II. THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND INFLUENCE OF ISLAM…

II. THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND INFLUENCE OF ISLAM

614–712

Comparative Religion, its Interest as a Study--The Benefits of Islam--Arabia at the Birth of Mohammed--Condition of Christendom and the Byzantine Empire--Popular Idea of the Prophet--His Family--His Early Life--The First Revelation--Persecution of the New Sect--The Hegira--Growing Prosperity of Islam--Character of Mohammed--Causes of His Success--Polygamy--The Koran--Its Arrangement, its Legends, its Sublime Maxims, its Absurdities--Its Obligations to other Creeds--The Kiblah--The Pilgrimage and its Ceremonies--Reforms accomplished by Islam--Universal Worship of Force--Corruption of the Religion of Mohammed--Its Wonderful Achievements--Mohammed the Apostle of God.

The study of Comparative Religion is one of the most fascinating, but at the same time one of the most unsatisfactory, of human employments. In historical research, in mathematical calculation, in chemical analysis, in the investigation of natural phenomena, either absolute certainty or an approximate degree of accuracy is attainable. This, however, is obviously impossible in the consideration of questions with which the eternal happiness or misery of mankind may be concerned. Who is competent to determine the relative value of the various religious systems,--always mutually antagonistic, often irreconcilable,--yet all alleged to have proceeded alike from the fiat of Almighty God? Who is to judge of the peculiar qualifications of those who have arrogated to themselves the important office of passing upon their respective merits? Why should certain doctrines be accepted and others repudiated by zealous but uncritical sectaries?, Where does this presumed inspiration begin and end? To use the words of the Koran, “What is the infallible? And who shall cause thee to understand what the infallible is?” Who, in short, possesses the touchstone of truth?

The experience of all ages, the history of all nations, have established the melancholy fact that systems of religion are, like institutions of human origin, subject to the ordinary incidents of mortality. They have their age of youthful vigor and enthusiasm; their stationary epoch, when their principles have lost their expansive power; their period of degeneracy and decay. Their duration, like that of created beings, corresponds to the degree of vitality which they may possess; their vitality is in proportion to the intrinsic merit of their doctrines, and their adaptability to the moral nature of man. As omniscience is denied to him, his estimate of the value of a divine revelation must necessarily be speculative and uncertain, largely dependent upon his intellectual capacity, and colored by the influences to which he has been exposed. On the other hand, many learned metaphysicians have argued with transcendent ability that faith is not accidental, and merely derived from volition and association, but is a matter of inexorable necessity, in which the will is absolutely powerless. As a result of inherited prejudice, the principles of every religion always appear heterodox, false, and absurd to sincere believers in other forms of faith. Of all theological dogmas, none have suffered more from the effects of ignorance and injustice than those of Islamism. The name of its founder has for thirteen centuries been a synonym of imposture. His motives have been impugned, his sincerity denied. His character has been branded with every vice which degrades or afflicts mankind. The greatest absurdities, the grossest inhumanity, have been attributed to his teachings. Ecclesiastical malice has exhausted its resources in efforts to blacken his memory. Even in our day, comparatively few persons are even superficially conversant with the doctrines which, in less than a century, were able to usurp the spiritual and temporal dominion of a considerable portion of the habitable globe.

The love of novelty which reigns supreme in the human breast is nowhere more striking in its manifestations than in the facility with which men adopt a fresh revelation. No new religion ever lacks proselytes. Imagination, sentiment, hope, fear, interest, combine to induce its acceptance, notwithstanding the obscurity which may invest its doctrines or the illiteracy which often is the most prominent characteristic of its interpreters; and if the conditions which attend its promulgation are not decidedly unpropitious, it is morally certain of success.

Some embrace it through curiosity, others from conviction, many from motives of selfishness. Its power is frequently in a direct proportion to the awe with which it inspires its votaries. As military glory is most admired by the populace, great prestige must of necessity attach to a creed which proselytes by conquest. On the other hand, apotheosis was considered the highest distinction attainable by the heroes and sovereigns of Pagan antiquity. Individuals whose genius had conferred great benefits upon the human race were assigned by public gratitude to a place among the gods. All the Roman emperors from Cæsar to Constantine were deified. An atmosphere of peculiar sanctity invested the eagles grouped in the post of honor in the camp of the legion. The crucifix and the reliquary were borne in the van of crusading armies. A more or less intimate association has thus always existed between the sacerdotal and the military professions. The latter has repeatedly furthered the projects of the former. The priest has rarely refused to absolve the offences of the orthodox soldier. Most religions have, in fact, been established or maintained by force. When we recall the overthrow of Paganism, the successive attempts to recover the Holy Sepulchre, the reconquest of Spain, the Inquisition, the atrocities attending the subjugation of the New World, the utter devastation of Provence and Languedoc, the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we should certainly not subject to invidious scrutiny the polity of Mohammed, whose history is free from the reproach of persecution, and whose supremacy was only partially established by arms.

The examination and criticism of a religion whose canons have been honored with the implicit and reverent obedience of millions of men; whose dogmas have been recognized by the devout of many diverse races as inspirations of the wisdom of Almighty God; a religion which, by the weapons of argument or by the resistless force of enthusiasm, subverted the power and absorbed the leading principles of other creeds whose traditions had hitherto enthralled the world, and which, despite the degeneracy of its practice, the divisions and consequent antagonism of its sectaries, the vicissitudes of many centuries, and the inevitable accidents of war, persecution, and treason, still manifests an astonishing and, to all appearances, an inexhaustible vitality, is a great and arduous undertaking. The story of Islam, by whose influence the natives of the East and West, heretofore hostile, were joined in a bond of fraternal union and guided through a marvellous career of prosperity and glory, is the realization of what would have ordinarily appeared a most extravagant dream of conquest and dominion, and is without parallel in the annals of humanity. In the moral as in the material world, the most perfect and durable forms and systems usually arrive slowly, and by almost imperceptible gradations, at ultimate maturity. But to this rule Islam was a striking exception. It attained the summit of its greatness, and raised the Arabians to an exalted rank in the family of nations, in a shorter period of time than is generally occupied by a people in passing through the primitive stages of their intellectual development.

It refuted the familiar maxim of the Romans, whose foreign policy was based upon the fomenting of dissensions and the subsequent discomfiture of their enemies, and, assailing its adversaries simultaneously on every side, won its way by a series of victories surpassing, in momentous results, the most renowned triumphs of the consuls and the Cæsars. In the traditions relating to the genealogy and history of its Prophet there is much that is enigmatical and much that is romantic. The latter deduced his origin from Ishmael, whom, with his unfortunate mother, Abraham, the acknowledged head of God’s chosen people, had inhumanly abandoned in the Desert to starve.

But in the seventy-one generations which separated Mohammed and Ishmael, a radical change of circumstances had befallen the rival branches of the house of Abraham. The descendants of Isaac, who had been promised the earth for an inheritance, now enslaved or exiled, and proverbial for bad faith, had become reviled and contemned of all men. On the other hand, from Ishmael the vagabond, deserted by his father and renounced by his kindred, had sprung a noble, valiant, and hospitable race, whose destiny was the promotion of civilization and the extension of empire. And in due time the latter, having obtained possession of the opulent regions of the East, tolerated the despised Hebrew only upon payment of tribute, and restricted him to a distinctive costume as a symbol of his degradation. He was compelled, in token of respect, to remove his slippers whenever he passed a mosque, and under penalty of the lash to kneel abjectly in the dust before the haughty Ishmaelite; while the capital of the land from which he had been banished, endeared to him by the memory of his sovereigns and the traditions of his faith, was in the power of his hereditary enemies, whose sacrilegious hands had raised the gilded dome of one of their proudest fanes upon the very spot long consecrated by the most revered associations of his race and his religion. The law of compensation, which controls the fate of man, was at last fulfilled, and retribution, if long delayed, was then exacted with relentless severity.

The benefits wrought by Mohammedans--especially during the Middle Ages--have, until the end of the last century, been silently ignored or studiously depreciated by historians; in some instances through want of information, but, for the most part, because the phenomenal progress of Islam, when compared with the apathetic condition of other religions, suggested a formidable rivalry. But in this age, insatiable of knowledge and equipped with every means of obtaining it, it is no longer possible for clerical intolerance to obscure the splendid achievements of Moslem science. The day has long since past when the labors of astronomers like Ibn-Junis, of historians like Al-Makkari, of philosophers like Averroes, of physicians like Avicenna, and of botanists like Ibn-Beithar, can be treated with obloquy because they were not authorized by the decree of an Ecumenical Council or approved by a bull of his Holiness the Pope.

The history of a religion, the exposition of a form of faith, is not infrequently the memoir of an individual and the chronicle of a race. As a rule, the union of the offices of Prophet and Lawgiver in a single personage deeply impresses the individuality of that personage upon the character of his nation. The annals of the Hebrews are indissolubly bound up with the Holy Scriptures and the precepts of Mosaic law. The mention of ancient Persia suggests at once the texts of the Zendavesta and the ordinances of Zoroaster. The Koran is practically the biography of Mohammed, the tale of his sorrows, his aspirations, his failures, and his triumphs. And what more noble monument could Arabia boast than the proud distinction of having been the home of a prophet and the cradle of a faith for centuries identified with religious toleration, with princely munificence, with scientific investigation, with literary merit,--all intimately associated with her name and with the varying fortunes of her children? The latter, from the first, devoted themselves to the interests of civilization. They settled colonies of skilled artisans in the wake of their armies. They promoted manufactures, encouraged commerce, and in every department of industrial occupation stimulated the efforts of mechanical ingenuity. They developed the science of astronomy. To them chemistry and pharmacy owe their origin. While persevering botanists explored the flora of many lands, the mathematician, in his secluded retreat, expanded and perfected the science of algebra. When a new region was subjected to their rule, all fruits, plants, and herbs, which examination or experience had found to be either edible or curative, were inscribed upon the lists of tribute, and their importation and distribution became compulsory. They branded idleness with contempt; they ennobled labor; and even royalty did not disdain to follow the example of the Prophet, who, with his own hands, assisted in the erection of the mosque of Medina, the first temple of Islam. They translated and preserved for the pleasure and instruction of posterity the immortal productions of the sages of Greece and Rome. They fostered learning, and encouraged its pursuit by maxim, reward, and example, until it became a matter of popular belief, as firmly grounded as the most sacred tradition, that the diligent cultivation of the mental faculties was an imperative religious duty.

In ancient times, to compel the observance of a salutary law, it was connected with public worship and directly sanctioned by the precepts of religion. In this way, hallowed by divine authority, it acquired a force not obtainable by human enactment, and conclusively indicated the wisdom of the sovereign or lawgiver who promulgated it. It was thus with circumcision among the Jews, with the cultivation of the soil in Mesopotamia, and with irrigation in Egypt, where the Nile was deified as the creator and preserver of the harvests and the source of the material prosperity of the nation. Mohammed was not blind to the advantages to be secured by this theocratic supervision of the affairs of mortals, and, by recourse to it, enforced the adoption and practice of many healthful customs and profitable employments whose effects upon the subjects of his successors were of the greatest importance.

The contagion of superstition, the impression produced by the grandeur of scenery, and the periodical recurrence of mysterious natural phenomena must always be attentively considered in determining the philosophical belief and religious tendencies of a people. Intimate relations with Egypt, sustained for a vast but unknown period of time, have left ineffaceable traces upon the traditions of Arabia. In the religious system of the former country there was one Supreme Being. All other divinities were but manifestations of his majesty and omnipotence concealed under different names. From him emanated the multifarious triads, the personification of the Nile, the countless array of gods to whom the days, the months, and even the very productions of the earth, were sacred. The great secret that these inferior deities were mere abstractions proceeding from a common Essence, to be eventually absorbed into it,--a fate to which even the soul of man, after divers transmigrations, was subject,--was jealously guarded by the Egyptian priesthood, and was the chief of its famous mysteries. The Sabeans of Yemen, instructed through their mercantile relations with the inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile, had long been familiar with the idea of a Supreme God and the personified attributes of His power and dignity. This doctrine had spread from the South, and, at the date of the advent of Mohammed, underlay the idolatrous worship of which Mecca was the centre, and whose ramifications extended in every direction to the borders of the Peninsula. A considerable number of the more intelligent Arabs who professed adherence to the religion of Abraham, yet, in fact, knew nothing of that religion except that it was monotheistic, repudiated all forms of idolatry, and styled themselves Hanifs--a word variously defined as “Incliners” and “Heretics.” The Manichean conception of the Spirit of Darkness--or, in other words, that important and enterprising personage the Persian devil, without whose presence no modern creed would seem to be complete--was also unknown to the ancient inhabitants of Arabia. As the idea was imported,--no branch of the Semitic race having been originally acquainted with it,--it probably travelled in the train of Cambyses when he invaded the Desert; although Iblis, the Arabic name by which this spirit is popularly designated, is evidently of European derivation and a corruption of the Greek Διάβολος.

Nor have the physical features of the landscape less to do with the formation of man’s moral impressions, and the direction of his impulses, than the reciprocal interchange of the ideas of contiguous nations. This is apparent in even a greater degree than the influence of soil and climate in the modification of his physical aspect and temperament. The more imposing those features, the more profound the emotions they excite; and, partly for this reason, Asia, which Nature has endowed with the most stupendous manifestations of her energy, has been prolific of those superstitions which have exercised the most extensive and lasting dominion over the human mind.

For more than a century before the birth of Mohammed, the most deplorable ignorance had obscured the face of the Christian world. The gentleness and beauty of the religion of Jesus had been supplanted by the direst fanaticism; its altars had been profaned by heathen sacrifices and the adoration of images; its priesthood had become inconceivably corrupt and immoral. The countless sects evoked by the machinations and worldly ambition of the clergy had, by mutual recrimination, revolting crimes, relentless persecution of their adversaries, and obstinate refusal to listen to any plan of reconciliation, almost destroyed the faith of reasonable men in every religion. Each of these sects had a leader who was regarded by his followers as endowed, to a greater or less degree, with that mysterious power conferred by divine inspiration. Disputes, frequently settled by massacre, were constantly maintained upon abstruse and frivolous questions in their very nature unanswerable; the precepts of justice and the laws of morality were contemptuously disregarded; and the sacerdotal class, instead of setting an example of piety and moderation to its congregations, was conspicuous in the daily saturnalia of rapine, lust, and murder. The Church had long since departed from the simplicity and purity of its original institution. For a century only after the death of the Saviour it had remained free from the influence of schismatic doctrines. While in comparative obscurity and acknowledged weakness, it offered no inducements to the disturbing spirit of fanatical innovators or to the selfish schemes of political aggrandizement and ecclesiastical ambition. In the beginning, divided into a number of federated republics practically independent, yet bound together by a common interest, governed by their own laws, relying upon their own resources, guided by the wisdom of their own ministers, their thoroughly organized polity, their obstinacy, their claims to superior holiness, naturally excited the odium of the Pagan populace, and frequently provoked the wrath and the interference of Imperial authority. From a condition of meekness, humility, and self-abnegation, the Church had become the prey of hostile factions, and was already tainted with scandal. Its synods were polluted with the blood of contending sectaries. Its councils resounded with the unseemly disputes and mutual recriminations of prelates more ambitious for the attainment of supreme power than for the discovery of divine truth. The Trinitarian controversy had nourished prejudices which centuries of apparent tranquillity had failed to eradicate. The spirit of persecution, incomprehensible to the polytheists, the essence of whose creed was universal toleration, and who could not appreciate the motives impelling the Christian to the employment of force to establish his doctrines, had early begun to manifest itself. Monasticism, synonymous with ignorance and intolerance, represented the sentiments and hopes of the most degraded of the populace in every community of the Empire. At Alexandria and Nicea it had forced, by weight of numbers and by turbulent demonstrations of violence, the adoption of some of the most important articles of Christian faith. In every ecclesiastical feud it had invariably espoused the cause of bigotry and imposture. The monk of the sixth century united in his character the inconsistent attributes of the priest and the politician, the saint and the demagogue. His retreat in the solitude of the desert was visited by thousands of weeping penitents, suppliants for the doubtful but cherished privilege of his blessing. With his companions, armed with clubs and stones, he fomented disorder in the streets of great capitals. His voluntary renunciation of the follies of the world was no bar to his greed of power. He dictated the policy of the Church. He settled involved points of casuistry. He formulated canons of ecclesiastical discipline. He enforced the claims of his faction by intrigues, by corruption, by the commission of the most revolting crimes. He aspired to and often attained the episcopal dignity. The superior numbers, the fanatical spirit, the unanimous resolution of his order, gave him a preponderating influence in the Church not to be heedlessly resisted. Before the imperial organization of the Papacy, the monk was the dominant factor in the determination of the laws, the measures, and the regulations of Christendom.

It must be remembered that at that time there was no established, centralized, sacerdotal authority. Nevertheless, for more than a century, imperial officials, designated for that purpose, had determined the degrees and inflicted the punishment of heresy. Confiscation, banishment, torture, and death threatened all who refused to subscribe to the doctrines which, varying with different reigns, were promulgated as the momentary and uncertain standards of orthodoxy. The incomprehensibility of a dogma was considered an infallible indication of its truth. The philosopher was then, as now, stigmatized as the implacable enemy of religion. A reign of terror overspread the empire. Every scholar became an object of suspicious aversion. His neighbors shunned his company. The clergy anathematized him from the pulpit. Informers dogged his footsteps and intruded upon his privacy. Indifference to religious duties, or an unguarded statement frequently distorted by malice, was a sufficient cause for imprisonment. The discovery of an heretical passage in a volume of his library rarely failed to provoke a sentence of death. Such measures, equivalent to a proscription of knowledge, produced the most lamentable consequences. Literary occupations became to all intents and purposes criminal. Everywhere valuable collections of books were hastily consigned to the flames by their owners, apprehensive of being compromised by their contents. Oratory, except that of the pulpit, could not survive such restrictions. Public sentiment, controlled by ecclesiastical prejudice, became inimical to the maintenance of even ordinary institutions of learning. A blind reverence for the Church, and a disposition to enforce obedience to its mandates by the merciless employment of the secular arm, were popularly regarded as the duties of every member of society. It was the ominous inauguration of that fearful power which afterwards culminated in the irresponsible despotism of the Vatican.

The Roman Pontiff had not yet stretched forth his mighty hand from the seat of ancient empire to allay dissension, and to enforce obedience to the edicts of the greatest hierarchy that has ever arisen to enchain the intelligence and repress the independent aspirations of mankind. The final decisions of councils had not been formulated upon controverted points of doctrine. The Patriarch of Constantinople--first in ecclesiastical precedence, yet almost rivalled in pomp and prestige by the great episcopal dignitaries of Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage--exacted with difficulty the reverence of the giddy and scoffing mob of the capital, and could not always maintain the dignity of his office, even in the presence of his sovereign, who was sometimes a skeptic and often a tyrant. Nor was the civil power, to which the ecclesiastical system was still jealously subordinated, in a less degraded condition. The authority of the Emperor was persistently defied in the precincts of his own palace, which, with the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, had become the theatre of the treasonable plots and licentious intrigues of infamous combinations of every class and nationality, and where a portentous union of monks, eunuchs, and women reigned unquestioned and supreme. A cumbrous and pompous etiquette; a theatrical display of costumes and devices; a court swarming with buffoons and parasites; an atmosphere of cowardice, duplicity, effeminacy, and corruption had supplanted the high sense of national honor, the austere dignity, the proud consciousness of superior manhood which, in the early days of republican simplicity and imperial grandeur, marked the exercise of Roman power. The incursions of pirates, which the diminished naval power of the emperors was inadequate to check, had driven commerce from the sea.

