OMAR, IKS HAFFSUN. 



OMER PASHA, 



670 



most actiTe and enterprising of these petty mouarchs was Omar, 

 who seems to have possessed all the qualifications of a good Eastern 

 monarch invincible courage, mild but impartial justice, and liberality 

 touching upon prodigality towards the learned. Soon after his acces- 

 sion to the throne, hearing that Alfonso VII. was besieging Yehya, 

 king of Toledo, in his capital, he sent his son Fadhl to his assistance 

 with a considerable force; but after several sharp encounters, in 

 which he lost the best of his men, Fadhl was obliged to retreat, and 

 Toledo surrendered to the Christian king on the 25th of May A.D. 1085. 

 The taking of that important capital, the rapidity with which Alfonso 

 followed up his conquests, and more than all, his declaration that he 

 would not lay down arms until he had conquered the whole of 

 Mohammedan Spain, threw alarm among the Moorish kings. After a 

 meeting held at Cordova (A.D. 1086) as to the best means of humbling 

 the pride and checking the power of Alfonso, it was agreed that Omar 

 should write a letter, in the name of the other kings, to Yusuf Ibn 

 Tashe&n, the Almoravide sultan of Marocco, and implore the help of 

 his arms against the formidable Christian. Yusuf, who was seeking 

 for a pretext to leave big native deserts and settle with bis ferocious 

 bands in the fertile valleys of Andalusia, immediately seized on the 

 opportunity ottered him, and, crossing the strait, landed on the coast 

 of Spain iu August A.D. 10S6. [ALMORAVIDES.] Omar and the other 

 kings of Mohammedan Spain hastened to join the Africans with their 

 best troops ; and four months afterwards (December A.D. 1086) was 

 fought, not far from Badajoz, at a place called Zalaca, one of the most 

 strongly contested and most sanguinary battles on record. The flower 

 of the Spanish chivalry remained on the field. Alfonso himself was 

 severely wounded in the thigh, by the hand, as it is asserted, of Omar 

 Ibn Al-afttas. Elat-ul with succ. ss, the African conqueror soon 

 turned bis arms against those of his own faith, and the brave Omar 

 became one of bis first victims. After defending for some time his 

 kingdom against the superior forces of his adversary, commanded by 

 Sevr IDU Abi Bekr, Omar was obliged to shut himself up in his 

 capital, where he still held out for a considerable time. The inhabit- 

 ants having at last obliged him to capitulate, Omar surrendered the 

 city on condition that his life and property should be preserved. The 

 African general agreed to the terms; but scarcely had Omar left 

 Badajoz with his family and a few faithful servants, when a body of 

 cavalry sent by Seyr overtook them, and they were all put to death 

 (February A.D. 1090). This catastrophe has been recorded in a 

 beautiful elegiac poem by an Arabian poet named Ibn Abduu. The 

 poem is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. 



OMAR, IBN HAFSSU'N, a famous rebel who long defied all the 

 power of the sultans of Cordova, was born at Honda, of Christian 

 parents, towards the middle of the 3rd century of the Hejira. Ue 

 win at first a tailor ; but finding bis profession beneath him, he repaired 

 to Truxillo, a town in Extremadura, and enlisted himself as a soldier. 

