Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/33

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ABD-EL-HALIM ABD-EL-KADER 13 death raised the standard of revolt against Yezid, his successor. He seized upon the holy city, and maintained himself against both the remonstrances and the arms of the caliph. At this early period there were three distinct governments in the territories conquered by the Arabs, in Persia, Syria, and Arabia. Ab- dallah's chief opponent was Yezid, caliph of Damascus. In the siege which he sustained at Mecca, the temple of the holy Caaba was de- stroyed by the assailants, and the death of Yezid alone saved the city from capture. Ab- dallah was now acknowledged sultan and ca- liph of Mecca by the Arabs, and rebuilt the city and temple, not without opposition from his superstitious subjects, who considered it sacrilege to touch the stones of the sacred edi- fice. He completed the restoration in 685. Yezid's son, Moawiyah II., abdicated in favor of Merwan, on whose death his son Abd-el- Malek ben Merwan succeeded him, and pushed the war vigorously against Abdallah, by whose anathemas Abd-el-Malek's subjects, when thej 1 made the pilgrimage to Mecca, were greatly in- fluenced or scandalized. Abd-el-Malek van- quished Abdallah's brother and lieutenant Mo- zab ben Zoba'ir in the plains of Persia, added Irak to the caliphate of Damascus, and de- spatched an army against Abdallah at Mecca. The holy city was a second time besieged, and resisted for several months. Abdallah, at the age of 70, defended himself to the last, and when the city was taken by storm retired to the Caaba, where he was killed by a blow on the head from a tile. He is described as brave to rashness and crafty to perfidy. ABD-EL-HALIM, known as HALIM PASHA, an Egyptian prince, son of Mehemet Ali and a white slave woman, born at Cairo in 1826. He was educated at Paris, and of late resides near Cairo, in a magnificent palace celebrated for its j beautiful pleasure grounds. The sultan has often taken his part in his family quarrels with his relatives Abbas and Said, the late viceroys, and Ismail Pasha, the present khedive. Abbas (1848-'54) endeavored even to appropriate Halim's property, but restored it to him at the request of the sultan, who also conferred upon Halim the rank of pasha and mushir (field marshal). Under Said he was for a short time a member of the "amily council, until that viceroy was formally recognized by the sultan (July, 1854). In 1855-' 6 he ofliciated for a brief period as governor general at Khartoom. Since the accession of his nephew Ismail (1863), Halim has been more persecuted than in the reign of Abbas Pasha. In 1866, when the sultan consented to modify the organic Mo- hammedan laws of succession in favor of a direct line of hereditary rulers in Egypt, it was hoped that this would do away with the jeal- ousy of Ismail Pasha against his uncle, but the khedive remains unfriendly. ABD-EL-HA9IID, the Arabic name adopted by Du COURET, a French traveller, on his becoming a Mohammedan. He was born in 1812 at Hil- ningen, in Alsace, travelled from 1834 to 1847 in the East, was sent in 1848 on a mission to Timbuctoo, a report of which appeared in 1853 (Memoire a Napoleon ///.), and published in 1855 the story of his Arabic pilgrimages (Me- dine et la Meklce, 3 vols.), which was worked up by Alexandre Dumas in his Pelerinage de Hadji Abd-el-Hamid Bey (2 vols., 1855). ABD-EL-KADER, an Arab emir in Algeria, born near Mascara in 1806 or 1807. He was the descendant of an ancient family of Mara- bouts, and the son of Mahiddin, an influential emir, who, suspected of plotting the subversion of Turkish rule, was compelled to retire with his son to Cairo in 1827. When Abd-el-Kader returned from this exile Algiers had been cap- tured by the French. A man of remarkable powers and accomplishments, and of the greatest bravery, the young emir soon became the leader of his countrymen, and organized among them a system of resistance to the French invaders, whom he began to harass at the head of his own and the neighboring tribes. Encouraged by the failure of an attack which Gen. Boyer, commandant of Oran, made in the spring of 1832 upon his stronghold at Tlemcen, Abd-el-Kader conducted his attacks upon the French on a larger scale, and with such skill and bravery that the admiring Arabs proclaim- ed him chief of the believers. For two years he continued operations, but in 1834 Gen. Des- michels, Boyer's successor, by causing a defec- tion of the native tribes, obliged him to make peace, France acknowledging his sway over the tribes west of the Shellift'. Abd-el-Kader now spent a short period of quiet in introducing European discipline and tactics among his fol- lowers. But he soon crossed the Shelliff during a successful war with a native chief; and the French, alarmed by his growing power, again began hostilities under Gen. Trezel, who was sent to replace Desmichels. Trezel, marching toward Mascara, was surprised and utterly de- feated by Abd-el-Kader in the defile of Muley Ismail. Marshal Clauzel was now made gov- ernor of Algiers. In December and January, 1835-'6, he succeeded in reaching and destroy- ing Mascara, and in capturing Tlemcen, where he left a garrison ; but this accomplished, he was obliged at once to make a disastrous re- treat to Oran. In April, 1836, Abd-el-Kader utterly defeated Gen. d'Arlanges near Tlemcen, and obliged him to fall back on a fortified camp he had established on the Tafna to keep open the communication between the French garri- son of Tlemcen and their base of supplies. In this camp the general was shut up by Abd-el- Kader's troops, and compelled to remain until relieved by Gen. Bugeaud. This officer was now appointed to the command in Algiers, and conducted the war with great success, first de- feating Abd-el-Kader July 7, 1836, and finally compelling him in May, 1837, to conclude a peace by which he acknowledged French sov- ereignty, though himself confirmed as emir of Oran, Titteri, ajid part of Algiers. But he was