CHAPTER I.
THE WHIRLWIND FROM ARABIA AND WHAT FOLLOWED.
Marauder as he was, the Arab, like his half-brother the Hebrew, carried an ethical spark in his bosom which could be readily fanned into a consuming blaze. He was accustomed, in the silence of the stony waste and of the stars, to plunge into the depths of his own spiritual being, or to await, in patience, some portent from the unseen. Mohammed, a mystic, like unto the ancient prophets of Israel, hating false gods and illuminated by the “One All Merciful, Lord of Creation and Sultan of Life,” in trance, in ecstasy, and in paroxysms of enthusiasm, strove to purge his fellow countrymen of their vain worship of idols and false gods, and to lead them to the feet of the Almighty. At first he preached to closed ears; but persistence and enthusiasm prevailed: the religious intoxication of the Prophet was shared by the unconquered sons of the desert; the Arab took fire from the flaming words which fell from these inspired lips, and was eager to carry the message to the uttermost ends of the earth or to perish in the effort. Within ten years of Mohammed’s flight from Mecca (A.D. 622) all Arabia was won to the Monotheist by conviction or by conquest.
The combination of spiritual fervour with a prospect of worldly achievement is formidable. A year after the death of the Prophet, Kalid, riding against the embattled hosts of Persia (A.D. 633), broke into a chant which reveals a baser spring of action in the Arabian mind. “Behold the wealth of the land,” he sang; “its paths sweat fatness; food abounds as do stones in Arabia. It were a great thing to fight here for worldly goods; but to battle in a holy war is beyond praise. These fruitful fields and Paradise!!!” It was not religious fanaticism alone, although it was religious fanaticism in the main, which put an invincible scimitar into the hands of the tough, tenacious, untamed Arab. He was impelled by religious fervour, without doubt; but religious fervour had the strong support of a lusting after possessions, all the more tempting in contrast with the stinted boons of his desert home. And, should he fall in battle, was he not promised an immediate admission into Paradise with those sensuous enjoyments, which were most in contrast with the penury of the nomad tent, and which were most alluring to the imagination of the average sensual man?
When material greed supports spiritual fanaticism, there is no need to wonder at success. The Arab advanced against exhausted, loosely organised Empires, sprawling and decayed; he offered righteous government, a pure simple faith, with tolerance of the unbeliever under penalty of a light tribute. The requital of refusal was the sword. Damascus fell three years after Mohammed’s death (A.D. 635); Jerusalem, within two year; Egypt, six years later (A.D. 641), and Persia when the Prophet had only lain a decade in his tomb (A.D. 642). Not many years passed before Okba swept across North Africa, rode his steed far into the Atlantic tide, and waved his scimitar over the waste of waters, lamenting that it put a limit to victory. Thrice was the Mediterranean coast of Africa conquered, and thrice was the Arab well-nigh expelled; and then Greek and Roman and all civilized inhabitants of the coast, preferring the rule of the Moslem to that of the barbarous Berbers who had replaced him, welcomed the fourth invasion, and settled down under Arab rule. By the close of the century which in its youth saw the hurried night-flight of Mohammed from Mecca, the Moslem held sway from the Oxus to the Western ports of Barbary. At the beginning of the next century the great Iberian peninsula was added to the dominion of the Caliph; and, although Ironic Destiny turned back the triumph of the Prophet in the decisive battle of Tours (A.D. 732), a hundred years after his death, the great Iberian Peninsula was held by the Arab from sea to sea and as far north as the Cantabrian Mountains and the southern spurs of the Pyrenees; while the Koran was preached, although it did not everywhere prevail, east and west, over a broad belt more than seven thousand miles in length. The muezzin called the Faithful to prayers from the Atlantic to the Yellow Sea.
When a race, endowed with natural gifts, subdues an enlightened people, it becomes inseminated by the higher culture it encounters, and is stimulated to evolve an art, a literature, and a polished civilization of its own. So was it when Rome conquered Hellas; so was it when the Northmen established themselves in France and Sicily; so was it when the thundering steeds of the desert bore their wild riders north and east and west, and the ancient Parthian monarchy and the fairest, the wealthiest, and the most cultured of the Roman provinces fell before the triumphant Arab. Like the Norman, like the Roman, he had the natural gift of governing as well as a passionate wisdom. He steeped himself in the lore of Hellas; it was through him that the philosophy of Aristotle was transmitted to the Schoolmen; it was through him that St. Thomas Aquinas was able to construct that venerable philosophical system, based on the Peripatetic, which has received the sanction and endorsement of the Church of Rome; it was through him, therefore, that Dante beheld that “glorious philosopher,” that “guide of human reason,” that “Maestro di color che sanno,” “Master of those who know,” seated amid a philosophic family. The great names of Averrhoes, Avicenna, Avempace, Algazel, and Avicebron attest the freedom of Arab speculation in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. Mohammedans were the begetters of chemical science; they eagerly pursued the study of botany; they contributed much to geography; they carried medicine far beyond the ancient limits of Galen and Celsus; they became bold, brilliant and successful operators, and introduced new methods into surgery; they cultivated letters and left a noble literature behind them; they were poets almost to a man: Princes wrote verses to the stars in some interval between private plot and public slaughter; water-carriers and camel-drivers vied with professional poets in singing the praises of love in those delicious hours when the refreshing breezes of the night might carry songs beyond the lattice of the harem to be received with the light laughter of girls; even the forbidden wine-flask became a theme for song. Much of Arabic love poetry is immortal, and few are the literatures in which it is surpassed. In Architecture and the Decorative Arts, the Arabs achieved inimitable elegance and grace; as workers in metal they were supreme. After a prolonged struggle, they subdued and civilized the wild Berber. They regarded the Jew as a brother, less well informed in sacred things than themselves; and they treated even the “tritheistic” Christian with forbearance. Indeed they were not too anxious to proselytize; for the unconverted were taxable, and they did not wish the sources of public income to dry up. But taxation was light, and, in the main, the Arab yoke was far from heavy. Slaves were treated with humanity, and might earn their freedom at any moment by a simple profession of faith: the Negro, the Spaniard, the Berber, the Turk, could acquire the full right of a man by the repetition of a short formula. During the declining years of the Byzantine Empire, and until Liberty and Literature arose in the Italian Communes, the Mohammedan bore the torch of learning and kept human justice enthroned.
