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Title: The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the
Muslim Faith

Author: Sir Thomas Walker Arnold

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[Contents]

[Contents]

THE
PREACHING OF ISLAM
A History of the Propagation of the
Muslim Faith

BY
T. W. ARNOLD M.A. C.I.E.
PROFESSOR OF ARABIC, UNIVERSITY OF
LONDON, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1913

[Contents]

TO

SIR THEODORE MORISON, K.C.I.E.
TO WHOM THE FIRST EDITION OWES ITS EXISTENCE
THIS SECOND EDITION IS DEDICATED

IN TOKEN OF LONG FRIENDSHIP [vii]

[Contents]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
It is with considerable diffidence that I publish these pages; the subject with
which they deal is so vast, and I have had to prosecute it under
circumstances so disadvantageous, that I can hope but for small measure of
success. When I may be better equipped for the task, and after further study
has enabled me to fill up the gaps 1 left in the present work, I hope to make
it a more worthy contribution to this neglected department of Muhammadan
history; and to this end I shall be deeply grateful for the criticisms and
corrections of any scholars who may deign to notice the book. To such I
would say in the words of St. Augustine: “Qui hæc legens dicit, intelligo
quidem quid dictum sit, sed non vere dictum est; asserat ut placet
sententiam suam, et redarguat meam, si potest. Quod si cum caritate et
veritate fecerit, mihique etiam (si in hac vita maneo) cognoscendum facere
curaverit, uberrimum fructum laboris huius mei cepero.” 2

As I can neither claim to be an authority nor a specialist on any of the
periods of history dealt with in this book, and as many of the events referred
to therein have become matter for controversy, I have given full references
to the sources consulted; and here I have thought it better to err on the side
of excess rather than that of defect. I have myself suffered so much
inconvenience and wasted so much time in hunting up references to books
indicated in some obscure or unintelligible manner, that I would desire to
spare others a similar annoyance; and while to the general reader I may
appear guilty of pedantry, I may perchance save trouble to some scholar
who wishes to test the accuracy of a statement or pursue any part of the
subject further.

The scheme adopted in this book for the transliteration of Arabic words is
that laid down by the Transliteration Committee of the Tenth International
Congress of Orientalists, held at Geneva in 1894, with the exception that

the last letter of the article is assimilated to the so-called solar [viii]letters. In
the case of geographical names this scheme has not been so rigidly applied
—in many instances because I could not discover the original Arabic form
of the word, in others (e.g. Mecca, Medina), because usage has almost
created for them a prescriptive title.

Though this work is confessedly, as explained in the Introduction, a record
of missionary efforts and not a history of persecutions, 3 I have endeavoured
to be strictly impartial and to conform to the ideal laid down by the
Christian historian 4 who chronicled the successes of the Ottomans and the
fall of Constantinople: οὔτε πρὸς χάριν οὔτε πρὸς φθόνον, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ πρὸς
μῖσος ἢ καὶ πρὸς εὔνοιαν συγγράφειν χρεών ἐστι τὸν συγγράφοντα, ἀλλ’
ἱστορίας μόνον καὶ τοῦ μή λήθης βυθῷ παραδοθῆναι, ἣν ὁ χρόνος οἶδε
γεννᾶν, τὴν ἱστορίαν.

I desire to thank Her Excellency the Princess Barberini; His Excellency the
Prince Chigi; the Most Rev. Dr. Paul Goethals, Archbishop of Calcutta; the
Right Rev. Fr. Francis Pesci, Bishop of Allahabad; the Rev. S. S. Allnutt, of
the Cambridge Mission, Dehli; the Trustees of Dr. Williams’s Library,
Gordon Square, London, for the liberal use they have allowed me of their
respective libraries.

I am under an especial debt of gratitude to James Kennedy, Esq., late of the
Bengal Civil Service, who has never ceased to take a kindly interest in my
book, though it has almost exemplified the Horatian precept, Nonum
prematur in annum; to his profound scholarship and wide reading I have
been indebted for much information that would otherwise have remained
unknown to me, nor do I owe less to the stimulus of his enthusiastic love of
learning and his helpful sympathy. I am also under a debt of gratitude to the
kindness of Conte Ugo Balzani, but for whose assistance certain parts of my
work would have been impossible to me. To the late Professor Robertson
Smith I am indebted for valuable suggestions as to the lines of study on
which the history of the North African Church and the condition of the

Christians under Muslim rule, should be worked out; the profound regret
which all Semitic scholars feel at his loss is to me intensified by the thought
that this is the only acknowledgment I am able to make of his generous help
and encouragement. [ix]

I desire also to acknowledge my obligations to Sir Sayyid Aḥmad K͟ hān
Bahādur, K.C.S.I., LL.D.; to my learned friend and colleague, Shamsu-l
ʻUlamāʼ Mawlawī Muḥammad Shiblī Nuʻmānī, who has assisted me most
generously out of the abundance of his knowledge of early Muhammadan
history; and to my former pupil, Mawlawī Bahādur ʻAlī, M.A.

Lastly, and above all, must I thank my dear wife, but for whom this work
would never have emerged out of a chaos of incoherent materials, and
whose sympathy and approval are the best reward of my labours.

Aligarh, 1896. [xi]

E.g. The spread of Islam in Sicily and the missionary labours of the numerous Muslim saints. ↑
1
De Trinitate, i. 5. (Migne, tom. xlii, p. 823.) ↑
2
Accordingly the reader will find no account of the recent history of Armenia or Crete, or
3
indeed of any part of the empire of the Turks during the present century—a period
singularly barren of missionary enterprise on their part. ↑
Phrantzes, p. 5. ↑
4

[Contents]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The first edition of this book having been out of print for several years and
frequent inquiries having been made for copies, this new edition has been
prepared and an effort has been made to revise the work in the light of the
fresh materials that have accumulated during the last sixteen years; but I
can make no claim to have made myself acquainted with the whole of the
vast literature on the subject, in upwards of ten different languages, which
has been published during this interval. The growing interest in Islam and
the various branches of study connected with it, may be estimated from the
fact that since 1906 five periodicals have made their appearance devoted to
investigations cognate to the subject-matter of the present work, viz. Revue
du Monde Musulman, publiée par La Mission Scientifique du Maroc (Paris,
1906– ); Der Islam, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen
Orients (Strassburg, 1910– ); The Moslem World, a quarterly review of
current events, literature, and thought among Mohammedans, and the
progress of Christian Missions in Moslem lands (London, 1911– ); Mir
Islama (St. Petersburg, 1912– ); and Die Welt des Islams, Zeitschrift der
deutschen Gesellschaft für Islamkunde (Berlin, 1913– ). The Christian
missionary societies are also now devoting increased attention to the subject
of Muslim missionary activity and accordingly it takes up a proportionately
larger place in their publications than before.

This second edition would have been completed several years ago but for
the illiberal policy which closes the Reading Room of the British Museum
at 7 o’clock and has thus made it practically inaccessible to me except on
Saturdays. 1 I therefore desire to express my grateful thanks to those friends
who have facilitated my labours by the loan of books from the Libraries of
the University of Leiden and the University of Utrecht (through the kind
offices of [xii]Professor Wensinck), and the École des Langues Orientales

Vivantes, Paris;—to Mr. J. A. Oldham, editor of The International Review
of Missions, I am indebted for the loan of volumes of the Allgemeine
Missions-Zeitschrift, a set of which I have been unable to find in London;
my thanks are specially due to Dr. F. W. Thomas, who has allowed me to
study for lengthy periods (along with other books from the India Office
Library) the monumental Annali dell’ Islam by Leone Caetani, Principe di
Teano,—a work of inestimable value for the early history of Islam, but
unfortunately placed out of the reach of the average scholar by reason of its
great cost.

I am also much indebted for several valuable indications to those scholars
who reviewed the book when it first appeared,—above all, to Professor
Goldziher, whose sympathetic interest in this work has encouraged me to
continue it.

London, 1913. [xiii]

The student of the literature of Science or of the Fine Arts finds the libraries at South Kensington
1
open till 10 o’clock on three evenings every week, but the one library in this country that aims at
any completeness is available only to such students as are at leisure during the day-time. ↑

[Contents]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

PAGE

A missionary religion defined. Islam a missionary religion; its extent. The
Qurʼān enjoins preaching and persuasion, and forbids violence and force in the
conversion of unbelievers. The present work a history of missions, not of
persecutions 1

CHAPTER II.

STUDY OF THE LIFE OF MUḤAMMAD CONSIDERED AS A
PREACHER OF ISLAM.

Muḥammad the type of the Muslim missionary. Account of his early efforts at
propagating Islam, and of the conversions made in Mecca before the Hijrah.
Persecution of the converts, and migration to Medina. Condition of the Muslims
in Medina: beginning of the national life of Islam. Islam offered (a) to the Arabs,
(b) to the whole world. Islam declared in the Qurʼān to be a universal religion,—
as being the primitive faith delivered to Abraham. Muḥammad as the founder of
a political organisation. The spread of Islam and the efforts made to convert the
Arabs after the Hijrah. The ideals of Islam and those of Pre-Islamic Arabia
contrasted 11

CHAPTER III.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF
WESTERN ASIA.

The Arab conquests and expansion of the Arab race after the death of
Muḥammad. Conversion of Christian Bedouins. Causes of the early successes of
the Muslims. Toleration extended to those who remained Christian.—The settled

population of the towns: failure of Heraclius’s attempt to reconcile the
contending Christian sects. The Arab conquest of Syria and Palestine: their
toleration: the Ordinance of ʻUmar: jizyah paid in return for protection and in
lieu of military service. Condition of the Christians under Muslim rule: they
occupy high posts, build new churches: revival in the Nestorian Church. Causes
of their conversion to Islam: revolt against Byzantine ecclesiasticism: influence
of rationalistic thought: imposing character of Muslim civilisation. Persecutions
suffered by the Christians. Proselytising efforts. Details of conversion to Islam.
—Account of conversions from among the Crusaders.—The Armenian and
Georgian Churches 45 [xiv]

CHAPTER IV.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF
AFRICA.

Egypt: conquered by the Arabs, who are welcomed by the Copts as their
deliverers from Byzantine rule. Condition of the Copts under the Muslims.
Corruption and negligence of the clergy lead to conversions to Islam.—Nubia:
relations with Muhammadan powers: gradual decay of the Christian faith.—
Abyssinia: the Arabs on the sea-board: missionary efforts in the fourteenth
century: invasion of Aḥmad Grāñ: conversions to Islam: progress of Islam in
recent years.—Northern Africa: extent of Christianity in North Africa in the
seventh century: the Christians are said to have been forcibly converted: reasons
for thinking that this statement is not true: toleration enjoyed by the Christians:
gradual disappearance of the Christian Church 102

CHAPTER V.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIANS OF SPAIN.

Christianity in Spain before the Muslim conquest: miserable condition of the
Jews and the slaves. Early converts to Islam. Corruption of the clergy. Toleration
of the Arabs, and influence of their civilisation on the Christians, who study
Arabic and adopt Arab dress and manners. Causes of conversion to Islam. The
voluntary martyrs of Cordova. Extent of the conversions 131

CHAPTER VI.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS IN
EUROPE UNDER THE TURKS.

Relations of the Turks to their Christian subjects during the first two centuries of
their rule: toleration extended to the Greek Church by Muḥammad II: the
benefits of Ottoman rule: its disadvantages, the tribute-children, the capitation-
tax, tyranny of individuals. Forced conversion rare. Proselytising efforts made by
the Turks. Circumstances that favoured the spread of Islam: degraded condition
of the Greek Church: failure of the attempt to Protestantise the Greek Church:
oppression of the Greek clergy: moral superiority of the Ottomans: imposing
character of their conquests. Conversion of Christian slaves.—Islam in Albania,
conquest of the country, independent character of its people, gradual decay of the
Christian faith, and its causes;—in Servia, alliance of the Servians with the
Turks, conversions mainly from among the nobles except in Old Servia;—in
Montenegro;—in Bosnia, the Bogomiles, points of similarity between the
Bogomilian heresy and the Muslim creed, conversion to Islam;—in Crete,
conversion in the ninth century, oppression of the Venetian rule, conquered by
the Turks, conversions to Islam 145 [xv]

CHAPTER VII.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN PERSIA AND CENTRAL ASIA.

Religious condition of Persia at the time of the Arab conquest. Islam welcomed
by many sections of the population. Points of similarity between the older faiths
and Islam. Toleration. Conversions to Islam. The Ismāʻīlians and their
missionary system. Islam in Central Asia and Afghanistān 206

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE MONGOLS AND TATARS.

Account of the Mongol conquests. Buddhism, Christianity and Islam in rivalry
for the allegiance of the Mongols. Their original religion, Shamanism, described.
Spread of Buddhism, of Christianity, and of Islam respectively among the
Mongols. Difficulties that stood in the way of Islam. Cruel treatment of the
Muslims by some Mongol rulers. Early converts to Islam. Baraka K͟ hān, the first
Mongol prince converted. Conversion of the Īlk͟ hāns. Conversion of the
Chag͟ hatāy Mongols. History of Islam under the Golden Horde: Ūzbek K͟ hān:
failure of attempts to convert the Russians. Spread of Islam in modern times in
the Russian Empire. The conversion of the Tatars of Siberia 218

CHAPTER IX.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIA.

Distribution of the Muhammadan population. Part taken by the Muhammadan
rulers in the propagation of Islam: conversion of Rajputs and others.—The work
of the Muslim missionaries in India; traditions of early missionary efforts in
South India, forced conversions under Ḥaydar ʻAlī and Tīpū Sulṭān, the
Mappillas:—in the Maldive Islands:—in the Deccan, early Arab settlements,
labours of individual missionaries:—in Sind, the rule of the Arabs, their
toleration, account of individual missionaries, conversion of the Khojahs and
Bohras:—in Bengal, the Muhammadan rule in this province, extensive
conversions of the lower castes, religious revival in recent times.—Particular
account of the labours of Muslim missionaries in other parts of India.
Propagationist movements of modern times. Circumstances facilitating the
progress of Islam: the oppressiveness of the Hindu caste system, worship of
Muslim saints, etc.—Spread of Islam in Kashmīr and Tibet 254

CHAPTER X.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN CHINA.

Early notices of Islam in China. Intercourse of the Chinese with the Arabs.
Legendary account of the first introduction of Islam into China. Muslims under
the Tʼang dynasty: influence of the Mongol conquest; Islam under the Ming
dynasty. Relations of the Chinese Muslims to the Chinese Government. Their
efforts to spread their religion 294 [xvi]

CHAPTER XI.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.

The Arabs in Northern Africa: conversion of the Berbers: the mission of ʻAbd
Allāh b. Yāsīn. Introduction of Islam into the Sudan: rise of Muhammadan
kingdoms: account of missionary movements, Danfodio, ʻUt͟ hmān al-Amīr
G͟ hanī, the Qādiriyyah, the Tijāniyyah, and the Sanūsiyyah. Spread of Islam on
the West Coast: Ashanti: Dahomey. Spread of Islam on the East Coast: early
Muslim settlements: recent expansion in German East Africa: the Galla: the
Somali. Islam in Cape Coast Colony. Account of the Muslim missionaries in
Africa and their methods of winning converts 312

CHAPTER XII.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

Early intercourse between the Malay Archipelago and Arabia and India. Methods
of missionary work. History of Islam in Sumatra; in the Malay Peninsula; in
Java; in the Moluccas; in Borneo; in Celebes; in the Philippine and the Sulu
Islands; among the Papuans. The Muslim missionaries: traders: ḥājīs 363

CHAPTER XIII.

CONCLUSION.

Absence of missionary organisation in Islam: zeal on the part of individuals.
Who are the Muslim missionaries? Causes that have contributed to their success:
the simplicity of the Muslim creed: the rationalism and ritualism of Islam. Islam
not spread by the sword. The toleration of Muhammadan governments.
Circumstances contributing to the progress of Islam in ancient and in modern
times 408

APPENDIX I.

Letter of al-Hāshimī inviting al-Kindī to embrace Islam 428

APPENDIX II.

Controversial literature between Muslims and the followers of other faiths
436

APPENDIX III.

Muslim missionary societies 438

Titles of Works cited by Abbreviated References 440

Index 457 [1]

[Contents]

THE PREACHING OF ISLAM

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.
Ever since Professor Max Müller delivered his lecture in Westminster
Abbey, on the day of intercession for missions, in December, 1873, it has
been a literary commonplace, that the six great religions of the world may
be divided into missionary and non-missionary; under the latter head fall
Judaism, Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism, and under the former Buddhism,
Christianity and Islam; and he well defined what the term,—a missionary
religion,—should be taken to mean, viz. one “in which the spreading of the
truth and the conversion of unbelievers are raised to the rank of a sacred
duty by the founder or his immediate successors.… It is the spirit of truth in
the hearts of believers which cannot rest, unless it manifests itself in
thought, word and deed, which is not satisfied till it has carried its message
to every human soul, till what it believes to be the truth is accepted as the
truth by all members of the human family.” 1

It is such a zeal for the truth of their religion that has inspired the
Muhammadans to carry with them the message of Islam to the people of
every land into which they penetrate, and that justly claims for their religion
a place among those we term missionary. It is the history of the birth of this
missionary zeal, its inspiring forces and the modes of its activity that forms
the subject of the following pages. The 200 millions of Muhammadans
scattered over the [2]world at the present day are evidences of its workings
through the length of thirteen centuries.

The doctrines of this faith were first proclaimed to the people of Arabia in
the seventh century, by a prophet under whose banner their scattered tribes
became a nation; and filled with the pulsations of this new national life, and
with a fervour and enthusiasm that imparted an almost invincible strength to
their armies, they poured forth over three continents to conquer and subdue.
Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa and Persia were the first to fall before

them, and pressing westward to Spain and eastward beyond the Indus, the
followers of the Prophet found themselves, one hundred years after his
death, masters of an empire greater than that of Rome at the zenith of its
power.

Although in after years this great empire was split up and the political
power of Islam diminished, still its spiritual conquests went on
uninterruptedly. When the Mongol hordes sacked Bag͟ hdād (a.d. 1258) and
drowned in blood the faded glory of the ʻAbbāsid dynasty,—when the
Muslims were expelled from Cordova by Ferdinand of Leon and Castile
(a.d. 1236), and Granada, the last stronghold of Islam in Spain, paid tribute
to the Christian king,—Islam had just gained a footing in the island of
Sumatra and was just about to commence its triumphant progress through
the islands of the Malay Archipelago. In the hours of its political
degradation, Islam has achieved some of its most brilliant spiritual
conquests: on two great historical occasions, infidel barbarians have set
their feet on the necks of the followers of the Prophet,—the Saljūq Turks in
the eleventh and the Mongols in the thirteenth century,—and in each case
the conquerors have accepted the religion of the conquered. Unaided also
by the temporal power, Muslim missionaries have carried their faith into
Central Africa, China and the East India Islands.

