Chapter L · THE OMEYYAD AND ABBASSIDE DYNASTIES, AND CONCLUSION.

Omeyyad and Abbasside dynasties.

It remains but very briefly to follow the fortunes of the Omeyyad dynasty; to show how it came to be supplanted by the Abbasside; to trace the history of the more potent tribal and spiritual influences, which sprang up with the Faith; and to explain how some of these, having served their time, have disappeared; while others still survive, as powerful agencies in the rise and fall of nations, and the destinies of Islam.

Yezîd. A.H. 60–64.

Yezîd soon felt the injury accruing to the Caliphate from the revulsion of feeling, in favour of the family of Aly and against the throne, which followed upon the tragedy of Kerbala. Kûfa, with its proverbial inconstancy, was ever ready to espouse the cause of a house the progenitors of which—Aly and his sons—it had cast aside, and as readily again to let drop that cause. Bussorah, on the other hand, was more inclined to the Khârejite heresy. But it was from a very different quarter that the gravest peril first assailed Yezîd and his successors. The danger, as Muâvia had foreshadowed, arose from Abdallah ibn Zobeir. It was he who, to be rid of Hosein, had encouraged that unfortunate prince in his desperate venture. No sooner was the catastrophe of Kerbala announced at Mecca, than Abdallah ibn Zobeir set up a claim in his own person. Ibn Zobeir affects the Caliphate. A.H. 61.At first he assumed the pious and modest title, ‘Protector of the Holy House.’ But he soon went beyond this, and proclaimed himself a rival of the Caliph. Though closely connected with the Prophet’s family, it was not to noble birth he trusted. He was a military adventurer, as his father and Talha had been before him, trying conclusions, but more successfully at the first, against the ruling power. Yezîd swore that his adversary should be brought a prisoner, chained by the neck, to Damascus. Shortly after, regretting the oath and yet wishing to fulfil it in the letter, he sent the rebel a silver chain to be thrown as an ornament about his neck, if he would present himself at court. But Ibn Zobeir, scorning the offer, committed the messengers to prison, and soon roused all Arabia against the Caliph. The Governor of Medîna sent a deputation of its chief men to Damascus, hoping that they might be won over by the gifts and kindness of Yezîd. Medîna rebels, and is sacked. A.H. 63. A.D. 683.They returned munificently rewarded, but with such an account of the dissipation and disregard of the obligations of Islam prevailing at the court, that the leaders of Medîna were scandalised and forswore allegiance to the godless Caliph. Thereupon an army was sent to chastise the rebellious city. A battle was fought in its neighbourhood, and the vanquished inhabitants were subjected for three days to the licence and rapine of the Syrian troops. But in the end the cause of Ibn Zobeir gained ground both in Arabia and the East. Aided by his brother Musáb, and other able generals, he gained hold at one time of a great portion of the empire. It is not, indeed, impossible that he might have defeated the Omeyyads altogether, if he had consented to make common cause with the Khârejite theocrats. But this he could not do; because these demanded, as a first condition, that the memory of Othmân should be denounced as that of a tyrant justly put to death; whereas, in company with his father, the son of Zobeir had waged war with Aly for the avowed purpose of avenging the blood of Othmân. His arms were, therefore, turned against these heretics; and in everywhere defeating them, he effectually served the cause of the Caliphs of Damascus. For many years he maintained a rival court at Mecca; and his rule is memorable for the rebuilding of the Holy House.[598]

Rebellion of Mukhtâr. A.H. 65–67.