Intestine broils, and the lawless conduct of the barbarian soldiery who chafed at the restraints of discipline, and whose incessant and exorbitant demands upon the imperial treasury had aided not a little to impoverish the country, rendered agricultural operations unsafe and unprofitable, and land was no longer tilled except in the immediate vicinity of large cities. Whole provinces, which, under the Romans, had flourished like a succession of gardens, now abandoned and uninhabited, were growing up with forests and relapsing into the wilderness of primeval times. The dire effects of barbarian warfare were conspicuous in every province of the Empire. The fruits of centuries of civilization had disappeared with the conditions which had been favorable to their maturity and to the political corruption and moral degeneracy which, more than the fortunes of war, had contributed to their annihilation. The proud title of Roman citizen, once coveted alike by foreign princes and aspiring plebeians, had been erased from the tables whereon were inscribed the most exalted distinctions of nations. Society no longer wore the alluring aspect which it had exhibited under the luxurious dominion of the Cæsars. The patrician, deprived of property and freedom, reluctantly swelled the train of barbaric pomp in the city which had been the scene of his extravagance, his tyranny, and his vices. The slave who had fled to the camp of Alaric or Attila now ruled in the palace which had formerly witnessed his humiliation, and was served by the children of those who but a few months before had made him the victim of their cruelty and caprice.

The face of the country, repeatedly overrun by swarms of ruthless savages, presented a picture of hopeless desolation. The trail of the Gothic or Lombard marauder could be traced by heaps of whitened bones, by dismantled cities, by ravaged fields and fire-swept hamlets. The beautiful temples of antiquity, which had survived the decay of Paganism and the assaults of Christianity, were defaced or ruined. The exquisite memorials of classic art, the triumphs of the Grecian sculptor, were broken and scattered. Vases, whose elegance and symmetry had called forth the admiration of all who beheld them, had been melted for the sake of the bronze and silver of which they were composed. The gardens which had been the pride of the capital had been trampled under the hoofs of the Gothic cavalry. Here and there, amidst a heap of blackened ruins, arose a crumbling wall or a group of tottering columns, which alone remained to mark the site of a once magnificent shrine of Venus or Apollo. The repression of general intelligence and individual ambition among the masses had always been a leading maxim of imperial policy. No system of education was provided. All exertion was discouraged. The populace was for generations provided with food and amusement by the government. There was no inducement to mental or physical activity. The natural march of human destiny, the improvement of man’s physical and social condition, was arrested. Enjoyment of the comforts of life rendered labor unnecessary. The paternal supervision and generosity of the sovereign made the criticism, or even the discussion, of public affairs irksome, ungrateful, dangerous. There being no longer any incentive to progress, society, in obedience to the organic law of its existence, began to rapidly retrograde towards barbarism; a condition to which the division of the people into castes--noble, plebeian, mercantile, military, and sacerdotal--greatly contributed. Through ideas of mistaken piety, and allured by the prospect of idleness and comparative ease, a multitude of able-bodied men had withdrawn from the occupations of active life to the seclusion of the cloister, whence they issued at intervals, when summoned to raze some Pagan temple; to influence, by the terror of their presence, the vacillating spirit of an ecclesiastical assembly; or to wreak the pitiless vengeance of their superiors upon some virtuous philosopher whose intelligence was not profound enough to grasp the meaning of a theological mystery. The enterprising general who had raised himself from a subordinate command in Britain to the imperial throne, and who, for reasons of state policy, had adopted and made compulsory the ceremonial of a religion whose benign precepts the base profligacy of his whole life insulted, possessed at least the stern and rugged virtues of a soldier. His effeminate descendants, however, both ignorant and careless of the arts of war and government, and devoted to the practice of every vice, had abandoned the administration to the perfidious and venal instincts of their retainers and slaves. Through the incompetency of the rulers, the insatiable ambition of the priests, and the unbridled license of the mercenaries who composed the bulk of the army, all desire of the majority of the people--in which was, of course, included the useful classes of farmer and artisan--for the improvement of their circumstances had yielded to a sluggish indifference to their fate. In a few generations social isolation became so thorough that the community of thought and interest indispensable to national prosperity ceased to exist; and this seclusion of caste, increasing in a direct ratio with rank, finally fastened upon the most noble families the stigma of exceptional ignorance. Indeed, in the palace itself, whence ecclesiastical bigotry had expelled all valuable knowledge, the education of princes was entrusted to nurses and domestic servants, whose pernicious influence was speedily exhibited in the superstitious fears and arrogant behavior of their pupils, the future masters of the Roman Empire. The fusion of races had produced mongrel types, in whose characters were developed the most objectionable and vicious traits of their depraved progenitors. Constant intercourse with barbarians had transformed the polished language of Homer and Plato into an uncouth dialect, where the gutturals of the Danube, mingling with the scarcely less discordant accents of the Nile and the Rhone, had overwhelmed the copious and elegant idiom of the Greek poets and historians. The fanaticism of an intolerant sect and the weakness of a succession of impotent sovereigns had extinguished the spirit of Pagan philosophy and ancient learning.

Since the erection of the famous church of Saint Sophia--the final effort of the genius of Byzantine architecture--that art had fallen into desuetude, and such of the famous structures of the ancients as survived were used as quarries, whence were derived the materials for the basilica and the palaces of the wealthy and luxurious patriarch and bishop. But this, unhappily, was not the worst of the prevalent evils of the time. An organized conspiracy against learning existed, and was most active in those quarters where education, however imperfect, should at least have suggested the importance of preserving the priceless remains of antiquity. The art of making parchment had, with many other useful inventions, been lost, and, in consequence, writing materials had become rare and expensive. The monk, too idle to invent, but ever ready to destroy, soon devised means for supplying this deficiency. Invading the public libraries, he diligently collected all the available manuscripts upon which were inscribed the thoughts of classic writers--of whom many are now only known to us by name--and, erasing the characters, used their pages to record the legends of his spurious saints and apocryphal martyrs. It is not beyond the range of probability that the original books of the New Testament, falling during these evil days into the hands of persons ignorant of Greek, may have undergone a similar fate; which hypothesis may also account for the thirty thousand different readings of which learned divines admit that the Gospels and Epistles are susceptible. The manifold and prodigious achievements of Roman civilization--its palaces, its temples, its amphitheatres, its aqueducts, its triumphal arches; its majestic forums, with their colonnades of snowy marble adorned with the statues of the heroes, the philosophers, the legislators of antiquity; its military roads; its marvels of mechanical engineering; its magnificent works of art; its eternal monuments of literature; the graceful legends of its mythology, perpetuated by the genius of the sculptor in creations of unrivalled excellence; the glowing words of its orators which stir the blood after the lapse of twenty centuries; the prestige of its conquests; the wise principles of its civil polity, generally enlightened, often audacious, always successful--were but trifles in the eyes of the debased Byzantine when compared with a fragment of the true cross, or a homily preached by some unclean and fanatic anchorite upon the metaphysical subtleties of the Trinity or the theological value of a diphthong.

Such, then, was the condition of the Christian Church and the Byzantine Empire at the close of the sixth century; to such a deplorable extent had barbarian encroachment, social corruption, and sectarian controversy undermined the foundation of both Church and State. In spite of its degradation, the latter represented the highest embodiment of mental culture and political organization which had survived the incessant depredations of barbarian armies and the demoralizing effects of generations of misrule; where the character of the monarch, both before and after his elevation to the throne, was dominated by the passions and infected with the vices of the most wicked and infamous of mankind. Throughout Europe the state of affairs was even more deplorable. The Goths were masters of the continent, and the Vandals, traversing the Spanish Peninsula and planting their victorious standards upon the northern coast of Africa, had, after the commission of atrocities which have made their name proverbial, driven the descendants of Hannibal and Hamilcar into the desert and the sea. The schools of Athens--that sole remaining seat of philosophical discussion and free inquiry in the world--had been suppressed, a hundred and fifty years before, by Justinian. The descendants of the Cæsars, stripped of their splendid inheritance and reduced to degrading vassalage, cowered beneath the scowling glances of the skin-clad savages who had issued in countless numbers from the forests of Germany and the shores of the Baltic. The effigies of the gods, the masterpieces of the skill of the Augustan age, had been tumbled from their pedestals, and the fetichism introduced by the strangers had been superseded by a corrupt form of Christianity scarcely less contemptible and fully as idolatrous. Rome had twice been sacked; Milan had been razed to the ground; prosperous seaports had fallen into decay; the fairest fields of Italy had been made desolate, her highways were overgrown with grass, her aqueducts were broken, her fertile Campagna, once the paradise of the capital, had become a pestilential marsh, whose vapors were freighted with disease and death. Among the miserable, half-famished, and turbulent population of the cities, riot and sedition were frequent, but were hardly noticed by the haughty barbarian ruler, so long as the outbreak did not seriously menace his life or his dignity. Civil war, relentless in atrocity, completed the devastation begun by barbaric conquest and servile tyranny. The army, filled with traitors, offered no warrant for the stability of government. Informers, that pest of a decadent state, swarmed in the Byzantine capital. Oppressive taxation, enforced by torture, impoverished the opulent. Promiscuous massacre, instituted upon the most frivolous pretexts, intimidated the poor. There was no loyalty, no sense of national honor, no appreciation of the mutual obligations of prince and people. The martial spirit which had been the distinguishing characteristic of ancient Rome was extinct. The proverbial discipline of the legions had been supplanted by license and disorder. Immunity from foreign incursion was secured by the ignominious and obnoxious expedient of tribute. Yet, in the midst of this accumulation of horrors which threatened the total destruction of a society already thoroughly disorganized, numbers of resolute men existed in every community who, while despoiled and oppressed, had not entirely abandoned themselves to despair, and in the minds of many of these, imperceptibly to the masses, and, indeed, scarcely discernible save by the most acute and sagacious observer, a great moral revolution was passing. The misfortunes which had befallen in succession the Pagan and the Christian religions had weakened the hold of both upon the reverence and affections of the multitude. Persons familiar with the Gospels, and with whom the Apocrypha claimed as much respect as the remaining portions of the Scriptures, looked forward to the coming of a reformer, known as the Paraclete, or Comforter, repeatedly promised in the Bible, whose mission was to restore to mankind, in its pristine purity, the truth as expounded by Christ. The material advantages which might accrue from the realization of this prediction were fully appreciated by the heads of a considerable number of contemporary sects--among them the Gnostics, the Cerintheans, the Montanists, and the Manicheans, each of whom confidently asserted that he was the heavenly messenger referred to and that all others were impostors. The Gospel of St. Barnabas is said, upon very respectable authority, to have originally contained the word Περικλῦτὸς, “Illustrious,” instead of Παράκλητος, “Comforter;” and to have been subsequently altered, with a view to checking the increasing number of claimants to divine inspiration, whose pretensions were becoming troublesome and dangerous. Moslem ingenuity has shrewdly availed itself of this prophecy, which popular credulity accepted as a direct announcement of the coming Mohammed, whose name, “The Illustrious,” is the Arabic equivalent of Περικλῦτὸς. It is also stated in the most ancient chronicles that a prophet called Ahmed, or Mohammed, had for centuries been expected in Arabia, where the Gospels were widely distributed; and it is therefore possible that a word written in an unknown tongue, a thousand miles from Mecca, may have had no inconsiderable share in determining the political and religious destinies of a large portion of the human race.

All things considered, perhaps no more auspicious time could have been selected for the announcement of a system of belief which based its claims to public attention upon the specious plea that it was not an innovation, but a reform, the purification of a mode of worship which had been practised for ages. It is usually far easier, because more consonant with the prejudices of human nature, to introduce an entirely new religion than to engraft changes, no matter how beneficial, upon the old. Mankind regards with eager curiosity a recent communication from Heaven, yet instinctively shrinks from serious interference with the time-honored ceremonial and revered traditions of a popular and long-established faith. But in Arabia, as has already been remarked, while there were innumerable shrines and temples and a host of idols, there was in reality no deep-seated religious feeling. The prevalent worship was maintained through the influence of long association rather than by any general belief in its truth, its wisdom, or its benefits. The claims of kindred, the maintenance of tribal honor, and the inexorable obligation of revenge had far greater weight with the Bedouin than the respect he owed to the factitious observances of his creed or the doubtful veneration he professed for the innumerable deities of his pantheon. The absurdity of their attributes, the inability of their gods to change or to resist the operations of nature, had long been tacitly recognized by the Arabs. Their idols partook of the character of the fetich, whose favor was propitiated with gifts, whose obstinacy was punished by violence. Long familiarity had lessened or entirely abrogated the awe with which they had once been regarded. The system which they represented had fallen behind the intelligence of the age, limited though that might be amidst the prejudices and superstitions of the Desert. A wide-spread and silent, but none the less vehement, protest against polytheism had arisen. At no time in the history of the Peninsula had been evinced such a disposition for reconciliation and compromise. In Arabia, therefore, as well as in the other countries of Asia, the season was eminently propitious to the promulgation of a new religion.

The ignorance of the natural talents, general characteristics, and daily habits of the Prophet of Arabia almost universally prevalent, even among persons of education and of more than ordinary intellectual attainments, is extraordinary; especially when the abundant facilities for information upon these points are considered. No name in history has been subjected to such fierce assaults by sectarian bigotry and theological rancor as his. The popular idea of Mohammed is that he was a vulgar impostor, licentious, cunning, brutal, and unscrupulous; periodically insane from repeated attacks of epilepsy; given to the practice of fraudulent miracles; a monster, who hesitated at no crime that would further his ends; who wrote a book called the Koran, which is full of sensual images, and describes heaven as a place especially set apart for the unrestricted indulgence of the animal passions. In former times public credulity went still farther, and Christian writers of the eleventh century, and even later, were in the habit of representing the greatest of iconoclasts--who excepted from the clemency of the victor only the adorers of fire and of idols--as a false god; a conception which, indicated by the familiar word “mummery,” has been incorporated into our language. Afterwards he was considered merely as a propagator of heresy, and, punished as such, he figures in the immortal work of Dante:

“Poi che l’un pié per girsene sospese, Maometto;”

and, finally, the absurdity of ignorance having reached its culmination, he was described as a camel-thief, and an apostate cardinal who preached a spurious doctrine through envy, because he had failed to reach the coveted dignity of Pope! Motives of ecclesiastical jealousy and religious intolerance led also to the suppression of information and the falsification of truth respecting the Koran. Hardly one person in ten thousand has read a translation of it; indeed, this feat has been repeatedly declared an impossibility, on account of the monotonous and prosaic character of its contents; nor has one foreigner in a million perused the original, which, it may be added, cannot be appropriately rendered into another tongue. No complete rendition of this famous book into a living language was made for eleven hundred years after the death of Mohammed, and to-day not more than a dozen versions, all told, exist. It has been, moreover, a rule, subject to but few exceptions and those of recent date, that translations, commentaries, and analyses of the Koran, edited by misbelievers, have been written with the express design of casting odium upon the Prophet and his followers. Under such unfavorable circumstances, an impartial examination of the doctrines of Islam was impossible to one not versed in Arabic, and the public mind, which received its impression of such subjects largely from the pulpit, obstinately refused to consider any view which was at variance with its preconceived opinions. To obtain a competent idea of the principles, the virtues, and the defects of the religion which he established, it will not be unprofitable to glance for a moment at the salient points of the career and character of this wonderful man, the most prominent of his country, and the most illustrious of his race.

Among the ancient tribes of Arabia, highest in rank, most esteemed for intelligence and courage in a nation of poets and warriors, and renowned for a generous hospitality, was that of the Koreish, the hereditary guardians of the temple of Mecca. Proud of their distinguished ancestry and of the exalted position they enjoyed by reason of their office, which its religious functions invested with a dignity not inferior to that of royalty itself, and superior to all other employments in a country where the jealous independence of the people precluded the exercise of kingly power, the influence of the Koreish over their countrymen was unbounded. The annual pilgrimage to the Bait-Allah, or “House of God,” when hostilities were suspended, and devotees and merchants, rhymers and thieves, met upon a common equality in the enclosure of the temple--an occasion which is said to have called together the brightest minds of the Peninsula to contend in friendly rivalry for the prize of literary distinction--was the most important event of the year to the Arabian, and was particularly advantageous to the perpetuation of the wealth and authority of the Koreish. Some of the tribe enjoyed the exclusive privilege of distributing water and provisions among the pilgrims during their sojourn in the Holy City--an employment originally gratuitous, but afterwards a lucrative monopoly; others had charge of the buildings of the shrine; others, again, were the custodians of the sacred banner, which was only raised upon the occasion of the annual re-union of the Kaaba, or when the safety of Mecca was threatened by war or sedition. The Koreish, moreover, aspired to a state of petty sovereignty; they despatched embassies to the neighboring tribes, made treaties, established regulations for the departure and arrival of caravans, which secured an organized, and consequently a more safe and profitable, traffic with surrounding nations, and exercised a nominal jurisdiction in both civil and religious matters over the entire Peninsula. Elated by their success, and by the homage universally paid them, they boldly abrogated many of the ancient ceremonies connected with the national worship, and substituted others better calculated for the advancement of their pecuniary interests or the gratification of their political ambition. Some of these new regulations were unjust, and, as may be easily conjectured, were accepted with great reluctance by a population so opposed to innovation and impatient of restraint as that of Arabia; and the fact that they were adopted without serious disturbance shows conclusively that the attachment of the Arab to the gods of his country bore no approximate ratio to the awe with which he regarded their powerful guardians. In time, however, the rivalry of influential chieftains of the various divisions of the tribe produced mutual distrust and enmity; dissensions became frequent, and the national influence of the Koreish, which the hearty co-operation of their leaders could alone sustain, began to be seriously impaired.

Of one of the haughtiest clans of this distinguished tribe--the Beni-Hashem--was born, in the year 570 of the Christian era, Mohammed, known to misbelievers as the False Prophet, and to the Moslems as the Messenger of God. A strange fatality, which is evidently based upon something more substantial than the uncertain authority of tradition, appears to have attended his family both before and after his birth. The household of his grandfather, Abd-al-Muttalib, although it contained several daughters, could boast of only one son,--a circumstance which, to a man of noble birth, in a country like Arabia, where a chieftain’s consideration was founded upon the number of his male descendants, where female relatives were classed with camels and horses as chattels, and were often buried alive to get rid of them, was looked upon as a disgrace as well as a misfortune. In bitterness of spirit, the sheik betook himself to the Kaaba, and invoked the aid of Hobal, the presiding genius of the assembled deities of the nation. At the conclusion of his supplications he promised that, if ten sons should be born to him, one of them should be sacrificed upon the altar of the god. The prayer was answered, and in due time inexorable religious obligation demanded the fulfilment of the vow. Accompanied by his sons, Abd-al-Muttalib again approached the shrine of Hobal, and the customary lots having been cast, the god made choice of Abdallah, who subsequently became the father of Mohammed. Abdallah was the favorite of his parents and the idol of his kindred; his manners possessed a rare fascination; he excelled the most accomplished of his tribe in the arts of poetry and eloquence, and his manly beauty has been celebrated by the extravagant praise of his countrymen. Appalled at the prospect of losing his best-beloved child, Abd-al-Muttalib was in despair, when the shrewdness of a female diviner proposed an ingenious solution of the difficulty. The established compensation for homicide, when the injured family was willing to accept one, was ten camels; and the prophetess suggested that Abd-al-Muttalib again consult the deity, in the hope that he might be propitious and consent to receive the less valuable sacrifice. The mystic arrows were once more shaken and drawn, and, for the second time, Abdallah was devoted to death. The father doubled the number of camels with the same result; but, nothing daunted, persevered until the tenth lot had been drawn, when the god deigned to accept the costly ransom. Thus upon the cast of a die depended the regeneration of the Arabian people, the conquest and subversion of the Byzantine and Persian empires, the impulse of modern scientific inquiry, and the future hopes of the Moslem world!