At the present day the faith of Islam extends from Morocco to Zanzibar,
from Sierra Leone to Siberia and China, from Bosnia to New Guinea.
Outside the limits of strictly Muhammadan countries and of lands, such as
China and Russia, that contain a large Muhammadan population, there are
some few small communities of the followers of [3]the Prophet, which bear
witness to the faith of Islam in the midst of unbelievers. Such are the
Polish-speaking Muslims of Tatar origin in Lithuania, that inhabit the
districts of Kovno, Vilno and Grodno; 2 the Dutch-speaking Muslims of
Cape Colony; and the Indian coolies that have carried the faith of Islam
with them to the West India Islands and to British and Dutch Guiana. In

recent years, too, Islam has found adherents in England, in North America,
Australia and Japan.

The spread of this faith over so vast a portion of the globe is due to various
causes, social, political and religious: but among these, one of the most
powerful factors at work in the production of this stupendous result, has
been the unremitted labours of Muslim missionaries, who, with the Prophet
himself as their great ensample, have spent themselves for the conversion of
unbelievers.

The duty of missionary work is no after-thought in the history of Islam, but
was enjoined on believers from the beginning, as may be judged from the
following passages in the Qurʼān,—which are here quoted in chronological
order according to the date of their being delivered.

“Summon thou to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and with kindly warning: dispute with
them in the kindest manner. (xvi. 126.)

“They who have inherited the Book after them (i.e. the Jews and Christians), are in
perplexity of doubt concerning it.

“For this cause summon thou (them to the faith), and walk uprightly therein as thou hast
been bidden, and follow not their desires: and say: In whatsoever Books God hath sent
down do I believe: I am commanded to decide justly between you: God is your Lord and
our Lord: we have our works and you have your works: between us and you let there be no
strife: God will make us all one: and to Him shall we return.” (xlii. 13–14.)

Similar injunctions are found also in the Medinite Sūrahs, [4]delivered at a
time when Muḥammad was at the head of a large army and at the height of
his power.

“Say to those who have been given the Book and to the ignorant, Do you accept Islam?
Then, if they accept Islam, are they guided aright: but if they turn away, then thy duty is
only preaching; and God’s eye is on His servants, (iii. 19.)

“Thus God clearly showeth you His signs that perchance ye may be guided;

“And that there may be from among you a people who invite to the Good, and enjoin the
Just, and forbid the Wrong; and these are they with whom it shall be well. (iii. 99–100.)

“To every people have We appointed observances which they observe. Therefore let them
not dispute the matter with thee, but summon them to thy Lord: Verily thou art guided
aright:

“But if they debate with thee, then say: God best knoweth what ye do!” (xxii. 66–67.)

The following passages are taken from what is generally supposed to be the
last Sūrah that was delivered.

“If any one of those who join gods with God ask an asylum of thee, grant him an asylum in
order that he may hear the word of God; then let him reach his place of safety.” (ix. 6.)

With regard to the unbelievers who had broken their plighted word, who
“sell the signs of God for a mean price and turn others aside from His way,”
and “respect not with a believer either ties of blood or good faith,” … it is
said:—

“Yet if they turn to God and observe prayer and give alms, then are they your brothers in
the faith: and We make clear the signs for men of knowledge.” (ix. 11.)

Thus from its very inception Islam has been a missionary religion, both in
theory and in practice, for the life of Muḥammad exemplifies the same
teaching, and the Prophet [5]himself stands at the head of a long series of
Muslim missionaries who have won an entrance for their faith into the
hearts of unbelievers. Moreover it is not in the cruelties of the persecutor or
the fury of the fanatic that we should look for the evidences of the
missionary spirit of Islam, any more than in the exploits of that mythical
personage, the Muslim warrior with sword in one hand and Qurʼān in the
other, 3—but in the quiet, unobtrusive labours of the preacher and the trader
who have carried their faith into every quarter of the globe. Such peaceful
methods of preaching and persuasion were not adopted, as some would
have us believe, only when political circumstances made force and violence
impossible or impolitic, but were most strictly enjoined in numerous
passages of the Qurʼān, as follows:—

“And endure what they say with patience, and depart from them with a decorous departure.

“And let Me alone with the gainsayers, rich in the pleasures (of this life); and bear thou
with them yet a little while. (lxxiii. 10–11.)

“(My) sole (work) is preaching from God and His message. (lxxii. 24.)

“Tell those who have believed to pardon those who hope not for the days of God in which
He purposeth to recompense men according to their deserts. (xlv. 13.)

“They who had joined other gods with God say, ‘Had He pleased, neither we nor our
forefathers had worshipped aught but Him; nor had we, apart from Him, declared anything
unlawful.’ Thus acted they who were before them. Yet is the duty of the apostles other than
plain-spoken preaching? (xvi. 37.) [6]

“Then if they turn their backs, still thy office is only plain-spoken preaching. (xvi. 84.)

“Dispute ye not, unless in kindliest sort, with the people of the Book; save with such of
them as have dealt wrongfully (with you): and say ye, ‘We believe in what has been sent
down to us and hath been sent down to you. Our God and your God is one, and to Him are
we self-surrendered.’ (xxix. 45.)

“But if they turn aside from thee, yet We have not sent thee to be guardian over them. ’Tis
thine but to preach. (xlii. 47.)

“But if thy Lord had pleased, verily all who are in the world would have believed together.
Wilt thou then compel men to become believers? (x. 99.)

“And we have not sent thee otherwise than to mankind at large, to announce and to warn.”
(xxxiv. 27.)

Such precepts are not confined to the Meccan Sūrahs, but are found in
abundance also in those delivered at Medina, as follows:—

“Let there be no compulsion in religion. (ii. 257.)

“Obey God and obey the apostle; but if ye turn away, yet is our apostle only charged with
plain-spoken preaching. (lxiv. 12.)

“Obey God and obey the apostle: but if ye turn back, still the burden of his duty is on him
only, and the burden of your duty rests on you. And if ye obey him, ye shall have guidance:
but plain preaching is all that devolves upon the apostle. (xxiv. 53.)

“Say: O men! I am only your plain-spoken (open) warner. (xxii. 48.)

“Verily We have sent thee to be a witness and a herald of good and a warner,

“That ye may believe on God and on His apostle; and may assist Him and honour Him, and
praise Him morning and evening. (xlviii. 8–9.)

“Thou wilt not cease to discover the treacherous ones among them, except a few of them.
But forgive them and pass it over. Verily, God loveth those who act generously.” (v. 16.)

[7]

It is the object of the following pages to show how this ideal was realised in
history and how these principles of missionary activity were put into
practice by the exponents of Islam. And at the outset the reader should
clearly understand that this work is not intended to be a history of
Muhammadan persecutions but of Muhammadan missions—it does not aim
at chronicling the instances of forced conversions which may be found
scattered up and down the pages of Muhammadan histories. European
writers have taken such care to accentuate these, that there is no fear of their
being forgotten, and they do not strictly come within the province of a
history of missions. In a history of Christian missions we should naturally
expect to hear more of the labours of St. Liudger and St. Willehad among
the pagan Saxons than of the baptisms that Charlemagne forced them to
undergo at the point of the sword. 4 The true missionaries of Denmark were
St. Ansgar and his successors rather than King Cnut, who forcibly rooted
out paganism from his dominions. 5 Abbot Gottfried and Bishop Christian,
though less successful in converting the pagan Prussians, were more truly
representative of Christian missionary work than the Brethren of the Sword
and other Crusaders who brought their labours to completion by means of
fire and sword. The knights of the “Ordo fratrum militiæ Christi” forced
Christianity on the people of Livonia, but it is not to these militant
propagandists but to the monks Meinhard and Theodoric that we should
point as being the true missionaries of the Christian faith in this country.
The violent means sometimes employed by the Jesuit missionaries 6 cannot
derogate from the honour due to St. Francis Xavier and other preachers of
the same order. Nor is Valentyn any the less the apostle of Amboyna
because in 1699 an order was promulgated to the Rajas of this [8]island that

they should have ready a certain number of pagans to be baptised, when the
pastor came on his rounds. 7

In the history of the Christian church missionary activity is seen to be
intermittent, and an age of apostolic fervour may be succeeded by a period
of apathy and indifference, or persecution and forced conversion may take
the place of the preaching of the Word; so likewise does the propaganda of
Islam in various epochs of Muhammadan history ebb and flow. But since
the zeal of proselytising is a distinct feature of either faith, its missionary
history may fittingly be singled out as a separate branch of study, not as
excluding other manifestations of the religious life but as concentrating
attention on an aspect of it that has special characteristics of its own. Thus
the annals of propaganda and persecution may be studied apart from one
another, whether in the history of the Christian or the Muslim church,
though in both they may be at times commingled. For just as the Christian
faith has not always been propagated by the methods adopted in Viken (the
southern part of Norway) by King Olaf Trygvesson, who either slew those
who refused to accept Christianity, or cut off their hands or feet, or drove
them into banishment, and in this manner spread the Christian faith
throughout the whole of Viken, 8—and just as the advice of St. Louis has not
been made a principle of Christian missionary work,—“When a layman
hears the Christian law ill spoken of, he should not defend that law save
with his sword, which he should thrust into the infidel’s belly, as far as it
will go,” 9—so there have been Muslim missionaries who have not been
guided in their propagandist methods by the savage utterance of Marwān,
the last of the ʻUmayyad caliphs: “Whosoever among the people of Egypt
does not enter into my religion and pray as I pray and follow my tenets, I
will slay and crucify him.” 10 Nor are al-Mutawakkil, [9]al-Ḥākim and Tīpū
Sulṭān to be looked upon as typical missionaries of Islam to the exclusion of
such preachers as Mawlānā Ibrāhīm, the apostle of Java, K͟ hwājah Muʻīn al-
Dīn Chishtī in India and countless others who won converts to the Muslim
faith by peaceful means alone.

But though a clear distinction can be drawn between conversion as the
result of persecution and a peaceful propaganda by means of methods of
persuasion, it is not so easy to ascertain the motives that have induced the
convert to change his faith, or to discover whether the missionary has been
wholly animated by a love of souls and by the high ideal set forth in the
first paragraph of this chapter. Both in Christianity and Islam there have
been at all times earnest souls to whom their religion has been the supreme
reality of their lives, and this absorbing interest in matters of the spirit has
found expression in that zeal for the communication of cherished truths and
for the domination of doctrines and systems they have deemed perfect,
which constitutes the vivifying force of missionary movements,—and there
have likewise been those without the pale, who have responded to their
appeal and have embraced the new faith with a like fervour. But, on the
other hand, Islam—like Christianity—has reckoned among its adherents
many persons to whom ecclesiastical institutions have been merely
instruments of a political policy or forms of social organisation, to be
accepted either as disagreeable necessities or as convenient solutions of
problems that they do not care to think out for themselves; such persons
may likewise be found among the converts of either faith. Thus both
Christianity and Islam have added to the number of their followers by
methods and under conditions—social, political and economic—which
have no connection with such a thirst for souls as animates the true
missionary. Moreover, the annals of missionary enterprise frequently record
the admission of converts without any attempt to analyse the motives that
have led them to change their faith, and especially for the history of Muslim
missions there is a remarkable poverty of material in this respect, since
Muslim literature is singularly poor in those records of conversions that
occupy such a large place in the literature [10]of the Christian church.
Accordingly, in the following sketch of the missionary activity of Islam, it
has not always been possible to discover whether political, social, economic
or purely religious motives have determined conversion, though occasional
reference can be made to the operation of one or the other influence. [11]

A note on Mr. Lyall’s article: “Missionary Religions.” Fortnightly Review, July, 1874. ↑
1
Reclus, vol. v. p. 433; Gasztowtt, p. 320 sqq. ↑
2
This misinterpretation of the Muslim wars of conquest has arisen from the assumption that
3
wars waged for the extension of Muslim domination over the lands of the unbelievers
implied that the aim in view was their conversion. Goldziher has well pointed out this distinction in
his Vorlesungen über den Islam: “Was Muhammed zunächst in seinem arabischen Umkreise getan,
das hinterlässt er als Testament für die Zukunft seiner Gemeinde: Bekämpfung der Ungläubigen, die
Ausbreitung nicht so sehr des Glaubens als seiner Machtsphäre, die die Machtsphäre Allahs ist. Es ist
dabei den Kämpfern des Islams zunächst nicht so sehr um Bekehrung als um Unterwerfung der
Ungläubigen zu tun.” (p. 25.) ↑
See Enhardi Fuldensis Annales, a.d. 777. “Saxones post multas cædes et varia bella afflicti,
4
tandem christiani effecti, Francorum dicioni subduntur.” G. H. Pertz: Monumenta Germaniæ
Historica, vol. i. p. 349. (See also pp. 156, 159.) ↑
“Tum zelo propagandæ fidei succensus, barbara regna iusto certamine aggressus, devictas
5
subditasque nationes christianæ legi subiugavit.” (Breviarium Romanum. Iun. 19.) ↑
Mathurin Veyssière de la Croze: Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, pp. 529–531. (The Hague,
6
1724.) ↑
Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, vol. xi. p. 89. ↑
7
Konrad Maurer: Die Bekehrung des norwegischen Stammes zum Christenthume, vol. i. p. 284.
8
(München, 1855.) ↑
Jean, Sire de Joinville: Histoire de Saint Louis, ed. N. de Wailly, p. 30 (§ 53). ↑
9
Severus, p. 191 (ll. 21–22). ↑
10

[Contents]

CHAPTER II.

STUDY OF THE LIFE OF MUḤAMMAD
CONSIDERED AS A PREACHER OF ISLAM.
It is not proposed in this chapter to add another to the already numerous
biographies of Muḥammad, but rather to make a study of his life in one of
its aspects only, viz. that in which the Prophet is presented to us as a
preacher, as the apostle unto men of a new religion. The life of the founder
of Islam and the inaugurator of its propaganda may naturally be expected to
exhibit to us the true character of the missionary activity of this religion. If
the life of the Prophet serves as the standard of conduct for the ordinary
believer, it must do the same for the Muslim missionary. From the pattern,
therefore, we may hope to learn something of the spirit that would animate
those who sought to copy it, and of the methods they might be expected to
adopt. For the missionary spirit of Islam is no after-thought in its history; it
interpenetrates the religion from its very commencement, and in the
following sketch it is desired to show how this is so, how Muḥammad the
Prophet is the type of the missionary of Islam. It is therefore beside the
purpose to describe his early history, or the influences under which he grew
up to manhood, or to consider him in the light either of a statesman or a
general: it is as the preacher alone that he will demand our attention.

When, after long internal conflict and disquietude, Muḥammad was at
length convinced of his divine mission, his earliest efforts were directed
towards persuading his own family of the truth of the new doctrine. The
unity of God, the abomination of idolatry, the duty laid upon man of
submission to the will of his Creator,—these were the simple truths to
which he claimed their allegiance. [12]The first convert was his faithful and
loving wife, K͟ hadījah,—she who fifteen years before had offered her hand
in marriage to the poor kinsman that had so successfully traded with her
merchandise as a hired agent,—with the words, “I love thee, my cousin, for

thy kinship with me, for the respect with which thy people regard thee, for
thy honesty, for the beauty of thy character and for the truthfulness of thy
speech.” 1 She had lifted him out of poverty, and enabled him to live up to
the social position to which he was entitled by right of birth; but this was as
nothing to the fidelity and loving devotion with which she shared his mental
anxieties, and helped him with tenderest sympathy and encouragement in
the hour of his despondency.

Up to her death in a.d. 619 (after a wedded life of five and twenty years)
she was always ready with sympathy, consolation and encouragement
whenever he suffered from the persecution of his enemies or was tortured
by doubts and misgivings. “So K͟ hadījah believed,” says the biographer of
the Prophet, “and attested the truth of that which came to him from God and
aided him in his undertaking. Thus was the Lord minded to lighten the
burden of His Prophet; for whenever he heard anything that grieved him
touching his rejection by the people, he would return to her and God would
comfort him through her, for she reassured him and lightened his burden
and declared her trust in him and made it easy for him to bear the scorn of
men.” 2

Among the earliest believers were his adopted children Zayd and ʻAlī, and
his bosom friend Abū Bakr, of whom Muḥammad would often say in after
years, “I never invited any to the faith who displayed not hesitation,
perplexity and vacillation—excepting only Abū Bakr; who when I told him
of Islam tarried not, neither was perplexed.” He was a wealthy merchant,
much respected by his fellow citizens for the integrity of his character and
for his intelligence and ability. After his conversion he expended the greater
part of his fortune on the purchase of Muslim slaves who were persecuted
by their masters on account of their adherence to the teaching of
Muḥammad. [13]Through his influence, to a great extent, five of the earliest
converts were added to the number of believers, Saʻd b. Abī Waqqāṣ, the
future conqueror of the Persians; al-Zubayr b. al-ʻAwwām, a relative both
of the Prophet and his wife; Ṭalḥah, famous as a warrior in after days; a

wealthy merchant ʻAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʻAwf, and ʻUt͟ hmān, the third
K͟ halīfah. The last was early exposed to persecution; his uncle seized and
bound him, saying, “Dost thou prefer a new religion to that of thy fathers? I
swear I will not loose thee until thou givest up this new faith thou art
following after.” To which ʻUt͟ hmān replied, “By the Lord, I will never
abandon it!” Whereupon his uncle, seeing the firmness of his attachment to
his faith, released him.

With other additions, particularly from among slaves and poor persons, the
Prophet succeeded in collecting round him a little band of followers during
the first three years of his mission. Encouraged by the success of these
private efforts, Muḥammad determined on more active measures and began
to preach in public. He called his kinsmen together and invited them to
embrace the new faith. “No Arab,” he urged, “has offered to his nation more
precious advantages than those I bring you. I offer you happiness in this
world and in the life to come. Who among you will aid me in this task?” All
were silent. Only ʻAlī, with boyish enthusiasm, cried out, “Prophet of God,
I will aid thee.” At this the company broke up with derisive laughter.

Undeterred by the ill-success of this preaching, he repeatedly appealed to
them on other occasions, but his message and his warnings received from
them nothing but scoffing and contempt.

More than once the Quraysh tried to induce his uncle Abū Ṭālib, as head of
the clan of the Banū Hāshim, to which Muḥammad belonged, to restrain
him from making such attacks upon their ancestral faith, or otherwise they
threatened to resort to more violent measures. Abū Ṭālib accordingly
appealed to his nephew not to bring disaster on himself and his family. The
Prophet replied: “Were the sun to come down on my right hand and the
[14]moon on my left, and the choice were offered me of abandoning my
mission until God himself should reveal it, or perishing in the achievement
of it, I would not abandon it.” Abū Ṭālib was moved and exclaimed, “Go

and say whatever thou wilt: by God! I will never give thee up unto thy
enemies.”

