ered permanent. The
entire Arabian people was subsidized. The surplus revenues which in
rapidly increasing volume began to flow from the conquered lands into
the Moslem treasuries were to the last farthing distributed among the
soldiers of Arabian descent. The whole nation was enrolled, and the name
of every warrior entered upon the roster of Islam. Forbidden to settle
anywhere, and relieved from all other work, the Arab hordes became, in
fact, a standing army threatening the world. Great bodies of armed men
were kept thus ever mobilized, separate and in readiness for new
enterprise.

[Sidenote: Mission of Islam described by Fairbairn.]
The change which came over the policy of the Founder of the Faith at
Medina, and paved the way for this marvelous system of world-wide rapine
and conversion to Islam, is thus described by a thoughtful and sagacious
writer:

Medina was fatal to the higher capabilities of Islam. Mohammed
became then a king; his religion was incorporated in a State that
had to struggle for its life in the fashion familiar to the
rough-handed sons of the desert. The prophet was turned into the
legislator and commander; his revelations were now laws, and now
military orders and manifestoes. The mission of Islam became one
that only the sword could accomplish, robbery of the infidel became
meritorious, and conquest the supreme duty it owed to the world....

The religion which lived an unprospering and precarious life, so
long as it depended on the prophetic word alone, became an
aggressive and victorious power so soon as it was embodied in a
State.[40]

[Sidenote: And by von Kremer.]
Another learned and impartial authority tells us:

The Mussulman power under the first four caliphs was nothing but a
grand religio-political association of Arab tribes for universal
plunder and conquest under the holy banner of Islam, and the
watch-word, "There is no god but the Lord, and Mohammed is
his apostle." On pretext of spreading the only true religion the
Arabs swallowed up fair provinces lying all around, and, driving a
profitable business, enriched themselves simultaneously in a
worldly sense.[41]

[Sidenote: Religious merit of "fighting in the ways of the Lord."]
The motives which nerved the armies of Islam were a strange combination
of the lower instincts of nature with the higher aspirations of the
spirit. To