Mohammed was a posthumous child. His father died while on a journey to Medina, and left to his widow Amina little save the memory of his domestic virtues, and a reputation for manly courage and unblemished integrity. The boy passed his early years, as was the custom at Mecca, with one of the tribes of the Desert, where the coarse fare and active life of the Bedouin developed and strengthened a frame naturally robust and vigorous. At the age of five he returned to his mother’s home, where, within a few months, he was left an orphan. His grandfather Abd-al-Muttalib then took charge of him until the death of the former two years afterwards, when Mohammed was taken into the family of his uncle Abu-Talib. The successive bereavements of relatives to whom he was devotedly attached had no small effect in determining the character of the future Prophet, already thoughtful and reserved beyond his years, and imparted a permanent tinge of sadness to his life. When he grew older he was employed by his uncle as a shepherd, an occupation considered by the Arabs as degrading, and only proper to be exercised by slaves and women. In his twenty-sixth year his handsome face and figure, and his reputation for honesty, which had acquired for him the flattering title of Al-Amin, “The Faithful,” attracted the attention of Khadijah, a wealthy widow and a distant relative, who made him a proposal of marriage, which he accepted. Khadijah was forty years old, and had already been twice married; yet for twenty-five years which intervened before her death--and long after she must have lost her attractiveness--Mohammed never failed in the duties of a constant and affectionate husband. She bore him six children, four girls and two boys, of whom the daughters alone survived the period of infancy. When he reached the age of forty, a great change came over Mohammed, and there appeared the first positive indication of his aversion to the established worship of his country. His mother, who seems to have been a woman of highly excitable temperament, had transmitted to him a hypersensitive condition of the nervous system, which developed occasional attacks of muscular hysteria, a disease rarely affecting the masculine sex. Long accustomed to abstinence, contemplation, and revery, he contracted the habit of seeking solitude, to muse upon the moral condition of himself and his countrymen; and as he grew older, and especially after his fortunate marriage had removed the necessity for labor, the passion for dreaming grew upon him. He often betook himself to Mount Hira, where a recluse once had his abode; and for days at a time, with but little food and depriving himself of sleep, in tears and mental agony, he strove to solve the problem of divine truth. As continued fasting, excitement, and solitude inevitably produce hallucinations, it was not long before Mohammed believed himself visited by an angel, the bearer of celestial tidings. Doubtful at first of the significance of these startling visions, and in his enfeebled condition easily terrified, he fancied he was possessed by devils, and was almost driven to suicide. Finally, mastering his emotion, he returned to Mecca, and from that time visitations of the angel--who declared himself to be Gabriel--were frequent. In the original revelation, Mohammed was addressed as the “Messenger of Allah,” and was directed to preach the unity of God to his erring and misguided countrymen. His converts in the beginning were very few and composed of the members of his own family, his wife being the first believer. The new doctrines made slow progress; apprehension of the summary interference of the ruling powers made the proselytes cautious, and they rehearsed its texts behind locked doors and in the most private apartments of their houses. At the expiration of four years the adherents of Islam had only reached the insignificant number of thirty-nine souls. But now Mohammed grew bolder; expounded his doctrines before the Kaaba itself; openly advocated the destruction of idols, and denounced the unbelieving Arabs as devoted to the horrors of everlasting fire. The impassioned oratory of the Great Reformer had at first no appreciable effect. Most of his auditors regarded him as under the influence of an evil spirit; some ridiculed, others reviled him; but respect for his family and a wholesome dread of blood-revenge protected him from serious violence. In vain did he depict in words of thrilling eloquence the joys of heaven and the tortures of hell; his exhortations were lost upon the skeptical Arab, whose religion was a matter of hereditary custom, and who, in common with the other members of the Semitic race, had no belief in an existence beyond the grave. At length his denunciations became so furious as to raise apprehensions among the Koreish that their political supremacy, as well as the lucrative employments of their offices, might be endangered. A solemn deputation of the chiefs of the tribe waited upon Abu-Talib, the head of the family to which Mohammed belonged, and demanded that the daring apostate should be delivered over to their vengeance. This Abu-Talib, although himself an idolater, without hesitation, declined to do, and, in consequence of his refusal, the entire clan of the Beni-Hashem was placed under an interdict. No one would trade or associate with its members, and for two years they were imprisoned in a quarter of the city by themselves, where they endured great hardships. Nothing can exhibit more prominently the family attachment of the Arab and his high sense of honor than the self-sacrifice implied by this event, for it must not be forgotten that the large majority of those who suffered with Mohammed had no confidence in the truth of his mission, but were still devoted to the idolatrous and barbarous rites of the ancient faith.

The cause of Islam had received a severe blow, and the threats and armed hostility of its adversaries boded ill for its future success. The Moslems who did not belong to the Koreish sought refuge with the Christian king of Abyssinia, who peremptorily refused to surrender them upon the demand of an embassy from Mecca. At length, through very shame, the interdict was removed; the members of the imprisoned band came forth once more to mingle with their townsmen, and the exiles were permitted to return in peace. But persecution had not intimidated Mohammed, and his condemnation of idolatry and its supporters increased in violence. His uncle and protector, Abu-Talib, having died, his position daily became more critical. A fortunate occurrence, however, soon opened an avenue of escape. Some years before, a handful of the people of Medina had secretly embraced his doctrines and sworn fealty to him as their temporal sovereign. Their numbers had greatly increased, and now, in acceptance of an invitation tendered him by these zealous proselytes, Mohammed prepared to withdraw from the midst of his enemies to the proffered asylum at Medina. The inhabitants of the latter city, who were principally agriculturists, were heartily despised by the Meccans, who considered every occupation but those of war, plunder, and the cheating of pilgrims derogatory to the dignity of an Arab. The irreconcilable rivalry between the two principal towns of the Hedjaz had much to do with the adoption of Islam by the Medinese. The influence of the numerous Jews of Medina had materially affected the religion of that locality, and their predictions of the speedy coming of the Messiah, and the bestowal of the possessions of the Gentiles upon his chosen people, had attracted the attention, and at times aroused the fears, of the idolaters of that city. When, therefore, the report was circulated that a prophet had arisen at Mecca, the Medinese naturally concluded that he must be the Messiah expected by the Hebrews, and they determined to forestall the latter by being the first to extend to him a welcome, and thereby secure his favor. It was from these motives that the alliance between Mohammed and the citizens of Medina was concluded; an alliance whose results were little anticipated by the parties to its provisions, and whose importance has been disclosed by the portentous events of many subsequent centuries. Intelligence of this proceeding having reached the Koreish, they prepared for decisive measures, and held a meeting, in which, without apparently taking any precautions to conceal their design, the assassination of Mohammed was resolved upon. The latter, having received timely warning, escaped by night, with his friend Abu-Bekr, and, concealed in a cave in the mountains, eluded the vigilance of his enemies until a few days afterwards they found means to reach Medina. This event occurred in the year 622 A.D., and, marking the era of the Hegira or “Flight,” is, as is well known, the starting-point of Moslem chronology. Its usefulness, however, anticipated its legality for three hundred years, and it was not publicly authorized by law until the tenth century.

On his arrival, the first care of the Prophet was the erection of a mosque and the institution and arrangement of the ritual of Islam; the next, the reconciliation of the two hostile Arab factions whose tumults kept the city in an uproar; and the third--the only task in which he was unsuccessful--the conversion of the Jews. Hardly was he domiciled at Medina before he abandoned the continence which had hitherto adorned his life and placed his character in such a favorable light when compared with the excesses of his libidinous countrymen, and by degrees increased his harem until it numbered, including wives and concubines, nearly a score of women. And now appeared also other changes of a religious and political nature, when the humility and patience of the preacher were eclipsed by the ambitious plans of the sovereign, eventually realized in the proselytism of entire nations and the intoxication and glory of foreign conquest. The employment of force had never been mentioned at Mecca, but the vexations, contempt, and ill-usage of years had borne bitter fruit, and at Medina was received the first revelation commanding the propagation of Islam by the sword. At first desultory attacks were made upon caravans; then followed the engagement of Bedr, where three hundred believers defeated a thousand of the Koreish, and the battle of Ohod, which ended with the wounding of Mohammed and the total rout of the Moslem army. The blockade of Medina, undertaken three years later by the chiefs of Mecca, ended disastrously for them, as the fiery Arab could not be brought to endure the restraint and inactivity incident to the protracted operations of a siege. Next came the expulsion of the disaffected Jews from the city, a measure not unattended by acts of injustice and sanguinary violence, but imperatively demanded by the requirements of political necessity. The power and prestige of Mohammed now grew apace; tribe after tribe joined his standard; distant princes sent him costly gifts and voluntarily tendered their allegiance; and in the year 630--the eighth of the Hegira--he prepared for the invasion of the sacred territory and the conquest of Mecca. Only a short time before, guarded by two faithful companions, he had fled from the Holy City with a reward of a hundred camels and forty ounces of gold upon his head; now he returned in royal state, at the head of ten thousand warriors, most of whom would have gladly laid down their lives at his command, and all of whom acknowledged him to be the Apostle of God. Before this imposing array, inspired with the fervor of religious enthusiasm, resistance was hopeless. The people fled to their houses and to the sanctuary of the temple, and the invading army occupied the city. The rights and property of the citizens were respected; there was no massacre and no pillage; no violence was offered, except to the images of the Kaaba, which were shattered to pieces without delay or opposition, for the idolaters viewed with but little emotion the destruction of the tutelary deities of many generations, whose inability to protect their worshippers had been so signally demonstrated. With a magnanimity unequalled in the annals of war, a general amnesty was proclaimed, and but four persons, whose offences were considered unpardonable, suffered the penalty of death. When the various ceremonies consecrated by the usage of centuries and destined henceforth to form an integral part of the Moslem ritual had been accomplished, and the Pagan altars in the vicinity of Mecca had been swept away, Mohammed set forth to subdue the remaining tribes that disputed his authority. A single battle sufficed; Tayif, the sole important stronghold that still held out, voluntarily submitted after an unsuccessful siege; and the supremacy of the Prophet was henceforth acknowledged over the Arabian Peninsula. Three months after the subjugation of Mecca, Mohammed, who already seemed to have had a presentiment of his approaching end, accompanied by an immense multitude, performed the pilgrimage which his teachings enjoined as an indispensable duty upon all his followers. Leaving Mecca for the last time, he slowly retraced his steps to the home of his adoption, whose people, more generous than his kinsmen, had received and protected him when a persecuted fugitive, whose factions he had reconciled, who were proud of his renown, and who, despite his kindness and the natural urbanity of his manners, never failed to approach his presence with all the reverential awe due to the possessor of divine favor and supernatural powers. His constitution, though originally fortified by abstinence and a simple diet, had for years given evidence of debility and decay, for his health had been seriously impaired by poison administered by a Jewish captive, whom his magnanimous spirit refused to punish; and, after a short illness, he expired in the arms of his favorite wife, Ayesha, upon the eighth of June, 632.

There have been few great actors upon the stage of the world the events of whose lives have been so carefully preserved as those of Mohammed, although no native contemporaneous writer has recorded his history. And yet there is no man whose talents raised him to extraordinary eminence whose deeds and whose character are so unfamiliar to Christian readers as his. Few know him but as a successful impostor. Many believe him to have been an idolater. Almost all attribute to him indulgence in the most degrading of vices,--cruelty, avarice, licentiousness. Even Christian viceroys who have lived long in Mohammedan countries know nothing of the doctrines and the career of one of the most renowned of reformers and legislators. His personal appearance, his occupations, his tastes, his weaknesses even--a strong proof of the honesty and credibility of the Mussulman narrators--have been related by the latter with scrupulous minuteness. His sayings and the opinions attributed to him, embodied in the Sunnah, are considered by devout Moslems as second only in sanctity to the verses of the Koran, and have given rise to the amazing number of six hundred thousand traditions, which laborious commentators have seen proper, upon doubtful evidence, to reduce to four thousand that may be relied upon as genuine. The study of the Koran, however, affords a better insight into the character of the Prophet than the uncertain and suspicious testimony of the Sunnah. It is the mirror in which are reflected the sincere convictions, the lofty aims, the political experiments, the domestic troubles, the hopes and apprehensions which, through many trials and perplexities, influenced the mind and directed the movements of the author in his career, from the position of a simple citizen of Mecca to the exalted dignity of sole ruler of Arabia. The estimate of Mohammed in the Sunnah, which has been transmitted by his early associates, who knew him well and daily observed his conduct in the time of his obscurity, is nevertheless entitled to far more credit than any opinion that may have been formed without the assistance of tradition by the most capable scholar after the lapse of even a single century. But unfortunately, in many instances, their accounts have been so corrupted by the fabulous embellishments of subsequent commentators as to detract much from their undoubted historical value.

The most conspicuous trait of Mohammed was his absolute inflexibility of purpose. From the hour when he first communicated to Khadijah his belief in his mission, through the long and weary years of mockery, persecution, conspiracy, and exile, during the even more trying period of prosperity and empire, up to the sad final scene in the house of Ayesha, he persevered unflinchingly in the plan which he had proposed for his guidance, and which had for its end the abolition of idolatry, the improvement of his countrymen, and the establishment of the sublime and philosophical dogma of the unity of God. The only rational explanation that can be given of this remarkable conduct in the midst of difficulties and perils which would have shaken the constancy of a mortal of ordinary mould lies in his evident sincerity. The most convincing evidence of his honesty of purpose, his self-confidence, and his earnest devotion, is furnished by the rank and character of his first disciples, and the reverence with which his teachings were received. The early proselytes of all other religions of which history makes mention were ignorant and uneducated, destitute of worldly possessions, without pride of ancestry or title to public consideration. Their ungrammatical harangues were often heard with derision; their credulity excited the contempt of the philosopher and of the hostile priesthood alike. It was even made a subject of reproach to the first Christians--an accusation, however, never conclusively proved--that their numbers were largely recruited from the criminals, the idlers, and the beggars of the Empire. The origin of modern sects has invariably been obscure, and their proselytes of humble rank and servile occupation. Not so, however, with the early followers of Mohammed. They were members of the proud and exclusive aristocracy of Arabia. Their lineage could be traced, in an unbroken line, for more than six hundred years. Their hereditary office of custodians of the shrine venerated by every tribe of the Peninsula gave them immense prestige among their countrymen. Their interest in the preservation of the national worship would naturally prejudice them against innovations which must inevitably diminish their power and curtail their emoluments. Their wealth was not inferior to their illustrious descent and their political and religious influence. Some of them were included among the most opulent citizens of Mecca. The Jewish apostates of Medina possessed the proverbial thrift and intelligence of their race. In that Hebrew colony none stood higher in public estimation than they. The success of Islam demonstrated beyond dispute the superiority of its original proselytes in the arts of statesmanship no less than in the science of war. Great talents were required to encounter successfully the exigencies which attended its institution, and which afterwards repeatedly menaced its permanence. The high character of such disciples is a positive indication of the purity of their motives and the sincerity of their belief. Men are not liable to be readily imposed upon by claims to divine inspiration asserted by their intimate associates. Distance and mystery are far more propitious to the success of a religious teacher than the familiarity which results from close acquaintance and diurnal scrutiny. It is a common error to attribute the spread of Mohammedanism entirely to the agency of force. Military success was undoubtedly a powerful factor in the accomplishment of its destiny. The sword was peculiarly esteemed in Arabia. The steel of which it was composed was, in a country where no iron was produced, the most valuable of metals. The prodigious nomenclature by which that weapon was distinguished was an indication of its national importance, and of the potency of its effects entertained by those by whom it was wielded. It represented the martial spirit of the Arab,--the ruling incentive of his life, the inspiration of his predatory exploits, the glory of a long succession of cherished traditions. A mystic significance attached to it, which, in time, assumed a religious character, and rendered its employment, according to popular belief, acceptable to the omnipotent and invisible Deity of Arabia. These ideas descended to the Moslems, and promoted, in no small degree, their energy and their enthusiasm. But force alone could never have enabled a tumultuous horde of barbarians, unaccustomed to concerted action and impatient of the restraints of military discipline, to overwhelm three great empires in less than a century. The policy of Islam was at first more conciliatory than menacing. It preferred to inculcate its principles by argument rather than to provoke opposition by invective. It disclaimed the invention of new dogmas, but labored to reconcile its tenets with those of its venerated predecessors. It discouraged proselytism by violence. Whatever it could not abolish or modify, it adopted; whatever it could not appropriate, it ruthlessly destroyed. National decrepitude; the universal decay of religious belief; the dexterous adaptation of alleged prophecy; the hopeless condition of the devout, terrified by the fierce animosity of contending sects; the impossibility of ascertaining the correctness of the Gospel amidst the confusion of doctrines and the multiplicity of versions; the political disorders resulting from barbarian ascendency; the abrogation of the offensive distinctions of caste; the mysterious fascination which attends the unknown; the prospect of wealth, renown, and empire held out to aspiring genius; the guaranty of independence of thought and immunity from persecution--grouped under the banner of Mohammed the disorganized and exhausted nations of the mediæval world. The tenor of his life until the first revelation was that of a man of unimpeachable morality. Already in his youth he had been distinguished by the significant appellation of The Faithful. His marital relations until after the death of Khadijah were without reproach; a fact conceded by his most implacable enemies. A profound knowledge of human nature, an appreciation of the spiritual requirements of his countrymen--upon whose minds the doctrines of Zoroaster and of Christ had made no permanent impression--enabled him to fabricate a system demonstrated by experience to be admirably fitted to the taste, the genius, and the superstition of the Oriental. Without a supreme conviction of the genuineness of his mission he could never have impressed his teachings upon the minds of the satirical and incredulous Arabs, or have secured proselytes among his kindred, to whom his daily intercourse would have soon revealed sentiments and conduct wholly inconsistent with his pretensions as a medium of divine authority. And yet, with all the sincerity of his convictions, he thoroughly distrusted himself. He repeatedly affirmed that he was but a man, a preacher, a reformer, whose mission was the regeneration and the happiness of mankind. In spite of his realistic descriptions of heaven and hell, he declared that he was ignorant of what was in store for the soul after death. The spirit which consolidated a hundred vagrant tribes distracted by the feuds of centuries, deaf to offers of compromise and peace, so jealous of every infringement of their personal liberty that they resented even the benignant and patriarchal rule of their chieftains, into a powerful empire; which noted the glaring absurdities of contemporaneous creeds, and offered in their stead an idea of the Deity so simple, and yet so comprehensive, that no mind, however bigoted, could conscientiously reject it; which moulded into an harmonious system the jarring interests of antagonistic races, and, by its maxims of toleration, conciliated those sectaries who denied the authenticity of its principles, and refused compliance with its ceremonial; which, in consonance with ideas of policy far in advance of the time, united the functions of ruler and priest without apparently giving undue prominence to either; which founded a religion that has endured for nearly thirteen centuries, and has claimed the devoted allegiance of a thousand million men, can hardly with propriety be said to have been created by the irrational and selfish impulses of insanity or imposture. Rather may these results be designated the operations of a master-mind actuated by a lofty ambition; a mind capable of solving the most perplexing questions of statecraft, and endowed with a degree of political wisdom not often exhibited by even those few whom the voice of history has invested with the proud title of artificers of nations.

