SKETCHES FROM EASTERN HISTORY

MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

SKETCHES

FROM

EASTERN HISTORY

BY

THEODOR NÖLDEKE

PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES IN THE

UNIVERSITY OF STRASSBURG

Translated by

JOHN SUTHERLAND BLACK, M.A.

AND REVISED BY THE AUTHOR

LONDON AND EDINBURGH

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1892

PREFACE.

—•—

Of the following studies, three have already appeared in German periodicals, and one (that on the Koran) forms part of the article Mohammedanism in the 9th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. But all four have been considerably revised. The remaining essays were written in the course of last year. The fourth, fifth, and sixth, and to some extent the second and third also, may be regarded as supplementing Aug. Müller’s excellent History of Islam. I have made careful use of all the sources that were accessible to me, but have cited them only rarely. I hope I have been fairly successful in obliterating the traces of laborious study, while, at the same time, I trust that the book may be found to be of some value, even to the specialist.

The account of Mansúr’s reign is preceded by a brief résumé of the antecedent history, and of the beginnings of the Abbásids dynasty; it was impossible otherwise to exhibit the personality of Mansúr in a proper light. Less organically connected with their context are the paragraphs at the close of the essay upon King Theodore. But the interest which Abyssinia now has, even for the ordinary newspaper reader, justifies, I think, the few words on its history after the death of that king, and the forecast of its future. I take this opportunity of mentioning that an Italian of thorough insight and information has expressed to me his entire concurrence with the opinions indicated in the paragraphs in question. But I must earnestly beg those who read what I have there said not to leap to the conclusion that I have the same opinion about the German as about the Italian enterprises in Africa.

My old friend, De Goeje, of Leyden, has frequently given me valuable assistance in the history of the servile war, especially on geographical points. I am also indebted for some geographical notes to my friend G. Hoffmann, of Kiel.

In speaking of mediæval times I have often retained the familiar classical names of Oriental countries, such as Babylonia instead of Irák, Mesopotamia for Jezíra, in the belief that most readers will find this more convenient.

Where, in the Mohammedan dates, the day of the week and the day of the month did not seem to agree, I have, in reducing them to terms of the Julian calendar, of course held invariably to the day of the week; in the rude Mohammedan reckoning by lunar months errors of two, or even of three days are quite common. As the Mohammedan months seldom, and the Mohammedan years never, coincide with ours, I have occasionally found it necessary, where my authorities gave only the year and the month, to leave the question open as between two years or months of the Julian calendar. So also with the Syrian (Seleucid) years, which are strictly Julian indeed, but begin with 1st October, not 1st January.

The transcription of Oriental names and other words gives their pronunciation only approximately. S is always to be pronounced sharp, as in song, this; z is the English z, as in razor. H is always a distinctly audible consonant, even in such words as Alláh. Long vowels in Arabic and Persian are indicated thus (´), but in some cases this diacritical mark has been omitted (viz. in the first syllable of Irán, Isá, Amid, Amol, Aderbiján, and in the word Islam). In words belonging to other Oriental languages than the Arabic and Persian, I have used the mark but rarely, as in many instances I could not tell whether a vowel denoted as long in the written character was (or is) actually so pronounced.

For Orientalists I may mention, further, that in the following pages I have in Persian geographical names followed the modern pronunciation, and thus have avoided the sounds é and ó.

In the English translation some slips of the original German edition have been corrected, partly at the instance of my friend Professor Robertson Smith.

TH. NÖLDEKE.

Strassburg, 18th July 1892.

CONTENTS.

—•—

I.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SEMITIC RACE.[^[1]]

One of the most difficult tasks of the historian is to depict the moral physiognomy of a nation in such a way that no trait shall be lost, and none exaggerated at the cost of the others. The difficulty of the task may be best appreciated by considering how complicated a thing, full of apparent contradictions, individual character is, and that the historian who seeks to define the character of a nation, or perhaps of a race embracing many nations, has to deal with a still more complex phenomenon, made up of widely varying individuals. This difficulty, indeed, is not equally great with all nations. The common characters of the Semitic nations are in many respects so definite and strongly marked, that on the whole they are more easily portrayed than those of the small Greek people, which, although at bottom a unity, embraced a great variety of distinct local types,—Athenians as well as Bœotians, Corinthians as well as Spartans, Arcadians and Ætolians as well as Milesians and Sybarites. And yet it is no very easy matter to form an estimate of the psychical characteristics of the Semites,—witness the contradictory judgments passed on them by such distinguished scholars as Renan and Steinthal. I have no mind to attempt a new portrait of the Semitic type of humanity. All that I intend is to offer a few contributions to the subject, connecting my remarks, whether by way of agreement or, occasionally, by way of dissent, with a well-written and ingenious essay of the learned orientalist Chwolson, which is mainly directed against Renan.[^[2]] In this the author is successful in refuting some of Renan’s unfavourable criticisms on the Semitic character. But his own judgments are not always strictly impartial; he is himself of Jewish extraction, and in some particulars offers too favourable a picture of the Semitic race, to which he is proud to belong.

Chwolson rightly lays emphasis upon the enormous importance of inborn qualities for nations as well as for individuals; but he is not free from exaggeration in his attempts to minimise the influence of religion and laws on the one hand, of geographical position and of climate on the other. The inhabitants of Paraguay were savage Indians like their neighbours in Brazil and in the Argentine countries; but under the despotic discipline of the Jesuits and their secular successors, they grew into a nation which thirty years ago fought to the death against overwhelming odds for its country and its chief. Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism have exercised a powerful influence for good or for evil even on the character of nations already civilised. In like manner, climate and geographical position are very important factors in the formation of national character. Could we observe the first beginnings of nations, they would perhaps be found to be the decisive factors. Peoples that are, so to speak, adult, and possessed of a developed civilisation, are naturally much less susceptible to such influences than the savage child of nature. But they are not wholly independent of them: isolated countries in particular, with strongly marked geographical peculiarities, such as elevated mountain regions, lonely islands, and above all, desert lands—not to speak of polar regions—exercise this influence in a high degree. Ethnologically the Persians and the Hindoos are very closely related, yet their characters differ enormously; and this must be mainly ascribed to the geographical contrast between their seats. The Persians dwell on a lofty plateau, exposed to violent vicissitudes of cold and heat, and in great part unfit for cultivation; the Hindoos in a region of tropical luxuriance. Chwolson points to the enormous difference between the ancient and the modern Egyptians as a convincing proof that race character is little dependent upon local environment; but really we see in Egypt how a country with such marked peculiarities forces its inhabitants into conformity with itself. Munziger, in his day unquestionably the best authority upon North-Eastern Africa, brings out in a few masterly touches the essential likeness of modern to ancient Egypt. I will quote only one of his remarks: “The ancient Egyptians,” he says, “were not so far ahead of the modern as we are sometimes ready to imagine; then, as now, hovels adjoined palaces, esoteric science coexisted with crass ignorance,” and so forth.[^[3]] In the history of ancient Egypt, extending as it does through millenniums, there naturally occur alternate periods of prosperity and of decay; we may not venture to compare the time of the Mameluke sultans and the Turkish rule with that of the pyramid-builders; but it seems to me a very fair question whether the civilisation of Egypt during the best period of the Fatimids did not stand quite as high as the highest attained under the Pharaohs. The main difference is that the Egyptians in remote antiquity had no neighbours who stood on any sort of equality with them, and thus they received no considerable influences from without; but this was also the reason why their civilisation so soon became stationary.

Chwolson might have made more of the point that peoples are not rigid bodies incapable of modification, but organisms that can develop and assimilate,—organisms offering a varying resistance to external influences, but in the long course of centuries capable of such transformation that their early character can only be recognised in some minor features. Many a touch in the Magyar still reminds us of his Asiatic origin; yet, on the whole, he has more resemblance to any one of the civilised peoples of Europe than to his nearest relations on the Ural.

Similarly, in drawing the character of the Semites, the historian must guard against taking the Jews of Europe as pure representatives of the race. These have maintained many features of their primitive type with remarkable tenacity, but they have become Europeans all the same; and, moreover, many peculiarities by which they are marked are not so much of old Semitic origin as a result of the special history of the Jews, and in particular of continued oppression, and of that long isolation from other peoples, which was partly their own choice and partly imposed upon them.

Our delineation of the Semites must begin with the Arabs, Hebrews, and Syrians (Aramæans), the last named of whom, however, have never constituted a closely-welded nationality, politically or otherwise. Of the inner life of the Phœnicians and some minor Semitic nations of antiquity, we know very little. The whole character of the Babylonians and Assyrians, which in many respects differs widely from that of the other Semites, is steadily coming more and more to light through the arduous labours of cuneiform scholars, but we are still far from knowing it nearly so intimately as we know that of the three first-mentioned peoples. Moreover, it still remains undetermined how far non-Semitic people may have had a share in the commencement of the high and extremely ancient civilisation of Babylon. To make the picture complete it would be necessary, of course, to bring in also the black Semites of Abyssinia and the adjoining regions; but these to all appearance owe their origin to an intermingling of Arab Semites with Africans; indeed, they are for the most part only Semitised “Hamites,” and have accordingly retained much pristine African savagery, especially as they were always strongly exposed to the influence of non-Semitic nations dwelling around and among them. Besides, there is much to be said for neglecting undeveloped or atrophied members when delineating the character of a group of peoples.

The religion of the Semites is the first thing that demands our attention, and that not solely on account of the influence it has exerted on us in Europe. Renan is right in neglecting the beginnings of Semitic religion, and taking the results of their religious development and their tendency to monotheism as the really important thing. The complete victory of monotheism, it is true, was first achieved within historical times among the Israelites; but strong tendencies in the same direction appear also among the other Semitic peoples. Renan is also right in reckoning Christianity as only in part a Semitic religion, for even its origin presupposed a world fructified by Greek ideas, and it was mainly through non-Semitic influences that it became a world-religion; nay, we may almost say that the changes which have taken place in Christianity from the Reformation onwards consist in a more and more complete elimination of its Semitic elements. Islam, on the other hand, in its pure Arabic form, the doctrine of Mohammed and of his disciples, which for a century past has again been preached in its purity by the Wahhabites[^[4]] in the country of its birth, is the logical perfection of Semitic religion, with the importation of only one fundamental idea, though that is indeed a very important one, namely, the conception of a resurrection and of a life in heaven which had already been adopted by Judaism and Christianity.[^[5]] Islam is infinitely hard and one-sided, but in its crude simplicity strictly logical. Mohammed cannot in strictness be called a great man, and yet the appearance of the religion which found in him such clear and energetic expression—a religion which in one rapid march of conquest first subdued the Semitic world already ripe for the change, and then brought under its sway numerous other peoples both civilised and savage—was the most important manifestation the Semitic genius ever made. In the religious portions of the Old Testament we find that more inward warmth of feeling and that richer fancy which distinguished the ancient Hebrew from the Arab. When we read the Psalms and the Prophets, even without the customary idealising spectacles, we shall place them—and not from the merely æsthetic point of view only—far above the Koran. But the result of the religious development of the Old Testament—the religion of Ezra, of the Pharisees, and of the Rabbins—can hardly be said to stand higher than Islam.

The energy and simplicity of Semitic ideas in religion are not favourable to a complicated mythology. Where anything of the sort is met with among them, it is either of purely foreign provenance, or has arisen through admixture with foreign elements. This holds good perhaps even of the Babylonian mythology (which, for the rest, is somewhat formless), certainly of all the variety of Gnostic sects, and in a large measure also of the official Christianity as it is found among Semites. Mystical doctrines with them easily degenerate into crudeness; compare, for example, the religion of the purely Semitic Druses with analogous phenomena of Persian and Indian origin.

Even in the field of religion the nations of Indo-European civilisation display a richer genius than the Semites; but they lack that tremendous energy which produced the belief in the unity of God, not as a result of scientific reflection, but as a moral demand, tolerating no contradiction. This strength of faith, which has subdued the world, is necessarily associated with much violence and exclusiveness. Nowhere is the uncompromising spirit of the Old Testament more impressive than in its half-mythical and yet thoroughly historical portrait of Elijah, that magnificent ideal of prophecy in its zeal for the Lord. I cannot understand how Chwolson will scarcely admit the existence of religious ecstasy among the Semites, when the Old Testament is full of evidences of high imaginative exaltation in its prophets as well as in those of Baal; nay, in Hebrew the very word “to behave as a prophet” (hithnabbê) also means simply “to behave madly, to rave.” Ecstasy, the condition in which the religiously-inspired man believes himself to hold immediate converse with God, was to the prophets themselves the subjective attestation of their vocation. Not less deeply rooted in their religion is that Semitic fanaticism which Chwolson would also fain deny. “Take heed to thyself lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee; but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their images, and ye shall cut down their groves” (Ex. xxxiv. 12, 13)—in such or similar terms run those strict commands, which were indeed justifiable at the time, but none the less bear witness to frightful exclusiveness and rigid fanaticism. In the same spirit the followers of Baal destroy the altars of Jehovah and slay His prophets (1 Kings xix. 10). The captives and property taken by the Israelites from their enemies were often devoted to destruction in honour of Jehovah (herem). By the inscription of king Mesha we now know that the Moabites practised the same thing on a large scale, in honour of their god Chemosh. The Greek translation of herem is anathema, properly “a dedicatory gift;” the cry, “Anathema sit,” so often heard in Christendom, is an inheritance from the Semites. I grant that religious fanaticism has been powerful elsewhere, and particularly where there has been a strong priestly class, as in India; but for the Semitic religions, fanaticism is characteristic. Among the Persian priests of the Sásánian period it first became powerful under Semitic influence and in conflict with Semitic religion. The same trait is conspicuous in Islam. There, indeed, it is more deeply rooted, and of stricter inward necessity, than in Christianity, though it has seldom risen to such heights of atrocity as it has sometimes reached in the latter. When all has been said, Moslems are bound to regard all peace with unbelievers as a truce merely—an obligation at this day much more vividly present to the minds of the vast majority of Mohammedans than Europeans usually suspect.

Another side of their religious narrowness is shown in the wide diffusion which human sacrifice continued to have amongst highly civilised Semites. Amongst the ancient Hebrews, indeed, only isolated traces of it continue to be met with (as also among the Greeks); but as king Mesha sacrificed his son in his need (2 Kings iii. 27), so also did Carthaginian generals centuries afterwards. In fact, extensive human sacrifices were offered to a god in Carthage every year, and as late as the fourth century B.C., the distress into which Agathocles brought the city (in 310) was attributed to the wrath of the deity because the rich had begun to cause purchased children to be offered instead of their own; on this account the horrible custom was again re-established in all its simplicity (Diodor. xx. 14). Among the Arabs also we meet with human sacrifice; only a century before Mohammed, the Arab prince of Híra, a town that contained a large Christian population, sacrificed four hundred nuns whom he had taken in war to his goddess Ozza (the planet Venus). In the Semitic religions occasional traces of primitive rudeness in ideas and manners are continually cropping up. In Mecca reverence is still paid to the black stone, a relic of the once widely-diffused worship of stone-fetishes, of which traces are found even in the Old Testament. To the same category belongs the retention, both in Judaism and in Mohammedanism, of the old custom of circumcision. As the unchaste worship of female goddesses was specially in vogue among the ancient Semites, so even now it happens in Arab countries, that amongst people who pass for thoroughly holy and world-weaned (often simply insane) the grossest excesses are regarded as holy deeds; this, to be sure, is only popular belief, and has never been sanctioned by orthodox theologians. It is a high prerogative of the Old Testament that, surrounded by unchaste religious services, it sternly banishes all such immorality from its worship of Jehovah.

In denying to the Semites in general any tendency to asceticism and monkery, Chwolson is not entirely wrong, but neither is he perfectly right. In the first place, it is fair to say that such a tendency is hardly in any instance characteristic of a nation as a whole. And then, again, the Old Testament does look upon the Nazirate (and also the rule of the Rechabites, who, amongst other things, abstained from wine) as something meritorious; the Jewish Essenes were neither more nor less than a monastic order; and the Old Testament and the Koran alike contain some precepts either wholly or partially ascetic in their character. It must, however, be conceded that the precepts are not exorbitant, and that some of them (such as the prohibition of wine) are very suitable for Asiatic and African countries. Yet it must always be remembered that in all Christendom, Egypt apart, it will be difficult to find such an insane and soul-destroying asceticism as was practised by the purely Semitic Syrians from about the fourth to the seventh century.[^[6]]

The Old Testament almost everywhere breathes a purely ethical spirit, and seeks to conceive of the Godhead as morally perfect; but this view is not wholly strange to other nations. The Roman “Jupiter optimus maximus” is surely intended to express moral perfection as well as the highest power; and amongst the Greeks there arose, at a tolerably early date, a view which freed the gods of the objectionable features attributed to them by the ancient myths. But if the Israelite (like other Semitic peoples) regards his God as the merciful and gracious One, it by no means follows that he is disposed to allow this mercy and grace to extend to other men. The ethical prescriptions of the Old Testament are often unduly idealised. The command to love one’s neighbour has reference, in the Old Testament, only to people of one’s own nation. Cosmopolitan ideas appear occasionally in some of the prophets, but only in germ, and always in such a way that Israel and Israel’s sanctuary remain exalted above all peoples. The cosmopolitanism without which Christianity would be inconceivable, could not gain any strength until after Hellenic and Oriental ideas had begun to combine. Whether the precepts in Deuteronomy, which enjoin humanity in war and otherwise, give as favourable a testimony to the mild disposition of the ancient Israelites as is sometimes supposed, is very doubtful. Perhaps they indicate the very contrary. Chwolson himself points out that among the lying Persians the duty of truthfulness has from of old been specially insisted on; and I believe it would be possible to prove that the hot-blooded ancient Semites had a strong vein of ferocity. The great humanity and benevolence of the Jews of to-day, a result of their peculiar history, can certainly not be adduced as evidence to the contrary.

In political life the Semites have done more than is commonly supposed. It is true that we find among them, on the one hand, a lawless and highly-divided state of society, in which even the rudiments of political authority are hardly known (as among the ancient and modern Bedouins), and, on the other, unlimited despotism. In the first century of Islam the former of these conditions was almost immediately replaced by the latter. Chwolson ought not to deny the despotic character of the Omayyad caliphate, which was purely Semitic, and not half-Persian, like that of the Abbásids in Bagdad. The Arabs of that age, in fact, could hardly think of a ruler at all as without absolute authority. Even the individual governor or general, as long as he is in office, has full and unlimited power. Even those radical fanatics, the Kharijites, who recognised only a perfect Moslem as ruler, whether great or small,[^[7]] gave absolute authority to their leader, if only he did not apostatise from the faith. If, indeed, he did this—and the decision on this point of fact each reserved for himself—they deposed him, and at that period the actual rulers and chiefs had to reckon very strictly with the views and wishes of their fighting subjects; but in theory they were unrestricted in their actions, and a strong and capable prince in some degree actually was so. It was otherwise, however, in ancient Israel. We can still discern that in both kingdoms the sovereigns were in many points limited by survivals of the old aristocratic constitution. To get rid of Naboth, queen Jezebel required the sentence of a public assembly, which she secured by false witnesses (1 Kings xxi.). The narrator therefore gives us to understand that the heads of the commune retained the power of life and death in their own hands, although the monarchy was even then an old institution. The kings of Edom appear in very early times to have been elective princes. And the Phœnicians (including the Carthaginians) present a very large variety of political constitution, which reminds one of Greece. Amongst the Phœnicians we find also, at least in times of the direst need, a self-sacrificing patriotism, as is witnessed by the wars against Rome, in which Carthage perished, and the mortal struggle of Tyre against Alexander (although in the latter religious motives seem to have played a part). But, in general, individualism preponderates among the Semites so greatly that they adapt themselves to a firmly settled state only at the call of great religious impulses, or under the pressure of despotic authority; and, even when it is established, they have no real attachment to it. The still untamed Arab is much more strongly attached to the family, the clan, the tribe; so also among the Israelites of the older time, clanship seems to have been a bond of very great strength. But it is an error to try to see in this absence of formed national feeling, as contrasted with the patriotism of the Greeks, any approach to the freer modern conception of the State.

It is also quite a mistake to attribute to the Semites democratic inclinations. No people has ever laid so much stress upon genealogies as the two Semitic nations with which we are best acquainted, the Hebrews and the Arabs, have done. The genuine Arab is thoroughly aristocratic. Many a feud turns upon the precedence of one family or tribe over another. In the first two centuries after Mohammed bloody wars were waged on such rivalries. Even now it is with a heavy heart that the Arab sees set over him a man of less noble extraction than himself. The deeds of ancestors are accepted as legitimation, but are also the spur of emulation. In the councils of the tribe or of the community, it is difficult for the man of humble origin to acquire influence. Even a caliph so early as the third in the series owed his throne to the influence of his clan, the Omayyads, who yet shortly before had been the bitterest enemies of the Prophet, but nevertheless, after their subjection, retained the position of greatest prominence in Mecca, and so in the new State. But for the consideration in which his family was held, Moáwiya, the real founder of the Omayyad dynasty, with all his talent and all his services to the empire, would never have attained to the supreme command. In this matter, indeed, Islam has gradually effected a mighty change. At his first appearance Mohammed gave offence to the upper-class Meccans by admitting to the number of his followers slaves, freedmen, and other people of no family or account. The might of the religious idea triumphed over old prejudices. In presence of the almighty extra-mundane God all mortals are on an absolute equality; whosoever went over to Islam received the same rights, and undertook the same duties as the highest and the meanest believer. But, in spite of all this, Mohammed himself made many concessions to the aristocratic temper, and this temper continued for a long time after to be a great power; it was the complete development of the despotism, after the old Oriental fashion, that levelled all subjects. But even to this day aristocratic ideas prevail among the Arabs of the desert, and also among the sedentary Arabs in remoter regions. The genuine Arab has in connection with his aristocratic notions a sense of chivalry, a fine feeling for points of honour (not necessarily the same as we ourselves take), but also a strong propensity to vanity and boasting. There are many evidences that in the communities of ancient Israel also an aristocratic rule (elders and nobles) prevailed. That the constitution of Carthage was in its essential features aristocratic is well known. The same is true of the Syrian city of Palmyra, though its constitution was modified by the general conditions of the Roman empire, to which it had to accommodate itself.

As the Semite can hardly be induced, voluntarily, to submit to a strict discipline, he does not, on the whole, make a good soldier. Skirmishes and little surprises are what the Arab finds inspiriting; of the adventures of his heroes and robbers he tells stories, as the Hebrews before him did about Samson. Like all vigorous nations with an exuberant vitality, the Arabs delight in narratives of battle and victory, especially if these are properly exaggerated and flatter their pride of family or race. The Old Testament speaks less of heroes than of saints, but then it is a religious book; its many tales of the “wars of the Lord” nevertheless bear witness that the peaceful Hebrew could also be thoroughly warlike. How could it possibly have been otherwise in a land that had been conquered with the sword, and very often required to be similarly defended? When Chwolson tries to demonstrate the absolutely peaceable disposition of the Israelites by reference to the ideal kingdom of peace which was the object of their hopes, it can be argued on the other side that the very prophet who promises the beating of swords into ploughshares, and of spears into pruning-hooks, depicts the daughter of Zion as trampling on the nations or wasting the land of Assyria with the sword (Micah iv., v.). But Semitic armies have seldom done anything great. This might be ascribed to the circumstance that among the Semites the power of taking in complex unities at a glance, the talent for arrangement, is rare, and that therefore they have had no generals; but we have only to think of Hannibal and other great Carthaginians to reject this view. These, however, carried on their campaigns with foreign troops. For it is quite undeniable that the Semites do not readily make good soldiers. For moulding the Arabs into powerful armies in the early years of Islam, unusual impulses were required: the enthusiasm generated by a new national religion which promised a heavenly reward, and the allurements which the prospects of booty and of settlement in rich lands offered to the inhabitants of the sterile wilderness. Over and above all this there was a wonderful intellectual outburst which showed itself in the appearance of a singular series of highly gifted generals, statesmen, and men of eminence in various directions. And these were precisely the men who then stood at the head of the nation. To subsequent generations the youth of Islam, the true prime of the Arabs, is unintelligible. They are unable to appreciate the great spiritual forces which, either in conjunction with, or in hostile opposition to, each other, were then unfolded. The theological school discerns everywhere only theological battles, and this school dominates the view of later Moslems. This is the chief reason why the names of the great warriors and statesmen of that period have long been almost forgotten in the East, while those of theologians and saints are popular. The later Jews also often fought with the utmost bravery, but only when the defence of their religion was in question. To become subject to a stern discipline, and to encounter death merely for the sake of freedom and fatherland, was not a thought that came naturally to them. Chwolson seems to prefer the enthusiasm of religion to the enthusiasm of patriotism; but I take it that the heroes of Marathon laid the world under a debt of obligation by no means less deep than did the armies of the Maccabees.

In religion the one-sidedness of the Semitic mind was a creative power; but it was highly prejudicial to the development of science. A keen eye for particulars, a sobriety of apprehension (justly dwelt on by Chwolson), are undoubtedly talents of great service in the beginnings of science. Accordingly we find at a comparatively early period amongst Hebrews and Arabs an intelligent system of chronicles such as was never attained by (let us say) the dreamy Hindoos; and from the firm lapidary style in which king Mesha recounts his exploits we can infer that in his time (about 900 B.C.) some beginnings of historic narrative existed even in that remote land. But, as already remarked, the Semite is deficient in the power of taking a general view, in the gift of comprehensive intelligence, of large and, at the same time, logical thought, and therefore, speaking generally, he has only in a few cases contributed anything of importance to science. The ideas of monotheism and of a creation are by no means products of philosophical reflection; the naïve intelligence of the Israelite has not the faintest suspicion of the enormous difficulties which the assumption of a creation out of nothing presents to the reflecting mind; to him the proposition is self-evident. The speculation of the Arabs on the freedom of the will and similar subjects, continued to be very unsystematic and unscientific as long as it was only superficially affected by Greek thought. And even after they had been trained by Greek philosophy, the Arabs, so far as I am able to judge from what I freely confess to be a very limited knowledge, produced little that was new in this field. On the whole, it becomes increasingly apparent that the Syrians and Arabs, whatever their merit in keeping up and handing on the sciences of the Greeks, were not very fruitful in their own cultivation of these, though it must be admitted that the Arabs at least made advances in some matters of detail. Besides, we must not assume that everything written in Arabic must necessarily be Arab and Semitic; one might as well ascribe all the Latin literature of the Middle Ages to the Italians. There are, however, undeniably certain fields of knowledge in which the Arabs distinguished themselves without stimulus from without; Arabian philology in particular, in its various branches, is a brilliant achievement. Many Persians, it is true, had a share in it, but it is almost entirely Arabian in its first origin, and thoroughly so in spirit. It evinces an exceedingly keen observation of the phenomena of language, and though breadth of view and genuine systematic method are frequently wanting, and the wisdom of the school seeks to improve upon the facts, the Arabic language (of course the Arabic only) is examined from all sides with a subtlety worthy of all admiration. But how any one could ever have thought of finding among the ancient Israelites long before Aristotle’s time anything of the nature of natural science is, I confess, incomprehensible to me. When we read that Solomon “spake of trees” and of animals (1 Kings iv. 33; [Heb. v. 13]), the expression admits perhaps of more than one interpretation, but certainly we are not to understand that botany and zoology are meant. Neither should I be disposed to reckon under Semitic science the agricultural treatises of the Carthaginian Mago. We shall be safe in asserting that these did not stand on a higher level than the corresponding Roman and Greek works on that subject, which were directed exclusively to practical ends; but if we are to regard such writings as scientific, we must do the same with cookery books. The discovery of the alphabet, or rather the separation of a true alphabet out of a highly complicated system of writing, has proved infinitely important for science, and bears decisive testimony to the intellectual powers of the Semites,[^[8]] but I hesitate to call this an achievement of science in the proper sense of the word. The science of the Babylonians, on the other hand, deserves high recognition. What they did for astronomy and the measurement of time in particular at a very early period is of the very greatest value, and is even now not wholly out of date; just as, in another aspect, the astrological superstition connected with it dominated succeeding ages. The conspicuous services to science of modern Jewish savants clearly cannot come into the account here; for these men belong to civilised Europe.

All qualified judges are pretty unanimous about Semitic poetry and art. A keen eye for particulars, great subjectivity, a nervous restlessness, deep passion and inwardness of feeling, and, finally, a strong tendency to follow older models and keep to traditional forms of presentation, mark their excellences as well as their defects. I shall not here repeat the remarks so often made on Arabic and Hebrew poetry, as to the want of a Semitic epic and so on. I only observe that the few remains we possess of Hebrew poetry, though mainly of a religious character, reveal many-sidedness in a far higher degree, and also, on the whole, more of depth and freshness, than does the very uniform if formally perfect poetry of the Arabs, of which, notwithstanding many losses, we still possess a very large quantity. From the Syrians much verse has come to us, but hardly anything truly poetical apart from some quite short popular songs of the modern Syrians of the extreme north-east. For the rest, the want of an epos is compensated among the Hebrews and Arabs (as also among some Indo-European peoples) by talent for lively and attractive prose narration. Essentially, as a result of the peculiar structure of their language, the Arabs have naturally a strong tendency to a pointed manner of speech, varying between epigrammatic brevity and ornate tautology. Even the Bedouins in the desert spoke in this way; and this was the style employed by the princes and generals of the first period of Islam in their public addresses as well as in their letters. This artificial and ornate style inevitably degenerated into a mannerism, and finally issued in a meaningless jingle of words and the well-known oriental inflation which we find so intolerable, especially in Persian and Turkish imitations. The counterpart of this love for a striking and elegant manner of speech was, of course, a great sensibility to style on the part of hearers and readers. Eloquence was a highly-prized gift before Mohammed’s time. The pleasure which the Arabs took in beauty of language is one of the principal causes which led to their peculiar success in philology. A taste for well-arranged, striking, and sonorous words existed among the ancient Hebrews also, though not in so highly-developed a form.

Every one admits that, apart from the Babylonians and Assyrians, the Semites have had little success in the plastic arts. The statements of the Old Testament give us a very moderate idea of the architectural performances of the Hebrews. In all essential respects the Phœnicians appear to have copied Egyptian, and afterwards Greek models. The extensive ruins of Palmyra, Petra, Baalbec (Heliopolis), and other towns of Syria, are in a Greek style, only slightly modified by oriental influences. The Arabs, also, have mainly followed foreign patterns. Arab buildings sometimes, indeed, show extraordinary beauty of detail, wonderful ornamentation, splendid colour; but in this department, also, there is a want of sense for totality, of articulate unity of plan. It must, moreover, be noted, that many buildings of the Arabs—the very famous Omayyad mosque at Damascus, among others—were in whole or in part executed by foreigners. It is characteristic of the Arabs that they reckon caligraphy among the fine arts; and certainly any one who has seen finished examples of the work of Arab penmen must acknowledge that there is in them something more than mere dexterity and elegance,—that these wonderfully free and pure forms are controlled by the same feeling for nobility of outline which appears in all branches of Arab decorative art.[^[9]] In Arabian art we everywhere find a delicate sense for detail, but nowhere large apprehension of a great and united whole. That most Semites have effected nothing in sculpture, and very little in painting strictly so called, is partly to be accounted for, no doubt, by religious considerations; but at bottom it has its explanation in want of aptitude for these arts. It is only among the Babylonians and Assyrians that an original sculpture has flourished. Among the remains of Nineveh some notable works of art occur, alongside of many pieces of excellent but purely conventional workmanship.

Our general conclusion, then, is that the genius of the Semites is in many respects one-sided, and does not reach the level of some Indo-European nations, especially the Greeks; but it would be most unjust to deny their claim to one of the highest places among the races of mankind. Among the pure Semites of the present day, indeed, we discover extraordinarily few indications of natural or vigorous progress; much points to the conclusion that this group of nations has long since passed its prime. Whether modern European culture may be able really to lay hold of them, and awaken them to a new and strenuous life, is a question which will not be answered in the immediate future.

