Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/590

Rh 562 MOHAMMEDANISM [THE FIRST Defeat of the rebels. Khdlid in Syria. Battle of Ka- disiya. Amr in Egypt. attack the rebels. The holy spirit of Islam kept the men of Medina together, and inflamed them to a death-defying zeal for the faith ; while, on the other side, the Arabs as a whole had no other bond of union and no better source of inspiration than universal egoism. As was to be expected, they were worsted ; eleven small flying columns of the Moslems, sent out in various directions, sufficed to quell the revolt. Those who submitted were forthwith received back into favour ; those who persevered in rebellion were punished with death. The majority accordingly converted, the obstinate were extirpated. In Yamama only was there a severe struggle ; the Banu Hanifa under their prophet Mosailima fought bravely, but here also Islam triumphed. The internal consolidation of Islam in Arabia was, strange to say, brought about by its diffusion abroad. The holy war against the border countries which Mohammed had already inaugurated, was the best means for making the new religion popular among the Arabs ; for, in spread ing by means of the sword the worship of Allah, oppor tunity was at the same time afforded for gaining rich booty. This vast movement was organized by Islam, but the masses were induced to join it by quite other than religious motives. Nor was this by any means the first occasion on which the Arabian caldron had overflowed ; once and again in former times emigrant swarms of Bedouins had settled on the borders of the wilderness. This had last happened in consequence of the events which destroyed the prosperity of the old Sabaean king dom. At that time the small Arabian kingdoms of Ghassan and Hira had arisen in the western and eastern borderlands of cultivation ; these now presented to Moslem conquest its nearest and natural goal. But inasmuch as Hira was subject to the Persians, and Eastern Palestine to the Greeks, the annexation of the Arabians involved the extension of the war beyond the limits of Arabia to a struggle with the two great powers. After the subjugation of Middle and North-Eastern Arabia, Khalid b. al-Walid proceeded by order of the Caliph to the conquest of the districts on the lower Euphrates. Thence he was summoned to Syria, where hostilities had also broken out. Damascus fell late in the -summer of 635, and on 20th August 636 the great decisive battle on the Hieromax (Yarmuk) was fought, which caused the Emperor Heraclius finally to abandon Syria. 1 Left to themselves, the Christians henceforward defended them selves only in isolated cases in the fortified cities ; for the most part they witnessed the disappearance of the Byzan tine power without regret. Meanwhile the war was also carried on against the Persians in Irak, unsuccessfully at first, until the tide turned at the battle of Kadisfya (end of 637). In consequence of the defeat which they here sustained, the Persians were forced to abandon the western portion of their empire and limit themselves to Eran proper. The Moslems made themselves masters of Ctesi- phon (Madain), the residence of the Sasanides on the Tigris, and conquered in the immediately following years the country of the two rivers. In 639 the armies of Syria and Irak were face to face in Mesopotamia. In a short time they had taken from the Aryans all the prin cipal old Semitic lands, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Babylonia. To these was soon added Egypt, which Amr b. al- As, aided by the national and confessional antipathies of the Copts towards the Greeks, overran with little trouble in 64 1. 2 This completed the circle of the lands bordering on the wilderness of Arabia ; within 1 De Goeje, Memoires d Hist. et de Geog. Orient., No. 3. Leyden, 1864 ; Ndldeke, D. M. Z., 1875, p. 76 sqq. ; Beladhori. 137. 2 See H. Zotenberg in Journ. as., 1879 (xiii. 291-386). The date is perhaps some years too late. these limits annexation was practicable and natural, a repetition indeed of what had often previously occurred. The kingdoms of Ghassan and Hira, advanced posts hitherto, now became the headquarters of the Arabs ; the new empire had its centres on the one hand at Damascus, on the other hand at Cufa and Basra, the two newly- founded cities in the region of old Babylonia. The capital of Islam continued indeed for a while to be Medina, but soon the Hijaz and the whole of Arabia proper lay quite on the outskirt of affairs. It is striking to notice how easily the native populations of the conquered districts, exclusively or prevailingly Christian, adapted themselves to the new rule. Their nationality had been broken long ago, but intrinsically it was more closely allied to the Arabian than to the Greek or Persian. Their religious sympathy with the West was seriously impaired by dogmatic controversies ; from Islam they might at any rate hope for toleration, even though their views were not in accordance with the theology of the Emperor of the day. The lapse of the masses from Christendom to Islam, however, which took place during the first century after the conquest, is only to be accounted for by the fact that in reality they had no inward relation to the gospel at all. They changed their creed in order to acquire the rights and privileges of Moslem citizens. In no case were they compelled to do so ; on the contrary, the Omayyad Caliphs saw with dis pleasure the diminishing proceeds of the poll-tax derived from their Christian subjects. It would have been a great advantage for the solidity of the Arabian empire if it had confined itself within the limits of those old Semitic lands, with perhaps the addition of Egypt. But the Persians were not so ready as the Conq-nc? Greeks to give up the contest ; they did not rest until the of Eran - Moslems had subjugated the whole of the Sasanid empire. The most important event in the protracted Avar which led to the conquest of Eran, was the battle of Nehawend in 641 ; 3 the most obstinate resistance was offered by Persis proper, and especially by the capital, Istakhr (Persepolis). In the end, all the numerous and somewhat autonomous provinces of the Sasanid empire fell, one after the other, into the hands of the Moslems, and the young Shahanshah, Yezdegerd, was compelled to retire to the farthest corner of his realm, where he came to a miserable end. 4 But in more than one case the work of conquest had to be done over again : it was long before the Eranians learned to accept the situation. Unlike the Christians of Western Asia, they had a vigorous feeling of national pride, based upon glorious memories and especially upon a church having a connexion of the closest kind with the state. Internal disturbances of a religious and political character and external disasters had long ago shattered the empire of the Sasanids indeed, but the Eranians had not yet lost their patriotism. They were fighting, in fact, against the despised and hated Arabs, in defence of their holiest pos sessions, their nationality, and their faith. They were subjugated, but their subjection was only outward. The commonwealth of Islam never succeeded in assimilating them as the Syrian Christians were assimilated. Even when in process of time they did accept the religion of the Prophet, they leavened it thoroughly with their own peculiar leaven, and, especially, deprived it of the practical political and national character which it had assumed after the Flight to Medina. To the Arabian state they were always a thorn in the flesh, it was they who helped most largely to break up its internal order, and it was from them also that it at last received its outward deathblow. 3 The accounts differ ; see Beladhori, 305. The chronology of the conquests, as is well known, is in many points uncertain. 4 Beladh., 315 s&amp;lt;/. ; Tabari, i. 1068.