Meanwhile another rebel against the Omeyyads had appeared at Kûfa in the person of Mukhtâr, son of Abu Obeid.[599] This adventurer first dallied with the Khârejites. Afterwards, changing front, he professed himself the agent of the house of Aly, and the lieutenant of Aly’s grandson then living at Medîna. As such for a time Mukhtâr ruled at Kûfa, and took summary vengeance on all who had been concerned in the massacre at Kerbala. Shamir and Amr were both executed, and their heads sent to his pretended master. Over Obeidallah, Mukhtâr gained a great victory on the Zab; and the trunkless head of that unfortunate governor, who fell in the battle, was carried to the palace at Kûfa, and cast upon the same spot where just six years before he had gloated over the bloody head of Hosein. Thus early was the tragedy of Kerbala avenged in the death of its chief actors. But the success of Mukhtâr was not long-lived. He was attacked by the generals of Ibn Zobeir, defeated and slain.

Sequel of Ibn Zobeir, and rebuilding the Káaba. A.H. 63.

By these successful campaigns against the Khârejites and against Mukhtâr, both enemies of the empire, Ibn Zobeir was, in effect, clearing the way for the Court of Damascus to strike a final blow against himself. His brother Musáb was defeated and killed. Musáb killed. A.H. 71.The famous Hajjâj, at this period the right arm of the Omeyyad Caliphs, was now able to concentrate his forces against the Pretender, who still held his court at Mecca, and with an overpowering army to invest the sacred city. Hajjâj besieges Mecca. Ibn Zobeir slain. A.H. 73.Finding that his game was nearly played out, Ibn Zobeir lost heart, and had thoughts of surrendering. But his aged mother Asma, daughter of Abu Bekr, with the ancient spirit of the Arab matron, exhorted her son to die as a hero should. And so, putting on his armour, he rushed into the unequal combat, and fell. His mother, now a centenarian, is the same who, at the Hegira, seventy-three years before, tore off her girdle to bind the Prophet’s wallet to his camel as he took his flight from the cave of Mount Thaur, and thus earned the name of ‘the Woman of the shreds.’[600] It is almost the last personal link we have connecting the Prophet’s life with the Omeyyad Caliphate. What a world of events had transpired within the lifetime of this lady!

Omeyyad dynasty again supreme. A.H. 73.

On the death of Ibn Zobeir, who had thus bravely held his ground as the rival of several successive Caliphs for thirteen years, the Omeyyad rule was anew recognised, without dispute, over the whole Moslem realm, and the name of the reigning Caliph was recited in the public prayers of every Mosque from the East to the farthest West.

Death of Yezîd. A.H. 64.

During the troublous times of which mention has been made, several successions had taken place in the Caliphate. After a short and anxious reign, Yezîd died, leaving the kingdom to a weak son, who survived but a few months. Merwân, A.H. 65.Amidst the disturbances which followed, Merwân made his way to the throne, and, dying in the following year, left the empire to his son Abd al Malik. Abd al Malik. A.H. 65–86.This prince wielded the sceptre for one-and-twenty years. The greater part of his reign was a struggle with foes such as Ibn Zobeir, Mukhtâr, and other leaders of the Alyite faction, besides the chronic outbursts of Khârejite fanaticism. At one time the Caliph was so beset by these opponents, that for three years he submitted to the humiliation of paying tribute to the Byzantine Court. In the end he triumphed over all his enemies, and transmitted a magnificent and still expanding kingdom to his son Welîd.[601] Notwithstanding the storms that so long surrounded his throne, Abd al Malik cultivated letters, and was mild and beneficent in his sway. Welîd A.H. 86–96.During the reign of his son, which lasted ten years, the glory culminated of the Omeyyad race. Elements of disorder still remained, but under the wise and firm sceptre of Welîd they were held in check. The arts of peace prevailed; schools were founded, learning cultivated, and poets royally rewarded; public works of every useful kind were promoted, and even hospitals established for the aged, lame, and blind. Such, indeed, at this era, was the glory of the Court of Damascus, that Weil, of all the Caliphs both before and after, gives the precedence to Welîd. It is the fashion for the Arabian historians to abuse the Omeyyads as a dissolute, intemperate, and godless race; but we must not forget that these all wrote more or less under Abbasside inspiration. And Welîd especially suffers at their hands; for it was under him that Hajjâj[602] made the assault upon the Holy City—a ‘sacrilege’ which still rankles in the Believer’s soul; and, moreover, during whose twenty years’ splendid vice-royalty in the East, Kûfa and Bussorah were both bathed in blood; and hence some part of the hatred against the tyrant has come to be reflected upon the name of his Master also. It is too true, indeed, that at Damascus, as in other great cities of the empire, there was now rapidly supervening a shameless laxity of manners; but neither in the Caliphs themselves, nor in their surroundings, did the looseness of morality at the Syrian Court surpass that which, under the Abbassides, not long after prevailed within the royal precincts of Baghdad.[603]