 We next hear of him as a captain of banditti iu the hills of Andalusia, 

 where lie long baffled the pursuit of justice, and defeated all the 

 troops sent for bis apprehension. Some time afterwards, scorning his 

 narrow limits, he went to the frontiers of Navarre, seized on a moun- 

 tain fortress, and thence extended his ravages into Aragon. lie 

 appears to have soon subjected the neighbouring country. As his 

 forces increased he assumed the tone of a sovereign, excited the 

 inhabitants to revolt against the sultans of Cordova, and made even 

 an offensive and defensive alliance with Ordoiio II., king of Asturias 

 and Leon. Profiting by the internal troubles which at that time 

 (A.D. 859) agitated the kingdom of Cordova, then in the hands of a 

 warlike but unfortunate prince, Mohammed I., this daring rebel, at 

 the head of a powerful army, composed of Mohammedans and 

 Christian.';, began to ravage the richest provinces of the empire, and 

 to commit all manner of depredations, defeating in every encounter 

 the royal armies sent against him. As might he expected, his success 

 brought all the discontented under his standard : Abd-al-malek, the 

 governor of Lerida, openly embraced his cause, and the example was 

 followed by other local governors. Mohammed advanced to chastise 

 the rebel at the head of his best troops (866) ; but Oinar, who had 

 as much cunning as courage, teeing that he could not contend against 

 the royal forces, had recourse to the following stratagem. By his mes- 

 sengers he persuaded Mohammed that his only object was to deceive 

 their common enemies, the Christians, in order better to turn his arms 

 against them ; that he was still a true Mussulman, and a loyal subject, 

 Mohammed praised him for his policy, promised him ample reward if 

 he succeeded in his enterprise, and actually sent his own nephew, 

 Zeyd I on Kasiua, with a body of cavalry to strengthen Omar (86b'); 

 but no sooner had the prince and his followers reached the camp than 

 they were barbarously butcherd by their treacherous allies. 



On receiving the news of this catastrophe, Mohammed swore to be 

 revenged: he ordered his eldest son, Al-mundhir, to take the field 

 gainst the rebels, enjoining him never to appear again in his presence 

 unless he had completely crushed the perfidious outlaw. Al-mundhir 

 sought Omar, who awaited bis arrival without fear. In the bloody 

 battle that ensued (A.D. 867) the rebels were cut to pieces, and their 

 chief was obliged to seek refuge among the fastnesses of the Pyrenees. 

 But Omar had too much spirit to be put down by one reverse, 

 although he could scarcely depend on a few score of followers : he 

 offered his services to the Navarrese, gained for them many fortresses, 

 and received from them the title of king. The governors of Saragossa 



audHuesca having taken the field against mm, he defeated their united 

 forces, and conquered the whole country as far as the Ebro. This 

 time the Sultan Mohammed in person, accompanied by his son Al- 

 mundhir, marched against the rebel. Omar endeavoured by light 

 skirmishing to prevent a general engagement, but he was unsuccessful; 

 and after a most bloody conflict, in which he himself was dangerously 

 wounded, his army was completely defeated at Aybar, on the frontier 

 of Navarre and Aragon, in 882. Omar contrived to escape from the 

 field of battle, but he died the ensuing year from hia wounds. He left 

 a son, named Kaleb, who inherited his courage, and who, more fortu- 

 nate than his father, remained in undisturbed possession of Eastern 

 Spain, where he had founded a kingdom, until he was ultimately put 

 down by Abd-al-rahmau III. in 919. Omar and his son Kaleb have 

 been often confounded by Cardonne and Casiri ; and hence the error 

 committed by M. de Sacy (' Biographic Universelle, in voc. ' Omar Ben 

 Hafssoun"), who made one out of the two individuals. 



OMAR, an eminent physician and mathematician, whose complete 

 name and titles are OMAR BEN ABDERRAHMAN BEN An ABOLHAKEM 

 AL-KERMANI (the Carmanian, probably so called from his family 

 having been originally natives of the province of Kerraan, or Carmania, 

 a country on the south-east of Persia). He was born at Cordova, 

 A.H. 368 (A.D. 990), and travelled into the East for the purpose of 

 improving himself in geometry and medicine. On his return to Spain 

 he settled at Saragossa, where he died, at the age of ninety, A.H. 458 

 (A.D. 1080). He was particularly famous for his skill in performing 

 surgical operations, but left no works behind him. 



OMAYYADES. [UMAYYADES.] 