But Islam was another illustration of the profound truth already recorded in this volume as one of the melancholy tenets of Buddhism: Every human institution bears within it the seeds of its decay. Though a sense of righteous dealing dwelt from of old in the bosom of the Arab, in his native desert the sword which executed it was held by his own right hand. The predatory tentsmen were divided into clans; and between the clans there were blood-feuds. They were a democratic people; but they had a deep reverence for men of noble blood; and their feuds were taken up by the chief men of the cities of Arabia, and by those leaders who, later, became the governors of new provinces. And the conquered Berbers had precisely the same characteristics: they also were predatory, democratic, and revered their noble families. Moreover, both races were readily moved to the more violent of the emotions of religion. Before long Moslem fought against Moslem, and a thousand forms of religious dissent weakened, although they did not destroy, the essential unity of Faith. Again, the extensive and rapidly acquired Empire was too vast and too ill-organized to be ruled by one, all-powerful Caliph. The centre of government was transferred, during the revolutions of Islam at variance with itself, from Damascus to Bagdad and from Bagdad to Cairo; but the Caliph of Cairo was defended by, and therefore in the hands of Mamelukes—slaves, bought in childhood and trained to arms. The Mameluke became the ruler; and, by the middle of the Thirteenth Century, the Caliph was a mere nominal Spiritual Head, far feebler than the Pope in Rome. For, distant provinces were continually falling away from central authority; and it was never long before the ally who came forward to support the Caliph found it to his advantage to turn against him. The Mohammedan world was divided, not merely between the Shiite and Sunnite sects, but between many ambitious and rival States. Long before the Fourteenth Century, Islam was past its prime. There was decay in matters political, in literature, and in art. Yet the amity in Islam was greater than its discord. The need of mutual protection against the Christian, and the duty of every Mohammedan to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his lifetime, helped to preserve true brotherly feeling among all followers of the Prophet, whatever their rank, their wealth, or the colour of their skin. The study of the Koran implied a study of Arabic: there was therefore a common language to serve the needs of intercommunication. The Koran was carried into mysterious lands, known before its arrival only in the distortion of legend and in fables of romance. Passionate devotion to a Faith which antagonistic or far-separated races came to hold in common swept away these obstacles to commutual intimacy. Huge hosts of Pilgrims from many lands met at Mecca, and different caravans and different sects united in prayer and praise. Some had encountered peril by sea; all had baffled the craft or repelled the attack of robber-bands; all had endured trials of the desert; all had triumphed over those countless dangers which lurked along difficult ways. Thus, disciplined in endurance and accustomed to adventure, latent powers of mind and character were aroused. Strange sights awakened the curiosity of the trader; novel wares excited his cupidity and converted him into an explorer of the world. In spite of the intertwining of religious zeal with commercial instinct, Pagan princes saw their opportunity of enrichment, and welcomed the Arab, Moorish, or Persian merchant. And, in days of peace, the whole Mohammedan world was open to every Mohammedan traveller; rulers received him with elaborate courtesy and sped him on his way, rejoicing in gifts. It mattered not whether he entered the gateway of some princely residence, or stood on the threshold of some peasant’s hut; he was sure at least of welcome and refreshment. The trader might settle anywhere and find amity awaiting him; an honest man was an honoured guest in whatever land he might pursue his calling. A Christian, Missionary to the East, who died in Ibn Batûta’s time, bears witness to the brotherly love which obtained among Moslems of different races. So we shall not marvel overmuch at Ibn Batûta accomplishing what even to-day would be considered world-wide travel, or at his discovering children of the same father, who in their childhood watched the sun setting over Atlantic waters, prosperously dwelling in their maturity, one, where the dawn breaks from the Yellow Sea; one, where the oasis lies an incongruous and solitary blossom amid the sands of Sahara.