The Quraysh viewed the progress of the new religion with increasing
dissatisfaction and hatred. They adopted all possible means, threats and
promises, insults and offers of worldly honour and aggrandisement to
induce Muḥammad to abandon the part he had taken up. The violent abuse
with which he was assailed is said to have been the indirect cause of
drawing to his side one important convert in the person of his uncle,
Ḥamzah, whose chivalrous soul was so stung to sudden sympathy by a tale
of insult inflicted on and patiently borne by his nephew, that he changed at
once from a bitter enemy into a staunch adherent. His was not the only
instance of sympathy for the sufferings of the Muslims being aroused at the
sight of the persecutions they had to endure, and many, no doubt, secretly
favoured the new religion who did not declare themselves until the day of
its triumph.

The hostility of the Quraysh to the new faith increased in bitterness as they
watched the increase in the numbers of its adherents. They realised that the
triumph of the new teaching meant the destruction of the national religion
and the national worship, and a loss of wealth and power to the guardians of
the sacred Kaʻbah. Muḥammad himself was safe under the protection of
Abū Ṭālib and the Banū Hāshim, who, though they had no sympathy for the
doctrines their kinsman taught, yet with the strong clan-feeling peculiar to
the Arabs, secured him from any attempt upon his life, though he was still
exposed to continual insult and annoyance. But the poor who had no
protector, and the slaves, had to endure the cruelest persecution, and were
imprisoned and tortured in order to induce them to recant. It was at this time
that Abū Bakr purchased the freedom of Bilāl, 3 an African slave, who was
called by [15]Muḥammad “the first-fruits of Abyssinia.” He had been cruelly
tortured by being exposed, day after day, to the scorching rays of the sun,
stretched out on his back, with an enormous stone on his stomach; here he
was told he would have to stay until either he died or renounced

Muḥammad and worshipped idols, to which he would reply only, “There is
but one God, there is but one God.” Two persons died under the tortures
they had to undergo. The constancy of a few gave way under the trial, but
persecution served only to re-kindle the zeal of others. ʻAbd Allāh b.
Masʻūd made bold to recite a passage of the Qurʼān within the precincts of
the Kaʻbah itself,—an act of daring that none of the followers of
Muḥammad had ventured upon before. The assembled Quraysh attacked
him and smote him on the face, but it was some time before they compelled
him to desist. He returned to his companions, prepared to bear witness to
his faith in a similar manner on the next day, but they dissuaded him,
saying, “This is enough for thee, since thou hast made them listen to what
they hated to hear.”

The virulence of the opposition of the Quraysh is probably the reason why
in the fourth year of his mission Muḥammad took up his residence in the
house of al-Arqam, one of the early converts. It was in a central situation,
much frequented by pilgrims and strangers, and here peaceably and without
interruption he was able to preach the doctrines of Islam to all enquirers that
came to him. Muḥammad’s stay in this house marks an important epoch in
the propagation of Islam in Mecca, and many Muslims dated their
conversion from the days when the Prophet preached in the house of al-
Arqam.

As Muḥammad was unable to relieve his persecuted followers, he advised
them to take refuge in Abyssinia, and in the fifth year of his mission (a.d.
615), eleven men and four women crossed over to Abyssinia, where they
received a kind welcome from the Christian king of the country. Among
them was a certain Muṣʻab b. ʻUmayr whose history is interesting as of one
who had to endure that most bitter trial of the new convert—the hatred of
those he loves and who once loved him. He had been led to [16]embrace
Islam through the teaching he had listened to in the house of al-Arqam, but
he was afraid to let the fact of his conversion become known, because his
tribe and his mother, who bore an especial love to him, were bitterly

opposed to the new religion; and indeed, when they discovered the fact,
seized and imprisoned him. But he succeeded in effecting his escape to
Abyssinia.

The hatred of the Quraysh is said to have pursued the fugitives even to
Abyssinia, and an embassy was sent to demand their extradition from the
king of that country. But when he heard their story from the Muslims, he
refused to withdraw from them his protection. In answer to his enquiries as
to their religion, they said: “O King, we were plunged in the darkness of
ignorance, worshipping idols, and eating carrion; we practised
abominations, severed the ties of kinship and maltreated our neighbours; the
strong among us devoured the weak; and so we remained until God sent us
an apostle, from among ourselves, whose lineage we knew as well as his
truth, his trustworthiness and the purity of his life. He called upon us to
worship the One God and abandon the stones and idols that our fathers had
worshipped in His stead. He bade us be truthful in speech, faithful to our
promises, compassionate and kind to our parents and neighbours, and to
desist from crime and bloodshed. He forbade to do evil, to lie, to rob the
orphan or defame women. He enjoined on us the worship of God alone,
with prayer, almsgiving and fasting. And we believed in him and followed
the teachings that he brought us from God. But our countrymen rose up
against us and persecuted us to make us renounce our faith, and return to
the worship of idols and the abominations of our former life. So when they
cruelly entreated us, reducing us to bitter straits and came between us and
the practice of our religion, we took refuge in your country; putting our
trust in your justice, we hope that you will deliver us from the oppression of
our enemies.” Their prayer was heard and the embassy of the Quraysh
returned discomfited. 4 Meanwhile, in Mecca, a fresh attempt [17]was made
to induce the Prophet to abandon his work of preaching by promises of
wealth and honour, but in vain.

While the result of the embassy to Abyssinia was being looked for in Mecca
with the greatest expectancy, there occurred the conversion of a man, who

before had been one of the most bitter enemies of Muḥammad, and had
opposed him with the utmost persistence and fanaticism—a man whom the
Muslims had every reason then to look on as their most terrible and virulent
enemy, though afterwards he shines as one of the noblest figures in the
early history of Islam, viz. ʻUmar b. al-K͟ haṭṭāb. One day, in a fit of rage
against the Prophet, he set out, sword in hand, to slay him. On the way, one
of his relatives met him and asked him where he was going. “I am looking
for Muḥammad,” he answered, “to kill the renegade who has brought
discord among the Quraysh, called them fools, reviled their religion and
defamed their gods.” “Why dost thou not rather punish those of thy own
family, and set them right?” “And who are these of my own family?”
answered ʻUmar. “Thy brother-in-law Saʻīd and thy sister Fāṭimah, who
have become Muslims and followers of Muḥammad.” ʻUmar at once rushed
off to the house of his sister, and found her with her husband and K͟ habbāb,
another of the followers of Muḥammad, who was teaching them to recite a
chapter of the Qurʼān. ʻUmar burst into the room: “What was that sound I
heard?” “It was nothing,” they replied. “Nay, but I heard you, and I have
learned that you have become followers of Muḥammad.” Whereupon he
rushed upon Saʻīd and struck him. Fāṭimah threw herself between them, to
protect her husband, crying, “Yes, we are Muslims; we believe in God and
His Prophet: slay us if you will.” In the struggle his sister was wounded,
and when ʻUmar saw the blood on her face, he was softened and asked to
see the paper they had been reading: after some hesitation she handed it to
him. It contained the 20th Sūrah of the Qurʼān. When ʻUmar read it, he
exclaimed, “How beautiful, how sublime it is!” As he read on, conviction
suddenly overpowered him and he cried, “Lead me to Muḥammad that I
may tell him of my conversion.” 5 [18]

The conversion of ʻUmar is a turning-point in the history of Islam: the
Muslims were now able to take up a bolder attitude. Muḥammad left the
house of al-Arqam and the believers publicly performed their devotions
together round the Kaʻbah. The situation might thus be expected to give the
aristocracy of Mecca just cause for apprehension. For they had no longer to

deal with a band of oppressed and despised outcasts, struggling for a weak
and miserable existence. It was rather a powerful faction, adding daily to its
strength by the accession of influential citizens and endangering the
stability of the existing government by an alliance with a powerful foreign
prince.

The Quraysh resolved accordingly to make a determined effort to check the
further growth of the new movement in their city. They put the Banū
Hāshim, who through ties of kindred protected the Prophet, under a ban, in
accordance with which the Quraysh agreed that they would not marry their
women, nor give their own in marriage to them; they would sell nothing to
them, nor buy aught from them—that dealings with them of every kind
should cease. For three years the Banū Hāshim are said to have been
confined to one quarter of the city, except during the sacred months, in
which all war ceased throughout Arabia and a truce was made in order that
pilgrims might visit the sacred Kaʻbah, the centre of the national religion.

Muḥammad used to take advantage of such times of pilgrimage to preach to
the various tribes that flocked to Mecca and the adjacent fairs. But with no
success, for his uncle Abū Lahab used to dog his footsteps, crying with a
loud voice, “He is an impostor who wants to draw you away from the faith
of your fathers to the false doctrines that he brings, wherefore separate
yourselves from him and hear him not.” They would taunt him with the
words: “Thine own people and kindred should know thee best: wherefore
do they not believe and follow thee?” But at length the privations endured
by Muḥammad and his kinsmen enlisted the sympathy of a numerous
section of the Quraysh and the ban was withdrawn.

In the same year the loss of K͟ hadījah, the faithful wife who for twenty-five
years had been his counsellor and [19]support, plunged Muḥammad into the
utmost grief and despondency; and a little later the death of Abū Ṭālib
deprived him of his constant and most powerful protector and exposed him
afresh to insult and contumely.

Scorned and rejected by his own townsmen, to whom he had delivered his
message with so little success for ten years, he resolved to see if there were
not others who might be more ready to listen, among whom the seeds of
faith might find a more receptive and fruitful soil. With this hope he set out
for Ṭāʼif, a city about seventy miles from Mecca. Before an assembly of the
chief men of the city, he expounded his doctrine of the unity of God and of
the mission he had received as the Prophet of God to proclaim this faith; at
the same time he besought their protection against his persecutors in Mecca.
The disproportion between his high claims (which moreover were
unintelligible to the heathen people of Ṭāʼif) and his helpless condition only
excited their ridicule and scorn, and pitilessly stoning him with stones they
drove him from their city.

On his return from Ṭāʼif the prospects of the success of Muḥammad seemed
more hopeless than ever, and the agony of his soul gave itself utterance in
the words that he puts into the mouth of Noah: “O my Lord, verily I have
cried to my people night and day; and my cry only makes them flee from
me the more. And verily, so oft as I cry to them, that Thou mayest forgive
them, they thrust their fingers into their ears and wrap themselves in their
garments, and persist (in their error), and are disdainfully disdainful.” (lxxi.
5–6.)

It was the Prophet’s habit at the time of the annual pilgrimage to visit the
encampments of the various Arab tribes and discourse with them upon
religion. By some his words were treated with indifference, by others
rejected with scorn. But consolation came to him from an unexpected
quarter. He met a little group of six or seven persons whom he recognised
as coming from Medina, or, as it was then called, Yat͟ hrib. “Of what tribe
are you?” said he, addressing them. “We are of the K͟ hazraj,” they
answered. “Friends of the Jews?” “Yes.” “Then will you not sit down
awhile, that I may talk with you?” “Assuredly,” [20]replied they. Then they
sat down with him, and he proclaimed unto them the true God and preached
Islam and recited to them the Qurʼān. Now so it was, in that God wrought

wonderfully for Islam that there were found in their country Jews, who
possessed scriptures and wisdom, while they themselves were heathen and
idolaters. Now the Jews ofttimes suffered violence at their hands, and when
strife was between them had ever said to them, “Soon will a Prophet arise
and his time is at hand; him will we follow, and with him slay you with the
slaughter of ʻĀd and of Iram.” When now the apostle of God was speaking
with these men and calling on them to believe in God, they said one to
another: “Know surely that this is the Prophet, of whom the Jews have
warned us; come let us now make haste and be the first to join him.” So
they embraced Islam, and said to him, “Our countrymen have long been
engaged in a most bitter and deadly feud with one another; but now perhaps
God will unite them together through thee and thy teaching. Therefore we
will preach to them and make known to them this religion, that we have
received from thee.” So, full of faith, they returned to their own country. 6

Such is the traditional account of this event which was the turning-point of
Muḥammad’s mission. He had now met with a people whose antecedents
had in some way prepared their minds for the reception of his teaching and
whose present circumstances, as afterwards appeared, were favourable to
his cause.

The city of Yat͟ hrib had been long occupied by Jews whom some national
disaster, possibly the persecution under Hadrian, had driven from their own
country, when a party of wandering emigrants, the two Arab clans of
K͟ hazraj and Aws, arrived at Yat͟ hrib and were admitted to a share in the
territory. As their numbers increased they encroached more and more on the
power of the Jewish rulers, and finally, towards the end of the fifth century,
the government of the city passed entirely into their hands.

Some of the Arabs had embraced the Jewish religion, and many of the
former masters of the city still dwelt there in [21]the service of their
conquerors, so that it contained in Muḥammad’s time a considerable Jewish
population. The people of Yat͟ hrib were thus familiar with the idea of a

Messiah who was to come, and were consequently more capable of
understanding the claim of Muḥammad to be accepted as the Prophet of
God, than were the idolatrous Meccans to whom such an idea was entirely
foreign and especially distasteful to the Quraysh, whose supremacy over the
other tribes and whose worldly prosperity arose from the fact that they were
the hereditary guardians of the national collection of idols kept in the sacred
enclosure of the Kaʻbah.

Further, the city of Yat͟ hrib was distracted by incessant civil discord through
a long-standing feud between the Banū K͟ hazraj and the Banū Aws. The
citizens lived in uncertainty and suspense, and anything likely to bind the
conflicting parties together by a tie of common interest could not but prove
a boon to the city. Just as the mediæval republics of Northern Italy chose a
stranger to hold the chief post in their cities in order to maintain some
balance of power between the rival factions, and prevent, if possible, the
civil strife which was so ruinous to commerce and the general welfare, so
the Yat͟ hribites would not look upon the arrival of a stranger with suspicion,
even though he was likely to usurp or gain permission to assume the vacant
authority.

On the contrary, one of the reasons for the warm welcome which
Muḥammad received in Medina would seem to be that the adoption of
Islam appeared to the more thoughtful of its citizens to be a remedy for the
disorders from which their society was suffering, by its orderly discipline of
life and its bringing the unruly passions of men under the discipline of laws
enunciated by an authority superior to individual caprice. 7

These facts go far to explain how eight years after the Hijrah Muḥammad
could, at the head of 10,000 followers, enter the city in which he had
laboured for ten years with so meagre a result.

But this is anticipating. Muḥammad had proposed to [22]accompany his new
converts, the K͟ hazrajites, to Yat͟ hrib himself, but they dissuaded him
therefrom, until a reconciliation could be effected with the Banū Aws. “Let

us, we pray thee, return unto our people, if haply the Lord will create peace
amongst us; and we will come back again unto thee. Let the season of
pilgrimage in the following year be the appointed time.” So they returned to
their homes, and invited their people to the faith; and many believed, so that
there remained hardly a family in which mention was not made of the
Prophet.

When the time of pilgrimage again came round, a deputation from Yat͟ hrib,
ten men of the Banū K͟ hazraj, and two of the Banū Aws, met him at the
appointed spot and pledged him their word to obey his teaching. This, the
first pledge of ʻAqabah, so called from the secret spot at which they met,
ran as follows:—“We will not worship any but the one God; we will not
steal, neither will we commit adultery or kill our children; we will abstain
from calumny and slander; we will obey the Prophet in every thing that is
right.” These twelve men now returned to Yat͟ hrib as missionaries of Islam,
and so well prepared was the ground, and with such zeal did they prosecute
their mission, that the new faith spread rapidly from house to house and
from tribe to tribe.

They were accompanied on their return by Muṣʻab b. ʻUmayr; though,
according to another account he was sent by the Prophet upon a written
requisition from Yat͟ hrib. This young man had been one of the earliest
converts, and had lately returned from Abyssinia; thus he had had much
experience, and severe training in the school of persecution had not only
sobered his zeal but taught him how to meet persecution and deal with those
who were ready to condemn Islam without waiting to learn the true contents
of its teaching; accordingly Muḥammad could with the greatest confidence
entrust him with the difficult task of directing and instructing the new
converts, cherishing the seeds of religious zeal and devotion that had
already been sown and bringing them to fruition. Muṣʻab took up his abode
in the house of Asʻad b. Zurārah, and gathered the converts together for
prayer and the reading of the Qurʼān, sometimes [23]here and sometimes in

a house belonging to the Banū Ẓafar, which was situated in a quarter of the
town occupied jointly by this family and that of ʻAbd al-Ashhal.

The heads of the latter family at that time were Saʻd b. Muʻād͟ h and Usayd
b. Ḥuḍayr. One day it happened that Muṣʻab was sitting together with Asʻad
in this house of the Banū Ẓafar, engaged in instructing some new converts,
when Saʻd b. Muʻād͟ h, having come to know of their whereabouts, said to
Usayd b. Ḥuḍayr: “Drive out these fellows who have come into our houses
to make fools of the weaklings among us; I would spare thee the trouble did
not the tie of kinship between me and Asʻad prevent my doing him any
harm” (for he himself was the cousin of Asʻad). Hereupon Usayd took his
spear and, bursting in upon Asʻad and Muṣʻab, “What are you doing?” he
cried, “leading weak-minded folk astray? If you value your lives, begone
hence.” “Sit down and listen,” Muṣʻab answered quietly, “if thou art
pleased with what thou hearest, accept it; if not, then leave it.” Usayd stuck
his spear in the ground and sat down to listen, while Muṣʻab expounded to
him the fundamental doctrines of Islam and read several passages of the
Qurʼān. After a time Usayd, enraptured, cried, “What must I do to enter this
religion?” “Purify thyself with water,” answered Muṣʻab, “and confess that
there is no god but God and that Muḥammad is the apostle of God.” Usayd
at once complied and repeated the profession of faith, adding, “After me
you have still another man to convince” (referring to Saʻd b. Muʻād͟ h). “If
he is persuaded, his example will bring after him all his people. I will send
him to you forthwith.”

With these words he left them, and soon after came Saʻd b. Muʻād͟ h himself,
hot with anger against Asʻad for the patronage he had extended to the
missionaries of Islam. Muṣʻab begged him not to condemn the new faith
unheard, so Saʻd agreed to listen and soon the words of Muṣʻab touched
him and brought conviction to his heart, and he embraced the faith and
became a Muslim. He went back to his people burning with zeal and said to
them, “Sons of ʻAbd al-Ashhal, say, what am I to you?” “Thou art our
lord,” they answered, “thou art the wisest and most illustrious [24]among

us.” “Then I swear,” replied Saʻd, “nevermore to speak to any of you until
you believe in God and Muḥammad, His apostle.” And from that day, all
the descendants of ʻAbd al-Ashhal embraced Islam. 8

With such zeal and earnestness was the preaching of the faith pushed
forward that within a year there was not a family among the Arabs of
Medina that had not given some of its members to swell the number of the
faithful, with the exception of one branch of the Banū Aws, which held
aloof under the influence of Abū Qays b. al-Aslat, the poet.

