Now we must distinguish between the spread of Mohammedanism and the conquests of the Arabs. The lands which the Arabs conquered occupied a smaller area—large as it was—than did the lands overspread by Mohammedanism. Mohammedanism—the desire of spreading the knowledge of the one God, who demands that an account be rendered whether or not life has been used for the best—Mohammedanism gave the impetus to the Arabs, who went forth to subdue the earth. When the Arabs reached the final limits of their conquests Mohammedanism still continued to spread, even among those who in their turn conquered the Arabs. What we are concerned with in the first place is not so much the spread of Mohammedanism as the conquests of the Arabs.
The inhabitants of Southern Europe withstood Arab conquest because they were Christians and were organ ized to withstand the advance; to the east Christianity was not organized, and there was little resistance to Arab advance. These results followed from the previ ous political conditions, from geographical momentum. South-westwards, however, the Arab conquests were directed by a condition purely geographical, the exist ence of the desert over which no body of men could pass. It was only along the northern edge of Africa that the Saracens, as the Arabs came to be called, were able to gain any political control.
East and west, then, the Arabs conquered, and the process was extraordinarily rapid. These lands are steppe, drier or moister, and allow of movement such as that to which the Arab has been bred. Depending for food only on the animals which carry him and his baggage, accustomed to the sameness of the steppe, where one home is as good as another, the Arab has no ties and he can move fast. The lands he first overran were just those which geography and past history seemed to determine.
Turn now to the historical facts. In the first thirty years of the seventh century Arabia was united under Mohammed. In the next twenty years the Saracens conquered and converted to Islam, Egypt, Syria, Meso potamia, Persia, Turan and even a small part of India. Then there was a check. Unlike Syria, Asia Minor had been thoroughly Christianized and brought under the control of the Eastern Empire, so that the Saracenic dominion was never able to obtain a permanent footing north-westwards of the Taurus. Further, the Arabs were essentially land men, and attack on the states along the north of Africa and beyond was difficult by land, especially as the Eastern Empire still had a fleet to give some assistance to its distant colonies. The Saracens,
however, now controlled the old nursery of seafaring men in Phoenicia and Egypt, and after the lapse of another fifty years, at the beginning of the eighth century, by the help of naval expeditions the northern coast of Africa was added to the lands under the power of the successor of Mohammed. The Saracens even crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and within a few years conquered the whole of Spain—the land farthest from centralized Roman rule—except, and the exception is important, parts of the mountainous north-west in which the Christians still held out.
This dominion was set up in little more than a century. Arabia was the cradle of the dominion, but like other cradles it was not suitable for later conditions of the power that had arisen. Damascus and Bagdad were chosen in succession as centres of rule. Now, partly because of the existence of Christian states to the north, partly because of the existence of the Sahara to the south, this dominion was long and narrow : all long and narrow states are difficult to govern from one centre. It was so with Egypt and the Roman Empire. The difficulty is increased if the seat of rule is not cen trally placed. It was natural, then, that this dominion of the Saracens should divide into two parts, each under a Caliph who claimed to be the legitimate successor of Mohammed and ruler of all the Saracen lands. This took place in the middle of the eighth century, when Spain formally separated from the rest. About the same time, and for the same reason, Barbary, the western half of the northern shore of Africa, also separated by long distance from the centre of rule, acquired a virtual independence, though still remaining Mohammedan in religion. Less than a century and a half later Arabia, with the remainder of the African dominions, became independent and formed a third Caliphate, which nominally for a time embraced the states of Barbary also. These four divisions, Spain, Barbary, Egypt and the remainder of the Eastern Caliphate, thus came to have separate histories, bound together not so much even by the that they had been Saracen conquests as that they were of one belief. Even their Saracen conquerors had not all been of the same race, but consisted of many who had been swept up into the advancing hosts by previous conquests. The natural differences of geographical conditions intensified the contrasts and induced enmities which identity of religion could not heal.