ivion." [4]

[1] Vol. ii., Section 3.

[2] Mills, p. 179.

[3] When it was demanded of Moez from what branch of Mohammed's family
he drew his title, "This," said he, showing his cimeter, "is my
pedigree; and these," throwing gold among his soldiers, "are my
children."

[4] Mill's History, 160.

{243}

CHAPTER II.

Literature and Science of the Arabs.--Their Facilities for Literary and
Scientific Pursuits.--Patronage of Literature by the Princes of the
House of Abbas.--Almamoun.--Arabian Schools.--Eloquence.--Poetry.--The
Arabian Tales.--History.--Geography.--Speculative
Sciences.--Astrology.--Mathematical Knowledge of the
Arabs.--Astronomy.--Architecture.--The Fine
Arts.--Agriculture.--Medicine.--Chymistry.--Our obligations to Arab
Literature.

The early followers of the Arabian prophet were only enthusiastic
military adventurers, subduing in their wide and rapid progress most of
the nations of the then known world. The lust of power, and successful
military enterprise, are commonly unfavourable to the cultivation of
the liberal arts, so that a conquering people usually exhibit but
little taste for science or literature. The Goths and the Huns, for
instance, were among the most implacable foes of knowledge. Nor did
the early Arabs regard it with more favour. Mohammed found his
countrymen sunk in the deepest barbarism: he was incapable of any
direct effort to raise them; and, from the ruthless destruction of the
Alexandrean library by Omar, one of his earliest successors, they
appear not to have been in a much {244} better condition after the
close than at the commencement of his eventful career.

Their settlement in the countries they had subdued, the unlimited
resources which their wide-spread conquests placed within their reach,
and probably the leisure which their almost universal dominion
afforded, speedily led to a change in their character in relation to
literary pursuits, of which the more enlightened nations of the West
are still reaping the advantage. It was about the middle of the
seventh century that Omar committed the famous library of Alexandrea to
the flames: before the end of the eighth, literature began to enjoy the
munificent patronage of the caliphs of the Abbassidan race, who
superinduced upon the stern fanaticism of the followers of the Prophet
the softening influences of learning; and, by an anomaly in the history
of mankind, the most valuable lessons in science and th