Note 548 — Chapter VI

Ommiah, according to Herbelot (sub voce) is the name of a respectable personage among the Arabians, who was the son of Abd-ul-shems, and whose posterity bears the title of benu Ommiah, “the children of Ommiah.” But their celebrity begins with the before mentioned Moaviah; he was the first of fourteen khalifs of this family, who reigned in succession ninety-one years. The last of them was Mervan Muhammed ben Mervan, ben Hakem, and after him there remained of this family but Abd-ur-rahmen, who escaped from the hands of the Abbasides, and later (in 756 A. D.) established the dynasty of the Ommiades in Spain, where fifteen of them held successively the government during nearly two hundred years, until 986 A. D., when the Alides seized the sovereignty of that country.