more
to life and action. The Great War was a shock of terrific potency, and
to-day Islam is seething with mighty forces fashioning a new Moslem
world. What are those forces moulding the Islam of the future? To their
analysis and appraisal the body of this book is devoted.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _I. e._ "Successor"; anglicized into the word "Caliph."

[2] To be carefully distinguished from divinity. Mohammed not only did
not make any pretensions to divinity, but specifically disclaimed any
such attributes. He regarded himself as the last of a series of divinely
inspired prophets, beginning with Adam and extending through Moses and
Jesus to himself, the mouthpiece of God's last and most perfect
revelation.

[3] The influence of environment and heredity on human evolution in
general and on the history of the East in particular, though of great
importance, cannot be treated in a summary such as this. The influence
of climatic and other environmental factors has been ably treated by
Prof. Ellsworth Huntington in his various works, such as _The Pulse of
Asia_ (Boston, 1907); _Civilization and Climate_ (Yale Univ. Press,
1915), and _World-Power and Evolution_ (Yale Univ. Press, 1919). See
also Chap. III. in Arminius Vambery--_Der Islam im neunzehnten
Jahrhundert. Eine culturgeschichtliche Studie_ (Leipzig, 1875). For a
summary of racial influences in Eastern history, see Madison Grant--_The
Passing of the Great Race_ (N. Y., 1916).

[4] The Turkish overrunning of Asia Minor took place after the
destruction of the Byzantine army in the great battle of Manzikert, A.D.
1071. The Turks captured Jerusalem in 1076.

CHAPTER I

THE MOHAMMEDAN REVIVAL

By the eighteenth century the Moslem world had sunk to the lowest depth
of its decrepitude. Nowhere were there any signs of healthy vigour,
everywhere were stagnation and decay. Manners and morals were alike
execrable. The last vestiges of Saracenic culture had vanished in a
barbarous luxury of the few and an equally barbarous degradation of the
multitude. Learning was virtually dead, the few universities which
survived fallen into dreary decay and languishing in poverty and
neglect. Government had become despotism tempered by anarchy and
assassination. Here and there a major despot like the Sultan of Turkey
or the Indian "Great Mogul" maintained some semblance of state
authority, albeit provincial pashas were for ever striving to erect
independent governments based, like t