ABU 



ir^ attained the age of 63, and reigned only two years nnj 

 three months. A little time before he expired he made his 

 will, and appointed Omar for his fuecefTor. He dictated it 

 to his fecrelary in the following terms : " In the name of 

 " the moft merciful God. This is the teftament of Ab- 

 " dallah Ebn Abu Kohafa, when he was in the lall hour 

 " of this world, and the firll of the next ; an hour in which 

 " the infidel fliall believe, the wicked perfon be affured of 

 " the reality of thofe things that he denied, and the liar 

 " fpeak the truth. I appoint Omar Ebn Al Khattab mv 

 " fuecefTor ; therefore hearken to him and obey him. If he 

 " aits right he will anfwer the opinion I have always enter- 

 " tainedofhim; if otherwife, he muft be accountable for 

 " his own conduit. My intention herein is good, but I 

 *' cannot forefee future events. However, thofe who do 

 " ill (liall herealterbe made fully fenfible of the confequences 

 " of their behaviour. Fare ye well, and may ye always be at- 

 " tended by the divine mercy and benedi6tion." Before he 

 expired, he prayed God to blefs the choice he had made ; 

 to infpire the Mo'lems with fentiraents of concord and unani- 

 mity ; to render their affairs profpei-ous and flourifliing ; and 

 to enable them to propagate the doftiines of the Koran in the 

 moft effeftual manner, as by the prophet Mahomet, in his 

 laft moments, they ha<l been moft ftri6tly enjoined. Among 

 other fayings of Abu Beer that are recorded, the following 

 are worthy of notice : " Good aftions are a guard againft 

 " the blows of adverfity ;" and " Death is the eafieft of all 

 " things after it, and the hardeft of all things before it." 

 Such was the liberality of his dilpofition, that on the Friday 

 of each week, he diftributed the refidue of his own and the 

 public money, after appropriatir.g a very fmall fum to his 

 own maintenance ; firit, to the moft worthy, and then to the 

 moft indigent, of the Moflems. Gibbon's Hift. vol. ix. 

 358. 8vo. 



ABUCARAS, Theodore, was biftiop of Charrx^ or 

 Haran in Mefopotamia, and lived in the eighth centuiy. At 

 firft he adhered to the party of Photius, and in connexion 

 with Zachar)'-, bifliop of Chalcedon, undertook an embafty 

 to the emperor Lewis II. for the purpofe of prefenting 

 Photius's book againft pope Nicholas, and inducing him to 

 throw off the papal yoke. He afterwards abandoned the 

 intereft of Photius, and was reftored, after humiliating fub- 

 milTion, to his place in the council of Conftantinople, from 

 which he had been excluded. Several treatifes bearing the 

 name of Abuearas, written againft Jews, Mahometans, and 

 Heretics, have been coUefted by Gretzer, and publilhed in 

 4to. at Ingolftadt, in 1606. Another treatife by Abucaras, 

 intitlcd, De Un'wne ^ Incarnatione, was found by Mr. Ar- 

 nold in the Bodleian librarj-, and pubhftied at Paris in 1685, 

 in 8vo. Some have doubted whether Abucaras, the friend 

 of Photius, and the author of thefe treatifes, be the fame 

 perfon. Bayle. 



ABUCATUIA, m lahyology, the name given by Marc- 

 grave to the Zeus gallus of Linna:us. 



ABUCCO, Abocco, or Abocchi, a weight ufed in 

 the kingdom of Pegu. One abucco is twelve teccalis and a 

 half ; two abuccos make an agira, which is alfo called giro ; 

 two giri make half a biza ; and a biza weighs a hundred 

 teccalis ; that is, two pounds and five ounces the heavy 

 weight, or three pounds nine ounces light weight of 

 Venice. 



ABUDHAHER, or Anu Thaher, fucceeded his bro- 

 ther Abufaid, in the 311th year of the Hegira, at the age 

 of eighteen, as chief of the feft of the Karmathians ; and 

 pioceeded with a large araiy to Baflbra, v.-hicli he tcok and 

 pillaged. The next year he intercepted and plundered a ca- 

 ravan returning from Mecca to Bagdad ; and having been 



ABU 



rcfufeJ tlic fovcreignty of BatTora, he pillaged Cufa in the 

 following year, and put many of its inhabitants to the fword. 

