to a single war,
and completely to suppress a first enemy before they provoked the
hostilities of a second. These timid maxims of policy were disdained
by the magnanimity or enthusiasm of the Arabian caliphs. With the same
vigor and success they invaded the successors of Augustus and those of
Artaxerxes; and the rival monarchies at the same instant became the prey
of an enemy whom they had been so long accustomed to despise. In the
ten years of the administration of Omar, the Saracens reduced to his
obedience thirty-six thousand cities or castles, destroyed four thousand
churches or temples of the unbelievers, and edified fourteen hundred
moschs for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. One hundred years
after his flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign of his successors
extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over the various and distant
provinces, which may be comprised under the names of, I. Persia;
II. Syria; III. Egypt; IV. Africa; and, V. Spain. Under this general
division, I shall proceed to unfold these memorable transactions;
despatching with brevity the remote and less interesting conquests of
the East, and reserving a fuller narrative for those domestic countries
which had been included within the pale of the Roman empire. Yet I
must excuse my own defects by a just complaint of the blindness and
insufficiency of my guides. The Greeks, so loquacious in controversy,
have not been anxious to celebrate the triumphs of their enemies. [10]
After a century of ignorance, the first annals of the Mussulmans were
collected in a great measure from the voice of tradition. [11] Among
the numerous productions of Arabic and Persian literature, [12] our
interpreters have selected the imperfect sketches of a more recent
age. [13] The art and genius of history have ever been unknown to the
Asiatics; [14] they are ignorant of the laws of criticism; and our
monkish chronicle of the same period may be compared to their most
popular works, which are never vivified by the spirit of philosophy and
freedom.

The Oriental library of a Frenchman [15] would instruct the most learned
mufti of the East; and perhaps the Arabs might not find in a single
historian so clear and comprehensive a narrative of their own exploits
as that which will be deduced in the ensuing sheets.

[Footnote 10: For the viith and viiith century, we have scarcely any
original evidence of the Byzantine historians, except the chronicles of
Theophanes (Theo