istians as forced to endure were directed not so much
against the adherents of another faith as against the barely tolerated
inhabitants of a subjugated state. It is true that the distinction is
often difficult to observe, as religion and nationality were one and
the same thing to Muhammedans. In any case religious animosity was a
very subordinate phenomenon. It was a gradual development and seems to
me to have made a spasmodic beginning in the first century under the
influence of ideas adopted from Christianity. It may seem paradoxical
to assert that it was Christian influence which first stirred Islam to
religious animosity and armed it with the sword against Christianity,
but the hypothesis becomes highly probable when we have realised the
indifferentism of the Muhammedan conquerors.

We shall constantly see hereafter how much they owed in every
department of intellectual life to the teaching of the races which
they subjugated. Their attitude towards other beliefs was never so
intolerant as was that of Christendom at that period. Christianity may
well have been the teaching influence in this department of life as in
others. Moreover at all times and especially in the first century the
position of Christians has been very tolerable, even though the
Muslims regarded them as an inferior class, Christians were able to
rise to the highest offices of state, even to the post of vizier,
without any compulsion to renounce their faith. Even during the period
of the crusades when the religious opposition was greatly intensified,
again through Christian policy, Christian officials cannot have been
uncommon: otherwise Muslim theorists would never have uttered their
constant invectives against the employment of Christians in
administrative duties. Naturally zealots appeared at all times on the
Muhammedan as well as on the Christian side and occasionally isolated
acts of oppression took place: these were, however, exceptional. So
late as the eleventh century, church funeral processions were able to
pass through the streets of Bagdad with all the emblems of
Christianity and disturbances were recorded by the chroniclers as
exceptional. In Egypt, Christian festivals were also regarded to some
extent as holidays by the Muhammedan population. We have but to
imagine these conditions reversed in a Christian kingdom of the early
middle ages and the probability of my theory will become obvious.

The Christians of the East, who had broken f