrah 695, when, in fact, Ketbogha and not al-Nasir was reigning. Apparently then—and this is asserted

by the archaeologists—the school was begun by Ketbogha, and had risen as high as the gilt band on the façade, when Ketbogha was dethroned. Work on the school was resumed when Mohammed was restored and then apparently the old date was allowed to stand, while the name of the sovereign was altered—perhaps in virtue of a theory similar to that by which the reign of Charles II is supposed to have commenced at the death of Charles I. M. van Berchem accounts for the date of completion, 703 A. D., which seems to involve a longer time than might reasonably have been occupied by a moderate sized edifice (supposing indeed that building was continuous)—by the supposition that it suffered from the great earthquake of the year 702, and had to be rebuilt a year or two after its actual completion. Its doorway was regarded by Makrizi as one of the wonders of the world. It was of white marble, of great beauty and extraordinary workmanship, having come originally from one of the churches at Acre. Inside the gate there is a cupola, smaller than that built by the Sultan's father, where his mother and one of his sons lie buried, he himself lying near his father.

This earthquake commenced in August, 1303 A. D., and shocks were felt for twenty successive days. Great damage was done in Alexandria, where the returning wave, which is a phenomenon often accompanying great earthquakes, inundated a considerable portion of the city. On Thursday, the 23rd of the month Dhu'l-Hijjah, says Makrizi, at the moment of morning prayer, the whole land shook; the walls were heard to crack, and terrible sounds proceeded from the roofs. Pedestrians were compelled to bend down, men on horseback fell off their mounts. The people imagined that the sky was coming down. All the inhabitants, men and women, rushed out into the streets. The terror and haste was such that the women did not wait to veil their faces.

THE KHAN EL GAMALIYEH.

Houses tumbled down, walls split, the minarets of the mosques and the schools were overthrown, many children were prematurely born. Violent winds arose, the Nile overflowed, and tossed such boats as happened to be on the bank to the distance of a bowshot. Presently the water withdrew, and left these vessels with broken anchors high and dry. The inhabitants, driven by fright out of their houses, took no thought of what they had left inside. They were entered by robbers, who seized whatever they chose. The owners passed the nights in tents, which were set up from Boulak to Raudah. Only Thursday night was spent in the mosques and chapels by crowds imploring the mercy of God.

Of edifices that were damaged by the earthquake—which left fallen bricks or other traces of itself in the doorway of every house—Makrizi enumerates the mosque of Amr, the mosque al-Azhar, the mosque of Salih situated outside the Bab Zuwailah, the school of Kala'un, which lost its minaret, and the mosque of al-Fakihani, which underwent the same disaster. Forty curtains and twenty-seven towers belonging to the wall of Cairo fell. Cairo and Fostat were left in such a condition that anyone who saw them might have supposed that they had been sacked by an enemy.

To the second reign of the Sultan Nasir belongs the Mosque of Jauli, removed by a couple of hundred metres from the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. It contains two domed tombs of the Emirs Sanjar and Salar, both celebrities of this period. The inscription published by van Berchem gives the date of construction as 703. The mosque, of which the shape is unusually irregular, occupies 780 square metres. In one of the many apartments which it contains for the use of Sufis (or ascetics) there is, says Ali Pasha Mubarak, a square blue stone, of which the greater portion is buried in the soil, and in which there is a hole. Piles, it was supposed, could be cured by the sufferer placing in this hole some olive oil; he

then sat in the hole a quarter-of-an-hour, after which he would anoint himself with the oil, and his cure would be effected. When the Pasha wrote, he could speak of three tombs, of which, however, one was unknown. The Emir Salar was Viceroy when he built this monument, and held this post for eleven years. By domineering overmuch over his master, al-Nasir, he caused the Sultan, in the year 1308, to retire from the sovereignty for a second time. When al-Nasir returned for the third time, Salar resigned his office, and was at first treated honourably by the Sultan, but was presently seized and starved to death in prison, where he is last heard of trying to eat his shoes. As Viceroy, he enjoyed a revenue of 100,000 dirhems a day; and a pretended report of the treasures found in his house at the time of his arrest gives the items discovered day by day, thus:

Sunday: Nineteen Egyptian quarts of emeralds; Two Egyptian quarts of rubies; Two-and-a-half quarts of jacinths; Six boxes of gems for rings, diamonds and others:

and so on, the figures getting more and more fabulous.

The task of arresting him had been committed to the other occupant of this mausoleum, Sanjar al-Jauli, who also obtained leave to bury his friend Salar after his death from starvation. This person, after filling other offices, was governor of Gaza and Southern Palestine for a number of years; he was then recalled and imprisoned for eight years by al-Nasir, after which time he was released and given office at the Cairene Court. During the ephemeral reigns that followed on the death of Nasir, he played an important part. In his governorship of South Palestine he distinguished himself by numerous works of public utility; he rebuilt Gaza, and founded mosques, hospitals and schools, both there and in other important cities of his province. Unlike his friend,

A STREET NEAR EL GAMALIYETH.
he died in his bed in Cairo, and was honoured with a solemn funeral.

When, in 1308, the Sultan Nasir abdicated and took refuge in Kerak, his place was taken by the Emir Baibars (called the Jashangir, which properly means the taster) who had been one of the Cabinet which had governed for him at his accession. His reign lasted not quite a year, in which he rendered himself odious by punishing with barbarous cruelty numbers of the common people who were guilty of singing a comic song in which he was lampooned.

A monument of this ephemeral sovereign exists in the monastery called Rukniyyah (after his official title Rukn al-din) or Baibarsiyyah, in the Jamaliyyah Street. The dervish who should have no home but the Mosque was a natural object for the bounty of pious founders, and about 400 A.H. the custom arose of building places where they could carry on their devotional exercises undisturbed. The earliest place of the sort built in Cairo was, as has been seen, the work of the great Saladdin, and the ascetics seem to have done fairly well in it at first: each man was to have daily three pounds of bread, three pounds of meat with broth, sweets once a month, a provision of soap, and forty dirhems yearly for clothes. In time the revenue of Saladdin's hospice proved insufficient for this outlay, and great troubles arose. The hospice of Baibars II was the second of its kind in Cairo. Its site is where the ancient palace of the Fatimide viziers stood. Originally it had three windows facing the street, of which one was a famous window brought from Baghdad by that Basasari who defeated the Abbasid Caliph Ka'im, and for the moment rendered the metropolis of the East subject to the heretical Caliphate of the West. This part of the place was left unchanged when it was transferred to its religious purpose. The windows were afterwards removed, and shops substituted in order to furnish rentals for the maintenance of the institution

when, owing to the failure of the Nile, the ordinary revenues were cut off. It was begun by the Emir before his brief reign, during which it was completed, but he was compelled to flee before the inaugural ceremony could take place; and when Nasir returned he closed the hospice, and it remained empty for nineteen years, when the same Sultan reopened it. The inscription which remains contains traces of this chequered history, which van Berchem with his usual skill has succeeded in enucleating. A story perhaps less apocryphal than others dealing with buried treasure is to the effect that a friendly Emir informed Baibars when he commenced building that there was a store of rich marble under part of the ancient Fatimide palace, which, when discovered, had been left undisturbed and ready for use: that Baibars made use of this information, had the marble unearthed, built his hospice, mausoleum, and military asylum with part of it, and stored the remainder in the hospice where Makrizi declares that it remained till his own time. The hospice was to hold 400 ascetics, the asylum 100 decayed soldiers: the mausoleum was for himself, and thither his body was ultimately brought, probably, after the reopening of the establishment. According to Makrizi the workmanship was so sound that no repairs were required for a century and a half.

In 1892 the Committee found that the state of decomposition to which the walls had come must speedily lead to the total ruin of this monument and preventive measures were taken. The marble with which the walls were still clothed proved that this rich ornamentation at one time rose to the height of more than 3.60 metres. Slabs of coloured marble alternated with slabs of mosaic. Many had fallen and others owing to the moisture of the walls were about to follow them.

If Baibars II had permitted the exiled Sultan to remain quietly at Kerak, he might have retained his throne: but by sending threatening and extortionate letters he compelled

MOSQUE OF ALMASE: INTERIOR, CAIRO.
Nasir to invoke the feeling of loyalty to his father Kala'un that slumbered in the breasts of his former subjects, especially in Syria. They invited him to resume the sovereignty, and Baibars had to retreat precipitately, being followed out of his capital by the hisses of the mob. He was granted a provincial governorship, but before he could reach it, was arrested by order of Nasir, and strangled with a bowstring.

Nasir's third reign lasted from 1309 to 1340, and was prosperous in most ways. The Sultan developed a great taste for building and similar operations, and some of the work done by him on the Citadel has already been noticed. A work of another sort was the Nasiri Canal which he had dug: in a mode not unlike that which was used in much later times for the excavation of the Suez Canal. This Canal started from the Nile in the Kasr al-Ain region, and after a long course mainly northward, discharged into the Great Canal near the Mosque of Baibars. Its purpose was, it is said, to convey goods to the buildings erected near the new exercise-ground laid out by the Sultan at Siriacos; but it was also used for pleasure parties and processions, and many mansions were built along its banks.

Probably more buildings remain from the time of this Sultan than from any of his predecessors. Such are the mosques of the Emir Husain in a street leading out of the Mohammed Ali Boulevard in the direction of the Bab al-Khalk: of the Emir al-Malik Jaukandar in the Husainiyyah quarter: of the Emir Almas in the Place Hilmiyyah: of the Emir Kausun (most of it destroyed when the Mohammed Ali Boulevard was constructed); of the Emir Beshtak in the Jamamiz Street, entirely renewed in the year 1860 by the brother of the Khedive Isma'il: of the Emir al-Maridani near the Mihmandar Mosque, in the Tabbanah quarter, leading from the Zuwailah Gate to the Citadel, which also dates from a late period of Nasir's reign: and of the Lady

Maskah near the Mosque of the Shaikh Salih to the south of the Mabduli Street. The lady who founded this last mosque was a slave of the Sultan, who rose to the office of manageress of such matters as were entrusted to the women of the palace, such as the etiquette of weddings, the education of the royal children and the organization of various ceremonies. The foundress records in the dedicatory inscription that she had visited both Meccah and Medinah. All the Emirs mentioned in this list were persons of mark in Nasir's reign. The Emir Husain was also the builder of a bridge and a wicket called after his name, to enable people to come from Cairo to his mosque. The Emir Sanjar, who was governor at the time, objected to a hole being made by a private individual in the city wall. When the Emir Husain, nevertheless, obtained leave from the Sultan to make it, and boasted of his victory to Sanjar, the latter persuaded the despot that Husain meant treason, and Husain was sent away to Damascus.

The Mosque of Kausun was built by an architect from Tabriz, who modelled the minarets on those of a Tabriz edifice: the founder appears to have come there to Cairo as a trader in the escort of one of Nasir's brides; and is said to have sold himself—a somewhat unusual proceeding—into the service of the Sultan, and once enrolled, to have advanced rapidly. Like Joseph of old he presently sent for his relatives, and gave his sister to the Sultan, who married him to his daughter. On the Sultan's death he was left in charge of the royal children, and met with his end in an attempt to secure the power to himself by maintaining infants on the throne. One of the minarets fell, carrying with it a large part of the mosque, in the year 1800, apparently being exploded by the French; the other minaret was destroyed in 1873 when the Boulevard Mohammed Ali was cut.

The Emir Beshtak was a famous builder, and among

MOSQUE IN THE SHARIA BAB-EL-WAZIR, CAIRO.
other achievements erected himself a palace in the main avenue of Cairo, facing that of his rival Bisri, both so splendid that the avenue could once more be called Between the two Palaces, as it had been called in the days of Fatimides. The remains of the palace are on the right of the Nahhasin Street, the actual entry to them being in the lane which leads to the School of Sabik al-din. M. van Berchem has discovered the fragment of an inscription belonging to it, which, however, contains neither date nor name. His mosque was built in a place occupied by Franks and Copts, “who committed such atrocities as might be expected of them.” When the call to prayer resounded from the minaret, they were overawed and left the neighbourhood.

A bath erected by the same person is to be found at the opening of the lane which bears his name, opposite the southwest corner of the ruined Mosque Mir-Zadeh. The interior is said to belong to a later date: but the exterior is thought by Herz Bey to be still as it was built by the Emir, and it is of importance for the history of the development of the façade.

This Emir died in 1341, the year after Nasir. He was one of those ministers who under the Mamluke Sultans acquired fabulous wealth. A conversation is recorded between him and anther mosque-builder, the Emir Kausun, in which the latter declared himself disqualified for the Sultanate as having once sold leather; whereas Beshtak was disqualified as having sold beer. It is characteristic of Egypt that it was considered a degradation for a man in high office to know the language of the country. Beshtak, therefore, though knowing Arabic well, would never talk to his servants except through a dragoman. His object in life was to obtain the governorship of Damascus, and with this he eventually was invested, but was executed before he could enter upon office.

Maridani is better known by the name Altinbogha. He was one of the Emirs who took a great part in the troublesome times that followed on the death of Nasir, and appears to have played a double game with Kausun; and eventually he was sent into exile as a provincial governor in Syria, where he died. In constructing his mosque he took material from the Mosque of Rashidah, erected by Hakim. Originally it was isolated on all sides; at a period unknown, though not distant, a house was built contiguous to the north-west façade. The surface occupied by it is said to be 2,664 square metres: originally it consisted of an uncovered court surrounded by four liwans. At present only the eastern liwan remains, containing relics of finely-executed mosaics.

The enumeration given by the archaeologists of the public works carried on in Cairo under the Sultan Nasir is very lengthy. It includes canals, embankments, pools, palaces, exercise-grounds, and indeed every branch of the architect's and engineer's art. The security produced by a long and prosperous reign led to a rise in the value of land, which accordingly was everywhere about the city cut up into building plots. Owing to the number of buildings erected, says Ali Pasha, Cairo became continuous with Fostat, and the two came to be one city: from the Tabar Mosque to the Vizier's Garden south of the Abyssinians’ Pool, and from the Nile bank at Gizeh to Mount Mokattam all was covered with houses.

In the year 1320, which fell near the middle of this Sultan's reign there was a great conflagration in Cairo, which was attributed by the populace to the Christians. On May 19 of that year a number of churches in various Egyptian cities had been destroyed by the Moslems: their fanaticism was constantly aroused by the invasion of the public offices by Christian secretaries, who for clerical work were always found more competent than Moslems. The incendiarism

GATEWAY OF THE MOSQUE OF IBRAHIM AGHA, CAIRO.
which followed, and which had for its objects buildings in the Citadel as well as the city, was attributed to the resentment of the Christians, and it is asserted that the Coptic patriarch did not deny that his co-religionists were concerned in it. The Sultan, who himself favoured the Christians, did his utmost to prevent violent reprisals; but popular feeling was too much for him, and Moslem indignation found vent in a series of highly oppressive enactments. Anti-Christian feeling ran so high that for a time Christians who wished to appear in the streets disguised themselves as Jews; to show themselves in Christian attire was dangerous, while to be caught in Moslem attire meant certain death. From the fact that these intolerant edicts had constantly to be re-enacted, we may reasonably infer that after a very short time they fell into abeyance. Whether there was any truth in the ascription of this incendiarism to the Christians cannot be easily determined. In the reign of Baibars I a similar event had occurred, and the Sultan determined to make a pyre of all the Jews and Christians that could be found. Some pious persons bargained with him to redeem these victims at so much per head, and the Sultan made a considerable sum by the transaction.

Nasir was succeeded by no fewer than eight of his sons. The son Abu Bakr, to whom he at his death on June 7, 1341, left the throne, was able to maintain himself on it for a few months only, being compelled to abdicate on Aug. 4, 1341, in favour of his infant brother Kuchuk: the revolution was brought about by Kausun. This person's authority was soon overthrown by a party formed by the Syrian prefects, and on the following Jan. 11, Ahmad, an elder son, was installed in his place, though he did not actually arrive in Cairo till Nov. 6, being unwilling to leave Kerak, where he had been living in retirement. After a brief sojourn in Cairo he speedily returned to Kerak, thereby forfeiting his throne,

which was conferred by the Emirs on his brother Isma'il. This Sultan was mainly occupied during his short reign with besieging and taking Kerak, whither Ahmad had taken refuge, and himself died August 3, 1345, when another son of Nasir, named Sha'ban, was placed on the throne. Sha'ban proved no more competent than his predecessors, being given up to open debauchery and profligacy, an example followed by his Emirs: fresh discontent led to his being deposed by the Syrian governors, when his brother Hajji was proclaimed Sultan in his place. Hajji was deposed and killed Dec. 10, 1347, and another son, Hasan, who took his father's title, proclaimed. Hasan's rule was slightly less ephemeral than that of his predecessors, for he remained in power till August 21, 1351, and though then deposed, he received a fresh lease of sovereignty three years afterwards, which he retained for six years and a half, when he was finally displaced.

During this reign Egypt was visited by the Black Death, which is said to have carried off 900,000 of the inhabitants of Egypt, and to have raged as far as Assouan. The result was to reduce Cairo to the proportions which it had attained before the time of the Sultan Nasir. The plague was followed by a famine, due to the wholesale destruction of the agricultural population, and of their beasts, for these were attacked by a simultaneous epidemic.

Some of the Cairene monuments date before Hasan's resumption of the sovereignty. One of these is the Mausoleum of the Sultan Kuchuk, who was dethroned in 1342, and strangled three years later. It forms part of the Mosque of Ibrahim Agha, of which the present volume contains several illustrations. Ibrahim Agha was not the founder of the mosque, but its restorer: its founder was the Emir AK Sonkor, of whom three inscriptions remain. The mosque is note-worthy for the tiles which cover the walls in parts to a

IBRAHIM AGHA'S MOSQUE: THE INTERIOR.
height of four metres. The Emir who built it was a celebrity of the reign of Nasir, during which he was governor of a number of Syrian cities: finally he was made viceroy in Egypt itself. The last scene in which he figures is one in which he plays rather a courageous part; when the sixth of Nasir's successors came to the throne and desired to have him arrested, he drew his sword and tried to attack the Sultan's person: he was, however, overcome in time and strangled the following day. This was six weeks after the mosque had been inaugurated. Much of the property of the mosque was in Aleppo, and when after the death of the Sultan Barkuk the Syrian governors revolted, the revenues accruing to the mosque were stopped, whence many of the institutions connected with it fell into abeyance. Apparently, however, they were afterwards restored, or else the properties in Cairo settled upon it rose greatly in value, since Ali Pasha gives them at a very high figure. The restoration was executed in 1650, during the Turkish period, and Ibrahim Agha's tomb was built two years afterwards, when Abdal-Rahman was governor of Egypt. An inscription to the left of the Kiblah states that on the night of Friday, July 14, 1463, the Prophet was seen standing and praying on the spot.

The two tombs in the Mosque are those of the founder and the restorer. Our artist lingered over it because it is situated in an old street, and the surrounding buildings have not lost the flavour of antiquity. Due North of it there is a sebil or fountain also instituted by Ibrahim Agha. A pond roofed over, the roof being on marble pillars, was placed inside this mosque in the year 1422, the materials being taken from the Mosque of the Ditch which was pulled down for the purpose, having been long disused. The person who was responsible for this proceeding had the name Toghan.

One or two more monuments belong to the period of the Sultan Hasan, besides the magnificent building that bears his

name, and claims to be one of the great mosques of the world. Such is the Mosque of the Emir Shaikho, with a monastery facing it, to the west of the Rumailah Place. This part of the city is outside the old square of Jauhar, and in the region called of old Kata'i: various houses were bought by the founder of these two edifices, and pulled down to make room for it. He was one of the temporary rulers of Egypt who rose from honour to honour, and at one time is said to have received from his various estates the sum of 200,000 dirhems daily. He perished, finally, at the hand of an assassin, a man who, being denied the promotion for which he had petitioned, revenged himself by a murderous assault on the Emir. The Mosque was built in the year 1349, and a company of Sufis at the first maintained there; six years afterwards the Hospice was built on the opposite side of the road, and special residences provided there for the ascetics who were transferred thither from the Mosque. Nevertheless, the object and the external appearance of the two buildings being very similar, it has often been a matter of doubt which was meant to be mosque and which hospice. The inscription on the front entrance of the Hospice is couched, M. van Berchem observes, in the language of the Sufis or ascetics, and care is taken therein to avoid the pompous titles which the Emir who founded the building could have claimed. Indeed, the Hospice seems to have been built by him in an access of religious fervour, such as would be accompanied by self-abasement. He was buried in his Hospice with great pomp, the ceremony being conducted by the Sultan Hasan himself; and nature, to exhibit her sympathy with the people of Cairo in their bereavement, produced a slight earthquake, and equally strange, a shower of rain, though it was summer. At the time of the final downfall of the Mamluke dynasty, when Tumanbai was attacked by the Sultan Selim, the former took up his headquarters in the Hospice of
THE WASHING-PLACE, IBRAHIM AGHA'S MOSQUE.
Shaikho: fire was accordingly set to the building by the Ottomans, and a considerable part of it burned down. The preacher of the mosque was brought before the Sultan Selim, who at first determined on his execution, but afterwards thought fit to pardon him. The mischief that had been done was then speedily repaired. A restoration of both Mosque and Hospice is recorded for the year 1816.

The great monument of this time, however, is the Mosque of the Sultan Hasan, on the right hand of the Boulevard Mohammed Ali, at the end which looks towards the Citadel. It covers an area of 8,525 square metres; a magnificent gate situated at the north angle gives access to a vestibule covered by a dome, which rests on a crown of stalactites. Turning in a south-east direction, after a détour, we reach the Court of the Mosque. The middle of this is occupied by a fountain. In front is the great Liwan, with the prayer-niche, are the pulpit and the dikkah: to the left, the right and behind, three other oratories. The site had been formerly occupied by the house of the Emir Yelbogha. The Mosque was begun in the year 1356, and took three years to build, 20,000 dirhems being each day devoted to the cost of the operations. The Sultan would have desisted from the undertaking when he learned to what the expense would amount, had it not been that he regarded it as unworthy of a Sultan of Egypt to desist from an enterprise that had been once begun. The chief court measures sixty-five yards by sixty-five; the great dome was thought to have no rival in any Islamic city, and the marble of the pulpit is of unequalled beauty. Originally the architect had planned four minarets: one, however, that had been erected over the portal fell, in the course of building, burying under it some three hundred persons: the Sultan therefore contented himself with the two that are still standing.

The Mosque of the Sultan Hasan plays a more important

part than any other in the political history of Cairo; for owing to its proximity to the Citadel and to its enormous size, it could be regularly employed as a counter-citadel, and on the occasion of any civil war, it was usually so used by the force which aimed at dislodging the inmates of the Citadel itself. The Sultan Barkuk destroyed the perron in front of the mosque as well as the staircases which led up to the minarets, and blocked up the front door. A side door was opened in one of the law-schools, which, as usual, surround the main court, to enable worshippers to enter and use the mosque; but the means of ascending the roof and the minarets were taken away. The bronze door, which was regarded as of unrivalled beauty, was afterwards purchased for a comparatively small sum by the founder of the Muayyad Mosque, which alone rivals it in importance. In 1421, in the reign of Barsbai, the innovations of Barkuk were cancelled; the perron, minaret staircases and the original entrance were restored and a bronze door was introduced in place of that which had been removed. This portal seems to have been again closed in the year 1639, and reopened 150 years later. Of the two minarets erected by the founder, the eastern fell in the year 1659, and was rebuilt on a smaller scale than the original. The cupola of which Makrizi speaks so admiringly collapsed in the following year, and it was replaced by the existing dome under the government of Ibrahim Pasha. The account of the condition of the building given in the report of the Committee for 1894 is exceedingly gloomy. Since then, large sums have been spent in effecting a worthy restoration.

Ali Pasha gives at length the document in which various properties were settled on the Mosque by the Sultan and here as in the case of al-Azhar the most trivial details were provided, and money lavished on each. A couple of physicians with a surgeon were appointed to treat such of the officials or students as were invalided; provision was made

INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF SHAKHOUN, CAIRO.
for a number of orphans to be educated and fitted out when they reached maturity: and in the list of religious and other officials we find specialization carried to an extent previously unknown. These vast revenues have for the most part disappeared. In Ali Pasha's time the whole institution possessed a hundred and fifty pounds a year, which was devoted to the payment of salaries and partly to upkeep and repairs.

Twenty-two years after the completion of the Mosque, which took place two years after the founder's death, his tomb was erected and inscribed; it is thought that the exact spot where he lay may have been then unknown.

After the second dethronement and subsequent murder of the Sultan Hasan a son of his dethroned brother Hajji was proclaimed; but on May 29, 1363, this Sultan also was deposed on the ground of incompetence, and his place given to another grandson of Nasir, Sha'ban, who at the time was ten years old. His reign was rather longer than that of his predecessors, and it was not until March 15, 1376, that he was murdered by the Mamlukes, for refusing a largess of money which they demanded. To the right of the street leading to the Citadel there is to be found the mosque of this Sultan, the founder's inscription dating from the year 1369. It contains a wonderful plenitude of titles, among which the most remarkable is that of “master of the Isma'ilian fortresses and the Alexandrian frontiers.” The conquest of the Assassins, who played so ominous a part in Oriental politics, was an achievement of which the Sultan Baibars was justly proud; the remnant of the sect were, however, under the protection of the Egyptian Sultans, and every now and then they were required to supply persons ready to discharge the function which won them their former fame. The mention of Alexandria is due to the fact that in 1365 the King of Cyprus thought fit to make a raid on Alexandria which he took and sacked; his success was only momentary, for an Egyptian army was

speedily sent to the relief of the maritime capital, and the Franks fled with their plunder before it arrived. The Sultan, however, decided to garrison Alexandria with a stronger force than before.

The popular name for this Mosque is “the Sultan's Mothers”; or “Queen Barakahs,” to whom it was dedicated by the Sultan. The meaning of such a dedication probably is that the Sultan assigned to her the merit that he had acquired by the foundation. She was afterwards buried under the cupola. A tomb that by popular tradition is supposed to contain the Queen's remains is shown by an inscription to belong to a princess Zahrah, whose name the chroniclers do not appear to know. The Sultan himself is said to repose in this mosque, though his corpse went through some vicissitudes before it reached its final resting-place. After his assassination it was thrown into a well, whence it was presently rescued to be interred near the sanctuary of the Sayyidah Nefisah; a slave transferred it thence to the mosque that bears his mother's name.

The Mosque or School of the Emir Al-Jai contains the grave of the minister after whom it is named, and who was the husband of the Princess Barakah. After the death of the Queen he disputed with the Sultan her son over the succession to her property, fought some battles, and being compelled to flee from Egypt was drowned while attempting to cross the Nile on horseback. His body was fished up by divers and was interred in the mosque which he had built, north of the Mosque of the Sultan Hasan. As usual copious revenues were settled upon it, and courses instituted for two of the orthodox schools of law.

After the murder of this Sultan an infant son of his named Ali was set on the throne, and eventually the highest offices in the state came into the hands of two praetorians, Barakah and Barkuk, of whom the latter ere long succeeded in ousting

the former, and usurping the Sultan's place. On May 19, 1381, when the Sultan Ali died, his place was given to an infant brother Hajji; but on November 26, 1382, Barkuk set this child aside, and had himself proclaimed Sultan, thereby ending the Bahri dynasty, and commencing that of the Burjis or Circassians.

CHAPTER VII The Early Circassian Mamlukes

THE reign of Barkuk, who was the first of the Circassians to displace the family of Kala'un, was exceedingly troublous, since many of the Emirs aspired to do as he had done. Indeed, after seven years he was actually compelled to abdicate and allow his predecessor Hajji to be restored to the throne under the tutelage of another Emir, Kerak being, as usual, the place of retirement for the ousted sovereign. Before this calamity he had taken care to perpetuate his name by a mosque or school in the ancient Nahhasin Street, between the Hospital of Kala'un and the Kamiliyyah School. It is called the New Zahiriyyah, to distinguish it from the foundation of the Sultan Baibars I, who also bore the title Zahir; only in the case of Barkuk it is said to have been taken with the signification “midday ruler,” because he happened to be proclaimed Sultan at midday, whereas his predecessor had meant nothing more definite by it than “conqueror.” This building, which has a right to the names mosque, school and hospice —since it was originally intended to harbour a number of Sufis—is remarkable for the long corridors and large vestibules which have to be traversed before arriving at the main court; for the arcades which, set at an equal distance from the north and south walls of the court, divide it into three portions; and for the coloured marbles which to a height of six metres cover the wall which contains the Kiblah. The tomb which adjoins the building is thought to contain the remains of a daughter of the Sultan who died in infancy in 1386, before the completion of the building; at a later

THE TENTMAKERS' BAZAAR, CAIRO.
period the remains of different members of his family were brought together and buried in the same spot. He himself, of course, lies in the vast mausoleum built for him in the desert by his son Faraj. The Minbar is the gift of the Sultan Jakmak, who reigned from 1438 to 1453; a door plated with bronze, which originally belonged to some part of the institution, was at one time in the possession of an Armenian dealer in the Mouski.

Owing to the ever-increasing popularity of al-Azhar, the lectures which were originally to have been given in this building have long ceased; but this, says Ali Pasha, is the case with the greater number of the schools and colleges founded in Cairo. Indeed, it is clear that far more of these buildings were erected than bore any relation to either the spiritual or educational needs of the people. Sultans and Emirs thought this the proper line for them to follow, and in founding schools and hospices merely did as others had done.

To Egyptians Barkuk is a monarch of interest, as having abolished the old “bank-holiday” with which the Coptic New Year's Day was celebrated. The description which the historians give of it resembles the English bank-holiday in some particulars, while it has some features which we do not attempt to reproduce. “On that day the rabble of Cairo used to gather together at the doors of the great; the Master of the Ceremonies used to make out receipts for large sums, and any magnate who refused to pay them had to endure a volley of abuse. A picket would be stationed at his door, and refuse to leave it till he had paid the sum assigned him by the Master, which was taken from him by violence. The lazy crowd would stand in the streets and besprinkle each other with dirty water, throw raw eggs in each other's faces and interchange missiles of mats and shoes. All the streets were blocked and traffic stopped. Houses and shops were all

locked up, and any person found in the market, whatever his eminence or station, would be rudely accosted, besprinkled with dirty water, pelted with raw eggs and buffeted with shoes. Neither buying nor selling was permitted, and the people drank wine and committed other improprieties in places of public recreation. The brawling that ensued led to the loss of many lives.” A more pleasant feature of the celebration was that people sent each other presents of fruit —pomegranates, almonds, quinces, apples, dates, grapes, melons, figs, peaches, pots of chicken jelly, barrels of rosewater, trays of Cairene sweets.

Barkuk, whose name means Apricot, and had to be banished from the fruiterers’ vocabulary so long as he reigned, made a sort of alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid, and incurred the wrath of his enemy the terrible Timur Lenk, who at this time was desolating the East. In order that there might be no truce, he proceeded to murder the envoy of the Mongol world-conqueror—a proceeding which at this time was normal in Oriental diplomacy. The great encounter with Timur, however, was postponed until the following reign.

A monument of the time of Barkuk is the school of the Emir Inal al-Yusufi, south of the Bab Zuwailah. The inscription which records the name of the founder is on the neighbouring fountain, and is of interest, according to van Berchem, as being the earliest example of a poetical distich inscribed on a fountain, to which in later times there were many parallels.

The founder was a celebrity of the time, who held various offices and enjoyed many honours. He figures on the stage first about the time when Barkuk was aiming at the sovereignty. Being in command of an army corps, he seized the Citadel, and endeavoured to maintain it in the Sultan Hajji's name, but was outwitted by Barkuk, who got into the fortress by a secret door. He was afterwards able to secure

Barkuk's favour, and was appointed to the governorship of various cities in Syria; this mode of employment constituting, as indeed it still does, an honourable form of banishment. As governor of Aleppo he took the side of Barkuk against Yelbogha, who in the year 1389 raised the standard of revolt, but was defeated and imprisoned. Nor was he released till Yelbogha, who for a time had obtained the mastery in Cairo, had been expelled by another Emir Mintash, and this Emir was in his turn overthrown by Barkuk, who again resumed the sovereignty. His mosque was commenced in 1392 and finished the next year, after the founder's death. His body, which had been temporarily interred outside Cairo, was then brought to the resting place which he had prepared for it.

The uncertainty which attached to the post of Sultan apparently had at this time the rather remarkable effect of making the rival usurpers more lenient and forgiving towards each other. Barkuk, when caught by his enemy Yelbogha, had been honourably treated, and though condign punishment had been threatened to anyone who harboured him, the person found guilty of this act was, in fact, praised and rewarded. When Barkuk in his turn got Yelbogha in his power, the restored Sultan gave him an honourable place in the court at which he had for a time been virtually supreme.

To the time of Barkuk belongs the Khan Khalili, now a famous and familiar place of merchandise. Its site is that part of the ancient Fatimide Palace where the Caliphs used to be buried. Chaharkas, master of the stable to Barkuk, becoming possessed of the site, had the remains of the Fatimide Caliphs exhumed, and carried on asses’ backs to the Barkiyyah Gate, where they were flung on dunghills, this being his mode of showing his contempt for dead heretics: an act of fanaticism for which, if Makrizi may be believed,

he was afterwards punished by being allowed to remain naked and unburied outside the walls of Damascus.

When Barkuk died in 1398, according to the custom that had so often proved disastrous, his son, Faraj, a lad aged thirteen, was appointed his successor under the guardianship of two Emirs. In the three years that followed the Egyptian dominions in Asia were in consequence swallowed up partly by the Ottoman Sultan, and partly by the terrible Timur, whose demand for homage was granted in 1402 by the Egyptian government, when the princes who had sought refuge from the world-conqueror in Egypt were also delivered up. The death of Timur in the beginning of 1405 restored Egyptian authority in Syria, which, however, became a rendezvous for all who were discontented with the rule of Faraj and his Emirs, and two months after Timur's death was in open rebellion against Faraj. He succeeded indeed in defeating the rebels, but was compelled by insubordination on the part of his Circassian Mamlukes to abdicate, when his brother was proclaimed Sultan in his place. This brother was, however, deposed after two months, and Faraj, who had been in hiding, was recalled. Most of his reign was occupied with revolts on the part of Syrian governors, which he repeatedly visited Syria in order to quell. Among the leaders of the rebels was Shaikh Mahmudi, afterwards Sultan in Egypt, with the title Muayyad. Owing to the disturbance and misgovernment the population of Syria and Egypt is said to have shrunk in the time of Faraj to one-third of what it had been before, and the Sultan violated Moslem sentiment not only by debauchery, but even more by having his image stamped on coins.