Omeyyad Caliphs. A.H. 96–132.

After Welîd, the Omeyyad dynasty lasted six-and-thirty years. But it began to rest on a precarious basis. For now the agents of the house of Hâshim, descendants of the Prophet and of his uncle Abbâs, commenced to ply secretly, but with vigour and persistency, their task of canvass and intrigue in distant cities, and especially in the provinces of the East.

The Shîya faction canvass for Alyite pretenders.

For a long time, the endeavour of these agitators was directed to the advocacy of the Shîya right; that is to say, it was based upon the Divine claim of Aly, and his descendants in the Prophet’s line, to the Imâmate or leadership over the empire of Islam.[604] Risings everywhere from time to time took place in favour of some one or other in whose veins flowed the blood of Aly. Everywhere the attempts were suppressed, the pretenders slain or cast into prison, and their armies defeated in the field. Canvass in favour of house of Abbâs.But a new and more fatal danger soon arose. The discomfiture of the Shîyas paved the way for the designing advocates of the other Hâshimite branch, namely, that of the house of Abbâs, the uncle of the Prophet. These had all along been plotting in the background, and watching their opportunity. They now vaunted the claims of this line, and were barefaced enough to urge that, being descended from the uncle of Mahomet through male representatives, they took precedence over the direct descendants of the Prophet himself, because these came through Fâtima in the female line. Abul Abbâs supported by Abu Muslim in Persia. A.H. 130.About the year 130 of the Hegira, Abul Abbâs, of Abbasside descent, was put forward in Persia, as the candidate of this party, and his claim was supported by the famous general Abu Muslim. Successful in the East, Abu Muslim turned his arms to the West. Battle of the Zab. A.H. 132. A.D. 750.A great battle, one of those which decide the fate of empires, was fought on the banks of the Zab; and, through the defection of certain Khârejite and Yemen levies, was lost by the Omeyyad army. Merwân II., the last of his dynasty, was driven to Egypt, and there killed in the church of Bussir, whither he had fled for refuge. Abul Abbâs succeeds to the Caliphate.At the close of the year 132,[605] the black flag, emblem of the Abbassides, floated over the battlements of Damascus. The Omeyyad dynasty, after ruling the vast Moslem empire for a century, now disappeared in cruelty and bloodshed. Alyite, Omeyyad, and Khârejite, were equally the victims of the exterminating sword of the first Abbasside Caliph, who thereby earned for himself the unenviable name of Al Saffâh, ‘The Bloody.’[606]

Omeyyad dynasty in Spain. A.H. 138. A.D. 756.

So perished the royal house of the Omeyyads. But one escaped. He fled to Spain, which had never favoured the overweening pretensions of the Prophet’s family, whether in the line of Aly or Abbâs. Accepted by the Arab tribes, whose influence in the West was paramount, Abd al Rahmân now laid the foundation of a new Dynasty, and perpetuated the Omeyyad name at the magnificent court of Cordova. Moslem defeat at Tours. A.D. 732.Some years previously, the flood of Moslem victory sweeping northwards had been stemmed and rolled back by Charles Martel at Tours; but a grand career yet remained within the peninsula of Spain to illustrate this remnant of the Omeyyad race.

Other Moslem kingdoms.

