came a positive luxury except to those who
possessed camels and dromedaries and date orchards beyond the dreams of
avarice. A religion which at first had been meant for the hardy hunters
of the high skied desert was gradually transformed to suit the needs
of the smug merchants who lived in the bazaars of the cities. It was a
regrettable change from the original program and it did very little good
to the cause of Mohammedanism. As for the prophet himself, he went on
preaching the truth of Allah and proclaiming new rules of conduct until
he died, quite suddenly, of a fever on June the seventh of the year 632.

His successor as Caliph (or leader) of the Moslems was his
father-in-law, Abu-Bekr, who had shared the early dangers of the
prophet's life. Two years later, Abu-Bekr died and Omar ibn Al-Khattab
followed him. In less than ten years he conquered Egypt, Persia,
Phoenicia, Syria and Palestine and made Damascus the capital of the
first Mohammedan world empire.

Omar was succeeded by Ali, the husband of Mohammed's daughter, Fatima,
but a quarrel broke out upon a point of Moslem doctrine and Ali was
murdered. After his death, the caliphate was made hereditary and the
leaders of the faithful who had begun their career as the spiritual head
of a religious sect became the rulers of a vast empire. They built a
new city on the shores of the Euphrates, near the ruins of Babylon and
called it Bagdad, and organising the Arab horsemen into regiments of
cavalry, they set forth to bring the happiness of their Moslem faith to
all unbelievers. In the year 700 A.D. a Mohammedan general by the name
of Tarik crossed the old gates of Hercules and reached the high rock on
the European side which he called the Gibel-al-tarik, the Hill of Tarik
or Gibraltar.

Eleven years later in the battle of Xeres de la Frontera, he defeated
the king of the Visigoths and then the Moslem army moved northward
and following the route of Hannibal, they crossed the passes of the
Pyrenees. They defeated the Duke of Aquitania, who tried to halt them
near Bordeaux, and marched upon Paris. But in the year 732 (one hundred
years after the death of the prophet,) they were beaten in a battle
between Tours and Poitiers. On that day, Charles Martel (Charles with
the Hammer) the Frankish chieftain, saved Europe from a Mohammedan
con-quest. He drove the Moslems out of France, but they maintained
themselves in Spain where Abd-ar-Rahman founded the Caliphate of
Cordova,