The reign of Faraj, though politically disastrous, is perpetuated in Egypt by several notable buildings. One of these is the school of the Emir Jamal al-din Yusuf in the Jamaliyyah Street. It is sometimes called the “Suspended

AN OLD HOUSE NEAR THE TENTMAKERS' BAZAAR, CAIRO.
Mosque,” a name given to any such building to which there is access by a flight of stairs. The place was originally a store. When the Emir began to turn it into a mosque and school, he utilized materials purchased by him for a trifling sum from the Sultan Hajji, who for a time displaced Barkuk, and which had formed the furniture of the mosque of the Sultan Sha'ban on the Citadel. The sums settled on teachers and pupils in this school seem to have been specially handsome—300 francs a month for each of the former, and thirty with rations for each of the latter. The teachers at al-Azhar have to be contented still with pay on the latter scale.

This generosity had, however, been provided by gross extortion. Moreover by a method adopted by many in Egypt the interest on the benefactions was settled on the founder's family in perpetuity. Before the Mosque was completed, the Emir Yusuf was imprisoned and executed by the Sultan, who, as usual, confiscated the property. His first idea was to destroy the new building; but being warned by the legal authorities that such an act would leave a painful impression on the people, he preferred the alternative of appropriating it, and having his own name inscribed instead of Yusuf's. This was therefore carried out. The name of the Sultan Faraj was placed at the summit of the walls which bound the central court, on the chandeliers, carpets and ceilings. However, the name of Faraj no longer appears there, nor indeed in the solitary inscription round the court which is the only inscription that remains. It would appear that after the death of Faraj the brother of the founder succeeded in recovering control of the institution, with possession of the benefactions, and he probably had the name of Faraj removed. The document in virtue of which this brother had got possession of the institution was afterwards demonstrated to be a forgery, and the control was restored to the court official who by the will of the first founder was to have charge of it.

The great Mausoleum in the cemetery called the Tombs of the Caliphs which is named after Barkuk is the work of the Sultan Faraj. The popular ascription is so far right that Barkuk is actually buried in the mosque, and that the building was ordered by that Sultan though achieved by his son. The inscriptions which it contains furnish a series of dates from 1398 to 1483, the earliest being that on a marble column in front of the Sultan Barkuk's tomb in the north Mausoleum, which, however, merely records the time of his death; the latest being that of the Sultan Kayetbai, on the marble pulpit in the sanctuary of the monastery. Barkuk's tomb was not finished till nine years after his death. Other persons buried in the building are his son Abd al-Aziz whose short reign interrupted that of Faraj; a “young man,” probably a son of Faraj, who himself died at Damascus; and one of his daughters, the princess Shakra.

The so-called Tombs of the Caliphs occupy a cemetery first used in Fatimide times, when Badr al-Jamali, a famous personage of that period, erected himself a tomb north of the hill on which the Citadel was afterwards built. The region became popular and fashionable for this purpose. The fact of various saints being buried there was probably what suggested to Barkuk to have his Mausoleum in the same place. He died without having commenced to build it; his son set about the filial duty at once, and it took twelve years to complete.

Another monument of the Sultan Faraj is a school, called by the modest name Zawiyah (literally “Cell, “) a little to the south of the Bab Zuwailah. It is usually known as the Zawiyat al-Duheshah, the latter word signifying Hall or Court. Over it are rooms the rental of which was settled on the school. The school or mosque itself has a kiblah of coloured marble. Close by it is a fountain with a maktab, or school for the young above it, also the foundation of the same Sultan.

TOMBS OF THE CALIPHS.

The causes of the frequent change of rulers from the time of Barkuk to the end of the Circassian dynasty are not always intelligible; in the case of Faraj they appear to have been notorious incompetence displayed at a period when the Moslem world was confronted in the person of Timur with an enemy who threatened to exterminate it. His career was closed by a general revolt of the Syrian Emirs, who defeated him at the battle of Lajun in May, 1412. A document was drawn up by the judges at the command of the victors declaring Faraj a murderer and debauchee who was unfit to reign; and that there might be no jealousy between the two Emirs who were chiefly responsible for his downfall, they agreed to install as Sultan the Caliph Musta'in while the two Emirs were to have separate spheres of influence. More than a century and a half, then, since the termination of Abbasid rule in Baghdad, a descendant, or at least a professed descendant of the imperial family was given something more than a nominal position at the head of the chief Moslem state. He did not apparently much believe in his good fortune; and before investiture as Sultan stipulated that, if he were forced to abdicate, he might resume his nominal dignity of Caliph. This stipulation turned out to be very necessary, although it was not observed; at the end of less than six months the Emir to whom Egypt had fallen, Shaikh Mahmudi, desired the title as well as the rights of Sultan, and easily obtained a declaration from the ecclesiastical authorities that a man of business was wanted at the head of affairs. The Abbasid was therefore deposed from his Sultanate, and soon after was deprived of the title Caliph also. Naturally the new Sultan had to fight the colleague whose sphere of influence was to have been Syria, and who refused to recognize any overlord but the Caliph. But Shaikh Mahmudi, now called the Sultan Muayyad, appears to have been a capable general, and in the course of several campaigns he reduced Syria to complete

subjection, captured his rival Nauruz, “who had been to him more than a brother and reposed his head on the same pillow,” and sent his head to be exposed on the Bab Zuwailah.

With the Bab Zuwailah this Sultan was otherwise connected, for he had in the time of Faraj been imprisoned in the Shama'il gaol, which adjoined it. To commemorate his imprisonment and subsequent promotion, he determined to erect on the site of this prison a mosque which should bear his name, in fulfilment of a vow that he made when confined therein and suffering from the vermin which infested the place. The mosque was commenced three years after his elevation; no forced labour was employed over the construction, all workmen being honourably remunerated; only the marble slabs and columns were taken from a variety of older buildings which had to be pulled down. In two years’ time the eastern liwan was finished, and the Friday prayer was celebrated there. Before this the Sultan had endowed the institution with a rich library, taken from the old library of the Citadel, and so perhaps containing some volumes that had once belonged to the Fatimide collection, to which a certain Barizi, whose house at Boulak the Sultan was in the habit of visiting, added 500 volumes to the value, we are told, of 10,000 dinars, securing to himself and his descendants by this gift the office of librarian. In order to find place for the lavatory some dwellings were purchased and demolished by the vizier, whose own foundation will next be mentioned. The minarets of the new mosque were built on the flanking towers of the Bab Zuwailah; one of them, soon after erection, was found to be out of the perpendicular, and its demolition was ordered by the architect. In the course of this operation a stone fell and killed one of the passers-by, in consequence whereof the gate was closed for thirty days, ‘the like whereof had not happened since Cairo was built.’ The cupolas which cover the graves of a daughter of the

THE DOME OF EL MOAIYAD FROM BAB ZUWEYLEY, DAMASCUS..
Sultan, buried before the first service had been held in the mosque, and the Sultan himself with his son Ibrahim, were finished at different times, both after 1421, the year of the Sultan's death.

The story of this Ibrahim throws a painful light on the builder of the mosque and its first librarian and preacher. The year before the Sultan's death he became so infirm that when he wanted to move he had to be carried on the shoulders of his slaves. The preacher told him that the army were tired of a paralysed Sultan, and were turning their regards to his strong and gallant son. The best plan, he suggested, was to get rid of this rival by poison. The advice was followed; but on the following Friday the Sultan came to hear a funeral sermon preached over his victim in the mosque which contained his remains. The preacher, with the view of diverting suspicion from his master, delivered an affecting discourse, telling how the Prophet late in life had himself lost a son of the same name, Ibrahim, and quoting the affecting and noble words of grief and resignation with which the founder of Islam bore the blow. What was intended to clear the Sultan's fame was regarded by him as a reproach; he determined then to get rid of the preacher by the same means as had carried off his son, and invited him to a meal, from the effects of which he died in a few days’ time.

The mosque rises about five metres above the level of the street; in the time of Isma'il Pasha the whole building with the exception of the wall containing the Kiblah was in ruins. During his government it was restored, and various repairs have at different times been executed by order of the Committee. An inscription in the sanctuary records some restorations done by order of Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mohammed Ali, and some are recorded as having been executed under a yet earlier Ibrahim Pasha, who governed

Egypt as viceroy for the Turks at the end of the sixteenth century.

The partial destruction of the mosque must have taken place after 1826, when a plan was made—published in Coste's Illustrations of Cairene Architecture—which represents all four cloisters as complete. The work done under Ibrahim and Isma'il Pashas must have been inadequate, since the plan of 1890 shows only the sanctuary, or south-east, liwan as standing, with the rest in ruins. The work done by the Committee in 1890 and later consisted in restoring the sanctuary and rendering it fit for public worship, repairing the great perron by which the mosque is entered, and completing the minarets.

Two years before the erection of this wonderful edifice a school was built in the ancient region Between the Two Walls, sometimes called the Fakhri School after its founder Fakhr al-din, Vizier of the Sultan Muayyad, but better known as the “Girls’ School.” Its founder had an unenviable reputation: “He combined the tyranny of the Armenians with the cunning of the Christians, the devilry of the Copts and the injustice of the tax-gatherers, being by origin an Armenian, and trained among the other three classes mentioned.” He at one time had to flee to the Kan of Baghdad, but found means to regain the favour of the Egyptian Sultan, who had in him a convenient instrument for the extortion of money from his subjects. In 1852 it was restored by a wife of Mohammed Ali, but has since undergone further alterations.

To a competent ruler Orientals, and perhaps not they only, are willing to forgive much: and the judgement which they pass on the Sultan Muayyad is on the whole exceedingly favourable. They admire his skill in music and versification, his taste for the fine arts, which undoubtedly is exemplified in his Mosque, and his keen knowledge of men.

There lies in the Muayyad Mosque one more member of its founder's family, his son, Ahmad, who reigned after him, if a suckling can be said to reign. His story is rather tragical. Muayyad's praetorians demanded that a son of his should reign over them; and the surviving son was eighteen months old. He was proclaimed sovereign in his nurse's arms, and injured for life by fright at the beating of the drums. The Emir who was to govern for him married his mother so soon as he decently could, and hurried him off to Syria, there to quell one of the rebellions that had by this time become normal on such occasions. By the most ruthless executions he succeeded in quelling it; and when he had quelled it he at once divorced the queen-mother, deposed her son, and sent him to Alexandria where dangerous persons were ordinarily imprisoned. There nine years later he was carried off by plague. But the queen-mother had not been Muayyad's wife without learning some of the secrets of empire. Before the usurper reached his capital, he knew that there was poison in his veins; and after three months’ reign he went to join his victims. “God be pleased with him!” says the historian —truly a marvellous wish.

Another ephemeral child's reign and a series of palace intrigues ended in the throne being occupied in 1422 by a powerful ruler, Barsbai, who took the title Ashraf, less ruthless in his ways than his predecessors, yet not unwilling to use poison when convenient. His reign lasted from 1422 till 1438, and was on the whole a peaceful time for Egypt, though twice while it lasted much of the population was swept away by plague. In a census made during this reign, on the occasion of a new tax being introduced, it was found that the total number of towns and villages in Egypt had sunk to 2,170, whereas in the fourth century A.H. it had stood at 10,000. Barsbai began shortly after his usurpation to build his monument, which is called Ashrafiyyah, after the title

by which he reigned. It is situated where the street of the same name crosses the Rue Neuve. Its site was occupied by a number of stores, of which the rents were settled on another mosque; these were pulled down, but that there might be no sacrilege, other rents were substituted for them. The construction was confided to a certain Abd al-Basit, who occupied important posts in both this reign and the last; he was in Muayyad's reign manager of the trust funds which provided the covering for the Ka'bah sent yearly to Meccah, and keeper of the royal wardrobe; Barsbai made him inspector-general of the army, and relied in most things on his advice. In Muayyad's reign he had himself built a School or Hospice in the Khurunfush quarter, opposite the palace of the Sayyid al-Bekri.

The Mosque of Barsbai consists of two large and two small liwans—a characteristic of the later period of mosque construction, due to the fact that of the four orthodox systems of law only two retained their popularity in Egypt. No columns are employed in it; and it belongs to the class called Suspended, as there is an ascent to it by a flight of steps. Ali Pasha tells us that it is largely used by students of al-Azhar in preparing their lessons, owing to its size and the clean condition in which it is kept, and, of course, its proximity to the great University. A mueddin who once was drunk when he performed his sacred duty dreamed that the Prophet whipped him with the kurbash; he woke and finding on his person the weals resulting from the blows, repented of the wickedness of his ways. For many years the helmet of the King of Cyprus was suspended over the door. For one of Barsbai's titles to the gratitude of the Egyptians was that he avenged the repeated raids of the Cyprians on Alexandria by sending to Cyprus a fleet which burned Limasol, and another which took Famagusta, while a later expedition succeeded in taking the King of Cyprus captive, who was

brought to Cairo, and presently released for a ransom of 200,000 dinars, on condition of acknowledging the suzerainty of the Egyptian Sultan and paying him tribute. An inscription going along the sanctuary and the western liwan about the middle of the wall, contains the deed of settlement on the Mosque, which has been reproduced with an ample and exhaustive commentary by van Berchem. The benefactions as usual took the shape of rents on buildings for the most part, but some of them were in the form of lands. The deed also gives a list of other settlements made by the same Sultan both on his heirs and on other pious institutions.

This is the last building mentioned by the great Cairene topographer, Makrizi, whose work was begun in the reign of Muayyad, and finished in the fourth year of Barsbai. Few cities in the world have been so exhaustively described as Cairo is by this writer, who also composed a history of the Mamluke dynasty up to his time, and a biographical dictionary of persons who had lived in Egypt. His book on Cairo has been the basis of all archaeological studies connected with Moslem Egypt; and the French Archaeological Mission has provided students with a translation of it.

In the cemetery to the east of Cairo the Sultan Barsbai built himself a mausoleum and a hospice. The latter has disappeared; the former exists, but has undergone some alterations. In the ruins of the latter a lengthy inscription has been discovered, detailing the revenues settled by the Sultan on these institutions; it is rather remarkable that two of this Sultan's foundations should contain such deeds which are somewhat rare. The present deed contains provision for the maintenance of certain other tombs besides the Sultan's; among the buildings furnishing rentals are some shops at Bab al-Luk. These inscriptions, Ali Pasha observes, by no means had the effect contemplated by their author, which was to render the settlements inalienable, and the foundations

regularly maintained; they were overtaken by decay, as others were.

The last years of Barsbai were clouded by the decay of the Sultan's mental faculties, leading him to reproduce the part played of old by Hakim. He enacted that no woman should appear in the streets at all; the layers-out of corpses had to apply for a special badge from the magistrate before they could discharge their duty. The animosity against dogs that at one time seized the Prophet of Islam also found its way into this Sultan's bosom; they were banished from Cairo to Gizeh, and a reward offered to all who arrested one of these animals. Wrongs done to women and dogs perhaps evoked little resentment in the minds of the Egyptians; but the Sultan's eccentricity also assumed a homicidal turn, and his death was probably a relief to his subjects.

He left as successor a son fourteen years of age, who was almost immediately displaced by a minister, Jakmak, originally a freedman of the Sultan Barkuk, and sixty-seven years of age when he usurped the throne. And, indeed, the Palace revolutions which regularly followed on the death of a Sultan in this period, succeeded in fairly often putting into power a man of ripe experience, and free from the vices associated often with heirs-apparent. The dethroned lad made an attempt to escape from his honourable quarters in the Citadel; he dressed himself as a kitchen boy, bore a tray on his head, begrimed his face, and went out in the company of the cook, who rated him in suitable style. But the unfortunate lad had no plan in his head of the course to be pursued when he had escaped, and so waited about in Cairo until he was retaken. The early days of Jakmak were distinguished by a Servile War, reminding the reader of his Roman history; five hundred blacks fled from their masters, crossed to Gizeh, and there set up a state and a Sultan of their own. This attempt ended as the Roman Servile Wars ended; the slaves were

captured and sent off in dhows to the markets of the now powerful Ottoman Empire.

The time of this Sultan was also marked by persecution of Christians and Jews, involving the destruction of many Christian churches. As the chronicles represent the matter, this persecution was caused by the Sultan's desire to enforce total abstinence; and, of course, the win trade was in the hands of these two communities. If the Sultan heard of any of his praetorians being intoxicated, he would banish him, cut off his allowance and confiscate his property. A strict search was made into all houses, and wherever any liquor was found it was poured away.

Some monuments are left of Jakmak's reign. One is the Mosque of the Emir Tangri Bardi, called also the Mosque of Mu'dhi, in the Salibah Street. It consists, says Ali Pasha, of two liwans with a covered court between them; this area is illuminated by a skylight. A white cupola covers the tomb of the founder, an Emir who held high office, but owing to his surliness was known by the title, “the Public Nuisance,” which the alternate name of the founder of the Mosque signifies. His disagreeable conduct was finally the cause of his death at the hands of his Mamlukes.

A more important personage of this reign was the Kadi Yahya (the Arabic for John), whose mosque is by the Bridge which takes the Mouski over what was once the Great Canal. Its founder had the high office of Mayor of the Palace, and underwent repeatedly exile and torture, finally dying of the latter, when at the close of his long life he was drawn from his retirement by the Sultan Kaietbai, and bastinadoed in the hope that treasure might be extorted from him. Of his mosque, Herz Bey observes that it is of the model belonging to the latest period of the Circassian Mamlukes. Its dimensions are small, its shape cruciform, the north and south liwans are reduced, the minaret is at the point most in view,

the Mausoleum is at the south-east, and is surrounded by a small school.

The name of Jakmak himself is commemorated by a mosque in the Salibah region, and a school, of which only the façade is preserved, in a street between the Mouski and the Boulevard Mohammed Ali.

Jakmak tried to perpetuate his dynasty by a plan which has often proved successful—abdicating in favour of his son, who, being nineteen years of age, might reasonably have been competent to reign. And, indeed, he commenced by administering tortures to various Emirs from whom he hoped to extort money, in a manner worthy of an older man. The money was required for the usual largess demanded by the praetorians on a new sovereign's accession; and little of it being forthcoming, his minister of the works thought of the by no means new expedient of debasing the coinage to make a little go a longer way; a proceeding which so exasperated those whom it was meant to cajole, that a new Sultan was immediately elected, under whom the revolted praetorians besieged the son of Jakmak in the Citadel, and ere long starved him into surrender. Though at first imprisoned, the dethroned Sultan lived not only to be released, but to return to the Citadel, not, indeed, as monarch, but as the honoured guest of one of his successors.

The succeeding Sultan Inal tried to secure the succession to his son by appointing him, so soon as he was himself sovereign, to high office in the State; but he had to retract this step, which provoked jealousy. Since it was the custom of each succeeding Sultan to imprison numerous suspects, but to release many of those whom his predecessors had incarcerated, possibly there were always many to whom the continuity of a dynasty was undesirable, for some persons are likely to have been interested in those who pined in captivity. Yet it would be unsafe to draw any inferences from

ordinary communities to these regiments of freed slaves torn violently from their homes in youth and spending their whole lives as garrison amid an alien population. The Janissaries would form the nearest parallel to them; but then the Janissaries did not furnish the sovereign, nor ordinarily the ministers.

This Sultan—whose reign lasted from 1453 to 1460, and whose year of accession was noteworthy because in it Cairo was decorated to celebrate the taking of Constantinople by the Ottomans, who before another century had passed were to be masters of Egypt also—like his predecessor perpetuated his name by a school, mosque and monastery in the cemetery that already contained some noble monuments of the kind. The whole set of buildings is surrounded by a wall which encloses various spaces, covered and uncovered. The mausoleum was commenced by the founder when he was still a minister only, two years before he ascended the throne, and is said to be the only example of a monument begun by a minister and ended by the same man as sovereign. Some of his children appear to have been buried in it before his accession, and steps were taken to alter the inscriptions in order to make them accord with his regal titles. After he had become Sultan, he decided on enlarging his former scheme by the inclusion in it of a vast monastery or hospice, the numerous cells of which, though deserted, count, says van Berchem, among the most curious relics of Egyptian Sufism. The historians record the festivities with which the inauguration of the monastery was accompanied; and the dedicatory inscription, without naming, makes an allusion to Jamal al-din Yusuf, director of public works at this time, who oversaw the building of this monument, and indeed is said to have supplied the necessary funds. We have already met with this personage, suggesting tampering with the coinage as a financial expedient. At a later period he suggested,

and with some difficulty carried through, an expedient of the contrary sort, the restoration of pure metal; a proceeding which cost many persons the third of their fortunes, though its beneficial results were speedily felt.

How many persons took advantage of the numerous hospices for religious retirement we cannot say; besides those which have met us as connected or identical with mosques, there was a humbler sort called Takiyyeh or Ribat, and a building of this sort, founded by Inal, still exists in Cairo, though only three of those mentioned by Makrizi have left any traces. Some of these institutions were for female ascetics, the greater number for male. The Moslem notion of asceticism or sainthood by no means excludes marriage; yet it is likely that most of those who passed their lives in these retreats were, when they entered, near the end of their worldly careers.

The account given of the Sultan Inal personally is more than usually favourable. He shed no blood, except in judicial executions, and he lived with one wife. On the other hand, he was so ignorant that he had to sign public documents with his mark, being unable to read or write.

An event occurred in this reign which illustrates the relations between Sultan and Caliph. The solitary duty of the latter was, as we have often seen, to give legitimacy to the title of the former; and in the uncertainty as to the result, when there was a variety of pretenders to the throne, the Caliph's course was not easy to steer. The Caliph who had invested Inal, having espoused his cause before his rival had been defeated, considered himself afterwards insufficiently rewarded and took up with another pretender. The pretender was defeated, and Inal then demanded that the Caliph should divest himself of his office. “I divest myself of the Caliphate,” he then exclaimed, “and I also divest Inal of the Sultanate.” This proceeding alarmed the audience, not seeing an exit from the deadlock. A courtier easily found one.

A COURTYARD NEAR THE TENTMAKERS' BAZAAR, CAIRO.
Having divested himself first, he observed, the ex-Caliph no longer had the power to divest anyone else. He ought to have begun with the Sultan, if he had meant the act to be valid.

The sufferings of the civil population are said to have been very great in this reign, notwithstanding the benevolence of the Sultan. Where the sovereign's right was based entirely on force, and had absolutely no root in the loyalty of the subjects or their hereditary affection, it was his natural policy to furnish himself with a bodyguard of which the members solely looked to him; the freedmen of an earlier sovereign could not be trusted, as such loyalty as they were capable of feeling would have for its object, at least in part, the heirs of their former master. The accession of each usurper therefore either threw out of work, or left in dangerous idleness, a great number of mercenaries who had no affection for the Egyptian populace, while introducing a fresh supply in the service of the new Sultan whom he could not venture by violently repressive measures to offend. The result was a succession of riots, in which shops were looted and peaceful passengers robbed without any possibility of obtaining redress.

The successor of Inal, his son Ahmad, who came to the throne in 1460, his father having abdicated in his favour some time before his own death, was a favourite of the Egyptian people, and endeavoured to repress the evils which have been stated. He apparently trusted too much to the loyalty of his father's freedmen and slaves, who as soon as they saw that he intended to govern for the good of his subjects, turned against him. They sent to the Governor of Damascus, offering him the Sultanate; but, in their impatience to get rid of Ahmad, could not wait for his arrival, and appointed the commander of the forces, Khushkadam, as stopgap. Naturally the stopgap refused to make way for the person whose deputy he was meant to be, and retained his place.

CHAPTER VIII The Last of the Circassian Mamlukes

KHUSHKADAM, the thirty-eighth Sultan of the Mamluke dynasty, is said to have been in origin a Greek slave, but the name which Arab writers use for “Greek” does not give much information, since it is applied to all residents in Asia Minor or Turkey in Asia, and indeed the Ottoman Sultan is by Arabic authors of this period called the King of the Greeks (Rum). His reign is noteworthy for the commencement of the struggle between the Ottoman and the Egyptian Sultanates, which finally led to the incorporation of Egypt in the Ottoman Empire. This began with a quarrel over the succession in the principality of Karaman, where the two Sultans favoured rival candidates, and the Ottoman Sultan Mohammed supported his candidate with force of arms, obtaining as the price of his assistance several towns in which the suzerainty of the Egyptian Sultan had hitherto been acknowledged. Open war did not, however, break out between the two states in Khushkadam's time. His reign of six years is not otherwise of consequence for the development of either Egypt or Cairo, though he, as usual, built himself a mausoleum.

His death was followed by the accession successively of two ephemeral usurpers, after whom there came another great sovereign in the person of Kaietbai, who occupied the throne for the lengthy period of twenty-seven years (1468-1495). Much of his time was spent in struggles with Uzun Hasan, Prince of Diyarbekr, and Shah Siwar, chief of the

Zulkadir Turcomans. He gave grave offence to the Ottoman Sultan, Bayazid II, by entertaining his brother Jem, who afterwards took refuge in Christian Europe, and was poisoned by Pope Alexander VI. In the war which ensued the troops of Kaietbai were successful, and after they had repeatedly defeated the Ottomans, peace was made in 1491, when the keys of the towns which the Ottomans had seized, were handed back to the Egyptian Sultan.

Kaietbai was a builder on about as great a scale as the Sultan Nasir, and extended his operations far beyond Cairo; he erected edifices on a costly scale at Meccah and Medinah, Jerusalem and elsewhere. The Citadel and the parts of Cairo in its neighbourhood were, if we may believe the chroniclers, practically rebuilt in a more magnificent style than before by this Sultan, and he founded a whole series of mosques in different parts of his capital, on the island Raudah, in the Kabsh, and in the great cemetery which already contained so many of these monuments. Apparently the revenues of the country must have been wasted on these costly schemes, and the State treasury was regularly during his reign in an exhausted condition. The historians, however, turn their attention to his piety rather than to his extravagance, and surround his person with the romance attaching to a saint. Before his accession to the Sultanate was ever thought of, pious persons had the fact revealed to them. When a plague was raging in Cairo, some one dreamed that the Prophet's servant averted the destroying angel from Kaietbai's person. He told Kaietbai of this vision, and the future Sultan wisely bade him conceal it. Another person saw in a dream a pomegranate tree with a single fruit upon it, which Kaietbai hastened to pluck. He told Kaietbai that this was a sure omen of his sovereignty, but was rebuked by the future Sultan when he ventured to narrate the vision. In a vision which the Sultan himself saw when he went on

pilgrimage he was informed by the Prophet that he was one of the saved.

Many of the great monuments of Cairo underwent some form of restoration by his care, such as the Mosque al-Azhar, that of Sayyidah Nefisah, that of Amr Ibn al-As, the tomb of al-Shafi'i, the Meidan of the Sultan Nasir and many more.

The chief architectural monument of his reign, which also marks the highest point to which art was carried in the days of the Circassian Mamlukes is his mosque in the cemetery now called “The Tombs of the Caliphs.” “Everything that is to be found separately in the other temples is united in this with incomparable talent,” says Gayet. “The bold gateway is surmounted by trefoil arch; to the left the facade is pierced by the windows of a fountain [sebil] and a school. Those of the fountain are closed with grilles of network, to the right is an octagon minaret with a square base ornamented with rosettes.The back wall of the sanctuary is pierced by two double windows, separated by a rose window, also in glass. This arrangement is reproduced in the sepulchral hall. The octagonal dome of the latter is of incomparable grace,” etc. The building embraces a school, a fountain, a school for children, a mausoleum and as usual a hospice for Sufis, though this last has disappeared. German travellers visiting Cairo in 1483 were enthusiastic over the beauty of this mosque which had then been completed nine years. These travellers-whose accounts are reprinted by M. van Berchem-were greatly struck by the noise made by the Mohammedan “priests,” i.e., Mueddins and Dervishes, lodged in the hospice provided for their use. The uncomplimentary epithet “dogs” was applied by these devotees to their European visitors.

The plan of the school (madrasah) was that of the latest period, in which, as has been seen, the two lateral liwans are increased, and the others diminished in size. Together

with the alteration in the structure of the schools or mosques comes the gradual displacement of brick by stone. The employment of the latter material in Egypt was a natural relic of the traditions of the Abbasid Caliphate, since the Babylon of that monarchy, no less than that of its predecessor, was an a figulis munita urbs. The architects towards the beginning of the fifteenth century succeeded in building stone cupolas over tombs, but for arches which had to support great weights they found stone difficult to work, and soon took to covering the liwans with wooden ceilings in preference to arched roofs.

The deed of foundation is given at length by Ali Pasha, and apparently exceeds in munificence all preceding foundations, lavish as many of these had been. The leader of prayer was to have five hundred dirhems a month, and three loaves a day; there were to be nine well-paid mueddins, “scholarships” for two orphan schools, one of twenty and the other of thirty children; five hundred dirhems a day for each of forty Sufis with their head, and special benefactions for special occasions. The mere enumeration of buildings settled on this fourfold institution is lengthy.

A building less religious in character also belonging to the epoch of Kaietbai is the Bait al-Kadi, occupying part of the site of the old Eastern Palace of the Fatimides. This house was a portion of the Palace of the Emir Mamai, which he appears to have repaired rather than to have built. The late Mr H. C. Kay, who did not a little for the exploration of Cairo, discovered some forty yards west of the law court which is usually identified with the Palace, a ruined saloon, with liwans separated from the central portion by lofty arches of solid masonry. The base of the arches contained an inscription which identified this saloon as part of Mamai's Palace. In Mr Kay's time it was occupied as a corn mill, with stabling for the cattle that worked the mill. This

Mamai played an important part in the history of his time, and was repeatedly employed as ambassador from the Egyptian Sultan to the Ottoman Porte. The loggia is remarkable for its size.

Another Palace, of which some remains are to be found, is that of the Emir Yashbak, behind the mosque of the Sultan Hasan, constituting one of the latest specimens of the civil architecture of the Mamlukes. It comprehends a rez-de-chaussée vaulted with a saloon (ka'ah) of gigantic dimensions.

Three buildings bearing the title Wakalah (often pronounced Ukalah) were erected by Kaietbai inside Cairo. This form of edifice is similar to what is called a khan in Syria; it means a magazine in which strange merchants can deposit their wares. One of those founded by this Sultan was in the Rue Surujiyyah, and was condemned by the Committee, who, however, took care that any objects left there of artistic or archaeological interest should be carefully removed and preserved. Of the two others, opposite al-Azhar and near the Bab al-Nasr respectively, the façades are preserved. The Wakalah in the neighbourhood of the Nasr Gate had three façades—that which faces the street shows an alternate series of mashrabiyyahs and grilles, the first floor overlapping the ground floor.

Various other buildings of interest date from the time of the Sultan Kaietbai. One of these is the School or Mosque of Muzhir, in the lane leading from the street Between the Two Walls to the Khurunfush. Of its two gates one is ornamented with bronze, the other with inlaid ivory work in geometrical patterns. The two larger liwans have pillars of marble, and the whole is paved with marbles of various colours also arranged in geometrical designs. The woodwork of this mosque is also highly admired. The whole is said to be still much as its founder left it, except for certain

slight improvements and repairs executed at various times. Muzhir, or rather Ibn Muzhir, was private secretary to the Sultan Kaietbai, and as such had to represent him on certain occasions. On one that is recorded by the chronicler he was sent by the Sultan to a council that had been summoned of the ecclesiastical authorities, to decide whether for the defence of the State it was desirable to seize the revenues of the religious foundations, leaving them just enough to maintain them in working order. The Shaikhs naturally made the same reply as the privileged orders when their taxation was suggested at the commencement of the French Revolution; such an act was against the divine law, and the Shaiks, if they countenanced it, would have to answer for their impiety on the Day of Judgement; it was of no use summoning them to a council, if such a proposition were put before them to discuss.

The Sultan Kaietbai made himself famous for the economy of his regime, and the expedients which he invented for saving the revenues of the State—in order to squander them on his buildings—one of these might have been borrowed from the Odyssey of Homer, if we could imagine that this Sultan had access to that poem. Persons enjoying military pay were summoned to the Sultan's presence and invited to draw a tough bow; if they failed, they were disqualified and their pay withdrawn. The task of distributing it was undertaken by the Sultan personally, who sat on definite days for the purpose. In spite of this economy the fortunes which the Emirs managed to accumulate show that further supervision would have been desirable.

The Mosque often known as that of the Shaikh Abu Haribah (after a saint buried in it) in the Ahmar Street, belongs to the time of Kaietbai, and was built by an Emir of his named Kachmas (Turkish for “flees not”). This person, who held a variety of important posts, signalized himself

by building outside Alexandria a refuge for travellers who arrived after the closing of the gates of the city, when they were exposed to the attacks of marauders. He also founded a number of religious institutions in the various cities in which he held office, chiefly hospices for Sufis. The Shaikh Abu Haribah is a modern celebrity who died in the year 1851. Born in Upper Egypt, he studied various forms of Sufism, until he was ready to start a system of his own; he came to Cairo and took a situation as clerk in a Christian bakehouse, where he proselytized and made as many as sixty converts to Islam. His teaching was greatly sought after, and his fame attracted the attention of the rulers of Egypt; Mohammed Ali sent him a present of £ Eg.500, and Abbas Pasha offered him a gift of land, but both presents were declined. His disciples have erected an ivory monument to him in the Mosque.

The part of Cairo called Ezbekiyyeh, familiar to all European visitors, dates from the reign of Kaietbai. According to the chronicler it was during the Fatimide period partly sand-heaps and partly morass; at some time it was drained by a canal called the Male Canal, which was blocked when the Sultan Nasir had his Nasiri Canal dug. The buildings which had sprung up in consequence of the land being drained now fell into ruin, and the region became a haunt of evil doers. By private enterprise a bath was presently built in the region, to which water was conveyed by an aqueduct from the Nasiri Canal; the same water was also used for agricultural purposes and cereals grown in fields. In the year 1470, near the beginning of Kaietbai's reign, the Emir Ezbek decided to build here some stalls for his camels, and afterwards residential quarters. He proceeded to have the rubbish-heaps that were there removed, to have the land levelled, and to excavate a pond, into which water was introduced from the Nasiri Canal. The pond was surrounded

by a stone embankment. Owing to the great liking of the Egyptian residents for views over water, the region speedily became fashionable, and handsome residences were erected all round the new pool. By the end of Kaietbai's reign the Ezbekiyyeh, as the quarter was called after its founder, had become “a city for itself,” and the same Emir proceeded to build a mosque in splendid style for the religious needs of his “new city,” with baths, stores, mills and bakehouses for its temporary wants. The day in the year on which water was let into the pool became one of public rejoicing, and the occasion would be celebrated by the lighting of a bonfire of unheard-of magnitude.

At the time of the French occupation the bed of the pond was according to M. Rhoné's estimate about three times the area of the Place de la Concorde, or equal to the interior of the Champ de Mars. When the inundation of the Nile filled it with water, the surrounding buildings had the aspect of Venetian palaces, whereas in winter the area was covered with green vegetation. The pond was drained by Mohammed Ali, and his successor Ibrahim Pasha had the recovered land covered with fine trees. These were cut down by Isma'il Pasha, who “abandoned the place to the horrors of speculation,” and instituted the public park which now occupies the middle of the quarter. The statue of Ibrahim Pasha which originally stood on a mound was transferred to its present site, and the Mosque of Ezbek demolished to make room for its pedestal. The modern buildings in this region date from the reign of Isma'il or his successors.

