ISHMAEL
After the death of Gregory the Great, Christianity seemed to have conquered all Europe which was known at the time, and also Byzantium, Palestine, Egypt, and the north coast of Africa. The conqueror was about to betake himself to rest, when a quite new and unexpected event happened which threatened Christendom with destruction and heralded the arrival of a new race upon the scene. Ishmael’s descendants, Abraham’s illegitimate sons, who had wandered in the deserts, seeming to continue the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, began to collect in troops and seek a Promised Land.
Six years after Gregory’s death, the Prophet Muhammed, then forty years old, was “awakened.” His armies spread like a conflagration, and a hundred years later, Christian Europe thought the last day had come. The countries first conquered by Christianity—Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, and North Africa—had fallen away and done homage to the new Antichrist. Byzantium was threatened; Sicily and Sardinia had been taken, and Italy was in danger.
From the southernmost point of Spain one could see in clear weather the coast of Africa, where the Saracens dwelt. Spain was a country which, somewhat remote from Rome, had grown and developed into one of the richest provinces, after Phoenicians and Carthaginians had laid the foundations of her civilisation. But when Rome fell into decay, Barbarians from the Baltic sea belonging to the new German races, whose advent had been foretold by Tacitus, poured into Spain, founded a kingdom or two, and now at the beginning of the eighth century, possessed the important cities Toledo and Seville.
In Seville, on the Guadalquivir, in the beautiful province of Andalusia, the old Jew Eleazar sat in the shop where he sold weapons, and counted his day’s takings.
“Many weapons are sold in these days,” was the sudden remark of a stranger who had stepped up to the counter.
Eleazar looked up, liked the appearance of the well-dressed stranger, and answered cautiously, “Yes, certainly, many are sold.”
“Are you expecting war?”
“There is always war here—especially verbal warfare.”