evailed; the distracted kingdom was
torn in pieces by the struggles of pretenders; and "every province, and
almost each city of Persia, was the scene of independence, of discord,
and of bloodshed."

At length, in June, A.D. 632, an end was put to the internal commotions
by the election of a young prince, believed to be of the true blood
of Sassan, in whose rule the whole nation acquiesced without much
difficulty. Yezdigerd (or Isdigerd) the Third was the son of Shahriar
and the grandson of Chosroes II. He had been early banished from the
Court, and had been brought up in obscurity, his royal birth being
perhaps concealed, since if known it might have caused his destruction.
The place of his residence was Istakr, the ancient capital of Persia,
but at this time a city of no great importance. Here he had lived
unnoticed to the age of fifteen, when his royal rank having somehow been
discovered, and no other scion of the stock of Chosroes being known
to exist, he was drawn forth from his retirement and invested with the
sovereignty.

But the appointment of a sovereign in whose rule all could acquiesce
came too late. While Rome and Persia, engaged in deadly struggle, had no
thought for anything but how most to injure each other, a power began
to grow up in an adjacent country, which had for long ages been despised
and thought incapable of doing any harm to its neighbors. Mohammed, half
impostor, half enthusiast, enunciated a doctrine, and by degrees worked
out a religion, which proved capable of uniting in one the scattered
tribes of the Arabian desert, while at the same time it inspired them
with a confidence, a contempt for death, and a fanatic valor, that
rendered them irresistible by the surrounding nations. Mohammed's career
as prophet began while Heraclius and Chosroes II. were flying at each
other's throats; by the year of the death of Chosroes (A.D. 628) he had
acquired a strength greater than that of any other Arab chief; two years
later he challenged Rome to the combat by sending a hostile expedition
into Syria; and before his death (A.D. 632) he was able to take the
field at the head of 30,000 men. During the time of internal trouble in
Persia he procured the submission of the Persian governor of the Yemen;
as well as that of Al Mondar, or Alamundarus, King of Bahrein, on the
west coast of the Persian Gulf. Isdigerd, upon his accession, found
himself menaced by a power which had already stretched out one arm
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