A few years later the “black stone” was restored and the Ka‘abah and Mecca were once more opened for the Mohammedan pilgrims. The Carmathians themselves were suppressed, and their legions dispersed; but the seeds of religious and political heresy were sown broadcast throughout Islam, and were destined speedily to bring forth most disastrous fruit. Since the conquests of ‘Omar and his generals, no successful attempt had been made to recover the eastern provinces for the Grecian Empire; but in the reign of the Caliph El Motí‘ al Illah, a movement was made, which threatened to wrest the sceptre from the hands of the Muslim princes, and restore the pristine glory of the Byzantine arms. Nicephorus Phocas and his murderer, John Zimisces, having successively married Theophania, the widow of Romanus, emperor of Constantinople, though nominally regents, really held the supreme command, and during a period of twelve years (A.D. 963-975) gained a series of brilliant victories over the Saracens. The whole of Syria was conquered, and Baghdád itself would have fallen, but for the prompt measures and stern resolution of the Bowide lieutenant, who compelled his imperial master to provide for the defence of the capital. Satisfied, however, with the rich plunder they had already obtained, the Greeks retired without attacking the town, and returned in triumph to Constantinople, leaving Syria to bear the brunt of the Muslim’s anger and revenge. A bloody persecution of the Christians was the result, and the churches of the East were once more exposed to the assaults of iconoclastic fanaticism. Jerusalem suffered severely in the reaction; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed; and the patriarch, suspected of treasonous intercourse with the Greeks, was taken prisoner and burnt alive. The establishment of independent dynasties in various parts of the empire, by the revolts of the provincial governors, had been for some time a source of danger to the Abbasside power, and ultimately accomplished the downfall of the dynasty. The Aglabites in Africa, the Taherites in Khorassan, the house of Bowíyeh in Persia, had, one by one, fallen off from their allegiance, and the authority of the caliphs extended scarcely beyond the walls of Baghdád; and even in the capital itself they lingered on with fluctuating fortune, alternately the tools or victims of rival factions. The alienation of Egypt—involving, as it nearly always did, that of Syria as well—more immediately affected the fortunes of Jerusalem, and therefore merits a rather more circumstantial account.