or ever flow, and where each one of you will
eternally enjoy the companionship of women who will be ever beautiful,
ever youthful, ever devoted to you alone. Courageously combat both the
unbelieving and the impious. Oppose them until they {25} embrace
Islamism[7] or render you tribute. Every soldier who dies in battle
will share the treasures of God; nor can the coward prolong his life;
for the moment when he is destined to be smitten by the angel of death
is written in the Book of the Eternal.

Such precepts, announced in majestic and highly figurative language,
embellished with the charms of verse, and presented by a warrior,
prophet, poet, and legislator, professing to be the representative of
an angel, to the most susceptible people in the world--to a people
possessing a passion alike for the marvellous and the voluptuous, for
heroism and for poetry--could scarcely fail to find disciples.
Converts rapidly crowded around Mohammed, and their numbers were soon
augmented by persecution. His enemies obliged the Prophet to fly from
his native Mecca and take refuge in Medina. This flight was the epoch
of his glory and of the Hegira of the Mussulmans. It occurred A.D. 622.

From this moment Islamism spread like a torrent over the Arabias and
Ethiopia. In vain did the Jewish and idolatrous tribes attempt to
maintain their ancient faith; in vain did Mecca {26} arm her soldiers
against the destroyers of her gods; Mohammed, sword in hand, dispersed
their armies, seized upon their cities, and won the affections of the
people whom he subdued, by his clemency, his genius, and his
fascinating address.

A legislator, a pontiff, the chief of all the Arab tribes, the
commander of an invincible army, respected by the Asiatic sovereigns,
adored by a powerful nation, and surrounded by captains who had become
heroes in serving under him, Mohammed was on the point of marching
against Heraclius, when his designs were for ever interrupted by the
termination of his existence. This event took place at Medina, A.D.
632, Hegira 2, and was the effect of poison, which had, some time
before, been administered to this extraordinary man by a Jewess of
Rhaibar.

The death of the Prophet arrested neither the progress of his religion
nor the triumphs of the Moslem arms.

Abubeker, the father-in-law of Mohammed, became his successor, and
assumed the title of _Caliph_, which simply signifies _vicar_. During
his reign the Saracens penetrated