1 PART I.—THE MAHOMEDAN PERIOD.
2 CHAPTER L.
3 EARLY MAHOMEDAN INVASIONS.
4 HEN the deluge of barbarism had overspread the west; when the eastern
5 nations of Asia, Syria and Egypt had lost all manly spirit and sunk
6 under the weight of despotism, vice, cruelty and immorality in their worst
7 form ; when the Roman empire had lost all its real greatness and the em-
8 pire of Persia its internal vigour and strength ; in short, when the darkness
9 of ignorance prevailed throughout the greater part of the known world, a
10 new religion sprang up in the world which materially affected the political
11 history of the nations. This was the religion of Islam, founded by Muham-
12 mad, an Arabian of the tribe of Kuresh, who announced to his countrymen
13 a divine revelation which he was commanded to promulgate with the sword.
14 He assumed the sacerdotal office in Medina and, seated on a rough and
15 unadorned pulpit in a mosque, and with his back against a palm tree, he
16 declaimed to his idolatrous countrymen against the worship of Al-Lata and
17 Al-Uzzah, and received in a camp without the walls the ambassadors from
18 Mecca, a respect never paid before to the Chusroes of Persia or the Cesars of
19 Constantinople. He called the latent passions and talents of the Arabs
20 into activity and animated them with a new spirit. Armed with the
21 Quran and the sword, and supported by the enthusiastic ardour of his fol-
22 lowers, he waged a war with the civil and religious institutions of the world,
23 and, introducing new politics and new manners, changed the political and
24 moral condition of things. By the force of his persuasive eloquence and
25 extraordinary zeal and energy, this great Arabian reformer converted a race
26 of wandering shepherds into the founders of mighty empires, and kindled new
27 aspirations in more than one-fourth of the population of the globe. With
28 a rapidity to which there is no parallel in the history of nations, the empire
29 of the Saracens extended itself from the Straits of Gibraltar on the west to
30 India on the east, and from the shores of the Atlantic to the borders of
31 China, diffusing in the countries subdued their learning and arts. Within
32 the short period of a century from the establishment of the Mahomedan
33 era,* the warriors of {slém overran Egypt, Syria, Northern Africa and part
34 of Spain on the west, and Persia and Central Asia on the east. Almansur,
35 of the family of Abbas, the conqueror of Persia, made Bagdad the seat
36 of his Government. Forty years later, Hartin-ul-Rashid, the Magnificent,
37 made Bagddd the chief emporium of merchandise between East and West
38 Asia, and extended his dominions from the Mediterranean to the frontiers of
39 Hindostan.
40 Muhammad propagated his religion by the sword. “The sword,” said
41 he, “is the key of Paradise and Hell. A drop of blood shed in the cause of
42 God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail to the Faithful than two months
43 of fasting and prayer. Whoever falls in battle is forgiven his sins ; in the day
44 of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion and odoriferous
45 * The Muhammadan era commenced in 622 4.D., the date of the flight of Muhammad from
46 Mecca to Medina, and any given year of it is designated Hijri, signifying ‘ of the Hijrat’ (or
47 Hijra), ‘ departure or flight.’
48 Promulgation of
49 Islam.
50 Its rapid success.
51 The holy crusades,
52 Sri Satguru J agjit Singh Ji eLibrary NamdhariElibrary@ gmail.com