Much has been written and spoken by persons having important material interests to subserve, possessing limited knowledge of the subject, and with little inclination to use even that knowledge with impartiality, concerning the physical weakness which, at irregular intervals, affected the Prophet. It has already been alluded to as a form of muscular hysteria, an affection peculiar to delicate, nervous organizations, whose attacks are generally evoked by sudden and intense cerebral excitement, and a physiological phenomenon belonging to the same class as somnambulism and catalepsy. It is but temporary in its effects; and while its symptoms are not dissimilar to those of the “falling sickness” of the Romans, the patient does not lose consciousness, and neither the origin nor the continuance of the disease implies even a temporary impairment of the mental faculties. In view of the thorough investigations of medical scholars, the generally received opinion, fostered by ignorance and religious prejudice, may be pronounced erroneous; even if the efforts of enlightened historical criticism had not already established beyond contradiction that to the Byzantines, who enjoyed a world-wide reputation for accomplished mendacity, is to be attributed the popular fable of the epilepsy of Mohammed.

In personal appearance, Mohammed did not differ from his countrymen of gentle blood. His head was large, his chest well developed, his limbs slender but sinewy, and his whole frame capable of the exertion of enormous strength. A heavy beard reached half-way to his girdle, and his coal-black locks, slightly curling, fell down upon his shoulders. He had the purely Semitic cast of features; the dark eyes gleaming with half-hidden fire, the thin aquiline nose, the brown complexion, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. While his expressive physiognomy indicated the possession of a high order of mental power, the sensual, as is often the case with men of extraordinary genius, was visible to an abnormal degree side by side with the intellectual. His gait was rapid and his movements energetic; his manners quiet, but pleasing: his address affable; while his commanding presence, and his proficiency in all the winning but superficial arts of the courtier, heightened by his calm and impressive demeanor, displayed to advantage the graces and charms of his eloquence. Though habitually grave and taciturn, he was easy of access to the vilest outcast; and it was said of him that he always left his hand in that of an acquaintance until the latter had withdrawn his own. His liberality was boundless, and often subjected his household to serious inconvenience; his gentle disposition is shown by his fondness for children, and his humanity by the repeated injunctions of the Koran relating to the treatment of animals. The degrading passion of avarice had no part in his nature; with immense treasures at his command, his establishment was inferior to those of his followers, and the greater part of his income he bestowed upon the poor. His tastes were always simple and unpretending; and even after he had been raised to sovereign power he retained the frugal habits of patriarchal life; his house was but a hut of sun-dried bricks and palm branches, to which a leathern curtain served as a door. So humble was he in everything that did not concern the dignity of his prophetic office, that he even mended his own sandals, cared for his goats and camels, and at times aided his wives in the performance of their domestic duties. Ever constant in friendship, he early secured, and preserved until. death, the attachment of those who were associated with him, whether equals or inferiors, both of whom he treated with the utmost consideration. Such was his self-command and perfect control of his passions that he never struck an enemy save in the heat of battle, scolded a servant, or punished a slave. So far from assuming supernatural powers, he absolutely disclaimed their possession, and no public teacher has ever displayed less self-assurance and dogmatism. As a ruler and a politician, his measures were taken with tact and prudence; as a commander, he displayed in the field considerable military capacity; and it is undisputed that flagrant disobedience of his orders was the cause of his early reverses. He had the strictest ideas of the responsibilities that pertain to the administration of justice; the poorest suitor, however trifling his cause, never failed of a hearing; and he threatened with the severest penalties those who refused the settlement of their pecuniary obligations. While inculcating the crowning merit of good works, he recommended their concealment, and resolutely discountenanced all pharisaical display of pious affectation or pretended virtue. He was slow to resent an injury and quick to pardon an offender,--a signal mark of cowardice in the opinion of the Arab; timely submission and an appeal to his generosity rarely failed to disarm his short-lived hostility; and those who began by being his most implacable enemies ended by becoming his loyal and devoted champions. His magnanimity and the profound knowledge of the human heart which stamped him as a leader of men were evidenced by his noble conduct and princely liberality to the Koreish after the conquest of Mecca. In a word, the brighter side of the character of Mohammed needs no higher eulogy than is revealed by the definition which he has left us of charity, a virtue which he never ceased to practise: “Every good act is charity; your smiling in your brother’s face, your putting a wanderer in the right way, your giving water to the thirsty, your exhortation to another to do right, is charity. A man’s true wealth hereafter is the good he hath done in this world to his fellow-men. When he dies, people will inquire, ‘What property hath he left behind him?’ But the angels will ask, ‘What good deeds hath he sent before him?’”

With all the greatness of Mohammed there was mingled not a little of the frailty incident to human nature,--a considerable portion of which, however, is to be credited to his want of education and to the superstitious prejudices of the age in which he lived. He abhorred darkness, and feared to be left alone without a light; he cried like a child under the slightest physical suffering; he was an implicit believer in the virtues of even numbers, and lived in constant apprehension of sorcery; while the evil-eye was to him, as to the most ignorant of his countrymen, a calamitous and dreaded reality. His conduct was frequently regulated by dreams and omens; some of the latter being not less puerile than those evoked by the arts of divination which he so resolutely condemned. He was guilty of petty affectations and exhibitions of weakness scarcely to be expected in one of his genius and position; he dyed his hair and stained his hands with henna, and displayed an amusing self-consciousness and vanity when in the presence of any of the female sex. He was inordinately jealous, and to this failing, for which history has admitted that at times he had sufficient cause, is to be attributed the seraglio, the veil, the escort of eunuchs, and the seclusion of women. His polygamous connections, which have elicited the censure of European casuists and theologians, were, in the main, measures adopted for political effect; for by these matrimonial alliances he cemented his influence and extended his power. While it would be vain to deny his amorous susceptibilities,--for we have his own testimony that of all things he loved women and perfumes,--it must be remembered that he controlled his passions until after middle life; and it is certainly less worthy of remark that he should have permitted himself the indulgence of a harem, than that, with his opportunities, he did not abandon himself to unbridled and vicious indulgence. The moral aspect of polygamy, moreover, seems to vary with the locality, and to be after all only a question of latitude. In the scorching heat of the torrid zone, which causes no appreciable deterioration in man’s virility and endurance, woman matures when but a child in years, and is old and wrinkled long before her partner has reached the prime of life. Again, as is well known, the passions of Orientals are far stronger than those of Western nations, bearing to each other a ratio approximating to that of the warm-blooded mammalia to the sluggish reptilia, the voluptuous temperament of the Arabs is repeatedly mentioned by classic writers, and under the tropics the imperious demands of nature may not be disdained or neglected save in the cavern of the starving and emaciated anchorite. The civil institutions of the East have from time immemorial legalized the custom of polygamous marriage, and the words monogamist and Oriental are antithetical, and imply a contradiction in terms. Though distinguished ethnologists maintain with considerable acumen that polyandry is one of the first phases of social existence, their inferences are for the most part merely speculative; for history seldom, if ever, has recorded such alliances, and this apparently anomalous condition of family life is now found only in Thibet and Hindustan. The sacred books of the dominant religions of the world, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan, all of which are of Asiatic origin, either openly sanction polygamy or sedulously refrain from denouncing it. Every one knows that it is universal in China and India; the Zendavesta recognizes it; the student of history and legend need not be reminded of its prevalence among the Children of Israel; and the law of Islam permits its practice under certain wise and equitable restrictions. The Bible, from beginning to end, has not a single word to offer in condemnation of it; indeed, in the days of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, its utility in the lands where it prevailed appears to have been unquestioned. Although our ideas of social and domestic happiness do not tolerate this custom, which the rigor of our climate renders unnecessary and, in a measure, revolting; still, we should not attempt to measure by our arbitrary standard of propriety the habits of nations formed under far different circumstances, and satisfied with institutions consecrated by the experience of a hundred and fifty generations; nor can we, with justice, subject to our rigid canons of theological and political ethics the sentiments and actions of an illiterate man, bred among semi-barbarians, and who died nearly thirteen hundred years ago. While Mohammed shared with his countrymen all their cynical distrust of the feminine character, he is the only lawgiver claiming divine inspiration who has ever made any effort to improve the condition of women by restricting polygamy, and by the imposition of regulations which admit of no evasion without a forfeiture of legal rights. The beneficial effects of these ordinances in placing restraints upon divorce, in securing to widows immunity from destitution, and in preventing female infanticide, contribute of themselves no inconsiderable addition to the prestige of his name. Far more serious than superstitious weakness, the foibles of vanity, or predilection for women, are other accusations which have been brought against the Prophet. The employment of bravos and the assassination of prisoners, which, if not ordered, are said to have been at least connived at and rewarded by him, are ineffaceable stains upon his character; and it must be confessed that the evidence tending to establish the commission of these sanguinary deeds is but too well founded. They only indicate, however, that, while Mohammed was far in advance of his age, the passion for blood, esteemed the cardinal virtue of an Arab, had not been eradicated from his breast after a life devoted to prayer, alms-giving, and benevolence. The invocation of divine authority in the Koran to justify deeds of which even the lax morality of the age disapproved, while the exigencies of the occasion might have to some extent excused them, is also, under any circumstances, extremely discreditable. The glory of Mohammed consists in the fact that he fully realized the moral and political necessities of his people, and opened for them a career of unprecedented brilliancy; that his efforts for their substantial improvement, reacting, in turn, upon other nations utterly foreign to the Arab blood and language, will be felt to the end of time; that he abolished many cruel and degrading customs; that he elevated and dignified the character of all who received his teachings, and left devout worshippers of a single God those whom he had found polytheists and idolaters.

The Koran is believed by Mussulmans to have been delivered by the Almighty, through the angel Gabriel, to Mohammed, who communicated it orally to his companions as it was revealed, whence is derived its name, “Recitation.” Having thus a divine origin, it is considered sacrilegious by the Moslem Pharisees to question the authenticity or propriety of any of its statements, or to criticise its manifold contradictions, repetitions, and absurdities. As knowledge of writing was at that time a rare accomplishment in Arabia,--it being asserted by many scholars that Mohammed himself never acquired it,--only scattered portions of the revelation were inscribed upon such materials as fragments of leather, stones, palm-leaves, and the shoulder-blades of sheep, and the remaining verses and Suras, as they fell from the lips of the Prophet, were impressed upon the marvellously retentive memories of his auditors. In the course of events many of the latter were killed in battle, and the Khalif Abu-Bekr, fearing the loss of the sacred texts, took measures to collect and preserve them in a permanent form. When Othman was raised to the Khalifate, many different readings had already arisen from this manuscript; and innumerable editions, each claiming superiority and producing endless controversy and scandal, were distributed throughout his dominions. To secure uniformity, he caused copies of the first edition to be made, and all others not agreeing with the latter were destroyed; so that the work as published under the auspices of Othman is the Koran as we possess it, the spiritual guide of all true Moslems. It is not voluminous, containing only a little more than half as much matter as the New Testament, and is composed of one hundred and fourteen Suras, or chapters, grouped together apparently without any attention to rational connection or chronological order, and wherein the same sentiments are expressed and the same legends are repeated time and again. An attentive perusal of a translation of this book is an arduous task, and even in the original it is an undertaking well calculated to exhaust the patience and application of any one but a Mussulman theologian or saint. The compiler began with the longest chapters and ended with the shortest ones, the reverse order in which they were revealed, which suggests the hypothesis that the Koran may have been at first written in some language other than Arabic, and in which the characters were read from left to right. It is also suspected, upon plausible grounds, that the sacred book has suffered interpolations and omissions made in the interest of the successful faction to which Othman belonged; a theory which has gained credence from the well-known corruption of the Scriptures by the Jews. Be this as it may, no means of comparison existing, as in the case of the different versions of the Bible, the conclusions of the critic must necessarily be drawn from the internal evidence afforded by the text itself; a mode of examination at best but unreliable and unsatisfactory. Moslems love to cite the Koran as the one miracle of Mohammed, on account of its purity of language and perfection of style; leaving out of consideration its chaotic condition, its anachronisms, and the desultory, monotonous, and disconnected rhapsodies with which it abounds. Having no diacritical points to indicate the vowels, its meaning is often ambiguous, and seven different readings exist, all of which are admitted by theologians to be correct. Though written in the dialect of Mecca, the most polished of the Arabic tongue, it contains, nevertheless, many grammatical errors; probably traceable to the illiterate persons from whose recollection was obtained much of the first compilation, and whose words, taken down verbatim, would obviously require correction, which the scribe naturally hesitated to make through fear of sacrilege. In view of the suspicion not unjustly attaching to the motives of those who revised it, and which, to a certain extent, affects its authenticity as a whole, it is scarcely proper to subject the volume to searching and invidious criticism. Nor is it creditable to attribute to the teachings of Mohammed doctrines adopted by subsequent Moslem theologians which he would probably have been the first to condemn. The bulk of the Koran is composed of Jewish and Christian legends; rules for the ceremonial of Islam; excuses for the conduct of the Prophet when the indignation and suspicious temper of his followers threatened his ascendency; the foundation of a code of law, and a large number of moral precepts breathing a spirit of enlightened piety, impartial justice, and self-abnegation, unsurpassed by any collection of maxims ever offered for the guidance of mankind. The popular anthropomorphic idea of the Deity is rejected, all His physical attributes being now regarded as figurative; triads are classed with idols as manifestations of polytheism; and the exalted conception of God without equal or rival is perpetually impressed upon the mind of the reader in phrases glowing with the fire of religious zeal and impassioned eloquence. The poetic talent of the untutored Arab appears in all its wonderful perfection in the Koran, and yet Mohammed did not acknowledge his possession of this faculty, and persistently discouraged its exercise as a reminiscence of Paganism. Throughout the entire volume no assumption is made of divine powers by the Prophet; the ability to work miracles is especially repudiated by him as unnecessary for religious conviction, and is mentioned as an unavailing and unprofitable accomplishment of his inspired predecessors. The prevalent idea that a blind fatalism is inculcated in the pages of the Koran is a fallacy. The entire substance of its teachings is contrary to this doctrine, and would be worthless if belief in it were enjoined; passages constantly occur admitting the exercise of the utmost freedom of will, and thoroughly inconsistent with any theory depending upon the foreordained destiny of man. The fact is that the misapprehension of the meaning of Islam--absolute resignation to the will of God--is responsible for this perverted principle, which, like the crescent now universally adopted as a Moslem religious symbol, is an invention of the Turks, and was absolutely unknown as such to the early followers of Mohammed.

To the Kaaba, whose deities had received the pious homage of so many centuries, an additional importance was communicated by its adoption as the central point of Mussulman worship. In time it became invested with a mystical character resembling the personification of a female principle of faith, which, while anomalous in the practice of Islam, is so familiar to the constitution of almost all religions. A black covering representing a veil, and renewed each year with impressive ceremonies, screened the sacred building from the public gaze. A guard of eunuchs, fifty in number, the dignity and importance of whose office, as custodians of the shrine, entitled them to the superstitious reverence of the devout, were in constant attendance. In these singular regulations, which suggest both the adoration of the Virgin and the restraints of the harem, can be detected an expression of the innate and irrepressible desire of mankind for a material representation of feminine divinity.

The licentious character alleged to belong to the Mohammedan paradise has provoked much unreasonable vituperation from those who are unfamiliar with the literary peculiarities and highly imaginative temperament of the people of the East. The mind of the Oriental has ever delighted to wander in the mystic realm of parable and allegory. His sacred books, from the Zendavesta to the Koran, abound with examples of this method of impressing important truths, and even the lighter productions destined to beguile his leisure are not free from it. No educated Mussulman believes, no candid and well-informed Orientalist thinks, that the famous houris, with their unfading charms, their graceful presence, their intoxicating embraces, and their peculiar physical endowments, are anything more than the shadowy personages of allegorical imagery. Allusion is made to them in terms of vague and mysterious import susceptible of various construction; and, even if we should admit the belief in their actual existence, and adopt a literal interpretation of the verses relative to this recompense of the blest, the descriptions of their attractions are not comparable in minuteness of detail and carnal suggestiveness to the voluptuous inspirations of the Song of Solomon, which no reader, however credulous, will venture to construe otherwise than as an allegory. In the romantic and highly embellished visions of the Koran, uncultivated Moslems, imbued with the imaginative credulity of the East, have been only too ready to accept metaphor and parable for absolute fact.

The other pleasures to be found in heaven are connected with what would be most precious and refreshing to the poor and thirsty dwellers in the Desert,--the domes of pearl; the dust of musk; the pebbles of hyacinth and emerald; the sumptuous banquets; the robes of satin and gold; the exhilarating but harmless draughts of generous wine; the forests of stately palms; the everlasting verdure; the luscious fruits; the sparkling fountains; the shady gardens watered by cool and limpid streams. It was not without reason that green became the distinctive color of the returned pilgrim, a color selected by the Prophet as emblematic of the fields and groves of Paradise.

Mohammed, having derived his idea of heaven indirectly from the Chaldean accounts of the Garden of Eden, and that of the devil from the dualism of Persian mythology, borrowed the name and description of the place of torment from the Jews, who denominated hell Ge-Hinnom, literally, the “Vale of Hinnom,” from a fertile and pleasant valley near Jerusalem, which, however, was rendered execrable in spite of its attractions, on account of its being the home of the relentless Moloch, upon whose altar was periodically immolated the flower of the Hebrew youth. The rabbinical division into seven stages, entered by as many gates, and each set apart for a different degree of punishment, is adopted without sensible alteration. If reference to Paradise is seldom made in the Koran, the details of the tortures of the damned are, on the other hand, remarkable for their vividness and frequency, and, conceived by the flights of an unbridled imagination, are delineated with all the earnestness of a mind convinced of their fearful reality.

The Koran, like the Zendavesta, which enjoins the tilling of the soil as an indispensable religious duty, recommends the practice of agricultural pursuits, the extension of commerce, and the foundation and development of every species of manufacturing industry. The encouragement of these occupations, by representing them as praiseworthy and agreeable to God, with a view to their general adoption by a people who had hitherto considered trade and manual labor as contemptible, was naturally a task of considerable difficulty. But expectations of pecuniary advantage, joined to the prospect of individual distinction and national glory, speedily removed this prejudice; especially in a society which contained no privileged classes, and recognized none of the artificial and depressing obligations of feudalism. In consequence of this wise recommendation, the restrictions of caste--which had never prevailed in Arabia to the extent common to the kingdoms of Asia, probably because it possessed no hierarchy and no organized system of government--were eradicated; all employments of an honorable character were placed upon an equal footing; and the merchant and the artisan each enjoyed a degree of dignity, popular esteem, and social importance proportionate to his talents and success.

Although the Koran has been made the subject of interminable commentaries, numbering forty thousand as near as can be estimated, and isolated precepts have been expanded and distorted for the purpose of forming an elaborate system of jurisprudence, it was never intended as a general text-book of law. The few maxims upon this subject which it contains were borrowed partly from the Hebrews, but chiefly from the sanguinary code of the early Arabians. Some, in addition to those above mentioned, grew out of the requirements of particular cases; the majority of them, however, relate to the domestic difficulties of the Prophet and to the regulation of the harem. Notwithstanding the latter preferably adopted the Koran as the basis of his legal decisions whenever it was practicable, it is a well-known fact that after his death the collections of the Sunnah furnished a standard of broader application, and of scarcely less authoritative character, in the settlement of the principles of Mohammedan law.

