V. BOOK dued by his successors. Roman Africa* and Spain f followed in succession; and, within a century from the death of their founder, the Mahometans had pushed their conquests into the heart of France. ‡ These extensive operations did not retard their Conquest enterprises towards the East. Persia was invaded of Persia. in A. D. 632; her force was broken in the great battle of Cadesia in A.D. 636; and, after two more battles §, her government was entirely destroyed, and her king driven into exile beyond the Oxus. A. D. 650, A. D. 651, At the death of the second calif, Omar ||, the whole of Persia as far east as Herát, nearly coextensive with the present kingdom, was annexed to the Arab empire. more. In the year 650, an insurrection in Persia induced the exiled monarch to try his fortune once His attempt failed: he was himself cut off in the neighbourhood of the Oxus; and the Arab frontier was advanced to that river, including Balkh and all the country north of the range of Hindú Cúsh. The boundary on the east was formed by the rugged tract which extends (north and south) from to the In- those mountains to the sea, and (east and west) from the Persian desert to the Indus. dus. The northern portion of the tract which is in * From A.D. 647 to 709. † A. D. 713. The defeat of the Mussulmans by Charles Martel took place in 732, between Poitiers and Tours. § Jallálla in A.D. 637, Neháwend in A.D. 642. A.D. 644. Hijra 23. cluded in the branches of Hindú Cúsh, and is now inhabited by the Eimáks and Házárehs, was then known by the name of the mountains of Ghór. The middle part seems all to have been included in the mountains of Solimán. The southern portion was known by the name of the mountains of Mecrán. There is a slip of sandy desert between these last mountains and the sea; and the mountains of Solimán inclose many high-lying plains, besides one tract of that description (extending west from the neighbourhood of Ghazni) which nearly separates them from the mountains of Ghór. At the time of the Mahometan invasion the mountains of Mecrán were inhabited by Belóches, and those of Solimán by Afgháns; as is the state of things to this day. Who were in possession of the mountains of Ghór is not so certain; but there is every reason to think they were Afgháns. The other mountains connected with the same range as those of Ghór, but situated to the east of the range of Imaus and Solimán, were probably inhabited by Indians, descendants of the Paropamisada. With respect to the plains, if we may judge from the present state of the population, those between the Solimán and Mecrán mountains and the Indus were inhabited by Indians, and those in the upper country, to the west of those mountains, by Persians. СНАР. I. BOOK V. The first recorded invasion of this unsubdued tract was in the year of the Hijra 44, when an Arab force from Merv penetrated to Cábul, and made converts of 12,000 persons. * The prince of Cábul, also, must have been made tributary, if not subject, for his revolt is mentioned as the occasion of a fresh invasion of his territories in 62 of the Hijra.† On this occasion the Arabs met with an unexpected check they were drawn into a defile, defeated, and compelled to surrender, and to purchase their freedom by an ample ransom. One old contemporary of the Prophet is said to have disdained all compromise, and to have fallen by the swords of the infidels.‡ The disgrace was immediately revenged by the Arab governor of Sístán; it was more completely effaced in the year 80 of the Hijra, when Abdurehmán, governor of Khorásán, led a large army in person against Cábul, and, avoiding all the snares laid for him by the enemy, persevered until he had reduced the greater part of the country to submission. His success did not afford satisfaction to his superior, and the notice taken of it led to results beyond the sphere in which it originated. Abdurehmán, as well as all the generals in Persia, was under the control of the governor of Basra, who at that time was Hejáj, so noted in Arabian * A.D. 664. (Briggs's Ferishta, vol. i. p. 4.) † A.D. 682. (Ibid. p. 5.) Price, from the Kholásat al Akhbár, vol. i. p. 454. I. history for his furious and sanguinary disposition. disposition. CHAP. This person is said to have remarked, after an interview with Abdurehmán, that he was a handsome man, but that he never looked on him without feeling a violent inclination to cut his throat. These kindly feelings led to so bitter a censure on this occasion, that Abdurehmán, stung with the unmerited reproaches of his chief, and perhaps apprehending more serious effects from his hatred, immediately made an alliance with his late enemy the prince of Cábul, and, assembling a numerous army, appeared in open rebellion, not only against the governor but the calif.* He marched through Persia, defeated Hejáj, and took Basra, after which he continued his march and took possession of Cúfa, lately the capital of the empire. But fresh succours being continually sent by the calift, who then resided at Damascus, he was at length defeated, and after a struggle of two years was obliged to fly to his old government, and was on the point of being made prisoner in Sístán, when he was relieved by his ally the prince of Cábul. He again assembled a force, and renewed his opposition, until, after repeated failures, he was constrained to take refuge at Cábul. His friend's fidelity was not proof against so many trials; and in the sixth year of the revolt he was obliged to save himself * A. D. 699, Hijra 80. + Abdelmelek, one of the califs of the house of Ommeia. A. D. 702, Hijra 83. BOOK from being given up to his enemies by a voluntary During all this time Ferishta represents the Afgháns to have been Mussulmans, and seems to have been led, by their own traditions, to believe that they had been converted in the time of the Prophet himself. He represents them as invading the territory of the Hindús as early as the year 63 of the Hijra, and as being ever after engaged in hostilities with the rája of Láhór, until, in conjunction with the Gakkars (a people on the hills east of the Indus), they brought him to make them. a cession of territory, and in return secretly engaged to protect him from the attacks of the other Mussulmans. It was owing to this compact, says Ferishta, that the princes of the house of Sámáni * The "Kholásat al Akhbár" and the " Taríkhi Tabari," quoted by Price (vol. i. pp. 455-463.). The whole story of Abdurehmán is omitted by Ferishta; but it rests on too good authorities, and is too circumstantial and too much interwoven with the general history of the califs, to allow us to doubt the truth of it. There are various opinions about the nation of the prince of Cábul, which is rendered doubtful from the situation of his city, at a corner where the countries of the Paropamisan Indians, the Afgháns, the Persians, and the Tartars are closely adjoining to each other. It is very improbable that he was an Afghán, as Cábul is never known to have been possessed by a tribe of that nation; and I should suppose he was a Persian, both from the present population of his country, and from the prince of Cábul being often mentioned by Ferdousi (who wrote at Ghazni), as engaged in war and friendship with the Persian heroes, without anything to lead us to suppose that he belonged to another race. |