The following year, when the time of the annual pilgrimage again came
round, a band of converts, amounting to seventy-three in number,
accompanied their heathen fellow-countrymen from Yat͟ hrib to Mecca. They
were commissioned to invite Muḥammad to take refuge in Yat͟ hrib from the
fury of his enemies, and had come to swear allegiance to him as their
prophet and their leader. All the early converts who had before met the
Prophet on the two preceding pilgrimages, returned to Mecca on this
important occasion, and Muṣʻab their teacher accompanied them.
Immediately on his arrival he hurried to the prophet, and told him of the
success that had attended his mission. It is said that his mother, hearing of
his arrival, sent a message to him, saying: “Ah, disobedient son, wilt thou
enter a city in which thy mother dwelleth, and not first visit her!” “Nay,
verily,” he replied, “I will never visit the house of any one before the
Prophet of God.” So, after he had greeted and conferred with Muḥammad,
he went to his mother, who thus accosted him: “Then I ween thou art still a
renegade.” He answered, “I follow the prophet of the Lord and the true faith
of Islam.” “Art thou then well satisfied with the miserable way thou hast
fared in the land of Abyssinia and now again at Yat͟ hrib?” Now he perceived
that she was meditating his imprisonment, and exclaimed, “What! wilt thou
force a man from his religion? If ye seek to confine me, I will assuredly
slay the first person that layeth hands upon me.” His mother said, “Then
depart from my presence,” and she began to [25]weep. Muṣʻab was moved,
and said, “Oh, my mother! I give thee loving counsel. Testify that there is

no God but the Lord and that Muḥammad is His servant and messenger.”
But she replied, “By the sparkling stars! I will never make a fool of myself
by entering into thy religion. I wash my hands of thee and thy concerns, and
cleave steadfastly unto mine own faith.”

In order not to excite suspicion and incur the hostility of the Quraysh, a
secret meeting was arranged at ʻAqabah, the scene of the former meeting
with the converts of the year before. Muḥammad came accompanied only
by his uncle ʻAbbās, who, though he was still an idolater, had been admitted
into the secret. ʻAbbās opened the solemn conclave, by recommending his
nephew as a scion of one of the noblest families of his clan, which had
hitherto afforded the Prophet protection, although rejecting his teachings;
but now that he wished to take refuge among the people of Yat͟ hrib, they
should bethink themselves well before undertaking such a charge, and
resolve not to go back from their promise, if once they undertook the risk.
Then Barā b. Maʻrūr, one of the Banū K͟ hazraj, protesting that they were
firm in their resolve to protect the Prophet of God, besought him to declare
fully what he wished of them.

Muḥammad began by reciting to them some portions of the Qurʼān, and
exhorted them to be true to the faith they had professed in the one God and
the Prophet, His apostle; he then asked them to defend him and his
companions from all assailants just as they would their own wives and
children. Then Barā b. Maʻrūr, taking his hand, cried out, “Yea, by Him
who sent thee as His Prophet, and through thee revealed unto us His truth,
we will protect thee as we would our own bodies, and we swear allegiance
to thee as our leader. We are the sons of battle and men of mail, which we
have inherited as worthy sons of worthy forefathers.” So they all in turn,
taking his hand in theirs, swore allegiance to him.

As soon as the Quraysh gained intelligence of these secret proceedings, the
persecution broke out afresh against the Muslims, and Muḥammad advised
them to flee out of the [26]city. “Depart unto Yat͟ hrib; for the Lord hath

verily given you brethren in that city, and a home in which ye may find
refuge.” So quietly, by twos and threes they escaped to Yat͟ hrib, where they
were heartily welcomed, their co-religionists in that city vying with one
another for the honour of entertaining them, and supplying them with such
things as they had need of. Within two months nearly all the Muslims
except those who were seized and imprisoned and those who could not
escape from captivity had left Mecca, to the number of about 150. There is
a story told of one of these Muslims, by name Ṣuhayb, whom Muḥammad
called “the first-fruits of Greece” (he had been a Greek slave, and being set
free by his master had amassed considerable wealth by successful trading);
when he was about to emigrate the Meccans said to him, “Thou camest
hither in need and penury; but thy wealth hath increased with us, until thou
hast reached thy present prosperity; and now thou art departing, not thyself
only, but with all thy property. By the Lord, that shall not be;” and he said,
“If I relinquish my property, will ye leave me free to depart?” And they
agreed thereto; so he parted with all his goods. And when that was told unto
Muḥammad, he said, “Verily, Ṣuhayb hath made a profitable bargain.”

Muḥammad delayed his own departure (with the intention, no doubt, of
withdrawing attention from his faithful followers) until a determined plot
against his life warned him that further delay might be fatal, and he made
his escape by means of a stratagem.

His first care after his arrival in Yat͟ hrib, or Medina as it was called from
this period—Madīnah al-Nabī, the city of the Prophet—was to build a
mosque, to serve both as a place of prayer and of general assembly for his
followers, who had hitherto met for that purpose in the dwelling-place of
one of their number. The worshippers at first used to turn their faces in the
direction of Jerusalem—an arrangement most probably adopted with the
hope of gaining over the Jews. In many other ways, by constant appeals to
their own sacred Scriptures, by according them perfect freedom of worship
and political equality, Muḥammad [27]endeavoured to conciliate the Jews,
but they met his advances with scorn and derision. When all hopes of

amalgamation proved fruitless and it became clear that the Jews would not
accept him as their Prophet, Muḥammad bade his followers turn their faces
in prayer towards the Kaʻbah in Mecca. (ii. 144.) 9

This change of direction during prayer has a deeper significance than might
at first sight appear. It was really the beginning of the National Life of
Islam: it established the Kaʻbah at Mecca as a religious centre for all the
Muslim people, just as from time immemorial it had been a place of
pilgrimage for all the tribes of Arabia. Of similar importance was the
incorporation of the ancient Arab custom of pilgrimage to Mecca into the
circle of the religious ordinances of Islam, a duty that was to be performed
by every Muslim at least once in his lifetime.

There are many passages in the Qurʼān that appeal to this germ of national
feeling and urge the people of Arabia to realise the privilege that had been
granted them of a divine revelation in their own language and by the lips of
one of their own countrymen.

“Verily We have made it an Arabic Qurʼān that ye may haply understand. (xliii. 2–3.)

“And thus We have revealed to thee an Arabic Qurʼān, that thou mayest warn the mother of
cities and those around it. (xlii. 5.)

“And if We had made it a Qurʼān in a foreign tongue, they had surely said, ‘Unless its
verses be clearly explained (we will not receive it).’ (xli. 44.)

“And verily We have set before men in this Qurʼān every kind of parable that haply they be
monished:

“An Arabic Qurʼān, free from tortuous (wording), that haply they may fear (God). (xxxix.
28–29.)

“Verily from the Lord of all creatures hath this (book) come down, … in the clear Arabic
tongue. (xxvi. 192, 195.)

“And We have only made it (i.e. the Qurʼān) easy, in [28]thine own tongue, in order that
thou mayest announce glad tidings thereby to the God-fearing, and that thou mayest warn
the contentious thereby.” (xix. 97.)

But the message of Islam was not for Arabia only; the whole world was to
share in it. 10 As there was but one God, so there was to be but one religion
into which all men were to be invited. This claim to be universal, to hold
sway over all men and all nations, found a practical illustration in the letters
which Muḥammad is said to have sent in the year a.d. 688 (a.h. 6) to the
great potentates of that time. An invitation to embrace Islam was sent in this
year to the Emperor Heraclius, the king of Persia, the governor of Yaman,
the governor of Egypt and the king of Abyssinia. The letter to Heraclius is
said to have been as follows:—“In the name of God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate, Muḥammad, who is the servant of God and His apostle, to
Hiraql the Qayṣar of Rūm. Peace be on whoever has gone on the straight
road. After this I say, Verily I call you to Islam. Embrace Islam, and God
will reward you twofold. If you turn away from the offer of Islam, then on
you be the sins of your people. O people of the Book, come towards a creed
which is fit both for us and for you. It is this—to worship none but God,
and not to associate anything with God, and not to call others God.
Therefore, O ye people of the Book, if ye refuse, beware. We are Muslims
and our religion is Islam.” However absurd this summons may have seemed
to those who then received it, succeeding years showed that it was dictated
by no empty enthusiasm. 11 These letters only gave a more open and
widespread expression to the claim to the universal acceptance which is
repeatedly made for Islam in the Qurʼān. [29]

“Of a truth it (i.e. the Qurʼān) is no other than an admonition to all created beings, and after
a time shall ye surely know its message. (xxxviii. 87–88.)

“This (book) is no other than an admonition and a clear Qurʼān, to warn whoever liveth;
and that against the unbelievers sentence may be justly given. (xxxvi. 69–70.)

“We have not sent thee save as a mercy to all created beings. (xxi. 107.)

“Blessed is He who hath sent down al-Furqān upon His servant, that he may be a warner
unto all created beings. (xxv. 1.)

“And We have not sent thee otherwise than to mankind at large, to announce and to warn.
(xxxiv. 27.)

“He it is who hath sent His apostle with guidance and the religion of truth, that He may
make it victorious over every other religion, though the polytheists are averse to it.” (lxi.
9.)

In the hour of his deepest despair, when the people of Mecca persistently
turned a deaf ear to the words of their prophet (xvi. 23, 114, etc.), when the
converts he had made were tortured until they recanted (xvi. 108), and
others were forced to flee from the country to escape the rage of their
persecutors (xvi. 43, 111)—then was delivered the promise, “One day we
will raise up a witness out of every nation.” (xvi. 86.) 12

This claim upon the acceptance of all mankind which the Prophet makes in
these passages is further prophetically indicated in the words “first-fruits of
Abyssinia,” used by Muḥammad in reference to Bilāl, and “first-fruits of
Greece,” to Ṣuhayb; Salmān, the first Persian convert, was a Christian slave
in Medina, who embraced the new faith in the first [30]year of the Hijrah.
Thus long before any career of conquest was so much as dreamed of, the
Prophet had clearly shown that Islam was not to be confined to the Arab
race. The following account of the sending out of missionaries to preach
Islam to all nations, points to the same claim to be a universal religion:
“The Apostle of God said to his companions, ‘Come to me all of you early
in the morning.’ After the morning prayer he spent some time in praising
and supplicating God, as was his wont; then he turned to them and sent
forth some in one direction and others in another, and said: ‘Be faithful to
God in your dealings with His servants (i.e. with men), for whosoever is
entrusted with any matter that concerns mankind and is not faithful in his
service of them, to him God shuts the gate of Paradise: go forth and be not
like the messengers of Jesus, the son of Mary, for they went only to those
that lived near and neglected those that dwelt in far countries.’ Then each of
these messengers came to speak the language of the people to whom he was
sent. When this was told to the Prophet he said, ‘This is the greatest of the
duties that they owe to God with respect to His servants.’ ” 13

The proof of the universality of Islam, of its claim on the acceptance of all
men, lay in the fact that it was the religion divinely appointed for the whole
human race and was now revealed to them anew through Muḥammad, “the
seal of the prophets” (xxxiii. 40), as it had been to former generations by
other prophets.

“Men were of one religion only: then they disagreed one with another and had not a decree
(of respite) previously gone forth from thy Lord, judgment would surely have been given
between them in the matter wherein they disagree. (x. 20.)

“I am no apostle of new doctrines. (xlvi. 8.)

“Mankind was but one people: then God raised up prophets to announce glad tidings and to
warn: and He sent down with them the Book with the Truth, that it might decide the
disputes of men: and none disagreed save those to whom the book had been [31]given,
after the clear tokens had reached them, through mutual jealousy. And God guided those
who believed into the truth concerning which they had disagreed, by His will; and God
guideth whom He pleaseth into the straight path. (ii. 209.)

“And We revealed to thee, ‘follow the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith, for he was
not of those who join gods with God.’ (xvi. 124.)

“Say: As for me, my Lord hath guided me into a straight path: a true faith, the religion of
Abraham, the sound in faith; for he was not of those who join gods with God. (vi. 162.)

“Say: Nay, the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith and not one of those who join gods
with God (is our religion). (ii. 129.)

“Say: God speaketh truth. Follow therefore the religion of Abraham, he being a Ḥanīf and
not one of those who join other gods with God.

“Verily the first temple that was set up for men was that which is in Bakka, blessed and a
guidance for all created beings. (iii. 89, 90.)

“And who hath a better religion than he who resigneth himself to God, who doth what is
good and followeth the faith of Abraham, the sound in faith? (iv. 124.)

“He hath elected you, and hath not laid on you any hardship in religion, the faith of your
father Abraham. He hath named you the Muslims.” (xx. 77.)

But to return to Muḥammad in Medina. In order properly to appreciate his
position after the Flight, it is important to remember the peculiar character
of Arab society at that time, as far at least as this part of the peninsula was

concerned. There was an entire absence of any organised administrative or
judicial system such as in modern times we connect with the idea of a
government. Each tribe or clan formed a separate and absolutely
independent body, and this independence extended itself also to the
individual members of the tribe, each of whom recognised the authority, or
leadership of his chief only as being the exponent of a public opinion which
he himself happened to share; but [32]he was quite at liberty to refuse his
conformity to the (even) unanimous resolve of his fellow clansmen. Further,
there was no regular transmission of the office of chieftain; but he was
generally chosen as being the oldest member of the richest and most
powerful family of the clan, and as being personally most qualified to
command respect. If such a tribe became too numerous, it would split up
into several divisions, each of which continued to enjoy a separate and
independent existence, uniting only on some extraordinary occasion for
common self-defence or some more than usually important warlike
expedition. We can thus understand how Muḥammad could establish
himself in Medina at the head of a large and increasing body of adherents
who looked up to him as their head and leader and acknowledged no other
authority,—without exciting any feeling of insecurity, or any fear of
encroachment on recognised authority, such as would have arisen in a city
of ancient Greece or any similarly organised community. Muḥammad thus
exercised temporal authority over his people just as any other independent
chief might have done, the only difference being that in the case of the
Muslims a religious bond took the place of family and blood ties.

Islam thus became what, in theory at least, it has always remained—a
political as well as a religious system.

“It was Muḥammad’s desire to found a new religion, and in this he
succeeded; but at the same time he founded a political system of an entirely
new and peculiar character. At first his only wish was to convert his fellow-
countrymen to the belief in the One God—Allāh; but along with this he
brought about the overthrow of the old system of government in his native

city, and in place of the tribal aristocracy under which the conduct of public
affairs was shared in common by the ruling families, he substituted an
absolute theocratic monarchy, with himself at the head as vicar of God upon
earth.

“Even before his death almost all Arabia had submitted to him; Arabia that
had never before obeyed one prince, suddenly exhibits a political unity and
swears allegiance to the will of an absolute ruler. Out of the numerous
tribes, big and small, of a hundred different kinds that [33]were incessantly
at feud with one another, Muḥammad’s word created a nation. The idea of a
common religion under one common head bound the different tribes
together into one political organism which developed its peculiar
characteristics with surprising rapidity. Now only one great idea could have
produced this result, viz. the principle of national life in heathen Arabia.
The clan-system was thus for the first time, if not entirely crushed—(that
would have been impossible)—yet made subordinate to the feeling of
religious unity. The great work succeeded, and when Muḥammad died there
prevailed over by far the greater part of Arabia a peace of God such as the
Arab tribes, with their love of plunder and revenge, had never known; it
was the religion of Islam that had brought about this reconciliation.” 14

Even in the case of death, the claims of relationship were set aside and the
bond-brother inherited all the property of his deceased companion. But after
the battle of Badr, when such an artificial bond was no longer needed to
unite his followers, it was abolished; such an arrangement was only
necessary so long as the number of the Muslims was still small and the
corporate life of Islam a novelty; moreover Muḥammad had lived in
Medina for a very short space of time before the rapid increase in the
number of his adherents made so communistic a social system almost
impracticable.

It was only to be expected that the growth of an independent political body
composed of refugees from Mecca, located in a hostile city, should

eventually lead to an outbreak of hostilities; and, as is well known, every
biography of Muḥammad is largely taken up with the account of a long
series of petty encounters and bloody battles between his followers and the
Quraysh of Mecca, ending in his triumphal entry into that city in a.d. 630,
and of his hostile relations with numerous other tribes, up to the time of his
death, a.d. 633.

To give any account of these campaigns is beyond the scope of the present
work, but it is important to show that Muḥammad, when he found himself
at the head of a band [34]of armed followers, was not transformed at once, as
some would have us believe, from a peaceful preacher into a fanatic, sword
in hand, forcing his religion on whomsoever he could. 15

It has been frequently asserted by European writers that from the date of
Muḥammad’s migration to Medina, and from the altered circumstances of
his life there, the Prophet appears in an entirely new character. He is no
longer the preacher, the warner, the apostle of God to men, whom he would
persuade of the truth of the religion revealed to him, but now he appears
rather as the unscrupulous bigot, using all means at his disposal of force and
statecraft to assert himself and his opinions.

But it is false to suppose that Muḥammad in Medina laid aside his rôle of
preacher and missionary of Islam, or that when he had a large army at his
command, he ceased to invite unbelievers to accept the faith. Ibn Saʻd gives
a number of letters written by the Prophet from Medina to chiefs and other
members of different Arabian tribes, in addition to those addressed to
potentates living beyond the limits of Arabia, inviting them to embrace
Islam; and in the following pages will be found instances of his having sent
missionaries to preach the faith to the unconverted members of their tribes,
whose very ill-success in some cases is a sign of the genuinely missionary
character of their efforts and the absence of an appeal to force. A typical
example of such an unsuccessful mission is that sent to preach Islam to the
Banū ʻĀmir b. Ṣaʻṣaʻah in the year a.h. 4. The chief of this tribe, Abū Barā

ʻĀmir, visited Muḥammad in Medina, listened to his teaching, but declined
to become a convert; he seemed, however, to be favourably disposed
towards the new faith and asked the Prophet to send some of his followers
to Najd to preach to the people of that country. The Prophet sent a party of
forty Muslims, most of them young men of Medina, who were skilled in
reciting the Qurʼān, and had been accustomed to meet together at night for
study and prayer. But in [35]spite of the safe conduct given them by Abū
Barā ʻĀmir, they were treacherously murdered and three only of the party
escaped with their lives. 16

The successes of the Muslim arms, however, attracted every day members
of various tribes, particularly those in the vicinity of Medina, to swell the
ranks of the followers of the Prophet; and “the courteous treatment which
the deputations of these various clans experienced from the Prophet, his
ready attention to their grievances, the wisdom with which he composed
their disputes, and the politic assignments of territory by which he rewarded
an early declaration in favour of Islam, made his name to be popular and
spread his fame as a great and generous prince throughout the Peninsula.” 17

It not unfrequently happened that one member of a tribe would come to the
Prophet in Medina and return home as a missionary of Islam to convert his
brethren; we have the following account of such a conversion in the year 5
(a.h.).