OMAR, BEN-AHMED BKN-CHALDUN ABU MOSLEM AL- 

 HADHRAMI, was probably born (as his name would seem to imply) 

 in Hadhramnut, a province of Arabia. He gave his chief attention to 

 geometry, astronomy, and medicine, in all of which branches of science 

 he acquired great fame, and was no leas eminent for his moral charac- 

 ter than for his philosophical attainments. He died A.H. 449 (A.D. 1071), 

 at Seville, in Spain, where he had been for some time settled. 



* OMER PASHA, Commander- in -Chief of the Turkish Forces. 

 MICHEL LATTAS (now Omer Pasha) was born in 1801, at Vlaski, a 

 village in the circle of Ogulin, in Austrian Croatia. His father was 

 lieutenant-administrator of the circle of Ogulin. He was educated 

 in the school of mathematics at Thurm, in Transylvania, whence he 

 passed into the Austrian army as a cadet in the frontier regiment of 

 Ogulin. He had not been long in the service when he became 

 assistant to the surveyor of roads and bridges. In consequence of a 

 quarrel, when he was about twenty-eight years of age he quitted the 

 Austrian territory and service, and passed into the Turkish province 

 of Bosnia, where he became tutor in the family of a merchant, 

 adopted the Mohammedan creed, and assumed the name of Omer. 

 After some time he accompanied his pupils to Constantinople, where 

 the beauty of his penmanship is stated to have procured him the 

 situation of a master iu the new military school. Khosroo Pasha, 

 seraskitr, or minister of war, took notice of his abilities, introduced 

 him into the army, attached him to his personal staff, and after a time 

 sanctioned Omer's marriage with his ward, a rich heiress. About this 

 time he passed two years iu Bulgaria and in the Danubian Princi- 

 palities, and made himself intimately acquainted with the topography 

 of the countries on both sides of the Danube. In 1833 he had become 

 chief of battalion, and received the appointment of aide-de-camp and 

 interpreter to General Chrzanoweki, a Pole, who at that time had the 

 command of the Turkish troopa encamped in the vicinity of Constan- 

 tinople. Here he had excellent opportunities of gaining experience 

 in the details of military management. Khosroo Pasha still con- 

 tinued to b his patron, and introduced him to the late Sultan, who 

 engaged him to give lessons in writing to his sou Abd-ul-Medjid, the 

 present Sultan. Ho is described by Captain Spencer (' Travels in 

 Turkey,' &c.), who saw him at Constantinople in 1836, as a man of 

 handsome person and gentlemanly address, and as speaking with 

 fluency the French, German, and Italian languages. 



Omer's first services in actual warfare were during the war in Syria 

 (1839-40), when the Turkish troops were acting against the Egyptian 

 troops under Ibrahim Pasha. In accordance with a treaty signed at 

 London, July 15, 1840, a fleet of English, Austrian, and Turkish ships 

 advanced to the coast of Syria, in order to aid the Sultan's troops, and 

 commenced operations by bombarding and storming Beirut. The 

 strong fortress of St. Jean d'Acre was also bombarded and taken in 

 November 1840. After some negociations, Mehemet Ali, by treaty, 

 Jan. 11, 1841, consented to relinquish Syria, and retain the government 

 of Egypt as hereditary viceroy. 



In 1842 Omer received the title of Bey, and was appointed military 

 commandant of the district of Libanus, in the eyalet of Tnrablous, in 

 Syria. He was afterwards sent to suppress an insurrection in 

 Albania. This operation he accomplished successfully, and received 

 the title of Omer Pasha. He afterwards performed a similar service 

 in Kurdistan, in Asia Minor, where the Kurds had to a great extent 

 thrown off their allegiance to the Sultan. In 1848 when a Russian 

 army had entered Wallachia, and threatened the flank of the revolu- 

 tionary Hungarians, Omer Pasha was sent there by the Sultan in 

 command of an army of occupation. The ability and discretion 

 displayed by him in this critical situation attracted much attention, 

 and received general approval. When the beys and other feudatories 



