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14 ABD-EL-WAHAB ABDIAS not content, and in 1839 war was renewed. After desperate fighting, Abd-el-Kader was defeated everywhere; and in 1842 he was driven from Algeria and took refuge in Moroc- co, where he induced the emperor to aid him against the French. But the Moorish ruler, being utterly defeated by the French army at Isly, Aug. 14, 1844, was obliged, in order to save himself from the vengeance of France, to turn against the emir ; and Abd-el-Kader, who now defied both the French and the Moors, soon found himself deserted by all but his own tribe, and beaten at every point. After continuing the contest as long as possible, he was finally captured and sent to Paris in 1848, although he had surrendered only on condition that he should be sent to Egypt or St. Jean d'Acre. He was kept in France until released by Louis Napoleon in 1852, with a pension of 100,000 francs, on condition that he should not return to Algeria or again take up arms against France. He went to Broussa in Asia Minor, and when that town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1855, he removed to Constantinople. He has been since 1852 on the best terms with the French government, and in 1855 visited Paris during the industrial exposition. He subsequently took up his residence in Damascus, where he distinguished himself by generously aiding the Christians during the bloody riots in the sum- mer of 1860. In 1864 he went to Egypt, where he was presented with a piece of land by M. de Lesseps, projector of the Suez canal. During this journey he was also made a member of the order of Freemasons. In 1865 he went to England, and in 1867 attended the great ex- position in Paris. In 1870 he offered his sword to the French against the Germans, but the offer was declined. In October, 1871, he ad- dressed a lettei to M. Thiers declining to visit France on the ground of ill health, but making suggestions relative to the condition and gov- ernment of Algeria. Of his 24 children most have died. One of his daughters has become a convert to Christianity. Abd-el-Kader is the author of a book of philosophico-religious medi- tations, written in exile, in Arabic, and trans- lated into French under the title of Rappel d ^intelligent, Avis d ^indifferent (Paris, "1858). ABD-EL-WAHAB, founder of the Mohammedan sect of Wahabees or Wahabites, born of poor parents, in the Arabian province of Nedjed, about 1691. After long travels through vari- ous parts of Arabia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, he finally taught his new religious doctrines in his native region, and died in 1787. (See WAHABEES.) ABDERA (now Polystilo), an ancient city of Thrace, on the S. coast, at or E. of the month of the river Nestus. It was a flourishing town in the times of the Persian wars with Greece, and preserved its importance under the Ro- mans. Its inhabitants were proverbial for their ignorance and stupidity, from which ill repute they were not saved by the lustre that Demo- eritus, Protagoras, Anaxarchus, and Uecataeus threw around the name of the town as their birthplace. Lucian, La Fontaine, and Wieland have made them subjects of their satire. Coins of this city are numerous. ABDERRAHMAN I., surnamed the Wise, the first ruler of the family of the Ommiyades in Spain, born at Damascus in 731, died in 787. After the massacre of his family in the East he retired to Mauritania, where he re- mained in privacy until he was called to Spain by a deputation of friends, who were tired of anarchy. Abderrahman with a handful of rel- atives landed at Almunecar on the coast of Andalusia in 755, and soon found himself at the head of a large army. He entered Seville, and was acknowledged as sovereign. Next he advanced against Yusuf el-Feri, the most pow- erful of the rival emirs, whose army, though of greatly superior numbers, he entirely de- feated, firmly establishing himself on the throne of Cordova. It was during these in- ternal dissensions in Spain that the Moham- medans were finally driven out of France, and forced to recross the Pyrenees. The eastern caliphs, who always kept up the idea of main- taining the right of spiritual and temporal rule over the Spanish Moors, anathematized Abder- rahman, and despatched two expeditions against him, but in vain. The kingdom of Cordova was at peace when Charlemagne fruitlessly crossed the Pyrenees. Abderrah- man built the magnificent mosque of Cordova, designed by himself, at which he is said to have labored an hour a day with his own hands. He planted the first palm tree in Cor- dova, the stock from which all those now in Spain are descended. ABDERRAHMAN, sultan of Morocco, born in 1778, died in August, 1859. He succeeded to the throne in 1823, on the death of his v.ncle, Muley Suleiman. At his succession the prac- tice of paying tribute to the Barbary states and Morocco by independent Christian states, as a guarantee against piracy, had not ceased ; but Abderrahman was compelled by the Aus- trians in 1828 to abandon the claim. In 1844 the prolonged resistance of Abd-el-Kadcr to the French invasion in Algeria involved Mo- rocco in war with France, and Mogadore and Tangier were bombarded by a French fleet. The contest was terminated by tho battle of Isly, Aug. 14, 1844, in which only Abd-el- Kader's Arabs fought well on the Moslem side. Abderrahman was now compelled to turn his arms upon the Algerian emir, and, having col- lected a large army, finally drove him beyond the frontiers of Morocco into French captivity. Abderrahman was succeeded by his eldest son, Sidi Mohammed, born in 1803. ABDIAS, of Babylon, the supposititious au- thor of a book called Historia Certaminia Apostolici (published at Basel in 1551), in which he asserted that he had seen Christ, that he was one of the 70 disciples, that he had witnessed the deaths of several of the apostles, and that he accompanied St. Simon