[223] Count Marcellinus, one of the first ministers of Justinian, vividly describes, in a single sentence, the frightful depredations of Attila when this dreadful “Scourge of God” Pene totam Europam, invasis excisique civitatibus atque castellis, conrasit. This sentence perfectly describes the depredations of Timur and Jenghiz Khan during their terror-inspiring careers in Western Asia. Of Jenghiz Khan the Arabian traveler, Ibn Batuta, writes that he “came into the countries of Islamism and destroyed them.” The same authority says that after destroying such great cities as Bokhara and Samarcand “he killed the inhabitants, taking prisoners the youth only and leaving the country quite desolate. He then passed over the Gihon and took possession of all Khorasan and Irak, destroying the cities and slaughtering the inhabitants.” His son, Hulaku, laid Bagdad in ruins, whence he proceeded with his followers to Syria, continuing his depredations “until divine Providence put an end to his career.” The Travels of Ibn Batuta, pp. 87, 88, 89 (trans. by S. Lee, London, 1829).
The English historian, Marshman, writing of the elder Mongol conqueror, declares: “From the Caspian to the Indus, more than one thousand miles in extent, the whole country was laid waste with fire and sword by the ruthless barbarians who followed Jenghiz Khan. It was the greatest calamity which had befallen the human race since the Deluge and five centuries have been barely sufficient to repair that desolation.” History of India from Remote Antiquity to the Accession of the Mogul Dynasty, Vol. I, p. 49 (London, 1842).
“Well might the Mussulman and Christian world shrink down upon its knees in the presence of such a terrible visitation. ‘We pray God,’ writes Ibin al Athir, ‘that He will send to Islam and to the Mussulmans someone who can protect them, for they are the victims of the most terrible calamity, the men killed, their goods pillaged, their children carried off, their wives reduced to slavery or put to death, the country in fact, laid waste.’ Juveni says that in the country traversed by the Mongols, only a thousandth part of the population remained and where there were previously one hundred thousand inhabitants there remained but a hundred. ‘If nothing interferes with the growth of the population in Khorasan and Irak Ajem from now to the day of resurrection,’ he adds, ‘it will not be the tenths of what it was before the conquest.’” History of the Mongols, Part III, p. i (by H. Howorth, London, 1888).
Jenghiz Khan and “his followers tramped over the fairest portions of the earth with the faggot and the sword in their hands, forestalling the day of doom and crumbling into ruin many old civilizations. His creed was to sweep away all cities as the haunts of slaves and of luxury, that his herds might freely feed upon grass whose green was free from dusty feet. It does make one hide one’s face in terror to read that from 1211 to 1223 eighteen million four hundred and seventy thousand human beings perished in China and Tangut alone at the hands of Jenghiz and his followers; a fearful hecatomb which haunts the memory until one forgets the other features of the story.” Howorth, op. cit., Part I, p. 113.
[224] Pliny in his Historia Naturalis, II, 86, writes: Maximus terræ memoria mortalium extitit motus, Tiberii Cæsaria principatu; XII urbibus Asiæ una nocte prostatis.
[225] History of Greece From Its Conquests by the Romans to the Present Time, B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864, Vol. I, p. 224 (by George Finlay, Oxford, 1877).
[226] I do not ignore the atrocities which the Turks, especially during the last few decades, are alleged to have committed in Armenia and elsewhere. But until reliable testimony as to the Ottoman side of the question is forthcoming it is only fair to the accused for one to suspend judgment.
[227] Mahomet et le Coran, p. vii (Paris, 1865).
[228] “Neque in hoc me falli opinor cum hodieque non paucos ex nostris, alioquin non indoctos, Mahumeticarum rerum tam rudes videam, ut Mahumetanos Idolatras, Lunæque ac Mahumeti adoratores existiment, aliasque de Agarenica secta ejusque Auctore neptias effutiant.” Alcorani Textus Universus, Tom. I, p. 6 (Patavii, 1698).
Padre Lodovico Marracci, who was a religious of the order of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, was the confessor of Pope Innocent XII. It was in obedience to the command of this Pontiff that he published his great work on the Koran on which he spent forty of the best years in his life. It embraces three folio volumes with the text of the Koran in Arabic, accompanied by a Latin translation and copious notes, and is notable as being the most successful of the earlier attempts to make the Koran and Mohammedanism known to the Christian world.