(Ebn Al Khattab) successor of Abu Bekr.—The Mohammedan imposture, like every other falsehood of its kind, copies after the truth as far as was thought convenient or proper; and miracles being the grand proof of revelation, it was to be expected that all pretences to that should assume at least the appearances of them. Few systems of faith are more absurd than Mohammed's; yet, though he disclaimed miracles, it was supported, as we are told by latter writers, by a variety of them, which, however unfortunately for the creed they were contrived to support, are too trifling, absurd, and contradictory, to deserve the smallest attention.

They tell us, but upon grounds too vague and indeterminate to command belief, that Omar was miraculously converted to this faith; a man he is reported to have been, before this event, truly respectable, and in particular a violent opposer of the Arabian prophet. Mohammed, it seems, felt this opposition and regretted it; he therefore, with the fervour, and as it happened, with the success of a true prophet, according to his followers account, prayed for the conversion of this his dangerous antagonist. Omar, it is said, had no sooner read the 20th chapter of the Koran than he was convinced: upon which he instantly repaired to Mohammed and his followers, and declared his conversion. It is said, that at one time he intended to murder murder the prophet; and various causes are assigned for the prevention of this shocking piece of sacrilege. After his wonderful conversion, the Mohammedan writers inform us that he was fumigated Al Faruk, or the "divider;" because, say they, when a certain Moflem was condemned by Mohammed for his iniquitous treatment of a Jew, and appealed afterwards from the sentence of the prophet to Omar, he cut him in two with his scimitar, for not acquiescing in the decision of so upright a judge: which circumstance when Mohammed heard, he gave him the surname of Al Faruk, or "the divider;" because, by this action, he had shown himself capable of perfectly distinguishing between truth and falsehood. Al Kodai affirms, that 39 of Omar's adherents followed his example the same day he professed himself a votary of Mohammed. The conversion of Hamza and Omar Ebn Al Khattab happened in the year preceding the first flight of the Moles into Ethiopia, or the fourth year of Mohammed's mission, according to Abulfeda. He was unquestionably a great acquisition to the prophet, and enabled him to carry on his schemes to far more purpose than he could possibly have done without him, or if he had continued his enemy. Omar at length found his services in the cause he had undertaken sufficiently honoured and amply rewarded; for on the death of Abu Beir, who had succeeded the impostor himself, he was promoted to the regal and pontifical dignity. The title first assigned him was the khalif of the khalif of the apostle of God; or in other words the successor of the successor of Mohammed: but the Arabs considering that this title, by the addition to be annexed to it at the accession of every future khalif, would be too long, they, by universal consent, faulted him the emperor of the believers. Which illustrious title, at this juncture conferred on Omar, descended afterwards to all the successors of that prince. Our readers will not expect us to follow the khalif with minute exactness through the transactions of his reign. This would indeed swell our article beyond all proportion. We shall therefore confine ourselves to some of the leading facts.

His arms appear to have been particularly successful; the Persians he conquered, and Jerusalem submitted to his power; nor does he appear to have been checked in a single instance. In consequence, however, of his success, an attempt was made to assassinate him. The fact is thus related: Wathek Ebn Musafer, a resolute young Arab, was procured by the king of Ghafan, and sent to Medina for this very purpose. Some time after his arrival, observing Omar to fall asleep under a tree on which he had placed himself, so as not to be discovered by any person, he drew his dagger, and was upon the point of stabbing him, when, lifting up his eyes, he saw a lion walking round about him, and licking his feet. Nor did the lion cease to guard the khalif till he awoke; but then instantly went away. This phenomenon struck Wathek with a profound reverence for Omar, whom he now revered as the peculiar care of heaven. He therefore came down from the tree, on which the lion had forced him to remain, kissed the khalif's hand, confessed his crime, and embraced the Mohammedan religion; being so strongly affected with the wonderful deliverance he had been an eye-witness of. His life, however, was at length ended by assassination; for about two years after the conclusion of the Nohawandian war, in which the Arabs probably still farther extended their conquests, though no account of their military operations during that period has reached us, that is, in the 23rd year of the Hegira, according to Abu Jaafar Al Tabari, the khalif Omar Ebn Al Khattab was assassinated by a Persian slave; of which horrid fact the Arab writers have handed down the following particulars: Abu Lulua, a Persian of the Magian sect, whose name was Firuz, one of Al Mogheira Ebn Al Shabaab's slaves, was obliged by his master to pay daily two dirhems, in conformity to the Mohammedan custom, for the free exercise of his religion. Firuz resenting this treatment, complained of it to the khalif, and desired that some part at least of the tribute exacted of him might be remitted; but this favour being refused by Omar, the Persian threatened his destruction; which he soon after effected, by stabbing him thrice in the belly with a dagger, whilst he was in the mosque at Medina performing his morning devotions. The Arabs then present perceiving that the villain had embraced his hands in the blood of their sovereign, immediately rushed upon him; but he made so desperate a defence, that he wounded 13 of the assailants, and seven of them mortally. At last, one of the khalif's attendants threw his vest over him, and seized him; upon which he stabbed himself, and soon after expired. According to Theophanes, this Firuz was an apostate or renegade, and consequently had before embraced the Mohammedan religion; but this assertion is by no means probable; because, on his becoming a convert to Islamism, he must have been manumitted by his master, and on his relapsing into Magism, he would have been put to death by the khalif's order; neither of which particulars are consistent with what we find related by the Arab historians, and even by our Greek chronographer himself. Omar languished three days, and then died, in the month of Dhu'l-hajja, and the 23rd year of the Hegira, which began in the year of our Lord 643. Authors are not agreed with regard to the duration of his khalifat. The Arab historians, whom we are inclined to follow, say that he reigned between 10 and 11 years. Theophanes affirms, that he was murdered in the 12th year of his khalifat, and Dionysius Telamonensis extends the length of his reign to 12 complete years. Only one of the wounds given him by Firuz was mortal, and that he received under his navel. At his death he was 63 years old; which, as we are told by an Arab author, was the age of Mohammed himself, Abu Beir, and Ayeshia, one of the prophet's wives, when they died. When Omar fell in the mosque, Abd'alrahman Ebn Awf, one of Mohammed's first converts, supplied his place during the remainder of the service; and three days before his death, Sahib Ebn Tarif, at his command, officiated for him. His body was interred in Ayeshia's apartment, near that of the prophet Mohammed. We are informed by Eutychius, that during his khalifat he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca nine times. His extensive conquests made the Moflem empire one of the most powerful and formidable monarchies in the world. His disposition is represented to us, with evident partiality indeed, as one of the best possible, and his temperance has always been highly extolled.

