CIVIL HISTORY, &c. 125 



CHAPTER IV. 



Civil History and Government of Arabia. 



Extinction of the Saracen Power Formation of new Kingdoms in 

 the East Victories and Dominions of Timur Conquests of the 

 Turks and Portuguese in Arabia Selim I. obtains the Investi- 

 ture of the Caliphate Expulsion of the Turks by the independ- 

 ent Arab Chiefs Dominions of the Imam of Sanaa His Go- 

 vernment, Revenues, and Military Force Description of Sanaa 

 Visits of European Travellers to that Capital Principal Town 

 in Yemen Beit el Fakih Taas Mocha Aden Government 

 of Hadramaut Of Oman Description of Muscat Court, Re- 

 venues, and Commercial Enterprise of the Imam Islands of Bah- 

 rein Pearl Fisheries Depredations of the Joassamee Pirates in 

 the Persian Gulf Various Expeditions from India to suppress 

 them Reduction of Ras el Khyma and their principal Fortresses 

 Arab Settlers on the Persian Frontier Classification of the 

 wandering Bedouin Tribes Their migratory Habits and mili- 

 tary Strength Government of their Sheiks Their Laws and 

 Judicial Trials Reflections on their Political Institutions. 



THE history of the Saracens, both as a military and 

 a political nation, may be said to have expired with 

 the reduction of Bagdad by the grandson of Zingis 

 Khan. The successors of Mostasem, to the number 

 of eighteen, called the Second Dynasty of the Ab- 

 bassides, were merely the spiritual chiefs of the Mo- 

 hammedan religion. For two centuries and a half 

 the ecclesiastical supremacy continued in the hands 

 of these venerable phantoms ; when at length the 

 tide of invasion swept away the only remaining 

 vestige, and feeble representative, of the once proud 



VOL. II. H 



