ity of his
dominion. He had inculcated, mainly by the forcible logic of the sword,
the idea of union and discipline, and had restored in mightier degree the
fallen greatness of his land. Traditions of Arabian prosperity during the
time when it was the trade route from Persia and the East to Petraea,
Palestine, and even Asia Minor lingered in the native mind. The caravan
routes from Southern Arabia, famous in Biblical story, had made the
importance of such cities as Mecca and Sana, but with the maritime
enterprise of Rome their well-being declined, and the consequent distress
in Yemen induced its tribes to emigrate northwards to Mecca, to Syria,
and the Central Desert. Southern Arabia never recovered from the blow to
its trade, and in the sixth century Yemen became merely a dependency of
Persia. Central Arabia was an unknown country, inhabited by marauding
tribes in a constant state of political flux; while Hira, the kingdom to
the east of the desert on the banks of the Euphrates, had become a
satrapy of Persia early in the century in which Mahomet lived, and
Heraclius by frequent inroads had reduced the kingdom of Palmyra to
impotence. Arabia was ripe for the rise of a strong political leader; for
it was flanked by no powerful kingdom, and within itself there was no
organisation and no reliable political influence.

The material was there, but it needed the shaping of a master-hand at the
instigation of unflagging zeal if it was to be wrought into order and
strength. Tireless energy and unceasing belief in his own power could
alone accomplish the task, and these Mahomet possessed in abundance.
Before his death he had secured the subjection of Yemen and Hadramaut,
had penetrated far into the Syrian borderland, and had made his rule felt
among the nomad tribes of the interior as far as the confines of Persia.
With his rise to power the national feeling of Arabia was born, and under
his successors developed by the enticements of plunder and glory until it
soared beyond mere nationality and dreamt of world-conquest, by which
presumption its ruin was wrought. Mahomet was the instigator of all this
absorbing activity, although he never calculated the extent of his
political impulse. In superseding the already effete tribal ideals he was
to himself only spreading the faith of his inspiration. All governmental
conceptions die slowly, and the tribal life of Arabia was far from
extinguished at the end of his mission. But its vital