ABU 



prrJiflfil, an. I cxpecled it. Confiderinp; the age in which 

 he lived, it ir, nut woiulcrfiil that miracles were afcribed to 

 hini ; but it is iiccdlcfi to rccoixl them in this place. Abul- 

 firajjiiis wrote nbout ^o trails, befiJcs the hiftory above 

 mentioned, wliich are recited by Alfemaiiniis. The learned 

 Pococke vindicates him from the charjje of having re- 

 n >'.inced chrillianity. There was anoth;r Abulfaragiui, fur- 

 named Ahdalla Ebn Attiba, who died A. U. 1043. He 

 wn5 a Ncdorian monk, a L-arned man, and a philo'.opher. 

 He\rolc a commentary on the Old and New Teftament, in 

 Arabic ; he aUo explained the works of Ariftotle, and re- 

 proved the Neiloiian patiiarchs for their negleft of eccleliaf- 

 tic.il K*arnirg. 



AUUL f'AZL, i.e. i\\i fat!:tr oi excellence, the title 

 which was piven to the fccretaiy and vi?ier of the Mogul 

 rmpcror Akbar. He was deemed the moil learned and 

 belt writer in the Ealb. He was murdered by order of Sul- 

 tan Sclim, on fufpicion of his having occafioiied a mifunder- 

 ftandinj between him and the emperor his father. His 

 death was much lamented by Akbar, and many others, who 

 had any regard for literature. He wrote a hiftory of the 

 Mo5;ul emperors, which he coininued to the 381(1 year of 

 Akhar's reign, A. D. 1594. His oflicial correfpondence 

 firmed three volumes, and was much eileemed. Frafer's 

 Jvuli Khan, p. 1 1. 



ACULFEDA, Ifmael, prince of Hamah, a city of 

 Kvria, was born in the year of the Hegira 672, A. D. 1273, 

 and was the fixlh in lineal defcent from Ayub or Job, the 

 father of the famous Saladine. He was a lover of ftudy, and 

 particularly of geography, which may be interred from a 

 work, intitled, Cho:-afr.iijc & Maw;ualnahrs, h. e. Regio- 

 n im extra fluvium Oxum dcfcriptio, ex tabulis Abulfeda: 

 Ifmaelis, Principis Haniah. It v.as printed in London in 

 jfi^o, by our learned countrjMnan John Gi-rcvius, who has 

 added to the Arabic original a Latin tranllation, with a 

 preface, informing us that he confulted five MSS. At the 

 conchifion of this work it is faid to have been nnillied in the 

 721ft year of the Hegira, or A. D. 1321. The tables are 

 given in the order of tlie climates, with the degrees of longi- 

 tude and latitude Abulftda is faid to have difcovered the 

 true longitude of the Cafpian fea, concerning which Ptolemy 

 ■was miitaken. A new edition of this work was publiftied at 

 Oxford in 1713', by M. Gagnier, in the third volume of 

 Hudfon's Ge^^rnphia velcris Scriptores Gneci minores : and 

 another at London, in 1732, fol. Abulfeda wrote other 

 works, which nianifefted his genei-al literature ; for he is 

 faid to have been acquainted with jurifprudence, phyiic, 

 philofophy, attrology, hiftor)-, and poetry, as well as geo- 

 graphy. His " General Hillor)'," from' the beginning of 

 the world to his own time, was continued to the year 730, 

 or A. D. 1329. He alfo wrote " A ftiort fyftem of the 

 " Mohammedan civil law ;" " A Treatife of Phyfic ;" 

 and lome poems. He is alfo funpofed to be the author of 

 the " Aftronosr.ical Tables," of which there is a copy in 

 the Piodleian library. His " Life of Mahomet," was pub- 

 liflied in Arabic and Latin, at Oxford in 1723; and his 

 trealir?of the " Life and Adions of Saladine," was printed, 

 with a I,atin tranflution, at Leyden, in 4732, fol. 



Abulfeda was no lefs a military man, than ; fludent. He 

 ferved under his father in fcveral expeditions, and he was 

 p'efciit at the ftorming of Tripoli, A. D. 1289; and at the 

 capture of Acca or Ptckir;ais, A. D. 1291, as well as on 

 other octafions, when he difthiguilhcd himfclf, by his&ill and 

 valour. He died about t>.e 733d year of the Hegira, A D. 