The Emir Ezbek is celebrated for much besides the Ezbe-kiyyeh. Originally a slave of the Sultan Barsbai, he was purchased and manumitted by Jakmak, who gave him successively two of his daughters. He was promoted to high office at the Egyptian court, and for a time held a governorship in Syria, whence he returned to Egypt to be commander of

the forces, under Kaietbai; it was this office which under the Circassian regime often trained a man to be Sultan. He led expeditions against the Bedouins and Turcomans, helped to defeat the Ottomans, and in the absence of Kaietbai from Cairo was left in charge of affairs. According to a custom illustrated in English history by the practice of Queen Elizabeth he was in the habit of defraying out of his own purse the cost of the expeditions which he commanded. Like many eminent men's careers his was not unclouded; he was banished four times in the course of it and imprisoned in Alexandria twice. When he died, owing to a dispute between his heirs, his estate was seized by the Sultan, and was discovered to include 700,000 dinars in coin, besides goods corresponding in value; indeed, the chroniclers add, had it not been for what he spent in the public service, and what he had laid out on the Ezbekiyyeh, his wealth would have defied calculation. He is credited with great personal ability, but otherwise with few good qualities; he had a sharp tongue and an arrogant manner; he was implacable if once offended, and if ever he imprisoned anyone, would never permit a release.

A Mosque erected by another Emir Ezbek still exists in the Birket al-Fil (Elephant's Pool) region. It is of the late style, in which the two main liwans are enlarged to the detriment of the two lateral cloisters. It contains the tomb of a stepson of the founder, Sidi Faraj, son of a governor of Damascus whose widow became the wife of Ezbek. This lady, called the Princess Bunukh, is buried close by.

The architectural and engineering works ordered by the Sultan Kaietbai were more varied in character than most of those of his predecessors. Ezbek—of the Ezbekiyyeh—was employed by him to restore certain bridges over the canals which came between the Pyramids and Gizeh, and which when Saladdin ordered his great plan of fortification, had

PLACE OF KAIT BEY, CAIRO.
formed part of a road whereby material was to be taken from the pyramids and brought to the Nile. These bridges were seen and their inscriptions copied in the eighteenth century; but in the nineteenth century the bridges disappeared, and with them their inscriptions. One of these inscriptions spoke of ten arches, of which the original construction went back to a period anterior to Islam. This was probably an exaggeration, though perhaps intended in good faith.

Ezbek's last triumph was in the year 1491, when he brought his troops home from Asia Minor, after having inflicted a severe defeat on the Ottoman forces, stormed some fortresses, and taken many captives. He returned, indeed, without having received leave from his chief, owing to the insubordination of his troops, who demanded more and more pay; but Cairo was adorned to welcome the victors, and Kaietbai made peace with the Ottomans on the earliest opportunity. The want of money in Egypt had by this time reached its height, and not all the expedients which the Sultan and his ministers could devise produced a sufficient supply. The revenues of all religious foundations were sequestrated for seven months, a measure extended to Syria as well as Egypt, and ruthlessly executed. Another plan adopted by the Sultan was to endow research in the shape of alchemy, various persons professing to turn base metal into gold, if money were provided to pay for experiments. When these experiments proved unsuccessful, the Sultan avenged himself by depriving the unfortunate alchemists of their eyes and tongues. The great Nur al-din in Saladdin's time had allowed himself to be cajoled by a man of this craft, who offered to utilize his art for the Sultan's benefit on condition that the gold so produced should only be employed for the sacred war. The charlatan melted down a thousand dinars, to give the Sultan the satisfaction of seeing,

as he thought, a gold ingot produced out of base metal; and the Sultan, when he had seen it, liberally equipped the adventurer to go in search of a large supply of the chemicals that he required for his experiments, of which, naturally, sufficient was not to be had in Damascus. One of the Sultan's subjects then made out a class-list of fools, placing the Sultan at the head; he offered if the alchemist ever returned to erase the Sultan's name from this post of honour, and give it to the former, but never had occasion to alter his list.

Kaietbai had one son, Mohammed, whose mother after his death married one of his ephemeral successors, Jan-balat, and experienced various vicissitudes of fortune in the troublous times which Egypt passed through in the early tenth century of the Mohammedan era, but has left a monument of herself in a mosque at Fayyum. This princess was the wife of two Sultans, the mother of a third, and the sister of a fourth; for the first of the two Kansuhs who mounted the throne during these troubles owed his promotion to the discovery that he was the brother of Kaietbai's Queen. The Sultan Kaietbai had built a palace for his son, in order to gratify his taste for building; and in consequence of a palace intrigue which he was unable to quell he was induced to allow the prince to be proclaimed Sultan the day before his own death (Aug. 7, 1496), though, being only fourteen years of age, he would be unable to govern himself, but would be a puppet in the hands of the Commander of the forces. The expedient of securing the succession by appointing the new Sultan during his father's lifetime had been already tried under more favourable circumstances, and had failed. It succeeded no better now; for four years the supreme power passed into the hands of a series of adventurers: and not till 1501 was there seated on it a monarch possessing the capacity to maintain himself.

Kansuh al-Ghuri is the last great monarch of the Circassian

THE MOSQUE EL GHOREE, CAIRO.
dynasty, and indeed of Independent Egypt. His name is perpetuated by the Mosque al-Ghuri, in the neighbourhood of the Citadel, and by another in the Street called after it Ghuriyyah, not far from the Ashrafiyyah Mosque. There are two large and two small liwans (as usual at this period), and no columns. The pulpit, which is much admired, is said to have a talisman to keep off flies which is, according to Ali Pasha, found to be quite effective. The minaret commands a fine view; and the mosque, which was intended to be a school, had the usual adjuncts of an hospice, a fountain, and a school for children. The cupola was supposed to have been built to hold the Koran of the Caliph Othman of which the binding, as might well be imagined, was by this time sorely in need of repair; the Sultan had it freshly bound, placed in a wooden case, and stored under the Cupola specially built to receive it. A deed of benefactions rivalling that of Kaietbai's foundation is given by our guide in connexion with this mosque; the writer of the deed was to have a pension of thirty dirhems a month and three loaves a day for the rest of his life.

The story of Kansuh al-Ghuri's accession shows that the state of Egypt was generally unhealthy, and its easy conquest by a foreign power to be expected; for he was selected by the mutinous praetorians on the remarkable ground that being a man of little wealth and little influence, he could easily be deposed; and indeed he stipulated that if they chose to depose him, his life was to be guaranteed. Once in power he endeavoured by a variety of artifices to isolate the Emirs who were in control of affairs, and where more gentle means were unavailing, to employ poison. His reign was remarkable for a naval conflict between the Egyptians and Portuguese, whose fleet interfered with the trade between India and Egypt; Kansuh caused a fleet to be built which fought naval battles with the Portuguese with varying result.

In 1515 there began the war with the Ottoman Sultan Selim, which led to the close of the Mamluke period, and the incorporation of Egypt with its dependencies in the Ottoman Empire. Kansuh was charged by Selim with giving the right of way through Syria to the envoys of the Safawid Isma'il, whose destination was Venice, where they hoped to form a confederacy of west and east against the Turks. The actual declaration of war was not made by Selim till May 1515, when all his preparations had been made; at the Battle of Marj Dabik, Aug. 24, 1516, Kansuh was defeated by the Ottoman forces, and fell fighting. His body was left on the battlefield and never was interred in his mausoleum. His successor Tumanbai made a brave but useless resistance to the Ottomans, who now invaded Egypt.

The Mamluke rule had at no time been identified with any national cause in Egypt, though the victories of the first dynasty over the Crusaders had won for it the respect of the Moslems. The chroniclers do not wish us to suppose that the defeat of the Mamluke by the Ottoman Sultan was regarded as a national misfortune; indeed they suggest that the extortion and injustice which the last of the Mamlukes had organized, or at least countenanced, rendered the prospect of a change almost desirable. As has been seen, the Egyptians cared not at all to which of the two powers they paid their taxes, their only anxiety was not to pay them twice.

In his history of the Egyptian Revolution, Mr A. A. Paton produced a description of the court of Kansuh al-Ghuri given by a Venetian ambassador, who visited it in the year 1503. The Sultan had then been seated on the throne three years; “On reaching the foot of the castle they dismounted and ascended a staircase of about fifty steps, at the top of which they found a large iron door open, and within seated, the warder, dressed in white, with a muslin turban. On either side of him were perhaps 300 Mamlukes dressed in white,

with long caps on their heads, half black and half green; they were ranged all in line, so silent and respectful that they looked like observant Franciscan friars. After entering this door they passed eleven other iron doors, between each of which there was a guard of eunuchs, black and white, three or four for each door, and all of them seated with an air of marvellous pride and dignity. At each door upwards of one hundred Mamlukes stood respectful and silent. After passing the twelfth door, the ambassador and his suite were tired out, and had to sit down to rest themselves, the distance they had traversed being nearly a mile. They then entered the area or courtyard of the castle, which they judged to be six times the area of St Mark's Square. On either side of this space 6,000 Mamlukes dressed in white and with green and black caps were drawn up; at the end of the court was a silken tent with a raised platform, covered with a carpet, on which was seated Sultan Kansuh al-Ghuri, his undergarment being white surmounted with dark green cloth, and the muslin turban on his head with three points or horns, and by his side was the naked scimitar.” The Ambassador observed of Cairo itself, “In the first place it is so peopled that one cannot judge of the amount of its population, and one can scarcely make way through the streets; there are very large mosques in great number, very excellent houses and palaces, handsomer within than without, and the streets are straight and wide (straight they certainly were, but their width must have been judged by a Venetian standard) living is dear; there is much populace and a few men of account. The Mamlukes are in fact the masters.”

CHAPTER IX The Turkish Period

THE Ottoman army, though they had circumvented Tumanbai, did not take the metropolis without a severe struggle, in which large parts of Cairo underwent serious damage. For four days the inhabitants maintained the unequal conflict, and contested with the Ottomans every inch of ground; 10,000 of them are said in that period to have lost their lives. A rigid search was then made by the conquerors for such of the Mamlukes as were concealed in the houses, and as many as were taken were killed. For eight months the Sultan Selim remained in Egypt, arranging the future government of the country; when he left for Constantinople he took away with him numerous artisans and various persons of importance, and, most important of all, the Caliph who had accompanied the unfortunate Sultan Ghuri on his last expedition. By a satisfactory arrangement the Caliph was induced to resign his rights as spiritual chief of the Moslems to the Ottoman Sultan; and those who hold that such transference was within the rights of the last of the Abbasids recognize the Sultan of Turkey as the Successor of the Prophet.

The taking of Egypt by the Ottomans, however, deprived Cairo of its status as an imperial city, and, as has been seen, one of the first acts of the new ruler was to transfer to his own capital some of the beautiful marbles which had adorned the Citadel, where it was not now desirable that the Governor's Palace should be too luxurious. With the vast numbers of religious and philanthropic institutions in Cairo it was not his intention to tamper.

The administration of the new province of the Ottoman Empire had for its aim the suppression of any forces that might make for independence. Three powers were, therefore, created, whose mutual jealousies might serve as a safeguard to the sovereign state. These powers were the Pasha, or governor, sent from Constantinople, and often recalled after a few years, or even months: an army of occupation divided into six regiments under a commander who was to reside in the Citadel, and leave it under no pretext whatever, while to each regiment six officers with different duties were assigned. These officers together formed the governor's council, and had the right to veto his orders. The third power was the Mamlukes, who provided the Beys or heads of the twelve provinces or Sanjaks into which Egypt was divided. The Sultan who succeeded Selim, Sulaiman, and who reigned forty-two years, further created two Chambers, called respectively the Greater and the Lesser Diwan; of these the former sat on important occasions, the latter daily. The members of the former were partly military, partly ecclesiastical officials, while the religious officers of Islam were not represented on the latter. The control of both extended to various departments of internal administration. This Sultan also added a seventh regiment to the existing six, in which the Mamluke freedmen were enrolled. The total numbers of the army of occupation thus came to about 20,000. Besides the title Pasha which the Turkish conquest introduced into Egypt there are a variety of others that meet us first from this time. Such is Agha, the name for the commander of the forces, or of the separate regiments; Ketkhuda or Kehya, the Pasha's deputy, used also as the title of an official attached to each regiment: Bey and Efendi; most of these had at the first special applications, which in the course of time they lost, degrading into a mere hierarchy of titles.

The first governor appointed in Egypt by the Ottoman Sultan was Khair Bey, the man who is supposed to have betrayed the cause of his master Ghuri, who when he reached Syria in his campaign against the Ottomans was repeatedly warned against this lieutenant, but was afraid of causing open division in his force if he showed his suspicions openly. Having to command one of the divisions of the Egyptian Army in the battle of Marj Dabik, he is supposed to have, by preconcerted arrangement with the enemy, made his men leave the field, a proceeding which, of course, led to a general rout. His government lasted rather more than five years, and owing to his unpopularity with his Moslem subjects, he espoused the cause of the Jews and Christians. He is celebrated for a deathbed repentance. When he despaired of life, he liberated all except criminals who were pining in the dungeons of Cairo, and caused quantities both of goods and coin to be distributed among the indigent and those who were dependent on the religious institutions of the capital. His mosque is close to that of Ibrahim Agha in the quarter called after him Kharbakiyyeh, and it is there that he lies.

His successor Mustafa, the Sultan Selim's son-in-law, was the first of the governors of Egypt who had the title Pasha (pronounced in Egypt Basha). The contemporary historian gives a rather humorous account of his arrival, and receiving deputations lying on his back, and through his ignorance of the national language looking as though he were made of wood.

The need for provision against attempts on the part of governors to render themselves independent of the Porte was shown very soon after the conquest; the third of the governors sent, Ahmad Pasha, made such an endeavour, and went so far as to assume the insignia of sovereignty in the East, having his name mentioned in public prayers, and having coins struck in his name—and indeed the right

MOSQUES IN THE SHARIA BAB-EL-WAZIR, CAIRO.
to an independent coinage had been left to Egypt by the Ottoman conqueror. The safeguards which had been devised were found to work effectually; two emirs whom Ahmad had imprisoned broke from their confinement, and attacked the ambitious Pasha in his bath. Though he escaped their onslaught and got away, he was presently captured, and his head, after being suspended on Bab Zuwailah, was sent to Constantinople.

The history of Egypt during the first century of Ottoman rule has little interest even for Egyptians. It consists of a series of governors, sometimes no sooner appointed than recalled, of whom a few built schools or mosques in the style of the old Mamluke Sultans, while most spent their time, as might be expected, in profiting as well as they could by their opportunity of acquiring wealth. Of governors who perpetuated their names by monuments we may especially mention Sinan Pasha, who governed from 1567 to 1571, with an interval, and Masih Pasha, governor from 1575 to 1580. The name of Sinan Pasha is otherwise famous in Turkish history for his wars in North Africa. He founded a mosque with its ordinary accompaniments in Boulak, and the deed of settlement contains the elaborate provisions for its maintenance to which we are accustomed. The control of the funds was to lapse after his death to the Shaikh of Islam or highest ecclesiastical authority in Constantinople, who was to appoint a suitable agent in Egypt.

Masih Pasha left a monument in the Masihi Mosque in the street called after his name, east of the Bab al-Karafah. It is called after Nur al-din al-Karafi, a learned man of the time, for whose devotions and perhaps lectures it was built, and in it he, and perhaps the founder, have their last resting place. Masih Pasha is commended by the chroniclers for having restored peace to Cairo with security for life and property, and for having ordered all his rescripts to be

prefaced with some pious sentiments out of the Koran. His methods of restoring order were apparently drastic in the extreme, as they are said to have involved the execution of some 10,000 persons.

For various reasons the Ottoman Pasha exhibited the tendency which the nominal head of the state or province so often displayed in the East, that of ceasing to be virtually at the head of affairs. The character of the army of occupation enabled it to dispose of the Pasha as it wished, and get rid of him by violence if his measures were displeasing to it. When the Pasha took the part of the people of Egypt, and wished to relieve them of onerous exactions by which the army profited, he had the army against him. One of these Pashas had to face an organized revolt, of which the leaders had even chosen a sovereign to supersede him. With the aid of some troops that remained faithful, and the guns at his disposal he succeeded in quelling it. Large numbers of the disaffected were then banished to Yemen, while some seventy were executed. And in the troubles over the succession at Constantinople, which followed on the decease of the Sultan Ahmad I, the Egyptian forces could defy the Porte and choose their own governor in opposition to the sovereign's views. This governor, Mustafa Pasha, used the opportunity of a terrible pestilence which devastated the country in 1625 to declare himself heir to all property left by its victims. The feeling which he roused against himself by this proceeding led to his downfall, and the Porte had no difficulty in recalling him. His successor compelled him to disgorge his plunder, and he himself was executed in Constantinople.

The process by which there came to be substituted for the influence of the Pasha that of the chief of the Mamlukes, called Shaikh al-Balad (something like Mayor of the City), is not easy to follow. It would seem that the perpetual

changes at headquarters and the disputes between the governor and the army left a bureaucracy the chance of gaining or regaining power, by the possession of hereditary acquaintance with the affairs of the country which the strangers sent from Constantinople did not possess, and also by the bureaucrats being identified in their interests with a permanent part of the population. What is clear is that the practice of Mamluke times, the acquisition by wealthy persons of Circassian, Turkish and other slaves, whom they trained in arms and whom they could promote to places of wealth, did not cease with the Turkish occupation, and that the Mamlukes remained a power in the country through the whole of this period. By the end of the seventeenth century the Shaikh al-Balad becomes an official of first-class importance. When a governor was sent from Constantinople, the Shaikh and his associates would despatch a deputation to Alexandria to inquire into his intentions. If they found him likely to be a peaceful nonentity, they would condescend to give him an official welcome, whereas if he seemed likely to assert himself they would bid him remain where he was, while sending word to Constantinople that the governor appointed was unfit for the post and that his arrival would be injurious to the welfare of the community. The army of occupation appears to have been permanently quartered in the capital and so to have gradually transferred its allegiance to the permanent Emirs.

By the early eighteenth century the Mamlukes are themselves divided into factions, named respectively the Kasimites and Fijarites, whose origin is mysterious, but may go back to the time of the conqueror Selim, or be much later. Nothing appears to be heard of the rivalry between these factions till the year 1707, when Hasan Pasha, one of the ephemeral governors, set himself to create bad blood between the two with so much success that a battle was fought

lasting eighty days. The Mamlukes had, it is said, the consideration to go outside Cairo and carry on the fight in the daytime, without interfering with the business of the inhabitants; at night they, or such of them as survived the fray, went home and reposed like ordinary citizens. In this prolonged battle, the Shaikh al-Balad Kasim Iywaz perished. He was succeeded in his municipal office by his son Isma'il Bey, who was fortunate enough to be able to reconcile the contending parties for the time. How much more influential the Shaikh al-Balad was now than the governor is shown by a story in which Isma'il compels the latter to restore a quantity of coffee which was in the possession of a man whose execution had been ordered from Constantinople. He held the office sixteen years, when his end was brought on by a concession to one of his faction, the Kasimites, who desired to seize an estate belonging to a Fikarite. The Fikarite complained to the Pasha, who could only suggest to him that he had best get an assassin to put an end to Isma'il. This suggestion was successfully executed, and the confusion which arose gave the Pasha opportunity to organize a general massacre of Isma'il's followers and to assign his place to the head of a rival faction named Shirkas Bey.

It illustrates the condition of Egypt at this time that the assassin, on whom the wealth of his victim had been bestowed as a reward, was in a position to purchase and train a force of Mamlukes, with whose aid he was able to eject Shirkas Bey, the Shaikh al-Balad, and install himself in the vacant place, when he proceeded to execute numerous Beys, with the idea of founding a tyranny. The expelled Shirkas Bey was repeatedly invited by the discontented to unseat the usurper, but failed and was finally defeated and drowned; while the assassin (named Dhu'l-Fikar) himself presently fell a victim to an onslaught similar to that which had been the foundation of his fortunes. His lieutenant, Othman Bey,

A SIDE STREET IN CAIRO.
avenged his death by numerous executions, and succeeded in obtaining the place of Shaikh al-Balad, though one of his rivals attempted the familiar stratagem of preparing a banquet which was to be followed by the massacre of Othman and his party, who had been invited to it; Othman had, however, taken precautions, and his rival fled to Constantinople after seeing his helpers’ heads lying severed outside the Hasanain Mosque.

Othman Bey is the hero of various stories showing that he left on the people of Cairo a favourable impression of his justice and courage. The former quality is illustrated by an anecdote recorded by Zaidan. A donkey-boy (the word “boy” in this context implies nothing as to age) found in his house some treasure, which he put in his wife's charge, telling her to conceal the find, lest the government should claim it as treasure trove. This she consented to do; but when her husband refused to buy her some ornaments with the wealth now at his disposal, she betrayed the discovery to Othman Bey. The donkey-boy was summoned before the Shaikh al-Balad, who to his surprise bade him retain the treasure, but divorce his wife.

A fresh couple of names that meet us in Egyptian politics of this period is that of the Kazdoglu and the Julfi Mamlukes. The founder of the first faction was a saddler by profession; the eponymous hero of the latter was a porter, who became possessed of a secret hoard. The heads of these factions, named Ibrahim and Ridwan respectively, formed in Othman Bey's time a close alliance, and by their united wealth won such influence that they were in a position to challenge Othman Bey's supremacy. The latter endeavoured to form a counter-alliance of influential Beys, who advised the assassination of Ibrahim, at that time Ketkhuda of the Janissary regiment. The plot was betrayed by an official in the household of Othman Bey, who, fearing reprisals, fled to Syria, leaving

Cairo clear to the hostile factions. The leaders of these, having possessed themselves of Othman's house and effects, proceeded to organize a massacre of his supporters. These were lured into the Citadel, the gates closed on them, and firing upon them ordered. The Pasha's consent had been obtained for this proceeding, which he would probably have been unable to prevent. When it was over, the government remained in the hands of Ibrahim Bey and Isma'il Bey, who agreed to take the offices of Shaikh al-Balad and Leader of the Pilgrim Caravan, and hold them in alternate years; a curious form of dual sovereignty which was successfully imitated at a later period. The former, who was the more energetic of the two, immediately set about recouping himself for the money expended in the attainment of his ambition, by a series of violent extortions, practised on all in Cairo who were supposed to be possessed of means. An attempt was made to overthrow the two Consuls by one of the ephemeral Pashas. Ibrahim's absence on pilgrimage offered a good opportunity for devising a plot, and in fact after Ibrahim's return he and his colleague were actually seized and imprisoned. Their supporters, however, came to the rescue, broke open their prison, and drove the refractory Pasha back to Constantinople.

The new Pasha came with instructions to gain the confidence of the Beys, with a view to getting them at some time into his power, and restoring the effective control of the Porte by a massacre. But Ibrahim Bey was wary, and though the coup was not attempted till the new governor had been in office two years, it only partially succeeded; Ibrahim Bey himself escaped, and only three of his adherents were killed. The Shaikh al-Balad thereupon took it upon himself to depose the Governor, and sent to Constantinople requesting that he be replaced. Into one of the vacant Beyships he promoted Ali, known as Ali Bey the Great, destined

to play somewhat an important part in the history of Egypt; he was a freedman of Ibrahim, who had won his esteem by fighting and defeating a gang of brigands who attacked the Pilgrim Caravan. It will be remembered that Ahmad Ibn Tulun won his spurs by a not very dissimilar exploit.

The promotion of Ali Bey evoked the jealousy of another follower of Ibrahim Bey, called Ibrahim the Circassian, who presently gave vent to his resentment by murdering his master; whose office fell to his colleague Ridwan, who had maintained friendly relations with Ibrahim Bey all along. But another follower of Ibrahim Bey who himself aspired to the headship was able to direct the guns of the Citadel at the palace of Ridwan overlooking the Elephant's Pool, and in the course of the bombardment to inflict a wound on Ridwan himself of which he shortly after died. His murderer, however, soon succumbed to the resentment of Ridwan's friends, and a certain Khalil Bey became Shaikh al-Balad.

For eight years Ali Bey kept pursuing the plan by which the sovereignty of Egypt had been so often acquired, that of purchasing slaves and training them as a bodyguard, while doing his utmost to conciliate the other Beys. Finally his proceedings aroused the suspicions of the Shaikh al-Balad, who endeavoured to get rid of him by an open assault. Ali Bey's bodyguard defended their master, but were defeated and compelled to flee to Upper Egypt; his office and those of his adherents were declared forfeited, and many persons known to belong to his party executed. In Upper Egypt Ali Bey found other malcontents, who, joining his bodyguard, made up an army large enough to warrant an attack on Cairo, which he did not hesitate to execute. In a series of successful engagements Ali Bey drove his rival northwards, and finally obtained possession of his person. Khalil Bey was first banished, and then executed. Ali Bey remained supreme in Egypt, and in 1763 was installed Shaikh al-Balad.

Shortly after his appointment he ordered the execution of the murderer of his former master Ibrahim Bey, an act which was so ill received by the other Beys that Ali Bey had to flee from Egypt to Jerusalem and then Acre. At the latter place he succeeded in winning the favour and affection of the commander of the garrison, who obtained from Constantinople confirmation of his appointment as Shaikh al-Balad at Cairo, whither he proceeded to return.

Ali Bey appears to have possessed the qualities which appertained to most of the great founders of dynasties in in Egypt—astuteness, courage and ruthlessness. Jazzar, who as governor of Acre acquired a European reputation for the last of these qualities, began his career as one of his lieutenants, sent out by him to quell a rebellion in the southern provinces of Egypt. Ali elevated eighteen persons to the rank of Bey, hoping thereby to provide himself with faithful and powerful supporters, since each of them commanded some sort of force. These were, as usual, Circassians or Georgians. His ultimate aim was to render Egypt independent of the Sublime Porte, being herein as in much else the precursor of Mohammed Ali. With this view he endeavoured to oust on one pretext or another all the nominees of the Porte from their places in the Egyptian army, and to fill the vacancies with creatures of his own. A much more momentous step, and one which must surely have been attempted before, was to monopolize the right to purchase and train Mamlukes, and so to prevent possible rivals arising in Cairo itself.

When in 1768 war broke out between Turkey and Russia Egypt was ordered to provide 12,000 men for the Porte. Ali Bey began to draft them, but it was uncertain whether he intended them to aid the Sultan or the Czar. Every provincial governor from the commencement of the Caliphate had found it necessary to maintain spies at the metropolis, and those kept by Ali Bey at Constantinople informed him on this

occasion that despatches were being sent to the Pasha at Cairo to put Ali Bey to death. The Shaikh al-Balad was ready for the emergency; he had the envoys waylaid and killed, and their bodies buried in the sand, while he himself secured the despatches, of which he published an account suitable to his purpose. He averred that what was ordered from Constantinople was a general massacre of the Mamlukes, and urged his colleagues to fight for their lives. In a powerful oration he reminded them of the old glories of the Mamluke Sultans, of whose monuments Cairo was full. The time had now arrived to revive the old Mamluke Sultanate, and free Egypt from the Ottoman yoke. His speech carried conviction, and his project was approved. The Pasha was given forty eight hours to leave the country. Ali Bey's old friend the governor of Acre promised his warm support to the Shaikh al-Balad's plans, and an attempt made by the governor of Damascus to reduce him to order was defeated with loss.

The Porte being unable owing to the European war to attend to remote provinces, Ali Bey proceeded to consolidate his power in Egypt, and sent a force to reduce Arabia. Success attended his efforts in the peninsula, and he further despatched his son-in-law and favourite Abu'l-Dhahab with a force of 30,000 men to reduce Syria, and here too his arms were successful. Abu'l-Dhahab, whose name “father of gold” was earned, it is said, by his habit of giving all his charity in that metal, met with little resistance.

But now the fickle goddess began to assert her character. The Syrian lieutenant, who on a former occasion had been concerned in a plot against Ali Bey, in which his part had been condoned in consideration of his betraying his fellow-conspirators, preferred to conquer for himself rather than for his master; and, apparently, entered into an arrangement with the Porte by which he was to have under Turkish

suzerainty the reversion of Ali Bey's possessions, if he succeeded in overthrowing that usurper. With the troops employed by him in Syria he crossed to Egypt, where, avoiding Cairo, he made for Southern Egypt, and seized Asiout. Ali, being quite unable to defend his capital, fled once more to his benefactor, the governor of Acre, followed by an insignificant number of adherents. At the time when he raised the standard of revolt from the Porte he had endeavoured to enter into alliance with Venice and Russia, and his negotiations had met with fair success. Such a measure was at that time risky for anyone who depended on the favour of a Moslem nation, since alliance with Infidels against Believers is not only liable to denunciation as being in defiance of the doctrines of the Koran, but could be shown historically to be disastrous. However, at Acre Ali Bey enjoyed the fruits of his Russian policy, as a Muscovite fleet which happened to be there renewed the alliance with the refugee, and encouraged him to retake the Syrian cities which, after the departure of Abu'l-Dhahab, had fallen back into Ottoman possession; and about a year after his flight messages came from Cairo requesting his return to Egypt, to put a stop to the arbitrary regime introduced by Abu'l-Dhahab, who had assumed the title Shaikh al-Balad, and was rendering himself unpopular by coercive measures.

Ali Bey thereupon decided to march into Egypt with a motley force of eight thousand men, and in an engagement with his rival at Salihiyyah scored a slight success. But his alliance with Christian powers against the Turks had brought his cause into disrepute with the Moslems of Egypt, and he learned that he could count on no effective aid from his partisans in Cairo; illness and wounds, moreover, prevented his taking an active part in the management of his affairs. Abu'l-Dhahab, besides, exhibited far more skill than Ali Bey in winning over adherents from the opposite party by

A STREET SCENE IN CAIRO.
various modes of corruption. In a following engagement many of Ali Bey's soldiers and captains left him for the enemy, and those that remained faithful fled in confusion. Ali had not himself, owing to illness, been able to take part in the battle, and his routed followers desired him to mount a horse as well as he could, and once more seek refuge at Acre. He determined that death was preferable to this humiliation, and waited by his tent until a detachment of the enemy came up to it; with these he fought bravely till disabled by shots and thrusts. He was finally taken and conveyed to his house in Cairo “in the Abd al-Hakk Lane, al-Bakir Street, behind the Debt Chest,” where he was not molested; but he died after seven days of wounds and chagrin.

The Egyptian chroniclers give Ali Bey the title “the Great,” which is perhaps more than he deserved, since his enterprise left no permanent mark on the fortunes of Egypt. He, apparently, was less to blame than some other conquerors of that country for risking all in the attempt to acquire possession of Syria, since his obligations to the governor of Acre forced this upon him. He appears to have made unpardonable mistakes in the choice of instruments. He was for a time popular in Egypt because he endeavoured to check various forms of extortion which had been long exercised; but it is observable that his cry was not Egypt for the Egyptians, but Egypt for the Mamlukes.

During the period covered by Othman Bey and Ali Bey vast restorations were carried out in the buildings of Cairo by a man whose name has already met us in connexion with them, Abd al-Rahman Ketkhuda. His father was patron of a certain Othman Ketkhuda, who in this office had acquired great wealth, which some time after the latter's death was assigned to his patron's son in virtue of a theory that the property of freedmen goes to those who have manumitted

them, in default of other heirs. Abd al-Rahman further attracted the notice of Othman Bey, with whom he went on pilgrimage, and by whom on their return to Cairo he was made administrator of trusts. He utilized the funds at his disposal for a general restoration of the religious institutions of Cairo, as well as the erection of a variety of monuments which were to perpetuate his own name. His work of renovation extended to all the sanctuaries which bear the names of famous ladies of the Prophet's house. Eighteen mosques were either built or repaired by him, all these being places of public worship; the smaller sanctuaries which he restored were still more numerous, and he also saw to the erection of numerous cisterns, fountains, bridges and other engineering works. His useful labours were continued till 1764, when Ali Bey was in power, who, fearing the influence he had acquired, banished him to the Hejaz. Twelve years later, when the days of Ali Bey were over, he was recalled to Cairo, only to die. He was buried in a mausoleum that he had prepared for himself in his additions to al-Azhar. His personal character appears to have displayed more piety than virtue, since he is credited with having introduced bribery and corruption on an unprecedented scale—a difficult achievement in Egypt.

Abu'l-Dhahab was rewarded by the Porte in 1772 for his services in suppressing Ali Bey, with the title Pasha and the official governorship of Cairo. He did not enjoy his honours long, for he died—it is uncertain how—two years later on his successful expedition for the recovery of Syria. After some disorders two of the Beys created by Ali, who had afterwards deserted his cause for that of his rival, persons named Ibrahim and Murad respectively, got possession of the Citadel, and agreed on a divided rule similar to that which had been arranged between a former Ibrahim and Ridwan, the one to fill the office of Shaikh al-Balad, the

other to be Leader of the Pilgrim Caravan. The arrangement was at the first marred by broils, and even armed conflicts, but presently the two found themselves able to work harmoniously, and their government, with an interruption, lasted on till the French invasion of Egypt. This interruption was occasioned by an expedition sent from Constantinople to restore order in Egypt. The episode of Ali Bey showed that the assertion of Ottoman sovereignty was necessary, and indeed, for a long time the official representative of the Sultan had been treated with scant courtesy. When the Shaikh al-Balad and his Emirs wanted a Pasha removed, they sent to Constantinople to request his removal. An emissary would then be despatched, who would be introduced to the Citadel, where he would kneel before the Pasha. On rising he would fold up the carpet on which he had knelt, and cry aloud, Pasha, descend! The Pasha would thereby be deprived of his office, and the emissary would take temporary charge.

In June, 1786, the Turkish expedition arrived in Egypt, and the Mamlukes found themselves unable to make any resistance to the artillery of the Ottomans. Ibrahim and Murad fled before the invaders to Upper Egypt, and Cairo was seized by the Turkish troops. Their treatment of the population was no improvement on that of the Beys, and only the interference of the ecclesiastical authorities prevented atrocities which went beyond what the people of Egypt were accustomed to. No great change was made in the system of government by the conquerors, who installed as Shaikh al-Balad Isma'il Bey, a former supporter of Ali Bey, who had even held the office for a short time after the death of Abu'l-Dhahab. When, in 1790, he and most of his family were swept off by a plague, Murad and Ibrahim, having had experience of government, found it possible to return to Cairo and resume the offices which they had previously

held. Of these they were in possession when in 1798 Bonaparte invaded the country. Murad Bey carried on some operations ostensibly for the restoration of the Mosque of Amr, but really, it is said, in order to discover an iron chest which the Jews knew to be hidden somewhere about the Mosque, and the secret of whose existence they had sold to Murad as the price of his remitting an extraordinary contribution which he had imposed on their community. The chest was discovered, but found to contain only leaves from an ancient copy of the Koran. Murad Bey's piety was not sufficient to make him consider this find a substitute for the treasure which he had expected, and the Jews got harder terms than if they had consented to the imposition at the first.