Thus with the rise of the Abbassides, the unity of the Caliphate came to an end. Never after, either in theory or in fact, was there a successor to the Prophet, acknowledged as such over all Islam. Other provinces followed in the wake of Spain. The Aghlabite dynasty in the east of Africa and west of it, the Edrisites in Fez, both of Alyite descent; Egypt and Sicily under independent rulers; the Tâhirite kings in Persia, their native soil; these and others, breaking away from the central government, established kingdoms of their own. The Caliphate in its original significance comes to an end.The name of Caliph, however it might survive in the Abbasside lineage, or be assumed by less legitimate pretenders, had now altogether lost its virtue and significance.

The Abbassides transfer seat of government to Baghdad. A.H. 145.

Yet a splendid empire remained for the Abbassides. They carried their court from Damascus, where the memory of the late dynasty inconveniently survived its fall, to the banks of the Euphrates. There, Kûfa, too prone to be inflamed by Alyite intrigue against the new line of Caliphs, was finally abandoned as the seat of royalty. Another capital was founded by Abu Jáfar, the second of the Abbassides, at Baghdad, fifteen miles above Medâin, on the western bank of the Tigris. For many years, Alyites, Omeyyads, and Khârejites continued to be punished with equal rigour by the new dynasty, and much insecurity and bloodshed prevailed. But misrule and rebellion in the end gave place to rest and peace, and a century followed of unparalleled grandeur and prosperity. Splendour of Baghdad, the City of Peace.Baghdad, answering to its proud name of Dâr al Salâm, ‘The City of Peace,’ became for a time the capital of the world, the centre of luxury, the emporium of commerce, and the seat of learning.

Al Mâmûn. A.H. 198–218.

At the close of the second century of the Hegira, Al Mâmûn succeeded to the throne. His mother was a Persian lady; and he had imbibed from her, and the society in which he was reared at Merve, the principles of the Motázilites. Motázilite creed.This strange system, which had recently sprung up in the East, was grafted by the sectarians of Aly (Shîyites) on the transcendental philosophy of the Persians. It was, in fact, a new and altogether unlooked-for development, or rather perversion, of Islam. Heretofore, the sole ground of faith had been the Corân, and the Sunnat or deliverances preserved by tradition from the lips of Mahomet. Now, under the Divine Imâmate, or spiritual leadership vested in some member of the house of Aly, there might be other infallible sources of guidance from above. There arose, in fact, a new school of interpretation, one might almost say, a new dispensation. The Corân was treated allegorically; and such difficulties as beset the Orthodox, offended reason, or cramped the growth of society, were thus easily evaded.[607] In the system so evolved, the Prophet, had he revisited the earth, would hardly have recognised his own religion. This elastic development of the Faith, sublimated by the mysticism of Persia, and refined by the subtleties of Indian philosophy, was eagerly embraced by the natives of the Eastern provinces. And Al Mâmûn, who on his accession remained still for a time at Merve, fell deeply under its influence. Embraced by Al Mâmûn.So inclined was he to the house of Aly, that he gave a daughter of his own in marriage to one of that lineage, and he even adopted their green ensign;—hoping thus to unite the lines of Aly and Abbâs in one new dynasty. Although, on transferring his court to Baghdad, he abandoned the design,[608] Mâmûn still remained faithful to the rationalistic creed. He surrounded himself at the capital with the learned of all persuasions; and in company with them was used to hold discussions, at which such grave questions as those affecting man’s relations with the Deity, and the nature of the Godhead itself, were freely handled. In opposition to the Orthodox, he believed in the doctrine of Free-will. From the received teaching that the Corân is uncreated and eternal, he recoiled, as at variance with the unity of the Godhead; and, in the end, he proclaimed, with pains and penalties for dissent, that it was created. Thus, though a Free-thinker himself, Al Mâmûn, as often happens, denied the free right of judgment to others; and he persecuted cruelly, and on one or two occasions even to the death, those who ventured to differ with him. Comparative freedom and toleration under Motázilites.Still freedom of opinion and open discussion were, beyond comparison, more tolerated under the régime of the Motázilites than of the Orthodox.[609] For forty or fifty years, the tenets of the Rationalists prevailed under the Motázilite Caliphs at Baghdad. Then, there was a reaction back again to the ‘Orthodox’ faith; and now, all who questioned the eternity of the Corân, who ventured to magnify the claims of Aly, or to detract from those of his predecessors in the Caliphate—Abu Bekr, Omar, Othmân—became in their turn the objects of unrelenting persecution. In one important respect, however, the Motázilite Caliphs (and we might say the Shîya sect in general) have excelled the Orthodox; they are especially distinguished by greater forbearance towards the professors of other creeds. With the return of orthodoxy the reign of intolerance revived; and against both Jews and Christians, the so-called ‘Ordinances of Omar’ were enforced by an Orthodox court with new and degrading penalties.[610]

