The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers

by Unknown

THE SARACEN EMPIRE: ITS FANATICISM, ART AND LEARNING

Saracen (Arab. Sharkiin, the eastern people, from Sharq, the East), is a term applied to the first followers of Mohammed or Mahomet who within forty years after his death, 632 A.D., had subdued a part of Asia and Africa. The Saracens conquered Spain in 711 and following, but were defeated at Tours, France, by Charles Martel in 732. Under Abd-el-rahman they established the caliphate of Cordova in 755, which gave way to the Moors in 1237. The empire of the Saracens closed with the capture of Bagdad by the Tartars, 1258.

We now come to a remarkable chapter in European history,—the invasion of Europe, the land of the Aryans, by a Semitic race, the followers of the famous Mohammed. Connected with this is the rise of the new religion and of a vast dominion that played a great part in the history of the Middle Ages. The latter only can be touched on here.

THE “KORAN” BECAME THE BASIS OF
BOTH RELIGION AND EMPIRE

The doctrines of Mohammed, written down from time to time, received the name of the Koran,—that is, the “Reading”; and the religion itself was called Islam, or Mohammedanism—that is, “Salvation.”

THE HEGIRA OR FLIGHT OF
MOHAMMED

His wife and a few other immediate relatives were the prophet’s first disciples, and these did not increase very rapidly. The people of Mecca denounced him as a madman or an impostor, and in a little time he was forced to flee from Mecca to save his life. He betook himself, with his disciples, to what is now Medina. The date of this flight, or Hegira, as the Arabians call it,—July 15, 622 A.D.,—has been adopted ever since as the chronological era in Mohammedan countries. At Medina he was received with open arms,—his doctrines having already made a number of converts in that place; and here he built his first mosque.

HIS RELIGION SPREAD BY
THE SWORD

A complete change now came over Mohammed,—the dreamer became a red-handed soldier. “The sword,” cried he, “is the key of heaven and hell,” and by the sword Islam was to be forced upon all men. Tribe after tribe was subdued; and before the lapse of ten years the whole Arabian peninsula acknowledged the sovereignty of Mohammed, and could boast of an unmixed population of Moslems, or True Believers. The prophet was preparing to carry the new religion beyond the bounds of Arabia, when he was cut off by a fever at Medina in A.D. 632.

EMPIRE EXTENDED BY CONQUESTS
OF THE CALIPHS

Mohammed was succeeded in his power by rulers called his Caliphs, or Successors, the first of whom was his father-in-law, Abu-beker. They were at once spiritual and temporal rulers. The proselyting spirit of Mohammed had been communicated to his successors, and they began a long series of invasions, wars, and conquests. They everywhere gave men the choice of three things,—Koran, tribute, or sword. By these means the religion of Mohammed was spread over a large part of Asia and Africa, and made its way into Europe also.

SARACEN CONQUESTS IN
THE EAST

The first countries assailed were the Oriental possessions of the Byzantine Empire. In the reign of Abu-beker, Syria and Mesopotamia were subdued by Arabian armies. Under the next caliph, Omar, Egypt was conquered and Northern Africa overrun. The Arabs, or Saracens, as they were also called, met with comparatively little resistance in the Oriental countries, the countries beyond Mount Taurus; and this may be accounted for by the fact that these were the parts of the Roman Empire in which both Roman law and Christianity had taken least hold.

Thus the Eastern Empire was shorn of all its Oriental possessions; and even the farther East—Persia and the lands beyond, to India—was added to the Moslem dominion.

THE FURY OF CONQUEST
IN THE WEST

In the West, however, a stout resistance was encountered. The Saracens besieged Constantinople, against which they carried on a siege of eight years (A.D. 668-675); but every assault was repelled by torrents of terrible Greek fire. A second siege, forty years afterward, met a like result. In North Africa, too, they encountered long and obstinate resistance; but finally the whole northern coast—Cyrene, Tripoli, Carthage—was subdued; and in A. D. 710 a host of turbaned Arabs, with unsheathed scimitars, under Tarik-ben-Zaid, crossed the narrow strait into Spain and landed on the rock which commemorates the name of their leader (“Gibraltar,” i. e., Jebel Tarik, the Mountain of Tarik).

SUBJUGATION OF SPAIN AND
SOUTHERN GAUL

It will be remembered that a Visigothic kingdom had been established in Spain; but Roderick, the “last of the Goths,” was defeated on the field of Xeres, and the Saracens established themselves firmly in Spain. In the course of a few years they had possession of the whole peninsula, with the exception of the mountainous districts in the north, where the little Christian kingdom of the Asturias maintained itself.

The ambition of the Saracens now overleaped the Pyrenees. They obtained a foothold in Southern Gaul; and after a time an able Saracen commander, Abd-el-rahman, led a powerful Mohammedan army northward to subdue the land of the Franks. As far as the Loire everything fell before him, and it seemed that all Europe would come under Moslem sway.

THEIR DEFEAT BY
CHARLES MARTEL

It was in the hour of need that Charles Martel appeared as a champion for Christendom. Gathering a powerful army, he met the Saracens between Tours and Poitiers (pwät-yea´). A desperate battle, which lasted for seven days, ensued; but on the seventh day the Saracens were defeated with great slaughter, A.D. 732.

This victory arrested forever the progress of the Mohammedan arms in Europe, and procured for Charles the expressive surname of “the Hammer” (Martel), by which he is known in history.

While the Saracens were stopped from pushing their conquests farther into Europe, they firmly established themselves in Spain, where they founded a kingdom that lasted for seven hundred years,—that is, till the very close of the Middle Ages.

DIVISION OF SARACENIC
EMPIRE

For a short time the vast dominion which the Saracens had conquered held together, and a single caliph was obeyed in Spain and in India. But soon disputes arose as to the right of succession to the caliphate: wars and secessions took place, and in A.D. 755 the Saracenic [407] empire was divided,—one caliph reigning in Spain and another in Bagdad.

In the East, the most distinguished of the Saracenic rulers was Haroun-al-Raschid (Aaron the Just), who became caliph in A.D. 786, and was a contemporary of Charlemagne. In the Arabian Nights we find a vivid picture of the city he ruled and the life he led. After the death of Haroun, the Eastern dominion of the Saracens was rent by civil strife; one province after another broke off from the caliphate, till in the eleventh and twelfth centuries it fell a prey to the Turks.

SARACENS SUCCEEDED BY THE
MOORS IN SPAIN

In Spain, on the division of the Saracenic power, the rule was in the hands of the Ommiyad line, and the capital was at Cordova. From this city the scepter of the Ommiyades ruled during 283 years (from A.D. 755-1038); but in the eleventh century the supremacy of the Saracens gave place to the Moorish empire in Spain.

SARACEN CONTRIBUTIONS TO
LEARNING AND ART

In the intellectual history of the Middle Ages the Saracens played a remarkable part. When Europe was sunk in the grossest ignorance, this clever people were actively engaged in the cultivation of science, learning, and the arts. The schools of Cordova vied with those of Bagdad in the collection of books and the encouragement of science, and from them proceeded nearly all that was original in the medicine, physics, and metaphysics of Europe during the Middle Ages.