The Turkish period was on the whole of little importance for the decoration or growth of Cairo, though, as has been seen, some Pashas and others went to the expense of erecting mosques, and many a palace was built by the wealthy Mamlukes. Writers on Arab art usually stop at the taking of Cairo by the Ottomans, because the architecture of Egypt from that time becomes more and more dependent on Turkish models.

Many European travellers visited Cairo between the entry of Selim and that of Bonaparte, and some selections from their experiences are put together by Mr W. F. Rae, in his work called Egypt To-day: the First to the Third Khedive. These extracts deal chiefly with the condition of foreigners in Cairo, which is painted in very dark colours. The mass of the people, we are told, in no place could be more barbarous than in Cairo; foreigners, persecuted and even illtreated under the most frivolous pretexts, lived there in perpetual fear. If they ventured to appear in public in the attire of their own country, they would be infallibly torn in pieces. Bruce, who visited Cairo in 1748, asserts that a more brutal, unjust, tyrannical, oppressive, avaricious set of infernal

miscreants there was not on earth than the members of the Government of Cairo. Of the streets it was asserted that the widest would be looked upon as a lane in Europe. Hasselquist, in a letter to Linné, dated 1750 from Cairo, said that if a man were guilty of any crime he could not expiate it better than by going to reside for a little while in that city.

CHAPTER X The Khedivial Period

THE sufferings of the French merchants resident in Cairo would have been a sufficient justification for the enterprise of Bonaparte, but its object was undoubtedly to strike a blow at Great Britain, and the latter country endeavoured to stop it at the outset, and succeeded in crippling it and eventually bringing it to a disastrous termination. On the history of the French occupation of Egypt, which has often been described, we need not dilate here; the Beys were as much put out of their reckoning by the tactics of the greatest general of the age as the Sultan Ghuri had been put out of his by the artillery of the Sultan Selim. The capture of the Egyptian capital caused the plunder of many houses by the invaders and the mob, and besides meant the desecration of numerous religious edifices which were required for the French system of fortification. After the naval engagement of Abu Kir had resulted in the annihilation of the French fleet, the people of Cairo rose against the invader and barricaded the streets. Bonaparte planted artillery on all high points, partly destroyed the Husainiyyah quarter where the fiercest resistance had been made, and occupied al-Azhar, which had been the headquarters of disaffection, with a force. Cavalry stabled their horses in the great home of Moslem learning, smashed the coloured lamps and tried to erase the verses of the Koran with which the walls were decorated. Only after complete submission on the part of the insurgents, and the intercession of the most esteemed shaikhs, did the French general agree to withdraw his soldiery from the Mosque.

SHARIA-EL-KERABIYEH, OR STREET OF THE WATER CARRIERS, CAIRO.

Short as was the French occupation of Cairo, it marked the introduction of European methods into the government of the city, which it was left to the Khedivial family to carry out. The gates which had formerly closed the streets and lanes were all removed by order of the French commander; the practice of lighting the streets at nights was introduced, and for administrative purposes the city was divided into eight quarters (or rather eighths), each under the supervision of a shaikh. To the French are due the registration of births and deaths, the abolition of intramural interment and some other precautions of sanitation. An honourable monument of the French occupation is the great Description of Egypt, well worthy of the keen interest in science and archaeology which characterizes the people from whom it emanated.

Whether the programme of the French occupation was in itself consistent and intelligible to the Egyptian people is not very clear, but it may be considered to have first formulated the Egyptian nationalist aspirations, though the French may have done little to gratify them. Ostensibly the invaders wished to abolish the tyranny of the Mamlukes, who are attacked in their manifestos in violent terms; and though the Egyptians at first supposed that the purpose of the invasion was to reclaim the country for the Sultan, it was soon shown that this view deviated widely from the facts. To Bonaparte's profession of belief in Islam apparently no importance was attached by the real adherents of that religion. The Turkish manifesto which declared the old faiths of Europe to be far nearer Islam than the religion of the French Revolution was undoubtedly in accordance with the facts. Most writers are agreed in regarding these professions of Mohammedanism as a mistaken policy. The French occupation, however, while it may be doubted whether the moral and political standards which the invaders

exhibited were a very great improvement on those to which the Egyptians were accustomed, prepared the country for that discipleship to Europe which it underwent for the greater part of the nineteenth century and is still undergoing. Other invaders were no further advanced than the Egyptians in science and culture; from the French the inhabitants learned that in such matters they were far behind. The respect for the ability of the European, which is now so often exaggerated in the East, begins in Egypt with the French occupation. And the cry of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,” which perhaps had never been heard in the East before, at least with any practical meaning attached to it, could not fail to rouse an echo here and there even in a population that had been accustomed from time immemorial to despotism, and for centuries to the despotism of foreigners.

Like Ali Bey, Bonaparte regarded the possession of Syria as necessary to the security of Egypt, and in February 1799 he started on a career of conquest in the former country, which terminated with the well-known check at Acre, occasioned by the co-operation of the British fleet under Sir Sidney Smith with the Turkish troops. Bonaparte on his return had to satisfy himself with fortifying al-Arish, the key of Egypt, in lieu of the possession of Syria, but the failure of his original scheme was doubtless the cause of his evacuation of the valley of the Nile. Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey, who had been in retreat in Upper Egypt, were emboldened by the defeat of Bonaparte to proceed southwards, hoping to co-operate with a Turkish force that was to land at Abu Kir. Bonaparte had, however, no difficulty in defeating the Beys, and afterwards inflicting a crushing blow on the Turks at the moment of their disembarking. But from the English squadron at Abu Kir he learned news of European affairs which determined him to quit Egypt, and his departure

sealed the future of the French occupation of the country.

Kleber, whom Bonaparte had left to govern at Cairo, showed himself equal to dealing with a difficult situation, and arranged by an honourable convention at the beginning of 1800 for the evacuation of the country; the rejoicings in Cairo over the prospective departure of the French were great, and an enforced impost was cheerfully paid. The Mamlukes whose houses had been pillaged and who had been compelled to conceal themselves, began to return, hoping to enjoy a new lease of power; and one Nasif Pasha placed himself at their head. Meanwhile through the intervention of Great Britain the convention was rendered ineffective; an Ottoman army after taking al-Arish, advanced towards Cairo, and at Matariyyah, north of the capital, an engagement took place in which the united forces of the Turks and Mamlukes were defeated by the French general. Nasif Pasha, retreating from the battlefield, marched to Cairo with his Mamlukes, and succeeded in rousing the Moslem population against the French, and even started a massacre of the Christian population both native and foreign. Nasif's attacks on the Citadel and the forts in the possession of the French were, however, unsuccessful, and in a bayonet charge of 200 French troops in the Ezbekiyyeh the superiority of European discipline asserted itself over the Mamlukes and their Cairene allies. The French continued to bombard the city from the Citadel and the forts, while batteries were erected by the insurgents for cannon, dug up out of places where they had been hidden. The streets were barricaded; a powder factory was improvized; and every Moslem was compelled to pass the night in the discharge of some military duty.

Before Nasif Pasha could renew his attack on the French headquarters, and when the insurrection had lasted two whole days, a force arrived to relieve the French garrison,

having been sent for that purpose by Kleber. The vigour and enthusiasm of the insurgents and the able measures which they had taken for the defence of the streets rendered it difficult for the French relieving force to retake the city. And though Nasif Pasha, when Kleber himself arrived on the spot, was disposed to capitulate, the fanatical party prevented him from doing so. Kleber resolved to storm Boulak before attacking the city, and on April 14, 1800, carried out this project and gave up the place to pillage and conflagration. He immediately proceeded after this success to an attack upon the city itself, in which numerous houses were burned down, especially in the region of the Ezbekiyyeh. Lighted torches were, it is said, flung right and left by the soldiers, with the object of destroying the whole city by conflagration; and women and children flung themselves off walls and roofs to escape being burned. Nasif Pasha himself went into hiding.

When at last resistance had ceased, Kleber ordered an amnesty to be proclaimed, and proceeded to have the streets cleared of debris and corpses, after which a three days’ feast was announced in celebration of the victory. The arrest of fifteen shaikhs with their subsequent release on payment of twelve millions of francs was the only repressive measure which followed the retaking of Cairo. Orders were then issued to repair those parts of the city that had suffered during the insurrection.

Two months after these successful operations Kleber was assassinated at the house of General Damas in the Ezbekiyyeh; and the assassin when discovered was shown to have been instigated by a commander of Janissaries, and to have been in communication with the shaikhs of al-Azhar, three of whom were condemned to execution as having been accessories before the fact. The assassin himself was impaled, public opinion in Europe at that time not sufficiently condemning

the barbarous punishments in use in the East; the act, however, was rendered the more culpable, because it would appear that the man had been induced to confess on promise of a free pardon.

Kleber's follower, Menou, was an eccentric personage, who adopted Islam, and tried in various other ways to conciliate the Cairene population, with whom he gained little favour, while losing his influence with the French. As an ardent convert he deprived the Egyptian Christians of the equality which under Bonaparte's regime they had shared with the Moslems. As an equally ardent Frenchman he declared Egypt a French colony, whereas till then the suzerainty of the Porte had been nominally recognized. He had soon, however, to have his military skill put to the test, and this proved no greater than his administrative ability.

On March 21 there was fought the action in which Sir Ralph Abercrombie, having landed with a British force at Abu Kir, defeated the French army brought against him by Menou, at the cost of his own life. Four days later the English were reinforced by a body of Turks, which proceeded to capture Rosetta. And another Turkish army was now on its way from Syria and was advancing towards Cairo. The defence of that city had been left to General Belliard, whom Menou, now shut up in Alexandria, had left in command, when he went north to meet Abercrombie. A junction having been effected between the English and Turkish armies, Cairo was invested; and the French commander not having sufficient troops to hope for victory over the allies, an armistice was agreed to on June 22, followed by a convention on June 26, by which Cairo was to be evacuated by the French troops, who were to proceed to the coast and embark for France. The evacuation of Egypt was accomplished a few months later.

This was the end of French domination in Egypt, and the

commencement of the relations of Great Britain with that country. At first the Mamlukes seemed to have their star in the ascendant. A contingent of Mamlukes had been with the force that compelled General Belliard to treat for the evacuation of Cairo, and Ibrahim Bey, emerging from his hiding place, had implored the assistance of the English General, and been treated with respect. Murad Bey had succeeded in negotiating with Kleber before that General was assassinated and had by him been confirmed in the government of Upper Egypt. He died shortly before the evacuation. His dependents broke his arms over his bier, in token that no one was worthy to bear them after him. It was possible that the end of the foreign occupation might lead to a resumption of the old regime. Those, therefore, who aimed at ruling Egypt considered that the relics of the Mamlukes must before all things be destroyed.

The process was commenced by the agents of the Porte, and in the style familiar to readers of Moslem history. The Turkish Admiral at Abu Kir entrapped a number of Beys into his barge by inviting them to a conference, and this barge was presently surrounded and attacked; whereas a number more were bombarded at Gizeh without previous intimation of any difference. In spite of these disasters the country even before the final departure of the English fell back fast into Mamluke hands—besides Alexandria and Cairo little was virtually subject to the Porte, and the newly appointed Pasha was unable to procure the money to pay the troops who now occupied the Citadel.

The situation gave an opportunity to a man who proved himself well qualified to use it—Mohammed Ali, the founder of the dynasty that now reigns in Egypt; often called by anticipation the first Khedive, wrongly, inasmuch as that title was conferred first on Isma'il Pasha; yet not without ground, since the fortunes of the Khedivial family were made

THE KHAN EL DOBABIYEH, CAIRO.
by the founder of the line. He comes to the front in history first as leader of a corps of Albanians in the Turkish force which soon after the arrival of the English took Rosetta; his16 birthplace was Cavalla, where he lost his parents in infancy, but received kindness from an uncle, and also from a French resident, a fact which did much towards determining Mohammed Ali's Francophile policy at a later time. Like other residents in Cavalla in his early years, he traded in tobacco with conspicuous success. Coming to Egypt with the Turkish force sent out for the recovery of the country, he advanced in the service by leaps and bounds, and was after a short time given command over a force of between three and four thousand Albanians by Khosrau Pasha, a Georgian freedman of the Turkish Admiral, who at the latter's suggestion had been installed by the Porte in the government of Egypt. In the struggle that ensued on the one hand between the governor and his discontented soldiers, on the other, between the Turks and the Mamlukes, Mohammed Ali succeeded in at first holding the balance between the parties, and presently found an opportunity for decisive action when Khosrau Pasha had been driven by a revolution in the Citadel to fly in the direction of Damietta, and another ephemeral ruler had been installed in Khosrau's place. Mohammed Ali decided to join forces with the Mamluke leaders, Othman al-Bardisi and the veteran Ibrahim Bey, took possession of the Citadel, and drove out of it all troops save his own Albanians and those under the Mamlukes; he then proceeded in the direction of Damietta, where he compelled the Pasha to capitulate. At first, apparently, the old system was to be restored; Bardisi, the Mamluke leader, was to be in a position similar to that held by the Shaikh al-Balad, whether with or without the title, while the presence of a powerless governor was to maintain the tradition of the Porte's suzerainty.

Soon, however, Mohammed Ali turned against Bardisi; his Albanian troops demanded arrears of pay, and threatened disturbances unless their demands were complied with. To meet them Bardisi imposed heavy contributions on the people of Cairo, which only aroused general indignation. Finally, March 12, 1804, Mohammed Ali with his troops attacked Bardisi's palace, and having previously won over his artillerymen had little difficulty in driving him out of Cairo, when he was followed by Ibrahim Bey, who appears to have resumed his old place in the government of the city. The Cairenes summoned Khurshid Pasha, Governor of Alexandria, to undertake the government of Cairo, and he had a triumphal entry. He proved no more capable of dealing with the difficult situation than those who had preceded him, but saw the necessity of maintaining a force capable of counteracting that of Mohammed Ali, whose Albanians were greatly attached to his person, and to that end obtained a regiment of Moors, whom he introduced into the Citadel; Mohammed Ali, who was engaged at the time in reducing Upper Egypt, returned to Cairo on hearing of this, and in May, 1805, received the appointment of Governor of Jeddah from the Porte. Before leaving for Arabia, his Albanians demanded pay from the Pasha, and were told to obtain the equivalent by plundering. Before Mohammed Ali could leave for his post, if indeed he ever had intended to do so, a deputation came to him from the leading shaikhs in Cairo, urging him to undertake the government of the city, and to depose Khurshid Pasha, of whose incompetence and arbitrary methods they declared themselves tired. After some hesitation Mohammed Ali consented to accept their nomination, and a deputation was sent to Khurshid Pasha, informing him of his deposition, which he, as the representative of the Sultan, refused to recognize, since only the authority by whom he had been appointed could cashier him. As

Khurshid Pasha did not hesitate to bombard the town, Mohammed Ali employed the Mosque of the Sultan Hasan as a counter-citadel, a use to which it was accustomed, and dragged cannon up Mount Mokattam so as to command the Citadel from behind also. Earnest representations had meanwhile been sent to Constantinople, urging the recall of Khurshid and the appointment of Mohammed Ali in his place; and by July 9 a rescript arrived from the Sultan, confirming the action of the shaikhs, and declaring Khurshid deposed. A Turkish force was also sent to carry out these orders by force, should Khurshid continue to resist. Khurshid presently saw the vanity of such an endeavour, and on August 3 Mohammed Ali entered the Citadel as governor of Egypt for the Porte.

The Mamlukes had played an important part in the rise of Mohammed Ali, but he proved to be a more effective enemy to them than either the Turks or Bonaparte had been. In two scenes of carnage he caused the remains of them to disappear from the face of Egypt. In August, 1805, shortly after his official appointment, a party of Mamlukes were through the Pasha's agents induced to enter Cairo by the Northern Gate, on the supposition that the Pasha was away, seeing to the opening of the Nile dams, a ceremony which the chief authority in the capital regularly attended; soldiers had been put in ambuscade in the houses that line the narrow street that ends at Bab Zuwailah, and these marksmen, when the Mamluke cavalry entered, dealt deadly execution on both men and horses. The survivors took refuge in the School of the Sultan Barkuk, in the Nahhasin Street; here they were captured, and most of them afterwards executed.

The second massacre took place in February, 1811, when an army was equipped and ready to start for Arabia, to restore the authority of the Porte, and quell the Wahhabi

rebellion. A reception was given at the Citadel, to which the Mamlukes were invited in numbers. On their departure they were attacked by the Albanian troops of the Viceroy, in the avenue cut in the solid rock which leads down from the Citadel, the lower gate having been closed. In this gorge 460 are said to have perished, and orders had been issued to massacre those that were scattered about in Egypt. The event was followed by an attempt made by the soldiery to ack Cairo, which the Pasha had some difficulty in repressing.

To understand the feeling which prompted this measure it must be remembered that after the departure of the French one of the Mamluke leaders had visited England, and for a time, while French influence was on the side of the maintenance of Mohammed Ali, English influence was in favour of the restoration of the Mamluke regime. The idea of the Pasha was then to annihilate the party which in the event of disasters in Arabia might be in a position again to bring Egypt into disorder. And he did annihilate it. The Mamlukes play no part in the politics of Egypt since 1811. The widows of the slain were spared, but the Pasha claimed the right to give them in marriage to his followers.

In the whole Mamluke system there is much that is obscure, especially in the phenomenon that these slave-rulers required constantly to be refreshed from outside, the offspring of the Emirs apparently amalgamating with the Moslem population, and invariably taking ordinary Moslem names. It was a late survival in history of the old beginning of kingship, where a man slew the slayer and should himself be slain; for if this does not always literally hold good of the Mamluke sovereigns, yet it is a formula which does not diverge over widely from the truth. Ali Bey saw that the system must be struck at, but was satisfied with preventive measures for the future; Mohammed Ali tore out the system by the roots.

CAIRO: SHARIA DARB EL GAMAMIZ.

Not quite a century has elapsed since that event, and Cairo is still the capital of Mohammed Ali's dynasty, and has expanded to greater dimensions than it ever reached under the most prosperous of its earlier sovereigns.

Mohammed Ali's career has been repeatedly narrated, and we have no room even to sketch it here. Aided by his able son, Ibrahim Pasha, he subdued Arabia, whereas two other sons extended his dominions by conquests in the region of the Upper Nile. Like other possessors of Egypt, he was anxious to hold Syria as well; and, picking a quarrel with the Porte when that power had been weakened by the Greek War of Independence, he sent Ibrahim Pasha northwards, and shortly overran Syria and Asia Minor, and was in a position to threaten Constantinople itself. The interference of Russia prevented the Egyptian Pasha dealing with the Sultan as the Buyids and Seljukes had dealt with the Caliph of Baghdad; but for some six years Syria was an Egyptian province. The discontent of the Syrian population then gave the Porte an opportunity to attempt the recovery of this region, only, however, to sustain severe losses both on land and sea. But at this point the European concert stepped in. Yet it was not before Ibrahim Pasha had been defeated by European officers that the pretensions of the Pasha of Egypt were moderated, and he was satisfied with the hereditary government of the Valley of the Nile. In 1841, by the terms of peace between Mohammed Ali on the one side and the Sultan with his European allies on the other, the government of Egypt was vested in the Pasha's family, though the title Khedive was not conferred on the ruler till some time later.

Perhaps, if the history of the older Eastern conquerors were better recorded, we should in each case understand the means whereby they came to the front and defeated their rivals. In Mohammed Ali's case, the secret lay in his

determination to adopt the civilization of Europe. The introduction of European drill and tactics was entirely against the prejudices of his subjects, and at first led to a plot for his assassination; the conspiracy was revealed in time, but the unpopularity of his measures did not daunt the Pasha, and he even allowed the objectors to go unpunished. European, and especially French, officials were introduced to train troops, cast cannon and build men-of-war; but the military inventions of the West were not exclusively adopted by the Pasha, who imported education, architecture and medical appliances from the same source. Vast schemes, some successful, others destined to failure, were set on foot with the object of increasing the productiveness of Egypt and even rendering it a manufacturing country, and the internal administration both of town and country underwent a radical change. To Mohammed Ali, moreover, is due, if not the introduction yet the enforcement of religious toleration on an ample scale. Fanaticism, whether exercised against native or foreign Christians, was punished by him with exemplary promptitude; and the attitude of mutual respect and consideration adopted by the various religious communities of Egypt, which is a pleasing feature to any visitor of that country, probably dates from Mohammed Ali's time, though the brief French occupation may have contributed towards bringing it about.

In Cairo itself Mohammed Ali introduced the first specimens of European architecture, and of course the capital was greatly altered during his long and eventful reign. His draining of the Ezbekiyyeh Pool has already been noticed; he built himself a palace at Shubra and laid out the long boulevard that connects this suburb with the capital, as well as another connecting Cairo with Boulak, where a substantial new stone quay was erected for river steamers. To a late period in his reign belongs the Rue Neuve, the need

for which was occasioned by the great number of foreign merchants settled in the Mouski, a street which derives its name from a bridge built over the Great Canal by one Musak, a relation of the great Saladdin, who died in the year 1188. The Rue Neuve was begun in the year 1845, its width being calculated by the space requirements of two loaded camels passing each other. It crosses at right angles the old thoroughfare which originally bore the name Between the Two Palaces, and, doubtless, in the course of its construction many an old landmark was obliterated.

The name of Mohammed Ali is perpetuated in Cairo by his great mosque, erected on the Citadel after the older mosques of which there were so many, at different times had fallen into ruin or become disused. The Mosque of Nasir still remains as a shell, but of the others few but archaeologists know the traces. Mohammed Ali's building is in imitation of the mosques of Constantinople, for all which the original model was furnished by Saint Sophia. Prince Puckler Muskau visited Cairo when this mosque was in course of erection, and speaks of it in the following enthusiastic strain:

“At the southern extremity of the Citadel the viceroy is now erecting a mosque, just opposite to the ruined Saladdin [rather Nasir] Mosque, which in some respects will be the most superb edifice in the world; for not only are all the columns made of massive, polished alabaster, but even the inner and outer walls are completely covered with this costly material, which has hitherto been employed only in making vases, watchstands and little knick-knacks of the kind; and I should not be in the least surprised if the entire quarry of Shaikh Abadeh were to be exhausted in the creation of this temple. The effect of the whole is quite astonishing; but it is very much apprehended that this delicate stone will not be able to withstand the effects of the climate.”

Most European visitors are much more restrained in their admiration of this building, and regard the taste which it displays as vastly inferior to that exhibited in the mosques of the Mamluke period. The following is a translation of Ali Pasha Mubarak's description of it:

“This Mosque was built by the late Hajj [i.e., Pilgrim], Mohammed Ali Pasha, native of Kavalla, founder of the Khedivial family in Egypt. He began its erection in the year of the Hijrah, 1246 [1830-1831], after he had set the affairs of Egypt in order, and terminated those operations of vast utility which we have sketched in the introduction to this book. He selected for its site the Citadel of Cairo, in order that the benefits of public worship might be enjoyed by the employés in the palaces and public offices, inasmuch as during his time all the ministries and most of the offices were on the Citadel. He prepared for its erection a broad area, which contained the remains of edifices that had been erected by former sovereigns, all of which he ordered to be cleared away, as also the soil till he came to the solid rock, on which he ordered the foundations to be laid. He built the walls of enormous stones, some three-and-a-half metres in length; iron rods connected each pair of stones, and molten lead was poured in. In this style the foundations were laid till the surface of the ground was reached. The mosque was modelled on the beautiful Nur Osmaniyyeh Mosque of Constantinople, and in part on that of Sidi Sariyah on the Citadel—an unimportant mosque of which the original appears to be obscure. The building of the walls was continued in the style that has been described. Four doors were made, two to the north, one admitting to the court, the other to the dome; two also were placed on the south side. The stone walls were faced with alabaster both within and without to their full height. He who enters from the gate of the Citadel called Bab al-Daris finds a wide place in which he is confronted by the

doors of the court and the dome. The door leading into the court has inscribed over it in marble a text from the Koran commending prayer. The letters are gilt. The threshold is of marble, the door of antique wood; the tympanum is of wood also. The height of the door is four metres, the wooden tympanum is one metre high. The wall is two metres thick. The court is fifty-seven metres long by fifty-five broad, its surface being 3,135 square metres. It embraces five liwans, surmounted by forty-seven domes, mounted on marble pillars, eight metres high, exclusive of the base. The number of these pillars which surround the court and support the domes is forty-five. Each has a necking and torus of brass, and each column is connected with every other by an iron bar; the number of these bars amount to ninety-four. To each dome there is appended a brass chain, to which a lamp is attached. On the left side as one enters from this door is the door of the minaret, of ordinary wood, 265 steps lead to the summit, exclusive of those which lead up to the iron obelisk which crowns it. On the left side in the middle, between the two liwans is the door which leads from the court into the dome; it is of folding doors of antique wood, as also is the semicircular tympanum; over it the date is written in Turkish. Some seven yards in front of the liwan which comes next to the door of the dome is the door which leads to the second minaret, ascended by the same number of steps as the last; they form winding staircases with bronze balustrades. The height of each of these minarets is eight-four metres from the ground, of which twenty-five and two-thirds are from the ground to the roof of the mosque. On the same left hand side are nine windows belonging to the dome, each of which contains a text from the Surah called Fath, engraved in marble and filled in with gold. Over the door of the dome there is written a text promising Paradise to Believers; doubtless this promise has been realized in the founder's
case. In the middle of the court there is a wooden dome mounted on eight marble columns, seven metres high, underneath which there is a fountain with an alabaster cupola, and sixteen spouts, with a marble spout over each, containing the text of the Koran which enjoins washing before prayer, and the tradition, ‘Washing is the Believer's Weapon.’ In front of each spout there is a marble base. Between each pair of pillars there is an iron rod, holding a brass chain for a lamp, while over each is a crescent of bronze. Close by is the entrance to the cistern which is underneath the court; the coping is of alabaster, and the lid of brass. There is a pump there also for raising the water.

“The southern gate of the court resembles the northern, which it faces, and there is engraved above it in marble the text, ‘Your Lord hath prescribed unto Himself mercy.’ In the liwans which surround the court there are thirty-eight windows, each two-and-a-half metres in length and one-and-a-half in breadth; the thickness of the wall is two metres. It contains a window in bronze. In front of the north door which gives entrance to the dome there is a gallery on twenty-four alabaster columns, with bronze neckings and tori, each eight metres high, not including the base. The pillars are connected by twenty-two iron bars, and surmounted by eleven domes with bronze crescents. Hence you proceed into the sanctuary, which is almost square, forty-six metres by forty-five, exclusive of the liwan on the kiblah side, which is seventeen metres by nine, with an area of one hundred and thirty-five metres. In it there is a very lofty dome, some sixty-one metres above the floor of the Mosque, mounted on four piers of hewn stone, faced with marble to a height of two metres. The dome has four semicircles, one on each side, and four small domes. The whole of the great dome is elaborately painted, and decorated with gold-leaf. There are circles painted round it, with certain pious formulae

inscribed in gold-leaf. To the left of the sanctuary you find the Mihrab, with a semicircular roofing, while the niche itself is in marble with an inscription in coloured glass. The niche is enclosed by two small marble columns, with brass necking and torus. To the left, close to one of the piers that have been mentioned, is the reader's chair made of wood, with a balustrade of the same material turned. Five steps lead up to it, and it is carpeted with red cloth. To the right is the pulpit of wood, decorated with gold-leaf, reached by twenty-five steps, also carpeted with red cloth and with folding doors. Above in a circle there is inscribed the text, ‘Friday is with God the best of days.’ Above the preacher's seat is a tall dome on four wooden columns, with a Koranic text written round it. At the bottom of the pulpit there is a guichet on each side, inscribed with texts; between them there is a sort of cupboard to which access is given by a door under the pulpit. Opposite the Mihrab is the door of the dome leading out of the court, surmounted by a dikkah for the Mueddins, extending the whole breadth of the sanctuary, and mounted on eight marble pillars, eight metres high, surrounded by a bronze balustrade, which also surrounds the upper part of the sanctuary, this upper part containing thirty-one windows framed in brass, with lights of white glass. At a distance of about twelve metres there is another balustrade, facing thirty-one more windows, this time of stained glass. Between [?] the two there are the twenty-four windows of the great dome, with a brass balustrade, the windows being of bronze work with stained glass lights, and the balustrade at the top of the dome has in front of it forty stained glass windows. Round each of the four domes mentioned above there are ten windows with balustrades. The purpose of these balustrades is to support lamps. In the semicircle of the Mihrab there are sixteen windows, with a gallery containing a balustrade in front, and
round the wall low down there are thirty-six windows each two-and-a-half metres long, with white glass lights, each one containing a portion of the poem called ‘Burdah.’ Access is given to the galleries from the two minarets and the roof of the Mosque. The southern door of the dome, which faces the northern, has written on the outside ‘God's are the places of worship, and invoke no one with God.’ In front is a vast gallery, on eleven columns of alabaster, some eight metres high. Twenty-two iron bars connect these pillars, which are surmounted by eleven domes, similar to those in the gallery facing the first door. The tomb of the founder, which he ordered to be hewn for himself in the solid rock, is in the south-west corner to the right as one enters from the door leading from the court into the dome. The completion of the Mosque in this style was in the year 1261 [1845]. The founder died three years later, and was followed by Ibrahim his son, who died shortly after. He was succeeded by Abbas Pasha, son of Tusun, who ordered the Mosque to be finished. They whitewashed the piers, and then painted them to look like alabaster, paved the floor, and painted and inscribed the domes.”

One other monument in Cairo which preserves the name of Mohammed Ali, the Boulevard called after him, belongs to the reign of Isma'il Pasha, who governed Egypt from 1863 to 1882. Its site was a series of graveyards, which continued in use till Mohammed Ali's time. The bones were collected when the Boulevard was cut, and distributed in various places; over the spot where many of them were laid a mosque called the Bone Mosque was built. The plans were drawn in 1873. M. Rhoné, who is no friend to the renovation of Cairo, gives the following description of the process by which the Boulevard was made: “Like a shot fired too soon, it started one fine day from the Ezbekiyyeh, without knowing whither it was going, and alighted at a distance of two kilometres

SOUK SELAL, THE ARMOURERS' BAZAAR CAIRO.
from its starting-point, at the formidable angle of the mosque of the Sultan Hasan, which it could not help encountering. On its way it had displaced a whole hillfull of houses and mosques; half-way, on the canal, it let fall its burden of débris, and this gave birth to the palace of Mansur Pasha.” Ali Pasha, who took part in the undertaking, naturally speaks in a different style of this great artery, which he holds to have benefited Cairo enormously, among other services purifying the air. But the amount of displacing done was enormous; 398 buildings had to be removed to make room for the Boulevard; of these 325 were dwellings, some large and some small; the rest were baths, bakehouses, etc., besides religious buildings. We have already seen that the Mosque of Kausun suffered severely, though it must be added that Mehren, who made his list of the religious monuments of Cairo before the construction of the Boulevard found this mosque in a ruinous condition; another sanctuary that suffered was that of the Shaikh Nu'man, dating from the year 1575.

Isma'il Pasha is the founder of modern Cairo, of which the centre is the Place Atabah al-Khadra, or the Green Threshold, supposed to be called after a palace with that name which formerly existed there, and was the abode of one Mohammed al-Shara'ibi, who lived in the twelfth Mohammedan century. From it there radiate streets or boulevards in all directions; the Mouski leads eastwards to the old parts of the city, crossing where was once the Grand Canal to what remains of the work of the Fatimides; westwards a number of avenues lead to the quarter called after Isma'il, the abode of the English and the wealthy. When new streets are built, an attempt is made to preserve some history in their names; a few, such as the Boulevard Clot Bey, are called after quite modern personages; in most cases they preserve the memory of either an ancient quarter, or some building that once

stood near their sites. The Committee, to whose work allusion has so often been made, acting on expert opinion, sees that no ancient work is destroyed which has either historical or artistic interest. Europe has taught the East to pay reverence to its ancient monuments.

If Cairo should ever indulge in the taste for historical pageants which is so characteristic of our country at this time, it would not be difficult to find a number of scenes worth reproducing, some of them graced with figures that loom large in the vista of the centuries. Ahmad Ibn Tulun's architect summoned from his prison to solve the problem of the mosque; Jauhar drawing the lines of his city at an auspicious moment; Saladdin rejecting the splendours of the Fatimide Palace; Shajar al-durr receiving the homage of the Emirs behind her curtain; Baibars receiving his investiture from the Caliph of his own appointment; Kala'un's Hospital inaugurated by a disloyal preacher; Cairo decorated to celebrate the fall of Constantinople, and presently itself entered in triumph by the Ottoman Sultan; al-Azhar, stormed by Bonaparte's soldiers; the Mamlukes surrendering to Mohammed Ali in the Barkuk Mosque—these might be suggested as a characteristic and not wholly uninteresting selection. And if scenes from yet later times were included, there might be a few in which great Englishmen figured also: Baker, sent by Isma'il Pasha to suppress the slave-trade in the Soudan; Gordon, hastening to his heroic defence of Khartoum; and last, but not least, the farewell address of the statesman to whom the present financial and administrative prosperity of Cairo is due.

THE FAIR, MOOLID EL AHMADEE, CAIRO.

CHAPTER XI Jerusalem: an Historical Sketch

THE situation of Jerusalem is majestic and impressive. It lies on four hills, which some with a taste for sacred numbers have wished to increase to seven; on three sides deep valleys encircle it. Both those that separate the hills and those which surround them were at an earlier period far deeper than they are now, since excavators have found accumulations of rubbish about them, varying in depth from forty to over a hundred feet; one of the hills was, it is said, deliberately lowered as a military precaution, and one of the internal depressions artificially filled up. Before these operations of art and nature were accomplished, the features which excite our admiration now must have been greatly accentuated. And those have taught us most about the ancient topography of the city who have driven shafts and tunnels through these accumulations, and mapped out underground Jerusalem. Their work constituted a record in excavation, and some of their names are dear to the British nation on quite other than archaeological grounds. If they have left many a controversy undetermined, it is because inscriptions, the surest indications of ancient sites, have rarely been discovered, and still more rarely on the places where they originally stood; because the place has been often taken by relentless enemies, determined if possible to leave no stone upon another; and because ancient descriptions of it are often either ideal descriptions, or made by persons who wrote at a distance from the scenes which they described, and were perhaps unskilled in accurate observation and the technicalities of architecture.

The nature of the soil has determined the area of the city, but except for its brief period of glory, to which allusion will presently be made, there was no reason why it should ever have to harbour a great population. Since the building of the second Temple it has been far more a religious than a political centre; and even as such it has never been able to occupy quite the first rank. With Islam it was only occasionally and under special circumstances able to rival Meccah; with the more powerful portion of Christianity it was superseded by Rome. Probably the more energetic and capable of the Israelites have regularly preferred to be its occasional visitors than to constitute part of its permanent population. The class whom such a place attracts consists of persons worn out with worldly things, and interested only in spiritual concerns, while the expectation of a golden stream from outside discourages in the natives original effort and the growth of those sterling qualities which the struggle for existence ordinarily produces. Constantly recruited from without, it produces little or nothing from within. Thus for an indigenous art or architecture in Jerusalem no one looks; the explorer searches only for relics of the styles imported at different periods sometimes by domestic rulers, more often by donors and benefactors. The Solomonic Temple was in Phaenician style, the Temple of Nehemiah probably Persian; for later buildings the models were furnished by Greece, Rome and Byzantium, after which came Norman and Gothic importations from Europe; to-day the patterns in fashion in every European state of consequence are represented. Should a new Jewish Temple be built on the Haram area, it would probably be from French or Italian designs.

