[20] Sprenger estimates that at his death the number really converted to his doctrine did not exceed a thousand. Cp. Nicholson, pp. 153–58. [↑]
[21] Renan ascribes the idea wholly to Omar. Études d’histoire et de critique, ed. 1862, p. 250. The faithful have preserved a sly saying that “Omar was many a time of a certain opinion, and the Koran was then revealed accordingly.” Nöldeko, Enc. Brit. art. on Koran, in Sketches from Eastern History, 1892, p. 28. On the other hand, Sedillot decides (Histoire des Arabes, 1854. p. 60) that “in Mohammed it is the political idea that dominates.” So Nicholson (p. 169): “At Medina the days of pure religious enthusiasm have passed away for ever, and the prophet is overshadowed by the statesman.” Cp. pp. 173, 175. [↑]
[22] On the measure of racial unity set up by Abyssinian attacks as well as by the pretensions of the Byzantine and Persian empires, see Sedillot, pp. 30, 38. Cp. Van Vloten, Recherches sur la domination arabe, Amsterdam, 1894. pp. 1–4. 7. [↑]
[23] Professor Stanilas Guyard, La Civilisation Musulmane, 1884, p. 22. [↑]
[24] Cp. Renan, Études, pp. 257–66; Hauri, Der Islam in seinem Einfluss auf das Leben seiner Bekenner, 1882, pp. 64–65; Nicholson, p. 235. It was at Medina that a strict Mohammedanism first arose. [↑]
[25] Nicholson, pp. 178–79, and ref. [↑]
[26] Hauri, Der Islam, p. 64. [↑]
[27] Cp. Montesquieu, Grandeur et décadence des Romains, ch. 22. [↑]