The Banū Saʻd b. Bakr sent one of their number, by name Ḍimām b.
T͟ haʻlabah as their envoy to the Prophet. He came and made his camel kneel
down at the gate of the mosque and tied up its fore-leg. Then he went into
the mosque, where the Prophet was sitting with his companions. He went
up close to them and said, “Which among you is the son of ʻAbd al-
Muṭṭalib?” “I am,” replied the Prophet. “Art thou Muḥammad?” “Yes,” was
the answer. “Then, if thou wilt not take it amiss, I would fain ask thee some
weighty questions.” “Nay, ask what thou wilt,” answered the Prophet. “I
adjure thee by Allāh, thy God and the God of those who were before thee

and of those who are to come after thee, hath Allāh sent thee as a prophet
unto us?” Muḥammad answered, “Yea, by Allāh.” He continued, “I adjure
thee by Allāh, thy God and the God of those who were before thee and of
those who are to come after thee, hath He commanded thee to [36]bid us
worship Him alone, and to associate naught else with Him and to abandon
these idols that our fathers worshipped?” Muḥammad answered, “Yea, by
Allāh.” Then he questioned the Prophet concerning all the ordinances of
Islam, one after another, prayer and fasting, pilgrimage, etc., solemnly
adjuring him as before. At the end he said, “Then I bear witness that there is
no God save Allāh and I bear witness that Muḥammad is the Prophet of
Allāh, and I will observe these ordinances and shun what thou hast
forbidden, adding nothing thereto, and taking nothing away.” Then he
turned away and loosened his camel and returned unto his own people, and
when he had gathered them together, the first words he spoke unto them
were: “Vile things are Lāt and ʻUzzā.” They cried out, “Hold! Ḍimām, take
heed of leprosy or madness!” “Fie on you!” he replied. “By Allāh! they can
neither work you weal nor woe, for Allāh has sent a Prophet and revealed to
him a book, whereby he delivers you from your evil plight; I bear witness
that there is no God save Allāh alone and that Muḥammad is His servant
and His Prophet; and I have brought you tidings of what he enjoins and
what he forbids.” The story goes on that ere nightfall there was not a man or
woman in the camp who had not accepted Islam. 18

Another such missionary was ʻAmr b. Murrah, belonging to the tribe of the
Banū Juhaynah, who dwelt between Medina and the Red Sea. The date of
his conversion was prior to the Flight, in the same year (a.h. 5), and he thus
describes it: “We had an idol that we worshipped, and I was the guardian of
its shrine. When I heard of the Prophet, I broke it in pieces and set off to
Muḥammad, where I accepted Islam and bore witness to the truth, and
believed on what Muḥammad declared to be allowed and forbidden. And to
this my verses refer: ‘I bear witness that God is Truth and that I am the first
to abandon the gods of stones, and I have girded up my loins to make my
way to you over rough ways and smooth, to join myself to him who in

himself and for his ancestry is the noblest of men, the apostle of [37]the Lord
whose throne is above the clouds.’ ” He was sent by Muḥammad to preach
Islam to his tribe, and his efforts were crowned with such success that there
was only one man who refused to listen to his exhortations. 19

When the truce of Ḥudaybiyyah (a.h. 6) made friendly relations with the
people of Mecca possible, many persons of that city, who had had the
opportunity of listening to the teaching of Muḥammad in the early days of
his mission, and among them some men of great influence, came out to
Medina, to embrace the faith of Islam.

The continual warfare carried on with the people of Mecca had hitherto
kept the tribes to the south of that city almost entirely outside the influence
of the new religion. But this truce now made communications with southern
Arabia possible, and a small band from the tribe of the Banū Daws came
from the mountains that form the northern boundary of Yaman, and joined
themselves to the Prophet in Medina. Even before the appearance of
Muḥammad, there were some members of this tribe who had had
glimmerings of a higher religion than the idolatry prevailing around them,
and argued that the world must have had a creator, though they knew not
who he was; and when Muḥammad came forward as the apostle of this
creator, one of these men, by name Ṭufayl b. ʻAmr, came to Mecca to learn
who the creator was.

Though warned by the Quraysh of the dangerous influence that Muḥammad
might exercise over him if he entered into conversation with him, he
followed the Prophet to his house one day, after watching him at prayer by
the Kaʻbah. Muḥammad expounded to him the doctrines of Islam, and
Ṭufayl left Mecca full of zeal for the new faith. On his return home he
succeeded in converting his father and his wife, but found his fellow-
tribesmen unwilling to abandon their old idolatrous worship. Disheartened
at the ill-success of his mission, he returned to the Prophet and besought
him to call down the curse of God on the Banū Daws; but Muḥammad

encouraged him to persevere in his efforts, saying, “Return to thy people
and summon them to the faith, but deal gently with them.” At the [38]same
time he prayed, “Oh God! guide the Banū Daws in the right way.” The
success of Ṭufayl’s propaganda was such that in the year a.h. 7 he came to
Medina with between seventy and eighty families of his tribesmen who had
been won over to the faith of Islam, and after the triumphal entry of
Muḥammad into Mecca, Ṭufayl set fire to the block of wood that had
hitherto been venerated as the idol of the tribe. 20

In a.h. 7, fifteen more tribes submitted to the Prophet, and after the
surrender of Mecca in a.h. 8, the ascendancy of Islam was assured, and
those Arabs who had held aloof, saying, “Let Muḥammad and his fellow-
tribesmen fight it out; if he is victorious, then is he a genuine prophet,” 21
now hastened to give in their allegiance to the new religion. Among those
who came in after the fall of Mecca were some of the most bitter
persecutors of Muḥammad in the earlier days of his mission, to whom his
noble forbearance and forgiveness now gave a place in the brotherhood of
Islam. The following year witnessed the martyrdom of ʻUrwah b. Masʻūd,
one of the chiefs of the people of Ṭāʼif, which city the Muslims had
unsuccessfully attempted to capture. He had been absent at that time in
Yaman, and returned from his journey shortly after the raising of the siege.
He had met the Prophet two years before at Ḥudaybiyyah, and had
conceived a profound veneration for him, and now came to Medina to
embrace the new faith. In the ardour of his zeal he offered to go to Ṭāʼif to
convert his fellow-countrymen, and in spite of the efforts of Muḥammad to
dissuade him from so dangerous an undertaking, he returned to his native
city, publicly declared that he had renounced idolatry, and called upon the
people to follow his example. While he was preaching, he was mortally
wounded by an arrow, and died giving thanks to God for having granted
him the glory of martyrdom. A more successful missionary effort was made
by another follower of the Prophet in Yaman—probably a year later—of
which we have the following graphic account: “The apostle of God wrote to
al-Ḥārit͟ h and Masrūḥ, and Nuʻaym b. ʻAbd al-Kulāl of Ḥimyar: ‘Peace be

upon you so long as [39]ye believe on God and His apostle. God is one God,
there is no partner with Him. He sent Moses with his signs, and created
Jesus with his words. The Jews say, “Ezra is the Son of God,” and the
Christians say, “God is one of three, and Jesus is the Son of God.” ’ He sent
the letter by ʻAyyāsh b. Abī Rabīʻah al-Mak͟ hzūmī, and said: ‘When you
reach their city, go not in by night, but wait until the morning; then
carefully perform your ablutions, and pray with two prostrations, and ask
God to bless you with success and a friendly reception, and to keep you safe
from harm. Then take my letter in your right hand, and deliver it with your
right hand into their right hands, and they will receive it. And recite to them,
“The unbelievers among the people of the Book and the polytheists did not
waver,” etc. (Sūrah 98), to the end of the Sūrah; when you have finished,
say, “Muḥammad has believed, and I am the first to believe.” And you will
be able to meet every objection they bring against you, and every glittering
book that they recite to you will lose its light. And when they speak in a
foreign tongue, say, “Translate it,” and say to them, “God is sufficient for
me; I believe in the Book sent down by Him, and I am commanded to do
justice among you; God is our Lord and your Lord; to us belong our works,
and to you belong your works; there is no strife between us and you; God
will unite us, and unto Him we must return.” If they now accept Islam, then
ask them for their three rods, before which they gather together to pray, one
rod of tamarisk that is spotted white and yellow, and one knotted like a
cane, and one black like ebony. Bring the rods out and burn them in the
market-place.’ So I set out,” tells ʻAyyāsh, “to do as the Apostle of God had
bid me. When I arrived, I found that all the people had decked themselves
out for a festival: I walked on to see them, and came at last to three
enormous curtains hung in front of three doorways. I lifted the curtain and
entered the middle door, and found people collected in the courtyard of the
building. I introduced myself to them as the messenger of the Apostle of
God, and did as he had bidden me; and they gave heed to my words, and it
fell out as he had said.” 22 [40]

In a.h. 9 a deputation of thirteen men from the Banū Kilāb, a branch of the
Banū ʻĀmir b. Ṣaʻṣaʻah, came to the Prophet and informed him that one of
his followers, Ḍaḥḥāk b. Sufyān, had come to them, reciting the Qurʼān and
teaching the doctrines of Islam, and that his preaching had won over their
tribe to the new faith. 23 Another branch of the same tribe, the Banū Ruʼās b.
Kilāb, was converted by one of its members, named ʻAmr b. Mālik, who
had been to Medina and accepted Islam, and then returned to his fellow
tribes and persuaded them to follow his example. 24

In the same year a less successful attempt was made by a new convert,
Wāt͟ hilah b. al-Asqaʻ, to induce his clan to accept the faith that he himself
had embraced after an interview with the Prophet. His father scornfully cast
him off, saying, “By God! I will never speak a word to you again,” and
none were found willing to believe the doctrines he preached with the
exception of his sister, who provided him with the means of returning to the
Prophet at Medina. 25 This ninth year of the Hijrah has been called the year
of the deputations, because of the enormous number of Arab tribes and
cities that now sent delegates to the Prophet, to give in their submission.
The introduction into Arab society of a new principle of social union in the
brotherhood of Islam had already begun to weaken the binding force of the
old tribal ideal, which erected the fabric of society on the basis of blood-
relationship. The conversion of an individual and his reception into the new
society was a breach of one of the most fundamental laws of Arab life, and
its frequent occurrence had acted as a powerful solvent on tribal
organisation and had left it weak in the face of a national life so enthusiastic
and firmly-knit as that of the Muslims had become. The Arab tribes were
thus impelled to give in their submission to the Prophet, not merely as the
head of the strongest military force in Arabia, but as the exponent of a
theory of social life that was making all others weak and ineffective. 26
Muḥammad had succeeded in introducing into the anarchical society of his
time a [41]sentiment of national unity, a consciousness of rights and duties
towards one another such as the Arabs had not felt before. 27 In this way,
Islam was uniting together clans that hitherto had been continually at feud

with one another, and as this great confederacy grew, it more and more
attracted to itself the weaker among the tribes of Arabia. In the accounts of
the conversion of the Arab tribes, there is continual mention of the promise
of security against their enemies, made to them by the Prophet on the
occasion of their submission. “Woe is me for Muḥammad!” was the cry of
one of the Arab tribes on the news of the death of the Prophet. “So long as
he was alive, I lived in peace and in safety from my enemies;” and the cry
must have found an echo far and wide throughout Arabia.

How superficial was the adherence of numbers of the Arab tribes to the
faith of Islam may be judged from the widespread apostasy that followed
immediately on the death of the Prophet. Their acceptance of Islam would
seem to have been often dictated more by considerations of political
expediency, and was more frequently a bargain struck under pressure of
violence than the outcome of any enthusiasm or spiritual awakening. They
allowed themselves to be swept into the stream of what had now become a
great national movement, and we miss the fervent zeal of the early converts
in the cool, calculating attitude of those who came in after the fall of
Mecca. But even from among these must have come many to swell the
ranks of the true believers animated with a genuine zeal for the faith, and
ready, as we have seen, to give their lives in the effort to preach it to their
brethren.

“These men were the true moral heirs of the Prophet, the future apostles of
Islam, the faithful trustees of all that Muḥammad had revealed unto the men
of God. Into these men, through their constant contact with the Prophet and
their devotion to him, there had really entered a new mode of thought and
feeling, loftier and more civilised than any they had known before; they had
really changed for the better from every point of view, and later on as
statesmen and generals, in the most difficult moments of the war of
[42]conquest they gave magnificent and undeniable proof that the ideas and
the doctrines of Muḥammad had been seed cast on fruitful soil, and had
produced a body of men of the very highest worth. They were the

depositaries of the sacred text of the Qurʼān, which they alone knew by
heart; they were the jealous guardians of the memory of every word and
bidding of the Prophet, the trustees of the moral heritage of Muḥammad.
These men formed the venerable stock of Islam from whom one day was to
spring the noble band of the first jurists, theologians and traditionists of
Muslim society.” 28

But for such men as these, so vast a movement could not have held
together, much less have recovered the shock given it by the death of the
founder. For it must not be forgotten how distinctly Islam was a new
movement in heathen Arabia, and how diametrically opposed were the
ideals of the two societies. 29 For the introduction of Islam into Arab society
did not imply merely the sweeping away of a few barbarous and inhuman
practices, but a complete reversal of the pre-existing ideals of life.

Herein we have the most conclusive proof of the essentially missionary
character of the teaching of Muḥammad, who thus comes forward as the
exponent of a new scheme of faith and practice. Whatever may have been
the conditions favourable to the formation of a new political organisation,
Muḥammad certainly did not find the society of his day prepared to receive
his religious teaching and waiting only for the voice that would express in
speech the inarticulate yearnings of their hearts. But it is just this spirit of
expectancy that is wanting among the Arabs—those at least of the Central
Arabia towards whom Muḥammad’s efforts were at first directed. They
were by no means ready to receive the preaching of a new teacher, least of
all one who came with the (to them unintelligible) title of apostle of God.

Again, the equality in Islam of all believers and the common brotherhood of
all Muslims, which suffered no [43]distinctions between Arab and non-Arab,
between free and slave, to exist among the faithful, was an idea that ran
directly counter to the proud clan-feeling of the Arab, who grounded his
claims to personal consideration on the fame of his ancestors, and in the
strength of the same carried on the endless blood-feuds in which his soul

delighted. Indeed, the fundamental principles in the teaching of Muḥammad
were a protest against much that the Arabs had hitherto most highly valued,
and the newly-converted Muslim was taught to consider as virtues, qualities
which hitherto he had looked down upon with contempt.

To the heathen Arab, friendship and hostility were as a loan which he
sought to repay with interest, and he prided himself on returning evil for
evil, and looked down on any who acted otherwise as a weak nidering.

He is the perfect man who late and early plotteth still
To do a kindness to his friends and work his foes some ill.

To such men the Prophet said, “Recompense evil with that which is better”
(xxiii. 98); as they desired the forgiveness of God, they were to pass over
and pardon offences (xxiv. 22), and a Paradise, vast as the heavens and the
earth, was prepared for those who mastered their anger and forgave others.
(iii. 128.)

The very institution of prayer was jeered at by the Arabs to whom
Muḥammad first delivered his message, and one of the hardest parts of his
task was to induce in them that pious attitude of mind towards the Creator,
which Islam inculcates equally with Judaism and Christianity, but which
was practically unknown to the heathen Arabs. This self-sufficiency and
this lack of the religious spirit, joined with their intense pride of race, little
fitted them to receive the teachings of one who maintained that “The most
worthy of honour in the sight of God is he that feareth Him most” (xlix. 13).
No more could they brook the restrictions that Islam sought to lay upon the
licence of their lives; wine, women, and song, were among the things most
dear to the Arab’s heart in the days of the ignorance, and the Prophet was
stern and severe in his injunctions respecting each of them. [44]

Thus, from the very beginning, Islam bears the stamp of a missionary
religion that seeks to win the hearts of men, to convert them and persuade
them to enter the brotherhood of the faithful; and as it was in the beginning,

so has it continued to be up to the present day, as will be the object of the
following pages to show. [45]

Ibn Isḥāq, p. 120. ↑
1
Id. p. 155. ↑
2
He is famous throughout the Muhammadan world as the first muʼad͟ hd͟ hin. ↑
3
Ibn Isḥāq, p. 219–220. Ṭabarī makes no mention of this mission and Caetani (i. p. 278)
4
accordingly suggests that it is a later invention. ↑
Ibn Isḥāq, pp. 225–6. ↑
5
Ibn Isḥāq, pp. 286–7. ↑
6
Caetani, vol. i. pp. 334–5. ↑
7
Ibn Isḥāq, p. 291 sq. ↑
8
The appointment of the fast of Ramaḍān (Qurʼān ii. 179–84), is doubtless another
9
sign of the breaking with the Jews, the fast on the Day of Atonement being thus
abolished. ↑
“Aber Gottes Botschaft ist nicht auf die Araber beschränkt. Sein Wille gilt für alle Creatur, es
10
heischt unbedingten Gehorsam von aller Menschheit, und dass Muhammed als sein Bote
denselben Gehorsam zu heischen berechtigt und verpflichtet sei, scheint von Anfang an ein
integrirender Bestandtheil seines Gedankensystem gewesen zu sein.” (Sachau, pp. 293–4.) Goldziher
(Vorlesungen über den Islam, p. 25 sqq.) and Nöldeke (WZKM, vol. xxi. pp. 307–8) express a similar
opinion. ↑
On the doubtful authenticity of these letters, see Caetani, vol. i. p. 725 sqq. ↑
11
It seems strange that in the face of these passages, some have denied that Islam was originally
12
intended by its founder to be a universal religion. Thus Sir William Muir says, “That the
heritage of Islam is the world, was an afterthought. The idea, spite of much prophetic tradition, had
been conceived but dimly, if at all, by Mahomet himself. His world was Arabia, and for it the new
dispensation was ordained. From first to last the summons was to Arabs and to none other.… The
seed of a universal creed had indeed been sown; but that it ever germinated was due to circumstance
rather than design.” (The Caliphate, pp. 43–4.) Caetani is the latest exponent of this view. (Annali
dell’Islām, vol. v. pp. 323–4.) ↑
Ibn Saʻd, § 10. This story may indeed be apocryphal, but is significant at least of the early
13
realisation of the missionary character of Islam. ↑
A. von Kremer (3), pp. 309, 310. ↑
14
This would seem to be acknowledged even by Muir, when speaking of the massacre of the
15
Banū Qurayẓah (a.h. 6): “The ostensible grounds upon which Mahomet proceeded were purely
political, for as yet he did not profess to force men to join Islam, or to punish them for not embracing
it.” (Muir (2), vol. iii. p. 282.) ↑

Ibn Isḥāq, p. 648 sq. ↑
16
Muir (2), vol. iv. pp. 107–8. See also Caetani, vol. i. p. 663. “Assai più che tutte le prediche del
17
Profeta, assai più che tutta la bontà delle dottrine islamiche, siffatti vantaggi militari
contribuirono al aumentare il numero dei seguaci. La rapidità della diffusione dell’Islām divenne in
special modo sensibile per il contegno et per lo spirito di tolleranza, di libertà, e di opportunismo, che
diresse il Profeta nei suoi rapporti con i convertiti.” ↑
Ibn Isḥāq, p. 943–4. (This story rests on somewhat doubtful authority, cf. Caetani, vol. i. p. 610.) ↑
18
Ibn Saʻd, § 118. ↑
19
Ibn Isḥāq, pp. 252–4. ↑
20
Caetani, vol. ii. t. i. p. 341. ↑
21
Ibn Saʻd, § 56. ↑
22
Ibn Saʻd, § 85. ↑
23
Id. § 86. ↑
24
Id. § 91. ↑
25
See Sprenger, vol. iii. pp. 360–1. ↑
26
Caetani, vol. ii. p. 433. ↑
27
Caetani, vol. ii. p. 429. ↑
28
This has been nowhere more fully and excellently brought out
29
than in the scholarly work of Prof. Ignaz Goldziher
(Muhammedanische Studien, vol. i.), from which I have derived the following considerations. ↑

[Contents]

CHAPTER III.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE
CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF WESTERN ASIA.
After the death of Muḥammad, the army he had intended for Syria was
despatched thither by Abū Bakr, in spite of the protestations made by
certain Muslims in view of the then disturbed state of Arabia. He silenced
their expostulations with the words: “I will not revoke any order given by
the Prophet. Medina may become the prey of wild beasts, but the army must
carry out the wishes of Muḥammad.” This was the first of that wonderful
series of campaigns in which the Arabs overran Syria, Persia and Northern
Africa—overturning the ancient kingdom of Persia and despoiling the
Roman Empire of some of its fairest provinces. It does not fall within the
scope of this work to follow the history of these different campaigns, but, in
view of the expansion of the Muslim faith that followed the Arab conquests,
it is of importance to discover what were the circumstances that made such
an expansion possible.