The period during which the city could claim the title imperial was very short, extending no longer than the reigns of David and Solomon, the former of whom appears to have

MORNING IN JERUSALEM: THE MOSQUE OF OMAR ON THE SHADED SIDE.
brought several of the surrounding peoples into subjection. This is the view which we take, if we approach the Old Testament record without too great scepticism. With the name of the first of these two sovereigns the city has been in historic times connected, although there is a great doubt as to the part of it which he occupied; the operations executed by him with the view of making the place a metropolis are too briefly stated to permit of much being elicited. The name appears to go back to a much earlier period than that of David, who is said to have found the city, or part of it, in possession of a tribe called Jebus, after whom it was then called; members of the tribe occasionally meet us after David's seizure of their stronghold. Their fortress is usually supposed to have occupied one of the hills only, with which the founder of Israelitish Jerusalem incorporated others, enclosing the whole with a wall. Such dwellings as already existed would then be allotted to those who helped to storm the fortress, and permission given for others to build. The speed with which the residence of a victorious prince attracts inhabitants is extraordinary, and Jerusalem was doubtless a populous city before his reign ended. That no sanctuary was erected by him to the national Deity seems certain, and the fact required explanation at an early time; that in which the later Jews acquiesced was that he was disqualified for erecting a sanctuary by the blood which he had shed, but the earlier explanation may have been different.

The only monument in the city's neighbourhood which may be actually connected with David is the King's tomb outside the Sion Gate. The exact spot where David was buried is not mentioned in his biography, but his tomb is employed as a landmark by Nehemiah, and is mentioned repeatedly by Josephus, who declares that the King had much treasure deposited with him, which in the centuries just preceding the Christian Era was despoiled by Hyrcanus and Herod.

In the Acts of the Apostles also the tomb of David is mentioned as a well-known object in Jerusalem. A Christian tradition identifies a room in the buildings surrounding the tomb as the Upper Chamber where the Eucharist was instituted and where the miracle of Pentecost was wrought. The room is said by Epiphanius to have remained undestroyed when the city was burned by Titus, and to have afterwards been used as a church. A convent for the Franciscans was here erected in the fourteenth century by Sancia, Queen of Robert of Sicily, which was taken from them by the Moslems in 1560, it is said, owing to the vengeance of a Jew, who had desired to perform his devotions at the tombs of David and Solomon underneath the convent, and had been refused permission by the Franciscans, and who then persuaded the Grand Vizier at Constantinople to take the tombs of the two Kings, whom the Koran calls Prophets, out of the hands of unbelievers. A few favoured travellers have had access to the tombs themselves, which appear to have been discovered in the time of Benjamin of Tudela, when stones were taken from the wall of Mount Sion to repair the church. The story of their discovery is not free from fabulous elements, but some monuments of artistic excellence appear to exist on the spot. The question to whom they belong has not been definitely solved, and even in Nehemiah's time the traditional site may not necessarily have been the real one.

Solomon's character, like that of David, is a familiar one to readers of Oriental history. While the father was the enterprising and astute empire-builder, the son was the magnificent patron of the arts, of literature, and of commerce. Under him the metropolis began to be adorned with edifices worthy of the sovereign's power and wealth, and foreign artificers were summoned to erect them, the Phaenicians at this time occupying the place which at a later period belonged

to Greeks, and after them to nations yet further west. Of the building of the Temple, the sacred writers have preserved a most elaborate account; and though there is some controversy as to the part of the Haram area which it occupied, there appears to be general agreement as to the practical correctness of the traditional site. The breaches in the continuity of the tradition are not indeed considerable; perhaps the most considerable being that between the times of Jeremiah and Nehemiah, though Moslem writers make it appear that when the Mohammedan conqueror wished to be directed to the site of the Temple, wrong directions were given him at first, apparently through ignorance. The probability is that none of the vicissitudes through which Jerusalem passed left the country quite without inhabitants familiar with so notable a site. Besides the Temple, the King's own domestic arrangements required the erection of several palaces, and probably of numerous shrines for the housing of the deities worshipped by the different nationalities represented in his household.

Of these palaces and sanctuaries the Bible preserves some names and some architectural details; but of the general appearance of the city in Solomon's time it is not possible to gather any distinct impression. The material used by him appears to have been perishable in the extreme, and it is unlikely that any work executed by him still remains. Owing, however, to the memories of Solomon's wisdom and magnificence, legend attributes to him all anonymous works on a great scale that are to be found either in the city or in its neighbourhood. The theory that Solomon had supernatural agencies under his control enabling him to carry out the vastest designs can be traced back to the time of Josephus, and through the influence of the Koran has become an article of faith with Moslems. The Biblical account of his methods shows that no supernatural agents were

requisite. The whole wealth of a small country, and unlimited labour, such as lay at the disposal of the Sultan of the time, would easily account for the execution of any of the works attributed to him. No contemporary traveller tells us what Jerusalem looked like in his day, for the memoirs of the Queen of Saba, if she left any, have not come down. Probably it was largely a collection of wooden huts. These form an intermediate stage between the dwellings of the nomad and the town resident; and the cry, “To your tents, O Israel” had not ceased to be heard in Solomon's time. The palaces differed from the other houses in the quality, but not in the nature of the material of which they were mainly constructed.

The magnificent monarch often leaves on the mind of his subjects not so much pride in his grandeur as resentment at the extortions which have been the source of his magnificence, and with all but Solomon's own tribe and one other the latter appears to have been the sentiment which dominated. The unpopularity which has attached to the tribe of Judah ever since it became known to the general world, seems to have belonged to it in its relations with the other tribes constituting Israel, and so soon as Solomon was dead, they hastened to throw off a yoke, which indeed the King's taste for building by forced labour had rendered exceptionally severe. Other sanctuaries became more popular with the northern kingdom, which was far more populous and powerful than the small remnant which remained loyal to the family of David. That loyalty, however, appears to have been a deep-rooted sentiment, and to have kept the southern kingdom tolerably free from the scramble for the sovereignty which disturbed and finally wrecked the northern. The record which we have of both is exceedingly imperfect, and in the matter of building we hear chiefly of repairs done to the wall of Jerusalem, of the occasional erection of towers, and

HEZEKIAH'S POOL
of provision made for a better water supply. The only inscription in Jerusalem which is from the period of the kings is that which records the construction of an aqueduct in the time of King Hezekiah. This aqueduct, which took the form of a tunnel, appears to have been commenced at both ends at once, a fact which implies the existence of greater engineering skill, and instruments of greater precision, than we should ordinarily suppose to have been possessed by the Jews.

The condition of Jerusalem during the period of the divided kingdom, as the Books of Kings record it, was by no means one of quiet development; it was, on the contrary, one of perpetual disturbance, in which city and temple were repeatedly sacked, varied at times by spells of peace and prosperity under some competent ruler. The maintenance of the Temple was, it would seem, during the whole time, the chief function of the King, and according to the influences to which different kings were subject many innovations were introduced, both in the structure of the sanctuary and in the form of ritual. The unfriendly attitude adopted by the Jewish religion towards all others appears at least in practice to date from the last century of the monarchy; previously Jerusalem contained sanctuaries dedicated to objects of worship other than the God of Israel, and the Temple itself at times harboured altars of more than one Deity. The record which has come down to us of Jewish history is written in the spirit of Deuteronomy, and is too deeply hostile to pagan cults to take any interest in the monuments erected for their celebration; while, therefore, we hear occasionally of the names of deities to whom shrines were dedicated in Jerusalem, it is chiefly when the historian rejoices over their destruction; neither has he any more sympathy with sanctuaries intended for the God of Israel, but outside the Temple area. We therefore conjecture rather than know for certain that Jerusalem, in its best days, presented an appearance

not unlike what it exhibits to-day, where with one preeminent mosque representing the dominant cult, there is associated a variety of other mosques, churches and synagogues, the latter belonging, to a large extent, to strangers, though in part to natives; the notion that the sanctity of the chief edifice is impugned by the presence of these other places of worship has now been outgrown, even before the Deuteronomic reform it had no wide currency.

The mode whereby that reform was introduced has been made out, so far as the nature of the evidence admits of positive conclusions, by those who have written on the history of Israelitish religion, and we know that when Judaism was once started on the doctrine of one God, one Temple, it drew the inferences with ever-increasing rigour. Probably those are right who trace the origin of the process to the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib, when the northern Kingdom had been swept away by Assyria. If, as the history suggests, there were strong reasons why the sect, whose motto was the doctrine stated, could claim the miracle as one granted specially to their cause, their ability to monopolize Judaism and in time Jerusalem seems to be explained. That effect was not attained without violent reactions, in the course of which Jerusalem itself perished, for the miracle was not renewed, and the violent religious persecutions which followed the reign of Hezekiah must have greatly reduced such power of resistance as the Jewish people might have been able to bring against the tremendous power of Babylon. Belief, however, in the sanctity of the spot where alone a temple might stand and sacrifice could be offered was harboured as a precious heirloom by the descendants of those who had been forcibly ejected from the sacred city. The conviction that it would eventually arise from its ruins, no more to be polluted by alien worships, gave it for a time an ideal existence, and enthusiasts devoted their energies to planning how it should be laid out.

The time which elapsed before such operations could be executed seems to have been very lengthy. It is not now thought probable that there was a Jerusalem between that of David and that of Nehemiah; if there was it must have been a place of small importance, for the inquisitive Herodotus, who composed his inquiry in the fifth century B.C., had heard of Palestine but appears not to have heard of Jerusalem. Josephus answers that he had also not heard of Rome, a reply which seems unsatisfactory. A return from exile in the form of a splendid pageant, such as some of the Prophets awaited, did not take place; but early in the fourth century, B.C., one Nehemiah, who had won promotion at the Persian court, then in possession of the East, obtained leave to rebuild city and temple on a modest scale. The restored Jerusalem appears to date from his efforts, but the combination of his authentic narrative with another of unknown date and authority has rendered the process of restoration hard to follow. The unfriendly attitude adopted towards their neighbours by the Israelites seems to have involved the rebuilders of Jerusalem in difficulties, but there is no doubt that through the work of Nehemiah it was raised to the rank of something like a provincial capital, and this rank it retained when before the close of the fourth century Persian domination gave way to Greek.

For the gap which separates the termination of the Old Testament from the Maccabaean period even Josephus appears to have had only historical romances to guide him, but in the restored city, prevented by the suzerain power from having an independent foreign policy, something like the theocracy contemplated in the Mosaic legislation could be put in practice. And of the divine worship which constituted the main concern of the city the representation projected by the Books of Chronicles into the age of David is likely to be a faithful account.

The one fragment of history that belongs to this period

tells how one of the high priests fortified the Temple and secured the city against besieging. This does not imply independence, but a wise precaution, since one of the most painful features of warfare in all but the most modern times was that the people, whether belonging to the ruling castes or not, suffered all the horrors that accompanied the sacking of cities in quarrels that were not theirs. During this period Palestine was alternately in the power of Egyptian and Syrian princes, and was perpetually exposed to their hordes. The pec1uliarities of Israelitish worship began to attract some attention in the Hellenic world, and with these the foreign garrisons located in the Citadel could not fail to obtain a tolerable acquaintance. While in some cases the impression created was not unfavourable, in others Judaism roused the vehement hatred which for some reason or other it has constantly been found capable of exciting. Finally, in the first third of the second century B.C., the Syrian monarch Antiochus Epiphanes set himself the task of destroying Judaism, and compelling its adherents to adopt Hellenic culture. Pagan worship was instituted in the Temple itself, and the animal which for unknown reasons is abhorred by Jews and Moslems was selected for sacrifice. Interference with the exercise of the Law provoked resentment which no amount of oppression of a different sort could have awakened: the family of Mattathias, a descendant of Asmoneus, was found equal to organizing resistance, and its members by their victories secured to their countrymen a fresh lease of independence, and renewed prosperity for Jerusalem. A tower commanding the Temple area which had been erected by the persecutors was destroyed by the defenders of Judaism, and the Temple purified from its defilement.

To the Maccabaean period—or a little later—there belongs a description of the city, professedly written by a Greek of the third century B.C., but in reality by a Jew of a much

later time, anxious as many as of his race have often been to conceal his nationality and identity. Whether this writer had ever seen the city which he depicts is uncertain: in any case his account is quite ideal and belongs rather to the conception of the heavenly Jerusalem, of which we have seen the origin. Situated in the midst of mountains, on a high hill, Jerusalem was crowned by a Temple girt with three walls over seventy cubits high. The court of the Temple, which was paved with marble, covered vast reservoirs of water—this part of the description is confirmed by Sir C. Warren's discoveries—fountains of which washed away the blood of the myriads of beasts there offered. The streets formed a series of terraces stretching from the brow of the hill down into the valley, and were furnished with raised pavements, the purpose of which was to prevent the clean being contaminated by contact with the unclean. It was admirably fortified with a number of towers arranged like the tiers in a theatre. The compass of the city was about forty stades. The comparison of the city to a theatre, of which the temple area was the stage, has been made by others, yet its appropriateness seems very doubtful.

Before the Maccabaean dynasty had lasted a century, the precious possession of independence was sacrificed to the personal ambitions of rival claimants for the chief place in the State; Jerusalem was taken by Pompey, and the Holy of Holies profaned by the entrance of a stranger. But ere long Herod, who in the troubles which ruined the Roman Republic, had played with consummate skill a difficult hand, being installed as monarch, and obtaining possession of Jerusalem at the price of a tremendous massacre, restored the city to greatness by no means inferior to that of its imperial days. His deeds were recounted by a contemporary of his own, whose work survives in the excerpts made by the Jewish historian Josephus, whose books form a storehouse

of information on the topography of Jerusalem, which, if in no wise to be compared with Makrizi's account of Cairo, is yet highly prized for its fullness of detail.

Money ruthlessly extorted by Herod was spent by him in beautifying and strengthening his capital, where he rebuilt the Temple on a scale of unsurpassed magnificence—unless, indeed, the concept of the heavenly Jerusalem may have affected the representations of Josephus. The king built three towers “excelling all in the world in size, beauty and strength,” which he named after his brother, his friend and his wife. To the north of the city he built a palace surpassing all powers of description, surrounded with a wall thirty cubits high, containing banqueting-halls, guest-chambers, avenues, channels for water, and all else that can be imagined. The white marble blocks of which the towers were constructed were so truly joined that each appeared to be one mass of stone. How much in the descriptions of these buildings is due to the imagination is unknown: the buildings themselves have disappeared without a trace. Herod's magnificence no more won the affection of his subjects than did Solomon's before him; the people at his death thought the direct yoke of Rome preferable to an Oriental despotism, and before the destruction of the city they had painful experience of both.

The Jerusalem of the Gospels is, of course, Herod's Jerusalem, with some alterations effected by Roman occupation. On the whole the magnificence ascribed by Josephus to the buildings of Herod is borne out by allusions in the early Christian records, and an inscription discovered by M. Clermont-Ganneau, composed in the Greek of this period, in which strangers are forbidden to proceed beyond a certain point in the Temple area on pain of death, strikingly confirms the statements of the Jewish historian. The employment of the Temple at this time as a place where those

who wished to give instruction could do so is similar to that which is characteristic of the Moslem Mosque. But the elaborate ritual of which the Temple was the scene has rather been inherited by the Christian sanctuary, though of course the abolition of sacrifice, due to the destruction of the Temple, has deprived religious worship of what used to be its most important feature. The attention of the Jewish historian and the oral tradition of his countrymen is so much engrossed by the Temple, the palaces and the forts, that little is left for the other public and private buildings which at this time filled the city; we hear casually of a gymnasium, and obtain a casual reference to public baths. We hear of numerous synagogues shortly after the destruction of the Temple, and it is likely that there was no lack of these, in different parts of the city, in the period which preceded that disaster. Some provision must also have been made for the religious wants of the foreign army of occupation, and indeed for those of other foreign visitors, though the Romans seem ordinarily to have respected Jewish prejudices on this subject so far as possible. And especially must provision have been made for the great numbers of devout persons who visited the metropolis regularly at feast times.

Of Herod's descendants, Herod Agrippa, the friend of Claudius, who for his services in connexion with the Emperor's accession had received his grandfather's kingdom, continued the work of fortification, and commenced, where practicable, a new encircling wall, rendered necessary by the growth of the population, which, had it been completed, should, in the opinion of Josephus, have rendered the city impregnable.

The city was for a short time the focus of general attention during the rebellion quelled by Vespasian and Titus, and ending in the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70. It would be interesting to know the amount of the population at this

time, but our authorities give figures which could only with great difficulty be accommodated in the space; 600,000, or about eight times the present population, and 2,500,000, or about thirty-five times the existing numbers. Moreover, the present population covers an area which seems certainly to include ground that was outside the city besieged by Titus. The same must be said of these numbers as of the wall seventy cubits high that surrounded the Temple, that they suit the heavenly Jerusalem rather than the earthly. Whatever the numbers may have been, they were unable to defend the city, which appears to have been destroyed no less thoroughly than after its capture by the Babylonians. Herod's three towers are said to have been left, with as much of the western wall as would serve to protect the ruins. It would seem that the destruction of the public buildings did not prevent a certain number of persons returning to their homes, and a community established itself there after the fall, similar to that which may have occupied the same site before the time of Nehemiah.

About sixty years after the fall a man who believed himself to be the Messiah, and persuaded others of the same, Bar Cochba, heading a new nationalist movement on the part of the Jews, seized the ruined city, refortified it, and proceeded to rebuild the Temple. The revolt was not more successful than that described by Josephus; and, after its suppression, Jerusalem was turned into a Roman colony, called Aelia Capitolina, with a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus on the Temple area. To that god in Vespasian's time the tribute had been assigned that had previously been sent by the Jews to their own Temple, and the Jews were forbidden access and even approach to the city of their fathers. The name Aelia supplanted the time-honoured name, which for awhile belonged exclusively to the heavenly city of devotional fancy, which the fall of Jerusalem under Titus had

caused to be painted in more gorgeous colours than before. Even now Aelia is with Moslems the alternative appellation for “the Holy City,” and figures on the imprints of books printed at Jerusalem.

Of the events which led to Jerusalem being endeared to half the world, few at the time realized the importance. The progress of Christianity, its separation from Judaism, its honeycombing the Roman Empire, and its final adoption by a Roman emperor, form a fascinating subject of study, which at no time is likely to make the process perfectly clear. Except for the brief period occupied by siege and fall, it is probable that the Christian community at Jerusalem maintained a sort of continuity, and the concept of the New Jerusalem covered the site of the Old with a sanctity of which it was never divested, even before the instinct for pilgrimage found its interpretation in the desire to visit the sacred sites.

One of the first results of the conversion of the Empire to Christianity was that steps were taken to cover with worthy monuments the places where scenes of transcendent importance had been enacted. A church was erected with great magnificence by Constantine, containing within its walls the Tomb of Christ, the place of the Crucifixion, and the spot where the True Cross had been found.

What reason is there for supposing that the sites were still known in the fourth century, and could be accurately located? The question has often been debated, though it is uncertain when scepticism was first expressed. The best discussion of it is to be found in the posthumous work of Sir Charles Wilson, called Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre, published by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1906. The eminent explorer's conclusion is ambiguous, and does not therein differ from that of many others who have been over the ground. There is no evidence that the site had any

interest for the Christian community till long after all chance of being able to identify to it had disappeared, owing to the violent convulsions which had attended the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, its recapture at a later time by Bar Cochba, and its transformation into a Roman colony by Hadrian. To those who were filled with belief in the living Christ, any interest in the Holy Sepulchre would savour of the absurdity condemned in the Gospel of seeking the living among the dead. Only when an emperor desired the site to be recovered, persons would not be wanting ready to discover it. The question for us is what indications led those who identified the site to select one rather than another. How came they, to mention only the most obvious difficulty, to place the Tomb inside the City, when the Gospel leads us to suppose that it was outside? If the site was in accordance with authentic tradition, the City must have been moved, i.e., its walls must in the time of Constantine have included a space which they did not include at a time when there is great reason for supposing the City to have been far more populous. Moreover, is the proximity of the Sepulchre to the place of crucifixion either likely or suggested by the sacred narrative? The writers who narrate the discovery of these sacred sites usually introduce into the story the miraculous element; and this portion of it is scarcely less improbable than the explanation given by some narrators that the site was learned from a Jew tortured to reveal it. For why should such knowledge be preserved by Jews? Tradition seems unanimously to assert that the site was hidden beneath a Temple of Venus, a goddess of evil reputation, whose shrine was thought to be an intentional profanation of the holy spot, and that those who searched there were rewarded by the discovery of a grave, and presently by other confirmation of their find. The large literature that exists on this subject illustrates the varying effect of arguments not only on different minds, but
on the same mind at different times. The ordinary visitor may be contented with Sir C.Wilson's conclusion that while there is no decisive reason, historical, traditional or topographical, for placing Golgotha and the Tomb where they are now shown, yet no objection urged against the sites is of such a convincing nature that it need “disturb the minds of those who accept in all good faith the authenticity of places that are hallowed by the prayers of countless pilgrims.”

Other writers have expressed themselves with much less caution on this subject. Some have regarded the credit of Christianity as in a way bound up with the site selected in the time of Constantine, and even Sir C. Wilson says he would attach more weight to the opinion of Constantin's contemporaries than to the conjectures of modern scholars, if it is a question of conjecture. On the other hand, those who have been fortunate enough in modern times to hit upon places which seem to them to correspond to the requisite conditions are apt to express themselves very positively; so Colonel Conder, whose suggestion is marked on modern maps, regards it as a happy occurrence that the sacred site was trodden by the Crusaders without knowledge of its importance, and so spared the terrible scenes that were enacted at the taking of Jerusalem in the immediate neighbourhood of the site selected by Constantine. Scepticism has once or twice been expressed on the identity of the present location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with that of Constantine's building; but for this there appears to be a continuous tradition, interrupted once or twice for a very few years only, not for a period during which there would be any probability of the sites being forgotten. Of the interruption of the tradition before the time of Constantine there is no question, but we have no accurate knowledge of the length of the break. In a city built on the plain, a site

is easily rendered unrecognizable by such convulsions as befell Jerusalem and its neighbourhood in the three centuries which elapsed before Constantine built his church; but on such ground as is occupied by Jerusalem, landmarks are somewhat more permanent.

In the period which followed the conversion of Constantine Jerusalem was adorned with many religious edifices, and the whole land began to teem with monasteries and the abodes of anchorites. There is a record of a strange attempt made by the Emperor Julian to restore the Jewish Temple on the area which probably contained a disused sanctuary of Capitoline Jupiter, but for some reason or other this scheme was not carried out. The practice of pilgrimage to the sacred sites grew in popularity, and owing to various inconveniences that arose was at times discouraged, though with little effect, by the Fathers of the Church. The Empress Eudocia is said to have rebuilt the walls of the city, and to have founded various religious and philanthropic institutions both in and around the place. More importance attaches to the buildings of the Emperor Justinian, who erected a hospital for sick pilgrims and finished the Church of the Virgin which the Patriarch Elias had begun. Twelve years were occupied in the erection of this edifice, of which contemporary writers speak in enthusiastic terms. The platform on the Temple area selected for the building not being large enough, it was artificially increased by arches on substructures. New methods were devised for bringing on stones and columns of a size vast enough for the building contemplated. The hospital was to contain 200 beds, and substantial revenues were settled upon it.

The Church of St Mary in some way escaped destruction, when in 614 the nearer East was invaded by Chosroes—that last dying exploit of the Sassanian Empire, whose days were numbered. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was not equally

fortunate, as it, with all its contents, was burnt to the ground. The malice of the Persian invaders is said to have been directed by Jews, who, as usual, were destined to reap no permanent advantage from the catastrophe. If the figures of the historians are to be trusted, the massacre effected by the Persians must have been on as great a scale as any of the events of the kind witnessed by Jerusalem; 90,000 Christians of both sexes are said to have perished, and 65,000 corpses were presently gathered and deposited in a single cave outside the Western Gate.

The news of this terrible blow to the Byzantine Empire penetrated into Arabia, where the Prophet Mohammed, still at Meccah, foretold that the Persian victory would shortly be followed by a defeat. The rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre appears to have commenced almost as soon as the Persians had departed, the name of Modestus, superior of the monastery of Theodosius, being connected with this restoration, which took ten years to accomplish. Mohammed's prophecy was fulfilled fourteen years after its occasion, and in 628 the conqueror Heraclius visited the city on pilgrimage, and the part taken by the Jews in the former disaster was now visited on them heavily at the time when their brethren in Arabia were suffering persecution at the hands of another enemy. The imperial visit had doubtless the effect of causing the city to rise fast from its ruins, and a few years later a calculation, which may rest on tradition or conjecture, estimates the population of Jerusalem at 12,000 Greeks and 50,000 natives, nearly the number of human beings which the city with its suburbs contains at the present day.

But the restoration of Christian rule in Jerusalem was not destined to be permanent. A power of which there had been no previous indication was springing up at the time, destined to give Jerusalem a new lease of existence as a sacred

city, while banishing Christianity, at least as a dominant religion, from the nearer East. On Mohammed's mind the sanctity of Jerusalem had in his youth been impressed by those Jewish or Christian story-tellers with whom he had associated in his travels as a leader or as a follower of a caravan. And to him it had been portrayed as somewhat similar to the Bethel of Jacob's dream; the place where there was a ladder between heaven and earth, whereby visitors could ascend or descend. For him who was to be permitted to approach the Deity's abode Jerusalem was the starting point. Thither the Koran tells us the Prophet made a night journey from Meccah; and as dreamland is bound by no conditions of space or time, it was the Temple—long ruined and even polluted, but still the Furthest Sanctuary, furthest from us and so nearest to Allah—whither he was taken; it was there that—according to the tradition—he mounted the Pegasus that was to convey him to the upper world and its seven stories. Whether the tradition that gives us the details of this eventful journey is all of it or any of it Mohammed's statement, cannot now be known; all that concerns history is that it was believed. Jerusalem was to the followers of Mohammed what Sinai was to ancient Israel, more than the unknown Mount of the Transfiguration ever became to Christians; and yet, just as most Islamic institutions are coloured by something out of both the preceding systems, so the Furthest Mosque has associations similar to those that belong to each of these mountains. Starting thence the Prophet associated with some of his less mighty forerunners, and received the honours due to his worth; and thither he brought down some of the legislation which through the ages is distinctive of Islam. So long as Mohammed was bent on holding no compromise with Meccan idolatry, it was to the Furthest Sanctuary that his followers were commanded to turn when they prayed.
Only when circumstances rendered it necessary to conciliate Pagans and exasperate Jews, was Meccah substituted as the direction of prayer.

Fourteen years after Mohammed's flight from Meccah came the Moslem conquest of Syria, decided by the battle of Yarmuk. The Patriarch of Jerusalem was invited to deliver up the city without resistance to the Caliph's general, Abu Ubaidah, and since the terms of capitulation included security for life and property, religious toleration, and involved only the payment of a poll-tax and certain other by no means vexatious duties, not much difficulty was made about accepting them. As the Christians, it is said, declined to treat with anyone but the Caliph himself, perhaps doubting the power of any subordinate to make treaties, Omar, the second follower of the Prophet, then reigning at Medinah, decided to accept this condition, and came to receive the capitulation of the sacred city. His name has ever since clung to it, in connexion with the Mosque of Omar, often falsely located.

From 636 till July 15, 1099, the city remained under Moslem government; the nature of which renders religious toleration very variable, since it depends on the taste of the ruler for the time being whether non-Moslems shall be molested or not. And in such a city as Jerusalem, the possession of which could not fail to be an object of keen desire to Jews and Christians, the tendency to fanaticism must always have been greater than in any part of the Moslem world, except perhaps the sanctuaries of Meccah and Medinah.

The Moslem conquest tended, therefore, to secure to Jerusalem sanctity similar to that which it had enjoyed under Byzantine rule, though to the Moslems it was one of three sanctuaries, to only one of which, and that not Jerusalem, pilgrimage was enjoined. When in Umayyad times the

Caliphate gravitated towards Damascus, Jerusalem ran a chance of becoming the central sanctuary, perhaps even the capital of Islam; but this prospect was found to be incapable of realization, and Islam would scarcely have survived such a shifting of its religious centre. If any place in Palestine could supplant Meccah, it should rather have been Hebron, the city of Ibrahim or Abraham, the mythical founder of the Islamic or Hanefite faith. The doctrine of the Koran connected the sacrifice of Abraham's son not with Mount Moriah but with the neighbourhood of Meccah, where indeed the Ka'bah was supposed to have been rebuilt by Abraham and Ishmael; the heroes of Jerusalem were persons in the main respected indeed, but not of primary importance for Islam.

In accordance with the territorial division which the Arabs took over from the Byzantines, Jerusalem was situated in the Jund [or army] of Filastin (Palestine), of which the capital was Ramlah, in the time of the Caliph Sulaiman (715-717) who founded it, and long after; when Ramlah had been destroyed by Saladdin in 1187, Jerusalem inherited the right to the title of capital in this province. But the history of Syria was chequered, and as the conquest of the Abbasids had meant the loss of the metropolis to that country, it had a tendency to fall to those usurpers whose efforts gradually led to the establishment of a western Caliphate, to which Syria regularly belonged. Professor Palmer observes that the ravages of the Carmathians in Arabia, where, in 929, Meccah itself was pillaged, and the Black Stone removed, led to Jerusalem being for a time the chief resort of Moslem pilgrims, a circumstance which also tended to cause a recrudescence of persecution.

The annals of a cathedral town, especially when it is not the capital of a province, are unlikely to be exciting; and the scantiness of the annals of Jerusalem before the Frankish

conquest and after it is easily explicable. Its history is little more than a record of damage and repair to the Christian and the Moslem sanctuaries. This, as will be seen, is fairly well recorded, but the governors of the place were not sufficiently important for chronicles of their doings to be kept. The present condition of the city, in which the Christian feasts are the matter of real importance, which the Moslems, whose religious concern they are not, have to regulate, is likely to reflect the state of affairs that has been normal since the Moslem conquest. The Moslem is a casual visitor, the Christian a visitor to be reckoned on. He is not a welcome guest, but as a show place lives by its visitors, it is unwise to discourage him too much. On the other hand, a place of pilgrimage loses something of its attractiveness, if it be too accessible; exploits over which no risk is incurred are of little honour. So long then as the Christian pilgrims were only moderately humiliated and fleeced, Jerusalem could prosper.

Mr Lestrange, whose Palestine under the Moslems contains extracts from Moslem writers both before and after the Crusaders, lucidly arranged and interpreted with reference to the present topography of Jerusalem, has drawn attention to the descriptions of Jerusalem by Moslems who wrote at the end of the tenth and in the middle of the eleventh century respectively. The first of these was a native of the place, whose description is somewhat coloured by patriotism, and by the theory of the heavenly Jerusalem. The second, a Persian visitor, of excellent repute as a writer, estimated the population at twenty thousand, and fancied that as many more Moslem pilgrims sometimes came in the month of pilgrimage.

Numbers of Christians also came on pilgrimage, and the Jews had a synagogue which was to them what the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was to the Christians; the native writer

of half a century before declared that these two communities had all the power. One can hear similar complaints from Moslems now in Turkish cities. Both praise the place for its cleanliness; which, however, they rightly attribute to the geographical position of the city, and to the mode in which the streets are laid out, which permits impurities to be carried down by the rain. Of the list of eight gates made in the tenth century only one, the Bab al-Amud (called by Europeans the Damascus Gate) has preserved its name up to the present time. The sites of the remainder are not difficult of identification. Perhaps some of these may be on the same sites as gates mentioned by Nehemiah, though the variations in the elevation of the soil renders this doubtful.

In spite of the assertions of these writers the condition of the Christians within Jerusalem, as in other places where Moslems were in power, was precarious in the highest degree. They were in a way hostages for the good behaviour of their coreligionists outside; and activity on the part of the Christian powers might be avenged on them. Moreover, Islam was lacerated by internal wars, and the contributions which the different aspirants to power required for the support of their armies could more easily and conveniently be levied on unbelievers than on believers. The Crusades were preceded by armies of pilgrims, large enough to inspire suspicion, though not of sufficient size to attempt violence with much hope of success. The destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1010 by the mad Hakim had aroused some indignation in Europe, and the Seljuke rule, which at Baghdad was accompanied at first by violent disorders, had put the Christians of Palestine in a worse plight than before. The Jews, whether truly or not, were supposed to get at the ear of Moslem sovereigns, and avenge the ill-treatment of their brethren in Europe by falsely accusing the Christians of the East. Yet all the wrongs of the branches of the Church subject

to Moslems, and all the humiliations to which pilgrims from the West were subjected, would have produced no effect, had not one man been found gifted with the enthusiasm, the eloquence, and the energy to transform sentiment into words and action. The historians of the Crusades rightly give Peter the Hermit a place beside the most powerful movers of human masses that are known to fame. That such a man should have proved but an indifferent fighter is not surprising; credit must be given him for the possession of more organizing ability than many mere rousers of enthusiasm have been able to display.

The movement started by Peter the Hermit led to the foundation of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, of which lucid accounts have been given by Conder, Palmer and many others. On Friday, July 15, 1099, after a siege of forty days, Jerusalem was taken by the forces led by Godfrey of Bouillon, who himself was the first to scale the wall. His scaling tower, which had been vainly tried on the east of the city, was advanced with greater effect on the north side of the wall, near the gate called after Herod; and when once the city had been entered on this side, the forces of Raymond of Toulouse entered without difficulty from the west and south. The vanquished Moslems sought refuge partly in the Haram area, and partly in the Tower of David. In the former place a massacre took place, in which the slain are estimated by Arabic writers, accustomed to exaggerate, at 70,000; while the other refugees appear to have been sent in safety to Askalon by the efforts of Count Raymond. The impression created by the news in the Moslem world was vast. An attempt was made at Baghdad, its centre, to start a rival crusade for the delivery of the captured city, but the time was not yet ripe amid Moslem dissensions for such an enterprise.

Godfrey was appointed ruler of the reclaimed city, where

he refused on religious grounds to bear the title king. He proceeded to transform the mosques into what many of them had been before, Christian churches, and to arrange on western lines for the proper maintenance of these as also of those churches which the Christians had under Moslem domination been allowed to retain. A patriarch was soon appointed without reference to either the local Church or to the Pope; and a code of laws gradually drawn up which has won much admiration, as displaying a spirit far in advance of the time to which it belongs. For military purposes a modification of the feudal system of Europe was introduced in the new kingdom, which was to include all Palestine, with certain vassaldoms beyond its confines.

