CHAPTER III.
THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF WESTERN ASIA.
After the death of Muḥammad, the army he had intended for Syria was despatched thither by Abū Bakr, in spite of the protestations made by certain Muslims in view of the then disturbed state of Arabia. He silenced their expostulations with the words: “I will not revoke any order given by the Prophet. Medina may become the prey of wild beasts, but the army must carry out the wishes of Muḥammad.” This was the first of that wonderful series of campaigns in which the Arabs overran Syria, Persia and Northern Africa—overturning the ancient kingdom of Persia and despoiling the Roman Empire of some of its fairest provinces. It does not fall within the scope of this work to follow the history of these different campaigns, but, in view of the expansion of the Muslim faith that followed the Arab conquests, it is of importance to discover what were the circumstances that made such an expansion possible.
A great historian[1] has well put the problem that meets us here, in the following words: “Was it genuine religious enthusiasm, the new strength of a faith now for the first time blossoming forth in all its purity, that gave the victory in every battle to the arms of the Arabs and in so incredibly short a time founded the greatest empire the world had ever seen? But evidence is wanting to prove that this was the case. The number was far too small of those who had given their allegiance to the Prophet and his teaching with a free and heartfelt conviction, while on the other hand all the greater was the number of those who had been [[46]]brought into the ranks of the Muhammadans only through pressure from without or by the hope of worldly gain. K͟hālid, ‘that sword of the swords of God,’ exhibited in a very striking manner that mixture of force and persuasion whereby he and many of the Quraysh had been converted, when he said that God had seized them by the hearts and by the hair and compelled them to follow the Prophet. The proud feeling too of a common nationality had much influence—a feeling which was more alive among the Arabs of that time than (perhaps) among any other people, and which alone determined many thousands to give the preference to their countryman and his religion before foreign teachers. Still more powerful was the attraction offered by the sure prospect of gaining booty in abundance, in fighting for the new religion and of exchanging their bare, stony deserts, which offered them only a miserable subsistence, for the fruitful and luxuriant countries of Persia, Syria and Egypt.”
These stupendous conquests which laid the foundations of the Arab empire, were certainly not the outcome of a holy war, waged for the propagation of Islam, but they were followed by such a vast defection from the Christian faith that this result has often been supposed to have been their aim. Thus the sword came to be looked upon by Christian historians as the instrument of Muslim propaganda, and in the light of the success attributed to it the evidences of the genuine missionary activity of Islam were obscured. But the spirit which animated the invading hosts of Arabs who poured over the confines of the Byzantine and Persian empires, was no proselytising zeal for the conversion of souls. On the contrary, religious interests appear to have entered but little into the consciousness of the protagonists of the Arab armies.[2] This expansion of the Arab race is more rightly envisaged as the migration of a vigorous and energetic people driven by hunger and want, to leave their inhospitable deserts and overrun the richer lands of their more fortunate neighbours.[3] Still the unifying [[47]]principle of the movement was the theocracy established in Medina, and the organisation of the new state proceeded from the devoted companions of Muḥammad, the faithful depositaries of his teaching, whose moral weight and enthusiasm kept Islam alive as the official religion, despite the indifference of those Arabs who gave to it a mere nominal adherence.[4] It is not, therefore, in the annals of the conquering armies that we must look for the reasons which lead to the so rapid spread of the Muslim faith, but rather in the conditions prevailing among the conquered peoples.