II.
THE KORAN.[^[10]]

The Koran (Ḳor’án) is the foundation of Islam. It is the sacred book of more than a hundred millions of men, some of them nations of immemorial civilisation, by all whom it is regarded as the immediate word of God. And since the use of the Koran in public worship, in schools and otherwise, is much more extensive than, for example, the reading of the Bible in most Christian countries, it has been truly described as the most widely-read book in existence. This circumstance alone is sufficient to give it an urgent claim on our attention, whether it suit our taste and fall in with our religious and philosophical views or not. Besides, it is the work of Mohammed, and as such is fitted to afford a clue to the spiritual development of that most successful of all prophets and religious personalities. It must be owned that the first perusal leaves on a European an impression of chaotic confusion,—not that the book is so very extensive, for it is not quite so large as the New Testament. This impression can in some degree be modified only by the application of a critical analysis with the assistance of Arabian tradition.

To the faith of the Moslems, as has been said, the Koran is the word of God, and such also is the claim which the book itself advances. For except in sur. i.—which is a prayer for men—and some few passages where Mohammed (vi. 104, 114, xxvii. 93, xlii. 8), or the angels (xix. 65, xxxvii. 164 sqq.), speak in the first person without the intervention of the usual imperative “say” (sing. or pl.), the speaker throughout is God, either in the first person singular, or more commonly the plural of majesty “we.” The same mode of address is familiar to us from the prophets of the Old Testament; the human personality disappears, in the moment of inspiration, behind the God by whom it is filled. But all the greatest of the Hebrew prophets fall back speedily upon the unassuming human “I”; while in the Koran the divine “I” is the stereotyped form of address. Mohammed, however, really felt himself to be the instrument of God; this consciousness was no doubt brighter at his first appearance than it afterwards became, but it never entirely forsook him. We might therefore readily pardon him for giving out, not only the results of imaginative and emotional excitement, but also many expositions or decrees which were the outcome of cool calculation, as the word of God, if he had only attained the pure moral altitude which in an Isaiah or a Jeremiah fills us with admiration after the lapse of ages.

The rationale of revelation is explained in the Koran itself as follows:—In heaven is the original text (“the mother of the book,” xliii. 3; “a concealed book,” lv. 77; “a well-guarded tablet,” lxxxv. 22). By a process of “sending down” (tanzíl), one piece after another was communicated to the Prophet. The mediator was an angel, who is called sometimes the “Spirit” (xxvi. 193), sometimes the “holy Spirit” (xvi. 104), and at a later time “Gabriel” (ii. 91). This angel dictates the revelation to the Prophet, who repeats it after him, and afterwards proclaims it to the world (lxxxvii. 6, etc.). It is plain that we have here a somewhat crude attempt of the Prophet to represent to himself the more or less unconscious process by which his ideas arose and gradually took shape in his mind. It is no wonder if in such confused imagery the details are not always self-consistent. When, for example, this heavenly archetype is said to be in the hands of an exalted “scribe” (lxxx. 13 sqq.), this seems a transition to a quite different set of ideas, namely, the books of fate, or the record of all human actions—conceptions which are actually found in the Koran. It is to be observed, at all events, that Mohammed’s transcendental idea of God, as a Being exalted altogether above the world, excludes the thought of direct intercourse between the Prophet and God.

It is an explicit statement of the Koran that the sacred book was revealed (“sent down”) by God, not all at once, but piecemeal and gradually (xxv. 34). This is evident from the actual composition of the book, and is confirmed by Moslem tradition. That is to say, Mohammed issued his revelations in fly-leaves of greater or less extent. A single piece of this kind was called either, like the entire collection, ḳor’án, i.e. “reading,” or rather “recitation;” or kitáb, “writing;” or súra, which is the late-Hebrew shúrá, and means literally “series.” The last became, in the lifetime of Mohammed, the regular designation of the individual sections as distinguished from the whole collection; and accordingly it is the name given to the separate chapters of the existing Koran. These chapters are of very unequal length. Since many of the shorter ones are undoubtedly complete in themselves, it is natural to assume that the longer, which are sometimes very comprehensive, have arisen from the amalgamation of various originally distinct revelations. This supposition is favoured by the numerous traditions which give us the circumstances under which this or that short piece, now incorporated in a larger section, was revealed; and also by the fact that the connection of thought in the present súras often seems to be interrupted. And in reality many pieces of the long súras have to be severed out as originally independent; even in the short ones parts are often found which cannot have been there at first. At the same time we must beware of carrying this sifting operation too far,—as I now believe myself to have done in my earlier works, and as Sprenger in his great book on Mohammed also sometimes seems to do. That some súras were of considerable length from the first is seen, for example, from xii., which contains a short introduction, then the history of Joseph, and then a few concluding observations, and is therefore perfectly homogeneous. In like manner, xx., which is mainly occupied with the history of Moses, forms a complete whole. The same is true of xviii., which at first sight seems to fall into several pieces; the history of the seven sleepers, the grotesque narrative about Moses, and that about Alexander “the Horned,” are all connected together, and the same rhyme runs through the whole súra. Even in the separate narrations we may observe how readily the Koran passes from one subject to another, how little care is taken to express all the transitions of thought, and how frequently clauses are omitted, which are almost indispensable. We are not at liberty, therefore, in every case where the connection in the Koran is obscure, to say that it is really broken, and set it down as the clumsy patchwork of a later hand. Even in the old Arabic poetry such abrupt transitions are of very frequent occurrence. It is not uncommon for the Koran, after a new subject has been entered on, to return gradually or suddenly to the former theme,—a proof that there at least separation is not to be thought of. In short, however imperfectly the Koran may have been redacted, in the majority of cases the present súras are identical with the originals.

How these revelations actually arose in Mohammed’s mind is a question which it is almost as idle to discuss as it would be to analyse the workings of the mind of a poet. In his early career, sometimes perhaps in its later stages also, many revelations must have burst from him in uncontrollable excitement, so that he could not possibly regard them otherwise than as divine inspirations. We must bear in mind that he was no cold systematic thinker, but an Oriental visionary, brought up in crass superstition, and without intellectual discipline; a man whose nervous temperament had been powerfully worked on by ascetic austerities, and who was all the more irritated by the opposition he encountered, because he had little of the heroic in his nature. Filled with his religious ideas and visions, he might well fancy he heard the angel bidding him recite what was said to him. There may have been many a revelation of this kind which no one ever heard but himself, as he repeated it to himself in the silence of the night (lxxiii. 4). Indeed the Koran itself admits that he forgot some revelations (lxxxvii. 7). But by far the greatest part of the book is undoubtedly the result of deliberation, touched more or less with emotion, and animated by a certain rhetorical rather than poetical glow. Many passages are based upon purely intellectual reflection. It is said that Mohammed occasionally uttered such a passage immediately after one of those epileptic fits which not only his followers, but (for a time at least) he himself also, regarded as tokens of intercourse with the higher powers. If that is the case, it is impossible to say whether the trick was in the utterance of the revelation or in the fit itself.

How the various pieces of the Koran took literary form is uncertain. Mohammed himself, so far as we can discover, never wrote down anything. The question whether he could read and write has been much debated among Moslems, unfortunately more with dogmatic arguments and spurious traditions than authentic proofs. At present, one is inclined to say that he was not altogether ignorant of these arts, but that from want of practice he found it convenient to employ some one else whenever he had anything to write. After the emigration to Medina (A.D. 622) we are told that short pieces—chiefly legal decisions—were taken down immediately after they were revealed, by an adherent whom he summoned for the purpose; so that nothing stood in the way of their publication. Hence it is probable that in Mecca, where, as in a mercantile town, the art of writing was commoner than in Medina, a place of agriculture, he had already begun to have his oracles committed to writing. That even long portions of the Koran existed in written form from an early date, may be pretty safely inferred from various indications; especially from the fact that in Mecca the Prophet had caused insertions to be made, and pieces to be erased, in his previous revelations. For we cannot suppose that he knew the longer súras by heart so perfectly that he was able after a time to lay his finger upon any particular passage. In some instances, indeed, he may have relied too much on his memory. For example, he seems to have occasionally dictated the same súra to different persons in slightly different terms. In such cases, no doubt, he may have partly intended to introduce improvements; and so long as the difference was merely in expression, without affecting the sense, it could occasion no perplexity to his followers. None of them had literary pedantry enough to question the consistency of the divine revelation on that ground. In particular instances, however, the difference of reading was too important to be overlooked. Thus the Koran itself confesses that the unbelievers cast it up as a reproach to the Prophet that God sometimes substituted one verse for another (xvi. 103). On one occasion, when a dispute arose between two of his own followers as to the true reading of a passage which both had received from the Prophet himself, Mohammed is said to have explained that the Koran was revealed in seven forms. In this dictum, which perhaps is genuine, seven stands, of course, as in many other cases, for an indefinite but limited number. But one may imagine what a world of trouble it has cost the Moslem theologians to explain the saying in accordance with their dogmatic beliefs. A great number of explanations are current, some of which claim the authority of the Prophet himself; as, indeed, fictitious utterances of Mohammed play throughout a conspicuous part in the exegesis of the Koran. One very favourite, but utterly untenable interpretation is that the “seven forms” are seven different Arabic dialects.

When such discrepancies came to the cognisance of Mohammed it was doubtless his desire that only one of the conflicting texts should be considered authentic; only he never gave himself much trouble to have his wish carried into effect. Although in theory he was an upholder of verbal inspiration, he did not push the doctrine to its extreme consequences; his practical good sense did not take these things so strictly as the theologians of later centuries. Sometimes, however, he did suppress whole sections or verses, enjoining his followers to efface or forget them, and declaring them to be “abrogated.” A very remarkable case is that of the two verses in liii., when he had recognised three heathen goddesses as exalted beings, possessing influence with God. This he had done in a moment of weakness, to win his countrymen by a compromise which still left Alláh in the highest rank. He attained his purpose indeed, but was soon visited by remorse, and declared the words in question to have been inspirations of the Evil One.

So much for abrogated readings; the case is somewhat different when we come to the abrogation of laws and directions to the Moslems, which often occurs in the Koran. There is nothing in this at variance with Mohammed’s idea of God. God is to him an absolute despot, who declares a thing right or wrong from no inherent necessity, but by His arbitrary fiat. This God varies His commands at pleasure, prescribes one law for the Christians, another for the Jews, and a third for the Moslems; nay, He even changes His instructions to the Moslems when it pleases Him. Thus, for example, the Koran contains very different directions, suited to varying circumstances, as to the treatment which idolaters are to receive at the hands of believers. But Mohammed showed no anxiety to have these superseded enactments destroyed. Believers could be in no uncertainty as to which of two contradictory passages remained in force; and they might still find edification in that which had become obsolete. That later generations might not so easily distinguish the “abrogated” from the “abrogating” did not occur to Mohammed, whose vision, naturally enough, seldom extended to the future of his religious community. Current events were invariably kept in view in the revelations. In Medina it called forth the admiration of the Faithful to observe how often God gave them the answer to a question whose settlement was urgently required at the moment. The same naïveté appears in a remark of the Caliph Othmán about a doubtful case: “If the Apostle of God were still alive, methinks there had been a Koran passage revealed on this point.” Not unfrequently the divine word was found to coincide with the advice which Mohammed had received from his most intimate disciples. “Omar was many a time of a certain opinion,” says one tradition, “and the Koran was then revealed accordingly.”

The contents of the different parts of the Koran are extremely varied. Many passages consist of theological or moral reflections. We are reminded of the greatness, the goodness, the righteousness of God as manifested in Nature, in history, and in revelation through the prophets, especially through Mohammed. God is magnified as the One, the All-powerful. Idolatry and all deification of created beings, such as the worship of Christ as the Son of God, are unsparingly condemned. The joys of heaven and the pains of hell are depicted in vivid sensuous imagery, as is also the terror of the whole creation at the advent of the last day and the judgment of the world. Believers receive general moral instruction, as well as directions for special circumstances. The lukewarm are rebuked, the enemies threatened with terrible punishment, both temporal and eternal. To the sceptical the truth of Islam is held forth; and a certain, not very cogent, method of demonstration predominates. In many passages the sacred book falls into a diffuse preaching style, others seem more like proclamations or general orders. A great number contain ceremonial or civil laws, or even special commands to individuals down to such matters as the regulation of Mohammed’s harem. In not a few, definite questions are answered which had actually been propounded to the Prophet by believers or infidels. Mohammed himself, too, repeatedly receives direct injunctions, and does not escape an occasional rebuke. One súra (i.) is a prayer, two (cxiii., cxiv.) are magical formulas. Many súras treat of a single topic, others embrace several.

From the mass of material comprised in the Koran—and the account we have given is far from exhaustive—we should select the histories of the ancient prophets and saints as possessing a peculiar interest. The purpose of Mohammed is to show from these histories how God in former times had rewarded the righteous and punished their enemies. For the most part the old prophets only serve to introduce a little variety in point of form, for they are almost in every case facsimiles of Mohammed himself. They preach exactly like him, they have to bring the very same charges against their opponents, who on their part behave exactly as the unbelieving inhabitants of Mecca. The Koran even goes so far as to make Noah contend against the worship of certain false gods, mentioned by name, who were worshipped by the Arabs of Mohammed’s time. In an address which is put in the mouth of Abraham (xxvi. 75 sqq.) the reader quite forgets that it is Abraham, and not Mohammed (or God Himself), who is speaking. Other narratives are intended rather for amusement, although they are always well seasoned with edifying phrases. It is no wonder that the godless Koraishites thought these stories of the Koran not nearly so entertaining as those of Rostam and Ispandiár related by Nadr the son of Hárith, who, when travelling as a merchant, had learned on the Euphrates the heroic mythology of the Persians. But the Prophet was so exasperated by this rivalry that when Nadr fell into his power after the battle of Badr, he caused him to be executed; although in all other cases he readily pardoned his fellow-countrymen.

These histories are chiefly about Scripture characters, especially those of the Old Testament. But the deviations from the Biblical narratives are very marked. Many of the alterations are found in the legendary anecdotes of the Jewish Aggádá and the New Testament Apocrypha; but many more are due to misconceptions such as only a listener (not the reader of a book) could fall into. The most ignorant Jew could never have mistaken Haman (the minister of Ahasuerus) for the minister of Pharaoh, or identified Miriam the sister of Moses with Mary (=Miriam) the mother of Christ. In addition to such misconceptions there are sundry capricious alterations, some of them very grotesque, due to Mohammed himself. For instance, in his ignorance of everything out of Arabia, he makes the fertility of Egypt—where rain is almost never seen and never missed—depend on rain instead of the inundations of the Nile (xii. 49). The strange tale of “the Horned” (i.e. Alexander the Great, xviii. 82 sqq.) reflects, as has been lately discovered, a rather absurd story, written by a Syrian in the beginning of the sixth century; we may believe that the substance of it was related to the Prophet by some Christian. Besides Jewish and Christian histories, there are a few about old Arabian prophets. In these he seems to have handled his materials even more freely than in the others.

The opinion has already been expressed that Mohammed did not make use of written sources. Coincidences and divergences alike can always be accounted for by oral communications from Jews who knew a little and Christians who knew next to nothing. Even in the rare passages where we can trace direct resemblances to the text of the Old Testament (comp. xxi. 105 with Ps. xxxvii. 29; i. 5 with Ps. xxvii. 11) or the New (comp. vii. 48 with Luke xvi. 24; xlvi. 19 with Luke xvi. 25), there is nothing more than might readily have been picked up in conversation with any Jew or Christian. In Medina, where he had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with Jews of some culture, he learned some things out of the Mishna, e.g. v. 35 corresponds almost word for word with Mishna Sanh. iv. 5; compare also ii. 183 with Mishna Ber. i. 2. That these are only cases of oral communication will be admitted by any one with the slightest knowledge of the circumstances. Otherwise we might even conclude that Mohammed had studied the Talmud; e.g. the regulation as to ablution by rubbing with sand, where water cannot be obtained (iv. 46), corresponds to a Talmudic ordinance (Ber. 15a). Of Christianity he can have been able to learn very little even in Medina; as may be seen from the absurd travesty of the institution of the Eucharist in v. 112 sqq. For the rest, it is highly improbable that before the Koran any real literary production—anything that could be strictly called a book—existed in the Arabic language.

In point of style and artistic effect, the different parts of the Koran are of very unequal value. An unprejudiced and critical reader will certainly find very few passages where his æsthetic susceptibilities are thoroughly satisfied. But he will often be struck, especially in the older pieces, by a wild force of passion, and a vigorous, if not rich, imagination. Descriptions of heaven and hell, and allusions to God’s working in Nature, not unfrequently show a certain amount of poetic power. In other places also the style is sometimes lively and impressive; though it is rarely indeed that we come across such strains of touching simplicity as in the middle of xciii. The greater part of the Koran is decidedly prosaic; much of it indeed is stiff in style. Of course, with such a variety of material, we cannot expect every part to be equally vivacious, or imaginative, or poetic. A decree about the right of inheritance, or a point of ritual, must necessarily be expressed in prose, if it is to be intelligible. No one complains of the civil laws in Exodus or the sacrificial ritual in Leviticus, because they want the fire of Isaiah or the tenderness of Deuteronomy. But Mohammed’s mistake consists in persistent and slavish adherence to the semi-poetic form which he had at first adopted in accordance with his own taste and that of his hearers. For instance, he employs rhyme in dealing with the most prosaic subjects, and thus produces the disagreeable effect of incongruity between style and matter. It has to be considered, however, that many of those sermonising pieces which are so tedious to us, especially when we read two or three in succession (perhaps in a very inadequate translation), must have had a quite different effect when recited under the burning sky and on the barren soil of Mecca. There, thoughts about God’s greatness and man’s duty, which are familiar to us from childhood, were all new to the hearers—it is hearers we have to think of in the first instance, not readers—to whom, at the same time, every allusion had a meaning which often escapes our notice. When Mohammed spoke of the goodness of the Lord in creating the clouds, and bringing them across the cheerless desert, and pouring them out on the earth to restore its rich vegetation, that must have been a picture of thrilling interest to the Arabs, who are accustomed to see from three to five years elapse before a copious shower comes to clothe the wilderness once more with luxuriant pastures. It requires an effort for us, under our clouded skies, to realise in some degree the intensity of that impression.

The fact that scraps of poetical phraseology are specially numerous in the earlier súras, enables us to understand why the prosaic mercantile community of Mecca regarded their eccentric townsman as a “poet,” or even a “possessed poet.” Mohammed himself had to disclaim such titles, because he felt himself to be a divinely-inspired prophet; but we too, from our standpoint, shall fully acquit him of poetic genius. Like many other predominantly religious characters, he had no appreciation of poetic beauty; and if we may believe one anecdote related of him, at a time when every one made verses, he affected ignorance of the most elementary rules of prosody. Hence the style of the Koran is not poetical but rhetorical; and the powerful effect which some portions produce on us is gained by rhetorical means. Accordingly the sacred book has not even the artistic form of poetry; which, among the Arabs, includes a stringent metre, as well as rhyme. The Koran is never metrical, and only a few exceptionally eloquent portions fall into a sort of spontaneous rhythm. On the other hand, the rhyme is regularly maintained; although, especially in the later pieces, after a very slovenly fashion. Rhymed prose was a favourite form of composition among the Arabs of that day, and Mohammed adopted it; but if it imparts a certain sprightliness to some passages, it proves on the whole a burdensome yoke. The Moslems themselves have observed that the tyranny of the rhyme often makes itself apparent in derangement of the order of words, and in the choice of verbal forms which would not otherwise have been employed; e.g. an imperfect instead of a perfect. In one place, to save the rhyme, he calls Mount Sinai Sínín (xcv. 2) instead of Síná (xxiii. 20); in another Elijah is called Ilyásín (xxxvii. 130) instead of Ilyás (vi. 85, xxxvii. 123). The substance even is modified to suit exigencies of rhyme. Thus the Prophet would scarcely have fixed on the unusual number of eight angels round the throne of God (lxix. 17) if the word thamániyah, “eight,” had not happened to fall in so well with the rhyme. And when lv. speaks of two heavenly gardens, each with two fountains and two kinds of fruit, and again of two similar gardens, all this is simply because the dual termination (án) corresponds to the syllable that controls the rhyme in that whole súra. In the later pieces, Mohammed often inserts edifying remarks, entirely out of keeping with the context, merely to complete his rhyme. In Arabic it is such an easy thing to accumulate masses of words with the same termination, that the gross negligence of the rhyme in the Koran is doubly remarkable. One may say that this is another mark of the Prophet’s want of mental training, and incapacity for introspective criticism.

On the whole, while many parts of the Koran undoubtedly have considerable rhetorical power, even over an unbelieving reader, the book, æsthetically considered, is by no means a first-rate performance. To begin with what we are most competent to criticise, let us look at some of the more extended narratives. It has already been noticed how vehement and abrupt they are where they ought to be characterised by epic repose. Indispensable links, both in expression and in the sequence of events, are often omitted, so that to understand these histories is sometimes far easier for us than for those who heard them first, because we know most of them from better sources. Along with this, there is a great deal of superfluous verbiage; and nowhere do we find a steady advance in the narration. Contrast, in these respects, “the most beautiful tale,” the history of Joseph (xii.), and its glaring improprieties, with the story in Genesis, so admirably conceived and so admirably executed in spite of some slight discrepancies. Similar faults are found in the non-narrative portions of the Koran. The connection of ideas is extremely loose, and even the syntax betrays great awkwardness. Anacolutha are of frequent occurrence, and cannot be explained as conscious literary devices. Many sentences begin with a “when” or “on the day when,” which seems to hover in the air, so that the commentators are driven to supply a “think of this” or some such ellipsis. Again, there is no great literary skill evinced in the frequent and needless harping on the same words and phrases; in xviii., for example, “till that” (hattá idhá) occurs no fewer than eight times. Mohammed, in short, is not in any sense a master of style. This opinion will be endorsed by any European who reads through the book with an impartial spirit and some knowledge of the language, without taking into account the tiresome effect of its endless iterations. But in the ears of every pious Moslem such a judgment will sound almost as shocking as downright atheism or polytheism. Among the Moslems, the Koran has always been looked on as the most perfect model of style and language. This feature of it is in their dogmatic the greatest of all miracles, the incontestable proof of its divine origin. Such a view on the part of men who knew Arabic infinitely better than the most accomplished European Arabist will ever do, may well startle us. In fact, the Koran boldly challenged its opponents to produce ten súras, or even a single one, like those of the sacred book, and they never did so. That, to be sure, on calm reflection, is not so very surprising. Revelations of the kind which Mohammed uttered, no unbeliever could produce without making himself a laughing-stock. However little real originality there is in Mohammed’s doctrines, as against his own countrymen he was thoroughly original, even in the form of his oracles. To compose such revelations at will was beyond the power of the most expert literary artist; it would have required either a prophet or a shameless impostor. And if such a character appeared after Mohammed, still he could never be anything but an imitator, like the false prophets who arose about the time of his death and afterwards. That the adversaries should produce any sample whatsoever of poetry or rhetoric equal to the Koran is not at all what the Prophet demands. In that case he would have been put to shame, even in the eyes of many of his own followers, by the first poem that came to hand. Nevertheless, it is on such a false interpretation of this challenge that the dogma of the incomparable excellence of the style and diction of the Koran is based. The rest has been accomplished by dogmatic prejudice, which is quite capable of working other miracles besides turning a defective literary production into an unrivalled masterpiece in the eyes of believers. This view once accepted, the next step was to find everywhere evidence of the perfection of the style and language. And if here and there, as one can scarcely doubt, there was among the old Moslems a lover of poetry who had his difficulties about this dogma, he had to beware of uttering an opinion which might have cost him his head. We know of at least one rationalistic theologian who defined the dogma in such a way that we can see he did not believe it (Shahrastání, p. 39). The truth is, it would have been a miracle indeed if the style of the Koran had been perfect. For although there was at that time a recognised poetical style, already degenerating to mannerism, a prose style did not exist. All beginnings are difficult; and it can never be esteemed a serious charge against Mohammed that his book, the first prose work of a high order in the language, testifies to the awkwardness of the beginner. And further, we must always remember that entertainment and æsthetic effect were at most subsidiary objects. The great aim was persuasion and conversion; and, say what we will, that aim has been realised on the most imposing scale.

Mohammed repeatedly calls attention to the fact that the Koran is not written, like other sacred books, in a strange language, but in Arabic, and therefore is intelligible to all. At that time, along with foreign ideas, many foreign words had crept into the language, especially Aramaic terms for religious conceptions of Jewish or Christian origin. Some of these had already passed into general use, while others were confined to a more limited circle. Mohammed, who could not fully express his new ideas in the common language of his countrymen, but had frequently to find out new terms for himself, made free use of such Jewish and Christian words, as was done, though perhaps to a smaller extent, by certain thinkers and poets of that age who had more or less risen above the level of heathenism. In Mohammed’s case this is the less wonderful, because he was indebted to the instruction of Jews and Christians whose Arabic—as the Koran pretty clearly intimates with regard to one of them—was very defective. Nor is it very surprising to find that his use of these words is sometimes as much at fault as his comprehension of the histories which he learned from the same people—that he applies Aramaic expressions as incorrectly as many uneducated persons now employ words derived from the French. Thus, forkán means really “redemption,” but Mohammed (misled by the Arabic meaning of the root frk, “sever,” “decide”) uses it for “revelation.” Milla is properly “Word,” but in the Koran “religion.” Illíyún (lxxxiii. 18, 19) is apparently the Hebrew name of God, Elyón, “the Most High;” Mohammed uses it of a heavenly book (see S. Fraenkel, De vocabulis in antiquis Arabum carminibus et in Corano peregrinis, Leyden 1880, p. 23). So again the word mathání is, as Geiger has conjectured, the regular Arabic plural of the Aramaic mathníthá, which is the same as the Hebrew Mishna, and denotes, in Jewish usage, a legal decision of some of the ancient Rabbins. But in the Koran “the seven Mathání” (xv. 87) are probably the seven verses of súra i., so that Mohammed appears to have understood it in the sense of “saying” or “sentence” (comp. xxxix. 24). Words of Christian origin are less frequent in the Koran. It is an interesting fact that of these a few have come over from the Abyssinian, such as hawáríyún, “apostles,” máida, “table,” and two or three others; these all make their first appearance in súras of the Medina period. The word shaitán, “Satan,” which was likewise borrowed, at least in the first instance, from the Abyssinian, had probably been already introduced into the language. Sprenger has rightly observed that Mohammed makes a certain parade of these foreign terms, as of other peculiarly constructed expressions; in this he followed a favourite practice of contemporary poets. It is the tendency of the imperfectly educated to delight in out-of-the-way expressions, and on such minds they readily produce a remarkably solemn and mysterious impression. This was exactly the kind of effect that Mohammed desired, and to secure it he seems even to have invented a few odd vocables, as ghislín (lxix. 36), sijjín (lxxxiii. 7, 8), tasním (lxxxiii. 27), and salsabíl (lxxvi. 18). But, of course, the necessity of enabling his hearers to understand ideas which they must have found sufficiently novel in themselves, imposed tolerably narrow limits on such eccentricities.

The constituents of our present Koran belong partly to the Mecca period (before A.D. 622), partly to the period commencing with the emigration to Medina (from the autumn of 622 to 8th June 632). Mohammed’s position in Medina was entirely different from that which he had occupied in his native town. In the former he was from the first the leader of a powerful party, and gradually became the autocratic ruler of Arabia; in the latter he was only the despised preacher of a small congregation. This difference, as was to be expected, appears in the Koran. The Medina pieces, whether entire súras or isolated passages interpolated in Meccan súras, are accordingly pretty broadly distinct, as to their contents, from those issued in Mecca. In the great majority of cases there can be no doubt whatever whether a piece first saw the light in Mecca or in Medina; and, for the most part, the internal evidence is borne out by Moslem tradition. And since the revelations given in Medina frequently take notice of events about which we have pretty accurate information, and whose dates are at least approximately known, we are often in a position to fix their date with, at any rate, considerable certainty; here, again, tradition renders valuable assistance. Even with regard to the Medina passages, however, a great deal remains uncertain, partly because the allusions to historical events and circumstances are generally rather obscure, partly because traditions about the occasion of the revelation of the various pieces are often fluctuating, and often rest on misunderstanding or arbitrary conjecture. But, at all events, it is far easier to arrange in some sort of chronological order the Medina súras than those composed in Mecca. There is, indeed, one tradition which professes to furnish a chronological list of all the súras. But not to mention that it occurs in several divergent forms, and that it takes no account of the fact that our present súras are partly composed of pieces of different dates, it contains so many suspicious or undoubtedly false statements, that it is impossible to attach any great importance to it. Besides, it is à priori unlikely that a contemporary of Mohammed should have drawn up such a list; and if any one had made the attempt, he would have found it almost impossible to obtain reliable information as to the order of the earlier Meccan súras. We have in this list no genuine tradition, but rather the lucubrations of an undoubtedly conscientious Moslem critic, who may have lived about a century after the emigration.

Among the revelations put forth in Mecca there is a considerable number of (for the most part) short súras, which strike every attentive reader as being the oldest. They are in an altogether different strain from many others, and in their whole composition they show least resemblance to the Medina pieces. It is no doubt conceivable—as Sprenger supposes—that Mohammed might have returned at intervals to his earlier manner; but since this group possesses a remarkable similarity of style, and since the gradual formation of a different style is on the whole an unmistakable fact, the assumption has little probability; and we shall therefore abide by the opinion that these form a distinct group. At the opposite extreme from them stands another cluster, showing quite obvious affinities with the style of the Medina súras, which must therefore be assigned to the later part of the Prophet’s work in Mecca. Between these two groups stand a number of other Meccan súras, which in every respect mark the transition from the first period to the third. It need hardly be said that the three periods—which were first distinguished by Professor Weil—are not separated by sharp lines of division. With regard to some súras, it may be doubtful whether they ought to be reckoned amongst the middle group, or with one or other of the extremes. And it is altogether impossible, within these groups, to establish even a probable chronological arrangement of the individual revelations. In default of clear allusions to well-known events, or events whose date can be determined, we might indeed endeavour to trace the psychological development of the Prophet by means of the Koran, and arrange its parts accordingly. But in such an undertaking one is always apt to take subjective assumptions or mere fancies for established data. Good traditions about the origin of the Meccan revelations are not very numerous. In fact, the whole history of Mohammed previous to his emigration is so imperfectly related that we are not even sure in what year he appeared as a prophet. Probably it was in A.D. 610; it may have been somewhat earlier, but scarcely later. If, as one tradition says, xxx. 1 sq. (“The Romans are overcome in the nearest neighbouring land”) refers to the defeat of the Byzantines by the Persians, not far from Damascus, about the spring of 614, it would follow that the third group, to which this passage belongs, covers the greater part of the Meccan period. And it is not in itself unlikely that the passionate vehemence which characterises the first group was of short duration. Nor is the assumption contradicted by the tolerably well-attested, though far from incontestable statement, that when Omar was converted (A.D. 615 or 616), xx., which belongs to the second group, already existed in writing. But the reference of xxx. 1 sq. to this particular battle is by no means so certain that positive conclusions can be drawn from it. It is the same with other allusions in the Meccan súras to occurrences whose chronology can be partially ascertained. It is better, therefore, to rest satisfied with a merely relative determination of the order of even the three great clusters of Meccan revelations.