Among the most remarkable phenomena of the Crusades was the establishment of the orders at once military and ecclesiastical of the Templars and the Knights of St John. The Templars were lodged in the Aksa Mosque, which at first was used as a royal palace; when in 1118 the Order was founded, King Baldwin removed to other quarters, and the knights were housed in what they called the Temple of Solomon, to which they made various additions for religious and other needs. The Muristan, now incorporated in the recently built German Church, retains the memory of the Hospice of the Knights of St John, who there had two buildings of this nature, one for males and another for females. They were not the first buildings of the sort for the use of Christians even since Moslem domination; since the good relations between Charlemagne and the famous Harun al-Rashid had rendered it possible for the former to found a hospice in Jerusalem, and in general obtain tolerable conditions for the Christians resident there. A third Order, the Teutonic, also had a hospital of St Mary in Jerusalem, founded after that of St John's Knights, for the accommodation of German pilgrims.

The theory of the Frankish kings appears to have been to exclude Moslems from Jerusalem, just as non-Moslems were excluded from the Arabian sanctuaries. In order to replenish the devastated city the second king, Baldwin I, brought into it a number of Syrians from villages beyond Jordan. The needs of trade appear to have caused the admission of a certain number of Jews into the city during Frankish times, since a traveller found two hundred Jewish dyers living under the Tower of David. The various branches of the Oriental Church, Abyssinians, Armenians, Copts, Georgians and the different sects of Syrians appear to have all found representation in the Frankish city, just as they find it now.

Whereas at one time it was supposed that the West owed much of its architecture to the East, the converse is now very generally believed. “The monuments,” says Colonel Conder, “which the Latins left behind them attest their mastery in the art of building. The masonry was far more truly cut than that of the Byzantines. The slender clustered pillars, the bold sharp relief of the foliaged capitals, the intricate designs of cornices witness their skill as masons and sculptors.” The authors of The Survey of Western Palestine have made out a list of thirty-seven churches known to have existed in Jerusalem or in the vicinity of the city walls in the twelfth century. “Nor,” they add, “is this all that remains of the crusading town, for wherever the explorer walks through the Holy City he encounters mediaeval remains. The whole of the present Meat Bazaar, adjoining the Hospital of St John on the east, is crusading work, representing the old street of Malcuisinat; and the walls of the street leading thence towards the Damascus Gate, together with a fine vaulted building on the east side, are of mediaeval masonry. The present Tower of David is the Crusading Castle of the

Pisans, which was rebuilt as soon as the city was taken by Goldfrey. The so-called Kal'at Jalut in the north-west angle of the present city is the mediaeval Tancred's Tower.”

The Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem lasted eighty-eight years, and the throne was occupied during that time by nine sovereigns, one of them an infant, and more than one under the influence of a woman. Apparently western government of eastern states can only be carried on successfully when the western invader is not a colonist, but a temporary occupant, to be replaced after a time by some one fresh from the West; the colonist speedily degenerates and cannot even cope with the indigenous inhabitant. Although the State founded by the Crusaders was perhaps less disturbed by wars and dangers than the ordinary histories of the time might lead the reader to believe, and the condition of Moslems subject to the Frankish king was not intolerable, the new kingdom took no root,and it is agreed by students that the effect produced by the Crusaders on Europe was far greater than anything which they achieved in Asia. It has been pointed out that many Arabic words remain in European languages, as mementoes of that enterprise, whereas few, if any, Frankish words have got into the vernaculars of Syria or Egypt in consequence of the presence of the knights. When once the differences between the sections of the Islamic world had been appeased by the great Saladdin, the ejection of the Franks ceased to be impossible. The final battle, of Tiberias or Hattin, fought July 2, 1187, ended with the army of the King of Jerusalem being annihilated by Saladdin, and the King himself, Guy of Lusignan, falling into the Moslem leader's hands. The defeat appears to have been due to incompetent leadership on the Christian side, not to brilliant generalship on the part of Saladdin. The effect, however, was the same. Town after town now fell back into Moslem hands, and after a futile attempt at resistance Jerusalem was

JERUSALEM: THE DOME OF KAIT BEY, HARAM-ES-SHEREEF.
given back by capitulation to Saladdin on October 2 of the same year. Few events in the history of Islam are more honourable than Saladdin's entry into Jerusalem without massacre and without pillage. According to the Mohammedan historian of Jerusalem the number of the inhabitants at the time was 100,000, from whom ransom was demanded at the rate often dinars per man, five per woman and one per child. Guards were stationed at the gates, and only those who paid their ransom allowed to go out. Yet several managed to climb down the walls, and many were released on one pretext or another, the Sultan being kind-hearted.

The recovery of Jerusalem by the Moslem Sultan counted in the East as no less an exploit than its conquest had counted in the West, and pilgrimages to Jerusalem commenced from all Islamic countries. The Frankish residents sold their goods for whatever they would fetch, being anxious to quit a Moslem city; and it was suggested to the Sultan to seize the gold and silver in the churches, as not having been included by the capitulation, but he, anxious for the fair fame of Islam in Europe, refused to profit by this suggestion. Owing to the crusade for the second recovery of Jerusalem in which the English king, Richard I, played so noteworthy a part, Saladdin deemed it advisable to strengthen the fortifications of the city, and for that purpose came and took up his abode in the hospital near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, now called Muristan. Artisans were sent for from Mosul, with whom 2,000 Christian prisoners were compelled to work; a series of towers was constructed from the Jaffa to the Damascus Gate, a trench being at the same time excavated in the rock, whence the stones were used in erecting the towers. The Sultan himself set the example of carrying stones on his saddle, and the whole Moslem population, including ecclesiastical and military dignitaries, helped in the work. In this way operations that might have

taken, we are told, many years were accomplished very quickly. The English forces did not actually besiege Jerusalem on this occasion, as a treaty was made between Richard and Saladdin, securing certain advantages for the Christians in the holy city. Whence its great number of Moslem inhabitants had come we are not told; but probably the state of war caused many to be homeless, and of the Moslem pilgrims attracted by the recovery of the place many may have been induced to remain by the favourable conditions on which property could be purchased; and the colleges of Baghdad must have been turning out numerous jurists and theologians anxious to be placed. A certain number of Christians, we are told, asked and obtained leave to continue residing in the city on the terms granted by Moslem rulers to tolerated cults.

The work of Saladdin was not to remain undisturbed. In 1219, when Damietta was being besieged by the Franks, Isa, called al-Muazzam, who had inherited Syria from his father al-Adil, fearing that Jerusalem might again be taken by the Christians, sent a party of masons and sappers to destroy it. This measure was followed by a general stampede of the inhabitants, who disposed of their property at ruinous prices. The people who remained assembled in solemn supplication at the two great sanctuaries on the Temple area, where this sovereign had himself carried out many works of decoration, besides founding schools for the study of law and grammar in the vicinity. Doubtless the idea of this prince was the humane and advanced one that the only way to avoid disputes between the two religions was to render the city common property, each sect having free access to its own sanctuary—a condition which would be rendered impossible by the presence of walls and fortresses, which must necessarily be in the possession of one party, only too likely to tyrannize over the other. The prince should have lived either much earlier or much later for his views to be practical.

Some authorities go so far as to assert that his workmen reduced the whole city to a heap of ruins with the exception of the great Christian and Moslem sanctuaries and the Tower of David. The demolition of these walls shortly afterwards caused the failure of negotiations for the restoration of Jerusalem to the Franks, as an indemnity was demanded which the Egyptian Sultan refused to pay. In 1229 owing to the quarrels between the representatives of the Ayyubid family the Emperor Frederic II succeeded in obtaining the ruined city from the Egyptian Sultan, on condition that the walls should not be rebuilt, and that there should be no interference with the sanctuaries on the Temple area. These terms naturally gave little satisfaction to either of the contending religions. For eleven years the Franks held the city under them, when al-Nasir, prince of Kerak, on the pretence that the conditions under which the sacred city was held were being violated by its fortification, attacked the place, and levelled to the ground the Tower of David which al-Muazzam had spared. But four years afterwards (1243) on the arrival of the Duke of Cornwall, brother of Henry III, with a company of English Crusaders the former treaty was renewed, the Prince of Kerak who was in possession finding it desirable to obtain the aid of the Franks for purposes of his own. It was not, however, to remain long in European hands. The next year the Egyptian Sultan obtained the help of the subjects of the Khwarizm-Shah, driven from their country by the Mongol hordes, and 20,000 of these appeared before Jerusalem, whose defences had only begun to rise after their complete demolition. The Khwarizmians, whom history represents as little less savage than the Mongols, swept away the Christian population, beheaded the priests ministering at the altar in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and wrought great havoc in that edifice; the graves of the kings there buried were opened and their ashes scattered, and other churches in and

about the city were desecrated or demolished. Since the year 1244 Jerusalem has remained in Moslem hands.

With other possessions of the Ayyubids, Jerusalem was handed on to the Mamluke dynasties, whence it came into possession of the Turks. The attitude adopted by these dynasties towards Jews and Christians was ordinarily tolerant, and both Jews and Melchite Christians undoubtedly received better treatment under their rule than under that of the Franks. At no time since the abandonment of the Crusades has the City of David been the focus of public attention in both East and West as it was when Europe and Asia were contending for its possession. It sinks into provincial mediocrity, and is entirely overshadowed by Cairo or Constantinople, the capital whence it derives its ruler. Even its special historians have little to say about it from this time. To the imperial historians it is chiefly of interest as a place of exile or retirement of eminent men who commemorate their residence there by some benefaction. The ruined fortifications appear to have lain in heaps till the time of the Ottoman Sultan Sulaiman, the builder of the existing walls which bear date 1542. To the Christians the chief interest of the place lay in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; to the Moslems in the Temple area. For these two sanctuaries Jerusalem might be said to exist.

In order to be true to the title of this book, a little should be said about the work done by the Mamluke Sultans for the decoration of the city. Baibars I, who built a mosque over the supposed Tomb of Moses, is said to have instituted the festival in honour of the “Prophet Moses,” which to this day serves as a sort of counterpoise to the Greek Easter. He renewed “the stonework which is above the marble “of the Dome of the Rock. Outside the city on the north-west he built in the year 1264 a Khan or Hospice, which he adorned with a door taken from the Fatimide palace in Cairo, and

THE GATE OF THE COTTON MERCHANTS, JERUSALEM.
TOWER ANTONIA, JERUSALEM
SOUTH PORCH OF MOSQUE AND SUMMER PULPIT, JERUSALEM
on which he settled the revenues of several villages in the neighbourhood of Damascus. The building contained a mill and a bakehouse, as well as a mosque. Its purpose was to harbour visitors (perhaps belated visitors) to the city, and an arrangement was made for the distribution of bread at the door. In Mujir al-din's time the revenues had already been sequestrated, and no more bread was handed out. Baibars also repaired the Dome of the Chain.

The Sultan Ketbogha is credited with having done some repairs to the stonework of the Dome of the Rock, and having rebuilt the wall of the Temple area which overlooks the cemetery of the Bab al-Rahmah in the year 1299. His successor Lajin renewed the mihrab of David in the southern wall near the Cradle of Jesus.

The great builder Mohammed al-Nasir naturally left some memorials of his taste in Jerusalem. He faced the front of the Aksa Mosque with marble, and opened in it two windows which are to the right and left of the mihrab. This was done in the year 1330-1331. He had the domes of the two chief edifices regilt, so well, says Mujir al-din, that, though in his time 180 years had passed since the operation, the work still looked brand-new. He rebuilt the Gate of the Cotton-merchants in very elaborate style.

The Sultan Sha'ban, grandson of Nasir, built the minaret near the Gate of the Tribes in the year 1367. He renewed the wooden doors of the Aksa Mosque, and the arches over the western stairs in the Court of the Dome, opposite to the Bab al-Nazir, nine years later. The next year the Franciscans on Mount Sion were massacred by this Sultan's order.

The great Sultan Barkuk built the Mueddin's bench opposite the mihrab in the Dome of the Rock, and repaired the Sultan's Pool outside Jerusalem on the west. The author quoted remarks that it had gone to ruin and was useless in

his day. In 1394 a governor named Shihab al-din al-Yaghmuri, appointed by Barkuk, placed on the western door of the Dome a marble slab containing a declaration that various imposts instituted by former governors had been remitted.

The following Sultan Faraj placed on the wall of the Bab al-Silsilah a slab declaring that in future the Sultan's representative at Meccah and Medinah must be a different person from the governor of Jerusalem, which was to form an administrative unit with Hebron. The effect of this edict was quite temporary.

The Sultan Jakmak on the occasion of his turning the Christians out of the Tomb of David in the year 1452 instituted a severe inquisition into the monasteries of Palestine, and, in consequence of this, damage was done to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other Christian edifices. New constructions raised by the Franciscans in the Monastery of Mount Sion were demolished, and a chapel erected by them near their cloister was in 1491 destroyed by order of Kaietbai.

We may now condense the history of the two chief sites. The Temple area, containing the Dome of the Rock and the Furthest Mosque, counts, as we have seen, as one of the three great sanctuaries of Islam. On the Israelitish temples that once stood there much has been written, and ingenious reconstructions of them are exhibited by the heirs of the late Dr Shick; it does not come within our scope to do more than allude to them. When Jerusalem was taken by the Moslems, the church erected by Justinian was on part of the area; and a late writer who narrates the erection of the Moslem temple, states that Omar prayed in this building. For the rest the account reproduced by E. H. Palmer of the founding of the Furthest Mosque has been shown by Mr Lestrange to be apocryphal. It belongs to a

period after the recovery of Jerusalem from the Franks, when the Arabs produced many an historical romance, and the exploits of the early heroes of Islam were adorned with divers fabulous details. According to these works Omar, coming to the Sacred City to receive the capitulation of the Patriarch, demands to be shown the Furthest Sanctuary. He is taken to the Church of the Resurrection, but tells his guide that he lies; he is then conducted to another church, and again refuses to be cajoled; finally, he is brought to the Temple area, which, from Christian spite against the Jews, is covered so thickly with refuse that it can scarcely be approached. The Caliph proceeds in great humility to clear away the refuse with his cloak, and his followers aid him. Even when this work of purification has been performed, the area has to be three times cleansed by rain from heaven before prayer on it is permitted. Apparently this story is in the main an etymological myth, to account for the name Kumamah (sweepings) applied by Moslems not to the Temple area, but to the Church of the Resurrection (Kiyamah). The connexion of Omar's name with the Dome of the Rock is probably due to the tradition of his clearing the site. A curious description of a building by him above the Rock has been preserved by Adamnan, Abbot of St Columba, as related to him by a French pilgrim, Bishop Arculphus. He states that the Mosque of the Saracens was a square building, put together of planks and beams yet large enough to contain 3,000 worshippers.

The building by Omar of a Mosque in Jerusalem is, however, not recorded by early Arabic historians, though Mr Lestrange has discovered an allusion to it in the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes. Of that which now bears his name the Arabic geographers appear to take no notice; it is a meagre building, probably meant to commemorate a site on which the Caliph said his prayers, he having magnanimously,

according to the legend, refused to do this in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for fear this might afterwards give the Moslems a title to the place; a story which implies that Omar possessed a remarkable power of projecting himself into the future. That the Moslems who took Jerusalem did not seize the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is doubtless due to the fact that this site could have no interest for them, since their system denies both the death and resurrection of the Christian Saviour; the very name Holy Sepulchre involves according to them mendacity almost comparable to that of the Cretans. The Temple area contains two sacred buildings of primary importance, the Dome of the Rock which is in the centre, and the Furthest Mosque. Both are ascribed to the Caliph Abd al-Malik, who reigned from 685-705, and who had a political reason for endeavouring to make Jerusalem once more supersede Meccah as the great place of pilgrimage. Belonging to the Umayyad dynasty, which, though descended from the most stubborn of the Prophet's opponents, had, through the ability of Mu'awiyah, the first Umayyad Caliph, not only usurped the Prophet's throne, but made it an hereditary possession, he had the same reasons as Jeroboam of old for wishing to divert the stream of pilgrimage from the place where both objects and persons would remind the visitors that their sovereign was seated on a throne to which others had a better claim. The worship of a stone was held by the ancients to be the main article of Arabian religion, and to this sentiment Mohammed had to give way, though Omar was notoriously reluctant to retain the ceremony of kissing the Black Stone, which was the nucleus of the Meccan Ka'bah, the surrounding sanctuary, and of Islam. Abd al-Malik, like most of the Umayyads, considering religion as of political value only, fancied he could satisfy his co-religionists if he provided them with a stone and a sanctuary round it, and appears deliberately to
DOME OF THE ROCK FROM THE MOSQUE OF EL AKSA, JERUSALEM.
have started the cult of the Rock round which he in the year 691 built the Dome which was to correspond with the Ka'bah, ordaining at the same time a ceremony similar to the time-honoured circuit round the Meccan shrine. Like Jeroboam he went so far as to forbid the pilgrimage prescribed in the Koran, and substitute his own for it. The second founder of the Abbasid line of Caliphs, whose capital Baghdad became world-famous, made a similar endeavour, and for the same reason; the fear that a visit to Meccah might turn Moslems into partisans of the Prophet's descendants. But even in the year 691 the ordinances of Islam were too deeply rooted to permit of so tremendous an innovation; and later writers, regarding even the attempt as inconsistent with ordinary prudence, suppose the sagacious Caliph's purpose to have been to counteract the effect produced on men's minds by the magnificence of Christian churches existing at the time at Jerusalem and elsewhere.

It should be observed that some eminent authorities identify the Dome of the Rock with Justinian's Church of S. Sophia, and it has even been suggested that the Rock is itself one of the sites regarded as Golgotha. This opinion has, however, few supporters.

With regard to the Stone it appears that nothing is known of it prior to the statement of the Bordeaux Pilgrim, who visited Jerusalem A.D. 333, and asserts that near the two equestrian statues of the Emperor Hadrian still standing on the Temple Area there was a pierced stone which it was the custom of the Jews to anoint with oil once in the year, when they wailed and tore their garments, after which ceremonies they retired. The process of pouring oil on stones belongs to the pre-Mosaic religion of the patriarchs; it has no countenance in the law of Moses. We find, however, that according to the Moslem tradition the anointing of the stone was ordered by the Umayyad Abd al-Malik, and continued

till his dynasty closed. It would seem, then, that what the Dome of the Rock restored was not a Mosaic cult, but one which belongs to a different stratum of the Israelitish religion, which somehow was continued, probably in secret, during the domination of Judaism, and after the destruction of the Temple was revived. The ordinary theory identifies the rock with the site of the altar of burnt sacrifice, whence the blood is supposed to have been conveyed into a chamber below the rock, whence it was drained into the Kedron. Other suggestions have been made by eminent explorers.

The name of Abd al-Malik lies concealed in the inscription above the cornice of the octagonal colonnade which supports the Dome. For Abd al-Malik the name of Mamun, who reigned from 813 to 833 has been substituted, the alteration being still noticeable in the crowding of the letters, and the different tint of the tiles. The person, who made this alteration forbore to alter the date also, whence Mamun is said to build this Dome in the year 691 [72 A.H.], nearly a century before his birth. From M. van Berchem's Corpus of Cairene inscriptions we have already had examples of this mode of alteration, which reminds us of the treatment by ancient compilers of the documents which they embodied in their books, resulting in contradictory statements being left side by side. M. van Berchem thinks that the bronze plates above the northern and eastern doors belong to the period of Abd al-Malik, but in these cases both names and dates have been altered, the latter to the year 216 A.H. [831 A.D.]

The quotations of Mr Lestrange show that the shape and appearance of the Dome have varied very slightly since its foundation by Abd al-Malik, though during the period that has elapsed it has frequently suffered from earthquake, and the episode of the occupation of Jerusalem by the Franks might have been expected to leave a permanent mark upon it. The chief effect of the Frankish possession would seem to

HARAM ES SHEREEF, JERUSALEM
DOME OF THE ROCK, INTERIOR
be found in the chipping away of pieces of the Rock to be taken to Europe as relics; the priests in charge of the Rock being amply paid for these fragments. This abuse is said to have led to its being paved over as a precaution; Saladdin ordered the pavement to be removed, the Moslem theory of sacred objects being different from the Christian. The accounts given by different visitors vary somewhat as to the number of columns, but in most matters are in striking agreement with the present condition of the edifice. Abd el-Malik undoubtedly employed Byzantine artists for his building, and to them is due the extremely rich mosaics which cover the arcades above the columns, form a wide border round the dome and fill the spaces between the windows. The cubes are not only of glass coloured and gilt, but of ebony and mother-of-pearl, which latter material gives a lovely translucent effect in the dim light beneath the dome. The designs are chiefly large vases and crowns whence wreaths and garlands depend.

Other sovereigns who have left inscriptions in the Dome, commemorating work done by them in restoring or beautifying it, are the Fatimide Caliph Zahir (1022 A.D.), who rebuilt it after it had fallen in, in consequence of the earthquake of the year 1016; Saladdin (1187), who renewed the gilding; the great Cairene builder, Nasir son of Kala'un (1318 and 1319) and the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II; the last repaired the Dome in the first third of the nineteenth century, but the inscription which records what he did is imperfect. Of the restoration by Sulaiman the Magnificent (1520-1566) there is no commemorative inscription.

Yet much of the special beauty of the mosque is due to him; it was he who restored the cupola and altered its windows, the arches of which are slightly pointed, while the older and wider arches beneath are round; he filled them with coloured glass in an elaborate setting of small patterns, so that the light filters through with rich effect. He substituted Persian tiles on

the upper parts of the outer façade for El-Walid's mosaics: for this he probably imported Persian potters, as his predecessors had mosaic workers. On the broad border round the building a broken colour effect is obtained by the juxtaposition of enamelled bricks of very varied shades, chiefly blues, from turquoise to full and dark tints relieved with pale and rich greens, while the bricks of the archivolts are glazed on their outer surfaces with blue and white alternately. The pilasters between the windows are chiefly of a golden brown. These, however, seem to have suffered more from restoration than other parts. And there must be frequent occasion for restoration. We saw workmen without ladders attempting to remove weeds growing far above them with a long pole pointed with metal; this while ineffective against plants, as it could at most cut off their leaves, scratched the enamel and occasionally knocked out a tile. Several bays have lost their marble casing and are temporarily covered with a plastering like mud, till Yildiz Kiosk allows the replacing of the slabs, which are, we were assured, ready to hand.

The other great building which occupies part of the Temple area, the Aksa or Furthest Mosque, was probably built at the same time as the Dome of the Rock or rather transformed into a mosque from the remains of Justinian's Church; but there appears to be no authentic account of its origin. The later romancers state that in Abd al-Malik's time the gates were covered with plates of gold and silver, which were stripped off and turned into money by order of the Abbasid Mansur, who utilized the sum so obtained for restoring the Mosque after the ravages of an earthquake, which had wrecked it shortly before the fall of the Umayyad dynasty. Another earthquake brought the building down after this restoration, and the Caliph Mahdi (775-785 A.D.) had it rebuilt, but with the proportions somewhat altered; for supposing that the weakness of the edifice had been occasioned

by excessive length and deficient breadth, he made the new building shorter but broader than the old. It has been shown that these Caliphs did actually visit Jerusalem, whence there is no inherent improbability in the romancers’ statements with regard to the successive restorations, though the story of the gold and silver plates is probably apocryphal. According to a geographer of the tenth century, in the restoration effected by Mahdi, the rebuilding of the several colonnades was assigned by the Caliph to various governors, but a portion of the ancient edifice and that supported on marble columns, remained embedded in the new. A marble colonnade on the north side had been added in the first half of the ninth century by the governor of Khorasan.

The account of the building given by the historian of Jerusalem at the end of the fifteenth century agrees very closely with its present condition, but those historians who described it before the times of the Crusaders appear to have seen a much more magnificent edifice, double the width of the present Mosque, with 280 pillars supporting the roof, and fifteen aisles. The Mosque has now seven aisles only. The dimensions, according to the eleventh-century traveller, were 420 by 150 cubits, the former a wholly impossible figure, for which Mr Lestrange reads 120, making the width greater than the length. Another English writer supposes the Mosque to have suffered in the taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, and accounts for its reduced dimensions (230 feet by 170) by the work of the Franks, who, however, are supposed to have added rather than to have taken away, and whose work was removed without much difficulty, it would seem, by Saladdin. In the case of a building at Jerusalem the chance of exaggeration cannot be eliminated, whence it seems doubtful whether there is any necessity for the hypothesis to which reference has been made.

The small Dome of the Chain, which is a few paces east of

the Dome of the Rock, is supported on seventeen pillars, without any enclosing wall, except on the kiblah side. Moslem writers have fabulous accounts of the reason why a chain was suspended from this dome, which in Frankish days is said to have been called the Chapel of St James the Less. MrLestrange has, in this case, too, the merit of having refuted certain fictions that have got into European works from a late Arabic historian of Jerusalem, with reference to the origin of this building, which may be as old as the Dome of the Rock. A dome should serve to shelter something, probably an image, and the fact of this dome being open all round is evidence that its original purpose must have been something of the kind.

Another of the many isolated buildings is a little scbil or drinking fountain built in 1445 by Kaietbai, of whose palace in Cairo we have an illustration and who has left traces at Damascus also of his love of building. This fountain is thoroughly Egyptian in style, and bears considerable resemblance to Kaietbai's tomb, especially in the shape of the cupola, its ornamentation of arabesques and its metal finial.

Of the other domes and sanctuaries included in the Temple area the existence is certified at different times before the Crusades, but there would appear to have been some variation both in their names and location. The same is true of the eleven gates of the area.

We have seen that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre goes back to the time of Constantine, who enclosed the three sites of importance within a single building. After the destruction of the church by Chosroes three, or according to some authorities four, separate churches were erected in the same area. In 1010 the church was again destroyed by order of the Fatimide Caliph Hakim; various accounts are given of the motive or occasion for this arbitrary proceeding, and,

DAMASCUS FROM SALAHIYEH: SUNSET OVER THE CITY.
SUMMER PULPIT, HARAM AREA
as might be expected, the Jews are supposed to have had a hand in it. In the case of this particular despot it is unnecessary to search for either. Rebuilding is said to have commenced shortly afterwards, but it would appear that serious operations did not begin till 1037, after lengthy negotiations between the Byzantine Emperors and the Egyptian Caliphs; the church, in the condition in which it was found by the Crusaders, was finished by the year 1048, chiefly at the expense of Constantine Monomachus, who sent Byzantine architects for the purpose. The cave of the sepulchre was surmounted by a circular church, while detached chapels were erected over the other sites, which were now, owing to the accumulation of legends, more numerous than they had been in the time of Constantine or Heraclius. The Franks enlarged the Rotunda, which covered the sepulchre, by the addition of the choir, from the south-east of which walls were built so as to include the Calvary chapel, while on the east the choir was connected through the Chapel of St Helena with the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross. During the Frankish period the Church was, of course, in the possession of the Latins, whereas after the conquest of the city by Saladdin the Greeks resumed possession; certain rights were afterwards purchased for the Latins in 1305, and in 1342 they obtained possession of the Chapel of the Apparition. Of the damage done to the church by the Khwarizmians when the city was finally restored to the Moslems mention has already been made, and at some time all entrances were closed except one in order to save Moslems trouble in the collection of admission fees from pilgrims. In 1502 Peter Martyr was sent by Ferdinand of Aragon to negotiate a treaty for the defence of pilgrims and the maintenance of the sanctuaries. In 1598 the Pasha of Damascus wished to turn the church into a mosque, but was induced to desist by the representations of French and Venetian
envoys. These dates are given by Sepp, who has also gone more fully than other writers into the history of the Latin orders established in Palestine, and the martyrdoms endured by over-enthusiastic preachers to Moslems, till orders were issued from Rome, forbidding such endeavours. In 1808 a conflagration occurred which did considerable damage, but this had been repaired by September 11, 1810, at a cost of 4,000,000 of roubles. To one who has witnessed the ceremony of the appearance of the Sacred Fire it is marvellous that such conflagrations are not more frequent.

Modern Jerusalem is the product of a variety of forces which had free play in the nineteenth century, religious revivals in England and America, archaeological enthusiasm in the same countries, and political ambitions on the part of various European nations concerned with the nearer East. To these there has been added in quite recent times the force of Zionism, the programme of those who regard a return to Palestine as the natural solution of the problem raised by anti-Semitism in the countries where there are the largest Jewish congregations. The relations between the Ottoman Empire and the European powers being so very different from what they were when Europe was in disorder, Jerusalem has by these various forces been transformed into a centre for religious and philanthropic effort, unconnected to a great extent with either of the sanctuaries which formerly constituted its chief attraction. Curiosity attracts nearly as many visitors as are drawn by devotion, and the ease with which pilgrimage can be accomplished detracts somewhat from its merit. While the Christian and Jewish quarters are constantly expanding, the latter indeed at an enormous rate, the Moslem population shows no sign of increase, and its members, while not unaffected by European philanthropy, appear ordinarily incapable of emulating Western enterprise. Those who, like the Khalidi family,

do so, are happily adopting the conception of unsectarian philanthropy, which the new and bloodless invasion from Europe has brought. The enthusiasm which characterized the descriptions of those who arrived there at the cost of vast sacrifices is wanting in the memoirs of the traveller who is conveyed thither comfortably by steam; yet it is probable that in population and in the beauty of its buildings modern Jerusalem would compare favourably with the Jerusalem of any earlier period. Certainly at no time have life and property been so safe, or the relations between the different elements of the population so satisfactory. The number of tongues spoken by its inhabitants and its visitors, great even in the time of the Apostles, is now phenomenal, being variously estimated at from twenty-five to forty. But the dangers which used at one time to attend a great influx of strangers are now almost forgotten, and the most crowded solemnities pass off with little or no disorder. Should the present tendencies meet with no unexpected check, the city may long maintain the position of an international sanctuary, common to the chief religions of the world.

CHAPTER XII The Praises of Damascus

THE enthusiastic language of Moslem writers about the beauties of Damascus, which they regard as an earthly Paradise, may seem to western visitors exaggerated and true of it only at an age long past, if ever. And, indeed, there are few show buildings left where once there were many. The great Umayyad Mosque, much of it brand new, is the one important edifice, whither the sightseer hastens; there are besides one or two show-houses, gorgeous rather than beautiful; and the Bazaars, still illustrative of Oriental manners, are probably roofed with European materials, and largely stocked with European goods. The beauty of the place lies rather in its natural than its artificial endowments. Its situation is indeed neither wild nor grand; but the contrast between its luxurious vegetation with its copious waters, and the arid region which often lies between it and the traveller's starting-point or destination, connects it in the mind with eastern conceptions of Paradise, literally a garden, and never represented without trees and running water. A fountain enlivens the courtyard of every house: to him who looks down upon the city from Mount Kasion the minarets and castle-battlements appear to rise out of an orchard; peace seems to reign within its walls, and plenteousness within its palaces. To the south-west the snow of Mount Hermon lends a touch of Alpine beauty to the scene. The mountains which surround it on three sides are no more than a background to the picture, viewed from the east; they are a natural finish to the landscape, not a bulwark of defence.

WALLS OF THE CITY AND BARADA RIVER, DAMASCUS

Probably the eastern admiration for Damascus was in part at least influenced by certain material comforts, chiefly its abundant fruit, and in ordinary circumstances the cheapness of living, which even a system of railways with Damascus for terminus has not yet seriously changed. Another beauty of a more artificial sort lay in the goods manufactured there by craftsmen who inherited their skill and transmitted it to their descendants, till foreign conquerors withdrew them from the place, hoping to transplant their crafts. Such was the manufacture of damask, and equally famous that of Damascene blades.

A Damascene writer of the ninth or tenth century of Islam, translated by M. Sauvaire, makes out a list of the beauties of his native city, some of which still exist, while others are in ruins or have disappeared. The list is heterogeneous, as it deals with single buildings, villages and flowers. The last include “the many-flowering eglantine, trained over arbours like the vine”; narcissus, violets—this flower gives its name to a neighbouring valley—jessamine, lily, lilac, ox-eye, cyclamen, myrtle, anemone, water-lily, Egyptian sallow, and one called “Stop and look!”

Among buildings he assigns the first place to the Citadel, which has long been a shell; from a distance it still looks formidable, but the interior is in ruins. In the tenth century of Islam it was still a hive of activity, containing a bath, a mill, various shops, a mint, a mosque and, of course, the governor's palace. The canal called Banyas passed through the Citadel, and divided into two streams, one for drinking purposes, parted afresh into a number of rills, while the other served as a drain, and went some twelve feet underground to issue at the Little Gate, whence it was turned towards farms. The round tower of the Citadel, “which might have been cast in a mould of wax,” was thought to have no rival

in the world. At one time—probably during the Mamluke period only—the Citadel possessed a great council-chamber whose walls and ceilings were covered with the richest arabesques, and inscribed with texts of the Koran written in gold-leaf. Its foundation is ascribed to Atsiz, the contemporary of Badr al-Jamali, who for a time got possession of the chief Syrian cities; but it was rebuilt by Nur al-din, in whose time the eastern peoples had learned something about fortresses from the Crusaders. Further improvements were made by the Egyptian Sultan Adil, who ordered each member of his family to build a tower, and whose name remains in an inscription of the north-east tower. The towers were stripped of their roofs and the walls of their battlements by Hulagu's Mongols; these were restored by the Sultan Baibars, whose services are recorded in several inscriptions. Great damage was done when Timur-Lenk besieged and took the city; a trench was dug round the round tower, and wood piled against it and fired. The ruinous condition of the whole edifice apparently dates from the time of the disbanding of the Janissaries at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In Mamluke times the governor's palace was within the Citadel, once three stories high. The present palace, or Serai, is said to occupy the site of one built by the Sultan Nur aldin, called “House of Justice.” The modern building dates from the time of Ibrahim Pasha, who effected many changes in Damascus. A famous palace in Damascus called the Particoloured Castle was the model for similar buildings elsewhere; it dated from the time of the Sultan Baibars, and was located in the Meidan.

Below the Citadel, i.e., on the east side, there was a square somewhat similar to the Rumailah Place below the Cairene Citadel. This counted as one of the beauties of Damascus, being surrounded by palaces, and supplied with all that

THE HAMAREH, DAMASCUS.
could delight the ear or charm the eye. Shops stocked with all kinds of goods were established there. It was a pleasure resort of the people of the city at evening time, till a double beat on the drums within the Citadel reminded them that the second watch of night had begun, and they cleared away to their homes.

The Citadel was joined at either side by the Walls, which, where they still exist, display, as has often been remarked, traces of three styles of building—Roman, Arab and Turkish. Inscriptions on the towers forming part of the wall record the names of Nur al-din, who is credited by the historians with having rebuilt the walls, and the Ayyubid Salih. The height is from fifteen to twenty feet. The Moslems have a tradition that when the place was taken there were seven gates, called like the weekdays after the seven planets; and the gates, they assert, were surmounted by images of the deities corresponding with those planets—probably they mean before Christian times. If there be any truth in this tradition, the names must have all been altered, for the modern names can be traced back to an early period of the Moslem occupation with only a few variations. Two new gates, called Faraj and Salamah, in the style of the gates of Cairo—these words meaning “Safety” and “Deliverance”—are said to have been added by the Ayyubids. Another gate that once existed was called Bab al-Imarah, from the new quarter to which it led.

