h poured into
the treasuries of their Kings reached considerable sums, and the
magnificence, as well as the luxury of their capitals had become
proverbial. But all this was but in appearance, for secret disease
consumed both empires; they were burdened by a crushing despotism; on
either hand the history of the dynasties formed a concatenation of
horrors, that of the state a series of persecutions born of
dissensions in religious matters. At this juncture it was that, all of
a sudden, there emerged from deserts hardly known and appeared on the
scene of the world a new people, hitherto divided into innumerable
nomad tribes, who, for the most part, had been at war with one
another, now for the first time united. It was this people,
passionately attached to liberty, simple in their food and dress,
noble and hospitable, gay and witty, but at the same time proud,
irascible, and, once their passions were aroused, vindictive,
irreconcilable and cruel, who overthrew in an instant the venerable
but rotten empire of the Persians, snatched from the successors of
Constantine their fairest provinces, trampled under their feet a
Germanic kingdom but lately founded, and menaced the rest of Europe,
while at the same time, at the other end of the world, its victorious
armies penetrated to the Himalayas. Yet it was not like so many other
conquering peoples, for it preached at the same time a new religion.
In opposition to the dualism of the Persians and a degenerate
Christianity, it announced a pure monotheism which was accepted by
millions of men, and which, even in our own time, constitutes the
religion of a tenth part of the human race."

[Footnote 2: Translated into French by Victor Chauvin under the title
of "Essai sur l'Histoire de l'Islamisme" (Leyden and Paris, 1879).]

The teachings of MUHAMMAD were not of a nature to arouse

[CONTINUED ON PAGE FIVE]

* * * * *

[Illustration: POLYCHROME ENAMELLED GLASS MOSQUE LAMP OF THE XIIITH
CENTURY]

Very few examples of this highly advanced art survive. They represent
an extremely aristocratic manifestation of art and were executed by
order of MAMELUKE CALIPHS of Egypt, and dedicated by them to their
great Mosques, individually inscribed in magnificent calligraphy.

* * * * *

[PAGE 5]

intolerance.[3] History does not record the practice of compulsory
conversion in the scheme of conquest of early converts. "It is oft