In the pieces of the first period the convulsive excitement of the Prophet often expresses itself with the utmost vehemence. He is so carried away by his emotion that he cannot choose his words; they seem rather to burst from him. Many of these pieces remind us of the oracles of the old heathen soothsayers, whose style is known to us from imitations, although we have perhaps not a single genuine specimen. Like those other oracles, the súras of this period, which are never very long, are composed of short sentences with tolerably pure but rapidly-changing rhymes. The oaths, too, with which many of them begin, were largely used by the soothsayers. Some of these oaths are very uncouth and hard to understand, some of them perhaps were not meant to be understood, for indeed all sorts of strange things are met with in these chapters. Here and there Mohammed speaks of visions, and appears even to see angels before him in bodily form. There are some intensely vivid descriptions of the resurrection and the last day, which must have exercised a demonic power over men who were quite unfamiliar with such pictures. Other pieces paint in glowing colours the joys of heaven and the pains of hell. However, the súras of this period are not all so wild as these; and those which are conceived in a calmer mood appear to be the oldest. Yet, one must repeat, it is exceedingly difficult to make out any strict chronological sequence. For instance, it is by no means certain whether the beginning of xcvi. is really what a widely-circulated tradition calls it, the oldest part of the whole Koran. That tradition goes back to the Prophet’s favourite wife Aïsha; but as she was not born at the time when the revelation is said to have been made, it can only contain at the best what Mohammed told her years afterwards, from his own not very clear recollection, with or without fictitious additions. Aïsha, moreover, is by no means very trustworthy. And, besides, there are other pieces mentioned by others as the oldest. In any case xcvi. 1 sqq. is certainly very early. According to the traditional view, which appears to be correct, it treats of a vision in which the Prophet receives an injunction to recite a revelation conveyed to him by the angel. It is interesting to observe that here already two things are brought forward as proofs of the omnipotence and care of God: one is the creation of man out of a seminal drop—an idea to which Mohammed often recurs; the other is the then recently introduced art of writing, which the Prophet instinctively seizes on as a means of propagating his doctrines. It was only after Mohammed encountered obstinate resistance that the tone of the revelations became thoroughly passionate. In such cases he was not slow to utter terrible threats against those who ridiculed the preaching of the unity of God, of the resurrection, and of the judgment. His own uncle, Abú Lahab, had somewhat brusquely repelled him, and in a brief special súra (cxi.) he and his wife are consigned to hell. The súras of this period form almost exclusively the concluding portions of the present text. One is disposed to assume, however, that they were at one time more numerous, and that many of them were lost at an early period.

Since Mohammed’s strength lay in his enthusiastic and fiery imagination rather than in the wealth of ideas and clearness of abstract thought on which exact reasoning depends, it follows that the older súras, in which the former qualities have free scope, must be more attractive to us than the later. In the súras of the second period the imaginative glow perceptibly diminishes; there is still fire and animation, but the tone becomes gradually more prosaic. As the feverish restlessness subsides, the periods are drawn out, and the revelations as a whole become longer. The truth of the new doctrine is proved by accumulated instances of God’s working in nature and in history; the objections of opponents, whether advanced in good faith or in jest, are controverted by arguments; but the demonstration is often confused or even weak. The histories of the earlier prophets, which had occasionally been briefly touched on in the first period, are now related, sometimes at great length. On the whole, the charm of the style is passing away.

There is one piece of the Koran, belonging to the beginning of this period, if not to the close of the former, which claims particular notice. This is i., the Lord’s Prayer of the Moslems, and beyond dispute the gem of the Koran. The words of this súra, which is known as al-fátiha (“the opening one”), are as follows:—

“(1) In the name of God, the compassionate Compassioner. (2) Praise be [literally “is”] to God, the Lord of the worlds, (3) the compassionate Compassioner, (4) the Sovereign of the day of judgment. (5) Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. (6) Direct us in the right way; (7) in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, on whom there is no wrath, and who go not astray.”

The thoughts are so simple as to need no explanation; and yet the prayer is full of meaning. It is true that there is not a single original idea of Mohammed’s in it. Several words and turns of expression are borrowed directly from the Jews, in particular the designation of God as the “Compassioner,” Rahmán. This is simply the Jewish Rahmáná, which was a favourite name for God in the Talmudic period. Mohammed seems for a while to have entertained the thought of adopting al-Rahmán as a proper name of God, in place of Alláh, which was already used by the heathens.[^[11]] This purpose he ultimately relinquished, but it is just in the súras of the second period that the use of Rahmán is specially frequent. It was probably in the first súra also that Mohammed first introduced the formula, “In the name of God,” etc. It is to be regretted that this prayer must lose its effect through too frequent use, for every Moslem who says his five prayers regularly—as the most of them do—repeats it not less than twenty times a day.

The súras of the third Meccan period, which form a pretty large part of our present Koran, are almost entirely prosaic. Some of the revelations are of considerable extent, and the single verses also are much longer than in the older súras. Only now and then a gleam of poetic power flashes out. A sermonising tone predominates. The súras are very edifying for one who is already reconciled to their import, but to us, at least, they do not seem very well fitted to carry conviction to the minds of unbelievers. That impression, however, is not correct, for in reality the demonstrations of these longer Meccan súras appear to have been peculiarly influential for the propagation of Islam. Mohammed’s mission was not to Europeans, but to a people who, though quick-witted and receptive, were not accustomed to logical thinking, while they had outgrown their ancient religion.

When we reach the Medina period it becomes, as has been indicated, much easier to understand the revelations in their historical relations, since our knowledge of the history of Mohammed in Medina is tolerable complete. In many cases the historical occasion is perfectly clear, in others we can at least recognise the general situation from which they arose, and thus approximately fix their time. There still remains, however, a remnant, of which we can only say that it belongs to Medina.

The style of this period bears a pretty close resemblance to that of the latest Meccan period. It is for the most part pure prose, enriched by occasional rhetorical embellishments. Yet even here there are many bright and impressive passages, especially in those sections which may be regarded as proclamations to the army of the faithful. For the Moslems, Mohammed has many different messages. At one time it is a summons to do battle for the faith; at another, a series of reflections on recently experienced success or misfortune, or a rebuke for their weak faith; or an exhortation to virtue, and so on. He often addresses himself to the “doubters,” some of whom vacillate between faith and unbelief, others make a pretence of faith, while others scarcely take the trouble even to do that. They are no consolidated party, but to Mohammed they are all equally vexatious, because, as soon as danger has to be encountered, or a contribution is levied, they all alike fall away. There are frequent outbursts, ever increasing in bitterness, against the Jews, who were very numerous in Medina and its neighbourhood when Mohammed arrived. He has much less to say against the Christians, with whom he never came closely in contact; and as for the idolaters, there was little occasion in Medina to have many words with them. A part of the Medina pieces consists of formal laws belonging to the ceremonial, civil, and criminal codes; or directions about certain temporary complications. The most objectionable parts of the whole Koran are those which treat of Mohammed’s relations with women. The laws and regulations were generally very concise revelations, but most of them have been amalgamated with other pieces of similar or dissimilar import, and are now found in very long súras.

Such is an imperfect sketch of the composition and the internal history of the Koran, but it is probably sufficient to show that the book is a very heterogeneous collection. If only those passages had been preserved which had a permanent value for the theology, the ethics, or the jurisprudence of the Moslems, a few fragments would have been amply sufficient. Fortunately for knowledge, respect for the sacredness of the letter has led to the collection of all the revelations that could possibly be collected,—the “abrogating” along with the “abrogated,” passages referring to passing circumstances as well as those of lasting importance. Every one who takes up the book in the proper religious frame of mind, like most of the Moslems, reads pieces directed against long-obsolete absurd customs of Mecca just as devoutly as the weightiest moral precepts,—perhaps even more devoutly, because he does not understand them so well.

At the head of twenty-nine of the súras stand certain initial letters, from which no clear sense can be obtained. Thus, before ii. iii. xxxi. xxxii. we find ALM (Alif Lám Mím), before xl.-xlvi. HM (Há Mím). At one time I suggested that these initials did not belong to Mohammed’s text, but might be the monograms of possessors of codices, which, through negligence on the part of the editors, were incorporated in the final form of the Koran; but I now deem it more probable that they are to be traced to the Prophet himself, as Sprenger and Loth suppose. One cannot indeed admit the truth of Loth’s statement, that in the proper opening words of these súras we may generally find an allusion to the accompanying initials; but it can scarcely be accidental that the first verse of the great majority of them (in iii. it is the second verse) contains the word “book,” “revelation,” or some equivalent. They usually begin with: “This is the book,” or “Revelation (‘down sending’) of the book,” or something similar. Of súras which commence in this way only a few (xviii. xxiv. xxv. xxxix.) want the initials, while only xxix. and xxx. have the initials, and begin differently. These few exceptions may easily have proceeded from ancient corruptions; at all events, they cannot neutralise the evidence of the greater number. Mohammed seems to have meant these letters for a mystic reference to the archetypal text in heaven. To a man who regarded the art of writing, of which at the best he had but a slight knowledge, as something supernatural, and who lived amongst illiterate people, an A B C may well have seemed more significant than to us who have been initiated into the mysteries of this art from our childhood. The Prophet himself can hardly have attached any particular meaning to these symbols: they served their purpose if they conveyed an impression of solemnity and enigmatical obscurity. In fact, the Koran admits that it contains many things which neither can be, nor were intended to be, understood (iii. 5). To regard these letters as ciphers is a precarious hypothesis, for the simple reason that cryptography is not to be looked for in the very infancy of Arabic writing. If they are actually ciphers, the multiplicity of possible explanations at once precludes the hope of a plausible interpretation. None of the efforts in this direction, whether by Moslem scholars or by Europeans, have led to convincing results. This remark applies even to the ingenious conjecture of Sprenger, that the letters KHY‘Ṣ (Káf Hé Yé ‘Ain Sád) before xix. (which treats of John and Jesus, and, according to tradition, was sent to the Christian king of Abyssinia) stand for Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judæorum. Sprenger arrives at this explanation by a very artificial method; and besides, Mohammed was not so simple as the Moslem traditionalists, who imagined that the Abyssinians could read a piece of the Arabic Koran. It need hardly be said that the Moslems have from of old applied themselves with great assiduity to the decipherment of these initials, and have sometimes found the deepest mysteries in them. Generally, however, they are content with the prudent conclusion, that God alone knows the meaning of these letters.

When Mohammed died, the separate pieces of the Koran, notwithstanding their theoretical sacredness, existed only in scattered copies; they were consequently in great danger of being partially or entirely destroyed. Many Moslems knew large portions by heart, but certainly no one knew the whole; and a merely oral propagation would have left the door open to all kinds of deliberate and inadvertent alterations. Mohammed himself had never thought of an authentic collection of his revelations; he was usually concerned only with the object of the moment, and the idea that the revelations would be destroyed unless he made provision for their safe preservation, did not enter his mind. A man destitute of literary culture has some difficulty in anticipating the fate of intellectual products. But now, after the death of the Prophet, most of the Arabs revolted against his successor, and had to be reduced to submission by force. Especially sanguinary was the contest against the prophet Maslama, an imitator of Mohammed, commonly known by the derisive diminutive Mosailima (i.e. “Little Maslama”). At that time (A.D. 633) many of the most devoted Moslems fell, the very men who knew most Koran pieces by heart. Omar then began to fear that the Koran might be entirely forgotten, and he induced the Caliph Abú Bekr to undertake the collection of all its parts. The Caliph laid the duty on Zaid, the son of Thábit, a native of Medina, then about twenty-two years of age, who had often acted as amanuensis to the Prophet, in whose service he is even said to have learned the Jewish letters. The account of this collection of the Koran has reached us in several substantially identical forms, and goes back to Zaid himself. According to it, he collected the revelations from copies written on flat stones, pieces of leather, ribs of palm-leaves (not palm-leaves themselves), and such-like material, but chiefly “from the breasts of men,” i.e. from their memory. From these he wrote a fair copy, which he gave to Abú Bekr, from whom it came to his successor Omar, who again bequeathed it to his daughter Hafsa, one of the widows of the Prophet. This redaction, commonly called al-sohof (“the leaves”), had from the first no canonical authority; and its internal arrangement can only be conjectured.

The Moslems were as far as ever from possessing a uniform text of the Koran. The bravest of their warriors sometimes knew deplorably little about it; distinction on that field they cheerfully accorded to pious men like Ibn Mas‘úd. It was inevitable, however, that discrepancies should emerge between the texts of professed scholars, and as these men in their several localities were authorities on the reading of the Koran, quarrels began to break out between the levies from different districts about the true form of the sacred book. During a campaign in A.H. 30 (A.D. 650-1), Hodhaifa, the victor in the great and decisive battle of Neháwand—which was to the empire of the Sásánians what Gaugamela was to that of the Achæmenidæ—perceived that such disputes might become dangerous, and therefore urged on the Caliph Othmán the necessity for a universally binding text. The matter was entrusted to Zaid, who had made the former collection, with three leading Koraishites. These brought together as many copies as they could lay their hands on, and prepared an edition which was to be canonical for all Moslems. To prevent any further disputes, they burned all the other codices except that of Hafsa, which, however, was soon afterwards destroyed by Marwán, the governor of Medina. The destruction of the earlier codices was an irreparable loss to criticism; but, for the essentially political object of putting an end to controversies by admitting only one form of the common book of religion and of law, this measure was necessary.

The result of these labours is in our hands; as to how they were conducted we have no trustworthy information, tradition being here too much under the influence of dogmatic presuppositions. The critical methods of a modern scientific commission will not be expected of an age when the highest literary education for an Arab consisted in ability to read and write. It now seems to me highly probable that this second redaction took this simple form: Zaid read off from the codex which he had previously written, and his associates, simultaneously or successively, wrote one copy each to his dictation. These, I suppose, were the three copies which, we are informed, were sent to the capitals Damascus, Basra, and Cufa, to be in the first instance standards for the soldiers of the respective provinces. A fourth copy would doubtless be retained at Medina. Be that as it may, it is impossible now to distinguish in the present form of the book what belongs to the first redaction from what is due to the second.

In the arrangement of the separate sections, a classification according to contents was impracticable because of the variety of subjects often dealt with in one súra. A chronological arrangement was out of the question, because the chronology of the older pieces must have been imperfectly known, and because in some cases passages of different dates had been joined together. Indeed, systematic principles of this kind were altogether disregarded at that period. The pieces were accordingly arranged in indiscriminate order, the only rule observed being to place the long súras first and the shorter towards the end, and even that was far from strictly adhered to. The short opening súra is so placed on account of its superiority to the rest, and two magical formulæ are kept for a sort of protection at the end; these are the only special traces of design. The combination of pieces of different origin may proceed partly from the possessors of the codices from which Zaid compiled his first complete copy, partly from Zaid himself. The individual súras are separated simply by the superscription, “In the name of God, the compassionate Compassioner,” which is wanting only in the ninth. The additional headings found in our texts (the name of the súra, the number of verses, etc.) were not in the original codices, and form no integral part of the Koran.

It is said that Othmán directed Zaid and his associates, in cases of disagreement, to follow the Koraish dialect; but, though well-attested, this account can scarcely be correct. The extremely primitive writing of those days was quite incapable of rendering such minute differences as can have existed between the pronunciation of Mecca and that of Medina.

Othmán’s Koran was not complete. Some passages are evidently fragmentary; and a few detached pieces are still extant which were originally parts of the Koran, although they have been omitted by Zaid. Amongst these are some which there is no reason to suppose Mohammed desired to suppress. Zaid may easily have overlooked a few stray fragments, but that he purposely omitted anything which he believed to belong to the Koran is very unlikely. It has been conjectured that in deference to his superiors he kept out of the book the names of Mohammed’s enemies, if they or their families came afterwards to be respected. But it must be remembered that it was never Mohammed’s practice to refer explicitly to contemporary persons and affairs in the Koran. Only a single friend, his adopted son Zaid (xxxiii. 37), and a single enemy, his uncle Abú Lahab (cxi.)—and these for very special reasons—are mentioned by name; and the name of the latter has been left in the Koran with a fearful curse annexed to it, although his son had embraced Islam before the death of Mohammed, and although his descendants belonged to the high nobility. So, on the other hand, there is no single verse or clause which can be plausibly made out to be an interpolation by Zaid at the instance of Abú Bekr, Omar, or Othmán. Slight clerical errors there may have been, but the Koran of Othmán contains none but genuine elements—though sometimes in very strange order.

It can still be pretty clearly shown in detail that the four codices of Othmán’s Koran deviated from one another in points of orthography, in the insertion or omission of a wa (“and”), and such-like minutiæ; but these variations nowhere affect the sense. All later manuscripts are derived from these four originals.

At the same time, the other forms of the Koran did not at once become extinct. In particular we have some information about the codex of Obay. If the list which gives the order of its súras is correct, it must have contained substantially the same materials as our text; in that case Obay must have used the original collection of Zaid. The same is true of the codex of Ibn Mas‘úd, of which we have also a catalogue. It appears that the principle of putting the longer súras before the shorter was more consistently carried out by him than by Zaid. He omits i. and the magical formulæ of cxiii. cxiv. Obay, on the other hand, had embodied two additional short prayers, whose authenticity I do not now venture to question, as I formerly did. One can easily understand that differences of opinion may have existed as to whether and how far formularies of this kind belonged to the Koran. Some of the divergent readings of both these texts have been preserved, as well as a considerable number of other ancient variants. Most of them are decidedly inferior to the received readings, but some are quite as good, and a few deserve preference.

The only man who appears to have seriously opposed the general introduction of Othmán’s text is Ibn Mas‘úd. He was one of the oldest disciples of the Prophet, and had often rendered him personal service; but he was a man of contracted views, although he is one of the pillars of Moslem theology. His opposition had no effect. Now when we consider that at that time there were many Moslems who had heard the Koran from the mouth of the Prophet, that other measures of the imbecile Othmán met with the most vehement resistance on the part of the bigoted champions of the faith, that these were still further incited against him by some of his ambitious old comrades, until at last they murdered him, and finally that in the civil wars after his death the several parties were glad of any pretext for branding their opponents as infidels;—when we consider all this, we must regard it as a strong testimony in favour of Othmán’s Koran that no party—that of Alí not excepted—repudiated the text formed by Zaid, who was one of the most devoted adherents of Othmán and his family, and that even among the Shíites we detect but very few marks of dissatisfaction with the Caliph’s conduct in this matter.

But this redaction is not the close of the textual history of the Koran. The ancient Arabic alphabet was very imperfect; it not only wanted marks for the short, and in part even for the long vowels, but it often expressed several consonants by the same sign, the forms of different letters, formerly clearly distinct, having become by degrees identical. So, for example, there was but one character to express B, T, Th, and in the beginning and in the middle of words N and Y (I) also. Though the reader who was perfectly familiar with the language felt no difficulty, as a rule, in discovering which pronunciation the writer had in view, yet as there were many words which admitted of being pronounced in very different manners, instances were not infrequent in which the pronunciation was dubious. This variety of possible readings was at first very great, and many readers seem to have actually made it their object to discover pronunciations which were new, provided they were at all appropriate to the ambiguous text. There was also a dialectic licence in grammatical forms, which had not as yet been greatly restricted. An effort was made by many to establish a more refined pronunciation for the Koran than was usual in common life or in secular literature. The various schools of “readers” differed very widely from one another; although for the most part there was no important divergence as to the sense of words. A few of them gradually rose to special authority, and the rest disappeared. Seven readers are generally reckoned chief authorities, but for practical purposes this number was continually reduced in process of time; so that at present only two “reading styles” are in actual use,—the common style of Ḥafṣ and that of Náfi‘, which prevails in Africa to the west of Egypt. There is, however, a very comprehensive massoretic literature in which a number of other styles are indicated. The invention of vowel-signs, of diacritic points to distinguish similarly formed consonants, and of other orthographic signs, soon put a stop to arbitrary conjectures on the part of the readers. Many zealots objected to the introduction of these innovations in the sacred text, but theological consistency had to yield to practical necessity. In accurate codices, indeed, all such additions, as well as the titles of the súra, etc., are written in coloured ink, while the black characters profess to represent exactly the original of Othmán. But there is probably no copy quite faithful in this respect.

The correct recitation of the Koran is an art difficult of acquisition to the Arabs themselves. Besides the artificial pronunciation mentioned above, a semi-musical modulation has to be observed. In these things also there are great differences between the various schools.

In European libraries, besides innumerable modern manuscripts of the Koran, there are also codices or fragments of high antiquity, some of them probably dating from the first century of the Flight. For the restoration of the text, however, the works of ancient scholars on its readings and modes of writing are more important than the manuscripts, which, however elegantly they may be written and ornamented, proceed from irresponsible copyists. The original, written by Othmán himself, has indeed been exhibited in various parts of the Mohammedan world. The library of the India Office contains one such manuscript, bearing the subscription: “Written by Othmán the son of Affán.” These, of course, are barefaced forgeries, although of very ancient date; so are those which profess to be from the hand of Alí, one of which is preserved in the same library. In recent times the Koran has been often printed and lithographed both in the East and the West.

Shortly after Mohammed’s death certain individuals applied themselves to the exposition of the Koran. Much of it was obscure from the beginning, other sections were unintelligible apart from a knowledge of the circumstances of their origin. Unfortunately those who took possession of this field were not very honourable. Ibn Abbás, a cousin of Mohammed’s, and the chief source of the traditional exegesis of the Koran, has, on theological and other grounds, given currency to a number of falsehoods; and at least some of his pupils have emulated his example. These earliest expositions dealt more with the sense and connection of whole verses than with the separate words. Afterwards, as the knowledge of the old language declined, and the study of philology arose, more attention began to be paid to the explanation of vocables. A good many fragments of this older theological and philological exegesis have survived from the first two centuries of the Flight, although we have no complete commentary of this period. Most of the expository material will perhaps be found in the very large commentary of the celebrated Tabarí (A.D. 839-923), of which an almost complete copy is in the Viceregal library at Cairo. Another very famous commentary is that of Zamakhsharí (A.D. 1075-1144), edited by Nassau-Lees, Calcutta 1859; but this scholar, with his great insight and still greater subtlety, is too apt to read his own scholastic ideas into the Koran. The favourite commentary of Baidáwí (ob. A.D. 1286) is little more than an abridgment of Zamakhsharí’s. Thousands of commentaries on the Koran, some of them of prodigious size,[^[12]] have been written by Moslems; and even the number of those still extant in manuscript is by no means small. Although these works all contain much that is useless or false, yet they are invaluable aids to our understanding of the sacred book. An unbiassed European can no doubt see many things at a glance more clearly than a good Moslem who is under the influence of religious prejudice; but we should still be helpless without the exegetical literature of the Mohammedans.

Even the Arab Moslem of the present day can have but a very dim and imperfect understanding of the Koran, unless he has made a special study of its exegesis. For the great advantage, boasted by the holy book itself, of being perspicuous to every one, has in the course of thirteen centuries vanished. Moreover, the general belief is that in the ritual use of the Koran, if the correct recitation is observed, it is immaterial whether the meaning of the words be understood or not.

A great deal remains to be accomplished by European scholarship for the correct interpretation of the Koran. We want, for example, an exhaustive classification and discussion of all the Jewish elements in the Koran; a praiseworthy beginning has already been made in Geiger’s youthful essay, Was hat Mahomet aus dem Judenthum aufgenommen? We want especially a thorough commentary, executed with the methods and resources of modern science. No European language, it would seem, can even boast of a translation which completely satisfies modern requirements. The best are in English, where we have the extremely paraphrastic, but for its time admirable translation of Sale (repeatedly printed), that of Rodwell (1861), which seeks to give the pieces in chronological order, and that of Palmer (1880), who wisely follows the traditional arrangements. The introduction which accompanies Palmer’s translation is not in all respects abreast of the most recent scholarship. Considerable extracts from the Koran are well translated in E. W. Lane’s Selections from the Kur-án.

Besides commentaries on the whole Koran, or on special parts and topics, the Moslems possess a whole literature bearing on their sacred book. There are works on the spelling and right pronunciation of the Koran, works on the beauty of its language, on the number of its verses, words, and letters, etc.; nay, there are even works which would nowadays be called “historical and critical introductions.” Moreover, the origin of Arabic philology is intimately connected with the recitation and exegesis of the Koran. To exhibit the importance of the sacred book for the whole mental life of the Moslems, would be simply to write the history of that life itself; for there is no department in which its all-pervading, but unfortunately not always salutary, influence has not been felt.

The unbounded reverence of the Moslems for the Koran reaches its climax in the dogma (which appeared at an early date through the influence of the Christian doctrine of the eternal Word of God) that this book, as the divine Word, i.e. thought, is immanent in God, and consequently eternal and uncreated. That dogma has been accepted by almost all Mohammedans since the beginning of the third century. Some theologians did indeed protest against it with great energy; it was, in fact, too preposterous to declare that a book composed of unstable words and letters, and full of variants, was absolutely divine. But what were the distinctions and sophisms of the theologians for, if they could not remove such contradictions, and convict their opponents of heresy?

The following works may be specially consulted: Weil, Einleitung in den Korán, 2nd ed. 1878; Th. Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorân, Göttingen, 1860; and the Lives of Mohammed by Muir and Sprenger.

III.
ISLAM.[^[13]]

On the 14th of September 629, the emperor Heraclius again set up the true Cross in Jerusalem. He had vanquished the Persians after a desperate struggle, and compelled them to restore this most sacred of relics, which they had carried off on their conquest of the Holy Land. It was a day of triumph for all Christendom, which is still marked in its calendars as the “Feast of the Elevation of the Cross.” At the very moment of this striking celebration of the victory of Christendom over unbelievers, we may suppose tidings to have been brought to the emperor, that his Arabian troops beyond Jordan had been attacked by a small band from the interior, and had only with difficulty succeeded in repelling the violent onset. It is not likely that the news can have struck him as implying anything very serious. Nevertheless this was the first assault of the Moslems; it was quickly followed by others, and in a few years Palestine and many other provinces had been for ever torn away from the Roman empire, to which they had for seven centuries belonged, the empire of Persia had been destroyed, and in the native lands of Christianity and Zoroastrianism a new faith and a new people had attained an enduring ascendency. No overturn at once so great and so rapid is recorded in history.

The founder of this new religion, Mohammed, son of Abdalláh, was no martial hero. It was under the pressure of circumstances, and by the necessities of thoughts which carried him much farther than he could possibly have divined, that he became a prince and a conqueror. The hysterical enthusiast, conscious of a vocation to make known the Oneness of God, was forced into a career of battle by the opposition of his kinsfolk and neighbours. The conviction that his light came from God gave him strength and confidence, and raised him above every prejudice and scruple. The character of the new religion was very powerfully influenced by the manly spirit of some of its first confessors and champions; both the good and the bad qualities of the Arabs, among whom it arose, and for whom it was in the first instance promulgated, have stamped their unmistakable impress upon it.

It may be doubted if the original teaching of any other founder of a new religion is known to us so exactly as Mohammed’s. For the sacred book of Mohammedanism, the Koran, consists entirely of his own revelations, given in the name of God; and among his spoken utterances which have been handed down by tradition there is, mixed up with a great deal that is spurious, so much of what is genuine, that by its aid we are able at many points to supplement the Koran. And Koran and Sunna, that is, “the rule,” given by the tradition of the Prophet’s words and deeds, have ever been regarded by Mohammedans as the sources of their religion.

In the several heads of Mohammed’s doctrine there is practically nothing original. The Arabs of that time had outgrown their crude heathenism, and it was only by force of habit, without real attachment, that, a highly conservative people as they were, they held firmly by the ancient practices. In particular, isolated ideas originating in Christianity had become widely diffused through the agency of wandering bards. Very many Arabs were already Christians. Their Christianity, it is true, sat but loosely on them; for the finest elements of that religion they had no organ. Moreover, there were in Arabia many Jews who here also occasionally, as in Abyssinia, made numerous proselytes; but the rigid and irksome ordinances of Judaism were suited to the nature of the proud and untamed inhabitants of the Arabian desert as little as were the mystical doctrines and the too ideal ethics of Christianity. Mohammed borrowed from both religions, but especially from Judaism, those elements which instinct rather than reflection taught him to be suited to his countrymen. The main lines of his doctrine are a further development of Judaism, only simpler and coarser; speaking generally, it stands much nearer to the religion of the Old Testament than the Christianity of the Church does.

Mohammed’s idea of God is essentially that of the Old Testament, only he gives greater prominence to the divine omnipotence and arbitrary sovereignty, and less to the divine holiness. He attributes to God many human features, but these no longer have the naïve and poetic charm possessed by so many of the Old Testament anthropomorphisms. Everything is done and determined by God; man must submit himself blindly; whence the religion is called Islám (“surrender”), and its professor Muslim (“one who surrenders himself”). Mohammed had the strongest antipathy for the doctrines of the Trinity and the divine Sonship of Christ. True, his acquaintance with these dogmas was superficial, and even the clauses of the Creed that referred to them were not exactly known to him; but he rightly felt that it was quite impossible to bring them into harmony with simple genuine Semitic monotheism, and probably it was this consideration alone that hindered him from embracing Christianity.

According to the Koran, God makes known His will through prophets, of whom, in the course of time, He has sent many into the world. From Jesus down to the time of Mohammed, it was the duty of men to follow the former and His gospel; the Jews incurred grave sin by rejecting Him. Jesus was greater than all the prophets before Him; but the final revelation was first made known through Mohammed. The earlier sacred writings taught the same doctrine as the Koran, and bear witness to Mohammed; but they had been falsified by the Jews and the Christians. The laws which God laid down through the prophets are not necessarily in harmony with each other, for God changes His ordinances at will; even in the Koran itself He sometimes cancels commandments which He had previously laid down in that very book. Mohammed is but a frail mortal, only chosen of God. He is subject to sin, and without the gift of miracles bestowed on former prophets. This last limitation, which is clearly expressed in the Koran, was, as was to be expected, very soon explained away by his followers, and numerous miracles are accordingly related of him.

God rewards good and punishes evil deeds; only, He is merciful, and is easily propitiated by repentance. But the punishment of the impenitent wicked will be fearful. The horrors of hell are vividly presented; we can see how grievously the thought of them afflicted the Prophet himself. In accordance with Christian precedent, he conceives of hell as fire. In his description of the heavenly paradise, or “garden,” also, Mohammed appropriates representations from the Old and New Testaments, yet depicts its joys according to his own fancy. His picture of the glory of the saints above can be properly understood only when the reader remembers the barrenness of Mohammed’s native land and the exceedingly simple manner of life of his countrymen. The bright-eyed maidens who give their society to the righteous in paradise are the innovation of a sensual nature. The crude representations of hell and heaven took powerful hold of the Arab imagination, and unquestionably contributed much to the diffusion and establishment of Islam. Other eschatological imaginings, about the resurrection and the last judgment, have an important rôle in the Koran. All of them attach to older ideas, and particularly to such as had already been borrowed from the Persians by Judaism, and partly also by Christianity. Awe of the judgment day was perhaps the most important cause of Mohammed’s becoming a visionary and a prophet. The Koran has, of course, much to say of angels and devils. Alongside of these figure also demons or jinn, taken from Arab popular belief, but connected also with late Jewish notions. The minor contradictions that naturally occur in such myths and fancies have caused little difficulty to the ingenuity of interpreters, and still less to the simple faith of the masses.

