'ba or die was a sacred stone
edifice, in one corner of which the "black stone" had been built in:
this stone was an object of reverence to the ancient Arabs, as it
still is to the Muhammedans. Thus Islam gradually assumed the form of
an Arab religion, developing universalist tendencies in the ultimate
course of events. Muhammed, therefore, as he was the last in the ranks
of the prophets, must also be the greatest. He epitomised all prophecy
and Islam superseded every revealed religion of earlier date.

Muhammed's original view that earlier religions had been founded by
God's will and through divine revelation, led both him and his
successors to make an important concession: adherents of other
religions were not compelled to adopt Islam. They were allowed to
observe their own faith unhindered, if they surrendered without
fighting, and were even protected against their enemies, in return for
which they had to pay tribute to their Muslim masters; this was levied
as a kind of poll-tax. Thus we read in the Qoran (ix. 29) that "those
who possess Scriptures," i.e. the Jews and Christians, who did not
accept Islam were to be attacked until they paid the _gizja_ or
tribute. Thus the object of a religious war upon the Christians is not
expressed by the cry "Death or Islam"; such attacks were intended
merely to extort an acknowledgment of Muhammedan supremacy, not to
abolish freedom of religious observance. It would be incorrect for the
most part to regard the warrior bands which started from Arabia as
inspired by religious enthusiasm or to attribute to them the
fanaticism which was first aroused by the crusades and in an even
greater degree by the later Turkish wars. The Muhammedan fanatics of
the wars of conquest, whose reputation was famous among later
generations, felt but a very scanty interest in religion and
occasionally displayed an ignorance of its fundamental tenets which we
can hardly exaggerate. The fact is fully consistent with the impulses
to which the Arab migrations were due. These impulses were economic
and the new religion was nothing more than a party cry of unifying
power, though there is no reason to suppose that it was not a real
moral force in the life of Muhammed and his immediate contemporaries.

Anti-Christian fanaticism there was therefore none. Even in early
years Muhammedans never refused to worship in the same buildings as
Christians. The various insulting regulations which tradition
represents Chr