INTRODUCTION. 21 



prising people. Then, however, their history ac- 

 quired a new interest, and their natural energies 

 took a new direction. Esteemed hitherto of no 

 repute by foreigners, except for their wealth ; and 

 separated from all the world, not more by their pe- 

 culiar mode of life than by a necessity consequent 

 on their situation ; we find them suddenly emerging 

 from their national insignificance, and assuming all 

 at once the lofty character of apostles and legislators 

 to the rest of mankind. The sword or the Koran 

 was the terrible alternative they oflFered to the choice 

 of their enemies. Doubly stimulated, by a thirst for 

 conquest and a zeal for making proselytes, they per- 

 formed exploits which made tlieir name the terror 

 of the whole earth for many centuries, and have ren- 

 dered it famous to all posterity. 



Nothing, indeed, in the political annals of mankind 

 presents a more extraordinary spectacle than the 

 sudden and overwhelming revolution which, about 

 the middle of the seventh century, sprang up in this 

 obscure corner of the East. Originating in the bold 

 but impious pretensions of one man, who had the 

 art to concentrate the scattered and impetuous en- 

 ergies of his country into the channel of his own 

 ambition, it spread A^ath amazing celerity, and in less 

 than a hundred years covered an extent of territory 

 greater than was ever o\vned by Rome in the Au- 

 gustan age of her power. All that we read of the 

 fabled monarchies of Assyria and Babylon, of the 

 boasted expeditions of Cyiiis and Alexander, or the 

 vast regions overrun by the ]\Iogul and Tartar hordes, 

 ^vill bear no comparison to the dominion of Moham- 

 med ; for it embraced them all. Reaching from the 

 Pillars of Hercules on the one hand to the confines 

 of China on the other, it comprehended, during a 

 certain period, three-fourths of Asia, the whole of 

 Northern Africa, and a considerable portion of 

 Europe. 



It is true that the stability of this colossal power 