OMBRI, a city of ancient Egypt, afterwards called Arsinoe and Crocodilopolis, was the capital of one of the nomes into which that country was divided, and is remarkable, in the annals of idolatry, for the hatred of its inhabitants to the religion of their neighbours the citizens of Tentyra.

The genius of paganism was so complying with respect to the objects of religious worship, that although each nation, each city, and almost every family, had its own tutelar god, we know not a single instance, out of Egypt, of one tribe of pagans persecuting another for worshipping gods different from theirs. The Jews and Christians were indeed persecuted by the Romans, not however for worshipping the true God, but because, together with him, they would not worship Jupiter, Juno, and all the rabble of heathen divinities.

The reason of the almost universal tolerance of idolaters to one another, and of the intolerance of all to the Jews and Christians, is very obvious. Not a single pagan, a very few philosophers perhaps excepted, ever thought of paying his adoration to the Supreme and self-existent Being, but to inferior divinities, to whom it was supposed that the care of particular persons, families, cities, and nations was configned by the God of the universe. The consequence was, that, as no person denied the divinity of his neighbour's object of worship, an intercommunity of gods was everywhere admitted, and all joined occasionally in adoring the gods of the various nations. By the Jews and Christians this communion was rejected as in the highest degree impious; and it could not well be maintained between the citizens of Ombri and those of Tentyra.

That brutes were worshipped in Egypt is universally known (See Polytheism); and Diodorus the Sicilian informs us, in a passage quoted by Eusebius*, that "the cities and nomes of Egypt being at one time prone to rebellion, and to enter into conspiracies against monarchical government, one of their most politic kings contrived to introduce into the neighbouring nomes the worship of different animals; so that while each reverenced the deity which itself held sacred, and despised that which its neighbours had consecrated, they could hardly be brought to join cordially in one common design to the disturbance of the government."

In this distribution of gods he conferred upon Ombri the crocodile, and upon Tentyra the mortal enemy of that monster, the ichneumon. The consequence of which was, that while the Ombites worshipped the crocodile, the Tentyrites took every opportunity of slaughtering him, infomuch that, according to Strabo, the very voice of an inhabitant of Tentyra put the crocodile to flight. This, we confess, is a very improbable fact; but it is certain that the mutual hatred of those cities, on account of their hostile gods, rose to such a height, that whenever the inhabitants of the one were engaged in the more solemn rites of their religion, those of the other were sure to embrace the opportunity of setting fire to their houses, and rendering them every injury in their power to inflict. And what may, to a superficial thinker, appear extraordinary, though it will excite no wonder in the breast of him who has studied mankind, this animosity continued between the inhabitants of the two cities long after the crocodile and ichneumon had lost their divinity.

The conduct of the Egyptian monarch was admirably calculated for preventing the nation from combining against the government; and it extended its influence over the whole kingdom. Diodorus informs us, that he assigned to each nome an animal to worship, which was hated, killed, and sometimes fed upon by the inhabitants of the neighbouring nome; and we know upon higher authority than his, that the Israelites could not offer sacrifices in Egypt, because the bullock was deemed sacred over the whole country.