The Koran commands relief of the oppressed, protection of the defenceless, mercy to the orphan, and kindness to animals. It enjoins the strict performance of engagements, even though entered into with members of a hostile creed; in humiliating contrast with the policy of Catholic Rome, whose children were perpetually absolved from the observance of contracts concluded with infidels. It denounces awful penalties against the murderer and the suicide. In its pages the profound deference that usually attaches to aristocratic birth and distinguished station is ignored; titled insolence is not permitted to assert superiority over the unpretending worshipper, and the monarch and the beggar meet as brethren before the throne of Almighty God. The right of private judgment is repeatedly and authoritatively declared to be the privilege of every believer; the humblest Moslem may place his own interpretation on the texts of the alleged revelation; and his conception of their meaning and application is entirely independent of the edicts of priests or the suspicious decisions of synods and councils.

Abstinence from swine’s flesh and from the blood of all animals is enforced through hygienic considerations arising from experience of the injurious effects of such food in tropical climates; and the requirement of personal cleanliness by frequent and regular lustration has its origin in the same vigilant solicitude for the public welfare.

A marked difference of ideas and phraseology is to be discerned in the Suras delivered at Mecca and Medina respectively; the former being more poetic, inspiring, and defiant than the latter. As Mohammed consolidated his power, the text of the Koran evinced more of the calmness and dignity of the ruler than of the fire of the enthusiast. The earnest desire to make converts of the Jews is disclosed by the appeal to a common ancestry, and by the politic incorporation of Talmudic legends into the holy book which was to replace the Bible; while the signal failure to secure this result is foreshadowed by threats of divine wrath soon to be realized by slavery, exile, and death. Though Arabia was full of infidels, and even a large proportion of the idolaters observed the rites of their religion merely as a matter of form and fashion, and were deeply infected with skepticism, it is singular that Mohammed, in his denunciations of hypocrisy and idolatry, did not utter a word in condemnation of atheistical ideas. The book, moreover, which was to be the guide of a sect whose adherents improved algebra, discovered chemical analysis, and brought agriculture to an unprecedented degree of perfection, contains no science, and only the most rudimentary notions of civil government. According to the Koran, the sun sets in a morass of black mud; water is the element whence all life is derived; and the conceptions of natural phenomena which are gravely set forth in its pages are only worthy of the vagrant fancies of children and barbarians.

Among Orientals the Koran is invariably published in Arabic, the sacred language of the Mussulmans, who are instructed in it during childhood, just as orthodox Jews are early familiarized with the Hebrew tongue. It is not known through the medium of translation in Mohammedan countries unless when the latter is interlined with the original; so that the reader, by comparing the different texts, may have an opportunity to judge of the qualifications and accuracy of the translator. Great luxury is usually exhibited in the embellishment of the sacred volume. Its leaves are blue or purple, odorous with costly perfumes, its letters of gold. Its covers are often studded with jewels. Amidst its interwoven arabesques the name of God appears, repeated thousands of times. No Mussulman handles it without every demonstration of reverence. It almost always bears upon the side an admonition not to touch it with unclean hands; an unnecessary precaution for the devout, whose respect for its contents is indeed not unreasonable, as we may perceive from a single invocation taken at random, and not conspicuous among the expressions of sublime piety to be found upon almost every page: “Architect of the heaven and the earth, thou art my support in this world and the next. Cause me to die faithful to the law. Introduce me into the assembly of the just.”

Islam means substantially the Religion of Peace. From this verbal form are derived the terms Mussulman and Moslem, indicating all who are submissive to the will of God. The commonly adopted appellation Mohammedan is not countenanced by followers of the Prophet, and is of European origin. The Islamitic confession of faith is the simplest known to any creed; it merely involves the repetition of the formula, “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Apostle.” By the acceptance and utterance of this phrase, any one may become a Mussulman; although the observance of the practical duties of prayer, fasting, alms-giving, and pilgrimage, urged with such eloquence in the Koran, are regarded as obligatory upon all professing that religion. Moslems pray five times daily, and before each prayer an ablution must be performed, as a token that the suppliant has cleansed his heart of every vestige of insincerity and impure desire. The Pagan Arabs, as often as they addressed their supplications to their ruling divinity, turned their faces to the rising sun, and when Mohammed instituted his form of prayer, he selected as the objective point, or Kiblah, the temple of Jerusalem, with the design of attracting the Jews; but after the conversion of the latter was seen to be impracticable, and no further reason for conciliation existed, the Kaaba was substituted; and thenceforth the holy shrine of Mecca became the Kiblah of the Moslem faith. During the month of Ramadhan--set apart because in it was communicated the first revelation--a fast is enjoined throughout the domain of Islam, and abstinence from food and drink is required from sunrise to sunset; an intolerable hardship in torrid lands, where the month often falls in summer on account of the constantly retrograding divisions of the lunar year.

The unostentatious bestowal of alms was a duty whose importance Mohammed constantly impressed upon his followers as a cardinal virtue; the Moslem is taxed to the tenth of his income for the benefit of the poor; and if his wealth has been increased through injustice or dishonesty, the penalty of a double contribution is exacted. Pilgrimage, the last of the religious obligations of Islamism, whenever possible, should be performed in person; its observance confers a life-long distinction, and its neglect implies a deplorable want of energy in the believer that may compromise his happiness hereafter.

When the pilgrim enters the sacred territory, which extends for several miles in every direction from Mecca, he lays aside his clothes, performs complete ablution, and dons the Ihram, or Garment of Holiness, which is composed of two long, seamless pieces of cotton cloth, one to be wrapped about the waist, and the other to be adjusted upon the upper part of the body so as to leave the right shoulder bare. All covering for the head is prohibited; a severe restriction under the blazing sun of the Hedjaz. He now approaches the Kaaba, kisses the Black Stone, and makes the circuit of the edifice seven times, repeating certain prayers prescribed for the occasion. Next he drinks of the waters of the holy well Zemzem, which tradition asserts burst forth spontaneously at the feet of Hagar when she and Ishmael were about to perish of thirst in the wilderness. Near at hand is the Station of Abraham, a large stone upon which the Patriarch is supposed to have stood when he built the Kaaba, whither the pilgrim must now resort and perform his devotions. Finally, he leaves the precincts of the shrine and runs seven times between Safa and Merwa, two elevations beyond the walls of the mosque; a ceremony commemorative of the despair of Hagar in her search for water to sustain the life of her suffering child before the fountains of Zemzem were miraculously opened. Upon the eighth day of the Pilgrimage, a mighty host, amounting not infrequently to the number of seventy-five thousand souls, with twenty-five thousand camels and countless other animals for sacrifice, sets out for Mount Arafat, ten miles distant, from whose summit a sermon is preached by the chief imam of the Mosque of Mecca. The sermon concluded, all hurry amidst great confusion to the Valley of Mina, where each pilgrim should cast seven pebbles at three pillars representing the devil, in commemoration of an incident in the life of Abraham. The animals, sheep and camels, are next slaughtered,--a ceremony symbolical of the sacrifice by the patriarch, whose victim, however, is stated by Arabian tradition to have been Ishmael instead of Isaac,--and the pilgrims are then at liberty to resume their ordinary garments, shave their heads, trim their beards, and pare their nails; acts considered illegal before the various rites of the Pilgrimage have been performed according to the prescribed routine.

The visit to the Prophet’s tomb at Medina is not compulsory, but is indispensable to secure the honorable title of Hadj, which confers the privilege of wearing a green turban, and excites the perpetual envy of those unfortunates whose physical incapacity or limited financial circumstances will not permit a journey to the Holy Cities of Arabia.

“Show me a people’s God,” said Euripides, “and I will tell you that people’s history.” To the history of Islam is this significant remark especially appropriate. The Moslem conception of the Deity is one of unapproachable grandeur and sublimity. While placed immeasurably above His creatures, their praise and their petitions are always tendered Him without the officious intervention of a privileged caste, and wherever the hour of prayer may find the worshipper, whether in the retirement of his home, in the noisy bazaar, upon the deck of a vessel in mid-ocean, or amidst the awful stillness and solitude of the Desert.

The practical value and consequent importance of a religion consist not so much by whom or under what circumstances it is alleged to have been founded, but in what it has effected for the happiness and permanent improvement of humanity.

Through the enthusiasm inspired by its exalted ideas of Almighty power, Islam extirpated idolatry so thoroughly, that in the second generation after it was promulgated men feared even to mention the names of the false gods of their fathers. It made cannibalism detestable, and swept away human sacrifices, with which the Arabs had been familiar for a period whose commencement was long anterior to the days of Abraham. It softened the asperities of warfare; extended to the vanquished the advantages of instant liberty and prospective distinction, upon the sole condition of conversion; it protected the unfortunate captive from violence, and abolished the shocking practice of mutilation of the dead. Its hostility to the spirit of feudalism insured the protection and freedom of every degree and profession of mankind. It elevated the position of woman; repressed the unblushing licentiousness prevalent in the Age of Ignorance; formulated an equitable law of divorce, where separation had been previously a matter of caprice; and shielded the wife from the cruelty, avarice, and injustice of the husband. It stamped out, at once and forever, the horrible crime of infanticide. It prohibited not merely the abuse of wine and other intoxicants, but even the slightest indulgence in them. It declared divination and all games of chance to be devices of Satan, whose practice would inevitably cause a forfeiture of Paradise. While countenancing slavery, it ameliorated the condition of the slave, who, under the patriarchal customs of the Orient, enjoyed the familiar intercourse and shared the paternal care of the master; declared his manumission to be the most commendable of acts and the most effective of penances; defined his rights, regulated the measure of his punishment and the amount of his ransom, and established the humane provision that, when sold, the slave-mother should never be separated from her child. It recommended as indispensable duties of the true believer the practice of humility, of resignation, of benevolence. By proclaiming the equality of all men and by the persistent inculcation of the virtues of charity and forgiveness, it gradually weakened, and ultimately abrogated, the law of blood-revenge, which the Bedouin had been accustomed to consider his most cherished privilege; a right whose violation, according to popular opinion, involved the honor of his tribe and the assertion of his manhood. It liberated property from the arbitrary impositions of a horde of petty chieftains, who levied excessive tribute to the infinite detriment of commerce, and imposed a single tax--the tenth of the increase--understood and acquiesced in by all. It punished mercilessly the abuses which arose from the unprincipled exactions of usury, and, by the enforcement of laws of unexampled rigor, guaranteed the safety of travellers in regions where successful robbery had been a mark of personal distinction, and where the outrage of private rights was still the unquestioned prerogative of every inhabitant whose arm was more powerful than that of his neighbor. Attaching the highest importance to habitual cleanliness, it commended its daily observance, and, to avoid a plausible excuse for neglect, it suggested the use of sand, as symbolical of water, in localities where the latter could not be obtained. It admitted into its ceremonial the wise and time-honored custom of circumcision; a purely sanitary regulation, whose important physiological significance every surgeon will readily comprehend. Islam is emphatically a religion of good works, and the believer is constantly reminded that upon the Day of Judgment his meritorious acts and deeds of benevolence will speak eloquently in his favor, although his lips have long been closed in the silence of the grave. No organized body of ecclesiastics, greedy of gain and notoriety and utterly unscrupulous as to the means of obtaining them, thronged its temples; for, in its original purity, it dispensed with a salaried priesthood, and all who read or expounded the Koran in public were expressly forbidden to receive for their services any remuneration whatever. The unseemly contests of sacerdotal ambition, the senseless privations of asceticism, the bloody and turbulent spirit of monastic bigotry, were, by the prudence and foresight of its founder, excluded from its system. Imposing a moderate contribution upon all those in its dominions who declined to abjure the faith of their ancestors, it, upon the other hand, refused to the ministers of other religions, its vassals, the privilege of taxing the members of their congregations without their consent. It impressed upon youth, of whatever rank or station, the obligations of polite and courteous behavior and the unremitting exercise of filial piety. It accorded to every seeker after truth the inestimable privilege of private interpretation and individual opinion,--an inherent right of man refused by Christianity until the time of Luther, who, on account of his advocacy of this innovation, was himself denounced as a Mohammedan; and in certain countries of Europe, not asserted until the seventeenth century, except in secret, and under the threatening shadows of the stake and the scaffold. Unlike other religions, it did not refuse salvation to those who rejected its dogmas. In the presence of the allurements of the seraglio, it still represented continence as the most precious jewel of a believer; but, perceiving the vices provoked by the unnatural restraints of monastic life, it prohibited celibacy, and, for two centuries after the death of the Prophet, the faquir, the santon, and the dervish were unknown. By adopting to a certain extent the primitive code of antiquity, eliminating the evil and retaining the good it contained, it appealed strongly to religious sentiment and national pride, rendered still more binding the virtues of public faith and private hospitality, and, by its repudiation of idolatry in all its forms, concentrated the mind of the devotee upon the compassion, the justice, the infinite grandeur and majesty of God.

A marked peculiarity of Islam is the absence of the female element from its ritual. Even now, in the days of its degeneracy, women have no place in the calendar of its saints; and yet we are aware that among all former, and many contemporaneous, religions the employment of priestesses was common, and female deities were favorite objects of adoration. The Virgin of the Koran--though her immaculate conception was conceded seven hundred and sixty-one years in advance of the decision of the Council of Basel--is, in all other respects, an ordinary mortal, and is far from possessing the dignity and importance of the famous Isis, that fascinating goddess who, banished from the banks of the Nile, was exalted, crowned with her starry emblems, in equal majesty and superior beauty, upon a more gorgeous throne in the imperial city of Catholic Rome.

Mohammed was not exempt from the prejudices entertained by his countrymen towards the sex. The sentimental gallantry and respectful homage tendered its members by Western nations is unknown to the suspicious and sarcastic Oriental. The Prophet declared that the majority of persons he saw in hell during his nocturnal journey were women. But if the power of woman to act directly upon the fortunes of Islam was disdained, her indirect influence in that direction was enormous and undeniable. The harems of the polygamous conquerors at once absorbed the noblest and fairest maidens of the households of the vanquished. The children of these mothers became, without exception, Moslems; and, after the lapse of a generation, the lingering traces of other beliefs disappeared, and nothing but a reconquest and a fresh immigration, or a miraculous interposition of Providence, could have restored the land, so recently subjugated, to its pristine faith.

In religion, as in politics, success is the generally recognized criterion of truth; of the multitude, few have time or inclination for the solution of abstruse theological questions; but substantial results are unmistakable, and even the most credulous are subject to the contagion of example. The successive and dazzling victories of Islam were, in the eyes of its superstitious adversaries, the most convincing argument of the divinity of its origin.

The doctrine of compulsion subsequently associated with Islam was, as already stated, not an original or essential part of its dogma. Mohammed did not advise recourse to the sword until all means of peaceable persuasion had been exhausted, and then only during the continuance of active hostilities. The moral impulse which Islam received as soon as its first victories were won was remarkable and suggestive. It was but the manifestation of the reverence for Force, a feeling which is never eradicated from human nature even in the mostly highly civilized communities. The Roman empire was founded upon this principle, of which it subsequently became the practical embodiment and representative. The successors of the Cæsars, the Khalifs, well aware of its power over the masses, retained and perpetuated its influence, and the scimetar and the Koran usurped the place and dignity of the deposed deities Mars and Hercules. And even in our day we see the evidence of the survival of this sentiment--as old as man himself--in the ceremonies relating to marriage by force among barbarous nations; in the proverbial, yet unconscious, admiration of both sexes--and especially of women--for the soldier; in the applause that greets the espada in the bull-ring; and in the homage and hero-worship accorded to the successful athlete and pugilist.

The mountain region of the Hedjaz, the rocky and barren valleys of Palestine, are insignificant in extent, destitute of natural resources, and without political importance in the eyes of the conquerors and rulers of nations. Yet within their contracted limits were promulgated the three religions which have exercised a predominant influence over the destinies of the most diverse and widely separated races of the globe. The unsocial and repellent character of the institutions of Moses which discouraged proselytism did not prevent the power of Hebrew genius from being felt in every country in which the detested sectaries of Israel established themselves. Christianity and Mohammedanism have by turns disputed the empire of the civilized world. The Khalifs, the spiritual heads of Islam, were long the exponents of intellectual culture, the masters of the fairest regions of Europe and Asia, the discerning patrons of art and letters. The most renowned of the Cæsars, the greatest of modern potentates, were alike inferior in rank and public consideration to the Supreme Pontiffs, who inherited the throne ennobled by the traditions of Roman glory, and whose dignity was confirmed by the omnipotent authority of God. No secular government, worthy of mention in history, has ever been instituted in a region so dreary and inhospitable as that from whence the most powerful and practical forms of faith that have ever enthralled humanity deduce their origin. The changes which all of the latter, in turn, have undergone, present a suggestive commentary on the perishable character of religious systems. The influence of the Babylonian captivity upon Judaism is apparent in every book of the Old Testament and in many of those of the New. We may safely conjecture that Christianity was something very different in the time of Tiberius from what it was in the time of Constantine, and we know what radical changes were made in its canons and ritual by Gregory the Great and Luther. The ancient manuscripts of the Gospels--perhaps destroyed for sinister reasons--have left no data for speculation as to their contents; but it is not unreasonable to at least surmise that the originals did not offer the glaring examples of inelegant diction and barbaric idioms that deform the modern versions. Nor has Islam escaped the fate of its predecessors, the result of the vicissitudes of time, and of the prejudices, weaknesses, and ambition of their votaries. Its distinctive peculiarity was its positive disclaimer of supernatural powers; yet the miracles attributed to Mohammed compose a considerable portion of its sacred literature, which is also oppressed and discredited by a vast mass of preposterous fables, treasured up for centuries in the voluminous body of Islamitic tradition. The simplicity of its creed would seem to effectually preclude all attempts at sectarian division; yet seventy-three sects exist, whose members lose no opportunity to persecute each other with acrimonious hostility. Mohammed execrated idolatry and the arts of the diviner, and denied the merit of works of supererogation; and now relics are suspended in the mosques; omens are sought in the Koran; intercession of saints is daily implored; the Persians worship the Imams; and the Omanites, instead of recognizing the Kaaba, render their obeisance to the Kiblah of their Sabean ancestors, the pole-star of the heavens.

In the Prophet’s attempts to secure the improvement of public morals, his attention was particularly drawn to Mecca as the central point of Islam, whither the believer turns in his daily devotions, and towards which his sightless eyes are directed when his body is deposited in the tomb. But the effects of his salutary admonitions died with him; and the Meccans, relieved from restraint, again became notorious for the excesses which had formerly made the Holy City a reproach even to heathen Arabia. It is a deplorable fact, and one which unhappily affords but too much excuse for the gibes of the profane, that those seats of piety which public opinion has invested with the sacred prestige of celestial influence are the very ones whose population is the most blasphemous, vile, and degraded. The worst Mussulmans of the world are the Arabs of the Hedjaz, as the Italian populace has ever been the scoffer at papal infallibility and the relentless enemy of the Vicar of God. The three cities of the world whose inhabitants early acquired, and have since maintained, the most unenviable reputation for depravity and licentiousness are Jerusalem, Mecca, and Rome.

Unlike most theological systems to which men, in all ages, have rendered their obedient and pious homage, no mystery obscures the origin and foundation of Islam. The purity and simplicity of its principles have undergone no change. Its history has been preserved by the diligence of innumerable writers. The life and characteristics of its Prophet, even to the smallest detail, are accessible to the curiosity of every enterprising scholar.

