Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - Mohammedanism (1916).djvu/71

 64 Arabian armies consisted of hardened Bedouins with few wants, whose longing for the treasures of the civilized world made them more ready to endure the pressure of a discipline hitherto unknown to them.

The use that the leaders made of the occasion commands our admiration; although their plan was formed in the course and under the influence of generally unforeseen events. Circumstances had changed Mohammed the Prophet into Mohammed the Conqueror; and the leaders, who continued the conqueror's work, though not driven by fanaticism or religious zeal, still prepared the conversion of millions of men to Islâm.

It was only natural that the new masters adopted, with certain modifications, the administrative and fiscal systems of the conquered countries. For similar reasons Islâm had to complete its spiritual store from the well-ordered wealth of that of its new adherents. Recent research shows most clearly, that Islâm, in after times so sharply opposed to other religions and so strongly armed against foreign influence, in the first century borrowed freely and simply from the "People of Scripture" whatever was not evidently in contradiction to the Qorân. This was to be expected; had not Mohammed from the very beginning referred to the "people of the Book" as "those who know"? When painful experience induced him afterwards to accuse them of corruption of their Scriptures, this attitude