[Sidenote: Conquest by the Muhammadans.]
In the year 610 Muhammad began his career as a prophet. It is no part of Church history to trace the origin of his opinions or his power, to tell how he learnt from Jews and Nestorians, or how he established a marvellous organisation on a basis of theocratic militarism. The migration from Meccah to Medinah in 622 was the beginning of his active ministry, of religious teaching carried forward by sword and fire. The capture of Meccah, the submission of Arabia, the extinction of the Christian (Monophysite) communities in the peninsula, were followed before long by the invasion of Syria and the capture of Jerusalem by the Khalif Omar in 637. The year before, Heraclius {102} had taken away the Holy Rood and the treasures of the churches to Constantinople. Two years later the Muhammadans seized Egypt, from which the Persians had not so long been driven out by the armies of the Empire. The fatal policy of the Monothelite emperors had opened the way to the triumph of Islam. Of this we shall see more, in Africa and in Southern Europe, in later days.
[1] See The Church of the Fathers (vol. ii. of the present series), chapter xxix., for the earlier history.
[2] Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, i. 441.
[3] Aedif., iii. 6.
[4] Joannes Biclarensis, p. 853.
[5] I quote from the admirable summary in the Reports of the Archbishop's Mission to the Assyrian Christians.
[6] See an interesting account in Williams's Middle Kingdom.
[7] His name was Ung; his title Khan; Ung Khan was Syriacised into Yukhanan, i.e. John.
[8] The Christian Topography was written between 535 and 537. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, p. 279.