Golden Age of literature at Baghdad.

The reigns of Al Mâmûn and his immediate successors were the palmy days of Moslem learning. At the court of Baghdad there were munificently entertained, philosophers, physicians, and men of letters. Amongst them were many Jews and Christians, versed at once in the Arabic tongue, and in the language and literature of Greece. The monasteries of Syria, Asia Minor, and the Levant, were ransacked for manuscripts of the Greek philosophers, historians, and geometricians. These, with vast labour and erudition, were translated into the Arabic; and thus the learning of the West was made accessible to the Moslem world. Nor were their efforts confined to the reproduction of ancient works, but in some directions extended also to original research. An observatory, reared on the plain of Tadmor, furnished materials for the successful study of astronomy and geometry. In other walks of literature, we have books of travel and history, and, above all, of medicine; while much attention was paid to the less practical, but more popular, branches of astrology and alchemy. It was through the labours of these learned men that the nations of Europe, then shrouded in the darkness of the Middle Ages, became again acquainted with their own proper, but unused and forgotten, patrimony of Grecian science and philosophy.

Introduction of mercenaries and fall of the Caliphate.

But the Golden Age soon faded away. Provinces rebelled. Lieutenants assumed independence. Faction and tumult became the chronic state of the capital, and riotous attack was ever threatening the helpless Caliphs at their very door. The reason is not far to search for. A change had come over the military forces of the empire. From the very first, the Abbasside Caliphs had regarded the Arab tribes, the real backbone of the Caliphate, with a jealous and distrustful eye; and these, cast at last aside, and the stipendiary support of the Dewân withdrawn, were now rapidly returning to nomad life, or mingling with the settled population. Instead of trusting them, or playing off one tribe against another, as the Omeyyads did, the Caliphs of Baghdad, in an evil hour, introduced Turkish mercenaries from Central Asia; and, by-and-by, they committed the protection of their own persons to a body-guard of these. The servant soon came to be the master. The staff pierced the hand that leaned upon it. The Caliphate became the sport and plaything of the Turkish soldiery, and sank in impotency and contempt.

Politico-religious influences still surviving.

Islam had now run its course of growth and change. After this, we see no new phase development, spiritual, social, or political. The considerations and incentives peculiar to the Moslem faith, and those connected with the native tribes and families in which it took its birth, became for the most part faint and feeble with the lapse of time, or merged into the common motives which influence mankind. The Mahometan world, as it advanced in years, we find guided more and more by ordinary mundane causes. Nations rise and fall, as elsewhere they rise and fall. Rebellion and vicissitude alternate with prosperity and peace. Yet some of the principles and causes of action which I have sought to trace, though in later times less prominent, have never altogether ceased to operate. Of the four great powers which influenced the fortunes of the Moslem world during the first two centuries, only one, the Alyite, remains unimpaired. The Arab tribes ceased in the third century to be a distinct military force, the arbiter of Moslem dynasties, as well as the means by which the Faith was spread. Gorged with the prey of the world, they had already lost their early fire, when the fence set up by Omar between them and the conquered races having been broken down, the grand military organisation was swept away, and their place taken by mercenary levies. Henceforth we meet them no more as an independent force in the body politic. The Coreish, with the collapse of the Caliphate, have passed out of sight, excepting as a race of noble memories. The Abbassides are known no longer. But Alyite influence, unaffected by the lapse of time, is at some points stronger now even than it ever was. And although the Arabs, as a military institution, have long ago disappeared, we still trace their influence in the Khârejite, that is to say the spiritual and theocratic aspect of their creed.