The ethics of Islam are not so strict or earnest as those of Judaism. Mohammed, it is true, insists on virtuous disposition and action, and is energetic in his denunciations of vice: he urges honourable dealing, benevolence, placability, and so forth, and requires men ever to be mindful of God and of the retribution beyond the grave. But he is no rigorist. His very crass doctrine of retribution, which governs the rules of conduct, admits the application of commercial principles: the consequences of sins can be averted by certain penances; under certain circumstances one can rid oneself of the duty of fulfilling an obligation, and even perjury can be made up for by good works. In dire necessity even the faith may be denied in words (contrast Matt. x. 32, 33); against making a free use of this permission, Mohammedans have, it is true, been protected by their pride and the strength of their conviction. Islam is a thoroughly practical religion, which does not make it necessary to explain away too high demands (such as those of Matt. v. 33-41) by artificial interpretations. The Koran also has comfort for the persecuted and the suffering; but it is too Arab—or, shall we say, too natural and too manly?—to declare the poor and oppressed to be in themselves happy. The Koran, further, pronounces all earthly things to be indeed vain; yet it takes much account of human wants and desires, and lays down definite regulations about property and goods. If the Prophet had immediately met with recognition in his native town, he might perhaps have founded a contemplative monkish community; but, driven by necessity to become the ruler of a warrior State, he had to follow another course. After some hesitation he finally preached war against unbelievers as such; they have no choice but between acceptance of Islam and extermination. Only to the professors of old religions of revelation, that is to say, in the first instance, to Jews and Christians, does it remain lawful to live on as subjects on payment of tribute. The Moslem’s vocation, alike in this and in the future life, is to rule the world.

Islam has no mystical sacraments, although it has a number of external observances. Originally Mohammed himself had attached the greatest value to severe exercises of penance, such as watching and fasting; gradually he relaxed much both to himself and to his followers, but an Oriental religion wholly without mortifications of this kind is quite unthinkable. Accordingly he made fasting in the month of Ramadán obligatory in the sense that throughout the entire month, as long as the sun is above the horizon, both eating and drinking are absolutely forbidden. In Oriental heat this is a severe burden, and one can readily believe that in the month of the fast, towards the end of the day, the majority of the faithful are thinking much more about the enjoyments of the coming night than about God and the hereafter. Still more important than fasting is the salát. As with all Oriental Christians a certain number of daily prayers are prescribed to the clergy, and partly also to the laity, so Mohammed again, after some hesitation, finally fixed for all believers that there should be five daily “prayers.” This salát is essentially different from what we call prayer. It consists in a fixed series of bowings, prostrations, and other attitudes, accompanied by the recitation of certain religious formulæ. Of course the worshipper is not forbidden at other times or in other ways to call upon God in words of his own; but to do so is not the official and obligatory action. Prayer is preceded by an ablution; when water, a commodity of such rarity in Arabia, is wanting, rubbing with sand can be substituted.[^[14]] It is more meritorious to take part in the public salát of the community, conducted by a leader (Imám), than to discharge the salát by oneself. Public attendance ought to be given, in particular, on Friday, which is especially set apart for public worship, but in other respects is regarded as a working day: the Sabbath rest is unknown to Islam. The common prayer and its formalities have done much to give stability to Islam. The multitudes, while doing what was indispensable for the salvation of their souls, became trained to the habit of strictly following a leader. As Von Kremer has pointed out, the mosque was the drill ground for the warlike believers of early Islam.

A noteworthy survival of Arab heathenism is the pilgrimage to Mecca. In Mohammed’s native town there was a temple called the Caaba (“the die”), with an object of ancient veneration, “the black stone.” This sanctuary had gradually come to be the centre of pilgrimage for the greater part of Arabia. In connection with this a lively trade was developed, which must have been very advantageous to the inhabitants of Mecca, the Koraish. Still more important for these was the circumstance that their whole territory was held to be holy and inviolable, and that they had the most favourable opportunities for entering into friendly relations with the various Bedouin tribes. They were thus able to maintain a caravan traffic with the old lands of civilisation beyond the desert and its predatory nomads. In this way they not only became prosperous, but also gained a great intellectual superiority over the other Arabs. As a man of Koraish, Mohammed himself had grown up in pious reverence for the Caaba and the black stone. Properly speaking, indeed, this reverence was at variance with the principles of his religion; but he managed to adjust matters by his theory that these holy things had been established by Abraham, and only abused by the heathen. Possibly in this view he was but following some Meccan predecessor whom Jews or Christians had told about Abraham and Ishmael. The heathen of Mecca, of course, knew nothing about these or any other characters of the Old Testament. That the retention of this sanctuary on Mohammed’s part was due less to calculation than to deeply rooted religious habit, seems to be shown by this, among other things, that between his emigration and the capture of Mecca, he frequently expressed his sorrow at being excluded from free participation in the ceremonies there. When at last he made his entry as a conqueror, he did away with all the open signs of idolatry, and in his last Pilgrimage, shortly before his death, he finally fixed the observances—some of them very peculiar—to be followed. Everything heathenish was to disappear; or, if various things of that nature remained, they were uncomprehended, and therefore inoffensive. Yet one rock of offence was unremoved—the veneration of the old fetish—the black stone, a veneration to which some consistent Moslems could only reluctantly bring themselves, and which in later times is occasionally even scoffed at by less steadfast believers. In strictness it is the duty of every Moslem to take part in the yearly pilgrimage as often as he can; but it is not contrary to the intention of Mohammed (who was always ready to take account of practical difficulties), if the proviso “as he can” is strongly accentuated in practice, and thus comparatively few join in the expedition from the more distant lands of Mohammedanism. With all this the pilgrimage has been a chief pillar of Islam. In Mecca the most pious Moslems still meet from year to year out of regions so remote as Turkestan, British and Dutch India, the Turkish dominions, Morocco, and Nigritia, and exchange ideas and prejudices; a custom which naturally helps to maintain the unity of the faith. What is of particular importance is that many of the most zealous and learned pilgrims stay permanently in Mecca, and from this centre labour to promote the pure faith, and hostility against all idolaters (Europeans in particular).

Another relic of rude heathenism handed down from hoary antiquity is circumcision. It is not specially enjoined in the Koran, but is taken for granted as being the custom with all Arabs. It is not, however, theoretically at least, an integral part of religion, as it is in Judaism.

Like the Jews, Mohammed puts a high value upon alms. Gradually, however, he changed the freewill offering of love into a formal and somewhat heavy tax, out of which not only were the poor supported, but also the expenses of government were met.

Mohammed’s laws relating to food are not nearly so complicated as those of the Jews. The animals of which the Moslem, whether by Mohammed’s injunction or by some later rule, may not eat are mostly such as men are naturally averse to (e.g. carnivora). Only the pig and the dog are wholly unclean. Moreover, it is lawful to eat only of such animals as have been duly slaughtered with the formula: “In the name of God, the compassionate Compassioner.” The Moslem, like the Jew, and, strictly speaking, the Christian also (Acts xv. 20, 29, xxi. 25), is enjoined to abstain from blood. But, in danger of death by starvation, he is permitted the use of any food. Wine is interdicted; and under this name the legislature meant to include all intoxicating drinks. No impartial observer will deny that this regulation, much as it has been broken, has proved a real blessing to all the lands of Islam. It is not certain whether the prohibition of a favourite Arab game of chance (meisir), in which pointless arrows were used as lots, is intended to include all forms of gambling; perhaps Mohammed had in view only the heathenish practices, or the wastefulness, that used to be associated with the meisir.

On the whole the ritual commands and prohibitions of Islam do not bear with excessive hardness on the life of the Oriental, which in any case moves somewhat monotonously in fixed forms. Of the anxious scrupulosity with which Judaism discusses “clean” and “unclean,” “lawful” and “unlawful,” there are but few traces, even in the writings of the later theologians of Islam, not to speak of Mohammed himself, or the life of his followers until now.

Religion and the law of the State are not separated in Islam. Here, accordingly, properly speaking, would be the place for considering the whole system of civil and criminal law which Mohammed gave in the Koran or in his spoken utterances. In his decisions, which were usually occasioned by some particular case definitely before him at the moment, he follows partly Arabian partly Jewish custom, but very often also the promptings of his own mind. Completely to abolish blood revenge would have been impossible, and probably was never in his thoughts; he only bound it to the observance of certain forms. It is not the executive, but the nearest relative of the slain that decides whether the murderer shall die, or whether he shall buy himself off.

The anomalies that can result when an individual man essays permanently to fix the order of Church and State according to his own discretion on the spur of the moment, are exemplified with singular clearness in the Moslem calendar. The Arabs, like the majority of ancient peoples, had a year of twelve true (lunar) months; and this, as often as seemed to be required, they brought roughly into accordance with the solar year by the intercalation of a thirteenth month. The intercalation was not very skilful, it is true; still any trifling derangements of the calendar which may have resulted were not such as could produce any practical inconveniences in the simple relations of life in those days. But Mohammed, who objected either to the inequality of the year, now of twelve now of thirteen months, or to the connection that subsisted between this arrangement of the calendar and the heathen system, shortly before his death unfortunately took it into his head to ordain that Moslems should have a movable lunar year of twelve lunar months, without any intercalations whatever. Every Mohammedan year is thus some ten days shorter than the solar year which governs the course of nature; so that the Mohammedan festivals move in succession through all the seasons.[^[15]] The husbandman must accordingly everywhere provide himself with a second (Christian or Persian) calendar, based upon the solar year, in addition to the ecclesiastical one. A Mohammedan at thirty-three is no older than a Christian at thirty-two. The conversion of Mohammedan into Julian or (what is worse) Gregorian dates, is for the student who has not the requisite tables at hand a very laborious task.

The position of women was left by Mohammed essentially where it had been among the Arabs. He limited polygamy somewhat, and made the separation of women from men rather more strict. But Islam changed for the worse the lot of women in those countries where polygamy had already disappeared, and divorce was not so easy or so common as among the Arabs. That the husband can dismiss the wife at any time, a moment of ill-temper thus very often resulting in a divorce, is, moreover, a far worse evil for Moslem society than its polygamy (which in practice is not very extensive), or the permission it gives to take female slaves as concubines. The Bedouins, who then, as they still do, showed the most chivalrous respect for a defenceless woman, nevertheless placed the weaker sex so low that they had no scruple in burying new-born girls alive. This barbarity, which perhaps never occurred in the more prosperous towns, was opposed by Mohammed at the very outset of his career, and he afterwards completely suppressed it. The Arabs, further, in their wars were accustomed to carry off the wives and children of their enemies as prisoners or slaves; between Moslems this totally ceased. On the other hand, by giving up the holy month’s “truce of God,” Mohammed inflicted a serious injury on his country. His wish was to put an end to all wars among his followers, but in this he was least successful of all in Arabia, where to this day the feuds never cease from year’s end to year’s end.

The thought of abolishing slavery never so much as occurred to Mohammed any more that it did to the apostles; but he declared manumission of slaves to be a meritorious deed, and he gave to slaves a certain security in the eye of the law.

Islam in its original form as a whole ranks far below primitive Christianity. In many respects it is not to be compared even with such Christianity as prevailed, and still prevails, in the East; but in other points, again, the new faith, simple, robust, in the vigour of its youth, far surpassed the religion of the Syrian and Egyptian Christians, which was in a stagnating condition, and steadily sinking lower and lower into barbarism. Above all things, Islam gave, and gives, to those who profess it a feeling of confidence such as is imparted by hardly any other faith. The Moslem is proud of being a Moslem; he is convinced that he is preferred by God before all other men, whom accordingly he despises as fuel appointed for hell-fire. The Christian is bidden enter into his closet to pray; the Moslem takes his stand, and especially when unbelievers are near, in as conspicuous a place as possible for the performance of his ceremonies of prayer. His heart has little part in these, but he nevertheless feels himself raised by them, and equally so whether he rightly understands the Arabic formulæ he repeats or not. Islam is not very well fitted to produce purity and delicacy of feeling; we shall be justified if we assume that during the first centuries of its existence many a deep and finely-touched spirit had to pass through severe inward struggles because his religious needs were not satisfied by it. But all such struggles fully fought themselves out long ago, and deep peace now fills every Moslem’s heart. All those who make faith and assurance of salvation the chief heads of religion, ought to work for Islam. A religion amongst the followers of which suicide is almost absolutely unknown, has surely some claim on our respect.

After Mohammed’s death (8th June 632) the most prominent of his companions united to elect as his successor Abú Bekr, who had been his most trusted friend. At first, indeed, it had cost some trouble to get the Medinites, the old “helpers” of Mohammed, off the idea that one of themselves ought to become the leader. But no attention was paid to the sulking of Alí, whose wife, Fátima, was the only surviving child of his cousin Mohammed. There was no doubt that the choice of Abú Bekr was what the Prophet himself would have desired. But hardly had the Arabs heard of Mohammed’s death when they rebelled en masse. Many renounced Islam entirely; many attached themselves to new prophets who arose here and there after the pattern of the Prophet of Mecca; others were willing to retain Moslem prayer indeed, but not to pay taxes; in a word, Mohammed’s whole work was brought into question. Then it was that the strength of Islam, and of a firm will, was shown. Abú Bekr, assured as he was in his own faith, scorned, even in the hour of most pressing need, to make any concession whatever to the insurgents; he insisted on absolute submission to the commands of Islam. The insurrections, which were unconnected with each other, were for the most part easily quelled by the Moslems, led as they were by a single will; but in some instances torrents of blood had first to be shed. The military merit of these deeds belongs chiefly to Khálid, “the sword of God,” a man of Koraish, like almost all the prominent warriors and statesmen of that time, the same who nine years before had turned the battle in favour of the unbelieving Meccans against Mohammed at Mount Ohod.

As soon as all Arabia had been again brought into subjection, the great wars of conquest began. It was certainly good policy to turn the recently subdued tribes of the wilderness towards an external aim in which they might at once satisfy their lust for booty on a grand scale, maintain their warlike feeling, and strengthen themselves in their attachment to the new faith. But I do not believe those undertakings to have been mainly the result of cool political calculation. Mohammed himself had already sent expeditions across the Roman frontier, and thereby had pointed out the way to his successors. To follow in his footsteps was in accordance with the innermost being of the youthful Islam, already grown great amid the tumult of arms. The Bedouins knew uncommonly little Koran, but on such children of nature it is success that makes the deepest impression. That faith which had subdued themselves, and which was now leading them on to victory and plunder, must be true; very soon there was no one to doubt this. Though the nomads among the Arabs have naturally few religious needs, they yet possess as the purest of all Semites a deeply-seated religious disposition; and this simple religion, which corresponded to their inclinations and flattered their self-esteem, soon took entire possession of them. Under the sagacious, clear-headed, and strong-handed Omar (634-644), the fresh force of the new faith, and the warlike disposition of the Arab people, now united for the first time, and led by great generals, speedily achieved successes against the Romans and the Persians of which Mohammed had never so much as dreamed. This astonishing overturn is, when all has been said, not easy of explanation. It is indeed true that both empires were in a state of decay. Both were at the moment terribly weakened by the wars they had waged with each other during the first three decades of the century. The Persian empire, which had finally been vanquished after long years of victory, had, moreover, been shaken both before and after the conclusion of the peace by bloody struggles about the succession to the throne. On the other hand, both Byzantium and Persia had at their command genuine soldiers regularly armed and disciplined. The traditions of Roman warfare were not yet entirely lost, and the Persians still possessed their dreaded cuirassiers, before whom, in better times, even the armies of Rome had often fled. The reduction of the fortified towns must in any case have been at least as severe a task to the Arabs as it was to the Goths and Huns, who were by nature much more warlike peoples. Moreover, Persia, when the chief attack upon its territory was made, happened to have come once more under the rule of a firm hand. Its king, indeed, Yezdegerd III., was a boy; but the royal power and the command of the army were held by a man of energy and bravery—Rustem, the head of one of the first princely houses of the empire. Yet these wretchedly armed Arabs, fighting, not in regularly organised military divisions, but by families and clans, and under leaders who never before had faced disciplined troops, after long struggle overcame Rustem and his mighty hosts (636); soon afterwards took the fortified capital, Ctesiphon (637); and, a few years later, by the decisive battle of Neháwend (640, 641, or 642), brought the empire itself to the ground. How was such a thing possible? The Arabs’ own explanation indeed was very simple: “God took away the courage of the uncircumcised;” “God smote the Persians;” “God slew Rustem.” In such words, so thoroughly like those of the Old Testament, we can only recognise how great a force lies in the rudest religious conviction. Almost more marvellous are the conquests they gained on Roman territory. The emperor Heraclius was certainly the greatest man who had held the empire since Constantine and Julian. He was an astute diplomatist, a very competent general, and, as a soldier, bold even to rashness. How could it come about that he of all men was compelled to yield up to the sons of the desert the territories he had wrested back from the Persians? We certainly are aware of one or two circumstances which made their conquests easier to the Arabs. Most of the inhabitants of Syria, and almost all the Egyptians, were Monophysite heretics, and as such had experienced great oppression at the hands of the Orthodox Byzantines; they accordingly aided and abetted the Arabs as occasion offered, especially as they might promise themselves some relief of the burden of taxation through the latter. The Syrian Nestorians also, who formed the majority of the inhabitants of the richest lands of the Persian empire (those on the Tigris and on the lower Euphrates), we may believe to have been more favourably inclined to the Arabs than to the Persians. But in connection with conquests like these, much weight is hardly to be assigned to the sympathies and antipathies of unwarlike peasants and townsmen. More important, perhaps, is the circumstance that the numerous Arab tribes, which had been subject to the Roman and Persian rule although for the most part nominally Christian, appear to have gone over to the Moslems almost unanimously soon after the first victories. It would be possible to multiply explanations still further, yet the phenomenon continues mysterious as before. Rhetorical expressions about the decaying condition of both empires, and the youthful energy of the Moslems, are unsatisfying to the inquirer who keeps the concrete facts before him.

Omar, who became Mohammed’s successor or “substitute” (Khalífa) after Abú Bekr’s brief rule of two years, and who was the first to assume the title of “Commander of the Faithful” (Emír almúminín), organised a complete military-religious commonwealth. The Arabs, the people of God, became a nation of warriors and rulers. The precepts of the religion were strictly maintained; the Caliph lived as simply as the meanest of his subjects. But the enormous booty and the taxes levied on the vanquished supplied the means of giving adequate pay to every Arab. This pay, the amount of which was graduated according to a definite scale, and in which women and children also participated, was raised as the revenues increased. For the leading principle was that everything won from enemies and subjects belonged to Moslems collectively, and therefore all that remained over after payment of common expenses had to be divided. But in the conquered territories the Arabs were not allowed to hold landed property; they were only to set up camps. It was bad for Islam, but good for the world, that this military communist constitution did not last long. It was contrary to human nature; and, besides, the receipts did not permanently continue to come in on such a scale as afforded adequate pay to every one. The principle also, that new converts of foreign nationality must be placed on a level with the Arabs, was not yet capable of being fully carried out; the aristocratic feeling of the Arabs long stood out against making a reality of that equality among its professors which Islam demanded.

Under Omar’s successor, Othmán (644-656), the field of conquest was still further and greatly extended; but the purely warlike character of the State was nevertheless already somewhat abated, permission being now given to Arabs to hold landed property in the newly-acquired regions. The landed proprietor and the peasant are naturally less inclined for expeditions of distant conquest than is the mere soldier. The principle of at least relative equality in profit-sharing was violently broken through by the bestowal of crown domains on persons of prominence. The conversion of the religious into a secular State followed rapidly and inevitably. The secular State, it is true, still remained in relations of the closest kind with religion,—much closer than those of the so-called Christian State anywhere in modern times,—but the attempts to set up the empire of Islam again upon a purely religious basis ended in failure.

In the supreme command there was no hereditary succession. Abú Bekr was, as we have seen, chosen to be Caliph by the most influential Meccan Companions of the Prophet. Abú Bekr himself had finally nominated as his successor Omar, his right-hand man, and the second most intimate friend and counsellor of the Prophet. Omar, himself the ideal of a Moslem ruler, clearly thought none of his own companions quite worthy of the command. He arranged accordingly that after his death five of the most distinguished of the old friends of Mohammed should decide as to who among themselves ought to succeed. After long deliberation they united upon Othmán. Now Othmán had been, it is true, one of the very first to acknowledge Mohammed as a prophet, and he had successively married two daughters of the latter; but he belonged to the Omayyads, one of the most prominent families of pre-Islamite Mecca, the head of which, Abú Sufyán, had for years been leader in the struggle against Mohammed and the Medinites. Preference for kinsmen is deeply seated in the blood of every genuine Arab, and the Prophet himself was not free from it. Omar, who in many respects was a more consistent exponent of Islam than Mohammed, never laid himself open to the smallest charge of nepotism, but Othmán was a weak man; he showed exorbitant favour to his relatives, and in a short time a number of the most important and profitable posts were in the hands of Omayyads—able men for the most part, but of an intensely worldly disposition. The good Othmán was not himself conscious of anything wrong in this; but many of his subjects saw the matter in another light. The righteous indignation of some strict Moslems, the tumultuary disposition of the mass of the people, and very specially also the instigations of three of the five men who had formed the electoral college after Omar’s death,—Alí, Talha, and Zubair,—as also of Aïsha, daughter of Abú Bekr, and the intriguing favourite of the Prophet, resulted in a rebellion, in which the grey-headed Othmán was put to death (17th June 656). This deed of violence was an evil precedent for many subsequent scenes of terror, the beginning of bloody civil wars, and eventual schisms. The slayers of Othmán called Alí to the caliphate; Talha and Zubair also acknowledged him, but soon broke their word, and united with Aïsha against him. Alí’s bravery was soon a match for these enemies; but already another and more formidable opponent had arisen in the person of the astute Moáwiya, son of the Abú Sufyán mentioned above, who had long been governor of Syria, and held sway there like a prince. The struggle was carried on with animosity for years. Moáwiya came forward as avenger of his kinsman Othmán. As the powerful head of the family, he was, according to old Arab ideas, well entitled, and indeed bound to do this, and Islam had not abolished this view of his duty. But, as successor of Mohammed, the son of the man who had led the heathen against him at Ohod and in the battle of the Fosse, could, of course, set up no other claim than the unconditional attachment of his troops and the superiority of his own genius. Alí also was without hereditary right, and the proclamation by Othmán’s slayers was a very doubtful title in law; but as kinsman, favourite, pupil, son-in-law of Mohammed, he might well seem better suited to represent the interests of religion than Moáwiya, who also, however, appears to have been an acceptable person with the Prophet in his declining years. The Moslems who were faithful to their convictions accordingly went over for the most part to Alí’s side, especially the Medinites, who (or their fathers) had once fought Mohammed’s battles, but were now being more and more thrust into the background by the lukewarm Moslems of Mecca. In the heat of controversy the view for the first time germinated that Alí had a divine right to the supreme power, and that even Abú Bekr, Omar, and Othmán had been usurpers. Those who hold this view are the Shíites proper, the partisans (shía) of Alí. The great majority of the Moslems, on the other hand, recognise, indeed, Alí’s right as against Moáwiya, but also hold the first three caliphs for legitimate. And, indeed, many good Moslems stood by Moáwiya in this struggle, and by other sovereigns of his family thereafter, though since the fall of the Omayyads few Moslems would justify Moáwiya’s appearance against Alí. In the disorders of this time there now arose also a new extreme radical party, who denied the right of all claimants, and awarded the command to “the best.” These people, the Kharijites (Khawárij, “dissenters”), certainly had hold of a fundamental idea of Moslem, which they developed to the utmost; they were in a certain sense in the right, but on such principles as theirs it would be impossible to establish any State, and least of all in the East. They were fanatics who sought to carry out their ideas with the wildest energy and the most desperate bravery, and to a certain extent they maintained a loyalty to conviction worthy of all admiration; but they only caused a great deal of suffering, and produced nothing. The controversy about the caliphate has long ago ceased to have any concrete bearings, but it still continues to divide the Mohammedan world. Historical tradition on the subject is very rich, but greatly coloured by party feeling. It is much too favourable to Alí, and fails to show Moáwiya quite in his full historical importance. Naturally it does not allow us to see, except dimly, that at bottom the struggles really had reference merely to the plunder, and were only the expression in another direction of the same wild warrior spirit which shortly before had gained the mastery over Persians and Romans. In the older time, however, people were sometimes able to see rather more clearly how much of human passion—very often passion of the lowest kind—was at work in these civil wars in spite of all the religious party cries. To a truly pious Moslem it must often have caused the gravest reflections to see how unworthily such persons as Talha, Zubair, Aïsha, and, essentially, Alí also had conducted themselves, while yet the Prophet had long before promised a place in heaven to them all.

Alí was a thoroughly brave man, but could hardly be called a general, was certainly wanting in true insight, and in no sense whatever born to be a leader. He fell (22nd January 661) by the dagger of one of three Kharijites who had brought themselves under an oath to remove both the rivals, and also Amr, the powerful governor of Egypt, so as to make a free choice possible; but the attempts on Moáwiya and on Amr failed. By this deed of blood Alí was delivered from the humiliation of living to see everything fall to the clever Omayyad. The death of the rival left the road clear; Moáwiya assumed the title of Caliph. Alí’s incapable son, Hasan, gave in his submission without much difficulty, in consideration of a handsome pension. The governor of Syria, now universally recognised as chief of the Believers, paid every regard to the stricter Moslems; his outward demeanour was entirely that of a spiritual prince (he preached, for example, every Friday in the mosque, as the Prophet and previous Caliphs had done, and as was also the practice of provincial governors and of generals), but he was none the less a secular ruler. The support of himself and of his house were “the people of Syria,”—that is to say, not, of course, the old inhabitants of the country, but the Arab troops that had settled there. The Omayyads, accordingly, were compelled to retain Damascus, the most important town in Syria, as their capital, although it had no such religious nimbus as invested Medina, the residence of the Prophet and his first successors, and although it lay too far to the west to be a good point from which to keep watch over the numerous subject countries in the east. The Omayyad rule set up by Moáwiya had to encounter many storms. The unchurchly and even frivolous demeanour of some members of the dynasty embittered the Faithful and encouraged a variety of pretenders, as well as the wild Kharijites, to repeated outbreaks, which were not suppressed without much bloodshed. Twice was the holy city of Mecca desecrated by troops of the Omayyad Caliphs (683 and 692); and the unruly sons and grandsons of Mohammed’s most faithful champions, the Medinites, were cut down by the soldiers of Yezíd, Moáwiya’s son, in their native place, the city of the Prophet (28th August 683). It was against this same Caliph, a man pretty much without religion, that Alí’s second son Husain also rose in rebellion. The rising, like most others that proceeded from the family of Alí, was begun and carried on in a headless way, and was suppressed with little trouble. To all appearance it was an affair of absolutely no consequence; but the way in which men regard a matter is often more important than the matter itself. Even contemporaries were deeply impressed to see the grandson of the Prophet put to death by the satellites of the profane Caliph, and his bloody head set up to open show after the common fashion of the East. Husain, the thoughtless rebel, was in the eyes of pious Moslems metamorphosed into a martyr, and his glory grew with time. The cry of “vengeance for Husain” contributed much to the downfall of the Omayyad throne. To this day the Shíites observe the anniversary of Husain’s death as a day of mourning, which never fails to stir up deep emotion and wild rage in their bosoms; and with them Kerbelá, where he perished on 12th October 681, is a site almost as holy as Mecca and Medina. The non-Shíite Mohammedans also acknowledge Husain to have been a holy martyr, and hold in the deepest abhorrence the light-living but by no means wicked Yezíd.—If the dynasty of the Omayyad Caliphs was imperilled by the hostility of the stricter Moslems, it received injury from another quarter through the religious zeal of the only really pious man among them, the honest but narrow idealist Omar II. (717-720), who sought with all his might to bring the Koran into practice, and to restore once more the constitution of Omar, but of course brought about dire disorganisation as the sole result.

Although the Omayyads produced great rulers, they failed, for various reasons, to establish an enduring empire. Their fall was inevitable when they themselves, and with them the Syrian troops on whose support they were wholly dependent, began to quarrel; and a rival family came upon the scene, that of the Abbásids. The descendants of Mohammed’s uncle Abbás, who became a convert to Islam only on the capture of Mecca, and who never had any conspicuous rôle, lived for a long time in obscurity. But now they had the wit to turn to account the powerful apparatus which the descendants of Alí had prepared for the undermining of the empire. Much was made of ambiguous expressions, such as “the right of the house of Háshim” (which included Abbás as well as Alí) and “the right of the family of the Prophet” (which might suggest his uncle quite as readily as his cousin and son-in-law); there was word also of an alleged transfer of the hereditary right by one of the descendants of Alí to the Abbásids. The chiefs of the latter family succeeded in winning over to their side a large portion of the troops in the remoter part of Eastern Persia (Khorásán), which could not be kept under firm control from Damascus. These troops consisted for the most part of Persians who had accepted Islam, but were anything but friendly to the Arabs. After severe struggles the Abbásids were victorious (750). Few members of the fallen house escaped the terrible massacre.

The triumph of the Abbásids made an end of the purely Arab, and at the same time of the purely Semitic, State; in it we see, in a great measure, a reaction of the Persian element, and a repristination of the old Asiatic world-empires, the structure of which had been at least a little more stable. It was not a mere casual circumstance that forthwith and from the first the seat of government was transferred to where it had been held successively by Achemenids, Arsacids, and Sásánians,—the plains of the lower Euphrates and Tigris. There arose the proud city of the Caliphs, Bagdad. The Abbásids paid more external respect to religion than the Omayyads had done, but they were in reality quite as worldly-minded. Over and above this, there showed itself in them a very unpleasing strain of insincerity. The first two Caliphs of the family were nevertheless very considerable men. The second in particular, Mansúr (754-775), was one of the greatest princes, one of the most unscrupulous also, that ever have guided a mighty empire. He it was who established the Mohammedan empire on a firm basis.[^[16]] Under his grandson Hárún ar-Rashíd (786-809) the caliphate unquestionably enjoyed its period of greatest splendour, although Hárún himself was very far from being a great ruler. In his day almost all the lands from the Jaxartes and the Indus to near the Pillars of Hercules obeyed the Caliph. The Arabs had ceased to be the props of the empire, but the Arabic language had spread far and wide; it was the language of religion, of government, of poetry, and of the science that was just rising. On the banks of the Tigris there flourished a civilisation more brilliant than under the best of the Sásánians. A fair measure of quiet prevailed in most of the provinces, and thus the enormous prodigality of the court did not press upon the subjects beyond endurance. Syria and the adjoining lands found themselves in better circumstances than they had for a long time experienced. True, the administration was very defective if judged according to modern ideas; but good government in the East must be measured by a very modest standard. The Christian population had gone over to Islam en masse. The desire to stand on an equality with the conquerors in the eye of the law, and to pay diminished taxes, was, of course, a powerful motive to this; but no less strong an influence was the suitability of Islam to Oriental peasants and townsfolk of the humbler class, especially as God Himself had by the event declared Himself in its favour. The Christian Churches of the East have never been very persevering in their zeal to educate and elevate their adherents on the spiritual side; they have always attached the principal importance to the externalities of worship, confessional formulas, and the condemnation of heretics. A fact specially worthy of note is that Islam was accepted by a majority of the East-Syrian Christians even,—the Nestorians of the lands watered by the Tigris, whose ancestors could not be brought to apostasy by all the fierce persecutions of the Persian kings. In explaining this result, perhaps some weight ought to be assigned also to the consideration that, in adopting the priestless religion of Islam, the Christians got rid of the tutelage and oppression of their own clergy. Speaking generally, the civilisation of the Syrians, Copts, and other Oriental Christians lost but little by their change of faith. Islam, of course, severed many old associations that made for culture, but in compensation for these it called many new germs into life. Conversions were seldom due to direct compulsion. The pious rejoiced when Christians accepted Islam in crowds; but to the rulers these conversions were, for the most part, positively unwelcome, as the converts were thereby relieved from the heaviest of the taxes, and their change of faith thus meant a serious decrease of revenue. Nor were Christians systematically maltreated. They had indeed to suffer much repression and scorn, and to make up their minds to a position of inferiority; for, apart from the legal inferiority of non-Moslems as merely protected aliens, Islam gives to its followers a tone of haughty contempt for all outsiders.[^[17]] Moreover, the lords, great and small, whose exactions pressed so hard even on their Moslem subjects, saw still less reason to spare unbelievers. But this is the Oriental way in everything. The different Christian Churches might keep up their controversies as before, if they chose, but they could no longer actually persecute one another. It was certainly easier for a man to live as a Christian under the rule of the Caliphs than as a Christian heretic within the Byzantine empire. The situation of the adherents of the old Persian religion in the East was similar to that of the Christians in the West, save that their legal position was not so firmly secured by unambiguous passages of the Koran. In some parts of the old Persian empire conversion to Islam on a large scale took place very early; but in others, and particularly in Persia proper, the national faith long persisted with great tenacity.

