It

his bridges and roads were in good order, for that he
intended to cross Persia on his way to the Romans.”
The Persian monarch's reply was the despatch of a
nobleman of Ray, named Bahrām Chūbīn, in command
of twelve thousand picked veterans, to hinder the progress
of the Turks. Bahram advanced against them by forced
marches, and surprised Shāba in his camp. The Turks
were routed, and Shāba perished by an arrow from
Bahram's bow. The dead chieftain's son was taken
prisoner, and sent together with 250,000 camel-loads
of booty to Hormuz. The victorious general was
straightway despatched to Transcaucasia to oppose the
Romans; but there he met with a crushing defeat.
is not within the scope of the present work to record all
the details of the extraordinary career of Bahrām Chūbīn,
who is one of the favourite heroes of Persian poetry.1
Suffice it to state that Hormuz, in an evil hour for him-
self, deprived the great general of his command as
a punishment for his failure in the campaign against
the Romans, and then drove him into a revolt which
led to his own dethronement (590). His successor,
Chosrau II., surnamed Parviz "the Victorious," proved a
despot of the true Oriental type. He began his reign
by slaughtering an uncle Bendoe, to whose efforts he
owed the throne of Persia. Another uncle called Bistām,
who had stood by him at the crisis of his fate, escaped
his clutches, and held out against him for six years with
the aid of the Turks and people of Daylam, succumbing
at length to treachery. But Parviz was a brave and

capable soldier; and at one period of his career it seemed
as though Persia were destined to build up an eastern
empire on the ruins of the Roman sway. In 613 he
conquered Damascus, and in the following year Jeru-

1 For a full account of his life-historical and fictitious-we refer the reader to the Appendix of Nöldeke's Sāsāniden, p. 474.

a

salem bowed its stubborn neck to the Persian yoke.1 But a new movement was gathering force which was destined to sweep before it the effete civilisation of Persia and Byzantium.

1 It was reconquered in 629 by Heraclius, the Byzantine emperor, who set up the Cross in the city which had first beheld the emblem of salvation ; and the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross is kept on the 14th September in memory of that event.

CHAPTER V

THE RISE OF ISLAM AND INVASIONS OF THE ARABS

AT the end of the sixth century the western shore of Arabia was inhabited by tribes of Semitic descent, who possessed a complex religion and some literary culture. The capital was Mekka, to the north of Arabia Felix,1 an ancient city which nestled round a temple called the Ka'ba, or Cube. In this holy of holies was a black stone, probably a meteorite, which served as a tribal fetish, and attracted hosts of pilgrims from the southern provinces of the peninsula. The family who had charge of the temple belonged to the priestly tribe of Koraysh, and one of its members was the future prophet Mohammed. While a youth he gained an insight into the habits of men of various creeds, not only as an inhabitant of Mekka, whither merchants and pilgrims of widely different creeds and nationalities flocked, but as a frequent attendant on caravans during distant journeys to the north. The impression left on his mind was that the religions of the Christian and the Jew had far greater vitality than the lukewarm idolatry of his own people.2

1 The origin of this well-known expression is curious. The designation Yemen, or the " right hand," was given by its northern neighbours to a strip on the south-eastern coast of the Red Sea. But in Arabic, as in the Latin and many other languages, the right hand is associated with good fortune. Hence by mistranslation the territory became known to the West as "The Blessed," or "Felix." It is well watered, and is better peopled than any other part of the Arabian peninsula.

2 The Kaba is said to have contained 160 idols, each tribe having its

At the age of twenty-four he entered the service of a middle-aged widow named Khadīja, who carried on a large caravan trade, and he found such favour in her eyes that she offered to become his wife. Mohammed, being by this marriage assured of a competence for life, withdrew from the world and began to cast about him for the means of raising the debased moral standard of his countrymen. The conception of a Messiah, which enabled the Hebrews to bear their many afflictions, and of the Comforter promised by Jesus, worked so strongly upon his powerful imagination that he was at length convinced that he himself was the chosen one for whom the world was waiting. Catalepsy, which frequently threw him into long trances, led his superstitious neighbours to believe that he held commune with higher powers. At the age

of forty1 Mohammed came before the Eastern world with his simple gospel: "There is but one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet." At first none but a few of his closest associates believed in his mission, and so much opposition did he encounter that he was obliged to flee from Mekka to the town of Medina, 270 miles northwards. This was on the 6th of July A.D. 622, which has been taken as the starting-point of the Mohammedan era. And fitly so, for it was the turningpoint of Mohammed's great career. The once flouted visionary gained hosts of adherents in Medina and the

separate God; and so great was the toleration in ante-Mohammedan times that on the pillars of the temples there were also to be found images of Abraham and of the Virgin and Child. In the sixth century the primitive religion had lost its old signification and had developed into fetishism.

1 Swedenborg was fifty-eight ere he had his first vision.

"There are two popular fallacies to be noted with regard to the so-called "Hegira." In the first place, it should be transcribed as Hijra ; and secondly, the word does not mean flight, but separation, for the incident to be recalled was not Mohammed's flight to Medina-but his separation from his family.

surrounding country, and spared no effort to consolidate his influence by appeals to the latent fanaticism of the Arab character. He continued to utter rhapsodies which, two years after his death, were collected and divided into chapters and verses under the name of the Koran, and became the foundation of the religious and civil codes of his followers.

Mekka soon recognised his mission, and after a fierce struggle with many vicissitudes the whole of Arabia accepted Islām.1

At the time of Mohammed's death, which took place in the 16th year of his Hijra, or A.D. 632, the creed which he had formulated was still a religious rather than a worldly power. But it had profoundly stirred the impetuous, highly strung Arab temperament, which was vaguely conscious of possessing immense hidden force, and of a boundless sphere for its exercise in the wornout empires which bounded their peninsula. A leader alone was wanted to focus and direct the aspirations engendered by the dead Prophet's teachings, and one was found in the person of Abu Bekr, Mohammed's father-in-law and earliest convert. He was proclaimed as the Khalifa,2 or successor of the Prophet, and was the first of that long line of sovereigns who, like the Tsars of our own age, wielded unquestioned spiritual and temporal power, and, like them, became prominent factors in the history of the Eastern world.

1 "Islām" is synonymous for Mohammedanism in all Arabic-speaking countries. Its literal meaning is "resignation"-a heart-whole submission to the divine will.

2 Khalifa Rasul Illah was the full title of the "Successor of the Prophet of God." The correct designation of the holder of the office is Khalifa, while the office itself is Khilafaa. The former word has till quite lately been transcribed "Khalif," or Caliph. The self-styled successor of the Mahdi in the Soudan is, however, known to Europe under the correct designation, Khalifah.