A great historian 1 has well put the problem that meets us here, in the
following words: “Was it genuine religious enthusiasm, the new strength of
a faith now for the first time blossoming forth in all its purity, that gave the
victory in every battle to the arms of the Arabs and in so incredibly short a
time founded the greatest empire the world had ever seen? But evidence is
wanting to prove that this was the case. The number was far too small of
those who had given their allegiance to the Prophet and his teaching with a
free and heartfelt conviction, while on the other hand all the greater was the
number of those who had been [46]brought into the ranks of the
Muhammadans only through pressure from without or by the hope of
worldly gain. K͟ hālid, ‘that sword of the swords of God,’ exhibited in a very
striking manner that mixture of force and persuasion whereby he and many
of the Quraysh had been converted, when he said that God had seized them

by the hearts and by the hair and compelled them to follow the Prophet. The
proud feeling too of a common nationality had much influence—a feeling
which was more alive among the Arabs of that time than (perhaps) among
any other people, and which alone determined many thousands to give the
preference to their countryman and his religion before foreign teachers. Still
more powerful was the attraction offered by the sure prospect of gaining
booty in abundance, in fighting for the new religion and of exchanging their
bare, stony deserts, which offered them only a miserable subsistence, for the
fruitful and luxuriant countries of Persia, Syria and Egypt.”

These stupendous conquests which laid the foundations of the Arab empire,
were certainly not the outcome of a holy war, waged for the propagation of
Islam, but they were followed by such a vast defection from the Christian
faith that this result has often been supposed to have been their aim. Thus
the sword came to be looked upon by Christian historians as the instrument
of Muslim propaganda, and in the light of the success attributed to it the
evidences of the genuine missionary activity of Islam were obscured. But
the spirit which animated the invading hosts of Arabs who poured over the
confines of the Byzantine and Persian empires, was no proselytising zeal
for the conversion of souls. On the contrary, religious interests appear to
have entered but little into the consciousness of the protagonists of the Arab
armies. 2 This expansion of the Arab race is more rightly envisaged as the
migration of a vigorous and energetic people driven by hunger and want, to
leave their inhospitable deserts and overrun the richer lands of their more
fortunate neighbours. 3 Still the unifying [47]principle of the movement was
the theocracy established in Medina, and the organisation of the new state
proceeded from the devoted companions of Muḥammad, the faithful
depositaries of his teaching, whose moral weight and enthusiasm kept Islam
alive as the official religion, despite the indifference of those Arabs who
gave to it a mere nominal adherence. 4 It is not, therefore, in the annals of
the conquering armies that we must look for the reasons which lead to the
so rapid spread of the Muslim faith, but rather in the conditions prevailing
among the conquered peoples.

The national character of this ethnic movement of migration naturally
attracted to the invading Arab hosts the outlying representatives of the Arab
race through whom the path of the conquering armies lay. Accordingly it is
not surprising to find that many of the Christian Bedouins were swept into
the rushing tide of this great movement and that Arab tribes, who for
centuries had professed the Christian religion, now abandoned it to embrace
the Muslim faith. Among these was the tribe of the Banū G͟ hassān, who held
sway over the desert east of Palestine and southern Syria, of whom it was
said that they were “Lords in the days of the ignorance and stars in Islam.” 5
After the battle of Qādisiyyah (a.h. 14) in which the Persian army under
Rustam had been utterly discomfited, many Christians belonging to the
Bedouin tribes on both sides of the Euphrates came to the Muslim general
and said: “The tribes that at the first embraced Islam were wiser than we.
Now that Rustam hath been slain, we will accept the new belief.” 6
Similarly, after the conquest of northern Syria, most of the Bedouin tribes,
after hesitating a little, joined themselves to the followers of the Prophet. 7

That force was not the determining factor in these conversions may be
judged from the amicable relations that existed between the Christian and
the Muslim Arabs. Muḥammad himself had entered into treaty with several
[48]Christian tribes, promising them his protection and guaranteeing them
the free exercise of their religion and to their clergy undisturbed enjoyment
of their old rights and authority. 8 A similar bond of friendship united his
followers with their fellow-countrymen of the older faith, many of whom
voluntarily came forward to assist the Muslims in their military expeditions
in the same spirit of loyalty to the new government as had caused them to
hold aloof from the great apostasy that raised the standard of revolt
throughout Arabia immediately after the death of the Prophet. 9 It has been
suggested that the Christian Arabs who guarded the frontier of the
Byzantine empire bordering on the desert threw in their lot with the
invading Muslim army, when Heraclius refused any longer to pay them
their accustomed subsidy for military service as wardens of the marches. 10

In the battle of the Bridge (a.h. 13) when a disastrous defeat was imminent
and the panic-stricken Arabs were hemmed in between the Euphrates and
the Persian host, a Christian chief of the Banū Ṭayy sprang forward like
another Spurius Lartius to the side of an Arab Horatius, to assist Mut͟ hannah
the Muslim general in defending the bridge of boats which could alone
afford the means of an orderly retreat. When fresh levies were raised to
retrieve this disgrace, among the reinforcements that came pouring in from
every direction was a Christian tribe of the Banū Namir, who dwelt within
the limits of the Byzantine empire, and in the ensuing battle of Buwayb
(a.h. 13), just before the final charge of the Arabs that turned the fortune of
battle in their favour, Mut͟ hannah rode up to the Christian chief and said:
“Ye are of one blood with us; come now, and as I charge, charge ye with
me.” The Persians fell back before their furious onslaught, and another
great victory was added to the glorious roll of Muslim triumphs. One of the
most gallant exploits of the day was performed by a youth belonging to
another Christian tribe of the desert, who with his companions, a company
of Bedouin horse-dealers, had come up just as the Arab army was being
[49]drawn up in battle array. They threw themselves into the right on the side
of their compatriots; and while the conflict was raging most fiercely, this
youth, rushing into the centre of the Persians, slew their leader, and leaping
on his richly-caparisoned horse, galloped back amidst the plaudits of the
Muslim line, crying as he passed in triumph: “I am of the Banū Tag͟ hlib. I
am he that hath slain the chief.” 11

The tribe to which this young man boasted that he belonged was one of
those that elected to remain Christian, while other tribes of Mesopotamia,
such as the Banū Namir and the Banū Quḍāʻah, became Muslim. The Banū
Tag͟ hlib had sent an embassy to the Prophet as early as the year a.h. 9. The
heathen members of the deputation embraced Islam and he made a treaty
with the Christians according to which they were to retain their old faith but
were not to baptise their children. A condition so entirely at variance with
the usual tolerant attitude of Muḥammad towards the Christian Arabs, who
were allowed to choose between conversion to Islam and the payment of

jizyah and never compelled to abandon their faith, has given rise to the
conjecture that this condition was suggested by the Christian families of the
Banū Tag͟ hlib themselves, out of motives of economy. 12 The long survival
of Christianity in this tribe shows that this condition was certainly not
observed. The caliph ʻUmar forbade any pressure to be put upon them,
when they showed themselves unwilling to abandon their old faith and
ordered that they should be left undisturbed in the practice of it, but that
they were not to oppose the conversion of any member of their tribe to
Islam nor baptise the children of such as became Muslims. 13 They were
called upon to pay the jizyah 14 or tax imposed on the non-Muslim subjects,
but they felt it to be humiliating to their pride to pay a tax that was levied in
return for [50]protection of life and property, and petitioned the caliph to be
allowed to make the same kind of contribution as the Muslims did. So in
lieu of the jizyah they paid a double Ṣadaqah or alms, 15—which was a poor
tax levied on the fields and cattle, etc., of the Muslims. 16 It especially irked
the Muslims that any of the Arabs should remain true to the Christian faith.
The majority of the Banū Tanūk͟ h had become Muslim in the year a.h. 12,
when with other Christian Arab tribes they submitted to K͟ hālid b. al-
Walīd, 17 but some of them appear to have remained true to their old faith for
nearly a century and a half, since the caliph al-Mahdī (a.h. 158–169) is said
to have seen a number of them who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Aleppo,
and learning that they were Christians, in anger ordered them to accept
Islam—which they did to the number of 5000, and one of them suffered
martyrdom rather than apostatise. 18 But for the most part, details are lacking
for any history of the disappearance of Christianity from among the
Christian Arab tribes of Northern Arabia; they seem to have become
absorbed in the surrounding Muslim community by an almost insensible
process of “peaceful penetration”; had attempts been made to convert them
by force when they first came under Muhammadan rule, it would not have
been possible for Christians to have survived among them up to the times of
the ʻAbbāsid caliphs. 19

The people of Ḥīrah had likewise resisted all the efforts made by K͟ hālid to
induce them to accept the Muslim faith. This city was one of the most
illustrious in the annals of Arabia, and to the mind of the impetuous hero of
Islam it seemed that an appeal to their Arab blood would be enough to
induce them to enrol themselves with the followers of the Prophet of
Arabia. When the besieged citizens sent an embassy to the Muslim general
to arrange the terms of the capitulation of their city, K͟ hālid asked them,
“Who are [51]you? are you Arabs or Persians?” Then ʻAdī, the spokesman of
the deputation, replied, “Nay, we are pure-blooded Arabs, while others
among us are naturalised Arabs.” K͟ h. “Had you been what you say you are,
you would not have opposed us or hated our cause.” ʻA. “Our pure Arab
speech is the proof of what I say.” K͟ h. “You speak truly. Now choose you
one of these three things: either (1) accept our faith, then your rights and
obligations will be the same as ours, whether you choose to go into another
country or stay in your own land; or (2) pay jizyah; or (3) war and battle.
Verily, by God! I have come to you with a people who are more desirous of
death than you are of life.” ʻA. “Nay, we will pay you jizyah.” K͟ h. “Ill-luck
to you! Unbelief is a pathless desert and foolish is the Arab who, when two
guides meet him wandering therein—the one an Arab and the other not—
leaves the first and accepts the guidance of the foreigner.” 20

Due provision was made for the instruction of the new converts, for while
whole tribes were being converted to the faith with such rapidity, it was
necessary to take precautions against errors, both in respect of creed and
ritual, such as might naturally be feared in the case of ill-instructed
converts. Accordingly we find that the caliph ʻUmar appointed teachers in
every country, whose duty it was to instruct the people in the teachings of
the Qurʼān and the observances of their new faith. The magistrates were
also ordered to see that all, whether old or young, were regular in their
attendance at public prayer, especially on Fridays and in the month of
Ramaḍān. The importance attached to this work of instructing the new
converts may be judged from the fact that in the city of Kūfah it was no less
a personage than the state treasurer who was entrusted with this task. 21

From the examples given above of the toleration extended towards the
Christian Arabs by the victorious Muslims of the first century of the Hijrah
and continued by succeeding generations, we may surely infer that those
Christian tribes that did embrace Islam, did so of their own choice and free
[52]will. 22 The Christian Arabs of the present day, dwelling in the midst of a
Muhammadan population, are a living testimony of this toleration; Layard
speaks of having come across an encampment of Christian Arabs at al-
Karak, to the east of the Dead Sea, who differed in no way, either in dress
or in manners, from the Muslim Arabs. 23 Burckhardt was told by the monks
of Mount Sinai that in the last century there still remained several families
of Christian Bedouins who had not embraced Islam, and that the last of
them, an old woman, died in 1750, and was buried in the garden of the
convent. 24

Many of the Arabs of the renowned tribe of the Banū G͟ hassān, Arabs of the
purest blood, who embraced Christianity towards the end of the fourth
century, still retain the Christian faith, and since their submission to the
Church of Rome, about two centuries ago, employ the Arabic language in
their religious services. 25

If we turn from the Bedouins to consider the attitude of the settled
inhabitants of the towns and the non-Arab population towards the new
religion, we do not find that the Arab conquest was so rapidly followed by
conversions to Islam. The Christians of the great cities of the eastern
provinces of the Byzantine empire seem for the most part to have remained
faithful to their ancestral creed, to which indeed they still in large numbers
cling.

In order that we may fully appreciate their condition under the Muslim rule,
and estimate the influences that led to occasional conversions, it will be
well briefly to sketch their situation under the Christian rule of the
Byzantine empire which fell back before the Arab arms.

A hundred years before, Justinian had succeeded in giving some show of
unity to the Roman Empire, but after [53]his death it rapidly fell asunder,
and at this time there was an entire want of common national feeling
between the provinces and the seat of government. Heraclius had made
some partially successful efforts to attach Syria again to the central
government, but unfortunately the general methods of reconciliation which
he adopted had served only to increase dissension instead of allaying it.
Religious passions were the only existing substitute for national feeling, and
he tried, by propounding an exposition of faith, that was intended to serve
as an eirenicon, to stop all further disputes between the contending factions
and unite the heretics to the Orthodox Church and to the central
government. The Council of Chalcedon (451) had maintained that Christ
was “to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, change,
division, or separation; the difference of the natures being in nowise taken
away by reason of their union, but rather the properties of each nature being
preserved, and concurring into one person and one substance, not as it were
divided or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and only
begotten, God the Word.” This council was rejected by the Monophysites,
who only allowed one nature in the person of Christ, who was said to be a
composite person, having all attributes divine and human, but the substance
bearing these attributes was no longer a duality, but a composite unity. The
controversy between the orthodox party and the Monophysites, who
flourished particularly in Egypt and Syria and in countries outside the
Byzantine empire, had been hotly contested for nearly two centuries, when
Heraclius sought to effect a reconciliation by means of the doctrine of
Monotheletism: while conceding the duality of the natures, it secured unity
of the person in the actual life of Christ, by the rejection of two series of
activities in this one person; the one Christ and Son of God effectuates that
which is human and that which is divine by one divine human agency, i.e.
there is only one will in the Incarnate Word. 26

But Heraclius shared the fate of so many would-be [54]peace-makers: for
not only did the controversy blaze up again all the more fiercely, but he

himself was stigmatised as a heretic and drew upon himself the wrath of
both parties.

Indeed, so bitter was the feeling he aroused that there is strong reason to
believe that even a majority of the orthodox subjects of the Roman Empire,
in the provinces that were conquered during this emperor’s reign, were the
well-wishers of the Arabs; they regarded the emperor with aversion as a
heretic, and were afraid that he might commence a persecution in order to
force upon them his Monotheletic opinions. 27 They therefore readily—and
even eagerly—received the new masters who promised them religious
toleration, and were willing to compromise their religious position and their
national independence if only they could free themselves from the
immediately impending danger.

Michael the Elder, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, writing in the latter half of
the twelfth century, could approve the decision of his co-religionists and see
the finger of God in the Arab conquests even after the Eastern churches had
had experience of five centuries of Muhammadan rule. After recounting the
persecutions of Heraclius, he writes: “This is why the God of vengeance,
who alone is all-powerful, and changes the empire of mortals as He will,
giving it to whomsoever He will, and uplifting the humble—beholding the
wickedness of the Romans who, throughout their dominions, cruelly
plundered our churches and our monasteries and condemned us without pity
—brought from the region of the south the sons of Ishmael, to deliver us
through them from the hands of the Romans. And, if in truth, we have
suffered some loss, because the catholic churches, that had been taken away
from us and given to the Chalcedonians, remained in their possession; for
when the cities submitted to the Arabs, they assigned to each denomination
the churches which they found it to be in possession of (and at that time the
great church of Emessa [55]and that of Harran had been taken away from
us); nevertheless it was no slight advantage for us to be delivered from the
cruelty of the Romans, their wickedness, their wrath and cruel zeal against
us, and to find ourselves at peace.” 28

When the Muslim army reached the valley of the Jordan and Abū ʻUbaydah
pitched his camp at Fiḥl, the Christian inhabitants of the country wrote to
the Arabs, saying: “O Muslims, we prefer you to the Byzantines, though
they are of our own faith, because you keep better faith with us and are
more merciful to us and refrain from doing us injustice and your rule over
us is better than theirs, for they have robbed us of our goods and our
homes.” 29 The people of Emessa closed the gates of their city against the
army of Heraclius and told the Muslims that they preferred their
government and justice to the injustice and oppression of the Greeks. 30

Such was the state of feeling in Syria during the campaign of 633–639 in
which the Arabs gradually drove the Roman army out of the province. And
when Damascus, in 637, set the example of making terms with the Arabs,
and thus secured immunity from plunder and other favourable conditions,
the rest of the cities of Syria were not slow to follow. Emessa, Arethusa,
Hieropolis and other towns entered into treaties whereby they became
tributary to the Arabs. Even the patriarch of Jerusalem surrendered the city
on similar terms. The fear of religious compulsion on the part of the
heretical emperor made the promise of Muslim toleration appear more
attractive than the connection with the Roman Empire and a Christian
government, and after the first terrors caused by the passage of an invading
army, there succeeded a profound revulsion of feeling in favour of the Arab
conquerors. 31 [56]

For the provinces of the Byzantine empire that were rapidly acquired by the
prowess of the Muslims found themselves in the enjoyment of a toleration
such as, on account of their Monophysite and Nestorian opinions, had been
unknown to them for many centuries. They were allowed the free and
undisturbed exercise of their religion with some few restrictions imposed
for the sake of preventing any friction between the adherents of the rival
religions, or arousing any fanaticism by the ostentatious exhibition of
religious symbols that were so offensive to Muslim feeling. 32 The extent of
this toleration—so striking in the history of the seventh century—may be

judged from the terms granted to the conquered cities, in which protection
of life and property and toleration of religious belief were given in return
for submission and the payment of jizyah. 33

The exact details of these agreements cannot easily be disentangled from
the accretions with which they have become overlaid, but whether verbally
authentic or not, they are significant as representing the historic tradition
accepted by the Muslim historians of the second century of the Hijrah—a
tradition that could hardly have become established had there been extant
evidence to the contrary. As an example of such an agreement, the
conditions 34 may be quoted that are stated to have been drawn up when
Jerusalem submitted to the caliph ʻUmar b. al-K͟ haṭṭāb: “In the name of
God, the Merciful, the Compassionate! This is the security which ʻUmar,
the servant of God, the commander of the faithful, grants to the people of
Ælia. He grants to all, whether sick or sound, security for their lives, their
possessions, their churches and their crosses, and for all that concerns their
religion. Their churches shall not be changed into dwelling places, nor
destroyed, neither shall they nor their appurtenances be in any way
diminished, nor the crosses of the inhabitants nor aught of their possessions,
nor shall any constraint be put upon them in the matter of their faith, nor
shall any one of them be harmed.” 35 [57]

Tribute was imposed upon them of five dīnārs for the rich, four for the
middle class and three for the poor. In company with the Patriarch, ʻUmar
visited the holy places, and it is said while they were in the Church of the
Resurrection, as it was the appointed hour of prayer, the Patriarch bade the
caliph offer his prayers there, but he thoughtfully refused, saying that if he
were to do so, his followers might afterwards claim it as a place of Muslim
worship.