 ^.332- VvV are cautioned by the editors of the General D'c- 

 tionaiy from confounding Abidfcda with Ifmael, fumamed 

 Shakinfhah, the compiler alfo of a General Hiftor)^ which 

 I 



ABU 



is maftly tranfcrlbed virbatim from the work of that prince. 

 Gen. Dia. 



AliULGHAZI, Bnyntur, khan of the Tartars, was born 

 in the city of Uigena, capital of the country of Kara/.m, in 

 the year of the Hegira 1014, A. D. 1605. He was de- 

 fcended both by his father's and mother's f.de, in a dired 

 line from Zingis Khan, or Jenghizkan. After experiencing 

 many misfortunes in early life, he became fovereign of Ka- 

 razm, in the year of the Hegira 1054, and having reigned 

 twenty years, and by his courage and conduft rendered him- 

 felf formidable to his neighbours, he refigned the throne to 

 his fon fome time before his death, in order to devote the re- 

 mainder of his life to the ftrvice of God. In his retreat he 

 wrote the famous genealogical hiftoiy of the TurJ^s, but be- 

 ing prevented by his death, in the year 1074 of the Hegira, 

 from finiftiing it, he left it in charge v/ith his fon and fucccf- 

 for to complete 't, which was done in two years aftirwaids. 

 It is written in the Mogul, or Turkiih language, aiid divid- 

 ed into nine parts : the two firft treat of the khans aid tribes 

 defcwidcd from Turk, the fon ot Japhet, to the time of Jen- 

 ghizkhan ; the third relates the life and aftions of that con- 

 queror ; the five next thofe of his fons and fuccffors in the 

 feveral parts of Tartaiy ; and the ninth treats of the khans 

 of Karazm to the death of the author. This hiftory v.-as 

 procured by Strahlenberg, while prifoner in Siberia, and has 

 been tranflated into Ruffian, German, French, and Englifh 

 As this book is one of the chief funds which afford materiaia 

 for the hiftory of the Turks and Tartars, it will not be im- 

 proper to mention the authority on which it is founded. The 

 grandfon of Jenghizkan, being defirous of prefcrving the 

 memory- of the Mogul tribes, and the fignal exploits of his 

 anceftors, fent a nobleman, fkilled in the Mogul language, 

 into Tartary, in order to coliecl materials for this purpofe. 

 At his return his memoirs were digefted, under his own in- 

 fpeclion and affiftance, into a work, which confifted of three 

 folio volumes, and was finiihed in the year of the Hegira 

 702. The firft volume is in the Library' at Paris, and was 

 tranflated by De la Croix, tlie fon, but not publilTied. It 

 was chiefly from this hiftory that Abulghazi extracted his 

 work, excepting that part which relates to the Ufheks of 

 Great Bukharia and Karazm. A French tranflation ap- 

 peared at Leyden in 1726, i2mo. Mod. L^n. Hift. v. iii. 



P- 334- 



ABUL OLA AHMED, one of the moft celebrated 

 of all the Arabian poets, was born at Maara, a town of 

 Syria, A. D. 973. He loft his fight by the fmall-pox, at 

 three years of age ; at forty-five he left off the ufe of animal 

 food, in conformity to the tenets of the Bramins, and alfo 

 that of eggs and milk, and lived only on vegetables. He 

 died in 1057. He was not efteemed by the orthodox, as a 

 found Mufiulman, for one of his fayings Was, " The chrif- 

 " tians wander here and there in their paths, and the maho- 

 " metans are entirely out of the way." Another of his 

 apothegms is, " The world is divided between two forts of 

 " perlons, of whom fome have fenfe without religion, others 

 " religion without fenfe." The infcription which he or- 

 dered for his tomb confirmed the iufpicions of his ortho- 

 doxy : " This crime did my father commit againft ir.e, 

 " but I have not committed the fame againft any." Gen. 



Dia. 



ABU MOSLEM, a governor of Khorafan in the fecor.d 

 century of the Hegira, who, A. D. 747, caufed the dig ■ 

 nity of caliph to pafs from the race of the Ommiades to the 

 family of Abbas ; and who, in accomphfhing and maintain- 

 ing this revolution, is faid to have killed 600,000 perfont. 

 Notwithllandi'-.g the fervices which he had rendered to Ai- 

 manfuj-, this cahph, A. D. 759, ordered him to be private- 