The waters of Damascus naturally take their place among its beauties, and of the pride of the inhabitants in their rivers we have a trace in the Old Testament story of Naaman, who felt personally wounded at the suggestion that the Israelitish Jordan could possess properties not to be found in the waters of Damascus. In these days the Damascenes are said to attribute to their waters the actual property required by the Syrian Captain, viz. that of curing leprosy, or at least

preventing it spreading. This belief must go back in some way to the story of Naaman. From an early time there has existed an elaborate system of canals, by which the water of the Barada has been made to irrigate a large area. Within the city the water is conducted in underground tubes from which every house gets its supply. In von Kremer's time leaks in the tubes were repaired by putting refuse into the water, which eventually stopped them; but this process naturally was insanitary. Modern and ancient writers agree as to the names of six canals drawn off the main river before it enters Damascus and flowing at different levels. The channels for these are largely excavated in the rock, and are thought to be at least partly pre-Islamic. The most northerly of these, which bears the name Yazid, is said to have been dug by the Caliph of that name, who reigned from 680 to 683. Further operations, with a view to irrigation, are said to have been executed by the Umayyad Caliphs Sulaiman and Hisham, but the account of them is not quite easy to understand. Apparently they consisted in making arrangements whereby the amount of water to flow in each channel could be exactly regulated. Besides the water supplied by the Barada, there were supposed to be 360 springs between the Bab Salamah and the Bab Tuma to the northwest of the city, all flowing southwards. The number is one used by Arabic writers to denote an indefinite quantity, one for each day in the year.

Two places are mentioned by a writer on the Beauties of Damascus, in which the water furnished the chief attraction. One of these was called the Place Between the Two Rivers, to the east of the city, where the Barada parted into two channels, of which one bore the name of the saintly Shaikh Arslan. It was used as a place of public entertainment, and the names of the dealers in different kinds of refreshments who had stalls there exhibit wonderful specialization.

That the religious needs of the visitors might be gratified also, there was a chapel where special rites were performed on Tuesdays and Saturdays; some of these ceremonies, probably forms of dance, were of a sort calculated to daze those who witnessed them. Another place of public resort was “The Parting of the Streams,” said to be where the seven canals divided, but this can scarcely be correct. The pools and cascades formed by one of these canals were, we are told, and may well believe it, “a spectacle which banished care and made sorrow fly away.”

The southerly canal, called Kanawat, was made with the view of supplying the city with drinking water, which is abundant and good. But as all advantages have some corresponding drawback, the wealth of water with which Damascus is blessed is probably the reason why fever prevails there as much as in any city of Syria. On the other hand, those who had to defend the place against besiegers could at times utilize the waters for rendering approach difficult, and the Barada itself saved the necessity of building many towers to strengthen the wall before which it flows.

The classical writers say little or nothing of the buildings of Damascus, yet there is evidence that the city contained some fine monuments when the Arabs took it, and we hear of two palaces near the site of the Umayyad Mosque. With the Street called Straight, famous from the allusion to it in the Acts of the Apostles, it is usual to identify the great thoroughfare bisecting the city from the western gate, called Bab al-Jabiyah probably from a village of that name, to the gate still called eastern (Sharki). The gates were originally threefold, and between them was a threefold avenue, divided by Corinthian colonnades, the central being for the use of foot-passengers, while the other two were to enable the horse-traffic going in opposite directions to keep separate. “I have been enabled,” says J. L. Porter, “to trace the remainder

of colonnades at various places over nearly one third of the length of this street. Wherever excavations are made in the line, fragments of columns are found in situ, at the depth in some places of ten feet and more below the present surface: so great has been the accumulation of rubbish during the ages. This street was thus a counterpart to those still seen in Palmyra and Jerash. “Further traces of this ancient thoroughfare have been discovered at a later period. The Arabs blocked up all but the northern passage of the gates. There is at present no street in Damascus which would command much admiration, but the long-roofed bazaars, of which that called Hamidiyyah (after the present Sultan) is the most important, are admirably adapted to the traffic of the place, though the absence of trottoirs occasions some inconvenience. On the justice of the identification of the Street called Straight it would be unwise to make any pronouncement.

Fifteen churches are said to have been granted to the Christians by the Moslem conqueror, but the author of the Description can apparently enumerate only thirteen, and in this list one is a Jewish synagogue. In most cases too he can only locate them roughly, without being able to specify their names: the romancer translated in the next chapter was better informed. The Church of St Mary was the most famous, and according to Ibn Jubair was the next most important Christian edifice in the east, after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; it contained a marvellous number of ikons, “sufficient to bewilder the thought and arrest the eye.” When the news of the defeat of the Mongols in 1260 reached Damascus, the Moslems attacked this church and destroyed it. Most of the others fared similarly at some time or other. A church, curiously called “the Crusaders',” was turned into a mosque in the time of Saladdin at the instance of a silk-merchant, who asserted that it had been a mosque originally; he got a crowd together to dismantle it, and when the images had been removed

A KHAN IN DAMASCUS.
from the south side, a mihrab was discovered, surrounded by an Arabic inscription in lapis lazuli; the crowd were overjoyed at this confirmation of the man's assertion. Another pretence whereby churches could be destroyed was that they had either not been included in the original treaty of capitulation, or that they had been built since that time, so we are told that “the Mosque of Shahrazuri in Eloquence Street” was a church that had not been specified in the treaty. When the Description was written, it would appear that there were only two churches in Damascus, one belonging to the Jacobites, the other probably to the Melchites, called the Church of Humaid son of Durrah (a relation on the mother's side of the Caliph Muawiyah), who was owner of the street in which the church was situated.

The relations between Moslems and Christians in this place appear rarely to have been cordial. It is asserted that at the time of the Moslem conquest only one Christian family adopted Islam, and this would imply greater tenacity on the part of the Damascene believers than was displayed by their co-religionists in most Oriental cities. The latest writer on the history of Islamic civilization charges the Umayyads, in whose time Damascus was the capital of the Moslem Empire, with persecution of Christians; and the transformation of the Church of St John into a mosque is admitted by Moslem historians to have been against the treaty. These persecutions were not dictated by fanaticism on the part of the Umayyads, who, with one exception, were notoriously lax; but by the need for money with which to pay partisans, their claim to the Caliphate being untenable on its own merits. This at least is the explanation given by the writer quoted. Syrians were, moreover, constantly suspected of being in league with and abetting the Byzantine Emperor, and the Episode of the Crusades naturally embittered the relations between the communities, though Damascus

never actually fell into Frankish hands. In the extract dealing with the taking of Damascus by Hulagu, it will be seen that in the year 1260 the Christians for a few months enjoyed the privilege of avenging to some extent the oppression of centuries, and how speedily the sky clouded again over them after that brief gleam of sunshine. Since the time of Ibrahim Pasha, when various humiliations imposed on Christian visitors were removed, the relations have probably improved; yet the events of 1860 showed that the anti-Christian feeling was deep, and among certain portions of the Moslem population it might still be roused.

The Umayyads in such anecdotes as are preserved of them often figure as luxurious and magnificent princes, whence we should expect to hear something of their palaces, since wonderful things are told us of those belonging to the Caliphs of Baghdad and Cairo. Our curiosity in this matter is not adequately gratified, though occasionally there is a notice to the effect that some mosque or other edifice occupies part of the ground at one time covered by an Umayyad palace. Of that built by the founder of the dynasty, Muawiyah, whose reputation was rather for gluttony and cunning than magnificence, though in some tales he is represented as boasting that he had enjoyed all that the world could give, we have an anecdote which suggests anything but splendour. When this prince, who at first held the office of governor only, built himself a palace of baked brick, he had occasion to receive a Byzantine envoy, whose opinion he asked about the structure. “The upper part,” replied the Greek, “will do for birds, and the lower for rats.” Muawiyah had the house pulled down and rebuilt of stone. It was purchased afterwards by Abdal-Malik, the other great sovereign of this line, from a descendant of its founder, for the sum of 40,000 dinars and four estates; but this need not imply that it was on a grand scale, since it was the fashion at the time

(1) SYRIAN TILE, OF THE XVIIIth CENTURY, FROM A DAMASCUS MOSQUE. (2) SYRIAN TILE, XVIth or XVIIth CENTURY, FROM A DAMASCUS MOSQUE.
to pay huge sums for any dwelling that had ever been occupied by one of the early heroes of Islam. Fabulous prices are recorded as having been given for dwellings of this sort at Meccah, which we cannot believe to have been very gorgeous. The list of show-houses at Damascus given by the author of the Description consists almost entirely of buildings that enjoyed such a reputation. Part of the Coppersmiths’ Bazaar, stretching as far as the Bazaar of the Bootmakers, was said to have been the site of the residence of a son of Utbah Ibn Rabi'ah, an eminent contemporary of the Prophet. Inside the Gate of Thomas was the house of the conqueror Khalid with his oratory. The house of Auf Ibn Malik, another hero of the early days of Islam, was shown near the old Thread-market. Inside the eastern gate to the right was the house of Malik Ibn Hubairah, Muawiyah's general, etc.

A rather more important mansion was that of the celebrated Hajjaj, viceroy of Abd al-Malik, notorious in eastern history for his ruthless severity, but celebrated for his magnificence also. A whole quarter of Damascus was called after his palace, and the name is not yet obsolete; but no traces of the building have been discovered. In 1237-8 the whole of this region was burned down, and the remains of the palace, which had probably been a ruin long before, are likely to have perished then.

In most descriptions of Damascus, whether ancient or modern, every religious building appears to be dwarfed by the Great Umayyad Mosque, which we shall leave to the end. The rulers of Damascus were no less liberal founders of religious edifices than were other Sultans and governors; and the Description enumerates no fewer than 241 mosques for public worship, afterwards supplemented by lists which bring the number up to 572, though this figure includes some that were outside the walls. The same work gives eleven other

lists of buildings in which provision was made for religious service, unless (which is unlikely) the medical schools were an exception. In the time of the traveller Ibn Jubair—i.e. the late twelfth century—there were, besides these, two hospitals, the old and the new, of which the latter was probably the institution founded by Nur al-din, to which reference has already been made; it had an endowment of fifteen dinars daily. Doctors visited it every morning to prescribe for the patients, of whom lists were kept. There was special treatment for the insane, who were chained. The medical schools of the Description are all of a later period than the hospitals. The first was called the Dakhwariyyah “in the old Bazaar of the Goldsmiths” south of the Great Mosque, founded in in the year 1250 by a physician, who, for his successful treatment of maladies suffered by the Ayyubid princes, was given the title Chief of the Physicians of the Two Zones (Syria and Egypt). It appears that a successful medical career was a road to fortune in those days as in these; this person received as fees for special cures the sums of 7,000 and 12,000 dinars, and al-Ashraf settled on him estates which brought in 1,500 dinars annually, when he gave him the post of court-physician. The building left by him to the city as medical school had been his own house. Two other houses were devoted to the same object within the next sixty years, but one of these was afterwards turned into a mosque, whereas the other went to ruin

The traveller Ibn Jubair was greatly struck by the monasteries or hospices, of which the number at the time of the Description had risen to about twenty-nine. The friendly disposition of the Ayyubids towards the Sufis has already been noticed; and according to the Spanish visitor these ascetics had things very much their own way at Damascus. Their hospices, he says, are splendidly decorated palaces, in all of which there is running water, beautifully conducted.

MINARET OF THE BRIDE, DAMASCUS.
"The Sufis are kings in this city, for God has spared them the trouble of worldly employment, has rendered it possible for them to devote their minds to His service, and has housed them in mansions, such as must ever remind them of the mansions of Paradise; to those of them who are saved the pleasures of both this world and the next have been given. Very admirable are the practices and orders of these brotherhoods, especially the arrangement by which different members undertake different departments of service. Beautiful are their gatherings to hear thrilling melodies, where not unfrequently in the intensity of their emotion some of them pass away out of the world. The most wonderful building belonging to them is a palace called by them the Tower, which rises high in the air, with dwellings at the top, commanding a glorious view; it is half a mile distant from the city. To it there is attached a vast garden, said to have been the pleasure ground of a Turkish sovereign. One night he was amusing himself by pouring some of the wine, which was being drunk in the palace, on the heads of Sufis who passed by; complaint was made to Nur al-din who did not rest till he had got the whole place as a gift from its owner, which he then proceeded to settle on the Sufis in perpetuity." In the siege of Damascus of the year 1228 several of these hospices were pillaged and ruined.

A considerable number of schools still exist in Damascus, but many edifices which were originally designed for this purpose have been turned into private houses; von Kremer identified a number which had experienced this change in the street which leads northwards from Bab al-Barid to the Tomb of Baibars, and a number more in the quarter between Suk Bab al-Barid and Suk Jakmak. Still, several that are mentioned in the Description appear to be in existence, and several have been built since. Some of those which were intended to be for advanced study have sunk to the level of

infant schools. Probably aspirants after the higher Moslem education have for many centuries gone to al-Azhar to seek it, whereas Constantinople attracts students of another kind.

Of schools that receive the attention of visitors there may be mentioned that of the heroic Nur al-din, whose name occurs in the history of Egypt also, in the Cloth Bazaar. The building is said to have been originally part of the palace of the Umayyad Hisham, son of Abd al-Malik, who reigned from 724-743. The prince Nur al-din was at first buried in the Citadel, but his body was afterwards transferred to this school; which the author of the Description asserts to have been built for him by his son, al-Salih Isma'il, although it would appear that this is contradicted by inscriptions on the school itself, which name Nur al-din himself as founder. A similar institution is that called Raihaniyyah, a little to the west of the Nuriyyah. Its date is 1178-9; its founder was a eunuch and freedman of Nur al-din, who entrusted to his charge the Citadel and prison of Damascus, in which posts he was confirmed by Saladdin, whose cause he espoused when the famous Sultan took Damascus. An inscription copied by M. Sauvaire still records the lands settled upon it. A school of some celebrity is the Kaimariyyah, founded 1266 by al-Kaimari, an Emir who at the death of Turanshah played a part of importance in Syria. He is said to have spent 40,000 dirhems on a clock put up over the door of his school. Von Kremer describes it as a moderate-sized building, with a stone-paved court, cloistered all round below, and with open corridors above. The front towards the street has three cupolas.

Of more interest than these is the school of the Sultan Baibars, between the gates Bab al-Faraj and Bab al-Faradis, north of the Umayyad Mosque. It had originally been the house of a certain Akiki, of whom Ayyub, father of Saladdin, purchased it; apparently Baibars himself turned

DAMASCUS: MINARET OF JESUS.
it into a school and mausoleum, but some ascribe this action to his son Barakah Khan. The foundations are said to have been laid on Oct. 12, 1277. In the time of the author of the Description it had been turned into a private house.

Between the library of Baibars and the Umayyad Mosque is the Tomb of Saladdin, side by side with that of one of his ministers. The Description locates the tomb of the great Sultan in the school of al-Aziz, west of the tomb of al-Ashraf, north of the School of Tradition founded by the “Excellent Judge,” a man of great note of the time of Saladdin, especially as stylist and poet, and the collector of a great library in Cairo. Planned by al-Afdal (1186-1196) it was finished by al-Aziz of Egypt, who had the body of the Sultan, first deposited in the Citadel, transferred thither. Prayers offered at this tomb are, the author assures us, answered: “the fact has been recounted by the greatest and most distinguished doctors, and admits of no doubt.” An epitaph by the “Excellent Judge” was inscribed on the grave, in which the wish was expressed that after so many cities had opened their gates to him, Paradise might do the same.

Damascus is otherwise famous for harbouring the ashes of numerous persons of importance; the graveyard of the Little Gate is said to contain those of Bilal, the Prophet's Mueddin, an important person at the beginning of Islam, and two of the Prophet's wives. Outside the gate of the Jarrah Mosque there is, or used to be, a pile of stones marking where the grave of the Caliph Yazid once stood. The stones were thrown by Persian visitors, with a view of expressing their abhorrence of the worst of the Umayyads—the Caliph under whom occurred the affair of Kerbela, when Husain, the Prophet's grandson, was killed, to be mourned, wherever Shiites are to be found, on the tenth of the month Muharram.

Most of the mausoleums described in the work translated by M. Sauvaire belong to sovereigns and other persons of eminence not later than the Ayyubid period. The author dwells especially on those which contain the ashes of the three princes, al-Adil, al-Ashraf and al-Kamil, whose names all figure in the history of Egypt. An interesting personage also occurring in this list is Ismat al-din Khatun, wife of Nur al-din and afterwards of Saladdin, highly esteemed for her piety and virtue, “who did no act without a good intention.” She founded in her husband's city a mosque, which was afterwards turned into a private dwelling, a hospice, and a mausoleum for herself on the Yazid Canal in the Salihiyyah, which some 150 years after her death was turned into a mosque, and after a somewhat longer period had elapsed, was, in the year 1568, yet further enlarged and endowed.

Leaving the abodes of the dead for those of the living, we notice what has often been observed, that the outside of the houses is rarely of great magnificence. It is inside that the architects display their skill and the wealthy their riches. The rooms usually open out into a court and are disconnected. This practice is said to go back to pre-Islamic times. In the two houses which are usually exhibited to visitors there is an abundance of marbles and mosaics, with enamelled tiles and profusion of gold and colouring.

Two other classes of buildings to which the visitor may be taken are the Baths, of which that called the Queen's Bath is perhaps the finest, and the Khans, or storehouses for merchandise, among which that which bears the name of As'ad Pasha is pre-eminent. It is supported on four piers with nine domes above them.

Of the number of actual mosques given above from the Description, many must have become disused or been demolished before the seventeenth century, when the figure

GENERAL VIEW OF DAMASCUS IN EARLY SPRING.
was 150. During Ibrahim Pasha's government some further transformation of mosques took place. That of Yelbogha was turned into a biscuit-factory, and that of Tengiz into barracks, and then into a military college. The existing mosques that attract the notice of travellers are chiefly the following: that of Sinan Pasha (near the Jabiyah Gate), the minaret of which is conspicuous everywhere for the highly-glazed green tiles with which it is covered; the interior is decorated with marble columns and a marble pavement. It was originally, we are told, called The Onion Mosque. In the year 1585, when Sinan Pasha was appointed governor of Damascus, he rebuilt it and made it suitable for Friday worship. Though the governorship of this Pasha lasted only six months, the building of his Mosque appears to have taken—probably intermittently—some years, since 1590 is given as the date of its completion. To about the same period belongs the Derwishiyyah Mosque, which also was a reconstruction of a similar building on a smaller scale, ordered by Derwish Pasha, governor from 1571 to 1574. Somewhat earlier is the Mosque of the Sultan Selim in the Salihiyyah. It contains the tomb of the greatest of the Sufi writers, Ibn Arabi, whose works have often been condemned for heresy, but nevertheless whose reputation for sanctity perhaps surpasses that of any other Moslem saint. The mosque was built by the Sultan in the years 1517 and 1518 out of respect for the memory of the saint. Previously, we are told, the spot had been marked by a ruined bath and a pile of refuse. The Sultan spent “incalculable sums” upon it, and provided it with four mueddins and thirty readers of the Koran.

Another mosque built by an Ottoman Sultan is that called after Sulaiman, who founded it in 1554, together with the Tekiyyeh, or hospice, which also bears his name. They are situated on the site of the famous palace of the Sultan Baibars in the “Green Meidan.” The materials which belonged

to the palace were employed again for these buildings, the erection of which took six years. The author of the supplement to the Description declares the marble, the cupolas, and the leaden work of the buildings to be such as “stupefy the spectator while rejoicing his heart.” Special attention is called to the basin in the middle of the court, to the pulpit and the mihrab. Only the writer complains that in accordance with a tradition current among the architects the minarets were placed east and west instead of north and south, whence the area in which the call to prayer would be heard was considerably reduced. The architect was “the most incomparable of great geniuses, the noblest of the children of Persia, our master Mulla Agha.” He was also set in charge of the administration, and followed, we are told, the unusual plan of giving the best places to those who injured him, and the worst to those who tried to do him a kindness.

We conclude with the great Umayyad Mosque. This is the grandest of all Mohammedan buildings, and Arabic writers give full rein to their powers of description in recounting its magnificence and the riches lavished upon its erection by al-Walid, the whole revenue of Syria for seven years, not counting eighteen shiploads of gold and silver from Cyprus and many rich gifts of precious stones. These latter enriched the mihrab and minbar but, with the 600 golden lamps suspended by chains of the like precious metal, were soon diverted to other uses by a following Caliph. The leaden roof of the mosque is described in as high terms of admiration as the gold so lavishly spread on the interior. Every town had to furnish its quota, but so difficult was it to obtain sufficient that tombs were rifled. From one sarcophagus the body was taken from its leaden shell and laid on the ground; the head fell into a ravine and blood burst from the mouth. Terror-struck, the bystanders made inquiry

till at last they were told, “It is the tomb of King Talut (Saul).” A prettier story is that of a woman who refused to sell some lead, needed to complete one corner, save weight for weight in gold. The Caliph wrote that her demand should be complied with, but then the woman said, “It is my gift to the mosque.” “You were too avaricious to sell save weight for weight, and now do you offer a gift?” “I acted thus believing that your lord played the tyrant and exacted forced labour. Now that I see he pays punctually and weight for weight, I acknowledge that in this matter he wrongs no one.” The commissioner reported these words, and the Caliph commanded that these sheets of lead should be marked “For Allah”; this was done by means of a mould.

To return to figures, there was praying space for 20,000 men; as for the money expended, one item, viz., the cost of the cabbages eaten by the workmen is said to have been 6,000 dinars ($2,500). When the wondrous work was finished, the Caliph would not look at the accounts brought to him on eighteen laden mules, but ordered that they should be burnt and thus addressed the crowd: “Men of Damascus,you possess four glories above other people; you are proud of your water, your air, your fruits, your baths; your mosque shall be your fifth glory.”

Like some other famous places of worship, this mosque was once the site of a heathen temple, portions of which can be traced in the porticoes. Theodosius built a church there (A.D. 379) and dedicated it to St John the Baptist, to whom there is still an imposing shrine. When the Moslems entered Damascus (A.D. 635), by an amicable arrangement, the building was shared between Christians and Mahommedans, but in A.D. 708 al-Walid, sixth of the Umayyads, drove the Christians out, confirming them, however, in the possession of other churches. But to this day one of the three minarets is called by the name of Isa (Jesus), and above a gate, long since closed,

is the inscription, “Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.”

Al-Walid summoned a fabulous number of craftsmen (one writer says 200, another prefixes one and makes it 1,200, a third adds a nought and reckons 12,000) from Constantinople, and his magnificent mosque was, like other early Moslem edifices, entirely Byzantine in style and rich with rare marbles and fine mosaics; while in accordance with another Moslem custom, antique columns were plundered from many Syrian towns. Many of these remain in the interior but most of those described by the Arab geographer Mukkadisi as sustaining the arcade round the great court, have disappeared and piers covered with plaster have taken their place. It is thought, however, that many columns remain within these piers of masonry. The mosaics represented Meccah, Medinah and Jerusalem and other principal towns of the world, amid groves of orange and palm, while long inscribed scrolls and wreaths of foliage filled the interspaces; of these, fragments can still be traced and more are probably hidden under plaster and whitewash.

The two principal gates are at the west and east, they are named Babal-Barid (Gate of the Post) and Bab Jairun after a mythical conqueror. They had triple portals closed with bronze-covered doors; one of these which remains at the East Gate (Bab Jairun) bears a central band of inscription with the name of the Sultan Abd al-Aziz, son of Barkuk (1405) and a chalice, a device of the Mamlukes. The gates and adjoining porticoes have retained more ancient work both of construction and of ornament, such as inlay of beautiful-coloured marble, than the rest of the building.

There were originally towers at the four corners, those at the south side remain; the Madanah Gharbiyyah (Western Minaret) formerly inhabited by anchorites, also named

TRADITIONAL SITE WHERE ST. PAUL WAS LET DOWN IN A BASKET, DAMASCUS.
after Kaietbai; opposite it, i.e., at the south-east angle, is the Madanat Isa (Minaret of Jesus) or the White Minaret. On the north side, rather more than a third from the east angle, stands the Madanat al-Arus (Minaret of the Bride); this was not as the other towers, originally Byzantine, but was built by al-Walid.

The Great Court is surrounded on three sides by spacious corridors, now resting on piers, with round arches; the upper story retains at the east double arches separated by a small column; these have been replaced elsewhere by commonplace narrow windows.

Within the Court stand three small and beautiful cupolas, at the west the Kubbat al-Khaznah (Dome of the Treasury), for the mosque had great endowments. This building is, however, no longer used, but is filled with ancient MSS. jealously kept from view; it was only as a special favour to the Emperor Wilhelm that German scholars were allowed to handle them, and for a specified time only. The Kubbat al-Naufarah (Dome of the Fountain),in the centre of the court, serves for ablutions; it is also called Kafs al-Ma (the Water Cage), because a spout rises from a grating so that people drink from the side. The building stands on arches upheld by four thick and as many slender columns, an upper room has wooden supports only and a flattish broad leaden roof with a little cupola in the middle. The third, Kubbat al-Sa' at (Dome of the Hours) stands at the east of the Court.

The whole of the south side of the Court is occupied by the mosque, with its three great aisles divided by columns twenty-three feet high; its interior measurements are 429 feet by 124. The whole floor is covered by more carpets than we could count, about eight abreast, and many of them fine. The clerestory has round arches. The chief entrance is in the middle of the north side, i.e., from the Court; it leads under wide transepts to the mihrab and chief pulpit in the southern

wall; there are three other mihrabs for the other Schools of Law. Over the centre, where the transepts cross the aisles, is the great dome, nearly fifty feet in diameter and above 120 in height; it is called Kubbat al-Nasr (the Vulture Dome) itself counting as the head, the aisle below as the breast and the lofty transept roofs, high above the other roofs, being likened to outspread wings. “From whatever quarter you approach the city, you see the dome high above all else, as though suspended in the air.”

The Mosque has suffered repeatedly from fires, especially in 1069, owing to riots between the Fatimides and Shiahs; in 1400, when Timur-Lenk took the town; lastly, and very severely, in 1894, since when plaster and whitewash have taken the place of the gold and coloured brilliance of old.

CHAPTER XIII Scenes from the History of Damascus

IT has been observed with justice that Damascus has prospered in a variety of conditions, as the capital of a state, more frequently as the capital of a province, sometimes as a provincial town. It never as a metropolis grew to the vast dimensions of Babylon or Baghdad; on the other hand it never suffered very seriously by the removal of the court. The periods when it has been the chief city of a sovereign state have not been many. From the Old Testament we learn of a kingdom of Aram with Damascus for its capital, which was contemporary with the northern Israelitish kingdom, and perished with it; and we hear incidentally of a temple of Rimmon, a god whose name appears to show Assyrian affinities; we learn also the names of a few kings, and are amazed that the Israelitish prophets should interfere in the matter of their appointment. Little is heard of the place during the period when Persia dominated the nearer East, and when after the fall of that Empire a Greek kingdom of Syria was set up, Damascus was superseded after a time by a new capital Antioch. At times before and and after the commencement of Christianity it was occupied by Nabataean rulers, some of whom are known to us by inscriptions in Arabia. Christianity appears to have made way in the city at an early date, and probably long subsisted by the side of a mixture of Greek and Nabataean cults. A fresh

era in its history was constituted by the Mohammedan conquest, especially when the founder of the Umayyad dynasty (661-750) made it the capital of an empire that steadily grew in extent. Since the termination of that period it has not been a metropolis, for even such sovereigns as Nur al-din acknowledged the suzerainty of the Caliph of Baghdad, while other rulers have been commissioned by the Sultans reigning in Cairo and Constantinople. Numerous rebellions have indeed been commenced at the Syrian capital, but their success has usually been temporary, and the independence of Syria rarely their ultimate object.

In Mohammedan times it has sometimes, but not always, been the chief city of Syria. Its rival has been Aleppo, which it displaced in the year 1312, by command of the Sultan Nasir, anxious to gratify the Emir Tengiz, a faithful partisan, whose daughter the Sultan married. When Tengiz came to Cairo to be present when his grandchild was born, and both spent and received fabulous sums, he thankfully prostrated himself when the child proved to be a girl: had it been a boy, he would have thought his luck too great! His distrust of fortune was justified; for, ere a year was over, the Sultan's face changed towards him, and he was summoned from Damascus, imprisoned and executed. The reason for this proceeding is unknown, but is said to have been the Sultan's resentment at his harshness towards the Christians of Damascus, who had been charged with incendiarism.

In 1366 Aleppo was again given precedence over Damascus, and this relation appears to have lasted until Turkish times.

Imperfect as is the record of Damascene history, the city has more than one historian, and indeed one of the most frequently cited monuments of Arabic literature is the History of Damascus by Ibn Asakir, filling some sixty volumes, but occupied for the most part with biographies of persons who

at any time in their lives had any connexion with the city. Thus a whole volume is devoted to the first Caliph, who may perhaps have visited it on a trading expedition. This author lived in the sixth century of Islam, and many exciting scenes have taken place in the city since his time. These have their historians, but the centre of interest in the Islamic world has usually been elsewhere. Syrian history is either Egyptian history or Turkish history: those who write it are more concerned with the succession of Sultans at the capital than with that of governors in the provinces.

Of the scenes that have been enacted in Damascus four of special interest have been selected for description: one, the taking of the city by the first Moslem conquerors, as told by the most trustworthy of Moslem Chroniclers, and also as told in one of the romances which were inspired by the exploits of those who had to repel the Crusaders; another the brief period of sunshine enjoyed by the Christians at the time of the first Mongol conquest; and the third the destruction of the city by the terrible Timur. The last occasion on which Damascus was the focus of general attention, the massacre of 1860, is told after an anonymous Arabic author; it has also, it may be observed, been portrayed with remarkable skill by the author of the admirable novel, Sa'id the Fisherman, in which Oriental thought and manners are delineated with an accuracy rarely to be found in either history or fiction.

CAPTURE OF DAMASCUS BY THE MOSLEMS A.D. 634 (A.H. 13). After Tabari

WHEN outposts had been despatched to guard the roads between Damascus and Emesa, and Damascus and Palestine, the city was itself invested, where the governor was Nastus son of Nastus. Different detachments of Moslems were posted at different quarters; their

commanders being Abu Ubaidah, Amr and Yazid. Heraclius was at the time in Emesa, but steps had been taken to deal with relief coming thence. The place was besieged some seventy nights, during which various assaults were made, and engines made to play on the walls, within which the inhabitants were entrenched, expecting relief from Heraclius, who was so near, and to whom they had sent for help. The cavalry despatched by the Emperor in answer to this appeal were intercepted by Dhu' l-Kula, who had been stationed at a day's journey from Damascus on the Emesa road, and whose camp the relief forces from Heraclius were compelled to besiege. When the Damascenes became convinced that no help would arrive, they became despondent and down-hearted, while the Moslems were all the more eager to take the place. At first the inhabitants had supposed that this was an ordinary raid, and that when the cold weather came on, the besiegers would withdraw; and now the Pleiads fell, and the besiegers still remained. This made the Damascenes despair, and the troops regretted that they had shut themselves up in the city. Now it so happened that a child was born to the Patrician who was governor of Damascus. He in consequence gave a banquet, and in consequence of the feasting the soldiers neglected their stations. None of the Moslems perceived this except Khalid, who neither took nor allowed others any rest, nor suffered anything that was going on in the town to escape him. Keen of vision, he was always attentive to that on which he was engaged. He had prepared a set of rope-ladders with nooses. When evening was come, he with a picked party started out, taking the lead himself, with al-Ka'ka son of Amr, and Madh'ur son of Adi, and some other men of the same stamp, who had served him on similar enterprises before. Their instructions to their followers were to wait until they heard the cry, Allah Akbar [God is greatest!] from the walls, when they should make for the
DOME OF DAMASCUS.
gate. When Khalid had come to the gate opposite which he was stationed, he and his picked men, having on their backs the inflated skins with which they had crossed the ditch, threw their nooses at the battlements; and when two had caught, al-Ka'ka and Madh'ur climbed up, whereupon they proceeded to fix all the other rope-ladders to the battlements. The place they were storming was one of the best fortified in Damascus, having the deepest water in front of it, and being most difficult to approach. However, they succeeded in ascending it, and every one of their party either climbed up the wall, or drew near to the gate. Having reached the top of the wall Khalid let his comrades down, and descended himself, after leaving a party to guard the ascent for such as should follow: those on the top of the wall then raised the cry, Allah Akbar. The Moslems outside advanced to the gate, some of them, however, making for the ropeladders; Khalid meanwhile had got to the gate, where he slew the warders. There rose a great uproar in the city, and the soldiers rushed to their stations, not knowing what was the matter; and while each party was concerned with its own part of the wall, Khalid and his followers smashed the bolts of the gate with their swords, and let the Moslems in. They proceeded to slay all the soldiers in the neighbourhood of Khalid's gate, and when Khalid had thus stormed his portion of the city, such as escaped ran to the gates where other detachments of the Moslem army had been stationed. These had repeatedly offered terms to the inhabitants which had been refused; and now to their surprise the inhabitants themselves were offering terms of capitulation, which the Moslems accepted. The gates were then opened to these other detachments, whom the inhabitants begged to enter and protect them from those who were coming in by Khalid's gate. Thus the other detachment entered by treaty, while Khalid took his part by storm; Khalid and the other commanders
met in the middle of the city, the first plundering and massacring, the second quieting disturbance and preserving order. Khalid's portion was then brought within the terms of the treaty. The treaty was that all property, landed and coined, should be equally divided between the inhabitants and the Moslems; and a dinar was demanded per head of the population. When the spoil was divided, Khalid's troops only shared like the others.

THE TAKING OF DAMASCUS BY THE MOSLEMS According to the Arabic romance called “Wakidi's Conquest of Syria”

ABU UBAIDAH had stationed his captains at the various gates of Damascus; sorties and battles took place at each one of them except the Gate of St Mark, which was never opened for this purpose, and so was afterwards called the Gate of Safety or Peace. Damascus was under the command of Thomas, son-in-law of the Emperor Heraclius.—This Thomas is represented as a brave man; but in one of the sorties he loses the Great Cross, and is shot in the eye by Umm Aban, daughter of Utbah, whose husband he had killed. The arrow cannot afterwards be got out, and the end has to be sawn off. This wound only infuriates Thomas, who orders a night sortie. The Christians issue from the gates, and the Jews help them by discharging missiles from the battlements. Khalid, whose business it has been to guard the women and children, is so alarmed by this night attack, that he leaves his camp and rushes unarmed to the fray at the head of 400 horse. A terrible duel takes place, outside the Gate of Thomas, between Thomas himself and the Moslem commander Shurahbil, once the Prophet's secretary. Umm Aban tries to help the latter, as before, with her arrows, but at last she is taken captive, and Shurahbil's sword is broken. Thomas is about to take him

prisoner also, when the horsemen come up in time and rescue both captives. The result of the sortie is in general so disastrous to the Greeks, that when the gates are once more closed, a deputation approaches Thomas, telling him that if he will not make terms with the enemy they will without him, and he begs for time to send word to the Emperor.