The decline of the Abbásid caliphate begins with the celebrated Mámún (813-833). Hárún by his last will had foolishly divided the empire between his sons Amín and Mámún, but reserving for the former the suzerainty and title of Caliph. The natural consequence was civil war. After desperate struggles the incapable Amín, who both on the father’s and on the mother’s side was a descendant of Mansúr, lost his throne and life through the Khorásán troops of Mámún, whose mother had been a Persian slave. It was a fresh victory of the Persian over the Arabian interest. Through these occurrences, which were followed by further confusions, the governors who headed the troops of their respective provinces, and also the commanders of the mercenaries, in many cases reached a dangerous degree of power. Táhir, to whom Mámún was mainly indebted for his successes, established for himself, and handed on to his descendants, in the important province of Khorásán, a principality which was but loosely dependent on the caliphate. Mámún knew neither how to keep his victorious generals in their proper places, nor how to destroy them, as Mansúr had done. That he was hindered by scruples of conscience, no one will believe who duly considers his conduct towards Músá, the descendant of Alí. In order to win over the still powerful Shíite party, Mámún had made it great concessions, and had taken steps, which can hardly have been sincere, to secure the succession to Músá. But when he came to encounter the energetic opposition of his own house and its immediate dependants, he secretly made away with that unfortunate prince. Mámún had great interest in art and science, and favoured the translation into Arabic of Greek scientific works. But along with this he had an unfortunate liking for theological controversy.

The Caliphs from this time leaned for support on great bands of foreign mercenaries, chiefly Turks, and their captains became the real lords of the empire as soon as they realised their own strength. How thoroughly the Abbásid caliphate had been undermined was shown all at once in a shocking manner, when the Caliph Mutawakkil was murdered by his own servants at the command of his son, and the parricide Muntasir set upon the throne in his stead (Dec. 861). The power of the Caliphs was now at an end; they became the mere playthings of their own savage warriors. The remoter, sometimes even the nearer, provinces were practically independent. The princes formally recognised the Caliph as their sovereign, stamped his name upon their coins, and gave it precedence in public prayer, but these were honours without any solid value. Some Caliphs, indeed, recovered a measure of real power, but only as rulers of a much diminished State. Theoretically the fiction of an undivided empire of Islam was maintained, but it had long ceased to be a reality. The names of Caliph, Commander of the Faithful, Imám, continued still to inspire some reverence; the theological doctors of law insisted that the Caliph, in spiritual things at least, must everywhere bear rule, and control all judicial posts; but even theoretically his position was far behind that of a pope, and in practice was not for a moment to be compared to it. The Caliph never was the head of a true hierarchy; Islam, in fact, knows no priesthood on which such a system could have rested. In the tenth century the Búids, three brothers who had left the hardly converted Gílán (the mountainous district at the south-west angle of the Caspian Sea) as poor adventurers, succeeded in conquering for themselves the sovereign command over wide domains, and over Bagdad itself. They even proposed to themselves to displace the Abbásids and set descendants of Alí upon the throne, and abandoned the idea only because they feared that a Caliph of the house of Alí might exercise too great an authority over their Shíite soldiers, and so become independent; while, on the other hand, they could make use of these troops for any violence they chose against the Abbásid puppet who sat in Mansúr’s seat.

It was this period that for the first time witnessed any great successes of the Shíites. Out of what had originally been a political party a sect, or rather a number of sects, had gradually grown. The doctrine of the divine right of Alí and his descendants had under foreign influences, Christian and Persian, gradually developed into a complete or partial deification. At the beginning of the Abbásid period there were some who taught the divinity of Alí without qualification, and if the majority of Shíites energetically repudiated this, they nevertheless believed in a supernatural, divine illumination of Alí and his descendants the Imáms, or even that the Spirit of God passed from the one to the other of these. As early as 750, dreams were cherished of the Messianic return of “a hidden Imám;” and the names of Abú Bekr, Omar, and Aïsha were cursed more fervently than those of the Omayyads. Here, as in other things, the ground of Islam was entirely abandoned; but men, of course, concealed this from themselves, by putting allegorical interpretations upon the sacred book, and by setting up against the (certainly much falsified) tradition or “sunna” of the orthodox (“Sunnites”) a still more falsified sunna of their own. Moreover, from the simple Shíitism that is still essentially Islamitic, many intermediate connecting links lead over to strange heathenish sects, as offshoots of which we still have (for example) the Druses and the Nosairians. The first actually Shíite empire on a large scale was that of the Fatimid Caliphs, founded (about 910) by Obaidalláh, a real or alleged descendant of Alí. He thoroughly understood how to utilise the credulity of the Berbers so as to become master over large territories in North Africa. But his connections reached also far into Asia. He and his successors allowed themselves to be regarded by their intimate dependants as supernatural beings. A court poet says (about 970) of the Fatimid, in whose service he is, things which the genuine Moslem could at most allow to be said of the Prophet himself. Thus in some measure we are able to understand how it has come to pass that one of them, and he the crazy Hákim (996-1021), is worshipped by the Druses as God. But while the Fatimids imposed some reserve upon themselves in their own proper kingdom, where the Shíites were certainly in the minority, they gave a free hand to their partisans elsewhere. The Karmatians in Arabia utilised the plundering zeal of the Bedouins for their own ends, threatened the capital of the Abbásids, fell upon the pilgrim caravans, and finally, during the pilgrim festival, forced their way on one occasion into Mecca, perpetrated a horrible massacre, and carried off the black stone of the Caaba (930). This was an open breach with Islam. The Fatimid Caliph disavowed the Karmatians, but we know that they had acted on his suggestion, and they subsequently (951), at the command of his successor, again restored the holy stone for a heavy payment. After their conquest of Egypt (969) the Fatimids were the most powerful princes of Islam, and it seemed at times as if even the form of power had passed from the Abbásids. The Fatimids, moreover, governed excellently as a rule, and brought Egypt to a high pitch of prosperity. But at last they, too, shared the usual fate of Oriental dynasties; the Abbásids lived to see the utter downfall (1171) of their worst rivals, and continued to enjoy for nearly a century longer the empty satisfaction of being named in public prayer in Egypt as Commanders of the Faithful. Since then there has never been another Shíite Caliph.

In the history of Islamite peoples the politico-religious controversies which turned upon the right to the caliphate are by far the most important. But alongside of these there were a multitude of purely dogmatic disputes. Above all, Islam was agitated with the old and ever new question as to whether, and how far, man is a free or a determined agent in his purposes and actions. The Koran, generally speaking, teaches a rather crass determinism. According to the Koran, God is the author of everything, including the dispositions of men; He guides whom He wills, and leads into error whom He wills. But at a very early period some pious souls began to take offence at the horrible thought that God should thus have foreordained multitudes of men to sin and to the everlasting pains of hell. They could recognise a divine righteousness only if God leaves men free to choose between good and evil, and determines the retribution according to the character of the choice. They found points of support for this doctrine of theirs in the Koran itself; for Mohammed, who was anything but a consistent thinker, has in his revelations often treated man as free. A popular teacher of religion will, it is clear, whatever be his inclination to determinism, inevitably find himself ever and anon addressing himself to his hearers, in his exhortations to faith and virtue, as if they were in possession of freedom of will. The people who taught in this strain were called Kadarites. Possibly they were not wholly exempt from Christian influences. The procedure of their successors, the Mutazila (“Dissidents”), was more systematic. They constituted a school of a strongly rationalistic tendency, and with the aid of Greek dialectic, with which the Arabs became acquainted first in a limited degree, and afterwards much more fully, through the Syrians, reduced their orthodox opponents to desperation. They also opposed with special zeal the proposition that the Koran is uncreated.[^[18]] This dogma was certainly in flagrant contradiction to the fundamental position of the Koran itself. On this point the Mutazila were in reality the orthodox; but it could hardly fail to happen that in the heat of debate some went further, and thought of the Koran altogether more lightly than befits a Moslem. The fair beginning of a truly progressive movement which was involved in this was inevitably checked within Islam at a very early stage. The school of the Mutazila could hardly have attained to any significance at all had it not been favoured by some of the earlier Abbásids. Mámún especially took sides with great zeal for the doctrine that the Koran is created. But that he is not on this account to be designated as in any sense a “friend of free thought,” is evident from the fact that he imposed severe punishments on those theologians who publicly avowed their adherence to the opposite doctrine then generally prevalent. So also his successors, down to Mutawakkil, who reversed the condition of matters, and caused it to be taught that the Koran is increate.—Another controversy had reference to the divine attributes. The Koran in its unsophisticated anthropomorphism attributes human qualities to God throughout, speaks also of His hands, of the throne on which He sits, and so forth. The original Moslems took this up simply as it was written; but, later, many were stumbled by it, and sought to put such a construction on the passages as would secure for the Koran a purer conception of God. Some denied all divine attributes whatever, inasmuch as, being eternal equally with Himself, they would, if granted, necessarily destroy the divine unity, and establish a real polytheism. Many conceded only certain abstract qualities. On the other hand, some positively maintained the corporeity of God,—in other words, an anthropomorphism of the crassest kind, which even Mohammed would have rejected. The Mutazila maintained their dialectical superiority until Ash‘arí (in the first third of the tenth century), who had been educated in their schools, took the dialectic method into the service of orthodoxy. It was he who created the system of orthodox dogmatic. Of course the later dogmatists did not in all points agree with him, and by some of them, on account of some remains of rationalism in his teaching, he was even regarded as heterodox. Since Ash‘arí’s time the commonly accepted doctrine on the three controverted points just mentioned has been:—(1) God produces the good as well as the evil deeds of man, although the latter has a certain measure of independence in his appropriation of them. (2) The Koran is eternal and increate. Some maintain this, indeed, only with regard to the original of the sacred book in heaven, but others hold it also of the words and letters of the book as it exists on earth. (3) God really has the attributes which are attributed to Him in the Koran; it is a matter of faith that He has hands and feet, sits on His throne, and so on, but it is profane curiosity to inquire as to how these things can be. Whatever be the exceptions that a man may take to any of these doctrines, the first and the third at least are in entire accord with the Koran—even in respect of their illogicality. The Mutazilite, like other rationalistic movements which make their appearance here and there in Islam, may awaken our sympathy, but they are too plainly in contradiction with the essence of a crassly supranaturalistic religion; and this explains how it is that at a later date only a few isolated after-effects of the Mutazila continue to be met with. We must be particularly careful not to attach undue importance to these controversies of the school. The Mohammedan people as a mass was hardly touched by them. The same holds good of other dogmatic differences, unless, perhaps, when they happened to have a political side also; as, for example, the dispute between the rigorists, who regarded every grave sin as “unbelief,” of which the punishment is hell; and those who, on the other side, gave prominence to the divine mercy. The former was the doctrine of the Kharijites, who declared Othmán, Alí, Aïsha, Moáwiya, and many other “Companions” of Mohammed to have been unbelievers; while their opponents, more in the spirit of the Prophet, left it with God to pronounce judgment on these as well as on others who might have fallen into sin.

The theologico-juristical schools are of much greater practical importance than the dogmatic. In Islam “law” embraces ritual also in the widest sense of the word; for example, the rules of prayer (salát), purification, pilgrimage. Law, like dogma, rests upon the Koran and upon tradition. But this tradition is a very heterogeneous composition. All of it is alleged to come from the Prophet, and much of it can, in fact, be traced back to him; but a great deal has another origin. Mohammed’s doctrine and example could not in reality suffice as rules of life for highly-developed peoples. The law and custom of the Arabs, and still more of the lands of ancient civilisation which accepted Islam, opinions of the school, political tendencies, and many other such things, are the real sources of much that is given out as precept or practice of the Prophet. It is only recently that scholars have begun to see on how great a scale traditions were fabricated. In many cases it was believed in good faith that one was justified in ascribing immediately to the Prophet whatever one held to be right in itself and worthy of him; but other falsifications arose from baser motives. In this mass of traditions, which claim to be binding on all true believers, many contradictions, of course, occur. Hence there arose, from the eighth century onwards, a variety of schools whose masters determined for their disciples the rules of law, in the widest sense of that word, on the basis of those traditions which they themselves regarded as correct. The impulse to reconcile internal differences, which is exceedingly strong in Islam, was not successful indeed in removing the discrepancies of the schools of law, but it was able to extend recognition to four of them (which had very soon thrown all the others into the shade) as equally orthodox. These orthodox schools differed from one another in a number of juristic and ritual particulars, but were practically at one on all the most important principles. Every Sunnite is under obligation to hold by the prescriptions of one or other of the four schools. These go deeply into the affairs of daily life, especially in what relates to forms of worship and to the regulation of the family; but on another side, again, they are exceedingly doctrinaire, often presupposing as they do an ideal State, such as never existed even under Omar, and by no means the actual conditions of greedy Oriental despotism. Of these the Hanbalite school has now almost entirely disappeared, and the Hanefites, Sháfiites, and Málikites are distributed over the countries of Sunnite Islam.—Shíite law is something different from that of any of these four schools.

The supreme authority in law, as in other things, is the consensus of the whole Mohammedan world—that is to say, the generally accepted opinion. It decides upon the validity of traditions, and also upon the interpretation of the Koran. For in Islam, as in other Churches, it is only the accepted interpretation of the sacred book that is of consequence to believers, however violent may be the disagreement between this interpretation and the original sense. The consensus of the entire body of Mohammedanism is, of course, an ideal that is never actually realised, but nevertheless it has great practical importance. By its means gradual recognition came to be accorded to things which were foreign, and even opposed, to the teaching of Mohammed—as, for example, the worship of saints. It silently tolerates all kinds of local variations, but exercises a steady pressure towards an ever-extending realisation of its binding prescriptions.

From the prosperous period of the Abbásids onwards, freethinking spread to a considerable extent among the more highly-cultivated classes. Some poets ventured to ridicule or gainsay, more or less openly, fundamental doctrines of Islam, and even the faith itself. Persian writers expressed, in prose and verse, their detestation of Arabism; and the reflecting reader noted that the detestation extended to the Arab religion. One may imagine what expressions were used in conversation in such circles. The scholastic philosophers contrived for the most part to accommodate themselves outwardly to Islamite dogma, and often, we may be sure, in good faith; but the theologians nevertheless, and with reason, held them in deep suspicion; the old pagan Aristotle, on whom they leaned, fits in with Islam even less than with Christianity. All sorts of ideas—some of them very fantastic, of Persian and other foreign origin, and distinctly non-Islamite—also from time to time met with acceptance in the cultivated world. Once and again, indeed, a quite too audacious freethinker or heretic was executed; but in general people were allowed to speak and write freely, if only they put on a touch of Mohammedan varnish. Islam has no inquisition, and accepts as a Moslem the man who externally professes it, however doubtful his real sentiments may be. Accordingly, in some instances individuals whose thinking and teaching was quite un-Islamite, such as the famous mystic poet Abul-Alá al Maarrí (973-1057), were regarded by the people as devout, and even as saintly. But even from this very fact we can see that the danger for Islam was by no means very great. Such ideas were confined to very narrow circles of thinkers and poets, or of profligates, and were never long in dying out again. Nothing of it all penetrated to the great mass of the people, and it is in this that the strength of Islam lies.

The mysticism of the Súfis was a greater danger to the dominant religion. The impulse to self-mortification and introspection, which in Mohammed’s own case was very active at only one period of his life, found new nourishment after his followers had become masters of the neighbouring Christian countries, in which this type of piety was only too flourishing. It was all genuinely Semitic; and during the ascendency of the youthfully energetic element in Islam there was no danger of its exercising an enervating influence on the latter. But subsequently Persian and Indian ideas became associated with this mysticism. The Súfis sought to submerge themselves in God, and arrived at the Indian conception of the All-One, which is irreconcilable with Islam. In Indian fashion, systematic rules were devised for attaining the mystic victory over earthly limitations. He who believed himself to have succeeded in this might venture to break away from the precepts of positive religion, and often enough he allowed the moral law to go in the same way. The enthusiast, essentially a supernaturalist, who had merged himself in the All and One, readily held himself to be a worker of wonders; and still more easily was he so regarded by his adherents. What are the limits of the laws of nature (which Orientals, in fact, never recognise) to one who has effected the leap from the finite to the infinite? The finest and the coarsest attributes of the human spirit often worked together here. Amongst the Súfis we find deep souls, magnificent enthusiasts, fantastic dreamers, sensual poets, many fools, and many rogues. The systematic character of their procedure, which had to be learned, and the impression produced by the personality of leading Súfis, led to the formation of schools and orders. We have here a sort of monasticism, though without celibacy and without permanent vows. The fakírs or dervishes (i.e. “poor”) live on pious gifts or foundations, but often also carry on some civil calling. They keep up regular ascetic exercises, often of a very extraordinary character, in order to attain to the supersensuous. By these means they over-stimulate the nerves, exhaust body and spirit, and fall into a temporary insanity. However fine may be the blossoms which Súfic mysticism has produced, and however quickening its influence upon Persian poetry, the existence of dervishism, which plays a great part in almost all Mohammedan countries, is on the whole a mischief. For the rest, most Súfis believed themselves to be good Moslems. By allegorical interpretation they also were able to come to an understanding with the Koran. Not many can have clearly seen how fundamentally opposed is the pantheistic conception of God in mysticism to the rigid monotheism of the Koran. The great mass of dervishes are, of course, much too unthinking and superficial to follow in the fanciful footsteps of the old masters. They dance and howl for the glory of God, as other men pray. The people regard the dervishes as the props of Islam, and in fact hostility against all unbelievers is fomented in a quite special way by some of these brotherhoods. There is no suspicion how un-Islamic are the fundamental ideas on which these orders rest. The simple axioms of Islam itself meanwhile remain unshaken.

About the year 1000, Islam was in a very bad way. The Abbásid caliphate had long ceased to be of any importance, the power of the Arabs had long ago been broken. There was a multitude of Islamite States, great and small; but even the most powerful of these, that of the Fatimids, was very far from being able to give solidity to the whole, especially as it was Shíite. In fact, large regions which had been conquered by the first Caliphs were again lost to the Byzantines, who repeatedly penetrated far into Mohammedan territory. At this point a new element came to the aid of the religion, namely, the Turks. Warriors from Turkestan had long played a part in the history of Moslem kingdoms, but now there came a wholesale migration. The Turks pressed forward in great masses from their seats in upper Asia, and, newly converted to Islam, threw themselves in the first instance upon the lands of Persia. These nomads caused dreadful devastation, trampled to the ground the flourishing civilisation of vast territories, and contributed almost nothing to the culture of the human race; but they mightily strengthened the religion of Mohammed. The rude Turks took up with zeal the faith which was just within the reach of their intellectual powers, and they became its true, often fanatical, champions against the outside world. They founded the powerful empire of the Seljuks, and conquered new regions for Islam in the north-west. After the downfall of the Seljuk empire they still continued to be the ruling people in all its older portions. Had not the warlike character of Islam been revived by the Turks, the Crusaders perhaps might have had some prospect of more enduring success.

But this Turkish influx was followed by another of evil augury for Islam. Jenghiz Khan led his Mongols and Turks into Mohammedan territory in 1220, and his grandson Hulagu (January 1258) took Bagdad, the Mohammedan capital, and brought the Abbásid caliphate to an end. The loathly heathens were masters of Asia. But Islam, with its simple dogmas, its imposing ceremonial, and its practical character, soon won over these barbarians. Fifty years after the capture of Bagdad, those Mongols who had Moslem subjects had themselves accepted Islam. The frightful injuries they had inflicted on the lands of Islam were, however, not to be repaired. Babylonia, the home of primeval civilisation, was till then still the chief seat of Mohammedan culture; but since the Mongols set foot on it, it has been a desolation.

Through the dynasty of the Ottoman Turks, Islam once more became the terror of Christendom. The old dream of the conquest of Constantinople, and of the complete destruction of the Roman empire, was realised (1453). On his occupation of Egypt in 1517, Selím I. even proclaimed himself Caliph. The sultans of Egypt had, after the destruction of Bagdad, given their protection to a scion of the Abbásid family, to whom they gave the title of Caliph (1261), and similar nominal Caliphs, without any trace of power, “reigned” there till the Ottoman conquest. But how little the Moslem world troubled itself about them may be judged from the fact that the great philosophical historian Ibn Khaldún (of Tunis, 1332-1405), in the introduction to his History of the World, where he speaks very exhaustively about the caliphate, the spiritual and the secular State, never once alludes to this make-believe. But, armed with the enormous power of the then Turkish empire, the caliphate now once more bore another aspect. Although the sultan of Stamboul was wanting in one attribute which almost all orthodox teachers had regarded as essential in Caliphs, namely, descent from the Prophet’s tribe of Koraish, his claims found wide recognition, for his successes filled every Moslem heart with pride and joy, and the holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem did homage to him as their lord. The caliphate, let it be added, did not bring any actual increase of strength to the Ottoman sultans, who on the whole have not themselves attached much value to it; on their coins they do not assert the title either of “Caliph,” or “Imám,” or “Commander of the Faithful.” They have never actually possessed spiritual authority over Moslems who were not their own subjects. At the same time, it might be a serious thing for the Ottoman empire if the sultan should cease to be mentioned in public prayer at Mecca and Medina as overlord and Caliph, a thing which might very well happen if besides Egypt he were to lose Syria. For a kingdom that is slowly but steadily collapsing, the removal of even a weak pillar may be of disastrous consequence. It would appear that in the last confusions in Egypt prior to the English occupation, this idea was actually made use of, and alarm thereby excited in Constantinople. The Sherífs of Mecca as Caliphs (a suggestion that has been made) would, it must be said, play but a poor part. They are descended, indeed, from Alí, and thus theoretically have a vastly greater claim to the dignity than the Ottomans have; but their territory is small and excessively poor, and they of necessity could live only by the favour of other princes. Moreover, the heads of the different branches of this numerous family are constantly in conflict with each other in true Arabic fashion. Lastly, the sultans of Morocco have for a long time been also in the habit of calling themselves “Commanders of the Faithful,” and thus, for their own kingdom at least, they expressly lay claim to the supreme spiritual authority.

In the later Middle Ages the opposition between Sunnites and Shíites seemed to be dying down. The Sunnites had at an early period accepted certain Shíite views, particularly the exaggerated respect in which Alí was held, and on the other hand, all Shíites did not go so far as to declare Abú Bekr and Omar infidels. The Sherífs of Mecca, just spoken of, from being moderate Shíites had imperceptibly become Sunnites. But the enmity of the two parties received a new lease of life when, just about the time when the Sunnite Ottomans were attaining their highest power, a great empire arose also for the Shía. In Persia the doctrine of the divine right of Alí had of old fallen on specially fruitful soil; it is to Persian influences that the Shíite dogmas chiefly owe their development. In Persian lands smaller or greater Shíite States have also arisen at various times, but it was through the founding of the Sefid[^[19]] empire (about 1500) that Persia first became in a strict sense the land of the Shíite faith, whilst formerly (what is often overlooked) it had been in great part Sunnite. This Shíite empire constituted a weighty counterpoise to the Ottomans, and through it many a diversion was created in favour of Europe when most distressed by the pressure of the Turks. Since the fall of the Sefids in last century, Persia has continued to sink deeper and deeper; the State and the nation are far feebler than even in Turkey; but Shíitism has taken Persia into its exclusive possession. So full of life is it, that even in our own time it was able to throw out a vigorous offshoot—the strange enthusiastic sect of the Bábís, which has profoundly agitated the entire country, and has not yet been definitively eradicated. The antithesis between Shía and Sunna is very sharp to this day. The Orientals, who have extraordinarily little feeling of patriotism, have all the more zeal for religion. Bitter hatred still separates the Persians from their Moslem neighbours,—Ottomans, Arabs, Uzbegs, Afghans, and so on,—because, forsooth, the Companions of Mohammed were not able to agree as to who should be the successor of the murdered Othmán.

Islam has, on the whole, undergone but little change during the last thousand years. The spread of mysticism and dervishism, as we have seen, did not affect the faith of the multitude. These things, of course, gave fresh stimulus to the business in saints and miracles. The mystic submerges himself in God, and ignores earthly things; the masses, accordingly, are only too much inclined to take for a saint the rogue who imitates him without scruple and seemingly surpasses him, and the madman who can make nothing of the world at all. Belief in miracles is deep-seated in the blood of the Oriental; religious impostors, themselves often the victims of imposition, have never been wanting there. That saints are able to work miracles, has been faintly questioned only by a few theologians. Of long time, accordingly, the real or alleged sepulchres of saints have been venerated as fountains of grace. They give rise to local cults, and often are hotbeds of fanaticism. It is no accident that in the last troubles in Egypt atrocities were perpetrated upon Europeans at the sepulchre of the most highly venerated of the Egyptian saints, es-Seyyid el Bedawí, at Tantá. Of holy places of this class many are of ancient Christian origin, and some even date from heathen times. All sorts of chicanery, crass superstition, and much that is totally un-Islamite easily connect themselves with such places. No Moslem, it is true, is under obligation to believe in any of these things; there is no such thing as an authoritative list of saints; and some Mohammedan scholars have even disputed the legitimacy of saint-worship altogether, but without success.

Towards the middle of last century there arose in the native land of Islam a violent storm of puritanism against the prevailing apostasy. The Wahhabites, or followers of Abdal-Wahháb, brought forward no new doctrine; they were thoroughly orthodox Moslems; but they broke with tradition thus far, that they sought to abolish certain abuses which had been tolerated or even approved by general consent. In this they proceeded with a strictness which reminds more of Omar than of the Prophet. They were far from denying Mohammed to have been the Apostle of God, but they held in detestation the exaggerated honour which was paid to his name, his dwelling-places, and his grave. The worship of saints they condemned as idolatry, and wherever they went they destroyed the saints’ tombs and places of martyrdom. They wanted to restore the original Islam; for example, they took in serious earnest the legal prohibition against the wearing of silk, and, in agreement with many learned theologians, interdicted tobacco as an innovation. The kingdom which they founded was a copy of the original Islamitic one; it once more reunited by force almost all the inhabitants of Arabia, but could not succeed in infusing a real spirit of religion into the great mass of the Bedouins. Their strict spiritual discipline was particularly irksome to the inhabitants of Mecca—on the whole a very secularly disposed people. The armies of Mohammed Alí of Egypt at length broke the power of the Wahhabites, not without great exertions, took back the sacred cities, Mecca and Medina, which had fallen into their hands in 1803, and penetrated into the heart of their kingdom (1814, 1815). They again took another start at a later period, but neither was this permanent; a purely Arab State, and that, too, founded upon religion, can be kept together for any length of time only by rulers of uncommon efficiency. At present the Wahhabite kingdom, properly so called, is powerless; it is subject to that of the Shammar, which lies to the north of it, and the prince of which, Ibn Rashíd, a ruler of extensive tracts, is also a professor of Wahhabitism, though with none of the fiery zeal of earlier times. The Wahhabites are no longer a menace to Damascus and Bagdad. Their reform of Islam has remained confined to Arabia, and even there is hardly likely to operate long. But it has rightly been remarked as noteworthy, that this purely Semitic religious movement with all its energy has produced nothing new; it has been directed exclusively towards the repristination of pure monotheism.

For a considerable time Islam has seemed to be in a state of deep humiliation. Even the great Moslem kingdoms are without strength. By far the larger portion of the Moslem world is ruled by Christian powers. But let us not deceive ourselves as to the vitality of this religion. How many catastrophes has it not already survived! Immediately on the death of its founder the revolt of the Arabs threatened it with extinction. Soon afterwards, from being a spiritual State (as corresponded with its essential nature), it was changed into a secular one, and it survived the transformation. Its united empire was broken up and fell into fragments. The Moslems tore one another to pieces in fierce party warfare. The Karmatians carried off the black stone, the palladium of Islam, and for years made impossible the pilgrimage, one of the most important expressions of Mohammedan life. The heathen Mongols destroyed the caliphate, and long ruled over half of the lands of Islam. Instead of being able to carry on the holy war against the unbeliever, one Moslem State after another is in these days either directly or indirectly falling under infidel control. But the faith that there is no God but Alláh, and that Mohammed is His Prophet, and all that is involved in this faith, remain unshattered. It would seem as if Islam were now in course of being driven out from the Balkan peninsula, even as it was long ago compelled to quit Sicily and Spain; whether it shall be able to maintain its hold everywhere in Asia and North Africa may be questioned; but in the Indian Archipelago it is steadily advancing, among the nomads of Central Asia it has gained strength just as the Russian sway has extended, and in Central Africa it is achieving conquest upon conquest. Precisely because the consolidation of European power in the lands of Nigritia brings with it greater security of intercourse, it may be presumed that the spread of Islam will be powerfully promoted there. But in the dark continent, which offers no favourable soil for Christianity, the acceptance even of Islam means progress from the deepest savagery to a certain culture, however limited and limiting, and to association with peoples who in the Middle Ages were higher in civilisation than the people of Europe. Perhaps slave-hunting and kidnapping will come to an end only when practically all the negro peoples shall have become Moslem.

If religion among the higher classes in Turkey is, undeniably, sometimes a matter of doubt or even of ridicule, more as the result of frivolity than as a consequence of serious thinking, and if similar phenomena manifest themselves still more frequently among the light-minded, bright, and unconscientious Persians, the firmness of the faith nevertheless remains unshaken with the vast mass of the people, even with those who are remiss in the discharge of ritual duties. Without any qualms of doubt, peacefully resigned to the will of God, the Moslem sees his kingdoms go down. But we must also be prepared to find the strength of this faith continuing to maintain itself in frightful outbursts of fanaticism. If the occurrences in Egypt during the last rebellion showed little of death-defying courage and energy, that is to be attributed to the languid temper of the Egyptians; a great rising in Syria or Asia Minor might conceivably give Europeans a good deal more trouble. The best strength of the great Indian Mutiny of 1856 lay with the Moslems. The Moslem subjects of Britain and other European States sigh for the moment when they shall be able to shake off the yoke of the infidel. The successes of the “dervishes” in the Soudan may serve to warn Europeans of the strength that still resides in the warrior zeal of Islam.

IV.
CALIPH MANSÚR.

The Arabs had established a vast empire with great rapidity, but to keep it together was hardly possible so long as its purely Arab character was retained. The reigning house of the Omayyads had to contend with very dangerous political and religious antipathies; and, perhaps a greater danger, the Arabs, who now controlled a world-empire, kept up without abatement the old untractableness and exaggerated zeal for the honour of family and tribe which they had developed in their desert life. The only difference now was, that their tribal patriotism had reference not so much to the small subdivisions in which the Bedouin lives, as to large tribal groups, the unity of which was in part no more than a fiction. If a governor leaned upon the Yemenites, the Modarites forthwith became his open or secret foes; any prominent official who belonged to the Kais group was hated by the Kelb. And almost every one in authority was ready to overlook in his tribesmen even those offences which, in members of another tribe, he severely, and rightly, punished. The Omayyad Caliphs accordingly found the utmost difficulty in keeping down the private feuds even of the Arabs of Syria, who were generally loyal; and their troubles were much greater in the remoter provinces, where there was little or no sympathy with the reigning house. The kingdom of the Omayyads was never in a state of tolerable order and prosperity unless there was an eminently astute and energetic governor in Babylonia (Irák) as well as a capable sovereign in Syria. For the seat of supreme power was tied to Syria by the circumstances under which the dynasty had arisen; while the eastern provinces, too remote to be controlled from Damascus, were necessarily administered from Irák. All steady order ceased with the reign of the talented but utterly profligate Walíd II. (743-744). The struggles of various Omayyads with one another did the rest.

