BRIEF ACCOUNT
OF THE
MOHAMMEDAN EMPIRE.
CHAPTER I.
Extent of the Arabian Empire.—Causes which led to that extent.—Continuance of Mohammedanism.—Decay of the Empire.—What led to it.—Spain revolts and sets up a separate Caliph.—Africa.—Egypt.—Bagdad.—Fall of the House of the Abbassides.
The first battle in which the Arabs tried their power against the disciplined forces of the Roman empire was the battle of Muta. Though on that occasion they were successful, the most sanguine could not have ventured to predict that, before the close of a century, their empire would become more extensive than any that had ever before existed. Yet such was the fact. It overthrew the power of the Romans, and rendered the successors of the Prophet the mightiest and most absolute sovereigns on earth.
Under the last monarch of the Ommiade race, {230} the Arabian empire, excepting only an obscure part of Africa, of little account, embraced a compact territory equal to six months' march of a caravan in length and four in breadth, with innumerable tributary and dependant states. In the exercise of their power, the caliphs were fettered neither by popular rights, the votes of a senate, nor constitutional laws: the Koran was, indeed, their professed rule of action; but, inasmuch as they alone were its interpreters, their will was in all cases law. The loss of Spain to the empire was more than made up by conquests in India, Tartary, and European Turkey. Samarcand and Timbuctoo studied with equal devotion the language and religion of the Koran, and at the temple of Mecca the Moor and the Indian met as brother pilgrims. Throughout the countries west of the Tigris, the language of Arabia became the vehicle of popular intercourse; and, although in Persia, Tartary, and Hindostan the native dialects continued in common use, the Arabic was also there the sacred tongue.
We will advert to some of the causes which led to this astonishing success. The leading article of the Mohammedan faith, the unity of God, harmonized with what Jews and Christians universally believed. Mohammed propounded this doctrine, by excluding the Deity of Jesus Christ, so as {231} to fall in with the views of the greater number of the Christian sectaries. He moreover enjoined practices which, in the then corrupt state of religion, were beginning widely to prevail. To the untutored mind of the desert wanderer, his doctrine would thus possess all the attractiveness he might have heard ascribed to Christianity, while his being of the same country would secure for him the greater attention. Systems in which truth and error have been combined are by no means unwillingly received, especially by those who are already superstitious and fanatical, and such was pre-eminently the character of the Arabians. Mohammed's religious, moral, and juridical system was in general accordance with Asiatic opinions; it provided a paradise exactly suited to the imagination and taste of the Orientals; and, as the superstitious are always more powerfully influenced by that which awakens apprehension and appeals to fear than by what enkindles hope, his hell contributed even more than his heaven to multiply disciples.
Still, had no resort been had to arms, the Mohammedan faith would in all probability have been confined to the deserts of Arabia. The whole of Asia was at that time in a state of unprecedented military inactivity, and opportunity was thus afforded for the success of his enterprise. Empires {232} were tottering and powerless; political wisdom had almost disappeared; and to military talents and courage the Arabs alone could make any pretensions. Previous contentions between the Persian and Byzantine empires had entirely destroyed what little remains of internal vigour those governments might otherwise have possessed. Civil revolts, tyranny, extortion, sensuality, and sloth, had annihilated the ambition of universal rule which the Greek and Roman governments had once cherished; and their provinces, neglected or oppressed, became an easy prey to the Moslem power.
The nations were the more rapidly subdued, since to the indomitable ferocity of the desert wanderer the Saracens added those other features which complete a warlike character. They despised death, and were self-denying and energetic to a degree far beyond the soldiers of civilized countries, while they were scarcely less familiar with the military art. The lieutenants of the caliphs soon vied with the Roman generals in skill; and it is by no means difficult to explain their almost uniform superiority, when we bear in mind the character of the armies they respectively commanded. Terror, moreover, is epidemic; and a force already successful commonly finds its victorious progress greatly aided by the prevailing notion of its prowess. Thus we have witnessed, {233} in the wars of more disciplined troops, the tremendous effect of a name alone.