The austere character of a faith which, at its inception, exacts a rigid compliance with the minutest formalities of its ritual, naturally becomes relaxed and modified after that system has attained to worldly importance and imperial authority; or, in the language of one of the greatest of modern writers, “a dominant religion is never ascetic.” It is strange that Islam, which, in this respect, as in many others, has conformed to the general law of humanity, and now acknowledges tenets and allows practices that would have struck the subjects of Abu-Bekr and Omar with amazement, has been able to preserve in such perfection the observance of its ceremonial; especially when it had no organized sacerdotal power to sustain it. The absence of an ecclesiastical order which could dictate the policy of the throne, and humble the pride of the ermine and purple with the dust in the presence of some audacious zealot, also left untrammelled the way for scientific investigation and research, and, more than all else, contributed to dispel the darkness of mediæval times. The doctrine of toleration enunciated by Mohammed gave no encouragement to that system of repression whose activity has exhausted every means of checking the growth of philosophical knowledge, by imposing the most direful spiritual and temporal penalties upon every teacher who ventures to publicly explain its principles; and it is a matter of far deeper import to the civilization of the twentieth century, than is implied by the mere performance of an act of devotion, when the Temple of Mecca--the seat of a time-honored faith, from whose shrine emanated the spirit of learning that redeemed degraded Europe--is saluted five times every day by the reverent homage of concentric circles of believers, one hundred and fifty million in number, from Tangier to Pekin, from the borders of Siberia to the Equinoctial Line.

We may well consider with admiration the rapid progress and enduring effects of this extraordinary religion which everywhere brought order, wealth, and happiness in its train; which, in destroying the deities of the Kaaba, swept away the traditions of thirty centuries; which adopted those pagan rites that it could not abolish; which seized and retained the birthplace of Christianity; which dispersed over so wide a territory alike the theocracy of the Jews and the ritual of Rome; which drove the Magi from the blazing altars of Persia; which usurped the throne and sceptre of the Byzantine Church; which supplanted the fetichism of the African desert; which trampled upon the mysteries of Isis, Osiris, and Horus, and revealed to the wondering Egyptians the secret of the Most High God; which invaded the Councils of Catholicism, and suggested a fundamental article of its belief; which fashioned the graceful arches of our most famous cathedrals; which placed its seal upon the earth in the measurement of a degree, and inscribed its characters in living light amidst the glittering constellations of the heavens; which has left its traces in the most familiar terms of the languages of Europe; which affords daily proof of its beneficent offices in the garments that we wear, in the books that we read, in the grains of our harvests, in the fruits of our orchards, in the flowers of our gardens; and which gave rise to successive dynasties of sovereigns, whose supreme ambition seemed to be to exalt the character of their subjects, to transmit unimpaired to posterity the inestimable treasures of knowledge, and to extend and perpetuate the intellectual empire of man. These signal and unparallelled results were effected by the inflexible constancy, the lofty genius, the political sagacity, of an Arabian shepherd, deficient in the very rudiments of learning, reared among a barbarous people divided into tribes whose mutual hostility had been intensified by centuries of warfare, who had no organized system of government, who considered the mechanical and mercantile arts degrading, who recognized no law but that of force, and knew no gods but a herd of grotesque and monstrous idols. Robbery was their profession, murder their pastime. Except within the precincts of their camp, no friend, unless connected by the sacred ties of blood, was secure. They devoured the flesh of enemies slain in battle. Deceit always excepted, cruelty was their most prominent national characteristic. Their offensive arrogance, relentless enmity, and obstinate tenacity of purpose were, in a direct ratio to their ignorance and their brutalizing superstition, confirmed by the prodigies, the omens, and the legends of ages.

To undertake the radical amelioration of such political and social conditions was a task of appalling, of apparently insuperable difficulty. Its fortunate accomplishment may not indicate the active interposition of Divine authority. The glories which invest the history of Islam may be entirely derived from the valor, the virtue, the intelligence, the genius, of man. If this be conceded, the largest measure of credit is due to him who conceived its plan, promoted its impulse, and formulated the rules which insured its success. In any event, if the object of religion be the inculcation of morals, the diminution of evil, the promotion of human happiness, the expansion of the human intellect; if the performance of good works will avail in that great day when mankind shall be summoned to its final reckoning, it is neither irreverent nor unreasonable to admit that Mohammed was indeed an Apostle of God.

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III. THE CONQUEST OF AL-MAGHREB

647–707

General Disorder following the Death of Mohammed--Regulations of Islam--Progress of the Moslem Arms--Northern Africa, the Land of the Evening--Its Fertility--Its Population--Expedition of Abdallah--Defeat of the Greeks--Invasion of Okbah--Foundation of Kairoan--March of Hassan--Ancient Carthage--Its Influence on Europe--Its Splendid Civilization--Its Maritime Power, its Colonies, its Resources--Description of the City--Its Architectural Grandeur--Its Harbors, Temples, and Public Edifices--Roman Carthage--Its Luxury and Depravity--Its Destruction by the Moslems--Wars with the Berbers--Musa appointed General--His Romantic History--His Character--He subdues Al-Maghreb--Africa incapable of Permanent Civilization.

The dissensions excited by the fierce hordes of Arabia, whose intolerance of authority and aversion to tribute had been with difficulty controlled by the mysterious influence of Mohammed, at his death broke forth with redoubled violence, and seriously threatened, for a time, not only the integrity of the Moslem empire, but even the existence and perpetuity of the recently established faith. With the exception of a few tribes which the ties of blood or considerations of personal interest, joined to their intimate commercial relations with the inhabitants of the Holy Cities, retained in a precarious allegiance, the whole population of the Peninsula rose at once in arms. Each petty chieftain, jealous of the central power, and endowed with an extravagant opinion of his own abilities as ruler and legislator, arrogated to himself divine authority, and aspired to the title and the prerogatives of a prophet of God. The populace, half idolatrous and half infidel at heart, and which had received the injunctions of the Koran with apparent enthusiasm and inward contempt, welcomed with joy each new revelation, as affording a prospective state of war and discord so thoroughly in consonance with its predatory instincts and turbulent character.

With this condition of affairs, whose gravity might well have appalled the mind of an experienced statesman, the executive ability and diplomatic tact of the first Khalif, a man bred to mercantile pursuits, yet admirably fitted by nature for the arduous duties of his exalted position, were found fully competent to deal. The insurgent armies were annihilated; the false prophets killed, driven into exile, or compelled to renounce their claims; the rebellious tribes were decimated, and their property seized as the legal spoils of war. With keen insight into the character of his countrymen, Abu-Bekr employed their fiery and indomitable spirit in the extension of Islam and the settlement and consolidation of its hitherto ill-defined and uncertain jurisdiction. The policy partially developed under his wise management was finally established and perfected by the iron will and martial genius of Omar. The latter realized thoroughly the paramount importance of preserving unimpaired the unity and prestige of his nation, whose victories, in brilliancy and political effect, had already surpassed those of any preceding conqueror, and bade fair to make the dominion of Islam coextensive with the world. In pursuance of this design, the spoils of conquest, the tribute of subjugated nations, the enormous rental of the plains of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the rich harvests of the Valley of the Nile, the magnificent gifts of distant sovereigns--hoping to escape a visitation from the swarthy horsemen of the Desert--were all placed in a common fund, from which was pensioned every individual belonging to the Arab race, in regular gradation, the stipend increasing with years, dignity, and value of military service. No one was too insignificant to have his name inscribed upon the official registers at Medina; and even slaves, women, and newly-born infants were, as well as the most renowned warriors, regularly paid their stated allowance. In the various countries reduced by the prowess of the Moslems, the lands, though confiscated to the uses of the state, remained by special provision inalienable, and, while forming a part of the public domain, could not be acquired by those who had conquered them, and continued to be occupied and tilled by their former proprietors. By these regulations, also, the legal residence of the Arab was established and made perpetual in the Peninsula. Everywhere else, no matter what his rank or employment, he was but a sojourner, liable at any moment, without warning, to be summoned to battle with the infidel; and even viceroys of the Khalif could not purchase a foot of ground in the cities which they ruled with all but absolute power. While in the case of female captives, the most unbounded license was permitted and encouraged, the believer was particularly enjoined to select for his wives the daughters of some Arab clan; and his children, without exception, were early taught to assert their assumed superiority of birth, and to look down upon all foreigners, however illustrious they might be by descent, wealth, military distinction, or literary attainments.

The comprehensive and exacting laws of Omar, which arbitrarily determined questions of legislation and finance, the marshalling of armies, the adjustment of territorial disputes, the arrangement of the household, and the offices of religion, laid the foundation for the future greatness of Islam. By his edict the date of the Hegira was fixed. His inflexible sense of justice inflicted the humiliating punishment of the lash, prescribed by law for drunkenness, upon beggar and noble alike. The Code which bears his name is remarkable, even in an age of fanaticism, for the severe restrictions it imposed on the personal liberty of Jews and Christians, the only sectaries to whom Moslem clemency permitted the practice of their rites and customs.

The assassination of Omar in the prime of manhood, and before his great designs had been fully matured, was the signal for feuds, conspiracies, and every form of domestic convulsion, fomented by tribal jealousy, ancient prejudice, and disappointed ambition; disturbances which the weak and vacillating spirit of his successor was unable to repress. Yet, despite the disadvantages arising from the intellectual impotence of Othman, the constitution of the Mussulman theocracy possessed sufficient vitality to retard dissolution for a considerable time. The glorious traditions of a decade of uninterrupted victory were not easily forgotten. The trophies wrested from the despised and hated foe were displayed in every city and village; his banners drooped in the courts of every mosque; the harem, the street, the bazaar, swarmed with captives from the most distant climes; while the annual distribution from the public treasury evidenced at once the wealth and weakness of the infidel and the paternal generosity of the conqueror. The Persian monarchy which had successfully withstood the attacks of consul, dictator, and emperor, supported by the discipline and inexhaustible resources of Roman power, had fallen, after two great battles, before the impetuous valor of the Moslem hosts. Palestine, with its hallowed associations, its memories of all that is most sacred in the annals of Christianity, its scenes of divine miracle and mystery, of privation, suffering, and triumphant glory, was in the hands of the Mussulman, whose sacrilegious footsteps daily defiled the precincts of Gethsemane and Golgotha, and whose call to prayer arose from a magnificent shrine erected upon the site of the ruined temple of Solomon. The Greek Emperor, after a reign of extraordinary vicissitudes which had, in some degree, retrieved the vanished prestige of the Roman arms deprived in rapid succession of the choicest realms of his empire, was now virtually a prisoner, protected only by the Bosphorus and the impregnable walls of his capital. Egypt, the depository of traditions of incalculable antiquity, had submitted, after a brief and determined struggle, to the common fate of nations, and the banners of Islam floated in triumph from the towers of Alexandria and Memphis. It was with a feeling of awe and wonder that the fierce, untutored Arab gazed upon the monuments of this strange and, to him, enchanted land. Before him were the Pyramids, rising in massive grandeur upon the borders of the Desert; the stupendous temples; the mural paintings, whose brilliant coloring was unimpaired after the lapse of fifty centuries; the groups of ponderous sphinxes, imposing even in their mutilation; the speaking statues, which, facing the East, with the first ray of light saluted the coming day; the obelisks, sculptured upon shaft and pedestal with the eternal records of long extinguished dynasties; the vast subterranean tombs, whose every sarcophagus was a gigantic monolith; and the effigies of the old Egyptian kings, personifications of dignity and power, holding in their hands the symbols of time and eternity, or grasping, in lieu of the sceptre, that emblematic staff, which, more potent than the wand of the mightiest magician, has controlled the destinies of millions of men, and which became in turn the wand of the Grecian hierophant in the mysteries of Eleusis, the lituus of the Roman augur, and the crosier of the Catholic archbishop. At his feet rolled the turbid flood of the mysterious river, to whose periodical inundation was due the civilization of that venerable country. The anticipation of this phenomenon had necessitated the study of astronomy; its overflow had developed a perfect system of irrigation, and a complicated body of laws, which regulated the distribution of its fertilizing waters; its subsidence had required a thorough acquaintance with the rules of geometry and mensuration; and the noxious vapors arising from its steaming deposits demanded the speedy disinfection and embalming of all putrescent animal matter, a precaution which was rigidly enforced by established custom and the inexorable precepts of religion. The initiations of the priesthood, the jealously treasured maxims of its occult knowledge, the attributes of its innumerable deities, all bore an intimate relation to the waters of the Nile, whose recurring and invariable changes also indicated the seasons of the Egyptian year, which were measured by the harvests. The influence produced by the sight of these marvels upon the destiny of the simple Arab, whose horizon had hitherto been defined by the shifting sands and quivering vapors of the Desert, by whom the grandeur and symmetry of architectural design were undreamt of, and whose ideas of decoration were limited to the barbaric tracery of an earthen jar or the coarse patterns of the primitive loom, was incalculable. As every civilization is but an adaptation to new conditions of elements more or less perceptible in those which have preceded it, so it was with that of the Arabs. Their architecture, mainly indebted for its beauty to the selection of designs from the vegetable world and the skilful combination of geometrical forms, may in this respect justly lay claim to originality. Nevertheless, in the groundwork of its finest edifices, the practised eye can easily detect the foreign influence by which the efforts of its artisans have been inspired; and the characteristics of Persian, Egyptian, Carthaginian, and Byzantine are prominent in the solid walls, the graceful curves, and the sparkling mosaics of the builders’ masterpieces which adorn the widely-separated provinces of the Mohammedan empire.

It was during the reign of Othman that the attention of the Moslems was first seriously directed to the northern coast of Africa, a region which, extending from the Nile to the Atlantic, comprised a territory of one thousand miles in length by five hundred in breadth in its largest diameter. In its approaches, which were made over burning sands, it exhibited the familiar phenomena of the Desert. The greater portion of its vast area was susceptible of cultivation, and contiguous plantations and gardens marked, with an unbroken line of verdure, the possessions of the once magnificent and still important cities which in the days of her glory acknowledged the authority and claimed the protection of the imperial metropolis of Carthage. Here the most abundant harvests, the most luscious fruits, rewarded, with but trifling exertion, the industry of the husbandman. Luxuriant pastures, through which meandered sparkling brooks fed by perennial springs, sustained large numbers of cattle and sheep. The date flourished in such variety that it was only by its shape and stone that its species could be determined. The soil was favorable to the olive, and oil formed an important article of export. It was indeed a land of promise, renowned in history, celebrated in myth and legend; the Ophir of Holy Writ; the scene of the sufferings of Marius, Regulus, and Cato; where originated many of the most charming fictions of classic mythology; the home of Danaus, Antæus, and Atlas; for centuries the abode of Tyrian civilization; the seat successively of Punic splendor, Roman luxury, Vandal license, and Christian faith. In its capital Hamilcar had prepared for the descent upon Sicily which had secured the mastery of the Mediterranean, and Hannibal had planned the campaign which humbled the pride of the Eternal City; the land which had received in its bosom refugees from Palestine and Arabia, the founders and supporters of a new and glorious empire; the see of St. Augustine; the enchanted Garden, where dwelt the beautiful daughters of Erebus and Night; where the gigantic portal marked by the two famous columns pointed out to the Phœnician mariner the way to the Cassiterides--

“Abyla atque Calpe.”

Carthaginian enterprise for ages bartered its manufactures for the tin of Britain and the luxuries of Syria; under the Romans, for four centuries, its agricultural products maintained in profligate idleness the degenerate inhabitants of Italy.

The further extremity of this region, which the poetic nomenclature of the Oriental had designated by the name of Al-Maghreb, “The Land of the Evening,” was the wealthier and more productive; but its storm-swept coast had subordinated its trade to the superior commercial advantages of the eastern half, now Tunis and Tripoli, which was known as Ifrikiyah. A prefect appointed by the court of Constantinople administered the government of these colonies, in the name of the Emperor, but his jurisdiction was confined to a narrow belt of territory, beyond which roamed at will bands of ferocious and hardy barbarians, some of whom had no settled habitation; while a considerable number dwelt in the slopes and defiles of the Atlas Mountains, eking out a miserable subsistence by a superficial cultivation of the soil and a precarious traffic with their scarcely less civilized neighbors. The population of this province was, owing to repeated immigration and invasion, and the consequent admixture of races, of the most heterogeneous character. Along the coast, the elegance of the Grecian type, occasionally modified by the dignified features and martial bearing of the Roman, whose physical traits had been partially preserved by the frequent renewal of garrisons and the importation of colonists from Italy and Constantinople, largely predominated. Further inland appeared, in the swarthy complexions, blue eyes, and auburn locks, the cross between Vandal and Mauritanian, side by side with the unmistakable lineaments of the Syrian and the Jew. But most numerous of all, the most formidable in war, the most perfidious in peace, were the Berbers, whose origin tradition has variously assigned to Europe, Assyria, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Palestine. Whatever may have been the home of this undoubtedly Semitic race, their affinity with the Arabs was most conspicuous and remarkable. Generous, brave, patient of suffering, prodigal of hospitality, reverential to the aged, loyal to their kindred, impatient of restraint, merciless in revenge, their character was an epitome of the rugged virtues and cruel vices of the roving barbarian. The fighting qualities of this people, joined to the inaccessible nature of their haunts, and, in no small degree, aided by their poverty, had always secured for them immunity from conquest. Political reverses had never been able to efface their national peculiarities. Under persecution, while apparently conforming to the public faith, they remained, in reality, fetich worshippers. The long dominations of Phœnician, Roman, Byzantine, Teuton had effected no alteration in their language--the Arabic alone has been able to engross about a third of the terms of their guttural idiom. Their polity resembled a republic, where each village was independent and governed by a chieftain elected by the people. Time and again they had mustered for service against the Emperor armies of thirty and forty thousand men; but the first defeat dissolved their confederacy; and the rival chiefs returned with increased avidity to the plunder and massacre of their allies and friends. Their perfidy, which excited the unwilling admiration of nations long practised in the arts of deceit, and which was experienced to their cost by the Romans in the war with Jugurtha, was, without doubt, in a measure responsible for the proverbial reputation for duplicity--the “Punica fides”--of Carthage. Originally idolaters, believers in sorcery and divination, and adorers of the Sun and of Fire, their intercourse with their neighbors, considering its irregular and transitory character, had been singularly productive of changes in religious belief. The emissaries of Christianity had, with but indifferent success, disseminated among them the mysteries of their faith; but to the doctrines of the Pentateuch and the Talmud they lent a willing ear, and the tenets of Judaism, although not a little tinctured with the traditions of Pagan mythology, nominally received the assent of the entire Berber nation. The peculiar type of the Hebrew, insensibly diversified elsewhere by the associations of commercial intercourse, and by the influence of soil, climate, and the operation of laws more or less favorable to the fusion of races, had, in the wilds of Northern Africa, found a congenial locality for its preservation. The exiles who had escaped the persecutions of Titus and Hadrian had settled there and prospered. Laying aside their proverbial reserve, they had joined to their hereditary inclination for traffic an unwonted disposition to acquire proselytes; and their opinions had infected, to a greater or less extent, the population of the coast as well as that of the interior, from the Greater Syrtis to the Pillars of Hercules. Their relations and acquaintance extended not only to the extreme Orient, but were sustained with the semi-barbarous courts of Europe; and their sympathies with their brethren of Semitic origin, assisted by the community of ideas, habits, and mode of life of the Berber tribes, contributed, in a degree which cannot be overestimated, to the establishment and preservation of the Western empire of Islam.