 He afterwards threatened Bagdad, but was obliged to re- 

 treat. However, in the jiOtli year of the Hegira, he 

 feized the towns of Raliaba and Karkifia in Mefopotamia. 

 In the 3 1 7th year, he laid wafte Mecca, plundered the pil- 

 grims and the inhabitants, killed 30,000, of whom 1700 

 were murdered within the walls of the Caaba ; and having pro- 

 faned this holy place, he carried off the black ilonc, which 

 remained in the cullody of the Karmathians for twentv-two 

 years ; but finding tliat the temple was ftill venerated and 

 refortcd to by pilgrims, they reftored it. Abudhaher ridi- 

 culed the Mahometan religion, and infulted its votaries ; re- 

 proaching them \yith the folly of calling the edifice at Mecc.i 

 God's houfe, whicii he was allowed to profane, without be- 

 ing deftroyed by the thunder of the Almighty. Six years 

 after thefe outrages he made a treaty with the Caliph Al 

 Radi, who granted him an annual tribute of i 20,000 dinars, 

 on condition of his permitting the pilgrims to pafs to Mecca 

 witliout moleftation. This chief rcride'd at Hajar in Vemama, 

 where he built a palace, and lived till tlie year of Chiift 953, 

 in the peaceable poffedion of a large territory. Baylc. Mod. 

 Un. Hift. vol. ii. p. 311, &c. 



ABUJAAFARAL TABARI, an Imam of great 

 piety, as well as of very cxtenfive reading and erudition, was 

 born at Amu, orAmoI, the capital ofTabreftan, whence 

 his name, in the year of the Hegira 224; and though he 

 was a ftrenuous defender of the koran, he was cenfured at 

 Bagdad as a heretic or fliiite. His work, intitled, y// TariLh 

 Al Tabari, is held in high efteem, and confidered as the bafis 

 of all the other hiftories of the Moficms. What we now 

 have is only an abridgment of a much larger work. It be- 

 gan with the creation of the worid, and continued, accord- 

 ing to Abulfeda, to the year of the Hegira 302 ; or, as 

 others fay, to the time of the author's death, in the year 

 3T0. The Tarikh «vas trandatetl into Pcrfic and Turkifti, 

 and continued by different writers to the year of the Hegira 

 521. Mr. Oekley fays, that an impcrfeft MS. copy ot it, 

 in Arabic, is preferved in the Bodleian library at Oxford. 

 Mod. Un. Hilt. vol. ii. p. 309. 

 ABUKESB. SeeAsLANi. 



ABULFARAGIUS, or Anut. Farai, orABULPi.A- 

 RAGius, Gregory, in Biography, fon to Aaron, a chriftian 

 phyfician, was born in 1226, in the city of Malatia, near 

 the fource of the Euplirates, in Armenia. He praftifed 

 phyfic with fuccefs, but was more diftinguiftied by his ftudy 

 of the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic languages, as well as phi- 

 lofophy and divinity. The commendations of his contem- 

 poraries are diftated in the ftyle of the higheft panegyric ; 

 and he is intitled, the king of the learned, the moft excel- 

 lent of thofe wiio excel, the example of his times, the phoe- 

 nix of his age, the glory of the v>ife, and the crown of the 

 virtuous. He wrote a hiftory in Arabic, divided into ten 

 dynafties, which is an epitome of univerfal hiftor)-, from the 

 creation of the world to his own time, and which does hon- 

 our to his memory. The parts relating to the Saracens^ 

 Tartar Moguls, and tlie conquefts of Jenghis Khan, are the 

 moft valuable. It was publilhed v.'ith a Latin tranllation, in 

 two fmall quartos, at Oxford, in 1663, by Dr. Poeocke^ 

 who annexed to it a brief continuation relating to the hif- 

 tory of the eaflern princes. He had, in 1650, publilhed an 

 extract from this work, intitlcd, " Specimen Hift. Ara- 

 bum," &c. Abulfaragins was ordained biftiop of Guha at 

 twenty years of age, by Ignatius, the patriarch of the Jaco- 

 bites ; and, about the year 1266, he was elected their pri- 

 mate in the eaft ; which dignity he po(fe(rcd till his death, in 

 12S6, which hajpcned at the time when he is faid to have 



predicted. 