It is in harmony with the same spirit of kindly consideration for his subjects
of another faith, that ʻUmar is recorded to have ordered an allowance of
money and food to be made to some Christian lepers, apparently out of the

public funds. 36 Even in his last testament, in which he enjoins on his
successor the duties of his high office, he remembers the d͟ himmīs (or
protected persons of other faiths): “I commend to his care the d͟ himmīs, who
enjoy the protection of God and of the Prophet; let him see to it that the
covenant with them is kept, and that no greater burdens than they can bear
are laid upon them.” 37

A later generation attributed to ʻUmar a number of restrictive regulations
which hampered the Christians in the free exercise of their religion, but De
Goeje 38 and Caetani 39 have proved without doubt that they are the invention
of a later age; as, however, Muslim theologians of less tolerant periods
accepted these ordinances as genuine, they are of importance for forming a
judgment as to the condition of the Christian Churches under Muslim rule.
This so-called ordinance of ʻUmar runs as follows:—“In the name of God,
the Merciful, the Compassionate! This is a writing to ʻUmar b. al-K͟ haṭṭāb
from the Christians of such and such a city. When you marched against us,
we asked of you protection for ourselves, our posterity, our possessions and
our co-religionists; and we made this stipulation with you, that we will not
erect in our city or the suburbs any new monastery, church, cell or
hermitage; 40 [58]that we will not repair any of such buildings that may fall
into ruins, or renew those that may be situated in the Muslim quarters of the
town; that we will not refuse the Muslims entry into our churches either by
night or by day; that we will open the gates wide to passengers and
travellers; that we will receive any Muslim traveller into our houses and
give him food and lodging for three nights; that we will not harbour any spy
in our churches or houses, or conceal any enemy of the Muslims; that we
will not teach our children the Qurʼān; 41 that we will not make a show of
the Christian religion nor invite any one to embrace it; that we will not
prevent any of our kinsmen from embracing Islam, if they so desire. That
we will honour the Muslims and rise up in our assemblies when they wish
to take their seats; that we will not imitate them in our dress, either in the
cap, turban, sandals, or parting of the hair; that we will not make use of
their expressions of speech, 42 nor adopt their surnames; that we will not ride

on saddles, or gird on swords, or take to ourselves arms or wear them, or
engrave Arabic inscriptions on our rings; that we will not sell wine; that we
will shave the front of our heads; that we will keep to our own style of
dress, wherever we may be; that we will wear girdles round our waists; that
we will not display the cross upon our churches or display our crosses or
our sacred books in the streets of the Muslims, or in their market-places; 43
that we will strike the bells 44 in our churches lightly; that we will not recite
our services in a loud voice when a Muslim is present, that we will not
carry palm-branches or our images in procession in the streets, that at the
burial of our dead we will not chant loudly or carry lighted candles [59]in the
streets of the Muslims or their market-places; that we will not take any
slaves that have already been in the possession of Muslims, nor spy into
their houses; and that we will not strike any Muslim. All this we promise to
observe, on behalf of ourselves and our co-religionists, and receive
protection from you in exchange; and if we violate any of the conditions of
this agreement, then we forfeit your protection and you are at liberty to treat
us as enemies and rebels.” 45

The earliest mention of this document is made by Ibn Ḥazm, who died in
the middle of the fifth century of the Hijrah; its provisions represent the
more intolerant practice of a later age, and indeed were regulations that
were put into force with no sort of regularity, some outburst of fanaticism
being generally needed for any appeal to be made for their application.
There is abundant evidence to show that the Christians in the early days of
the Muhammadan conquest had little to complain of in the way of religious
disabilities. It is true that adherence to their ancient faith rendered them
obnoxious to the payment of jizyah—a word which originally denoted
tribute of any kind paid by the non-Muslim subjects of the Arab empire, but
came later on to be used for the capitation-tax as the fiscal system of the
new rulers became fixed; 46 but this jizyah was too moderate to constitute a
burden, seeing that it released them from the compulsory military service
that was incumbent on their Muslim fellow-subjects. Conversion to Islam
was certainly attended by a certain pecuniary advantage, but his former

religion could have had but little hold on a convert who abandoned it
merely to gain exemption from the jizyah; and now, instead of jizyah, the
convert had to pay the legal alms, zakāt, annually levied on most kinds of
movable and immovable property. 47 [60]The pecuniary temptation to escape
the incidence of taxation by means of conversion was considerably lessened
when financial considerations compelled the Arab government, towards the
end of the first century, to insist on the new converts continuing to pay
jizyah even after they had been received into the community of the
faithful. 48 On the other hand it must be remembered that the non-Muslim
sections of the population always ran the risk of becoming the victims of
fiscal oppression when the state was in need of revenue.

The rates of jizyah levied by the early conquerors were not uniform, 49 and
the great Muslim doctors, Abū Ḥanīfah and Mālik, are not in agreement on
some of the less important details; 50 the following facts taken from the
Kitāb al-K͟ harāj, drawn up by Abū Yūsuf at the request of Hārūn al-Rashīd
(a.d. 786–809) may be taken as generally representative of Muhammadan
procedure under the ʻAbbāsid Caliphate. The rich were to pay forty-eight
dirhams 51 a year, the middle classes twenty-four, while from the poor, i.e.
the field-labourers and artisans, only twelve dirhams were taken. This tax
could be paid in kind if desired; cattle, merchandise, household effects,
even needles were to be accepted in lieu of specie, but not pigs, wine, or
dead animals. The tax was to be levied only on able-bodied males, and not
on women or children. 52 The poor who were dependent for their livelihood
on alms and the aged poor who were incapable of work were also specially
excepted, as also the blind, the lame, the incurables and the insane, unless
they happened to be men of wealth; this same condition applied to priests
and monks, who were exempt if dependent on the alms of the rich, but had
to pay if they were well-to-do and lived in comfort. The collectors of the
jizyah were particularly instructed to show leniency, and refrain from all
harsh treatment or the infliction of corporal punishment, in case of non-
payment. 53

This tax was not imposed on the Christians, as some would have us think,
as a penalty for their refusal to accept the Muslim faith, but was paid by
them in common with the [61]other d͟ himmīs or non-Muslim subjects of the
state whose religion precluded them from serving in the army, in return for
the protection secured for them by the arms of the Musalmans. When the
people of Hīrah contributed the sum agreed upon, they expressly mentioned
that they paid this jizyah on condition that “the Muslims and their leader
protect us from those who would oppress us, whether they be Muslims or
others.” 54 Again, in the treaty made by K͟ hālid with some towns in the
neighbourhood of Hīrah, he writes: “If we protect you, then jizyah is due to
us; but if we do not, then it is not due.” 55 How clearly this condition was
recognised by the Muhammadans may be judged from the following
incident in the reign of the Caliph ʻUmar. The Emperor Heraclius had raised
an enormous army with which to drive back the invading forces of the
Muslims, who had in consequence to concentrate all their energies on the
impending encounter. The Arab general, Abū ʻUbaydah, accordingly wrote
to the governors of the conquered cities of Syria, ordering them to pay back
all the jizyah that had been collected from the cities, and wrote to the
people, saying, “We give you back the money that we took from you, as we
have received news that a strong force is advancing against us. The
agreement between us was that we should protect you, and as this is not
now in our power, we return you all that we took. But if we are victorious
we shall consider ourselves bound to you by the old terms of our
agreement.” In accordance with this order, enormous sums were paid back
out of the state treasury, and the Christians called down blessings on the
heads of the Muslims, saying, “May God give you rule over us again and
make you victorious over the Romans; had it been they, they would not
have given us back anything, but would have taken all that remained with
us.” 56

As stated above, the jizyah was levied on the able-bodied males, in lieu of
the military service they would have been called upon to perform had they
been Musalmans; and it is very noticeable that when any Christian people

served in the Muslim army, they were exempted from the payment [62]of
this tax. Such was the case with the tribe of al-Jurājimah, a Christian tribe
in the neighbourhood of Antioch, who made peace with the Muslims,
promising to be their allies and fight on their side in battle, on condition that
they should not be called upon to pay jizyah and should receive their proper
share of the booty. 57 When the Arab conquests were pushed to the north of
Persia in a.h. 22, a similar agreement was made with a frontier tribe, which
was exempted from the payment of jizyah in consideration of military
service. 58

We find similar instances of the remission of jizyah in the case of Christians
who served in the army or navy under the Turkish rule. For example, the
inhabitants of Megaris, a community of Albanian Christians, were
exempted from the payment of this tax on condition that they furnished a
body of armed men to guard the passes over Mounts Cithæron and Geranea,
which lead to the Isthmus of Corinth; the Christians who served as pioneers
of the advance-guard of the Turkish army, repairing the roads and bridges,
were likewise exempt from tribute and received grants of land quit of all
taxation; 59 and the Christian inhabitants of Hydra paid no direct taxes to the
Sultan, but furnished instead a contingent of 250 able-bodied seamen to the
Turkish fleet, who were supported out of the local treasury. 60

The Southern Rumanians, the so-called Armatoli, 61 who constituted so
important an element of strength in the Turkish army during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, and the Mirdites, a tribe of Albanian Catholics
who occupied the mountains to the north of Scutari, were exempt from
taxation on condition of supplying an armed contingent in time of war. 62 In
the same spirit, in consideration of the services they rendered to the state,
the capitation-tax was not imposed upon the Greek Christians who looked
after the aqueducts that supplied Constantinople with drinking water, 63 nor
on those who had charge of the powder-magazine in that city. 64 On the other
hand, when the Egyptian [63]peasants, although Muslim in faith, were made

exempt from military service, a tax was imposed upon them as on the
Christians, in lieu thereof. 65

Living under this security of life and property and such toleration of
religious thought, the Christian community—especially in the towns—
enjoyed a flourishing prosperity in the early days of the Caliphate.

Muʻāwiyah (661–680) employed Christians very largely in his service, and
other members of the reigning house followed his example. 66 Christians
frequently held high posts at court, e.g. a Christian Arab, al-Ak͟ hṭal, was
court poet, and the father of St. John of Damascus, counsellor to the caliph
ʻAbd al-Malik (685–705). In the service of the caliph al-Muʻtaṣim (833–
842), there were two brothers, Christians, who stood very high in the
confidence of the Commander of the Faithful: the one, named Salmūyah,
seems to have occupied somewhat the position of a modern secretary of
state, and no royal documents were valid until countersigned by him, while
his brother, Ibrāhīm, was entrusted with the care of the privy seal, and was
set over the Bayt al-Māl or Public Treasury, an office that, from the nature
of the funds and their disposal, might have been expected to have been put
into the hands of a Muslim; so great was the caliph’s personal affection for
this Ibrāhīm, that he visited him in his sickness, and was overwhelmed with
grief at his death, and on the day of the funeral ordered the body to be
brought to the palace and the Christian rites performed there with great
solemnity. 67

ʻAbd al-Malik appointed a certain Athanasius, a Christian scholar of
Edessa, tutor to his brother, ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz. Athanasius accompanied his
pupil, when he was appointed governor of Egypt, and there amassed great
wealth; he is said to have possessed 4000 slaves, villages, houses, gardens,
and gold and silver “like stones”; his sons took a dīnār from each of the
soldiers when they received their pay, and as there were 30,000 troops then
in Egypt, some idea may be formed of the wealth that Athanasius
accumulated during [64]the twenty-one years that he spent in that country. 68

At the close of the eighth century, a certain Abū Nūḥ al-Anbārī was
secretary to Abū Mūsạ̄ b. Muṣʻab, governor of Mosul, and used his
powerful influence for the benefit of his Christian co-religionists. 69

In the reign of al-Muʻtadid (892–902), the governor of Anbār, ʻUmar b.
Yūsuf, was a Christian, and the caliph approved of the appointment on the
ground that if a Christian were found to be competent, a post might well be
given to him, as there were better reasons for trusting a Christian than either
a Jew, a Muslim or a Zoroastrian. 70 Al-Muwaffaq, who was virtual ruler of
the empire during the reign of his brother al-Muʻtamid (870–892), entrusted
the administration of the army to a Christian named Israel, and his son, al-
Muʻtaḍid, had as one of his secretaries another Christian, Malik b. al-Walīd.
In a later reign, that of al-Muqtadir (908–932), a Christian was again in
charge of the war office. 71

Naṣr b. Hārūn, the Prime Minister of ʻAḍud al-Dawlah (949–982), of the
Buwayhid dynasty of Persia, who ruled over Southern Persia and ʻIrāq, was
a Christian. 72 For a long time, the government offices, especially in the
department of finance, were filled with Christians and Persians; 73 to a much
later date was such the case in Egypt, where at times the Christians almost
entirely monopolised such posts. 74 Particularly as physicians, the Christians
frequently amassed great wealth and were much honoured in the houses of
the great. Gabriel, the personal physician of the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd,
was a Nestorian Christian and derived a yearly income of 800,000 dirhams
from his private property, in addition to an emolument of 280,000 dirhams a
year in return for his attendance on the caliph; the second physician, also a
Christian, received 22,000 dirhams a year. 75 In trade and commerce, the
Christians also attained considerable affluence: indeed it was frequently
their wealth that excited against them the jealous [65]cupidity of the mob—a
feeling that fanatics took advantage of, to persecute and oppress them.
Further, the non-Muslim communities enjoyed an almost complete
autonomy, for the government placed in their hands the independent
management of their internal affairs, and their religious leaders exercised

judicial functions in cases that concerned their co-religionists only. 76 Their
churches and monasteries were, for the most part, not interfered with,
except in the large cities, where some of them were turned into mosques—a
measure that could hardly be objected to in view of the enormous increase
in the Muslim and corresponding decrease in the Christian population.

Recent historical criticism has demonstrated the impossibility of the legend
that when Damascus was taken by the Arabs, the churches were equally
divided between the Christians and the conquerors, on the plea that while
one Muslim general made his way into the city by the eastern gate at the
point of the sword, another at the western gate received the submission of
the governor of the city; a similar scrutiny of historical documents as well
as of the topography of the building has shown that the great cathedral of
St. John could never have been used in the manner described by some
Arabic historians as a common place of worship for both Christians and
Muslims. 77 But the very fact that these historians should have believed that
such an arrangement continued for nearly eighty years, testifies to the early
recognition of the liberty granted to the Christians of practising the
observances of their religion.

The opinion of the Muhammadan legists is very diverse on this question,
from the more liberal Ḥanafī doctrine, which declares that, though it is
unlawful to construct churches and synagogues in Muhammadan territory,
those already existing can be repaired if they have been destroyed or have
fallen into decay, while in villages and hamlets, where the tokens of Islam
do not appear, new churches and synagogues may be built—to the
intolerant Ḥanbalite view that they may neither be erected nor be restored
when damaged or ruined. Some legists held that the privileges varied
according to treaty rights: in towns taken by force, [66]no new houses of
prayer might be erected by d͟ himmīs, but if a special treaty had been made,
the building of new churches and synagogues was allowed. 78 But like so
many of the lucubrations of Muhammadan legists, these prescriptions bore
but little relation to actual facts. 79 Schoolmen might agree that the d͟ himmīs

could build no houses of prayer in a city of Muslim foundation, but the civil
authority permitted the Copts to erect churches in the new capital of
Cairo. 80 In other cities also the Christians were allowed to erect new
churches and monasteries. The very fact that ʻUmar II (717–720), at the
close of the first century of the Hijrah, should have ordered the destruction
of all recently constructed churches, 81 and that rather more than a century
later, the fanatical al-Mutawakkil (847–861) should have had to repeat the
same order, shows how little the prohibition of the building of new
churches was put into force. 82 We have numerous instances recorded, both
by Christian and Muhammadan historians, of the building of new churches:
e.g. in the reign of ʻAbd al-Malik (685–705), a wealthy Christian of Edessa,
named Athanasius, erected in his native city a fine church dedicated to the
Mother of God, and a Baptistery in honour of the picture of Christ that was
reputed to have been sent to King Abgar; he also built a number of churches
and monasteries in various parts of Egypt, among them two magnificent
churches in Fusṭāṭ. 83 Some Christian chamberlains in the service of ʻAbd al-
ʻAziz b. Marwān (brother of ʻAbd al-Malik), the governor of Egypt,
obtained permission to build a church in Ḥalwān, which was dedicated to
St. John, 84 though this town was a Muslim creation. In a.d. 711 a Jacobite
church was built at Antioch by order of the caliph al-Walīd (705–715). 85 In
the first year of the reign of Yazīd [67]II (a.d. 720), Mār Elias, the Jacobite
Patriarch of Antioch, made a solemn entry into Antioch, accompanied by
his clergy and monks, to consecrate a new church which he had caused to
be built; and in the following year he consecrated another church in the
village of Sarmada, in the district of Antioch, and the only opposition he
met with was from the rival Christian sect that accepted the Council of
Chalcedon. 86 In the following reign, K͟ hālid al-Qasrī, who was governor of
Arabian and Persian ʻIrāq from 724 to 738, built a church for his mother,
who was a Christian, to worship in. 87 In 759 the building of a church at
Nisibis was completed, on which the Nestorian bishop, Cyprian, had
expended a sum of 56,000 dīnārs. 88 From the same century dates the church
of Abū Sirjah in the ancient Roman fortress in old Cairo. 89 In the reign of
al-Mahdī (775–785) a church was erected in Bag͟ hdād for the use of the

