the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, to exterminate Mohammedanism, did not exceed, if it even
equalled, that of the Arab soldiers by whom that system had been
originally propagated. Whatever secular principles and ambition
influenced them, they took credit for fighting in the support of truth
and virtue. The sword and the Koran were equally the companions and
the instruments of their wars. "The circumstance," says Paley, in his
admirable exhibition of the Evidences of Christianity,[1] "that
Mohammed's conquests should carry his religion along with them, will
excite little surprise when we know the conditions which he proposed to
the vanquished: death or conversion was the only choice offered to
idolaters. To the Jews and Christians was left the somewhat milder
{234} alternative of subjection and tribute if they persisted in their
own religion, or of an equal participation of the rights and liberties,
the honours and privileges of the faithful if they embraced the
religion of their conquerors."

Literature, in the days of Mohammed, was as little regarded as was pure
and practical Christianity. His followers everywhere met with an
ignorant and easily deluded people. Both the monuments of science and
the means of freedom had been abolished by the barbarians of the North.
Philosophy and the liberal arts found no patrons among indolent and
luxurious emperors and nobles. Superstition, therefore, naturally took
possession of the minds of men, and, as neither fears nor hopes were
moderated by knowledge, idle, preposterous, and unnecessary ceremonies
easily obtained currency. Mohammed merely changed one set of
ceremonies for another; and in this there was little difficulty, since,
in the almost universal darkness of mankind, terror and credulity
everywhere prevailed.

The continuance of the religion of Mohammed in countries after the Arab
dominion over them had ceased, may be also easily accounted for.
"Everything in Asia is a matter of regulation; and freedom of opinion
being but little permitted or encouraged in the despotic governments of
the {235} East, Mohammedanism, when once received, became stationary.
The human code is mingled with the divine, and the ideas of change and
profanation are inseparable. As the unsettling of the political and
social fabric might ensue from a change of modes of faith, all classes
of men are interested in preserving the national religion." [2]
Besides this, in their own nature relig