AKBAH, a celebrated Saracen conqueror, who over ran the whole of Africa, from Cairo to the Atlantic Ocean. At the beach of tern thousand of the bravest Arabs, he marched from Damascus, and gradually increased his army by numbers of the barbarians, whom he had con quered and converted. Amid the fictions of oriental writers, it is not easy to Ioilow Akbahs through the line of his victories. \Ve know merely that he penetrated with dauntless intrepidity the very heart of the country, and after traversing the wilderness, where his succes sors erected the capitals of Fez and .Morocco, that he carried his arms to the \Vestcrn Occ•an. Distressed at this limitation which nature had set to his brilliant ca reer, lie spurred his horse jtto the ocean, and exclaimed, Great God! if my course were not terminated by this sea, 1 would still advance to the unknown regions of the West, In the unity of my holy name, and putting to the sword the rebellious nations that worship ally other God than thee." A general revolt among the Greeks and Africans recalled him from tou West, and proved the means of his destruction. The insurgents trusted to the revenge of an ambitious chief, woo had disputed the command, and haying holed in his designs was led about as a prisoner in the camp of Akbah. lle
revealed their design, however, to the Arabian general, who, under the impulse of gratitude, unloosed his letters, and gave him leave to retire. The generous chief chose rather to the with his benefactor, vend hay ng embraced each other as fellow martyrs, and broken to pieces their scabbards, they fell by each other's side, after a glorious conflict with the insurgents.
Akbah proposed to establish an Arabian colony in the interior oi Africa, in order to check the barbarians, and secure a place of refuge to the families of the Saracens. He accordingly founded Cairoan, under the title of a Caravan Station, in the 50th year of the Hegira. He en compassed an area 12000 paces in diameter, with a brick wall, and in five years the palace of the governor was encircled with a number of private dwellings ; and a splendid mosque was erected upon five hundred columns of granite, porphyry, and .Nunudian marble. Sec Ock ley's Ih'st. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 129. Leo .1frianus, fol. 75. Shaw's Travels, p. 115. Marmol, Description (le l'..1frivue, tom. iii. p. 33. and Gibbon's Mist. vol. ix. p. 407, 12mo. chap. 51.