el Aksa. But political exigencies did what religious enthusiasm had failed to accomplish, and in 684 A.D., in the reign of 'Abd el Melik, the ninth successor of Mohammed, and the fifth caliph of the House of Omawiyah, events happened which once more turned people's attention to the City of David. For eight years the Mussulman empire had been distracted by factions and party quarrels. The inhabitants of the two holy cities, Mecca and Medina, had risen against the authority of the legitimate caliphs, and had proclaimed 'Abdallah ibn Zobeir their spiritual and temporal head. Yezid and Mo'âwiyeh had in vain attempted to suppress the insurrection ; the usurper had contrived to make his authority acknowledged throughout Arabia and the African provinces, and had established the seat of his government at Mecca itself. 'Abd el Melik trembled for his own rule ; year after year crowds of pilgrims would visit the Ka'abah, and Ibn Zobeir's religious and political influence would thus become disseminated throughout the whole of Islam. In order to avoid these consequences, and at the same time to weaken his rival's prestige, 'Abd el Melik conceived the plan of diverting men's minds from the pilgrimage to Mecca, and inducing them to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem instead. This was an easier task than might have been at first supposed. The frequent mention of Jerusalem in the Cor an, its intimate connection with those Scriptural events which Mohammed taught as part and parcel of his own faith, and, lastly, the prophet's pretended night journey to Heaven from the Holy Bock of Jerusalem—these were points which appealed directly to the Mohammedan mind, and to all these ' considerations was added the charm of novelty—novelty, too, with the sanction of antiquity—and we need not, therefore, wonder that the caliph's appeal to his subjects met with a ready and enthusiastic response.