which in its effects exists to this day. He put forth a new religion; so have others before and since; but his religion was not destined to influence a single sect or a single nation; it was to stamp the mind and the destiny of the whole oriental world; to be at once the truest of false religious systems and the deadliest antagonist of the truth itself. No man was ever more emphatically a reformer in the history of his own age and country; no man was ever more emphatically a destroyer in the general history of the world.

The history of this wonderful man, and of the establishment of his religion by himself and his first successors, is one of those points in oriental history which challenge the attention alike of the philosopher, the historian, and the Christian, no less forcibly than anything in the history of the West. Other points too there are in the later history of the Mahometan nations, which, though they cannot compete with the interest and importance of the earliest times of Islam, are well worthy of diligent study. One especially, the marvellous career of the Ottoman Turks, might well nigh rival that of the first followers of the Prophet. But this is a subject by itself, one so vast and so interwoven with many others that it would be utterly impossible to deal with it as something merely subsidiary. In like manner the history of the great struggle between Islam and Christendom, for the possession of the Holy Land, is not purely oriental history, but belongs to the history of East and West alike. My own immediate subject embraces the history of the establishment of Mahometanism, and of those Mahometan nations which could lay any claim to civilization or historical importance, with the great exception of the Ottoman Turks. This subject

DIVISION OF THE WHOLE SUBJECT.

7

will naturally divide and arrange itself in the following

manner.

It is needless to say that, thoroughly to realize the nature and results of the changes effected by Mahomet, we must thoroughly understand the state of things which he found in existence both in his own country of Arabia, and in those adjoining empires of Rome and Persia, which were, the one wholly conquered, the other greatly diminished, by the victories of his first successors. And as this brings us into a portion of history which has been far too much neglected, and is generally very imperfectly understood, I shall treat it rather more at length than might otherwise have been necessary with matter merely introductory. I shall therefore devote the whole remainder of the present Chapter to the state of the World at the Coming of Mahomet.

The second, on Mahomet and his Creed, I shall devote to the personal career of the Arabian Prophet, and to the general character of the religion which he established.

The third, on the Undivided Caliphate, will embrace the romantic history of the first successors of Mahomet; the conquest of Persia, Syria, and Egypt; the origin of the great schism between the followers and the enemies of Ali; the Ommiad Caliphate of Damascus; and the final establishment of the Caliphate in the house of Abbas.

In the fourth, on the Saracens in the East, I shall trace the history of the Abbaside dynasty, the gradual weakening and dismemberment of the Saracen power, by the appearance of rival Caliphs in Spain and in Egypt, and by the growth of various Turkish dynasties in the East. This general subject I shall carry

down to the commencement of the Crusades, continuing the history of the Caliphate itself down to its final extinction as a temporal power by the hands of the Moguls.

The fifth, on the Saracens in the West, will be devoted to the history of the Mahometans in western Europe, to the Caliphate of Spain, the states which arose out of its ruins, and to the Saracenic settlements in France, Italy, Sicily, and Crete.

Finally, in my sixth Chapter, I propose returning to the remoter East, to a consideration of the Later Dynasties of Persia and India. We shall there see Mahometanism under very various and some very remarkable forms. The Persian dynasty of the Sophis, the Indian dynasty of the Moguls, the victories of Ishmael and Baber, the purer glory of the illustrious Abbas and the still more illustrious Akbar, will be found among the most attractive portions of oriental history, and by no means devoid of an important practical reference at the present day.

With thus much of preface, I will now endeavour to produce a general picture of

THE WORLD AT THE COMING OF MAHOMET.

When Mahomet commenced his career, the two prominent powers of the world were the Empires of Rome and Persia. They divided between them all the fairest and most famous regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa; and their relations with each other had the most important bearing upon the career of the Prophet and his followers. As soon as they carried their arms beyond the Arabian peninsula, it was at

THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

9

the expense of these two powers that their first conquests had to be won. Within a few years after the death of Mahomet, Persia was entirely subdued, and Rome was shorn of its oriental provinces.

Mahomet was born in the year 569, in the reign of Justin II., Emperor of the Romans, and of the famous. Khosru or Chosroes, surnamed Nushirvan, King of Persia. The Roman Empire, the seat of whose government was then fixed at Constantinople, the New Rome, still extended over nearly all the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The commands of Cæsar Augustus were still obeyed from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. And it is quite erroneous to look upon the Empire seated at Constantinople at this period as having as yet at all assumed the character of a Greek state. Not only did both sovereign and people, as indeed they did for ages after, recognize no title but that of Romans, but Latin was still the official language of the Empire, and in many provinces it was still the language of the people. It should be remembered that what is ordinarily called the Fall of the Western Empire, in 476, was, in its formal and outward aspect, the reunion of the Western Empire to the Eastern. The Roman Senate voted that a separate Emperor in Italy was unnecessary, and the imperial insignia were returned to the Emperor of the East, who was now held to be the sole sovereign. Odoacer and, after him, his conqueror, the great Theodoric, reigned in Italy really as independent Kings, but nominally as lieutenants of the Roman Emperor at Constantinople. In the next century, when the Gothic monarchy had lost the vigorous guidance of Theodoric, the murder of his daughter Amalasontha gave the Emperor Justinian a

fair pretence for interfering in the affairs of Italy. By his great generals Belisarius and Narses the Gothic monarchy was overthrown, and the whole peninsula, with the great good will of its Roman inhabitants, was reunited to the Empire. Africa also, in the Roman sense, that is its northern coast, together with the southern part of Spain, and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, were also similarly reunited. In short, with the exception of Britain, Gaul, and northern Spain, Justinian reigned over very nearly the whole extent of the dominions which had been subject to any Emperor since Aurelian. He kept his court at Constantinople, but Constantinople was not yet thoroughly and definitively Greek. He reigned also over the old Rome, and over Carthage, the capital of a province as truly Roman as Italy itself. In the East too the Empire still retained the oriental provinces of Syria and Egypt. It will be seen that the whole circuit of the Mediterranean, except the coasts of France and Aragon, formed part of this vast Empire. The Franks in Gaul were supposed to be allies, but were formally released from even nominal dependence. Our own island had quite passed out of the imperial calculations.

It would probably have been much wiser if Justinian, reigning, as he did, at Constantinople, had been contented to be a Greek Emperor, and had confined his policy to his eastern dominions. In fact he greatly neglected them, and, while his generals were conquering Italy and Africa, the Persians waged a formidable warfare on the Euphrates, and every wandering horde from the north braved him with impunity in his capital. But the idea of any but a Roman Empire never occurred to any one. As