JEALOUSY OF ARAB AND PERSIAN. 375 jealousy among his Arabian subjects against the Persian influence, and feared that it would break out in a more intense form after his death. He knew that the ascendency of the Barmecides had strengthened the Persian party, and that the extinction of that family had made the Arab faction think themselves of greater comparative importance in state politics. Still, the balance was not complete, and he made a plan which he thought would give the government stability in the face of such sectional jealousies. He ordered that Amin should hold his court at Bagdad, and Mamun rule from Merv; but that upon the death of either brother, the power should be reunited in the hands of the survivor. The plan was the surest to promote the dissension that it was intended to avoid. Amin, not satisfied with taking from his brother the troops that were his, set aside the succession in favor of his own son. He then ordered the sworn agreement, that had been hung up in the Kaaba, to be destroyed; he omitted Mamun's name in the public prayer, and substituted that of his son; and at last, he demanded of Mamun the surrender of certain of his provinces. Meantime Mamun had not been idle; foreseeing the events that actually occurred, he had made every effort to bind his subjects to him; he had remitted their taxes; negotiated peace with some distant rebels who might give him trouble, and had held frequent durbars (receptions), at which he dispensed justice personally. He remembered how faithful the people of that province had been to Muslim, and he patiently awaited the action of Amin. The two brothers represented, indeed, the different peoples that composed the kalifate, for Amin was son of a woman of Arabia, and Mamun of a Persian mother. They were directed by two men named Fadhl: one, the son of Rabia, leader of the Arab faction, and the other, son of Sahl, descended from the old Persian kings. Mamun naturally refused to give up his provinces, and war was precipitated; armies were raised by both brothers, and the first conflict occurred at the town of Rei (Rhe), where the forces of Amin were routed. Another army and another were sent towards Korassan with no better results, and Bagdad was paralyzed with terror. Kufa and Bassora came to the rescue, however, but their troops were not able to keep peace among themselves. Syria was another source of hope; but Syria was looking out for its own independence, and proclaimed a rival kalif at Damascus, who declared that he united the rights of Ali and Moawia. All the while the army from Korassan was coming down upon the capital, under command of Tahir, a Persian general of high repute. At last the gates were reached; in the year 812, the Tigris saw the two armies lying one on each bank; and the rich city was in a state of siege; the gates were barricaded,—those gates for which the capitals of the past had been robbed; and the kalif was shut up in his palace. Week by week the circling army of Persians came closer, and the distress within the walls grew more intense. Fourteen MAMUN BECOMES KALIF. 377 months passed, and Amin gave up; surrendering himself in expectation of saving his life; but he was ingloriously assassinated in spite of all. In reference to the facts that Tahir, the general who captured Bagdad, was ambidextrous and blind of one eye, a poet addressed to him the following epigram: "A pair of right hands and a single dim eye Must form not a man, but a monster, they cry: Prematurely old, Amin, unworthy of the office he had so short a time occupied, thus died at the age of less than thirty years, and Mamun, his brother, was the next day proclaimed, in the streets of Bagdad, kalif and Commander of the Faithful. Civil war was over for the time. XXXVIII. GOLD AND DROSS. THE new kalif did not come immediately to the exercise of his power, for he found himself ruled by that minister to whom he owed his elevation. Fadhl had been educated to the Magian creed, before becoming a convert to Islam, and had been a trusted courtier of Harun, who made him tutor and guardian of Mamun. This familiar relation to the new kalif gave Fadhl an advantage of which he took all possible advantage, and Mamun readily abandoned to him the entire control of public affairs, with complete reliance upon his wisdom. He was known as "Master of the Pen and the Sword"; he enjoyed power such as no minister had ever wielded before. Under him the Persian influence became immense; his brother was made governor of Irak; Tahir, the conqueror of Bagdad, was made governor of Syria, and of the regions north of it, with his capital at Damascus; and the other provinces were entrusted to men of the same foreign birth. The result was general dissatisfaction. In 814, the Alyites, ever ready for a revolt, rose in great strength, and achieved a victory over the kalif's troops, near Kufa; a new army was sent out ANARCHY AT BAGDAD. 379 and conquered, and the rebels gained possession of Bassora; when suddenly their leader died or fell by poison, and they were forced to surrender. Ten months after the first rising every city in Irak had renewed its allegiance to the kalif. The agent in this conquest, Hartama, a general of great skill, was rewarded in the usual manner by his master; he was thrust into a dungeon from which he only came out to execution (A.D. 816). The city of Bagdad fell into a state of complete anarchy; the streets were filled with thieves and as sassins, who dared to carry off women and children in full day; who pillaged the dwellings wherever they wished; who even organized themselves into bands to rob and destroy in the suburbs. A brave citizen, armed only with the Koran, ventured to oppose these reckless men, and to call upon them, in the name of Allah and his prophet, to cease their ill deeds. The strange effort was successful; but scarcely had quiet been restored, when the scourge of a new Alyite rebellion burst forth apparently at once, in Irak, in Yemen, in the region about the holy cities. The dazed kalif looked in vain for some means of putting an end to these constant uprisings of the |