228 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



women and children also, under the same circumstances, may be 

 made slaves : but life and liberty are to be granted to those who 

 surrender themselves by capitulation or otherwise, on the condition 

 of their embracing el-Isldm, or paying a poll-tax, unless they have 

 acted perfidiously towards the Muslims,'*' In other words, unless 

 there were exceptional circumstances of treachery or inveterate 

 hostility, the invariable terms offered by Muslim generals were com- 

 prised in the simple formula 'Embrace Islam, or pay the poll-tax.' 

 As this tax on non-conformity was not more than two dinars, or about 

 a guinea, a head per annum, and was levied only on able-bodied men, 

 and not on the aged or women or children, it was scarcely heavy 

 enough to induce many to become converts on purely economical 

 grounds. 



There is no justice in the charge against Islam that it was 

 'propagated by the sword'; but it is easy to see how it arose. The 

 Arabs made vast conquests, and the majority of the people they 

 conquered became, sooner or later, Muslims ; therefore, it is argued, 

 Islam owed its extension to the sword. But this is to confound two 

 distinct things. The Arabs were inspired to a new life and a common 

 enthusiasm by Islam, and in their unprecedented union they set out 

 to conquer ; but the motive of conquest was gain, not proselytizing, 

 and the sword was wielded by an expanding people, inspired, it is 

 true, by the new faith, but not for the purpose of imposing it on 

 others. Arab statesmen indeed clearly recognized the fact that the 

 more converts were made to Islam the less would be the revenue 

 from the non-conforming poll-tax ; and as the Arabs have never been 

 indifferent to money, this consideration formed a check upon a too 

 zealous propaganda. 



The early Muslim treaties are an irrefragable proof of the accuracy 

 of what has been said about the terms offered to non-Muslim subjects. 

 We have several records of early treaties of peace with Christians. 

 The first is with the city of Jerusalem in 636 (a. h. 15), the text of 

 which will be given later on. An earlier convention, of which the 

 text is not preserved, was made on the surrender of Damascus in the 

 previous year, by which every male adult who did not become a 

 Muslim was to pay annually one dinar (10s. Qd.) and one measure of 

 com from each field. Of the first treaty made by 'Amr ibn el-'Asi, 

 the conqueror of Egypt, with the Christians, we fortunately possess 

 the complete text, as in the case of the Jerusalem treaty. The names 



* Lane, Selections from the Kur-dn, let ed., 70, 71. 



