relentless zeal to blot out all vestiges of Christian
learning. In their passage westward they mingled with the Moors of
northern Africa, whom they had subdued after various struggles, the
last one ending in 709. In this year they crossed the Strait of
Gibraltar and encountered the barbarians of the north.

The Visigothic monarchy was in a ruined condition. Frequent internal
quarrels had led to the dismemberment of the government and the decay
of all fortifications, hence there was little organized resistance to
the incoming of the Arabs. All Spain, except in the far north in the
mountains of the Asturias, was quickly reduced to the sway of the
Arabs. They crossed the Pyrenees, and the broad territory of Gaul
opened before them, awaiting their conquest. But on the plains between
Tours and Poitiers they met Charles Martel with a strong army, who
turned the tide of invasion back upon itself and set the limits of
Mohammedan dominion in Europe.

In the tenth century the great Arabian Empire began to disintegrate.
One after another of the great caliphates declined. The caliphate of
Bagdad, which had existed so long in Oriental splendor, was first
dismembered by the loss of Africa. The fatimate caliphate of northern
Africa next lost its power, {306} and the caliphate of Cordova, in
Spain, brilliant in its ascendancy, followed the course of the other
two. The Arabian conquest of Spain left the country in a state of
tolerable freedom, but Cordova, like the others, was doomed to be
destroyed by anarchy and confusion. All the principal cities became in
the early part of the eleventh century independent principalities.

Thus the Mohammedan conquest, which built an extensive Arabian Empire,
ruling first in Asia, then Africa, and finally Europe, spreading abroad
with sudden and irresistible expansion, suddenly declined through
internal dissensions and decay, having lasted but a few centuries. The
peculiar tribal nature of the Arabian social order had not developed a
strong central organization, nor permitted the practice of organized
political effort on a large scale, so that the sudden transition from
the small tribe, with its peculiar government, to that of the
organization and management of a great empire was sufficient to cause
the disintegration and downfall of the empire. So far as political
power was concerned, the passion for conquest was the great impelling
motive of the Mohammedans.

_The Religious Zeal of