The ground had long before been undermined by the efforts of a religious party hostile to the Omayyads. The descendants of Alí, who, as blood-relations, in fact descendants, of the Prophet (through his daughter Fátima), considered themselves to have the nearest right to the throne, alienated from the Omayyads the hearts of many of their subjects. There was an expectation that the house of Mohammed, should it once attain to the supreme authority, would fill the earth as full of righteousness as it was now full of iniquity. The pious professors and followers of the divine law had little liking for the rule of the reigning house, which, for all its forms of religion, was purely secular. And though the risings of the Alids were unsuccessful through the bungling of their leaders, the very failure cost the Omayyads dear; for the incapable grandchildren of the Apostle of God, who had fallen or been put to death, in the eyes of the people became martyrs, whose blood cried to heaven for vengeance.

In perfect quietness, meanwhile, another family was setting itself to work to gather in the fruits of the efforts of the Alids for its own behalf,—their cousins, the Abbásids. Abbás, from whom they traced their descent, had held a somewhat ambiguous attitude towards his nephew the Prophet. His son Abdalláh passes for one of the strongest pillars of religious tradition; but, in the eyes of unprejudiced European research, he is only a crafty liar. Abdalláh’s grandson Mohammed, and the sons of the latter, so far as they are known to us, combined considerable practical vigour with their hereditary cunning and duplicity. They lived in deep retirement in Humaima, a little place to the south of the Dead Sea, seemingly far withdrawn from the world, but which, on account of its proximity to the route by which Syrian pilgrims went to Mecca, afforded opportunities for communication with the remotest lands of Islam. From this centre they carried on the propaganda in their own behalf with the utmost skill. They had genius enough to see that the best soil for their efforts was the distant Khorásán,[^[20]]—that is, the extensive north-eastern provinces of the old Persian empire. The majority of the people there had already gone over to Islam; many had embraced the new faith with ardour, and had even fought bravely on its behalf against the unbelieving populations to the north and east. But the converted Persians were held in little esteem by the dominant Arabs, who looked on them as “clients,”[^[21]] and refused to accord to them the full rights to which they had a claim as Moslems. The internal wars of the Arabs, moreover, raged in those parts with exceptional violence. To the Persians it was a matter of indifference whether the Yemenites or Modarites or Rabía were victorious; but they keenly felt the devastation of their country, and their own subordinate position; and thus a great proportion of the newly-converted Persians were filled with hatred towards their Arab “brethren in the faith.” This hatred was easily turned against the reigning house, which was named as the source of all unrighteousness, and whose secular disposition must certainly have been very offensive to the truly pious. The Persians, moreover, were naturally inclined to legitimism, and to enthusiastic attachments to spiritual leaders. Accordingly they were drawn over in multitudes to the doctrine that “the house of the Prophet” alone is called to dominion over his kingdom and his Church. Well-chosen emissaries of the Abbásids canvassed for the family of the Prophet, for the Háshimids, by which expression were understood, in the first instance, the descendants of Alí. Other watchwords and fictitious sayings of Mohammed were also successfully put in circulation. Gradually and furtively the place of the Alids was taken by the Abbásids, who undoubtedly also were descendants of Háshim, and who, since descent from Mohammed in the female line was represented as unimportant, could claim to be just as nearly related to the Prophet as the others.[^[22]] The main point was, that the adherents secured for the cause became entirely attached to the persons of the emissaries, so that the latter were able in the end to direct their followers as they pleased. To secure adherents there seems to have been no scruple about favouring all sorts of objectionable opinions (partly due to a mixing up of the old with the new religion) inconsistent with the fundamental laws of Islam. Of details of the progress of the agitation we know little; but so much is certain: that it was very active, that the emissaries had a regular organisation, and that frequent communication was maintained between Khorásán and the centres from which the wires were pulled—Cufa, the residence of the supreme agent, and Humaima, the home of the Abbásids. The yearly pilgrimages gave special opportunities for meeting without arousing suspicion; many important consultations may possibly have taken place in Mecca itself. Operations had long been carried on in this way, when the head of the Abbásids—either Mohammed, who died in 743, or his son Ibráhím, it is not quite certain which—discovered the man who was destined to bring the movement to a successful issue. This was Abú Moslim, a freedman whose country and descent are unknown, but who in any case was not of Arabian blood. This quondam slave united with an agitator’s adroitness and perfect unscrupulosity in the choice of his means the energy and clear outlook of a general and statesman, and even of a monarch. Within a few years he brought it about that the black banner of the Abbásids was openly unfurled (in the beginning of summer, 747). In a perfidious but masterly manner he contrived still further to foment the mutual antipathies of the Arab parties which were openly at war with each other, although Nasr, the governor, was not the only one who clearly saw that nothing less was at stake than the supremacy, and even the very life, of the Arabs. Ibráhím is even said to have given orders to Abú Moslim that, so far as possible, no Arab should be left alive in Khorásán. Soon the brave Nasr was compelled to quit the country; and immediately afterwards he died (November 748). The Khorásánians pressed steadily forwards. The chief control was in the hands of Abú Moslim, although he remained in Khorásán; not only the Persians, but also the Arab leaders, put themselves under the command of the freedman, a thing unheard-of for Arab pride. It should be added, that the Arabs of Khorásán undoubtedly had a strong strain of Persian blood, and that they had taken on much that was Persian.

A large portion of Southern Persia had not long before been seized by another of the Háshimids, Abdalláh, son of Moáwiya, a descendant of Alí’s brother Jaafar. He had had the support of the Abbásids. But this thoroughly unworthy person (for such he seems to have been) was overcome by the generals of the Omayyad Merwán II., and betook himself in flight to Abú Moslim. He had served his turn, in so far as he had thrown the empire into wilder confusion, and called the attention of the people to the family of the Prophet; now as a rival he might prove inconvenient. Abú Moslim therefore first cast him into prison, and afterwards took his life.

Babylonia, the most important province of the empire, was occupied by the troops of the Abbásids. Once more a great battle took place close to the field where Alexander had gained his final victory over Darius (middle of January 750). The men belonging to Yemenite tribes, who formed the majority of the Omayyad troops, were disinclined to stake their lives on behalf of Merwán, who was not favourably disposed towards them; and accordingly the battle was lost. Over and above this, there now arose internal struggles in Syria and Egypt, which facilitated the work of the Abbásid troops. Merwán, a tried warrior, had to flee from place to place, and soon afterwards fell, almost deserted, at the village of Búsír,[^[23]] in Middle Egypt (August 750).

The head of the Abbásids was now no longer Ibráhím; he had been thrown into prison by Merwán when his complicity with Abú Moslim was discovered, and, shortly before the triumph of his party, had either died or been murdered in captivity. His brothers had fled to Cufa, and kept themselves in hiding there. Here, immediately after the occupation of the city by the Khorásánians, and before the last blow had been struck against Merwán, Abul-Abbás, now the head of the house, was proclaimed Caliph (November or December 749). In his inaugural sermon in the principal mosque, Abul-Abbás designated himself as Saffáh, i.e. “the bloodshedder;” and to this dreadful name, which has since been his standing title, he did ample justice. All Omayyads were ruthlessly struck down. The watchword was: “Vengeance for the Háshimids slain by the Omayyads.” It is, of course, possible that the Abbásids, themselves Arabs, may really have had Arab feelings in the matter, and required vengeance for the blood of their relations as such. But the actual motives were nevertheless other than these; their object was to excite the mob against the Omayyads, as being impious men and worthy of death, and to make their whole house absolutely harmless. To this end no violence or treachery was spared. Even those members of the house who had fled for mercy to the conquerors, and had been received by them, nay more, even those who had yielded only on the solemn promise that no harm should befall them, were put to death; and the Abbásids, the Caliph himself, as well as his uncles, and particularly Abdalláh, who led the pursuit of the defeated Merwán, personally gloated over the murder of their adversaries. And yet Abdalláh had only a short time before experienced an act of clemency when, while taking part in the rebellion of the Jaafarids, he had fallen into the hands of Merwán’s general. Notwithstanding the fierceness of the massacre, a few members of this very numerous Omayyad family managed to escape. Some kept themselves in hiding, and by and by were ignored or forgiven; others made their escape into the far west, where the Caliph’s power did not extend. Nor was it only Omayyad blood that was freely shed at the establishment of the Abbásid rule, whether to excite terror among its subjects, or because the new ruler was hardly able to control the lust for slaughter in his victorious troops. Syria, however, did not accommodate itself to the new dynasty without trouble. Various disturbances gave the conquerors a great deal to do from the very first. In particular, it proved an arduous task to suppress those insurgents who had placed at their head Abú Mohammed, a descendant of the first two Omayyad Caliphs.

Shortly after the death of Merwán, his last powerful supporter, Ibn Hobaira, who had taken possession of the important town of Wásit, on the lower Tigris, made his peace after he had been blockaded for a long time by Mansúr, the brother of the Caliph. By both these princely brothers he had been promised not only life, but continuance in his high office. But so lofty a personage, with a large body of adherents, who had already asserted a very independent position as governor of Babylon, harmonised ill with the new condition of affairs. Mansúr accordingly, in concert with his brother, caused him to be put to death; solemn promises and oaths had no meaning for these men. This was done, it is said, on the advice of Abú Moslim. It is more probable that Abú Moslim had a hand in making away with Abú Salama, “the vizier of the Háshimids,” who from Babylonia had directed the movement in Khorásán, and who had rendered great services in connection with the change of dynasty. It is alleged that—perhaps in full consistency with his original orders—he had, after the death of Ibráhím, shown more inclination to the Alids than to the Abbásids. In any case he stood in the way of Abú Moslim.

Saffáh appears to have been a strong ruler, who, had he lived longer, might perhaps himself have done for the empire what it was left for his follower to achieve. Great differences between the caliphate of the Abbásids and that of the Omayyads immediately emerged, due in part to the manner in which it had been set up, and in part to the personal character of the rulers. The seat of empire was transferred to Babylonia, the true centre. The power of the sovereign rested primarily on Persian troops, which were more amenable to discipline than Arabian. The Caliph no longer needed to take much account of the tribal jealousies of the Arabs, although he occasionally utilised them for his own ends. Hence he could act much more autocratically than his predecessors; the lands of the caliphate now formed much more of a political unity than before. In short, on the old soil of the great Asiatic empires, another was once more set up, which at the most was only half Arab in its character, the rest being Persian.

Even in Saffáh’s lifetime Mansúr took a prominent place as an influential counsellor, and as governor of great provinces, but it is hardly likely that the Caliph allowed himself to be led entirely by his brother.

Abú Moslim, whose people were blindly devoted to him, and who held sway like a prince in Khorásán, in 754 desired to be the leader of the pilgrimage, that is, to represent the Caliph himself before the entire Islamite world. Saffáh, however, quickly instigated Mansúr to seek this dignity for himself, so that he had to express his regret that the office had been already bestowed, and that Abú Moslim could only go as a companion to Mansúr. It seems that in the course of the pilgrimage friction arose between the parvenu who had founded the new empire and the no less self-conscious brother of the Caliph; in any case, Abú Moslim did not by any means overdo the part of a devoted servant. By his liberality he so won over the Bedouins that they declared it a pure slander to call this man an enemy of the Arabs. The two were already on their return journey when news arrived that Saffáh had died (on Sunday, 9th June 754)[^[24]] at Anbár (north of Cufa), and that Mansúr had been proclaimed Caliph on the same day.

Abú Jaafar Abdalláh al Mansúr (i.e. “the victorious”) was at that time a man of over forty. Of his outward appearance we learn that he was tall and thin, and that he had a narrow face, lank hair, thin beard, and brownish complexion. What his inward character was is shown by his deeds. His mother, the Berber slave Salláma, during her pregnancy dreamed, it is said, that she had brought forth a lion, to which other lions came from all quarters to render homage.[^[25]] A lion, truly, who tore in pieces all who came within his reach, unless they acknowledged him as their master!

Mansúr can hardly have reached the neighbourhood of the Euphrates when he learned that he had a very dangerous rival. His uncle Abdalláh,[^[26]] then posted in the far north of Syria ready to march against the Byzantines, laid claim to the throne. His pretensions, perhaps, were not altogether unfounded, for it is not so certain as is usually asserted that Saffáh nominated Mansúr as his successor. It was indeed unfortunate that the dynasty was hardly established before it was torn asunder by disputes about the succession. As Abú Moslim with the Khorásánians held by Mansúr, Abdalláh was compelled to rely upon the Arab troops of Syria and Mesopotamia, and on this account caused thousands of Khorásánians who were with him to be massacred. Humaid, son of the Arabian general Kahtaba, who five years previously had led the Khorásánian troops from victory to victory, suddenly went over from Abdalláh to Mansúr, and rendered to the latter conspicuous service both in this and in many subsequent wars. Abú Moslim brought an end to the war which had been going on for some months in Mesopotamia by a victory gained on 26th (or 27th) November 754. Abdalláh fled to his brother Sulaimán, Mansúr’s governor in Basra (near the mouth of the Tigris), and remained here in hiding for some time.

Abú Moslim thus had not only set up the Abbásid dynasty, but also had saved the throne for Mansúr. A man who had done so much could do still more, and was a danger to his master. Mansúr resolved to get rid of Abú Moslim, a course which is said to have suggested itself even to Saffáh. How they first fell out is told in various ways. It is probable that the Caliph nominated Abú Moslim to be the governor of the western provinces of Syria and Egypt in order to keep him at a distance from Khorásán, where his power had its root, but that the latter did not agree to this. In any case he had noted that Mansúr wished to deprive him of influence, and he resolved accordingly, without reference to Mansúr, to return to Khorásán. Of his own soldiers he was perfectly sure, even in a campaign against the Caliph. At this stage a correspondence took place between the two. Abú Moslim in the end suffered himself to be befooled by the sworn assurances of Mansúr (with a slight admixture of threats), and came with but a small following to the Caliph at the “city of the Romans,” a decayed place that had belonged to the Seleucia-Ctesiphon group of Persian royal cities. Mansúr received him graciously, but after having made sure of him, caused him to be slain before his eyes, and the body to be cast into the Tigris (February 755).

The removal of the powerful individuality, of whom we hear that his followers would have sacrificed their lives and their very souls for him, but upon whose fidelity the Caliph could hardly rely, was a political necessity. An intimate of Mansúr’s is said to have quoted to him against Abú Moslim the verse of the Koran in which it is said that if the world held other gods besides Alláh it would go to ruin (súra 21, 22). Such a prince as Mansúr could tolerate no rival in the kingdom. Nor can any great claim upon our pity be made for Abú Moslim, who shrank from no resource of violence or treachery, whether against enemies or against inconvenient friends, and of whom it is said (no doubt with huge exaggeration), that he caused as many as 600,000 prisoners to be slain. Mansúr gave proof of admirable astuteness when he overreached the cunningest of the cunning. But that his conduct was abominable goes without saying.

The murder was by no means without danger for its perpetrator. The soldiers indeed whom Abú Moslim had brought with him were restrained from making any disturbance, partly by their dismay at the accomplished fact, and partly by a lavish distribution of money. But mutterings were heard in Khorásán. There the dead man had thousands who clung to him with religious attachment. In fact, there were many who could not believe in his death, and who expected him to return once more as a Messiah. A Persian named Sampádh excited in that very year a great revolt in Khorásán to avenge Abú Moslim. What is reported of him, that he was a professor of the old Persian religion, is improbable; he may have belonged to one of the half-Persian sects, which the majority certainly could not regard as Mohammedan. In any case the revolt was a popular movement. Sampádh advanced far towards Media, but thereupon was defeated by Jahwar, whom Mansúr had despatched against him, and slain somewhere near the spot where the last of the Dariuses met his end. The victorious general had made himself master of the treasures of Abú Moslim, and now in turn himself rebelled, but was quickly overcome, and put to death (755 or 756). Khorásán was once more securely in the hands of the Caliph.

In other directions also disturbances of various kinds occurred. The Kharijites,[^[27]] who had no reason for regarding the rule of the Prophet’s kinsmen as juster or more in accordance with the laws of God than that of the Omayyads, fought on for their ideals in various parts of the empire, with few followers indeed, but with a courage that defied death. Thus a certain Kharijite, Mulabbid, in Mesopotamia gave much trouble to the armies of the Caliph, and was only at last overcome in 756 by Házim, perhaps the ablest of Mansúr’s generals.

A handful of strange mortals brought the Caliph into a very difficult position, probably in 757-8. The Ráwendí, who are guessed to have been connected with Abú Moslim, not only believed in the transmigration of souls, but had also taken into their heads that Mansúr was God Himself. They accordingly betook themselves to his capital, and set themselves in an attitude of worship around his palace. Mansúr, indeed, was quite of the mind that it was better to have people obey him and go to hell in consequence, than earn heaven by rebellion against him; but the Commander of the Faithful durst not tolerate such conduct as this of the Ráwendí, unless he wished to provoke a universal rising of all Moslems against him. He accordingly caused a number of the fanatics to be imprisoned. But they did not take this well; they freed their comrades and now assailed the life of the Caliph, who only had a limited guard at hand. In mastering them, which he did only with difficulty, he displayed great courage. In the struggle there came to the front one who had been a conspicuous general under the Omayyads, afterwards had kept himself in concealment, and now seized this opportunity to gain favour with the Caliph. This was Maan, son of Záida, famed for his bravery, and still more for his liberality, but at the same time stern and pitiless towards his foes. Mansúr, whom it thoroughly suited to intermingle pure Arabs with his Khorásán generals of mixed Arabian and Persian origin, willingly took the fire-eater into his grace. Shortly afterwards he sent him into Yemen, where, during his nine years’ governorship, he subdued all opponents with much bloodshed. Subsequently he sent him to south-eastern Persia, where he was surprised and slain by the Kharijites.

The dynasty of the Omayyads once overthrown, the Alids saw that they had not gained much. It made no difference to them whether their nearer cousins, the descendants of Abbás,[^[28]] or whether their slightly more distant kinsmen, those of Omayya, possessed the sovereignty; the name of Háshim was not enough. When the house of the Prophet had been canvassed for, every one in the first instance had thought of his actual descendants; these last now deemed, not unrightly, that they had been defrauded of their birthright. It is probable that even the Abbásids, in the secret negotiations, at an early stage had at one time freely acknowledged the Alid Mohammed, son of Abdalláh, as head of the entire house, and as the future Caliph. Why this particular man should have been selected from among the very numerous descendants of Alí, we are unable to say. One advantage, which fell into the scale when a legitimist claim was being urged, he undoubtedly had—namely, that the females also who came into his genealogy were all free Arabs of good family, and that the Hasanid Mohammed was through his grandmother a descendant also of Husain, and thus in a twofold way descended from the Prophet.[^[29]] His father, who might have advanced still stronger claims, was perhaps over-timid or too little ambitious.

The Abbásids knew too well how it was that they themselves had reached the throne to be other than exceedingly jealous of the hereditary advantages of their cousins. One and another Alid now and again expressed tolerably openly his opinion of the situation. And the Mohammed just mentioned, as well as his brother Ibráhím, had betrayed themselves by refraining to come to pay their respects to Mansúr when he made the pilgrimage during the lifetime of his brother. If Mansúr actually had at one time acknowledged Mohammed’s right to the caliphate, this would be to him a further motive for effort to have them in his power. But neither promises nor threats availed; they hid themselves in various quarters of Arabia, and are said to have wandered about in even remoter lands. As their father when closely questioned persisted in declaring that he had no idea where his sons were living, Mansúr, when he came on pilgrimage once more to Mecca in April 758, caused him to be imprisoned. But even this did not avail. The governors in Medina either could not or would not find the fugitives. The inhabitants were attached to the Alids as being children of the Prophet and children of their city, and the majority of the officials even would doubtless have felt it to be a crime to deliver them up to destruction. Riyáh, however, of the tribe of Morra, who entered upon the governorship of Medina on 27th December 761, was free from any such weakness. He threatened the inhabitants with the same fate with which, sixty-eight years before, his fellow tribesman Moslim, son of Okba, had visited their rebellion against authority.[^[30]] He caused all the nearer kinsmen of Mohammed’s family, and many of his adherents, to be imprisoned, and also a number of the Juhaina Bedouins, among whose mountains, to the west of Medina,[^[31]] it was supposed that the claimant was in hiding. When, at the close of another pilgrimage (March 762), Mansúr visited Medina, he took these captive Alids, including the father of the two brothers, and various other persons of consideration, and carried them with him in chains into Babylonia. Amongst these exiles was the step-brother of Abdalláh, who secretly, and in violation of his plighted word, had given his daughter in marriage to his nephew, the claimant, and is said also to have himself seemed formidable by reason of his personal distinction as a descendant of Caliph Othmán. A son of Mohammed’s fell into the hands of the governor of Egypt, and was sent to the Caliph. We can readily believe what we read, that the treatment of these hostages was by no means indulgent;[^[32]] several were put to death, many died in prison. But popular imagination, or personal hatred, has raised the colours of the picture; the story goes that the Caliph kept the bodies of all the murdered Alids in a great chamber to which no one had access but himself; in the ear of each was a label with his name and genealogy neatly written. Mansúr’s son Mahdí ventured to use the key after his father’s death, and, horrified at the discovery, caused them all to be buried.

Riyáh’s diligent search seems at length to have led Mohammed to attempt a premature revolt, which towards the end of 762 broke out in Medina. Mohammed was proclaimed Caliph, the captives set free, the governor and other adherents of Mansúr thrown into prison. The famous doctor of Islam, Málik, son of Anas, gave his decision that the oath of allegiance to the Abbásids, having been obtained by force, was of no binding obligation. This is characteristic at once for the ethics of Islam and for the view of the rule of the Abbásids which was taken by those persons who were, properly speaking, the guardians of religion and of the sacred law.[^[33]] At Málik’s dictum everybody went over to Mohammed. Even the descendants of Abú Bekr and other men of Koraish, who had formerly distinguished themselves at the founding of the empire of Islam, for the most part joined him. So also did the poet Abú Adí al Ablí, who belonged to a side branch of the house of Omayya. These individuals, however, seem to have inherited but little of the statesmanlike and warlike ability of their ancestors. From the very first many clear-headed men saw that the enterprise had small prospect of success. When a volunteer courier, in the extraordinarily short space of nine days, brought news of the insurrection to Mansúr at Cufa, he was far from dissatisfied with this clearing of the situation. “Now, at last,” said he, “I have the fox out of his hole!” Medina was of all places least suited for the foundation of an anti-caliphate,—for this, among other reasons, that the whole region was dependent on imports from Egypt, the supply of which was now at once cut off. Mansúr sent his cousin Isá, son of Músá, with a small but tried army against Medina. Mohammed proved no more equal to his task than the other Alid pretenders had done. Instead of taking the advice of persons skilled in war, and assuming the offensive, he remained within the city of the Prophet, the sanctity of which he took to be his best defence: once, in a dream, it had appeared to the Prophet under the figure of a breastplate. By way of fortification he caused the fosse of the Prophet to be restored; a work which indeed had filled with astonishment the Arabs combined against Mohammed,—men who had had no experience of war on a large scale, or indeed of any kind of strenuous united action,—but which was mere child’s play for the veterans of Khorásán. Isá had already, by letters, won over from Mohammed various important persons. The great bulk of his followers quietly melted away as the foe drew near. Isá paused for three days before Medina, to obtain, if possible, an amicable settlement by negotiation, and operations then began. The fosse was bridged with some house-doors. A woman of the family of Abbás secretly caused a large black cloth to be hoisted on the tallest minaret; upon this all the pious townsmen immediately rushed to the conclusion that the Khorásánians had entered the city by the rear, and there had planted the black banner of the Abbásids. Only a few, including a company of Juhaina Bedouins, stood by Mohammed. Mohammed, a tall and handsome man, fell after a heroic struggle late on the afternoon of Monday, 6th December 762. He had caused the captive Riyáh to be put to death immediately before. One more addition was thus now made to the roll of Alid “martyrs,” who had inherited from their ancestors courage and bravery, but with these also an incapacity for generalship and supreme command. The supporters of the house surnamed Mohammed as “the pure soul.”

Isá, obeying orders, showed comparative clemency. It was of importance to the descendants of Abbás that the sanctity of the city of the Prophet, to whom they traced back their rights, should not be violated too grossly. Some prominent participators in the rebellion, indeed, were put to death, or else imprisoned or subjected to severe corporal chastisement. The goods of that branch of the Alid family to which the pretender had belonged were confiscated. According to the custom of the time, his head was brought to the Caliph, who sent it by courier-post round the provinces as an awful example. It arrived in Egypt in the spring of 763, just in time to check a rising of the Alid party there.

While affairs in Medina were still undecided, the Caliph learned that Ibráhím had risen in the interests of his brother Mohammed at Basra (Monday, 22nd November 762). Mansúr had previously come to know that Ibráhím was in hiding there, and had taken some precautionary measures accordingly; but he nevertheless seems to have been greatly taken aback by this new insurrection. Basra was not merely a wealthy trading city, but also, from a military point of view, very different in importance from Medina. To a man of enterprise it offered great opportunities; from it as a basis, the Tigris and Euphrates could be blockaded, and the maritime provinces to the east comparatively easily mastered. Nor was this all; the very important city, in the immediate neighbourhood of which Mansúr had his residence, the turbulent Cufa, was thoroughly Alid in its sympathies. Should an Alid make his appearance in the neighbourhood with an army, an outbreak might be expected within it at any moment. In addition to this, the whole central province was in a state of ferment. But Mansúr had at the moment only a very few troops at hand. He afterwards confessed that it had been a great mistake to leave himself so bare, and declared that in future he would always retain at least 30,000 men beside him. He managed, however, to arrange them so that the Cufans considerably overestimated the number of his forces. The Cufans were, moreover, always much more heroic in words than in deeds. Mansúr, however, was not yet able to take the offensive against Ibráhím; but was constrained to suffer the latter, into whose hands the treasure of the rich province of Basra had fallen, to become master of Susiana and Persis also. Wásit also received the troops of Ibráhím. In the neighbourhood of this city, indeed, he was encountered by an officer of Mansúr’s; and here the two armies stood, facing one another, until the whole struggle was ended.

Ibráhím deemed himself already a sovereign, and spent his time with a wife whom he had just married. Mansúr, on the other hand, never looked on the face of woman till the conflict was over. A contemporary praises, in eloquent words, the courage and determination which he maintained in his critical position. The advice to incite Cufa to revolt was set aside by Ibráhím because such a step would cause much harm to children, women, and other non-combatants. In the same spirit he forbade pursuit of fugitives, and so forth. All this sounds very well, but is out of place in one who, for his own interests, is carrying on a rebellion which, under any circumstances, must involve much bloodshed, and can ultimately achieve success only by concentration of every energy. In such tenderness there is more of weakness than of humanity. “Thou desirest the sovereignty, yet darest not to slay!” some one said to him. Pour faire des omelettes il faut casser les œufs.

Soon after the middle of December 762, Ibráhím received the crushing intelligence of his brother’s death. Yet if even now he had advanced immediately, he would still have been able to put Mansúr to great straits. But when he finally marched towards Cufa with barely 10,000 men, a sixth or a tenth of his strength on paper, Isá had already arrived at the head of a superior army. The Caliph had ordered troops from Media against Susiana, which soon captured the capital Ahwáz. In Bákhamrá, only sixteen hours south of Cufa, the army of Ibráhím, who had now assumed the title of Caliph, encountered the advancing host of Isá (Monday, 14th February 763). Mansúr’s vanguard was driven back; but Isá held his ground, and the fugitives soon rallied. Mansúr’s cousins, the sons of Sulaimán, fell upon Ibráhím’s rear. After a fierce battle he fell, mortally wounded with an arrow. The Caliph caused his head also to be publicly exhibited, but would not suffer a bystander to treat the dead with contumely. He punished with frightful cruelty a coarse person who had spat on Ibráhím’s head in his presence.

A victory for Ibráhím seems to have been widely counted upon. The famous blind poet, Basshár, no sectary, but an enlightened freethinker, had sent him a poem, in which he was praised, and Mansúr violently attacked; after the battle he so altered the poem, that he was able to give it out as an earlier production directed against Abú Moslim.

Ibráhím’s death was a much greater relief to Mansúr than that of Mohammed. He could now feel pretty sure that henceforth no Alid claimant could be of danger to him. True, he caused the whole family of those kinsmen of his to be strictly watched, but he was particularly willing to receive into his service any members of it whom he thought he could venture to trust. Perhaps in this the old Arab feeling for family ties had still some part; however that may be, it produced a good effect, as showing to subjects that both the main branches of the Háshimids still held by one another.

In Medina these struggles were followed by a little after-piece. Persian soldiers behaved with violence towards peaceful inhabitants. The people complained to the chief authority, but received no attention. Then active resistance began. The town butchers (black freedmen, it would seem) killed a soldier; from this it grew to a general melée. The negroes, who were numerous, both slaves and freedmen, drew together, and killed part of the little garrison. The governor fled. They even seized on the stores that had been set apart for the troops. The higher classes trembled before the wrath of Mansúr. It is noteworthy that two who specially exerted themselves for the restoration of order were a member of the Omayyad family and an official who had been imprisoned for his participation in the rising of Mohammed. The loyalty of the population towards the sovereign was strongly insisted on. The stores that had been plundered were given back or made good. The blacks suffered themselves to be persuaded by the representations of the most prominent citizens, and returned home. It was now seen to have been only a momentary outburst of temper, not social revolution. The governor returned at the earnest invitation of the notables. Four ringleaders had a hand chopped off—the punishment of thieves. The chief mischiefmaker perished in prison.

The rebellion of the Alids had interrupted Mansúr in a great undertaking—the building of Bagdad. With the fall of the Omayyads it had become quite a matter of course that the rulers of the enormous empire, which extended from what is now Russian Turkestan and the Indus to Aden, Algeria, and Eastern Asia Minor,[^[34]] should have their seat in Babylonia; but they had not as yet any definite capital. Mansúr lived a great deal in Háshimíya, founded by his predecessor, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cufa. But the Cufans, little attached as they were to the Abbásids, were no desirable neighbours. After the death of Ibráhím, Mansúr had preached them as sharp a sermon against their sins as any Omayyad governor could have delivered, and expressed in it his astonishment that the Omayyads had not long ago depopulated the accursed place as an abode of unbelievers. Moreover, nothing but a creation of his own could have satisfied Mansúr’s haughty nature. After long deliberation he determined to build the new capital on a site on the west bank of the Tigris, then occupied by a little place named Baghdád.[^[35]] So far as we can judge, the district had already before this time been brought into communication with the Euphrates by means of canals. Mansúr caused the connection to be notably extended and improved. The official name of the city here planted was Madínat-as-Salám (“the city of welfare”), but in practical use the old name Bagdad maintained exclusive currency. Mansúr’s keen vision in the selection of this site may well be compared with that shown by Alexander when he founded the Egyptian Alexandria. At any rate, the situation of this city, which he called into being out of nothing, is so favourable that it soon became a world-city, with all the lights and shadows of such; a place which, Constantinople apart, had no rival, and which, even in the deep decline of all these countries since that time, and notwithstanding the irreparable injury suffered by Bagdad itself when it was destroyed by the Mongols in 1258, still remains a considerable city, by far the most important in the whole region of the Euphrates and Tigris. The work of building had been begun in early summer of 762. When news came of Mohammed’s revolt, the walls were hardly six feet high. When Ibráhím approached, the rumour spread that he had gained a great victory. Hereupon the freedman who had been left in charge of the vast accumulations of building materials set fire to the stores of timber, that they might not fall into the hand of the enemy. As soon as the empire was once more pacified, Mansúr caused operations to be resumed. The building was carried out on a magnificent scale. Vast sums were expended by the Caliph in building residences for himself, his dependants, kinsfolk, and freedmen, as well as his officers and troops, and also in constructing mosques, government offices, aqueducts, canal bridges, and fortifications. He assigned allotments to the members of the reigning house and the grandees on which to build their houses. Troops of handicraftsmen, traders, and other settlers flocked to the spot. Houses of sun-dried brick cost but little, and it is possible that even directly, certainly indirectly, the trifling outlay of the builders was in many cases made good out of the public exchequer. Traders had, moreover, to pay a duty upon their shops. In 766 the great city was practically finished; its walls were completed in 768. Mansúr’s city, as already mentioned, lay on the west bank of the river. Yet even he caused the opposite side, where now the main part of Bagdad lies, to be built on. “The camp” of his son Mahdí was there. It seemed expedient to place a portion of the garrison on the other side of the river, so that, in case of necessity, the two divisions of the army might be able to hold one another in check. A peculiar police regulation was introduced later by Mansúr; he caused the markets, which were frequented by an excessive number of strangers, whose supervision was not easy, to be removed outside the city proper. Bagdad was strongly fortified. Mansúr caused other important inland cities also to be fortified in such a way that the garrisons might be able to cope with casual insurrections. This he did also in the case of the city of Ráfika, founded by him in 772 in the neighbourhood of Rakka (Callinicus), on the east bank of the middle Euphrates, in which he placed a garrison of Khorásánians.

