Note 127 — Chapter III · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF WESTERN ASIA.
Reading edition
The Islamic ideal of the brotherhood of all believers was a powerful attraction towards this creed, and though the Arab pride of birth strove to refuse for several generations the privileges of the ruling race to the new converts, still as “clients” of the various Arab tribes to which at first they used to be affiliated, they received a recognised position in the community, and by the close of the first century of the Hijrah they had vindicated for this ideal its true place in Muslim theology and at least a theoretical recognition in the state.127