Tendency of revivals among Orthodox and Shîyas.

The countries in which the native Arabs mostly spread and settled, and where, consequently, the Arab spirit longest survived (by far the largest part of the Mahometan world), are still, on the whole, the most devoted to the Orthodox faith; while Persia and a few smaller principalities continue loyal to the Shîya creed. Revivals follow a corresponding course. Amongst the Orthodox, the quickened spiritual sense even in the present day shows itself in an implicit return to the letter of the Corân; in a Puritan protest against all forms and superstitions inconsistent with the sacred text; in outbursts of zeal for ‘fighting in the ways of the Lord,’ and generally in a tendency towards the ancient tenets of Khârejite theocracy.[611] Among the Shîyas, on the other hand, the spirit of revival breaks out in wild and mystical devotion, in the excesses of Soofeeism, and in the profane extravagances engendered by a belief in the Divine Imâmate and emanations of the Deity.

Turkey, Persia, and India.

Persia remains still the only important kingdom given up to the Shîya faith. In India, the emperors, being of Turkish blood, were generally orthodox in their profession. They encouraged the immigration, by grants of land and other privileges, of vast crowds of Arab followers drawn directly from their native soil. And so throughout Hindostan, the Soonnie has always overshadowed the Shîya faith. At the same time, Islam in India (as in Persia and other Shîya lands) has been, from the failure to convert the millions of its heathen subjects, less intolerant of idol temples and alien worship, than elsewhere. While, on the other hand, in India, as in all Soonnie countries, revivals of the Faith have run in the lines of puritanical reform, rather than, as in Persia, into mystical excess.[612]

Enmity between Soonnies and Shîya.

Between Turkey and Persia, there is a broad distinction as to tolerance. The Osmanlies, notwithstanding their close territorial contact with Christianity, are, in virtue of their orthodoxy, intolerant of the least divergence from the Faith; while the more distant Persia (following the example of the Motázilite Caliphs) is less impatient of other creeds, and more amenable to outer influence.[613] In other respects, too, the ancient sentiment dividing the Soonnie and the Shîya is as bitter now as in the days when Aly cursed Muâvia, and Muâvia cursed Aly, in the daily public service. The hopeless schism has tended to slacken the progress of Islam, and abate its aggressive force. Thus recently, when a deadly blow was aimed at the head of the Moslem Empire on this side of the Bosphorus, the sectarians of Persia, through hate and jealousy of the Soonnie creed, declined to rally round the banner of the Crescent; and, indeed, so far as any help or even sympathy from Shîyas went, Islam might have been blotted out of Europe altogether. The Soonnie scorns the Shîya; and the Shîya, in his turn, spits on the graves of those great Caliphs, Omar and Abu Bekr, to whom they owe it that Islam spread thus marvellously, nay even that it survived its birth.

Political and economical outlook of Islam.

The Islam of to-day is substantially the same as the Islam which we quitted at the close of this history. By the middle of the third century it had completed its circuit, and had rung all the changes which seem to lie within the range of its potentiality. Swathed in the rigid bands of the Corân, Islam is powerless, like the Christian dispensation, to adapt itself to the varying circumstances of time and place, and to keep pace with, if not to lead and direct, the progress of society and elevation of the race. In the body politic, the spiritual and the secular are hopelessly confounded; and we fail of perceiving any approach to free institutions, or any germ whatever of popular government. The nearest approach to it was in the brotherhood of Islam; but that, as a controlling power, was confined strictly to the Arab races, and with their fall it has entirely disappeared. The type and exemplar of Moslem rule is the absolute and autocratic monarch, alternating at times with the will of lawless soldiery; and the only check on the despot’s power is the law of the Corân, as expounded by the learned, and enforced by the sentiment of the nation.