The active superintendence which Mansúr gave to the building of his capital is only an instance of the whole system of his government, which was, as far as possible, personal. Posts were still conferred on a certain number of Arab nobles, who still sometimes showed the insubordination and tribal patriotism of their race, but he took care that they never overgrew himself. At the same time, he conferred the most important governorships upon various members of his own family, and made ample provision for all of them; but he kept them in strict subjection, and on occasion chastised them severely. He had absolutely trustworthy tools in his freedmen and clients of foreign extraction, to whom, to the horror of the aristocratic Arabs, he sometimes gave even the most important administrative offices. The governors and other high officials of the provinces were strictly overseen by special officers, entirely independent of them, who sent an uninterrupted series of couriers with their reports to the Caliph.[^[36]] When, for example, Mansúr on one occasion learned through this channel that the governor of Hadramaut (in the extreme south of Arabia) was more attentive to the pleasures of the chase than to the duties of his office, he deposed him at once. Even the actions of Mahdí, the heir-apparent, in his capacity as governor of the lands of the east were subjected to this kind of control. Thus, the Caliph having on one occasion learned that Mahdí had given to a certain poet much too great a reward for a laudatory copy of verses, he compelled the recipient to repay the greater part of the sum.[^[37]] These officers, in addition to their special duties, reported all the more important law cases, and all occurrences of any particular interest; they further apprised the Caliph of the price of provisions; for, with a view to public peace and security, it was judged necessary to take prompt measures for the prevention of dearths.[^[38]] So well was Mansúr informed as to the state of the provinces, that it was whispered he had a magic mirror in which he could see all his enemies. Still better is he characterised by his own words to his son: “Sleep not, for thy father has not slept since he came to the caliphate; when sleep fell upon his eyes, his spirit remained awake.” He was an excellent financier. He is frequently reproached with avarice even; he was surnamed “the father of farthings,”—a reproach which presumably came chiefly from those whose interests would have been served by that prodigality to favourites which has procured a very undeserved reputation for many Oriental sovereigns. In the same way other eminently good rulers, such as the Omayyads Abdalmelik and Hishám, have the reputation of avarice. Mansúr was certainly strict in money matters. The vast expenditures on the building of Bagdad he caused to be accounted for down to the last farthing, and he compelled his officials to refund little profits which they had made for themselves. He looked sharply after his tax collectors. In payment of the land tax he commanded that only certain kinds of the gold coins of the Omayyads which were quite of full weight should be received. Of course he followed also the old established principle of Oriental princes, according to which high officers who had gorged themselves were compelled to give back their accumulations.[^[39]] Even one of such exalted position, and of such conspicuous service in the establishment and support of the Abbásid dynasty, as was the Persian[^[40]] Khálid, son of Barmek, the founder of the Barmecide power, was subjected to an operation of this kind. He was called upon within a very short time to pay 3,000,000 dirhems (about £57,000); the Caliph in the end was satisfied with 2,700,000. Nay, even Mansúr’s own brother Abbás was compelled to give up the money which he had squeezed from the people when governor of Mesopotamia, and was imprisoned besides. An Oriental State can never altogether prevent the abuse by which officials, small and great, enrich themselves in illicit ways. On the occasion of a land survey at Basra it was discovered that a family of consideration, the descendants of the Prophet’s freedman Abú Bekra, had increased their estate to a prodigious extent; the Caliph cut it down to a tenth. Here is a piece of the higher finance:[^[41]] Mansúr ordered every inhabitant of Cufa to pay five dirhems (nearly two shillings); all, of course, complied. Having in this way ascertained their exact number, he imposed on all a poll-tax[^[42]] of forty dirhems (fifteen shillings), and applied the money to the fortifications of the city. Whether this story is exact we will not undertake to say; in any case, it is probable that he sought by stringent measures to raise the revenue as much as possible, especially as he left to his successor an overflowing exchequer. It must, however, be considered that the comparative measure of quiet which he secured for most of the countries of his empire more than compensated for high taxation. How far the Christians’ complaints of special fiscal oppression under Mansúr were justified, is a point we can hardly clear up now; perhaps they arose chiefly from the circumstance that he taxed churches and monasteries, which was not so very unreasonable. If he again reduced the tribute of the Cyprians to the sum originally fixed by treaty, this was probably due, not so much to a sense of justice as to policy; it was expedient that so exposed a possession should be considerately treated.

We are safe in saying that the rule of Mansúr, however hard, treacherous, or ruthless it may often have been, was on the whole a blessing to the empire. He could say of himself with truth, that he had done for the mass of the people the one thing which the masses needed; he had insisted on righteousness (in the administrative and judicial acts of his officials), had protected them against external attack, and had secured internal peace and quiet. The fruits of his exertions were reaped by his successors, who were by no means on a level with himself. The great prosperity of the empire under his grandson Hárún ar Rashíd is mainly due to Mansúr. It must be borne in mind, of course, that when we speak of an Oriental State, justice and internal peace must always be taken with large qualifications. Even the best of Oriental governments is extremely defective from our point of view.[^[43]]

The personal requirements of Mansúr were few. Born and bred in the deserts of Edom, he had no turn for such luxury as prevailed in the court of his son, and which afterwards often passed into extravagant profligacy. Like his predecessor, he seems to have been no slave of women. He drank no wine, and did not tolerate at his court music and song, which at that time were only too often the handmaids of debauchery. On the other hand, he was a friend of literature; he particularly admired the fine heroic histories of old Arabia. Himself a man of high mental endowments, he liked to associate with people of culture and intellect. He found pleasure also in the verses and drollery of the talented bibulous and frivolous negro Abú Duláma, who seems to have been more of a court fool than of a court poet. By natural gift and by cultivation, he became one of the most famous of Arabic orators. He it was, moreover, who first caused Greek scientific works to be translated into Arabic. He had at least a share in the rise of Arabic science which took place in his time.

The sovereign before whose wrath all the world bowed in shrinking fear, and of whose bloody severity frightful things were told, was under his own roof a kindly father and master. He knew how to appreciate frank, dignified demeanour in cases where this did not appear to carry danger. Thus he pardoned a Kharijite who was to have been beheaded in his presence, and whom he had assailed with insulting language, when the latter pointed out to him how unseemly such conduct was. And he fully appreciated the Omayyad sovereigns Moáwiya, Abdalmelik, and Hishám, as also that brave and unselfish servant of the Omayyads, the great Hajjáj.

The most devoted followers of the Alids were in the habit of asserting that they had derived from the Prophet a hereditary wisdom; this was one, or even the sole ground on which the sovereignty was claimed for them. Among the Persians, in particular, views of this kind had great currency. The first Abbásid claimants and sovereigns also made similar pretensions. It was the part of the good subject to believe that the heads of this house enjoyed a special divine illumination. But, apart from the individuals who had been won over by their emissaries at the beginning, this faith did not spread. Even the Arab Moslems were much more inclined to attribute such an advantage to the Alids than to the reigning family. Mansúr himself doubtless viewed this doctrine of his own special enlightenment much as an intelligent Roman emperor regarded the divine honours paid him by poets and subservient provincials. At any rate, his nature was cool, and religious zeal will be imputed to him by no one. So long as heterodox persons were not dangerous to the State he left them unmolested. Under his reign there were no persecutions of sectaries, such as his son Mahdí so soon afterwards instituted, and still less of the supporters of unpopular school opinions, such as occurred frequently at a later date. In his time, moreover, the unanimity of a later age as to orthodox doctrine or orthodox practice in Islam had not yet been attained; much leaven was still at work which was afterwards cast out. His Christian physician was accustomed to wine; Mansúr in his own palace caused the obnoxious liquor to be supplied to him. On the other hand, he praised this functionary for his fidelity to the now aged wife whom he had left behind at home, when he sent back the beautiful female slaves presented to him by the Caliph because Christianity enjoined monogamy. But, of course, Mansúr’s edicts and letters, according to the fashion of the time, overflowed with pious phrases and texts from the Koran; and this was most of all conspicuous in the religious political discourses which, after the example of the earlier Caliphs, he delivered on Fridays from the pulpit of some great mosque. Mansúr was further led by the traditions of his family to assume to some extent the part of a theologian, especially in giving forth alleged sayings of the Prophet. Some characteristic specimens of such oral traditions communicated by him to others have come down to us. Thus he declared the Prophet to have said, that if he had appointed to a governor a definite revenue, then everything which the latter took in excess of this was unlawful spoliation. Unfortunately, not many of Mansúr’s governors were so tender of conscience as to take seriously to heart a word of the Prophet guaranteed on such authority. At the same time, all things considered, I do not venture to maintain that Mansúr was at heart an utter unbeliever. In the East, still less than in the West, does one expect to find absolute consistency in matters of religion. The man who in cold blood violated his most sacred oaths may yet have argued with himself that Alláh the All-merciful would at last forgive him, good Moslem as he was, all his sins. Perhaps he hoped even that God would impute it to him for righteousness that he was the cousin of the Apostle of God; that would have been a truly Arab thought. In the same way it is also possible that his repeated pilgrimages, over and above their political purpose, which is obvious, may have been designed also to satisfy a personal need. It is conceivable, too, that the old sinner may have counted on the divine favour because he had vigorously carried on the holy war against unbelievers.[^[44]]

The baneful frontier war, carried on for centuries between the caliphate and the Byzantine empire, and interrupted only by short truces, pursued its course under Mansúr, though mostly only in the form of plundering forays, devastation of the open country, and destruction of single fortresses and cities. Mansúr sought to make his frontier against the Byzantines as secure as possible by freshly fortifying a number of cities and supplying them with adequate garrisons. In this respect his restorations of the ruined fortresses of Melatia in Lesser Armenia, and of that of Massísa (Mopsuhestia) in Cilicia,—a town which he almost founded anew,—were of special importance. These frontier fortresses naturally served also as bases of operations against the enemy’s territory. The maritime towns on the Syrian coast were in like manner placed by Mansúr in a state of defence.

The other frontiers also gave enough to do. In 764 the wild Khazars (in what is now Southern Russia) invaded the territory south of the Caucasus, took Tiflis, devastated the country far and wide, and defeated more than one army. Before a sufficient force could be sent against them, they had again disappeared. But Mansúr now took precautions, by defensive works, to check as much as possible the inroads of these and other northern barbarians, at whose hands these lands had long suffered severely. He took firm possession of the whole territory up to the great mountain chain, and even levied a tax upon the naphtha-springs of Baku.

The mountainous districts on the southern margin of the Caspian, on the other hand, remained unsubdued. The Dílemites (in Gílán) made frequent plundering attacks on the adjoining country, as had been their immemorial habit. The war against them was continual. We learn incidentally that in 760-61 the Caliph summoned expressly the richer inhabitants of Cufa to take arms against the Dílemites. Now, theoretically, every Moslem capable of bearing arms is under constant obligation to fight against unbelievers; but we may conjecture that what Mansúr had chiefly in view was the money which those not very warlike people would have to pay for exemption from service.—Tabaristán (Mázenderán), which borders Gílán on the east, where a family of high functionaries of the Sásánian empire had maintained themselves as an independent dynasty and still kept up the religion of Zoroaster, was almost entirely annexed for the first time under Mansúr.[^[45]] A former butcher of Rai (Rhagae, near the modern Teherán), who, on his own responsibility, had collected a body of men, and at its head had fought bravely against Sampádh,[^[46]] received the appointment of governor. But this conquest of Tabaristán was not yet final.

The struggle continued to be carried on—with many interruptions, it is true—against the unbelievers (Turks and others) beyond the Oxus; so also on the Indian frontier, where during Mansúr’s reign Kandahár, among other places, was taken. But the extension of the Mohammedan empire in these frontier regions was nowhere great. We do not know whether the fleet which Mansúr despatched from Basra in 770 to chastise a tribe of pirates in the delta of the Indus was successful. Two years before members of this tribe had ventured up the Red Sea, and had plundered Jiddah, the port of Mecca.[^[47]]

In the repression of the Alid rebellion Isá, son of Músá, had, as we have seen, specially distinguished himself, and, by a binding arrangement, the succession to the sovereignty had been secured to him. But Mansúr wished to be succeeded by his own son Mahdí. He accordingly wrote to his cousin a letter full of unction, in which he represented the troops as having taken Mahdí to their heart to such a degree that the former must of necessity yield to him. The claim had even a stronger foundation, for the unscrupulous poet Mutí had produced before the assembled court a prediction of the Prophet which clearly pointed to Mahdí as the future pattern prince, and had even had the audacity to call in Abbás, the Caliph’s brother, as a witness to the genuineness of the announcement,—a testimony in which the latter had, against his will, to concur. In spite of all this Isá held his own, and maintained, certainly with good reason, not only that the Caliph and his officials were obliged by the oath which they had tendered to him to protect him in his rights, but that he had also bound himself by his oath, and dared not abandon his claim. At last, by threats and all sorts of importunities, he was rendered pliable, and renounced on condition that he was to be the successor of Mahdí. Officials and people were in this way released from the terms of their oath to Isá (764). The condition attached was from the first rather illusory, for Mansúr’s son was much younger than Isá, and actually survived him; but before Isá’s death Mahdí as Caliph had already compelled him definitely to resign his claims in favour of Mahdí’s son Hádí.

At this time also (764) Mansúr’s quondam rival, his uncle Abdalláh, died. Abdalláh, as already related, had after his defeat taken refuge with his brother Sulaimán at Basra (end of 754). When Mansúr came to know that he was in hiding there, he demanded his surrender; but this was not granted until after he had pledged himself in the most solemn way that no harm should befall Abdalláh. In the deed in which this security was promised,—a deed accepted by the Caliph,—it was specified, among other things, that Mansúr, should he break the agreement, would be held as renouncing the sovereignty, and as releasing his subjects from their oath of allegiance. These clauses were little to Mansúr’s taste: people might, perhaps, one day think of taking him at his word! The author of the document, Ibn Mokaffa, famous as a stylist and as a poet, and particularly meritorious as translator of older Persian works, was accordingly, on account of the words in question, put to death with cruelty on a hint from the Caliph. And when Abdalláh (12th May 759) came to his nephew, in spite of every promise he was seized, and his companions slain. Abdalláh himself also, according to accounts, died a violent death. Yet it is difficult to see why Mansúr should have spared his uncle for so long a time if imprisonment was not a sufficient measure of security; a seven years’ imprisonment was of itself enough to account for the death of a man no longer young. Still less can we rely on the various rumours according to which the death of Mohammed, son of Saffáh (beginning of 767) was due to violence; for Mansúr had no occasion to be afraid of this dissolute nephew. The fantastic stories that are told in connection with these things show us, at all events, what the Commander of the Faithful was deemed capable of. On the other hand, I am bound to point out that Mansúr, if he never shrank from an atrocity that he deemed serviceable, hardly can have found his pleasure in mere murder and bloodshed. Accordingly, he disapproved of Isá’s having put to death a son of Nasr; for, bravely as Nasr had fought on behalf of the Omayyad, his son was now no source of danger.

Though, after the defeat of the Alids, Mansúr had the empire as a whole well in hand, yet in the remoter provinces all sorts of trouble still arose, some of them very serious. For example, the Armenian nobles, who had always been restless, had once more to be put down by force. In 767 there was another violent outbreak in Khorásán. Its leader[^[48]] is said to have claimed to possess the gift of prophecy; however this may be, the movement undoubtedly was of a religious, strongly heretical character. The histories do not recognise the insurgents as Moslems at all. Kházim himself born or bred in Khorásán, was sent against them; but could effect nothing until he got it arranged that the vizier of Mahdí, the heir-apparent, who governed the eastern provinces from Rai as viceroy, should no longer be allowed to interfere with the unity of the command by giving separate orders to the subordinate officers. This done, he brought the insurrection to an end by a brilliant victory and a terrible massacre (768). He is said to have caused 14,000 prisoners to be beheaded. If we consider that Charlemagne, fourteen years afterwards, caused 4,000 captive Saxons to be massacred,[^[49]] and that by command of prince (afterwards Caliph) Hárún, who certainly was a man of much higher culture than either Mansúr’s general or the Frankish king, 2,900 Byzantine prisoners were put to death in the year 765, the number just given will not appear much too great. From other facts, also, we know Kházim to have been a man of great severity. The wars with unbelievers, especially with Turks and Byzantines, and the civil wars, had trained a race of brave but pitiless fighters. The leader of the insurrection was brought a prisoner before Mansúr, and executed.

Another great rebellion broke out soon afterwards in the province of “Africa” (corresponding nearly to the modern Tripoli and Tunis), where, indeed, matters had never been thoroughly quiet. It, too, had a religious and also a national origin; the rebels were Berbers and Kharijites. The Caliph’s governor, who shortly before had been transferred to Africa from the Indian frontier,—a distance of about sixty degrees of longitude,—fell in battle against them. Mansúr now sent Yezíd, son of Hátim, with a great army upon the scene, and, to show how important the matter was in his eyes, accompanied him in person as far as to Jerusalem (770). In the following year Yezíd gained a decisive victory, and triumphantly entered the capital, Kairawán, where he remained as governor till long after Mansúr’s death. The Caliph’s territory did not extend much farther than this. The regions more to the west had been separated from the caliphate since the fall of the Omayyads. In Spain the Omayyad Abderrahmán, a grandson of Caliph Hishám, after surmounting innumerable dangers, and landing in the country without resources and without allies, at the age of twenty-five, in the spring of 756, had rapidly established an independent empire. All efforts of Mansúr to shatter his power proved vain. Like Mansúr himself, he was the son of a Berber slave-girl. The Caliph, who, as we have seen, knew how to recognise valour and greatness even in enemies of his house, called him “the falcon of the Koraish” (the tribe to which the Omayyads, Abbásids, and many other families of consideration belonged).

Much less important than either of those just spoken of were the risings in northern Arabia, which were quelled by Okba in 768 or 769. In doing so Okba, a Yemenite Arab, out of tribal hostility shed an inordinate quantity of blood. Wishing to give a handsome present to an official whom the Caliph had sent to him, he handed over to him fifty prisoners, whom he was to take with him to Basra, making as if he was about to decapitate them and hang up their bodies; their tribesmen in that city would then be ready to redeem them at 10,000 dirhems (nearly £200) a piece. The pretty plan was unfortunately spoiled by the temper of the populace and the interference of an intelligent Cadi. On the report of the latter to the Caliph, he was thanked, and the prisoners let go.

It was while returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca that Mansúr had become Caliph; on a similar journey to Mecca he was destined to die. In 775 he once more set out; on the way he was seized with a disease of the bowels (dysentery?), which was probably connected with troubles of the digestive system from which he had formerly suffered. The heat of the Arabian late summer, and the fatigues and privations of the journey (on which even the Caliph must often have had to content himself with very indifferent drinking water), can only have aggravated the malady in a man now somewhat advanced in years, if they did not even occasion it. He succeeded in reaching the holy territory, but not the sanctuary itself. His death took place on Saturday, 7th October 775,—according to other authorities, on the Wednesday before,—at Bír Maimún, about one hour’s journey from Mecca, after a reign of twenty-one years and some months; his age was over sixty, the authorities vacillating between sixty-three and sixty-eight lunar (sixty-one and sixty-six solar) years.[^[50]] The only persons present were the freedman Rabí, an influential confidant, and some servants. Rabí kept the death secret for some little time, with a view to the arrangements necessary to secure the throne for Mahdí. Mansúr lies buried near the holy city, the cradle of his family. Later generations believed they knew his grave; but the statement is not improbably correct that at the time a number of graves (“a hundred,” it is said) were dug, in order that his true resting-place might remain unknown. At this meeting-place of all restless spirits, where the power of the central government was never able to assert itself so firmly as in the lands of ancient civilisation, some embittered enemy of the dynasty might easily one day gain the upper hand, in which case it was not inconceivable that he might disinter and insult the body of its most powerful and most hated member, as Mansúr’s own uncle Abdalláh had done with the bodies of the Omayyads.

The East has seen many sovereigns who came near, or even surpassed, Mansúr in duplicity and absolutely unscrupulous egoism, but hardly one who was at the same time endowed with such commanding intellect, or who (speaking generally and on the whole) had so strong an influence for good on the development of his empire.

V.
A SERVILE WAR IN THE EAST.

Immediately after the tragic night in which the Caliph Mutawakkil was murdered at the instigation of his own son (11th or 12th December 861), the proud fabric of the Abbásid empire—already greatly shaken—began to collapse. The troops, Turkish and others, raised and deposed the Caliphs; the generals, for the most part quondam slaves, like those whom they commanded, strove for a mastery which in turn was often dependent on the humours of the soldiery. In the provinces new rulers arose, who did not always think it necessary to acknowledge the Caliph as lord, even in name. Claimants belonging to the house of Alí had success in some places. In the great towns of the Tigris region there were serious popular tumults. Peace and security were enjoyed only in those districts where a governor, practically independent, held firm and strict rule.

This circumstance alone makes it in some degree intelligible how a clever and unscrupulous adventurer, leaning for support on the most despised class of the population, should have been able, not far from the heart of the empire, to set up a rule which for a long time was the terror of the surrounding regions, and only yielded at last, after nearly fourteen years of effort on the part of the caliphate, which had in the meanwhile recovered a little of its former strength.

Alí, son of Mohammed, a native of the large village of Verzenín, not far from the modern Teherán, gave himself out to be a descendant of Alí and of his wife Fátima, the daughter of the Prophet. The claim may have been just; the descendants of Alí by that time were reckoned by thousands, and were very far from being, all of them, persons of distinction. It is, of course, equally possible that his alleged descent was a mere invention. According to some authorities his family belonged to Bahrein, a district of north-eastern Arabia, and was a branch of the tribe of Abdalkais, which had its seat there. In any case, he passed for a man of Arab blood. Before he became known to the world, Alí is said, among other adventures, to have gone about for a while in Bahrein, seeking a following there. This statement is made extremely probable by the fact that several of his principal followers belonged to that district, though it is far removed from the world’s highways, and but seldom mentioned in history; among these was the black freedman, Sulaimán, son of Jámi, one of his most capable generals. The ambitious Alí, utilising the prevailing anarchy, next sought to secure a footing in Basra. This great commercial city, next to Bagdad the most important place in the central provinces, was suffering much at that time from the conflicts of two parties, to all appearance the inhabitants of two different quarters of the town.[^[51]] Yet Alí gained little here; some of his followers, and even the members of his own family, were thrown into prison, a lot which he himself escaped only by flight to Bagdad. But soon afterwards, in connection with a change of governor, new disturbances broke out in Basra, the prisons were broken, and Alí was soon again on the spot. He had already thoroughly surveyed the ground for his plans.

We are very imperfectly acquainted with the scene of the occurrences which I am about to relate. Even if the modern condition of these parts admitted of being represented on maps much more closely than defective surveys allow, and were the surveys better, they would not help us very much, for the whole face of the land has greatly changed since the times we write of. At that time the Euphrates in the lowest part of its course discharged itself into a region of lake and marsh, connected with the sea by a number of tidal channels. The most important of these waters was near Basra, which lay farther to the west than the modern much smaller city of the same name (Bussorah). That place and its immediate neighbourhood was intersected by innumerable canals (more than 120,000, it is asserted). The chief arm of the Tigris was at that time the southward flowing, now called Shatt al Hai, upon which stood the city of Wásit. Farther down, the stream must have turned towards the south-east. The present main arm, whose main course is to the south-east, was at that time dry, or had a very limited volume of water. The lowest part of the Tigris was connected with the stream on which Basra stood by numerous canals, some of them navigable to large sea-going ships. All these waters were reached by the tide. Floods and broken embankments had even by that time converted much arable land into marshes; while, on the other hand, by drainage and embanking, many pieces of land had been reclaimed. Since that time, in common with all the rest of Irák (Babylonia), this southern portion, in a very conspicuous degree, has been so grievously wasted and neglected, that the forces of nature have entirely gained the upper hand. What was a smiling country has been turned into a wilderness by the spread of the marshes, or by the silting up and stoppage of the drainage channels. The rivers have in part quite changed their beds. On this account we can follow only in a vague way the very precise topographical details which our sources give in describing the campaigns against Alí and his bands.

At no great distance eastward from Basra there were extensive flats, traversed by ditches, in which great numbers of black slaves, mostly from the east coast of Africa, the land of the Zenj,[^[52]] were employed by rich entrepreneurs of the city in digging away the nitrous surface soil, so as to lay bare the fruitful ground underneath, and at the same time to obtain the saltpetre that occurred in the upper stratum. An industry of such magnitude in the open country is seldom met with in the East. The work in such a case is very hard, and the supervision must be strict. The feeling of affection which in the East binds the slave very closely to the family in which he lives and has grown up, is here altogether wanting. On the other hand, among such masses of slaves working together there easily springs up a certain community of feeling, a common sense of embitterment against their masters, and, under favourable circumstances, a consciousness of their own strength; thus are combined the conditions of a powerful insurrection. So it was in the servile wars of the last century of the Roman republic, and so it was here. Alí recognised the strength latent in those black slaves. The fact that he was able to set this strength in motion, and that he developed it into a terrible power which required long time and the very greatest exertions to overcome it, conclusively shows that he was a man of genius. The “leader of the Zenj,” the “Alid,” or the “false Alid,” plays a very great part in the annals of his time—such a part, indeed, that it is easy to understand why our main informant, Tabarí, should by preference call him “the abominable one,” “the wicked one,” or “the traitor.”

Once before in Babylonia a talented and unscrupulous Arab had utilised a time of internal confusion to raise a sovereignty on religious pretexts by the aid of a despised class; the cunning Mokhtár had appealed to the Persian or half-Persian population of the great cities, particularly Cufa, upon whom the dominant Arabs in those early days of Islam looked down with supreme contempt (685-687 A.D.). But our hero went much deeper, and maintained himself much longer, than Mokhtár.

Before openly declaring himself, Alí had sought out from among the lowest strata of the population, and the freedmen in particular, suitable tools for the execution of his plans. In the beginning of September 869 he betook himself, at first under the guise of business agent for a princely family, to the saltpetre district, and began at once to rouse the slaves. Saturday, 10th September 869, is reckoned as the date at which he openly declared himself. He represented to the negro slaves how badly they were being treated, and promised them, if they joined him, freedom, wealth, and—slaves. In other words, he did not preach universal equality and well-being, but reserved the supremacy for the particular class to which he addressed himself. All this, of course, was clothed in religious forms. He proclaimed the restoration of true legality. None but those who followed himself were believers, or entitled to claim the heavenly and earthly rights of the true Moslem. Alí thus appealed at once to the nobler and to the more vulgar feelings of the rudest masses, and with complete success. We may accept the statement that he gave himself out for inspired; at any rate to the blacks he seemed to be a messenger of God. That he himself believed in his own heavenly vocation is hardly to be assumed; all that we know of him bespeaks a very cool understanding. We learn much more, it is true, about his warlike deeds than about his true character; religious fancy has often great influence even upon coolly calculating natures, and in the East especially it is very difficult to draw the line between self-deception and imposition upon others. That Alí was sincere when he betook himself to astrology in important crises need not be doubted, for this superstition at that time held sway over even the clearest heads with hardly an exception.

Since the rebel leader claimed, as we have seen, to be descended from Alí, Mohammed’s son-in-law, we should naturally have expected to find him, like other Alids, appealing to the divine right of his house, and coming forward as founder of a sect of Shíites. But instead of this he declared himself for the doctrine of those most decided enemies of Shíite legitimism, the Kharijites or Zealots, who held the first two Caliphs alone to have been lawful, and rejected Othmán and Alí alike, because they had adopted worldly views; who demanded that none but “the best man” should wield the sovereignty, “though he were an Abyssinian slave;”[^[53]] who, moreover, in their ethical rigorism regarded as idolatry every grave sin, and most of all, of course, opposition to their own doctrine as the true Islam; and who accordingly regarded all their Moslem enemies, with their wives and families, as lawfully given over to the sword or to slavery. One of the most prominent officers of the negro leader preached in this sense in Basra when it was taken; the same idea lent fury to his black troops; and even his banner bore the text of the Koran[^[54]] which had been one of the chief watchwords of the old death-defying Kharijites. It was certainly also with a purpose that he called himself upon this banner simply, “Alí, son of Mohammed,” without allusion to his high descent. With this it agrees that an original document of the period shortly after his death designates him as a Kharijite. His choice of party was in the highest degree appropriate. The slaves were easily gained by a strong personality who could condescend to them, but they were not to be inspired with enthusiasm for a mystical hereditary claim. But that they themselves were the true believers and the lawful destroyers or masters of all others, the blacks were ready to believe; and they acted accordingly. Perhaps their leader took this also into account, that in Basra (on the lower classes of which place he seems at first to have reckoned), the Shíite doctrine was at that time very unpopular, quite the opposite of what it was in Cufa, the old rival of Basra. From what has been said it will be abundantly clear why Karmat, one of the founders of the Karmatians, an extreme Shíite sect which was destined soon after this to fill the whole Mohammedan world with fear and dismay, should, on religious grounds, have decided not to connect himself with the negro leader, however useful this association might otherwise have been to him.

The nature of the ground was highly favourable to a rising of the kind. Indeed, some forty years before this, in the marshes between Wásit and Basra, the Gypsies (Zutt) settled there had, augmented by offscourings of humanity brought together from all quarters, lived the life, first of robbers, and afterwards of declared rebels, and were only after the greatest exertion compelled to capitulate; yet these were people who neither in courage nor in numbers could be compared to the East Africans, and that, too, at a time when the caliphate was still in reality a world-empire.[^[55]]

Of the beginning of the negro insurrection we have exceptionally minute details from the accounts of eye-witnesses. We learn how one band of slaves after another—a troop of fifty, a troop of five hundred, and so forth—obeyed the call of the new Messiah. We even know the names of those slaves who incited their companions to join the rebel leader. As was natural, their wrath was directed, not merely against their masters, who were mostly absent, but even more against the taskmasters, all of them, we may suppose, themselves slaves or at most freedmen. Yet the leader spared their lives and let them go, after they had first been soundly beaten by their former subordinates. The owners more than once begged him to let them have their slaves back again, promising him amnesty and five gold pieces per head; but he refused all offers; and when the blacks began to show uneasiness about such negotiations, he solemnly pledged himself never to betray them, and to further their best interests. This oath he kept.