In the year 647, the covetous glances of the government at Medina were turned towards the rich plantations and populous settlements of Al-Maghreb; and the predatory inroads which had hitherto vexed its borders were, for the first time, superseded by a systematic and determined attempt at conquest. The weakness and partiality of Othman, with whom the aggrandizement of his family was a paramount consideration, had removed the famous Amru from the viceroyalty of Egypt, and invested with its administration Abdallah-Ibn-Sa’d, the foster-brother of the Khalif, a warrior of experience and courage and the finest horseman of his nation, but a man whose renown had been sullied by the crime of apostasy, and who had used an employment of confidence to ridicule and revile the inspired teachings and sacred character of the Prophet.

Calling into requisition all the resources of his government, this Moslem general marched into the Desert with twenty thousand soldiers, among them many of the companions of Mohammed and representatives of the most noble tribes of Arabia. After a few unimportant skirmishes, and a short but bloody engagement in which a division of the Greeks was entirely destroyed, the Arab army advanced to Tripoli, and, investing its walls, pushed forward the operations of the siege with an energy hardly to be expected from a people whose experience had been confined to marauding expeditions and the stratagems of partisan warfare. Under the dominion of the Byzantine emperors, the office of prefect had been substituted for that of the ancient proconsul; and this employment was not only charged with the execution of the laws relating to civil and military affairs, but also claimed jurisdiction over matters pertaining to the welfare of the church, the appointment of its ministers, and the enforcement of the canons of ecclesiastical discipline. The prefect Gregory, whose talents had been exercised, and whose prowess had been approved, in many negotiations and conflicts with the Berbers, at the head of a tumultuous and undisciplined force of one hundred and twenty thousand men, moved forward to the relief of Tripoli. Abandoning the siege, the Arabs accepted the challenge, and a series of battles ensued without decided advantage upon either side, until the prefect, mortified that the numerical superiority of his troops should be neutralized by the desperate courage of his adversaries, offered the hand of his beautiful daughter--who, completely armed, was each day conspicuous in the ranks of the vanguard--and a purse of one hundred thousand pieces of gold to any one who would bring him the head of the Moslem general. The courage of Abdallah, although he had faced death in a hundred forms, was not proof against this effort of his wily antagonist, and, remaining idly in his tent, he left the conduct of operations to the care of his lieutenants. In the mean time there arrived at the Arab camp a small detachment headed by Ibn-al-Zobeir, a warrior of distinction, who heard with contempt of the pusillanimous conduct of the general. Seeking him, he denounced his cowardice, suggesting that he should retaliate by the offer of a similar sum, and the prefect’s daughter as a slave, to whoever should cast at his feet the head of the Greek commander. The advice was taken; the tempting reward was published throughout the camp; the Arab youth were fired by emulation to redoubled efforts; and Abdallah himself, shamed into action, again appeared in the front of battle. But the overwhelming numbers of the Greeks, inspired by the example of a few legions which yet retained the traditions of Roman steadiness and discipline, and supported by the rapid evolutions of the Numidian cavalry, famous from the days of Jugurtha, still rendered the issue doubtful, and by repeated engagements the ranks of the Arabs were being constantly diminished. Again the talents of Ibn-al-Zobeir were called into requisition; the battle was renewed as usual at daybreak; and when the blazing sun had exhausted the strength of the combatants, both armies retired to the shelter of their tents. But the Moslems had not all been engaged, and a division composed of troops, selected for their bravery and commanded by the intrepid Ibn-al-Zobeir, burst suddenly like a thunderbolt upon the hostile camp.

Seized with a panic, as they were reposing after the arduous struggle of the day, the ranks of the enemy were broken, the prefect was killed, and the camp given over to pillage. A rich booty and innumerable captives compensated the victors for their trials; the beauteous Amazon became the slave of Ibn-al-Zobeir; and, after the capture of the important city of Sufetela, the entire district acknowledged the authority of the Khalif. The ravages of disease, the losses resulting from a series of engagements lasting for months, and the lack of reinforcements, made it impossible for Abdallah to garrison the towns, or to retain in subjection the restless tribes of the interior; and he consented, with alacrity, to accept a bribe of two million five hundred thousand dinars and abandon the conquest. The spoil was sent to Medina, and Othman further incurred the charges of injustice and nepotism by presenting Abdallah with the royal fifth, and by permitting his cousin Merwan to purchase the remainder at the low valuation of three hundred talents of gold.

For nearly a quarter of a century, the civil wars provoked by the conflicting claims of the various aspirants to the throne of the khalifate and the succeeding political establishments left in security the Greek possessions of the West. The Byzantine court learned with amazement of the enormous ransom with which the inhabitants of Africa had purchased the withdrawal of the invaders; and its avarice was excited when it considered the resources of a country which could collect so large a sum after having, for generations, been subject to the rapacious inquisition of the imperial tax-gatherers. Without delay, the Emperor demanded a contribution of the same amount as unpaid tribute; and all the mechanism of extortion was employed, to complete the ruin of his already impoverished subjects. Oppressed beyond endurance, the Africans sent an embassy headed by the Patriarch himself to Damascus, and reciting their grievances, described in glowing terms to Muavia the wealth of their country and the advantages which must accrue to the Moslems from its possession. The Khalif, deeply impressed by their representations, ordered Ibn-Hajij, governor of Egypt, to undertake the conquest; but the enterprise was not carried out with the customary vigor of the Saracens, and resulted only in the partial occupancy of the coast and the subjection of a few unimportant cities. The permanent establishment of Mussulman rule dates, however, from this expedition, and henceforth the standard of Islam, although often furled before the intrepid spirit of the Berbers, was advanced, foot by foot, to the far distant shores of the Western Ocean. The most successful commander, and the one who alone, excepting Musa, made the most enduring impression upon the valiant and treacherous barbarians of Al-Maghreb, was Okbah-Ibn-Nafi, who was next invested with the command. Entering the hostile region at the head of ten thousand veteran cavalry, he made war with the same resolution and uncompromising spirit which marked the careers of the daring Amru and Khalid, “The Sword of God.” The Christians who refused, by either submission or conversion, to acknowledge the divine origin of Islam were ruthlessly slaughtered; but the orders of the Khalif explicitly prohibited the equipment or use of naval armaments, and the seaports of the Greeks escaped, for the time, the fate which was inevitable. The Berbers, beholding with wonder the apparently invincible character of their enemy, equally fortunate in plain and mountain fastness, defeating with ease their bravest squadrons, and scaling, despite all obstacles, the all-but impregnable defences of their strongholds, clothed him with the attributes of divinity, and, submitting to his dominion, recognized the power of the Khalif, while at the same time, abjuring their idolatry, they confessed the unity and majesty of God. The advance of Okbah was the triumphant progress of a conqueror. Almost unresisted, he traversed the regions peopled by hordes of fierce barbarians, until, having penetrated to the Atlantic, he rode his horse into its seething waters, and, drawing his sword, cried out, “God is great! Were I not hindered by this sea, I would go forward to the unknown kingdoms of the West, proclaiming the greatness of Thy Holy Name and subduing those nations who worship other gods than Thee!”

The moral effect of the expedition of Okbah, which familiarized the nations of the north of Africa with the doctrines of Islam, was of far more importance than the spoil collected by the victorious army, which was, in itself, not inconsiderable. The wealth of the Berbers, ignorant as they were of the mechanical arts and the elegant appliances of luxury, was confined to flocks and herds; but the beauty and fascinations of their women aroused the passions of the conquerors, and many of them subsequently commanded in the markets of Alexandria and Damascus the extraordinary price of a thousand mithcals of gold. The inconstant character of the tribes of Mauritania and the Atlas, amenable only to the restraints of military power, and to whom conversion and apostasy were mere matters of temporary expediency, suggested to the sagacious mind of Okbah the necessity for the establishment of a fortified post in the territory of this active and formidable enemy. An inland position was selected, to avoid the attacks of the naval forces of Constantinople, and, despite the serious physical disadvantages of barrenness, drought, and excessive heat, a city was built, to which was given the name of Kairoan; a metropolis destined in after times to attain to an important rank in the annals of the dynasties of Africa. The walls were of brick, with flanking towers, and embraced six miles in circuit. The foundations of a mosque, an edifice measuring two hundred and twenty by one hundred and fifty cubits, were laid; its seventeen naves were adorned with the plundered marbles of Utica and Carthage; the graceful proportions of its minaret and the elegance of its mural decorations are still proverbial in the Mohammedan world. The bazaar of the city lined a street three miles in length; its schools became the resort of the learned; the authority of its muftis on points of doctrine was indisputable; and, as the seat of the viceroy of the Khalif, it long maintained its political importance.

The implacable and perfidious spirit of the Berbers, whom no treaties could control, now broke out in the prosecution of petty hostilities, which the scattered forces of the Moslems were powerless to prevent. Forays were made upon isolated settlements, flocks were driven off, hamlets given to the flames, and even the security of the rising colony of Kairoan was threatened. Emboldened by their success, the Berber chief’s confederated for the total destruction of the Moslems. Koceila, an influential chieftain, who had been wantonly insulted and maimed by Okbah and was now kept a close prisoner in the camp, was the moving spirit of the conspiracy. Learning too late of the plan of the enemy, Okbah was compelled to weaken his army, and while a detachment for the relief of Kairoan was on the march, it was suddenly attacked near Tehuda by an overwhelming force of barbarian cavalry. The little band of Mussulmans, less than four hundred in number, seeing the hopelessness of the contest, commended themselves to God, and, casting away their scabbards, perished to a man, scimetar in hand. The tombs of these martyrs are still objects of veneration to the devout, and Zab, where they are situated, enjoys the sanctity, privileges, and lucrative trade of a place of pilgrimage. The Franks and Berbers with their usual inconstancy now flocked to the standard of Koceila, who assumed the title of an independent sovereign and for five years remained the undisputed ruler of Ifrikiyah. At the expiration of that period, a fresh army of Arabs under Zoheir defeated the Berbers in a decisive battle, and, Koceila having been killed, the lieutenant of the Khalif again asserted his unstable authority. It was not long before the new governor Zoheir succumbed to the treachery of the cunning barbarians, and the Khalif Abd-al-Melik imposed upon Hassan, Viceroy of Egypt, the task which had foiled the skill and energy of so many of his predecessors. But none of the latter had mustered such a force, or could have controlled such vast resources, as did the new commander-in-chief. His office, as Governor of Egypt, placed at his disposal the enormous wealth of that fertile country, and he marched out of Alexandria at the head of a thoroughly equipped army of forty thousand veterans. He was well provided with scaling ladders and the various engines for the siege of fortified places, while the success of the Moslems in the East had inspired them with confidence, and afforded experience in the attack upon fortifications, a branch of warfare in which they had at first been entirely deficient. Resolving to reduce the strongholds of the coast, which were still in possession of the Greeks, Hassan, after traversing the region which had been desolated, and partially colonized by former commanders, advanced at once upon Carthage. This famous city, which had preserved, amidst unparalleled disaster, the prestige and the traditions of its former greatness, was still the capital of Africa and the seat of the imperial prefect. The power of Phœnicia, almost omnipotent in the maritime world of the ancients, founded upon boundless wealth, upon extensive acquaintance with distant lands and peoples, upon scientific secrets, whose importance was exaggerated by mystery, and upon the undisputed dominion of the seas, had been transmitted to Carthage, her favorite and most important colony. A brief notice of the history of the latter, so intimately connected with the fortunes of every nation of ancient and modern Europe, is not foreign to an account of the Mohammedan conquest of Africa, nor to that of the subsequent occupation of Spain. For, inspired by her example, from her harbor issued the first naval expedition of the Moslems in the West, which ravaged the coasts of Sardinia, threatened the Greek empire, and subdued the Balearic Isles. The invention of the compass, popularly but erroneously attributed to the sailors of Amalfi, it has been conjectured, with some degree of probability, was in reality a legacy of Tyre to Carthage; and it is certain that the peculiar properties of the magnet, designated the Stone of Hercules, were familiar to the mariners of those cities, who employed it in divination and in the secret ceremonies of their temples upon the shores of every sea. The straight sword of the Spanish Arab, so different from the curved blade of the Orient, is the sword of the Carthaginian; a weapon which, subsequently adopted by Rome from Iberia, conquered the world, including the African warriors who invented it. The cap of the Basque is a modification of the old Punic, or Phrygian, head covering, still worn by the Jewesses of Tunis, and which, in our day, has been adopted as one of the emblems of Liberty. The toga of Rome and the burnous of the Arab can be traced to the same origin, being derived by Carthage from Phœnicia, and by the latter from Lydia; and the names, customs, traditions, and ceremonies of modern Spain suggest daily, to the intelligent observer, the enduring impressions produced by the domination of the ancient Queen of the Mediterranean. Even in her ruin did Carthage contribute to the progress of science and the well-being of humanity. The cathedral of Pisa, under whose dome Galileo pursued his experiments and perfected the pendulum-clock, was constructed of the marbles of her palaces; and the unrivalled mosque of Cordova, the centre of mediæval learning, in whose precincts was the finest library of the age, still contains hundreds of columns, around whose shafts once curled the wreaths of incense that rose from the altars of the Tyrian Hercules. But far more important than all else was the influence exerted upon the Arab invaders by the defaced and shattered memorials of her departed grandeur. Despite the effects of Roman hate and vengeance, the destructive energy of Genseric, and the shameless neglect of the Byzantine emperors, Carthage was still a great and beautiful city. Many of her stately edifices were preserved; her temples, towering in their pristine majesty, beckoned the anxious mariner to her prosperous shores; her harbors with their colonnades were still intact, and it was with no ordinary emotions that the Moslem looked upon these evidences of the taste and civilization of one of the most opulent and renowned capitals of antiquity. The Phœnicians, by their proximity to and regular intercourse with the highly cultivated races of Assyria and Egypt, had added immeasurably to their stock of learning, and eagerly disseminated among their colonies the notions of politics, philosophy, and science, which they had imbibed in their periodical voyages to the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. And as from Asia Minor, plainly disclosed in the myth of Cadmus, first emanated that knowledge of letters and the arts, which, expanding with a prodigious development, culminated in the matchless creations of the Grecian sculptor and the Grecian muse; so to the northern coast of Africa can be traced the dawn of that inspiration of refinement and taste which awakened in the minds of the rude and warlike nomads of the Desert a desire for something better than the subjugation of barbarian tribes, something more enduring than the costly pageants of military glory.

Settled almost thirteen centuries before the Christian era, and inheriting from the parent city of Tyre that spirit of enterprise which had gained for the latter the carrying trade of the world, at the time of the foundation of Rome, Carthage was already the wealthiest and most polished state on the shores of the Mediterranean. Her inhabitants, rather inclined to peaceful occupations and the luxurious ease that prosperity confers than to the privations of the camp and the dangers of the field, usually enlisted mercenaries to prosecute their conquests. When at the height of her power, her armies, which had penetrated the mysterious depths of the Libyan and Ethiopian deserts, and whose prowess had been displayed alike in the defiles of Sicily and upon the plains of the Bætis, had subjected to her authority a wide extent of territory, and more than three hundred towns in Africa alone, many of them places of considerable magnitude. In the Spanish Peninsula, whence she drew her supplies of the precious metals, she employed in the silver mines fifty thousand men. The most assiduous care was paid to agriculture, and the extraordinary fertility of the soil, yielding with ease one hundred and fifty fold, was assisted by an equable climate and a scientific and extensive system of irrigation. The substantial character of the public works of the capital is evinced by the ruins of the cisterns and the aqueduct, which have defied the storms and revolutions of two thousand years. But it was chiefly in commercial affairs that the Carthaginians asserted their immeasurable superiority over all their contemporaries. Their merchants, whose enterprise was proverbial, were familiar with some of the ingenious expedients that, in our day, among civilized nations, so facilitate and simplify important business transactions. The most remarkable of these described by Latin writers were certain pieces of leather which, when folded in a peculiar manner, and sealed to prevent forgery, readily passed as money, undoubted precursors of our bank-notes and bills of exchange. They seem to have had also well-defined ideas of the fiscal and other regulations demanded by the exigencies of foreign trade, such as banking, insurance, and duties on imports.

Until the conclusion of the second Punic War, no noticeable progress had been made in the arts at Rome, and the total destruction of Carthage was, in this respect, as in many others, of incalculable advantage to her fortunate adversary. Among the treasures procured at the sack of the city are mentioned, besides paintings and statues, gold and silver vessels of curious workmanship, and so valuable that the portion reserved for the triumph of the victor amounted to a sum equal to eight million dollars. In the spoil were also included beautiful mosaics, and incredible quantities of precious stones, articles of luxury especially prized by the Carthaginians, and which they knew how to engrave with surprising skill. These exquisite models, perfected by the labors of countless generations, were not without a decided effect in promoting the education and stimulating the ambition of the Roman designers and artisans. We learn from Appian that there were many libraries in the city, which also boasted not a few writers of note, but none of their productions have been preserved, and the only native author whose fame has reached posterity is Terence, a liberated slave, who, at the age of twenty-five, delighted the critical audiences of the Roman theatres with the flights of his precocious genius. Some estimate may be formed of the military and naval power of Carthage, when we recall the fact that during the Sicilian wars, which lasted twenty-four years, she lost, in a single battle, five hundred ships of the largest size, together with an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, without sensibly impairing her resources or retarding her career of conquest. Had a similar misfortune befallen any contemporaneous state it could hardly have survived the shock. The equipage and plate of the Carthaginian generals were of the most sumptuous description, and they went into action bearing magnificent bucklers embossed with medallion portraits of their owners in massy gold.

Occupying the centre of the Southern Mediterranean coast, and accessible to every port frequented by traders, Carthage was speedily enabled to profit to the utmost by those advantages of geographical position that paved the way to her political and maritime ascendency. At her left hand were the Pillars of Hercules, and the channel through which passed the trade of Spain and Britain; at her right the inexhaustible granaries of Egypt; in front of her, the quarries, mines, and slave-marts of Italy and Greece; in her rear the gold and gems of Libya. Upon a peninsula, whose isthmus was defended by a triple wall, lay the city, embracing a circuit of twenty-three miles, and containing a population of nearly a million. Inside the fortifications, on the east, was the Kothon, a double harbor, consisting of two circular basins connected by a canal sixty feet wide, barricaded with enormous iron chains. The outer and larger basin, six thousand feet in circumference, was destined for the use of merchantmen; the inner one was reserved exclusively for galleys and men-of-war. Both were surrounded by docks, storehouses, quarters for marines, and arsenals, and were approached by splendid Ionic porticos and colonnades of white marble. In the centre of an island in the inner harbor, at whose quays two hundred vessels could ride securely at anchor, rose the castle of the admiral who directed all manœuvres at the sound of trumpet. Immediately over the Kothon, on an elevation that commanded it, stood the famous Byrsa, or citadel. Its wall rose to the height of sixty-five feet, and was flanked by numerous towers; adjoining the latter were stables for four thousand horses and three hundred elephants, and barracks that could accommodate a garrison of twenty-four thousand men. Eighteen cisterns, seven of which are still intact, each ninety-three feet long by twenty wide and twenty-eight feet deep, connected by a tunnel with reservoirs in the suburbs, furnished an abundant supply of water. The highest point of the Byrsa was occupied by the temple of Æsculapius, the tutelary deity of the city, and although, in fact, an almost impregnable fortress, the skill of the engineer had thoroughly disguised its formidable character. It was situated above a series of terraces, resembling the hanging gardens of Assyria, and was reached by superb marble staircases adorned with beautiful statues, urns, and other works of art. Slabs of porphyry and verd-antique covered its walls; its arcades were paved and encrusted with mosaics; and the veneration in which it was held by the people was attested by the gorgeous appointments of its shrine. But the fane of Æsculapius, with all its splendor, was not without many rivals in the African metropolis. The religion of the Carthaginians, originally astronomical and profoundly symbolic, had centuries before discarded the purer forms of astral worship for a debased and cruel polytheism. The different wards of the city were named from the various deities whose altars they contained. West of the Kothon was the temple of Apollo, and adjoining it the shrine of Melcareth, or Hercules--whose precincts no woman was suffered to enter, and whose priests, assuming the vow of chastity, went barefoot and with shaven crowns--stood side by side with the fragrant gardens within whose mystic groves were celebrated, amidst indescribable orgies, the licentious rites of the Phœnician Astarte. Nearer the sea was the grand temple of the African Baal, the Moloch of the Hebrews, surrounded by a labyrinth and covered with three concentric domes, which, open above like that of the Pantheon at Rome, permitted the rays of the sun at high meridian to descend upon the brazen image of the god.