The letter was written and sealed and sent off before morning; but when morning came Khalid ordered a renewed assault, and refused to give the Damascenes a moment's truce for deliberation. Worn out with the siege and waiting for the answer of the Emperor, the chief people at last assembled, and said to each other, “Friends, we cannot endure any longer what the Moslems are doing to us; if we fight against them, they are always victorious, whereas if we refrain from fighting and shut ourselves up in the city we shall be ruined by the siege. Let us no longer be obstinate, but rather ask peace of them on their own terms.” Then there rose up an old Greek, who had read the Ancient Books and pondered on them, and said: “Friends, I am certain that if the king were to come with all his forces he could not raise the siege; for I have read in the Books that their founder Mohammed is the Seal of the Prophets and the Prince of the Apostles, and that his religion is bound to triumph over every other. Let us, therefore, abandon all vain hopes and fancies and give the Moslems the terms they demand; that is our best course.” When the people heard this utterance, they took the old man's side, owing to the respect in which he was held and to his knowledge of the records and the oracles. So they asked him how they should set about it. “You are to know,” he replied, “that the commander at the eastern gate is a shedder of blood [meaning Khalid, son of al-Walid]. If, therefore, you wish hostilities to cease, you had best go to the commander at Bab al-Jabiyah

[meaning Abu Ubaidah].” They approved his suggestion; and, when night came on, they went in a body to Bab al-Jabiyah, and one of them, who was acquainted with Arabic, cried out in a loud voice, “Ye Arabs, have we a safe-conduct that we may come down unto you and speak with your commander, that we may make a treaty of peace?”

Now Abu Ubaidah had sent some of his soldiers to keep watch near the gate, fearing a surprise like that which had taken place on a previous night. The party sent that night were Dausites, commanded by Amir, son of Tufail. “While we were seated in our places,” said Abu Hurairah, a member of the tribe, “we heard the people shouting. I immediately rushed to Abu Ubaidah and gave him the good news, saying to him, ‘There is a chance now that God may relieve the Moslems of their fatigue.’ My message cheered him, and he bade me go and tell the Romans that they should be safe till they had got back to their city. So I went and called to them that they might come down without harm. They asked me which of Mohammed's followers I was, and whether I could be trusted? I replied that I was Abu Hurairah, a companion of the Prophet, and that treachery was not our custom. ‘Why,’ I said, ‘if one of our slaves were to give a guarantee of security, we should respect it; since God says, “Keep promises, for a promise is to be claimed.” The Arabs were always celebrated for good faith in the times of paganism; much more then when God has given them Mohammed for a guide.’”

So the Greeks descended and opened the gate. Those that came out were a hundred in number, men of note, priests and doctors of theology. When they came near Abu Ubaidah's camp, the Moslems hastened, and divested them of their belts [this zonarion was part of the Christian costume in Moslem countries] and crosses, when they were led to the tent of Abu Ubaidah, who bade them welcome, rose

up to greet them, and bade them be seated. Mohammed, he observed, bade us treat with honour visitors who were honoured in their own country. The subject of peace was then started. “We wish you,” they said, “to leave us our churches, and not to turn us out of them; these being the Church of St John (now the Mosque), the Church of St Mary, of Ananias, of St Paul, of al-Miksat, of the Night Market, of St Andrew, of Quirinarius (by the house of Humaid, son of Durrah).” Abu Ubaidah agreed to this, and to all their stipulations. He then drew up a deed of capitulation, to which, however, he neither attached his own name nor those of witnesses; being unwilling to act as commander, after he had been deposed from that office by Abu Bakr.

When he had made out the document, and handed it over to them, they asked him to come with them. So he mounted, and took with him thirty-five companions of the Prophet, and sixty-five undistinguished Moslems, and rode up to the gate; before, however, he would enter the city he demanded hostages, which they at once produced.

Others, however, say that he did not demand hostages, relying instead on God. For in the night on which the agreement was made, after saying his prayer he had fallen asleep, and seen the Prophet in a dream; who uttered the words, “This night shall the city be taken, if God will.” The Prophet then hastened away. Abu Ubaidah asked whither he was hurrying, and was told that it was to the funeral of Abu Bakr. When Abu Ubaidah awoke from his sleep, there was Abu Hurairah, bringing the tidings of the offer of terms. So he took no hostages, relying on God's word.

He then entered the city, preceded by the priests and the monks, clad in sackcloth, holding up copies of the Gospel, and censers filled with incense. The day was Monday, Jumada II, 13 A.H. [Aug. 22, 634].

Abu Ubaidah entered at the Bab al-Jabiyah, Khalid

having no knowledge of what was going on, since he was engaged in a fierce fight at the eastern gate. He was greatly incensed against the Damascenes, because another Khalid, son of Sa'id, brother of Amr son of al-As on the mother's side, had been killed with a poisoned arrow; Khalid, son of al-Walid, had prayed over him when he was buried between the Eastern Gate and the Gate of Thomas. Now there was a Greek priest named Joshua, son of Mark, living in a house close to that part of the wall which adjoined the eastern gate. He possessed the Oracles of Daniel and other books, whence he knew that God would put the city into the hands of the Moslems, and that their religion would prevail over every other. On the Sunday night preceding the day of which the date has been given, he made a hole in the wall and went outside without his wife or children knowing anything of it. Coming before Khalid, he told him how he had dug a hole in the wall, through which he had come out, and asked that his life and the lives of his family should be guaranteed. Khalid gave his hand upon that, and sent with him a hundred men with their armour, most of them of the tribe of Himyar. They had orders, when they got into the city, to shout altogether, and to make for the door, of which they were to smash the bolts and fling away the chains. The men were then preceded by Joshua son of Mark, who led them in by the hole which he had made, and when they got into the house they put on their armour, then issued forth and made for the gate, where they raised the cry, Allah Akbar. The Greeks were fighting on the wall, and when they heard this cry they were alarmed, and felt sure that the Companions of the Prophet must have entered the city with them; and they were greatly distressed. Then the commander of the party got to the gate and broke the bolts and cut the chains, so that Khalid and his followers were able to enter. They began to slaughter the Greeks, who retreated before him till he reached the
THE MOSLEM CEMETARY AND VIEW OF MOUNT HERMON, DAMASCUS.
Church of St Mary, all the way killing or taking prisoners.

So the two hosts met in the church of St Mary, those of Khalid and of Abu Ubaidah. Khalid beheld a procession led by priests and monks whom Abu Ubaidah followed, none of his followers having their swords drawn, or fighting. He was amazed thereat, and gazed in wonder. Abu Ubaidah, perceiving in his face the signs of disapproval, said to him, “Abu Sulaiman, the city has been taken by me under an agreement, and God has saved the Moslems the trouble of fighting.” “Agreement?” said Khalid; “God make your circumstances anything but agreeable! I have taken the city by storm, and there are no defenders left; what agreement can I make with them?” Abu Ubaidah replied, “Commander, fear God; I have covenanted with these people, and the arrow has been discharged with what is upon it [i.e. the matter is irrevocable]. I have written the contract, and see there it is in their hands unfolded.” “How dare you make agreements without my order and without giving me notice?” replied Khalid; “am I not your chief, and are not you under my flag? No, I will not sheathe the sword until I have slain them every one!” Abu Ubaidah cried, “By Allah, I never thought that you would disallow any covenant that I had made, or disapprove of any opinion that I had expressed. I adjure you by God, respect what I have done. I have given my guarantee to them all, and pledged thereto the faith of God and of the Prophet. All the Moslems who were with me assented thereunto, and treachery is not our custom. God have mercy on you.”

A fierce quarrel broke out between them, and the spectators took sides. Khalid was unwilling to change his resolution, and Abu Ubaidah looked at the followers of Khalid, Bedouin and old campaigners, and saw that they were eager for rapine and slaughter, and unwilling to spare a

life. He began to cry with bitterness that he had been affronted and his promise disregarded; and, setting spurs to his horse, he began to point to the Arabs, now right and now left, and adjure them by the Prophet to move no further in the direction whence he had come till some arrangement might be come to between himself and Khalid. At his entreaty they stopped slaying and pillaging, and a number of the captains gathered together at the church where they had met with the view of deliberation. Some of these captains urged the advisability of carrying out Abu Ubaidah's wishes on the ground that Syria was as yet imperfectly conquered, and that Heraclius was still at Antioch. If the rumour spread that having once made terms the Moslems had violated them, no other city would capitulate by agreement; and secondly, it would be better to have the Christians of Damascus peaceful subjects than to slaughter them. It was then agreed that each of the two commanders should retain possession of the part of the city which he had got, and write to ask the Caliph's decision, by which they should abide. To this Khalid assented. Presently, much against Khalid's wishes, the two governors, Thomas and Arabius, are allowed to leave the city with quantities of treasure, with a promise that they shall not be molested within three days of their departure. Khalid makes up his mind to follow them when that period has elapsed.

And now there follows a romance in the stricter sense of the word.

I was [said one Wathilah] among the horsemen whom Khalid employed to patrol between the gates under command of Dirar, son of al-Azwar. On one moonlight night before Damascus was taken, we were near the Kaisan Gate, when, hearing the hinges creak, we stopped. The

gate was opened, a horseman came out, whom we allowed to proceed till he came near us, when we arrested him, telling him that if he uttered a word he would be beheaded. Two other mounted men then came out and stood on guard at the gate. They called to our prisoner by his name, and we bade him reply and decoy them out. He called to them in Greek, “The bird is in the net,” whence they learned that he was arrested, and hastened inside and locked the gate. We wanted to kill the prisoner, but some of us suggested that he should be taken to the Commander, who might decide what should be done with him. When Khalid saw the man, he asked him who he was. He answered, “I am a patrician, one of the rulers of Syria. Before your arrival I was betrothed to a maiden of my people whom I deeply love. As the siege became protracted, I asked her people to let the marriage take place, but they refused, saying that they had other things to think about. Being anxious to meet the maiden, I made an appointment with her that we should both be present at the city sports. There we met and conversed, when she asked me to take her to the city gate, where I left her, and came out to reconnoitre when I was caught by your men. My two friends with the maiden came out after me, but I called out to them that the bird was in the net to warn them, for fear the maiden might be made prisoner. Had it been anyone else I should not have minded.” Khalid suggested to him that he should embrace Islam, in which case, should the city be taken, he should wed his bride. “Otherwise,” he said, “I shall kill you.” The patrician elected to become a Moslem, and testified that there was no God but Allah and Mohammed was His Prophet. He then showed himself a doughty warrior on our side. When we entered the city in virtue of the capitulation, he went to look for his bride and was told that she had become a nun out of grief for him. He went to the church and saw her, but she
did not recognize him. He asked her what had induced her to take the veil? She replied that she had taken it because she had caused her betrothed to risk his life and be captured by the Arabs. She had become a nun out of grief over him. He said, “I am thy betrothed; I have embraced the religion of the Arabs, and thou art now under my protection.” When she heard his words she cried out, “No, by the Lord Jesus! Never! This cannot be!” She left Damascus with the two patricians, Thomas and Arabius. When her betrothed saw that she was determined to discard him, he went and complained to Khalid. Khalid informed him that Abu Ubaidah had taken the city by capitulation, and that he had no control over her. Knowing, however, that Khalid intended following the refugees, he offered to go with the commander on the chance of finding his bride. Khalid waited until the fourth day after their departure; and when he did not start, the Greek came and asked him whether after all he intended following the two miscreants, and taking from them what they had got. Khalid replied that such had been his intention, but that he was kept from executing it by the distance which now lay between him and them, since the refugees had been hastened by their terror and they could not now be overtaken. The patrician, whose name was Jonas, said that the distance was no sufficient reason for abandoning the enterprise, since he knew the country and could take Khalid's forces by short cuts which would enable them to overtake the party, and that he would willingly do this on the chance of recovering his bride. After assuring Khalid that he was acquainted with the country, he advised that Khalid's followers should don the attire of the Christian Arab tribes, Lakhm and Judham, and take sufficient provision for the journey. The people did as he advised. Khalid collected his 4,000 guards, and ordered them to mount the fleetest of their horses, and reduce their store of provisions
THE MIDAN, DAMASCUS.
to the lightest possible weight. They then started, Khalid having left Abu Ubaidah in charge of the city.

So we rode, guided by Jonas, who followed their trail, which, indeed, we could often make out ourselves, not only from the track of the horses and mules, but also because any mount, camel or mule, that fell was left by them, and any horse that could not proceed was hamstrung. We rode on night and day, stopping only at prayer-times, till the trail came to an end. This alarmed us, and Khalid asked Jonas what he had to say about it. “Commander,” he replied, “ride on and ask God's aid; the refugees have turned out of the road for fear of you, and taken to the mountains and passes; still we have all but overtaken them.”

Then he made the Moslems turn aside from the road, and took them through ravines and over mountains and stone-heaps. “He took us,” said one of the party, “over a very stony track, out of which a man could with difficulty extricate himself. We compelled our horses to go among the stones, and could see the blood oozing from their hocks, and their shoes falling off their hoofs. Our own shoes were cut to pieces, and only the uppers left.” Another member of the party said, “I was with Khalid on that expedition, and we had to follow the guide. I had a pair of leather shoes with Yemen soles, of which I was very proud, and which I fancied would last me for years. On that night nothing remained of them but the uppers on my leg. I was afraid of the results of the rough and difficult mountain path that we had traversed, and perceived that the others were complaining and wishing that the guide had kept to the beaten track. However, before night was over we had got over the worst part, and emerged into the main road, where the guide hoped that we should have come up with the fugitives; but when we had reached it, we saw their track, and found that they had got in front of us, by forced marches apparently. Khalid said,

‘They have escaped us.’ But the guide Jonas said, ‘I have hopes that God Almighty will detain them till we can come up with them, if He will. So let us hasten.’ Khalid accordingly bade the men bestir themselves. The Moslems said, ‘Commander, the difficult path has worn us out, so let us rest and give our horses food and rest also.’ But he said, ‘Move on in the name of God, for it is God who bids you march: hasten in pursuit of your enemies.’”

So they hastened, the guide showing the way, and also acting as our interpreter, and whatever village we entered, the people there thought us Christian Arabs of the tribes Ghassan, Lakhm or Judham. He took us past Jibili and Latakieh, and brought us at last within sight of the sea, still following the trail. And then we saw that the fugitives had passed by Latakieh without entering it for fear of the Emperor Heraclius. Jonas was amazed at this, and going to a village near asked some of the proprietors what had happened; and they informed him that the Emperor Heraclius, hearing that Thomas and Arabius had delivered the city of Damascus to the Moslems, was exceedingly angry, and had not permitted them to approach him; his purpose being to collect an army and despatch it to Yarmuk. He was afraid of their telling the soldiers about the courage of the Prophet's Companions, and so disheartening them; he had therefore sent orders to them to proceed with their company to Constantinople, and not to enter Latakieh. When the Damascene Jonas heard that the fugitives had gone off in the direction of the sea, he was vexed and alarmed for the Moslems, and uncertain what to do. He was in favour of going back, but Khalid encouraged the Moslems by narrating a dream which appeared to promise success. Heavy rains now delay the fugitives, and after some more time spent in pursuit the Moslems reach a spot where they can hear sounds which seem to proceed from the Christian host.

Jonas with another ascends a mountain called by the Greeks Jebel Barik (the Lightning Mountain), and see below a fertile meadow, green and flowery, in the middle of which the Christians are loitering, worn out with fatigue and wet with the rain. Many are asleep, and the loads have been taken off many of their beasts.

The good news is brought to Khalid by the two scouts, and Jonas takes care to stipulate that his bride must be reserved for his own possession, should she be captured by anyone else. Khalid then divides his party into four troops who charge the fugitives from different sides. The Christians resist, supposing at first that the Arabs are a small detachment whom they can easily overcome, but they find themselves involved in a terrible conflict.

Said one of those who were present: “I was in Khalid's right wing, and had gone with my band to attack the part of the Christian host that contained the women, children and baggage. I observed the Greek women defending themselves vigorously, and I noticed a horseman attired in Greek style dismount and commence fighting with a Greek woman, each of whom displayed great vehemence. I approached to see who it was. It was Jonas fighting with his bride, and the struggle was like one between lion and lioness.”

For a time this spectator was occupied with a fight on his own account, having endeavoured to capture a number of Greek women, one of whom killed his horse. He succeeded however in making her his prisoner, and she turned out to be Heraclius's daughter. But before leaving the field he wished to see what had become of Jonas. “Finally I found him sitting with his bride before him, she weltering in blood and he in tears. I asked him what had happened. He said, ‘This is my bride, my sole object of pursuit. I loved her dearly. When I saw her, I said “See, I have overtaken thee, and shalt thou escape from my hand?” She said, “By the Lord

Jesus, thou and I shall never be united, seeing thou hast left thy faith and entered into the religion of Mohammed. I have given myself to Christ, and am on my way to Constantinople, there to enter a convent.” Then she fought for her liberty, and I fought with her till I had made her my prisoner; and when she saw that she was taken, she drew out a knife and plunged it into her breast, and fell down dead. And see I am weeping over her, broken-hearted.’”

This story is no mean tribute from a Moslem writer to the heroism of Christian women.

NEAR THE MIDAN, DAMASCUS

THE TAKING OF DAMASCUS BY HULAGU After D'Ohsson

ON Jan. 29, 1260, Nasir, great-grandson of Saladdin, prince of Damascus, hearing of the sack of Aleppo, was persuaded by his generals to retreat in the direction of Egypt, leaving Damascus undefended. By his order all the chief inhabitants, soldiers as well as citizens, departed hastily for Egypt, some after selling their goods at ruinous prices. Seven hundred silver dirhems were the hire of a camel. After the departure of Nasir the Emir Zain al-din Sulaiman, better known as Zain al-Hafizi, closed the gates of the city, assembled the notables, and agreed with them to deliver Damascus to the Mongols in order to spare the blood of the people. In consequence a deputation, composed of the chief inhabitants, left for the Mongol camp at Aleppo, taking with them some rich presents and the keys of the city. Hulagu bestowed a robe of honour on the head of the deputation, the Judge Muhyi'l-din, son of al-Zaki, and nominated him chief judge of Syria. This personage immediately thereupon returned to Damascus, where he assembled the doctors and notables, before whom, clad in his robe of honour, he read out the letters nominating him to

his new post. He then published an edict whereby Hulagu promised the inhabitants of Damascus the security of their lives.

The Mongol chief then sent two commanders, one a Mongol the other a Persian, to Damascus, with instructions to follow the advice of Zain al-Hafizi, and treat the inhabitants well. A short time after there arrived the general, Kitubogha, with a detachment of Mongol troops. The city sent to meet them a deputation of shaikhs and notables, carrying banners and copies of the Koran. The new governor renewed the edict promising security, and saw that neither life nor property was violated.

When the Christians of Damascus saw the city occupied by Mongol troops, they produced an order of Hulagu, granting them protection, and armed with this they proceeded to defy their oppressors. Mohammedan historians relate with indignation how they drank wine publicly, even in the fasting month, spilling it on the garments of the Moslems and the doors of the mosques; how they compelled the Moslems to rise when they passed with the Cross before the Moslem shops; insulting any who refused to do so. They ran through the streets singing psalms and proclaiming that Christ's religion was the true one; they went so far as to pull down mosques and minarets that were close to their churches. The outraged Moslems made complaint to the Mongol governor; but he being a Christian disregarded them, and caused some of them to be beaten; whereas he treated the Christian priests with great respect, visited the churches, and took the Christian leaders under his protection. On the other hand the chief Judge Zain al-Hafizi extorted large sums of money from the inhabitants, with which he purchased valuable fabrics which he presented to the Mongol chiefs; and every day he sent them loads of provisions for their banquets.

The Citadel had not yet capitulated. Kitubogha began the siege on the night of March 21, and battered the place with twenty catapults until April 6, when it yielded. The Mongols sacked it, burned the buildings which it contained, demolished most of the towers, and destroyed all the military engines. Zain al-Hafizi wrote to Hulagu to ask for instructions with regard to the commander of the Citadel and his adjutant, who had been made prisoners; he received as reply their death-warrant, and proceeded to execute them himself; he beheaded them at Marj Barged, where Kitu-bogha had placed his camp.

In September of the same year was fought the battle of Ain Jalut at which the Mongols were defeated by the forces of the Egyptian Sultan. The Mongol camp, with the women and children, fell into the power of the victors. Hulagu's governors were assassinated in a number of towns. Those who were in Damascus were able to escape in time. When the news reached this place, the Mongol commanders and their partisans immediately made off, but they were plundered by the country people. The Mongol occupation of Damascus had lasted seven months and ten days.

From Tiberias, a day or two after his victory, the Sultan addressed a letter to the city of Damascus, proclaiming the victory which had been vouchsafed him by God. The news caused transports of joy, because the Moslems were despairing of ever being delivered from the yoke of the Mongols, who till then had appeared invincible. The Moslem inhabitants immediately rushed to the houses of the Christians, which they pillaged and ruined; many Christians were killed. The churches of St James and St Mary were burned. The Jews had to suffer similarly. Their houses and shops were completely looted, and armed force had to be employed to prevent the people from setting fire to their dwellings and synagogues. Then came the turn of those Moslems who had

acted as partisans and agents of the Mongols; they were massacred. A few days later Kotuz arrived with his army before Damascus, and remained in camp for two days before entering the city. He ordered the execution of several Moslems who had taken the Mongol side, and had thirty Christians hung. He then imposed on the Christian population a fine of 150,000 dirhems.

THE DESTRUCTION OF DAMASCUS BY TIMUR After Ibn Iyas

THE Sultan Faraj had, on hearing of the advance of Timur into Syria, come to Damascus in person, where he had scored some slight victories over the outpost of the Mongol invader, and received large accessions of deserters. News, however, of an attempted revolution at home caused him to withdraw suddenly, leaving Damascus exposed to the attack of Timur. Hearing of the approach of the Mongols, the people of Damascus on Saturday 21 Jumada I, 803 [Jan. 8, 1400] were in great dismay, and locked the gates of the city. They mounted the walls, and began to shoot at Timur's army, and dragged each other forward to fight. The first day there was a considerable engagement, in which some 2,000 of Timur's army were killed. On Sunday Timur sent requesting that some eminent and intelligent citizen should be sent to act as intermediary, with a view to peace negotiations. When Timur's envoy brought this message, there was some discussion as to whom they should send, and the choice finally fell on the Kadi Taki al-din Ibn Muflih the Hanbalite, he being a ready speaker, skilful in both Turkish and Persian. He was let down from the top of the wall in a basket, and with him five other eminent Damascenes. He stayed away a little time, and then returned, when he stated that Timur had been exceedingly courteous. “This city,” he had said, “is

the home of the Prophets, and I give it its liberty for their sake.” He had also gone to see the tomb of Umm Habibah (one of the Prophet's wives), and expressed his regret that such a monument should be without a cupola; he had therefore undertaken to provide it with one himself. Ibn Muflih further stated that the Mongol prince throughout the audience had been frequently mentioning the name of God Almighty, and asking forgiveness for his sins, and that he never let the rosary drop from his hands. This, however, was as Ibrahim al-Mi'mar says:

As the butcher pronounces the name Of the Lord on the beast that he slays: So our governor's tyrannous acts He preludes with prayer and praise.

Ibn Muflih was indeed so eloquent on the virtues of Timur that the people of Damascus felt unwilling to fight against such a man, and anxious to be his subjects. Or rather, they divided into two parties, one siding with Ibn Muflih, the other still bent on fighting, and deaf to Ibn Muflih's persuasions. At first the greater number of the townsfolk were on the latter side; but by Monday morning Ibn Muflih had secured a majority for his policy, and wished to open the Bab al-Nasr. This, however, was opposed by the commander of the Citadel, who threatened to burn the city if it were done. Ibn Muflih then got together a deputation of doctors, judges, and shaikhs, to demand an audience of Timur, and these were let down in baskets from the top of the wall. They were entertained the Monday night in Timur's camp, and sent back to Damascus the next day with a proclamation by Timur in nine lines, guaranteeing the Damascenes security. This proclamation was read aloud in the Umayyad Mosque, and was received with great rejoicing by the people of the city, who then opened the Bab Saghir. They felt perfectly secure, but God only knows what is in the heart, as has been said:

He whose help I hoped for hit me, Like a snake he turned and bit me, His beaming expression no confidence brings, Any more than the snake's that can smile when it stings.

When the gate was opened, one of Timur's officers took his station there, asserting that it was his business to see that the Mongol troops did no damage. Timur then sent for Ibn Muflih, and the latter undertook to collect a million dinars from the citizens of Damascus. This he set about doing immediately after the audience, but when the sum was made up and brought to Timur, the Mongol made a wry face and declared himself dissatisfied, asserting it was a million tomans for which he had stipulated, a toman having the value of ten [million] dinars. Ibn Muflih was disconcerted by this demand, and after leaving Timur tried every expedient in his power to get together the money, applying rack and torture to the citizens, demanding ten Syrian dirhems from each individual, great or small; three months’ revenue was demanded from all religious establishments: and the distress resulting from these measures was indescribable, especially as prices had risen during the siege, a bushel of wheat fetching forty Syrian dirhems. Public prayer and preaching were abandoned, and one of Timur's captains, named Shah Malik, took up his quarters with his women folk in the Umayyad Mosque, of which he locked the door; he took up the carpets and the matting of the mosque, and with them blocked up the spaces between the columns, and he with his soldiers proceeded to drink wine, beat drums and play dice in the Mosque. While this lasted, there was no call to prayer or any public worship in any of the sanctuaries; business was at a standstill, and the markets empty, while each day more and more of Timur's troops entered the city, till it became full of them, and they proceeded to lay siege to the Citadel. This was delivered up to the Mongols after twentynine

days’ siege, when the governor thought there was no prospect of saving it. The Mongols took possession of everything, animate and inanimate, which it contained, and, indeed, of the whole city. Ibn Muflih then made a second presentation of money to Timur, who told him that what he had brought amounted in Mongol reckoning to three million dinars; there were thus still seven millions owing. The first stipulation made by the Mongol with Ibn Muflih had been for a million dinars, exclusive of the goods, arms and beasts left by the Egyptian Sultan and his officers when they went away. Returning from the audience Ibn Muflih had a proclamation made that whoever had in his keeping any property left on trust by the Sultan, his officers or his soldiers, should immediately produce it. The order was obeyed, and the whole brought before Timur, who told Ibn Muflih he must now bring the property of all Damascene merchants and persons of eminence who had left the city. When all this had been brought, Ibn Muflih was told to bring all the beasts of burden in the city, horses, mules, camels and asses; these were brought to the number of 12,000 head. Next he was told to collect and bring all weapons of any sort, however good or bad. After these had been fetched, Ibn Muflih was ordered to make out a list of all the quarters and streets of Damascus. When Ibn Muflih had made out a set of tables, and brought them to Timur, he was told finally to apportion the sum of 7,000,000 dinars which was still owing according to the terms of the capitulation. Ibn Muflih replied that there was not a gold or silver coin left in the place. At this Timur was angry, and commanded Ibn Muflih and his assistants to be arrested and put in irons. “Cauterization is the leech's last expedient.” It turned out then as has been said:

A king's intent is gall to eat Coated with honey from outside: So he who tastes it thinks it sweet Till he find out what it doth hide.

Timur then distributed the tickets containing the names of the streets among his officers, and the whole army was introduced within the walls. Each officer stationed himself in a street, and demanded of its inhabitants an impossible sum. Each householder would be made to stand in his rags at the door of his house, and bidden to pay the sum allotted to him; when he replied that he had nothing left, he would be violently beaten, his house entered, and all the furniture and copper utensils would be taken away. He with all his family would then be dragged out, and his wives and daughters would be violated before his eyes. The male children after being made to undergo similar atrocities would be beaten, and the scourging of the householder himself continued while all this was done. Ingenious forms of torture were devised; hempen cord would be tied round a man's head and tightened till it sank in; then it would be put under his arms, and his thumbs be tied together behind his back; then he would be made to lie on his back, and a cloth containing hot ashes be put over him. Men were suspended by their great toes, and fires lighted under them, till they either died of the agony or fell into the blaze. Timur's soldiers did such things as it whitens the hair to hear of. Nineteen days did these atrocities continue; on Wednesday the eighteenth of Rejeb of the year 803 [March 4, 1400], Damascus was entered by an army like the waves of the sea, all foot-soldiers, with drawn swords in their hands. These looted whatever remained in the city, and bound the men, women and children, whom they dragged off in ropes not knowing whither they were to be taken. They left in the

city infants under four years of age, and decayed old women and men. The rest were led off.

On Thursday the first of Sha'ban [March 17, 1400], Timur ordered the city of Damascus to be set on fire, which was done; a pyre blazed which discharged sparks as big as yellow camels. The Umayyad Mosque was burned till all left was a wall standing with no roof, nor door nor marble; most of the mosques and oratories of Damascus were burned also, as were the market-places and the magazines which had first been plundered, and most of the streets were destroyed by the fire so as to become unrecognizable, as has been said:

I pass by haunts I once knew well, Bright homes of wealth and gladness, Only the owls do there now dwell— Plague on ye, birds of sadness!

So Damascus that had been so prosperous, so happy, so bright, so luxurious, so magnificent, was turned into a heap of ruins, of desolate remains, destitute of all its beauty and all its art. Not a living being was moving, nothing was there except carcases partly burned, and figures disfigured with dust, covered with a cloak of flies, and become the prey and the spoil of dogs. Even a sagacious man could not find the way to his house, nor distinguish between a stranger's dwelling and his own. “We are God's and to God do we return!”

APPENDIX The Massacre of 1860 From a Work called The Unveiling of the Troubles of Syria

THERE was at this time in Damascus a governor named Ahmad Pasha, who had been given control of both the administration and the army. The whole history of Turkey offers no example of a baser, more mischievous or more cunning scoundrel. He made it his chief business to stir up angry passions and prepare the way for a massacre. The massacres of Hasibiyya and Rashiyya were by his orders and under his direction, and the Turkish soldiers who carried them out were his servants. Circumstances helped him to stir up bad blood, especially the rescript in which the Sultan proclaimed equality between his subjects in accordance with the Treaty of Paris. When the Moslems perceived that their power of lording it over the Christians was gone, that all communities were now equal, and that no sooner had the Christians been enfranchized than they had begun to surpass the Moslems in wealth, honour, knowledge and everything else, the latter resented this and harboured mischievous designs. Now one of the articles of the Treaty of Paris was that soldiers should be drawn from the Christian no less than from the Moslem part of the population; the Government, however, did not observe this article for reasons that are well known, and in lieu of military service levied a heavy contribution on the Christians, $50 a head. This sum being more than they were able to pay, they made repeated complaints and begged the Government to reduce the amount or else permit Christians to serve in the army. The Government would not listen to these appeals, and in the year 1860 insisted on the payment of all arrears. The Orthodox Greek Patriarch at that time was a Greek unacquainted with the language and character of the people. When his flock thronged round him and encompassed his residence, begging his mediation in this matter, he wished to disperse them with the aid of the soldiers; he therefore wrote to the Governor informing him that

the Christians were in a turbulent and excited state in consequence of the imposition of the heavy military tax, and expressed the hope that the Governor would disperse them, as they were crowding round his house. The Governor was delighted with this communication and kept the letter in his pocket to serve as his justification, if necessary, for the massacre that he meant to bring about; for in answer to any question he could produce the letter of the Patriarch, attesting the fact that the Christians were starting a riot, which he had been compelled to repress by force of arms.

By the secret instigations of Ahmad Pasha the excitement of the Moslems in Damascus increased daily, and presently they heard with delight of the massacres in Hasibiyya, Rashiyya, Zahlah and Dair al-Kamar. With the heroes of Zahlah they had a long account to settle, and when they received the news of the fall of Zahlah and the massacre of its defenders, they decorated Damascus and instituted public rejoicings. The Christians looked on but durst not interfere; only some of the more distinguished and virtuous of the Moslems were displeased with this proceeding and extinguished the illuminations, and besides went round and urged their co-religionists to be sensible and calm. Their laudable efforts had little effect; they were overcome by the Government and the mob. At the end of this chapter we shall record the names of the noble-minded men, in order that their memory and the memory of their services may endure in history. As we said, the excitement of the Moslems kept increasing daily, whilst the Christians had to suffer contempt and insult and contumely of every sort. Complaint brought no redress and they found that application to the Government was useless. Most of them remained shut up in their houses; merchants and employés durst not go out to their business, but passed the time in prayer, meditation and deliberation. Meanwhile the feeling of the Moslems grew worse and worse, and the Christians saw death approaching.

The Consuls, perceiving the state of affairs, kept sending reports to their Governments, and when matters came to a crisis a meeting was held in the house of the British Consul, in accordance

with his request, at which they all attended. After considering what measures they could take to prevent a massacre, they agreed to open their houses to refugees from murder or pillage; and determined to warn the Governor of the consequences of negligence. The Greek Consul was selected to convey their message to the Governor, this Consul being skilled in Turkish. He did his utmost to impress on the Governor the necessity of calming the excitement, but without effect; Ahmad Pasha at first professed absolute ignorance of the existence of any excitement, maintaining that the city was perfectly quiet. When, however, as the days passed, it became impossible for him to deny the fact, he began to excuse himself on the plea that the soldiers whom he had were not sufficient to restrain the mob from carrying out their designs. He also began to make an exhibition of surprise and anxiety at the state of affairs, but he did not issue a single order to the effect that either the soldiers or the mob should be restrained from attacking the Christians. When the debate became hot between him and the Consul who was commissioned to converse with him, he would declare that the Christians had rebelled against the Porte and endeavoured to shake off their allegiance; “and this,” he said, “I can prove by the letters of their bishops and chief ecclesiastical authorities.” The Consuls then went in a body to the palace of the Governor and insisted that he must do something to improve the state of affairs. Finding he could no longer refuse, he promised to do as they wished, and issued an order to the inhabitants and the army that they should keep quiet and not molest the Christians. This order was partly effective, and the Christians experienced a certain amount of relief; orders were presently sent by the Governor to such of them as were in the employ of the Government, bidding them have no fear, and return to their duties. Supposing the excitement to have subsided they took courage, and people were near imagining that the waters had returned to their channels.

Ahmad Pasha, however, had no idea of letting this tranquillity continue, but continued his secret instigations, and the army with the mob became even more seriously excited than before, whilst

the Christians were again compelled to conceal themselves from their enemies. Every one perceived that something terrible was about to happen, although the Consuls of Great Britain and Greece tried to urge the distinguished Moslems to help them in quieting the excitement. A few of the best