The national character of this ethnic movement of migration naturally attracted to the invading Arab hosts the outlying representatives of the Arab race through whom the path of the conquering armies lay. Accordingly it is not surprising to find that many of the Christian Bedouins were swept into the rushing tide of this great movement and that Arab tribes, who for centuries had professed the Christian religion, now abandoned it to embrace the Muslim faith. Among these was the tribe of the Banū G͟hassān, who held sway over the desert east of Palestine and southern Syria, of whom it was said that they were “Lords in the days of the ignorance and stars in Islam.”[5] After the battle of Qādisiyyah (A.H. 14) in which the Persian army under Rustam had been utterly discomfited, many Christians belonging to the Bedouin tribes on both sides of the Euphrates came to the Muslim general and said: “The tribes that at the first embraced Islam were wiser than we. Now that Rustam hath been slain, we will accept the new belief.”[6] Similarly, after the conquest of northern Syria, most of the Bedouin tribes, after hesitating a little, joined themselves to the followers of the Prophet.[7]
That force was not the determining factor in these conversions may be judged from the amicable relations that existed between the Christian and the Muslim Arabs. Muḥammad himself had entered into treaty with several [[48]]Christian tribes, promising them his protection and guaranteeing them the free exercise of their religion and to their clergy undisturbed enjoyment of their old rights and authority.[8] A similar bond of friendship united his followers with their fellow-countrymen of the older faith, many of whom voluntarily came forward to assist the Muslims in their military expeditions in the same spirit of loyalty to the new government as had caused them to hold aloof from the great apostasy that raised the standard of revolt throughout Arabia immediately after the death of the Prophet.[9] It has been suggested that the Christian Arabs who guarded the frontier of the Byzantine empire bordering on the desert threw in their lot with the invading Muslim army, when Heraclius refused any longer to pay them their accustomed subsidy for military service as wardens of the marches.[10]
In the battle of the Bridge (A.H. 13) when a disastrous defeat was imminent and the panic-stricken Arabs were hemmed in between the Euphrates and the Persian host, a Christian chief of the Banū Ṭayy sprang forward like another Spurius Lartius to the side of an Arab Horatius, to assist Mut͟hannah the Muslim general in defending the bridge of boats which could alone afford the means of an orderly retreat. When fresh levies were raised to retrieve this disgrace, among the reinforcements that came pouring in from every direction was a Christian tribe of the Banū Namir, who dwelt within the limits of the Byzantine empire, and in the ensuing battle of Buwayb (A.H. 13), just before the final charge of the Arabs that turned the fortune of battle in their favour, Mut͟hannah rode up to the Christian chief and said: “Ye are of one blood with us; come now, and as I charge, charge ye with me.” The Persians fell back before their furious onslaught, and another great victory was added to the glorious roll of Muslim triumphs. One of the most gallant exploits of the day was performed by a youth belonging to another Christian tribe of the desert, who with his companions, a company of Bedouin horse-dealers, had come up just as the Arab army was being [[49]]drawn up in battle array. They threw themselves into the right on the side of their compatriots; and while the conflict was raging most fiercely, this youth, rushing into the centre of the Persians, slew their leader, and leaping on his richly-caparisoned horse, galloped back amidst the plaudits of the Muslim line, crying as he passed in triumph: “I am of the Banū Tag͟hlib. I am he that hath slain the chief.”[11]
The tribe to which this young man boasted that he belonged was one of those that elected to remain Christian, while other tribes of Mesopotamia, such as the Banū Namir and the Banū Quḍāʻah, became Muslim. The Banū Tag͟hlib had sent an embassy to the Prophet as early as the year A.H. 9. The heathen members of the deputation embraced Islam and he made a treaty with the Christians according to which they were to retain their old faith but were not to baptise their children. A condition so entirely at variance with the usual tolerant attitude of Muḥammad towards the Christian Arabs, who were allowed to choose between conversion to Islam and the payment of jizyah and never compelled to abandon their faith, has given rise to the conjecture that this condition was suggested by the Christian families of the Banū Tag͟hlib themselves, out of motives of economy.[12] The long survival of Christianity in this tribe shows that this condition was certainly not observed. The caliph ʻUmar forbade any pressure to be put upon them, when they showed themselves unwilling to abandon their old faith and ordered that they should be left undisturbed in the practice of it, but that they were not to oppose the conversion of any member of their tribe to Islam nor baptise the children of such as became Muslims.[13] They were called upon to pay the jizyah[14] or tax imposed on the non-Muslim subjects, but they felt it to be humiliating to their pride to pay a tax that was levied in return for [[50]]protection of life and property, and petitioned the caliph to be allowed to make the same kind of contribution as the Muslims did. So in lieu of the jizyah they paid a double Ṣadaqah or alms,[15]—which was a poor tax levied on the fields and cattle, etc., of the Muslims.[16] It especially irked the Muslims that any of the Arabs should remain true to the Christian faith. The majority of the Banū Tanūk͟h had become Muslim in the year A.H. 12, when with other Christian Arab tribes they submitted to K͟hālid b. al-Walīd,[17] but some of them appear to have remained true to their old faith for nearly a century and a half, since the caliph al-Mahdī (A.H. 158–169) is said to have seen a number of them who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, and learning that they were Christians, in anger ordered them to accept Islam—which they did to the number of 5000, and one of them suffered martyrdom rather than apostatise.[18] But for the most part, details are lacking for any history of the disappearance of Christianity from among the Christian Arab tribes of Northern Arabia; they seem to have become absorbed in the surrounding Muslim community by an almost insensible process of “peaceful penetration”; had attempts been made to convert them by force when they first came under Muhammadan rule, it would not have been possible for Christians to have survived among them up to the times of the ʻAbbāsid caliphs.[19]