The other edifices of the African capital were, in richness and splendor, eminently worthy of its temples and its citadel. The vast commerce of Carthage placed at its command the resources of all antiquity. No labor or expense was spared in architectural decoration. On the façade of its theatre, which rose for seven stories in tiers of graceful arches, were sculptured the forms of animals, the effigies of famous artisans, the figures of military commanders, and symbolical representations of the elements, the seasons, and the winds. The circus, inferior in extent only to that of Rome, was supported by fluted columns of such enormous size that twelve men could sit with ease upon the edge of one of their capitals towering a hundred feet above the arena. In the principal square, the reservoir, fed by the great aqueduct, was surrounded by balustrades and arches. All of these public works were of white marble, which glittered like crystal under the rays of a southern sun. The taste which designed them was the result of three thousand years of civilization. Every nation of the ancient world had contributed its share to their symmetry, their value, their magnificence. The beauty of the material was enhanced a thousand-fold by the incomparable elegance of the sculpture and the ornamentation.

The Megara, a suburb of Carthage, contained the country-seats and palaces of the nobility, some of them built, like the houses of Venice, upon piles and arches in the sea. It was an immense park seamed with canals and rivulets, whose waters were conveyed by conduits from the mountains sixty miles away. The reservoirs of the Megara, so extensive that they now constitute an Arab village, were constructed in the same substantial manner as the cisterns of the Byrsa. On a promontory above them was the necropolis, where the ashes of the dead were deposited in countless niches hewn in the living rock.

Upon the ruins of this rich and powerful city, which had so long and so obstinately disputed the supremacy of the masters of the world, had risen another that almost rivalled its predecessor in commercial importance and architectural splendor. Founded one hundred and one years after the triumph of Scipio, it yielded in prestige and luxury only to the great capitals of Italy and Egypt, and was justly regarded as one of the most valuable possessions of the Roman colonial empire. Its advantages of location, the agricultural wealth of the country, the settlement of many noble Italian families--fugitives from imperial oppression and barbarian violence--and the glorious example of former ages, soon raised the new metropolis to a position scarcely inferior to that of the old. Its edifices could vie with even the proudest monuments of the Eternal City; the wealth, intelligence, polished manners, and boundless excesses of its inhabitants made its name proverbial throughout antiquity. In the seventh century it divided with Alexandria the commerce of the Mediterranean, and was greatly its superior in rank, population, and power. The head of the civil magistracy of Africa, and the seat of a large military garrison, it almost monopolized the taste and refinement, the learning, the philosophy, and the jurisprudence, of the Western world. Universities with chairs of the liberal arts, academies which afforded instruction in every language and every science, flourished within its walls; its circus and its amphitheatre were crowded daily with the wit and beauty of the city, whose pleasure-loving society, unspeakably corrupt, had added to the dissolute habits inherited from Punic times the unnatural vices imported by patrician refugees and colonists from the orgies of decadent Rome. For perversity of disposition, for shameless effrontery, for perfidious disregard of faith and contempt of honor, and for brazen immodesty, the most debauched communities of the East and West, by universal consent, conferred upon the population of Carthage the unenviable distinction of unapproachable infamy. The Vandals had plundered its treasures and enslaved its people, but had spared its noble buildings, and exempted its walls from the destruction which had usually befallen those of other towns conquered by these barbarians. Such was the city which interposed a formidable and hitherto insuperable barrier to the enterprise of the Moslems; and whose transcendent influence has left its stamp upon the habits, the creeds, and the opinions of every subsequent age; to which ancient commerce was indebted for its development, and from which modern belief has derived some of the most popular of its dogmas; among them the doctrines of St. Augustine and the leading principles of patristic theology, that even now control ecclesiastical councils and prescribe the rules of Christian discipline.

His preparations completed, the Moslem general, seconded by the enthusiasm of his splendid army, and confident of success, prepared at once for an assault. The ladders were planted, and despite the terrors of Greek fire, and the valor of the Byzantine garrison which behaved with unusual spirit, the city was taken. But, in the mean time, news of the danger of the colony had reached the Bosphorus; the Court was aroused from its lethargy; a powerful fleet was equipped; and the Moslems had scarcely rested from. their efforts before the arrival of this new enemy compelled them to retreat. A few months later, however, reinforcements having been received by Hassan, Carthage was again stormed; a decisive victory was gained by the Moslems over the Greeks, who imprudently risked an engagement in the open field; the city was plundered and burnt; and the jurisdiction over its territory passed away forever from the hands of the corrupt and pusillanimous sovereigns of the Eastern Empire.

But the destruction of the capital, a political measure to secure supremacy, while producing a decisive moral effect upon the remaining colonies of the Greeks, was far from intimidating the Berbers, whose omnipresent squadrons remained the masters of all the region situated beyond the fortified towers of the frontier. A female impostor of princely lineage--whose name, Dhabba’, has been abandoned by subsequent chroniclers for the popular appellation Kahina, or Sorceress--had, by her mysterious arts, obtained unbounded influence over her countrymen; and, inspiring them with a certain degree of patriotism, had appeased their feuds and united the roving tribes of the Atlas in an extensive and powerful confederacy. Animated by her teachings and allured by her promise of booty, the Berbers pressed upon the forces of Hassan until the latter, after great losses, were finally expelled, and repairing to Barca, remained there in a state of inglorious inactivity for nearly five years. It is related that as soon as the enemy had passed the borders, the sorceress-queen ordered the fertile region of the coast, which, in the days of its prosperity, had furnished the supplies of the Empire, and whose beauty had been celebrated by every traveller, to be utterly desolated, as a precaution against future invasion. The fields were laid waste, the towns depopulated, the harvests burnt, the orchards cut down, the plantations transformed into a wilderness. This irrational act of violence was not viewed with complacency by the land-holders and other civilized inhabitants of the country, and, from time to time, emissaries were despatched to the Arab Viceroy of Africa, promising him in return for his interference the assistance and future allegiance of the persecuted colonists. At length the order to advance arrived from Damascus, and Hassan, with the most numerous army that had ever invaded Africa, encountered the priestess at the head of her adherents near Mount Auras. In the battle that ensued, Kahina was killed; the Berbers were overwhelmingly defeated; and the whole of the refractory province again invoked the clemency of the victor. But the same evil genius which, from first to last, attended the administration of the Moslem governors of Africa, now began to disturb the fortunes of Hassan. Abd-al-Aziz, the brother of the Khalif, was appointed to the viceroyalty of Egypt, upon which the jurisdiction of Africa was made dependent; and Hassan was summoned to Damascus, to answer serious accusations of tyrannical conduct which had been lodged against him. But the sight of the spoil wrested from the Berbers, the present of female captives of extraordinary beauty, the plausible explanations of his conduct which his fertile ingenuity suggested, and the glowing accounts of his successes, soon restored the distinguished commander to the favor of his sovereign, and Hassan was reinvested with the government of Africa with increased authority. On the return of the latter, while passing through Egypt, Abd-al-Aziz demanded the surrender of his commission under color of the supremacy formerly attached to the viceroyalty of that country, and by which the rest of Mohammedan Africa was claimed as a dependency. Enraged by his refusal, the governor arbitrarily deprived Hassan of his commission, tore it in pieces before his face, and, in defiance of the royal authority, declared the office vacant, and appointed at his own instance Musa-Ibn-Nosseyr commander of the armies of the West.

The history of this famous soldier is tinged with a coloring of adventure, unusual even in the romantic atmosphere of the Orient. A hundred miles directly west of Ctesiphon is Ain-Tamar, now an oasis frequented by wandering banditti, but in the seventh century a prosperous settlement enriched by the trade of Syria and Persia, and the seat of a Nestorian church and monastery. Attracted by the reports of its wealth, an expedition headed by Khalid himself surprised it, after a long and painful march over the desert. In the cloisters of the monastery were found a number of youths of high rank, who were nominally pursuing their studies under the direction of the monks, but were in reality hostages selected from the most distinguished families of Asia Minor. When offered the customary alternative of slavery or apostasy, the majority chose the latter, and two of them, Sirin and Nosseyr, became the fathers of sons who exerted a wide-spread influence over the destinies of Islam. From Sirin descended Mohammed the learned doctor of Bassora, and one of the most famous authorities of Islamic literature; and Nosseyr was the parent of Musa, the conqueror of Africa and Spain. Nosseyr was attached to the family of Abd-al-Melik by the right of capture and Mohammedan custom, and his son occupied the same relation to Abd-al-Aziz, the heir of the Khalif, who bestowed upon him marks of distinguished favor, and shared with him a friendship rare indeed in the families of princes. Educated in the best schools of Syria, which had already attained a high and well-deserved reputation, Musa early developed a precocity of intellect, and a talent for negotiation, which led to his employment in diplomatic affairs of the greatest importance. Under the reign of Abd-al-Melik, he was appointed vizier to the governor of Bassora, but having been convicted of peculation, he only escaped with his life through the intercession of his protector Abd-al-Aziz, who also paid for him the fine of one hundred dinars of gold--fifty times the amount of the theft--which the wrath of the Khalif had imposed upon the defaulter. Residing afterwards at the court of Egypt, and acting as the trusted councillor of the viceroy, history is silent as to the fields in which he acquired the experience in arms that subsequently gained for him such enduring renown. Of a hardy constitution, inured to hardship, plain in his attire, frugal and abstemious in his habits, his form presented an example of robust health, although he had long since passed the meridian of life; and under his locks, whitened by the snows of many winters, still smouldered the ardent passions of youth, and the powerful incentives of ambition and adventure. Sagacious in council, prompt in execution, fearless in battle, implacable in revenge, his character was, however, tarnished by cruelty, by suspicion, and by ingratitude; and he never hesitated to risk the sacrifice of power and position, in the gratification of the avarice which seemed to dominate his being, almost to the exclusion of every other passion. Unrivalled in tact and instinctive knowledge of human nature, by his powers of persuasion he made even his enemies subservient to his designs; while the strict observance of the ceremonies of his religion, although he became liable at times to imputations of inconsistency, yet procured for him in general the reputation of profound and sincere piety. In his military operations, he displayed the qualities of a skilful and wary leader, and his dispositions were made with remarkable prudence; realizing the demands of successful warfare, he annihilated the power of his adversaries by massacre or wholesale captivity; and by rapid and sudden advances after a battle he never failed to secure the uncertain fruits of victory. Such was the character of the man to whom were now committed the destinies of the Moslem armies of the West.

The veterans who had served under the banner of Hassan, who had scaled the walls of Carthage, and dispersed the army of the Berber sorceress, looked with little favor upon their new commander. Calling them together, Musa paid them their arrears three times over, and addressing them in a speech in which the eloquence of the orator, the humility of the devotee, and the art of the demagogue were shrewdly blended, said: “I am a soldier, like yourselves; applaud and imitate my good deeds; censure and reprove my failures, for none of us are free from weakness and error.” Impressed not only with the politic generosity of their chief, but gratified as well by the unwonted condescension he displayed, the soldiers greeted him with applause, and he became henceforth the idol of his army. Without unnecessary delay, and with his accustomed vigor, he opened the campaign. At the very outset an incident occurred which not only secured the gratitude of his followers, but, in that superstitious age, seemed to invest their general with supernatural powers. A long-continued drought had dried up the springs and wells, and the army, now far advanced into the desert, was threatened with death by thirst. In the midst of the troops solemnly assembled, Musa prayed long and fervently for relief. Tradition relates that the supplication was almost immediately granted; and the identical prayer which evoked this apparent miracle was repeated for nine centuries afterwards by the Spanish Moors when their country suffered from a scarcity of rain. The Berbers, elated by their former successes, ventured upon a pitched battle, and were defeated. Thousands were killed; the fugitives who took refuge in the mountains, where the natural obstacles of the locality made their defences the more formidable, were besieged and forced to surrender. The policy of Musa, different from that of his predecessors, was marked by unusual severity. If resistance was offered, the tribe was enslaved, its property confiscated, and its villages burnt to the ground; but, on the other hand, a ready submission guaranteed protection and favor, and the stoutest warriors were at once enrolled in the Moslem ranks. Twelve times already had the Berbers professed adherence to Islam, and apostatized; and Musa, conscious of their instability, now provided his new troops with teachers learned in the Koran, who could give them daily instruction in their religious duties. Their new associations, the trust reposed in them, the separation from their kindred, and the boundless prospect of plunder and glory, soon transformed these unruly bands into a serviceable force, capable of the greatest exploits. The seizure of the horses, cattle, and sheep, which constituted the wealth of the Berbers, compensated the victors, in some degree, for the absence of the costly booty which had rewarded the courage of their brethren in Syria and Egypt; while the prodigious number of slaves, resulting from the depopulation of entire provinces, provided a source of wealth whose profits were easily realized in the markets of Alexandria and Damascus. The royal fifth of the latter reserved by Musa amounted to sixty thousand, a number so vast as to be incredible, and which caused the Khalif to regard the announcement as false when he received it. With characteristic munificence, he directed Musa to reimburse himself for the fine which he had formerly paid as the penalty for his dishonesty, and, at the same time, he granted to him and the most distinguished soldiers of the army pensions commensurate with their services.

The invasion and sack of Medina by the Syrians, bent upon retribution for the murder of Othman, had caused a great emigration from Arabia, and thousands of the descendants of the proudest families of the Holy Cities had established themselves in Africa, and had rendered great aid to the projects of Musa. Their incorporation into the armies of Al-Maghreb and Iberia sensibly affected the fortunes of the latter country, and indirectly led to the restoration of the dynasty of the Ommeyades. Four sons of Musa had accompanied him in his campaign, and now deputing his authority to the two eldest, he despatched them to the South and West, where a few remaining Berber tribes still asserted their independence. Following the example of their father they exterminated such tribes as dared to resist, and in a few months returned to Kairoan, whither Musa had retired with considerable spoil and a large number of captives. In the mean time, the latter, recognizing the supreme importance of naval operations, and treating with contempt the absurd prejudice of his countrymen whose superstitious dread of the sea amounted at times to absolute terror, ordered the refitting of the dock-yards and harbors of Carthage, whose substantial quays had been little impaired by the successive calamities which had befallen the city. A hundred vessels were built, launched, and manned; Abdallah was appointed admiral; the fleet cruised along the coast of the Mediterranean, and crossing to Sicily, sacked the city of Linosa and returned in triumph with a booty of twenty thousand pieces of gold. Four years afterwards a descent was made by Abdallah on the Balearic Isles, and Majorca was, after a short campaign, added to the dominions of the Khalif.

Their incorrigible duplicity and restlessness, and the absence of a competent military force, again impelled the tribes of the interior to revolt. Taking the field at the head of a picked force, Musa, with trifling difficulty, took Tangier, the last fortified post held by the Greeks in Al-Maghreb; and sending his son Merwan with five thousand cavalry against Sus-al-Aska, the head-quarters of the insurgents, soon had the satisfaction of learning that the rebellion was subdued, and the recalcitrant Berbers punished with a rigor unexampled even in the sanguinary wars of Africa. After making two attempts to capture Ceuta, one of the keys of the strait separating Africa from Europe, both of which the gallant behavior of the governor, Count Julian, rendered ineffectual, Musa appointed Tarik-Ibn-Zeyad, a Berber convert, formerly his slave, and now one of his most trusty officers, to the command of Tangier, and returned to Kairoan.

With the surrender of Tangier the Byzantine domination in Africa came to an end. Sixty years of warfare, the destruction of fleets, the annihilation of armies, the devastation of provinces, the enslavement of nations, had been required to accomplish this result, never for a moment lost sight of by the Moslems amidst the imbroglios of courts and the revolts of pretenders to the Khalifate of Damascus. The abnormally perfidious and martial character of the Berber placed him outside the category of ordinary enemies. No reverses, however severe, could break his spirit. He ignored the obligation of treaties. No resource remained, therefore, but depopulation. The number of slaves made by the Mussulmans in Africa excited the amazement of their brethren in the East. A successful campaign often yielded two hundred thousand of these unfortunates. Such wholesale captivity was without precedent even in the annals of Rome. The fortresses, with the exception of Ceuta, which was nominally a dependency of the Visigothic kings of Spain--though held by a feeble and uncertain tenure--were now in the possession of the Saracens.

The Berbers either paid tribute to the Khalif or, serving under their own commanders, were enrolled in his armies. Already, after the expiration of only two generations, during which the laws and customs of Mohammedan life can be said to have been established, the momentous effects of polygamy were strikingly noticeable. The children of the pagan slaves who filled the harems of the conquerors were educated in the doctrines of the Koran, and idolatry had totally disappeared, save, perhaps, in some sequestered valley of the Atlas Mountains, where the half-savage devotee bowed before a rude and lonely altar, and with mystic incantations invoked the aid of some misshapen image. Islam, which, even by the reluctant testimony of Christian missionaries, exalts the character of the Negro and invests him with a sense of personal dignity and self-respect which no other religion has been able to inspire, soon gained the professed allegiance of the Berbers; and like the Arab, the more suspicious and clannish they had been in their Age of Ignorance, the more patriotic and enterprising they became as Mohammedans--the very isolation and irreconcilable antagonism of their former condition seemed to insensibly impress them with a realization of the imperative necessity and paramount value of national union. The call to prayer of the muezzin everywhere rang out from the towers of pagan temple and Christian church, whose magnificent decorations, bestowed by penitent Goth and Vandal, had once glittered as trophies amidst the splendid pageantry of a Roman triumph. But, despite community of interest, ethnological resemblance, and identity of religious belief, the environment of the inhabitants of Africa seems to be hostile to the permanent improvement of the human species, and before attaining to the highest degree of development of which the race is elsewhere susceptible, it begins to retrograde. The natural state of this great continent, determined largely by climatic and other physical conditions, is essentially and eternally barbarous. Unlike Europe, which has reaped something of value even from its misfortunes, and, by the example of its achievements in art and letters, subdued its very enemies, the institutions and influence of no polished people have ever impressed upon the natives of Africa any enduring traces. The astounding expansion of the Arab intellect--the crowning phenomenon of the Middle Ages--was as transitory in its effects upon them as the thrift and refinement of Carthage or the more solid and majestic influence of Rome. In some respects resembling Asia--whose voluptuous idleness tends inevitably to physical and mental degeneracy--Africa, with its vast mineral resources, its unsurpassed facilities for commercial intercourse, and its inexhaustible agricultural wealth, has--with the exception of Egypt, whose isolation rendered it practically a foreign country--been of little use to its inhabitants, alike incapable of appreciating these manifold advantages and of systematically employing them for their own benefit or for the general profit of mankind.

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