the Arab-Moors_.--The central idea of the
Mohammedan conquest seems to have been a sort of religious zeal or
fanaticism. The whole history of their conquest shows a continual
strife to propagate their religious doctrine. The Arabians were a
sober people, of vivid imagination and excessive idealism, with
religious natures of a lofty and peculiar character. Their religious
life in itself was awe-inspiring. Originally dwelling on the plains of
Arabia, where nature manifested itself in strong characteristics,
living in one sense a narrow life, the imagination had its full play,
and the mystery of life had centred in a sort of wisdom and lore, which
had accumulated through long generations of reflection. There always
dwelt in the minds of this branch of the Semitic people a conception of
the unity of God, and when the revelation of God came to them through
Mohammed, when they realized "Allah is Allah, and Mohammed is his
prophet," they were swept entirely away by this religious conception.
When once {307} this idea took firm hold upon the Arabian mind, it
remained there a permanent part of life. Under military organization
the conquest was rapidly extended over surrounding disintegrated
tribes, and the strong unity of government built on the basis of
religious zeal.

So strong was this religious zeal that it dominated their entire life.
It turned a reflective and imaginative people, who had sought out the
hidden mysteries of life by the acuteness of their own perception, to
base their entire operations upon faith. Faith dominated the reason to
such an extent that the deep and permanent foundations of progress
could not be laid, and the vast opportunities granted to them by
position and conquest gradually declined for the lack of vital
principles of social order.

Not only had the Arabians laid the foundations of culture and learning
through their own evolution, but they had borrowed much from other
Oriental countries. Their contact with learning of the Far East, of
Palestine, of Egypt, of the Greeks, and of the Italians, had given them
an opportunity to absorb most of the elements of ancient culture.
Having borrowed these products, they were able to combine them and use
them in building an empire of learning in Spain. If their own subtle
genius was not wanting in the combination of the knowledge of the
ancients, and in its use in building up a system, neither lacked they
in original conception, and on the early f