The most numerous class of these negroes—the Zenj, properly so called—were almost all of them ignorant of Arabic; for during their common labours in the open air they had had no occasion to learn this language, though the Oriental black, for the most part, very readily drops his mother-tongue to take up that of his master. With these, accordingly, Alí had to use an interpreter. But others of the negroes—those from more northern countries (Nubia and the like)—already spoke Arabic. With the saltpetre workers were undoubtedly associated many fugitive slaves from the villages and towns, and probably all sorts of fair-skinned people as well, but apparently few representatives of the urban proletariat. A valuable accession to their strength was contributed by the black soldiers who, especially after defeats, went over to the Zenj from the government troops. So, for example, at the very outset a division of the army fell upon the almost unarmed rebels, but was beaten; whereupon three hundred blacks at once went over to the latter.

Unfortunately we possess practically no particulars as to the internal arrangements of this singular State, composed of fanatical warriors or robbers who once had been, for the most part, negro slaves. With regard to their great achievements in war, it is to be remembered that they were excellently led; that they fought upon a favourable and familiar soil, full of marshes and canals, of which they thoroughly knew how to take advantage, while the enemy was equipped for an altogether different kind of fighting; and, finally, that the East African blacks, as a rule, are brave. It was not without reason that many negroes were at that time enrolled in the troops of the empire; even at present the black regiments of the Khedive are much more serviceable than those raised in Egypt. We know, too, that the negro leader maintained strict discipline.

It would seem that he had exerted himself to win over the villagers also, who for the most part, if not altogether, were dependent on aristocratic or wealthy masters. Perhaps he was more successful in this than our authorities say. He sometimes gave up hostile villages to plunder; but the provisioning of his large masses of men was probably, to a considerable extent, made easier for him through the connivance of the peasants. And when, at the very outset, he allowed a band of Mecca pilgrims to pass unharmed, this action was not only sagacious, but also in accordance with the doctrine which he professed.

Hardly had the slaves’ revolt declared itself when troops upon troops were sent for its suppression; but within a few weeks the Zenj had gained several victories. The imperial armies were, it may be presumed, not large enough, and were badly led; the enemy, as was natural, was underrated. Here, at the outset, we find the Zenj’s peculiar mode of fighting,—namely, out of concealed side-channels, heavily overgrown with reeds, to fall suddenly upon the rear of the enemy’s troops as they rowed along. In this war it is the regular thing that a number of the vanquished are drowned. The leader of the Zenj was always well served by his scouts.

Of the booty taken in the first encounters, the most important part consisted of arms. Prisoners were remorselessly put to death. In fact, according to Kharijite doctrine, they were unbelievers, and worthy of death; while the women and the children, as non-Moslems, were made slaves. When at last the negro chief had defeated an army consisting principally of inhabitants of Basra, he marched in person against that town; he calculated, it would seem, that one of the two town parties, with which he had frequently had dealings, would declare itself for him; but in this he was deceived. The people, high and low, stood together. They faced him on Sunday, 23rd October 869 (full six weeks only after the date of his first rising), and completely shattered his army; he himself barely escaped death, fighting bravely. But the citizen-army, though it had manfully defended hearth and home, was hardly fit to take the offensive, and certainly had no leader who could be matched with Alí, who quickly rallied his followers. When, on the second day, the first division of the Basrans was advancing by water, bodies of Zenj posted in ambush on both sides of the canal fell upon their rear. Some vessels capsized. The negroes fought with fury; their women threw bricks. Those also who were advancing by land were involved in the disaster; many were killed or drowned. The defeat of the townspeople was complete. A large number of members of the ruling family even, descendants of Sulaimán,[^[56]] the brother of the first two Abbásid Caliphs, perished. Alí caused a whole ship to be laden with heads of the slain and sent along a canal to Basra. His associates now urged him immediately to fall upon the town; but his reply was, that they ought to be glad that they might now count upon peace for some time, so far as the Basrans were concerned. He had in the meanwhile no doubt satisfied himself that he had no substantial following in Basra, and still felt himself too weak to make himself master of the great city.

After these events the Zenj chief caused to be established, on a suitable dry spot, impregnated with salt and thus without vegetation, a settlement of his blacks, which he exchanged for another in the following year. His people reared huts of palm branches, we may suppose, or perhaps of mud. The “palaces” of the chief and of his principal officers, the prisons for the numerous captives, the mosques, and some other public buildings which were gradually added, may in some cases have been relatively handsome and internally adorned with the spoils of the enemy, but their material was certainly, at best, sun-dried brick. In the broader sense, the city finally founded, called Mokhtára (“the elect city”), covered a large area, and included extensive fields and palm groves. It lay somewhat below Basra, abutted on the west bank of the Tigris, and was intersected by the canal Nahr Abilkhasíb, the main direction of whose course was from north to south (or perhaps from north-east to south-west); other canals also surrounded, or, we may suppose, traversed it. With the complete change of the water-courses in that region, it is hardly likely that its site will ever be exactly made out.

The inhabitants of this ephemeral capital for the most part, doubtless, drew the necessaries of life from the immediate neighbourhood. Yet they were also dependent to some extent on imports; so that in the end, when the blockade was fully established and all communications cut off, they were reduced to great extremity. Until then traders and Bedouins had ventured to bring provisions to the negro city even in full sight of the hostile army. The dates grown there served, in part at least, as payment for the Bedouins. But as the home consumption of this chief article of produce hardly left much over for trade, we must assume that the dealers who thus risked their lives for the sake of gain must have been paid for the flour, fish, and other provisions which they brought with articles of plunder, and with money that had been accumulated by plunder and taxation, or rather black-mail.

At the pressing entreaty of the terrified Basrans the government sent the Turkish general Jolán. For six months he lay in camp face to face with the Zenj. His troops, consisting mostly of horsemen, could not move freely over the ground, thickly planted as it was with date-palms and other trees, and broken up by water-courses. At last a night attack by the negroes upon the entrenched camp made such an impression upon his soldiers, that Jolán judged it expedient to withdraw to Basra. Previously to this an attack of the Basrans had been victoriously repelled by the Zenj. The latter now grew so bold that they seized upon a fleet of twenty-four vessels bound for Basra; much blood was shed in this action, and the booty, including many captive women and children, was very great. On Wednesday, 19th June 870, they attacked the flourishing town of Obolla, which lay four hours from Basra, on the Tigris (approximately on the site of the modern Bussorah), and captured it after a brief struggle, in which the commandant fell along with his son. The slaughter was great: many were drowned; the city, built of wood, fell a prey to the flames. The fall of Obolla had such an effect upon the inhabitants of Abbádán, a town on an island at the mouth of the Tigris, that they made their submission to the Zenj; in doing so they had to deliver up their slaves and all their arms; the former augmenting the fighting strength of the victors. Hereupon the negro chief sent an army far into Khúzistán (Susiana), the adjoining country on the east. Wherever submission was not made, fire and sword did their work. On Monday, 14th August, the capital Ahwáz (on the stream now known as the Kárún) was taken. The garrison of this important place had prudently withdrawn, and this doubtless secured for the inhabitants a milder treatment. But, of course, all the property of the government and of the governor, who with his people had remained at his post, was confiscated.

Thus, then, within less than a year an adventurer at the head of negro slaves had taken considerable cities, made himself master of the mouth of the Tigris, and gained control of wide territories. Even the disturbance to commerce was very serious. The communications of Bagdad, the world-city, were broken, and its victualling rendered a matter of difficulty. Basra trembled at the fate of Obolla. Matters certainly could never have gone quite so far, if in the meantime the greatest confusion had not prevailed at the then residence of the Caliph, Sámarrá (on the Tigris, some three days’ journey above Bagdad). At the very time of the fall of Obolla the disputes of those in authority had led to the death, after less than a year’s reign, of the pious Caliph Muhtadí, and the proclamation of his cousin Motamid as Caliph. But this was the beginning of an improved state of affairs. For though Motamid was not at all such a sovereign as the times demanded, yet his brother Mowaffak, who in reality held the reins of government, leaving to the Caliph only the honour and luxury of the exalted position, had intelligence and perseverance enough gradually to restore the power of the dynasty, in the central provinces at least. At first, indeed, he had too much on hand elsewhere to be able to think of the Zenj, but in the early summer of 871 he had got so far as to send against them an army under the command of his chamberlain Saíd. Saíd at first inflicted serious losses on them, but in the end suffered a disastrous defeat through a night attack. He was recalled, but his successor fared no better. Five hundred heads of soldiers of his were exhibited in the immediate neighbourhood of Basra; many were drowned. In Susiana, too, a general of the blacks had fought with success, but their chief called him back to cut off the Basrans anew from communication with the Tigris, which had recently been reopened for them by the imperial troops. This done, the Zenj for some time pressed hard on Basra itself, which had but an inadequate garrison, was torn by party dissensions, and was suffering from dearth. The negroes were joined by a number of Bedouins. Great as is the contempt with which the genuine Arab regards the black, the prospect of plunder, and the plunder of so rich a town as Basra, is an attraction which the hungry son of the desert cannot resist. These Bedouins were not equal to the Zenj, either in bravery or in loyalty; but they were valuable to the chief, as supplying him with a body of cavalry. On the 7th September 871, during the Friday service, the negro general Mohallabí, with these Arab horsemen and with black foot soldiers, penetrated into the city, but retired once more, after setting fire to it in several places. It was not till Monday that the Zenj took full possession. The massacre that followed was frightful. It is even alleged that many inhabitants were induced, by offers of quarter, to gather together at certain places, where they could more easily be cut down. The chief had vowed direst vengeance on the city which had deceived his hopes. His general Alí, son of Abbán, had allowed a deputation from one of the parties of the town to approach his chief with prayers for quarter; but he would not admit them to his presence, and superseded the general by a less soft-hearted man. The brutal negro slaves waded in the blood of the free men. The lowest estimate places the number of the slain in Basra at 300,000. The captured women and children were carried into slavery. The noblest women of the houses of Alí and of the reigning house of Abbás were sold to the highest bidder. Many negroes are said to have received as many as ten slaves, or more, for their share.

But a permanent occupation of the great city was not feasible. It was forthwith evacuated, and the army, which, immediately after the arrival of the shocking tidings, had been despatched from the capital, under Mowallad, against the Zenj, was able, in conjunction with the remains of the troops already in the district, to occupy Basra and Obolla without striking a blow. Many inhabitants who had been lucky enough to escape gathered together once more in Basra. But when Mowallad proceeded further against the Zenj, he was, like his predecessors, defeated in a night attack, and compelled to withdraw again to the neighbourhood of the town. In Susiana likewise the fortunes of war, after some fluctuations, proved favourable to the Zenj.

Mowaffak himself now advanced with a brilliant force to the neighbourhood of the negro city; but this also suffered defeat (29th April 872). The mortal wound of Moflih, the actual commander, seems to have thrown the soldiers into confusion at once. Mowaffak remained in the district of Obolla, keeping the Zenj steadily in his eye. In one of the battles of this period one of their best generals, Yahyá of Bahrein, was wounded and made prisoner. He was brought to Sámarrá, and there, in the brutal and cowardly fashion then customary in the treatment of prominent captive rebels, was led about on a camel for exhibition before being cruelly put to death in the presence of the Caliph.

After Mowaffak’s troops had somewhat recovered from the severe sicknesses from which they had suffered in those hot marshy regions, and had repaired their equipment, he again marched against the enemy; but although he occasionally gained some advantage and succeeded in rescuing captive women and children, he in the end sustained another reverse; and, to add to his misfortunes, his camp took fire and was burned. Towards the beginning of full summer, accordingly, he found himself compelled to quit the proper seat of war, and to withdraw to Wásit. His army melted away almost entirely, and he himself, in January 873, returned to Sámarrá, leaving Mowallad behind him in Wásit. The expedition on which such great hopes had been built had come to nothing; yet it had not been wholly vain, for Mowaffak had come to know the enemy more perfectly, and had seen more clearly how he was to be reached.

After the imperial army had left the field, the negro chief again sent considerable forces into Susiana, who, with some trouble, succeeded a second time in taking Ahwáz, the capital (beginning of May 873). Several prisoners of distinction, who had fallen into the hands of the victors there, had their lives spared by the chief, doubtless with a view to heavy ransoms. The expeditions of the Zenj into the neighbouring countries, be it noted, were designed less for the acquisition of permanent possessions than to procure food and booty, perhaps also to inspire terror in the enemy. The Zenj leader may sometimes have dreamt of conquests on the grand scale, but in the end he always recognised that he and his negroes were safe only among their marshes and ditches.

A new army, despatched from the capital, ultimately defeated the Zenj in Susiana, and drove them out of the country. Other armies pressed on them from other quarters, and sought to cut off their supplies. The principal leader in these enterprises was one of the most powerful men in the empire—Músá the Turk, son of Boghá, who had left Sámarrá in September 873. Still nothing decisive took place.

A considerable interval passes, during which we learn nothing of the Zenj. Meanwhile, they were aided by a rising to which they had not contributed, and which had not them in view. For when a rebel, who had made himself master of Persia proper (Persis), had vanquished one of the subordinates of Músá, the latter found himself uncomfortable in Wásit, and begged to be relieved of his post (spring, 875). Provisionally, Mowaffak undertook, nominally at least, the government of Músá’s provinces along with the war against the Zenj. The latter had meanwhile taken Ahwáz a third time, and had proved disastrous occupants. They had to be left alone, for now a quite new and very dangerous enemy made a diversion in their favour. Yakúb, son of Laith, the coppersmith (Saffár), who had conquered for himself a great empire in the East, aiming also at the possession of the central lands of the caliphate, forced his way through Persia and Susiana and advanced upon Bagdad. But between Wásit and the capital he was met by Mowaffak with the imperial army, and decisively defeated (April 876).[^[57]]

The Zenj, of course, took advantage of the withdrawal of troops from the lower Tigris, every available soldier being required against the coppersmith. They extended themselves further to the north, where the Arab tribes who had their settlements in the marshy districts to the south of Wásit lent them a helping hand. Isolated efforts to drive them back had no result. The negro king now seriously exerted himself to become sovereign of Susiana. A Kurdish upstart, Mohammed, son of Obaidalláh, who, under Yakúb as his superior, had made himself master of part of that province, became his ally, but with no sincere intentions. The two armies parted, and consequently the Zenj were defeated by the imperial troops, especially as a number of Bedouins had gone over to the latter. The Societas malorum had not held good. Yet the government derived no substantial benefit; in the long-run the Zenj retained, even in these regions, the upper hand. All sorts of troubles, and, in particular, the threatening proximity of Yakúb, who would not be propitiated by Mowaffak, and who might break out again at any moment, sufficiently explain why nothing considerable was attempted against them. For the inhabitants of those countries this must have been a dreadful time. Yakúb peremptorily rejected the alliance tendered by the chief of the Zenj, yet, at last, without definite agreement, a truce was established between the two enemies of Mowaffak. But after Yakúb’s death (4th June 879) the imperial regent quickly induced his successor, his brother Amr, to conclude a peace. Meanwhile, he made him very great concessions, in order that in his great expedition against the blacks his left flank and his rear might remain covered.

In 878 the Zenj succeeded in capturing Wásit and other cities of Babylonia; the customary atrocities were, of course, not wanting. But in the end not even Wásit was held; Mowaffak’s lieutenant again forced the Zenj back to bounds. The latter continued to make plundering and devastating incursions; in 879 they ventured as far as Jarjaráyá, less than seventy miles below Bagdad, so that the terrified inhabitants of the country fled for refuge to the capital.

In Susiana, Tekín the general opposed the Zenj with vigour, and relieved the great city of Shúshter which they were besieging, but afterwards entered into negotiations with them. When these became known, one portion of his army went over to the enemy, another joined Mohammed, son of Obaidalláh. Such things throw a strange light upon the discipline and loyalty of the imperial army. After much fighting and conference the Kurdish Mohammed had at last to bring himself to recognise the supremacy of the negro chief, to surrender to him a part of his territory, along with the important town of Rámhormuz, and to pay tribute; but even now he continued to act in a thoroughly untrustworthy manner, and caused all kinds of mischief to the Zenj.

In any case, the power of the Zenj was now (879) greater than ever. But it was at this point that the tide really began to turn. Mowaffak’s position had gradually grown stronger, and the death of Yakúb had given him a free hand. He now no longer delayed to summon all his resources for making an end of the black robber-scourge. In doing so he proceeded with great deliberation and unwonted caution. He had learned wisdom at last, from many failures of the imperial troops, which, in part, had followed close on brilliant victories. He now knew that it was impossible to get at these amphibians in the same way as enemies on firm accessible soil are reached. His preparations for a decisive campaign against the Zenj would require to be of a quite peculiar character, and in the campaign itself it would be of supreme importance, along with bravery, to exercise all caution. A great general with similar resources at his command would certainly have annihilated the blacks much more quickly than Mowaffak did; the latter in the campaign plays the part rather of the prudent statesman who acts only with hesitation, does not place much at stake, and strives towards his end slowly, if surely.

The task of expelling the Zenj from the northern territories near Wásit was entrusted by Mowaffak, in the first instance, to his son Abul-Abbás (afterwards Caliph Motadid), who was now but twenty-three years old. In November or December 879 the troops and ships of the latter were reviewed by his father near Bagdad. The fleet consisted of very diverse kinds of craft, but all of them rowing vessels. The largest served partly for transport, partly as floating fortresses; a smaller kind, of which some are mentioned as carrying twenty, and others as carrying forty rowers, seem chiefly to have been used for attack. The young prince justified the confidence reposed in him. He gave battle repeatedly with success, and, though operations had often to be suspended, the Zenj were steadily compelled to give place. One of their captains was taken and pardoned; this is the first instance of the application of a new policy which was to gain over the officers and soldiers of the rebel. This course, more astute than heroic, had great success. In proportion as the situation of the negro chief grew serious, his subordinates were more ready to desert him, and, instead of continuing to endure the dangers and privations of a siege, to accept from Mowaffak amnesty, honours, rewards. Care was taken to make the deserters in their robes of honour conspicuous, so that the rebels might be able to see them. Their prince, of course, did all he could on the other side to check the falling away. Thus, we are told that he caused “the son of the king of the Zenj” to be put to death, because he had heard that he proposed to go over to the enemy. Of this real negro prince we would gladly know more. The prisoners taken by the imperial troops were, as a rule, killed. Abul-Abbás distinguished himself personally by his bravery. In one of the battles twenty arrows were found sticking in the coat of felt which he wore over his breastplate. Almost a year passed before Mowaffak in person appeared with a great army on the scene (Tuesday, 11th October 880). The first result of consequence was the capture of the city of Manía, built by the Zenj not very far from Wásit, when five thousand captive women and children were restored to freedom. The liberation of great masses of women and children becomes an occurrence of increasing frequency as one place after another is taken from the possession of the negroes. At every advance Mowaffak was very careful to secure his rearward communications, and to make it impossible for the blacks to attack him from behind. This rendered necessary, among other things, much river-engineering, making and breaking of dams. The regent thereupon again left the campaign for a time in the hands of his son, and marched towards Susiana (Friday, 6th January 881), to clear that portion of the empire. This was quickly done, and without much trouble, for the negro chief himself had given orders to evacuate the territory which was not to be definitively held, so as to concentrate his whole power. On their march back the Zenj continued to loot some villages, although these had made their submission to the chief. Several bands cut off from the main army asked and obtained pardon. That honest Kurd Mohammed naturally made his peace with Mowaffak without delay, and was received into favour. On Saturday, 18th February 881, Mowaffak again joined his son Abul Abbás and his other son Hárún, whom he had sent on before with his army from Wásit towards the south, and the united hosts advanced.

The negroes were now confined to their own proper territory in and around Mokhtára. Before the attack on this place began, Mowaffak sent once more a solemn summons to the rebel calling upon him to surrender, and promising him a full pardon if he obeyed. It need not be said that such a demand had no effect. Bad as the position of the Zenj chief was,—and it grew worse every day,—he could not stoop to become a pensioner of the Caliph. Moreover, it was at any moment possible that troubles in Bagdad or Sámarrá, or the appearance of some dangerous rebel in one of the provinces, might compel the persistent adversary to abandon the siege and all that he had gained. Some of his officers were less steadfast. The desertion of these to the regent, who received them with open arms, began with his first approach, and went on repeating itself to the end of the bloody tragedy. Many soldiers also went over. Mowaffak so arranged that the negroes in his army tempted those of the enemy over to his side. All so inclined were forthwith enrolled in his ranks. Naturally, no one dreamed for a moment of considering the claims of their former masters upon these slaves. In this way the negro chief found many of his best forces gradually drawn away from himself and augmenting the strength of the enemy; this they did less by their direct fighting capacity than by their accurate acquaintance with the localities and with the whole condition of things. To the cause of the Zenj it was, moreover, highly prejudicial that their leader had to become ever more mistrustful of his subordinates. In fact, several of his best colleagues, in whom he had placed perfect confidence, abandoned him, though others held by him to the death. The amnesty was extended also to those Bedouins who should fall away from the Zenj. On the other hand, a leader of the negroes, who had been made a prisoner, when it was proved that he had treated women who had fallen into his hands with singular atrocity, was put to a painful death. In other cases also, cruel punishments were sometimes inflicted on prisoners.

The city of Mokhtára, the siege of which henceforward constitutes the whole war, was protected, not only by water-courses and dams, but also by a variety of fortifications properly so called. It even had catapults upon its walls. During the course of the long siege new defensive works of various kinds continued to be erected, and artificial inundations were also resorted to. Nor was there any lack of boats, and still less of men, though we may take it that the number of 300,000 fighting men claimed for the negro leader is greatly exaggerated. The Zenj may very well have outnumbered their assailants, whose strength is given at 50,000, at least at the beginning of the struggle; but the latter were, on the whole, certainly much better equipped, better fed, and continually recruited by newly arriving troops. Mowaffak, however, had so little thought of taking Mokhtára by sudden attack, that in front of the place, though judiciously separated from it by the breadth of the river, he built for himself on the east bank of the Tigris a city-camp, which he named after himself Mowaffakíya. The matter of supreme importance was to cut off the supplies of the Zenj, and to secure his own. In Mowaffakíya a lively trade sprang up: he even caused money to be coined there. But the Zenj still showed themselves very troublesome enemies, and occasionally captured transports that had been destined for the imperial troops. It was not until a new fleet arrived from the Persian coast that intercourse with the outer world was made almost impossible for the negroes; and henceforward provisions could only be introduced occasionally and by stealth. For the Bedouins, who had still been venturesome enough to supply the Zenj with various kinds of food in exchange for dates, Mowaffak established an easy and safe market in Basra. Thus gradually the scarcity of food began to be keenly felt among the blacks, and the supply of bread virtually ceased. Nevertheless, they held out bravely; and in the numerous collisions which took place, as our authorities make plain, notwithstanding their highly official colouring, the imperialists had by no means always the best of it.

Towards the end of July 881[^[58]] the troops succeeded in forcing their way into Mokhtára, and had begun their work of destruction with fire and sword, but the same evening they again abandoned their capture. The same thing frequently recurred; moreover, the invading troops were more than once again driven out by the Zenj. At a comparatively late stage of the siege (end of 882) Mowaffak found himself under the necessity of again removing his base, which he had recently advanced to the western bank of the Tigris, back to the eastern, so troublesome had the Zenj proved themselves to be. The main action was, moreover, more than once interrupted; as, for example, from the end of summer 881 till October of that year. In their assaults on the town the besiegers specially directed their efforts to destruction of the defensive works, so that several approaches lay open in a way that did not admit of their being again closed; they also set themselves as much as possible to clear away the obstacles—bridges, dams, chains—which the besieged had introduced to prevent the entrance of great ships into the water-ways, and especially into the main canal—the Nahr Abilhasíb. In these operations the tide proved sometimes a help, sometimes a hindrance; it frequently happened that the ebb would leave the vessels high and dry on the sand. As the opposing parties were often quite near one another, separated only, it might be, by narrow ditches, wounds were frequent. In addition to the ordinary weapons of war, molten lead was hurled against the foe. The besiegers had also with them “naphtha men,” who threw Greek fire at the Zenj or their works. Fireships were also sometimes used against the bridges. Occasionally the assailants made way far into the city; on Monday, 10th December 882, they in this manner destroyed the building which “the abominable ones called their mosque,” but which the Faithful naturally regarded as nothing better than a synagogue of Satan. But in this particular attack Mowaffak himself was seriously wounded with an arrow, shot by a quondam Byzantine slave; and as he did not spare himself, his wound grew alarmingly worse. Operations were on this account suspended for a considerable time, and many became so filled with fear that they quitted Mowaffakíya. And in the meanwhile an untoward circumstance of another kind arose. The Caliph Motamid manifested an inclination to free himself from the tutelage of his brother, and (in the beginning of December 882) quitted Sámarrá, to take refuge with Ibn Túlún, the vassal prince of Egypt. But the governor of Bagdad, Ibn Kondáj, who held by Mowaffak, intercepted the Caliph and brought him back to the residency (middle of February 883). For this service Mowaffak loaded Ibn Kondáj with honours. The wretched Caliph had even to submit so far as to cause Ibn Túlún, whom he had just been regarding as his liberator, to be cursed from every pulpit as a rebel against the ordinance of God; nay, his own son, designated to be his successor (though afterwards compelled to surrender his right), had to be the first solemnly to pronounce this curse. We can easily understand how in these circumstances Mowaffak was pressingly urged to abandon his camp for a while and betake himself to the centre of the empire; but he continued steadfast in his task. What he had neither heroic courage nor brilliant generalship to achieve, he effected by caution and perseverance.

The Zenj leader utilised to the utmost the truce that had been thus forced upon his assailants, to place his defensive works in as complete repair as possible, or even to strengthen them still further. It is certain, too, that he was adequately informed by his spies and scouts as to the seriousness of Mowaffak’s then position, both personally and politically, and he may well have cherished new hopes; but in February 883 he was again sorely pressed: his own palace was plundered and burnt, and he himself exposed to great danger. In March and April the illness of Mowaffak rendered necessary another cessation of the attack, but from the end of April onwards the struggle was seldom intermitted for any time. The rebel chief transferred the centre of his defence from the west to the east side of the main canal, though without wholly abandoning the former.

The desertions of his officers went on increasing. It is alleged that even his own son opened negotiations with Mowaffak; these, however, we may conjecture to have been quite hollow. But, among others, Shibl, a former slave, one of his most prominent lieutenants, went over to Mowaffak, and allowed himself forthwith to be sent directly against his old comrades. To another of these people, Sharání, whose wicked deeds had been many, there was at first an inclination to refuse pardon; but, in order not to scare his accomplices, he too was at last accepted, and received a rich reward for his treachery. The official account gives us a touching scene, in which Mowaffak, shortly before the last decisive struggle, solemnly admonishes the deserters to make good their evil deeds by bravery and fidelity; and this, deeply moved, they promised to do.

In the actual encounters the Zenj still continued to show great courage. The imperialists were not now, it is true, invariably forced to give up again in the evening the ground they had gained during the day; yet even in the great battle of Tuesday, 21st May 883, in which the harem of the negro chief, with more than a hundred women and children, had been sacked, and Prince Abul-Abbás, in his advance, had burned great stores of grain, the assailants found themselves at last so hard pressed by the blacks that Mowaffak judged it advisable to withdraw them to his ships. He did not yet feel himself strong enough to deliver the mortal blow. But now new reinforcements were continually coming in, though indeed, for the most part, these did nothing more than repair the continual losses through battle and sickness. Among the new-comers were numerous volunteers, who, from religious motives, entered upon the holy war against the heretics. An event of very special importance was the separation from his master of Lúlú, the commander in Northern Syria of the forces of Ibn Túlún, the ruler of Egypt mentioned above; he entered into negotiations with Mowaffak, of which the result was that with a considerable army behind him he joined the latter on Thursday, 11th July 883. The preparations for a decisive assault were now complete; transport ships for large masses of troops were in immediate readiness, and the great waterways of the hostile territory were by this time so entirely free of all obstacles as to be passable at all states of the tide. Mowaffak is said to have brought more than 50,000 men into the great battle of Monday, 5th August, while yet leaving a large number behind in Mowaffakíya. After a severe struggle the whole city was taken. The negro chief fled; but as the imperialists, instead of pursuing him keenly, occupied themselves with plunder, and, by becoming scattered, exposed themselves to the danger of surprise, a withdrawal was again in the end found necessary, and Alí returned once more to the city. The respite, however, was but short. The final assault was delivered on Saturday, 11th August 883. From the first the advanced troops broke up the Zenj. Their leader was separated from his companions; Sulaimán, son of Jámi, along with others, was made prisoner. A section of the Zenj, indeed, drove back the enemy once more, but this was of no avail; in a little news was brought that the rebel chief was dead, and one of Lúlú’s people almost immediately confirmed this intelligence by bringing in his head. It is not certain how he met his death. Perhaps we may venture to believe a statement[^[59]] that he poisoned himself. According to another story, he perished in flight. That he did not fall in battle is further indicated by the circumstance that none of our authorities, with all their fulness, speak of any combatant as having sought to obtain the royal reward for slaying the arch-rebel. Death by his own hand seems the most appropriate to the nature of the man; at the same time, I am free to confess that we can form a tolerably vivid picture of him only if we bring a good deal of fancy into play.

When Mowaffak saw the head of his enemy, he threw himself upon the ground in an attitude of worship, full of thankfulness to God. The example was followed by officers and troops. It would almost seem as if without the energy of Lúlú the mortal struggle of the Zenj might have been still further protracted. This is not indeed exactly what is said by the history, written as it is entirely in the government sense, but there is evidence for it in a couplet which the soldiers sang, to the effect that—

“Beyond all doubt, say what you choose,

The victory was all Lúlú’s.”[^[60]]

On this and the following days some thousands of Zenj surrendered themselves, and were pardoned; it would have been a senseless thing to have driven the last remnants of the enemy to desperation, especially when they could be utilised as soldiers. Others, again, fared badly who had fled into the desert, some dying of thirst, and some being made slaves by the Bedouins. Yet a number of blacks still remained unsubdued, and from the swampy thickets to the west of Basra, whither they had a considerable time before been sent by the negro chief, continued to carry on their robberies and murders. Mowaffak was on the point of sending a division against them, when they, too, made their submission.[^[61]] When they showed themselves, their good condition struck the beholders; they had not gone through the hardships of the long siege.

The son of the rebel chief and five of his high commanders had fallen alive into the hands of the victors. They were kept in prison in Wásit, until one day the negroes there once more raised an insurrection, and by acclamation chose the first-named as their chief. The prisoners were then beheaded (885). The bowman who had hit Mowaffak was recognised far away from the seat of war at Rámhormuz in Susiana, and brought to Mowaffak, who handed him over to his son Abul-Abbás to be put to death.

Mowaffak remained for a considerable time in the city he had founded, to bring matters into order. A general proclamation was issued, that all who had fled through fear of the Zenj should return to their homes. Many betook themselves to Mowaffakíya, but this city also had only an ephemeral existence; even the geographers of the following century no longer mention it. The great trading city of Basra, which once more rose to prosperity, proved too powerful a rival for its neighbour.

Abul-Abbás arrived in Bagdad, the capital, with the head of the negro leader displayed on a pole, on Saturday, 23rd November 883.

Thus ended one of the bloodiest and most destructive rebellions which the history of Western Asia records. Its consequences must long have continued to be felt, and it can hardly be doubted that the cities and regions of the lower Tigris never entirely recovered from the injuries which they at that time suffered.

Several contemporaries, among them former adherents of Alí, wrote the story of this rebellion. Out of their writings, along with official documents, Tabarí, himself a contemporary, incorporated in his great Chronicle, a very comprehensive narrative, especially of the events of the war. The well-known book of Mas‘údí supplies us with valuable additions to our information; did we possess his greater works also, we should doubtless know more as to the person of the negro chief and the institutions of his State. Other writers supply us only with incidental notices.