CALIPHS OP BAGDAD. 23 



seen every Friday, with other blind mendicants, at 

 the gates of the principal mosque of his own capital, 

 soliciting the alms of the charitable. Of the suc- 

 ceeding monarchs, five, Mottaki, Mostakfi, Mos- 

 tarshed, Alrashed, and Mostasem, met the same fate. 

 With a few exceptions, the power of the Abbassides, 

 after Rhadi, was reduced to an empty pageant, a 

 mere gilded phantom. Sometimes their condition 

 was so degraded, that they were confined like prison- 

 ers in their palace, exposed to blows and insults, and 

 scarcely allowed the ordinary means of subsistence. 

 So entirely was Rhadi the creature of Ibn Rayek, 

 his Emir al Omra (commander of commanders), 

 an officer first instituted by him, and superior to 

 the vizier, that he could not draw a single dinar 

 from the treasury for his own use without the per- 

 mission of this absolute minister, who even offi- 

 ciated in the great mosque, and had his name in- 

 serted in the public prayers. 



Usurpers had risen up in almost every province, 

 and erected themselves into independent sovereigns. 

 The dominions of the once mighty Emperors of the 

 Faithful were nearly circumscribed within the walls 

 of Bagdad, which still contained an innumerable 

 multitude of inhabitants, vain of their past fortune, 

 discontented with their present state, and oppressed 

 by the demands of a needy government, whose ex- 

 chequer had heretofore been replenished by the spoil 

 and the tribute of nations. Irak, the greater part 

 of Persia, the provinces round the Caspian and be- 

 yond the Oxus, had recognised other masters. Sy- 

 ria and Arabia no longer obeyed the caliph ; while 

 the rulers of Egypt and the West had withdrawn 

 their allegiance from the humbled pontiff on the 