Obnoxious social ordinances.

Nor has there been anywhere change or advance perceptible in the state of society. Polygamy.Polygamy and servile concubinage are still the privilege, or the curse, of Islam; the worm at its root, the secret of its fall. By these the unity of the household is fatally broken, and the purity and virtue weakened of the family tie: the vigour of the dominant classes is sapped; the body politic becomes weak and languid, excepting for intrigue; and the throne itself liable to fall a prey to doubtful or contested succession. Female slavery.As to slavery, and more especially female slavery, we look too exclusively at its effect on the wretched subject of the institution. Its influence on the owner is infinitely more disastrous. However much the condition of slavery may be ameliorated by the kindly influences which, in Moslem lands, surround it as a domestic institution, still, servile concubinage fixes its withering grasp with more damaging effect even upon the master, than on the miserable slave of his enjoyments.

Divorce.

Hardly less injurious is the power of divorce, which can be exercised, without the assignment of any reason whatever, at the mere word and will of the husband. It not only hangs over each individual household like the sword of Damocles, but affects the tone of society at large; for even if not put in force, it cannot fail, as a potential influence existing everywhere, to weaken the marriage bond, and detract from the dignity and self-respect of the sex at large.

The Veil, and seclusion of women.

Nor is it otherwise with ‘the Veil,’ and those other domestic restrictions enjoined by the Corân, which banish woman from her legitimate place in society. The loss, indeed, is not so much hers as of the other sex, who are altogether shut out, in public and social life, from the bright and gracious, purifying, and softening influences, of female companionship. Wine and games of chance forbidden.The interdict against games of chance, and the prohibition of even the moderate use of wine (ordinances in themselves not altogether devoid of merit), have tended to aggravate the moroseness, gloom, and gracelessness of Moslem life in public, resulting from the banishment of the female sex.

Islam stationary.

These and the other institutions of Islam form an integral part of its teaching. They are bound up in the Corân, the charter of its existence. A re-formed Islam, which should part with the Divine ordinances on which they rest, or attempt in the smallest degree to change them by a rationalistic selection, abatement, or variation, would be Islam no longer. That they tend to keep the professors of the Moslem faith in a backward, and in some respects a barbarous state, cannot be doubted. It is still true that, as at Damascus, Baghdad, and Cordova, an era of great magnificence has at times prevailed. Commerce and speculation (notwithstanding the ban placed by the Corân on the receipt of interest) prospered; the arts of peace were cultivated; travel and intercourse promoted liberality of national sentiment: learning and literature advanced apace. But it was all short-lived, because superficial. Civilisation did not penetrate the family. It failed to leaven domestic life. The canker-worm of polygamy, divorce, servile concubinage and the veil, lay at the root. And society, withering under the influence of these, soon relapsed into barbarism again.

The Caliphate a thing of the past.

To speak of the Caliphate as existing, or likely ever again to exist, in modern times, is but a dream of the past, a fond anachronism. The conditions which rendered the Caliphate possible, have been exhausted long centuries ago, and are beyond the possibility of resuscitation.

Islam may prosper apart from political ascendency.

The political ascendency of Islam is doomed. Every year witnesses a sensible degree of subsidence. In the close connection of the Moslem faith with the civil power, this cannot but in some measure affect the prestige of Islam itself. Nevertheless, the religion may long retain its hold upon the people, unimpaired by the decline of its sway in the State.

Conclusion.

As regards the spiritual, social, and dogmatic aspect of Islam, there has been neither progress nor material change since the third century of the Hegira. Such as we found it to have been then, such is it also at the present day. The nations may advance in civilisation and morality, in philosophy, science, and the arts; but Islam stands still. And thus stationary, so far as the lessons of this history avail, it will remain.