Christian prisoners that had been taken captive during the numerous
campaigns against the Byzantine empire. 90 Another church was built in the
same city, in the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809), by the people of
Samālū, who had submitted to the caliph and received protection from
him; 91 during the same reign Sergius, the Nestorian Metropolitan of Baṣrah,
received permission to build a church in that city, 92 though it was a Muslim
foundation, having been created by the caliph ʻUmar in the year 638, and a
magnificent church was erected in Babylon in which were enshrined the
bodies of the prophets Daniel and Ezechiel. 93 When al-Maʼmūn (813–833)
was in Egypt he gave permission to two of his chamberlains to erect a
church on al-Muqaṭṭam, a hill near Cairo; and by the same caliph’s leave, a
wealthy Christian, named Bukām, built several fine churches at Būrah in
Egypt. 94 The Nestorian Patriarch, Timotheus, who died a.d. 820, erected a
church at Takrīt and a monastery at Bag͟ hdād. 95 In the tenth century, the
beautiful Coptic church of Abū [68]Sayfayn was built in Fusṭāṭ. 96 A new
church was built at Jiddah in the reign of al-Ẓāhir, the seventh Fāṭimid
caliph of Egypt (1020–1035). 97 New churches and monasteries were also
built in the reign of the ʻAbbāsid, al-Mustaḍī (1170–1180). 98 In 1187 a
church was built at Fusṭāṭ and dedicated to Our Lady the Pure Virgin. 99

Indeed, so far from the development of the Christian Church being
hampered by the establishment of Muhammadan rule, the history of the
Nestorians exhibits a remarkable outburst of religious life and energy from
the time of their becoming subject to the Muslims. 100 Alternately petted and
persecuted by the Persian kings, in whose dominions by far the majority of
the members of this sect were found, it had passed a rather precarious
existence and had been subjected to harsh treatment, when war between
Persia and Byzantium exposed it to the suspicion of sympathising with the
Christian enemy. But, under the rule of the caliphs, the security they
enjoyed at home enabled them to vigorously push forward their missionary
enterprises abroad. Missionaries were sent into China and India, both of
which were raised to the dignity of metropolitan sees in the eighth century;
about the same period they gained a footing in Egypt, and later spread the

Christian faith right across Asia, and by the eleventh century had gained
many converts from among the Tatars. 101

If the other Christian sects failed to exhibit the same vigorous life, it was
not the fault of the Muhammadans. All were tolerated alike by the supreme
government, and furthermore were prevented from persecuting one
another. 102 In the fifth century, Barsauma, a Nestorian bishop, had
persuaded the Persian king to set on foot a fierce persecution [69]of the
Orthodox Church, by representing Nestorius as a friend of the Persians and
his doctrines as approximating to their own; as many as 7800 of the
Orthodox clergy, with an enormous number of laymen, are said to have
been butchered during this persecution. 103 Another persecution was
instituted against the Orthodox by K͟ husrau II, after the invasion of Persia
by Heraclius, at the instigation of a Jacobite, who persuaded the King that
the Orthodox would always be favourably inclined towards the
Byzantines. 104 But the principles of Muslim toleration forbade such acts of
injustice as these: on the contrary, it seems to have been their endeavour to
deal fairly by all their Christian subjects: e.g. after the conquest of Egypt,
the Jacobites took advantage of the expulsion of the Byzantine authorities to
rob the Orthodox of their churches, but later they were restored by the
Muhammadans to their rightful owners when these had made good their
claim to possess them. 105

In view of the toleration thus extended to their Christian subjects in the
early period of the Muslim rule, the common hypothesis of the sword as the
factor of conversion seems hardly satisfactory, and we are compelled to
seek for other motives than that of persecution. But unfortunately very few
details are forthcoming and we are obliged to have recourse to conjecture. 106
In an age so prolific of theological speculation, there may well have been
some thinkers whose trend of thought had prepared them for the acceptance
of the Muhammadan position. Such were those Shahrīghān or landed
proprietors in Persia in the eighth century, who were nominally Christians,
but maintained that Christ was an ordinary man and that he was as one of

the Prophets. 107 They appear at times to have given a good deal of trouble
[70]to the Nestorian clergy, who were at great pains to draw them into the
paths of orthodoxy; 108 but their theological position was more closely akin
to Islam than to Christian doctrine, and they probably went to swell the
ranks of the converts after the Arab conquest of the Persian empire.

Many Christian theologians 109 have supposed that the debased condition—
moral and spiritual—of the Eastern Church of that period must have
alienated the hearts of many and driven them to seek a healthier spiritual
atmosphere in the faith of Islam which had come to them in all the vigour of
new-born zeal. 110 For example, Dean Milman 111 asks, “What was the state
of the Christian world in the provinces exposed to the first invasion of
Mohammedanism? Sect opposed to sect, clergy wrangling with clergy upon
the most abstruse and metaphysical points of doctrine. The orthodox, the
Nestorians, the Eutychians, the Jacobites were persecuting each other with
unexhausted animosity; and it is not judging too severely the evils of
religious controversy to suppose that many would rejoice in the degradation
of their adversaries under the yoke of the unbeliever, rather than make
common cause with them in defence of the common Christianity. In how
many must this incessant disputation have shaken the foundations of their
faith! It had been wonderful if thousands had not, in their weariness and
perplexity, sought refuge from these interminable and implacable
controversies in the simple, intelligible truth of the Divine Unity, though
purchased by the acknowledgment of the prophetic mission of
Mohammed.” Similarly, Caetani sees in the spread of Islam, among the
Christians of the Eastern Churches, a revulsion of feeling from the
dogmatic subtleties introduced into Christian theology by the Hellenistic
spirit. “For the East, with its love of clear and simple concepts, Hellenic
culture was, from the religious point of view, a misfortune, because [71]it
changed the sublime and simple teachings of Christ into a creed bristling
with incomprehensible dogmas, full of doubts and uncertainties; these
ended with producing a feeling of deep dismay and shook the very
foundations of religious belief; so that when at last there appeared, coming

out suddenly from the desert, the news of the new revelation, this bastard
oriental Christianity, torn asunder by internal discords, wavering in its
fundamental dogmas, dismayed by such incertitudes, could no longer resist
the temptations of a new faith, which swept away at one single stroke all
miserable doubts, and offered, along with simple, clear and undisputed
doctrines, great material advantages also. The East then abandoned Christ
and threw itself into the arms of the Prophet of Arabia.” 112

Again, Canon Taylor 113 says: “It is easy to understand why this reformed
Judaism spread so swiftly over Africa and Asia. The African and Syrian
doctors had substituted abstruse metaphysical dogmas for the religion of
Christ: they tried to combat the licentiousness of the age by setting forth the
celestial merit of celibacy and the angelic excellence of virginity—
seclusion from the world was the road of holiness, dirt was the
characteristic of monkish sanctity—the people were practically polytheists,
worshipping a crowd of martyrs, saints and angels; the upper classes were
effeminate and corrupt, the middle classes oppressed by taxation, 114 the
slaves without hope for the present or the future. As with the besom of God,
Islam swept away this mass of corruption and superstition. It was a revolt
against empty theological polemics; it was a masculine protest against the
exaltation of celibacy as a crown of piety. It brought out the fundamental
dogmas of religion—the unity and greatness of God, that He is merciful and
righteous, that He claims obedience to His will, resignation and faith. It
proclaimed the responsibility of man, a future life, a day of judgment, and
stern retribution to fall upon the wicked; and enforced the duties of prayer,
almsgiving, fasting and [72]benevolence. It thrust aside the artificial virtues,
the religious frauds and follies, the perverted moral sentiments, and the
verbal subtleties of theological disputants. It replaced monkishness by
manliness. It gave hope to the slave, brotherhood to mankind, and
recognition to the fundamental facts of human nature.”

Islam has, moreover, been represented as a reaction against that Byzantine
ecclesiasticism, 115 which looked upon the emperor and his court as a copy

of the Divine Majesty on high, and the emperor himself as not only the
supreme earthly ruler of Christendom, but as High-priest also. 116 Under
Justinian this system had been hardened into a despotism that pressed like
an iron weight upon clergy and laity alike. In 532 the widespread
dissatisfaction in Constantinople with both church and state, burst out into a
revolt against the government of Justinian, which was only suppressed after
a massacre of 35,000 persons. The Greens, as the party of the malcontents
was termed, had made open and violent protest in the circus against the
oppression of the emperor, crying out, “Justice has vanished from the world
and is no more to be found. But we will become Jews, or rather we will
return again to Grecian paganism.” 117 The lapse of a century had removed
none of the grounds for the dissatisfaction that here found such violent
expression, but the heavy hand of the Byzantine government prevented the
renewal of such an outbreak as that of 532 and compelled the malcontents
to dissemble, though in 560 some secret heathens were detected in
Constantinople and punished. 118 On the borders of the empire, however, at a
distance from the capital, such malcontents were safer, and the persecuted
heretics, and others dissatisfied with the [73]Byzantine state-church, took
refuge in the East, and here the Muslim armies would be welcomed by the
spiritual children of those who a hundred years before had desired to
exchange the Christian religion for another faith.

Further, the general adoption of the Arabic language throughout the empire
of the caliphate, especially in the towns and the great centres of population,
and the gradual assimilation in manners and customs that in the course of
about two centuries caused the numerous conquered races to be largely
merged in the national life of the ruling race, had no doubt a counterpart in
the religious and intellectual life of many members of the protected
religions. The rationalistic movement that so powerfully influenced Muslim
theology from the second to the fifth century of the Hijrah may very
possibly have influenced Christian thinkers, and turned them from a
religion, the prevailing tone of whose theology seems at this time to have
been Credo quia impossibile. A Muhammadan writer of the fourth century

of the Hijrah has preserved for us a conversation with a Coptic Christian
which may safely be taken as characteristic of the general mental attitude of
the rest of the Eastern Churches at this period:—

“My proof for the truth of Christianity is, that I find its teachings
contradictory and mutually destructive, for they are repugnant to reason and
revolting to the intellect, on account of their inconsistency and mutual
contrariety. No reflection can strengthen them, no discussion can prove
them; and however thoughtfully we may investigate them, neither the
intellect nor the senses can provide us with any argument in support of
them. Notwithstanding this, I have seen that many nations and mighty kings
of learning and sound judgment, have given in their allegiance to the
Christian faith; so I conclude that if these have accepted it in spite of all the
contradictions referred to, it is because the proofs they have received, in the
form of signs and miracles, have compelled them to submit to it.” 119

On the other hand, it should be remembered that those who passed over
from Christianity to Islam, under the influence of the rationalistic
tendencies of the age, would [74]find in the Muʻtazilite presentment of
Muslim theology, very much that was common to the two faiths, so that as
far as the articles of belief and the intellectual attitude towards many
theological questions were concerned, the transition was not so violent as
might be supposed. To say nothing of the numerous fundamental doctrines,
that will at once suggest themselves to those even who have only a slight
knowledge of the teachings of the Prophet, there were many other common
points of view, that were the direct consequences of the close relationships
between the Christian and Muhammadan theologians in Damascus under
the Umayyad caliphs as also in later times; for it has been maintained that
there is clear evidence of the influence of the Byzantine theologians on the
development of the systematic treatment of Muhammadan dogmatics. The
very form and arrangement of the oldest rule of faith in the Arabic language
suggest a comparison with similar treatises of St. John of Damascus and
other Christian fathers. 120 The oldest Arab Ṣūfīism, the trend of which was

purely towards the ascetic life (as distinguished from the later pantheistic
Ṣūfīism) originated largely under the influence of Christian thought. 121 Such
influence is especially traceable in the doctrines of some of the Muʻtazilite
sects, 122 who busied themselves with speculations on the attributes of the
divine nature quite in the manner of the Byzantine theologians: the
Qadariyyah or libertarians of Islam probably borrowed their doctrine of the
freedom of the will directly from Christianity, while the Murjiʼah in their
denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment were in thorough agreement
with the teaching of the Eastern Church on this subject as against the
generally received opinion of orthodox Muslims. 123 On the other hand, the
influence of the more orthodox doctors of Islam in the conversion of
unbelievers is attested by the tradition that twenty thousand Christians, Jews
and Magians became Muslims when the great Imām Ibn Ḥanbal died. 124 A
celebrated [75]doctor of the same sect, Abu’l-Faraj b. al-Jawzī (a.d. 1115–
1201), the most learned man of his time, a popular preacher and most
prolific writer, is said to have boasted that just the same number of persons
accepted the faith of Islam at his hands. 125

Further, the vast and unparalleled success of the Muslim arms shook the
faith of the Christian peoples that came under their rule and saw in these
conquests the hand of God. 126 Worldly prosperity they associated with the
divine favour and the God of battle (they thought) would surely give the
victory only into the hands of his favoured servants. Thus the very success
of the Muhammadans seemed to argue the truth of their religion.

The Islamic ideal of the brotherhood of all believers was a powerful
attraction towards this creed, and though the Arab pride of birth strove to
refuse for several generations the privileges of the ruling race to the new
converts, still as “clients” of the various Arab tribes to which at first they
used to be affiliated, they received a recognised position in the community,
and by the close of the first century of the Hijrah they had vindicated for
this ideal its true place in Muslim theology and at least a theoretical
recognition in the state. 127

But the condition of the Christians did not always continue to be so
tolerable as under the earlier caliphs. In the interests of the true believers,
vexatious conditions were sometimes imposed upon the non-Muslim
population (or d͟ himmīs), with the object of securing for the faithful
superior social advantages. Unsuccessful attempts were made by several
caliphs to exclude them from the public offices. Decrees to this effect were
passed by al-Manṣūr (754–775), al-Mutawakkil (847–861), al-Muqtadir
(908–932), and in Egypt by al-Āmir (1101–1130), one of the Fāṭimid
caliphs, and by the Mamlūk Sultans in the [76]fourteenth century. 128 But the
very fact that these decrees excluding the d͟ himmīs from government posts
were so often renewed, is a sign of the want of any continuity or persistency
in putting such intolerant measures into practice. In fact they may generally
be traced either to popular indignation excited by the harsh and insolent
behaviour of Christian officials, 129 or to outbursts of fanaticism which
forced upon the government acts of oppression that were contrary to the
general spirit of Muslim rule and were consequently allowed to lapse as
soon as possible.

The beginning of a harsher treatment of the native Christian population
dates from the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809) who ordered them to
wear a distinctive dress and give up the government posts they held to
Muslims. The first of these orders shows how little one at least of the
ordinances ascribed to ʻUmar was observed, and these decrees were the
outcome, not so much of any purely religious feeling, as of the political
circumstances of the time. The Christians under Muhammadan rule have
often had to suffer for the bad faith kept by foreign Christian powers in their
relations with Muhammadan princes, and on this occasion it was the
treachery of the Byzantine Emperor, Nicephorus, that caused the Christian
name to stink in the nostrils of Hārūn. 130 Many of the persecutions of
Christians in Muslim countries can be traced either to distrust of their
loyalty, excited by the intrigues and interference of Christian foreigners and
the enemies of Islam, or to the bad feeling stirred up by the treacherous or
brutal behaviour of the latter towards the Musalmans. Religious fanaticism

is, however, responsible for many of such persecutions, as in the reign of
the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (847–861), under whom severe measures of
oppression were taken against the Christians. This prince took advantage of
the strong Orthodox reaction that had set in in Muhammadan theology
against the rationalistic and freethinking tendencies that [77]had had free
play under former rulers,—and came forward as the champion of the
extreme orthodox party, to which the mass of the people as contrasted with
the higher classes belonged, 131 and which was eager to exact vengeance for
the persecutions it had itself suffered in the two preceding reigns; 132 he
sought to curry their favour by persecuting the Muʻtazilites, forbidding all
further discussions on the Qurʼān and declaring the doctrine that it was
created, to be heretical; he had the followers of ʻAlī imprisoned and beaten,
pulled down the tomb of Ḥusayn at Karbalāʼ and forbade pilgrimages to be
made to the site. The Christians shared in the sufferings of the other
heretics; for al-Mutawakkil put rigorously into force the rules that had been
passed in former reigns prescribing a distinction in the dress of d͟ himmīs
and Muslims, ordered that the Christians should no longer be employed in
the public offices, doubled the capitation-tax, forbade them to have Muslim
slaves or use the same baths as the Muslims, and harassed them with
several other restrictions.

It is noteworthy that the historians of the Nestorian Church—which had to
suffer most from this persecution—describe it as something new and
individual to al-Mutawakkil, and as ceasing with his death. 133 One of his
successors, al-Muqtadir (a.d. 908–932), renewed these regulations, which
the lapse of half a century had apparently caused to fall into disuse.

Other outbursts of fanaticism led to the destruction of churches and
synagogues, 134 and the terror of such persecution led to the defection of
many from the Christian Church. 135 But such oppression was contrary to the
tolerant spirit of Islam, and to the teaching traditionally ascribed to the
Prophet; 136 and the fanatical party tried in vain to enforce [78]the persistent
execution of these oppressive measures for the humiliation of the non-

Muslim population. “The ʻulamaʼ (i.e. the learned, the clergy) consider this
state of things; they weep and groan in silence, while the princes who had
the power of putting down these criminal abuses only shut their eyes to
them.” 137 The rules that a fanatical priesthood may lay down for the
repression of unbelievers cannot always be taken as a criterion of the
practice of civil governments: it is failure to realise this fact that has
rendered possible the highly-coloured pictures of the sufferings of the
Christians under Muhammadan rule, drawn by writers who have assumed
that the prescriptions of certain Muslim theologians represented an
invariable practice. Such outbursts of persecution seem in some cases to
have been excited by the alleged abuse of their position by those Christians
who held high posts in the service of the government; they aroused
considerable hostility of feeling towards themselves by their oppression of
the Muslims, it being said that they took advantage of their high position to
plunder and annoy the faithful, treating them with great harshness and
rudeness and despoiling them of their lands and money. Such complaints
were laid before the caliphs al-Manṣūr (754–775), al-Mahdī (775–785), al-
Maʼmūn (813–833), al-Mutawakkil (847–861), al-Muqtadir (908–932), and
many of their successors. 138 They also incurred the odium of many
Muhammadans by acting as the spies of the ʻAbbāsid dynasty and hunting
down the adherents of the displaced Umayyad family. 139 At a later period,
during the time of the Crusades they were accused of treasonable
correspondence with the Crusaders 140 and brought on themselves severe
restrictive measures which cannot justly be described as religious
persecution.

In proportion as the lot of the conquered peoples became harder to bear, the
more irresistible was the temptation to free themselves from their miseries,
by the words, “There is no god but God: Muḥammad is the Apostle of
God.” [79]When the state was in need of money—as was increasingly the
case—the subject races were more and more burdened with taxes, so that
the condition of the non-Muslims was constantly growing more
unendurable, and conversions to Islam increased in the same proportion.

The dreary record of scandals, with which the pages of the Christian
historians of this later period are filled, would suggest that the Christian
Churches had failed to develop a moral fibre strong enough to endure the
stress of adverse conditions, and when persecution came, the reason for the
defection that followed might—as the historian of the Nestorian Church
suggests 141—be sought for in the prevailing negligence in the performance
of religious duties and the evil life of the clergy.

Further causes that contributed to the decrease of the Christian population
may be found in the fact that the children of the numerous Christian captive
women who were carried off to the harems of the Muslims had to be
brought up in the religion of their fathers, and in the frequent temptation
that was offered to the Christian slave by an indulgent master, of purchasing
his freedom at the price of conversion to Islam. But of any organised
attempt to force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim population, or
of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the Christian religion,
we hear nothing. Had the caliphs chosen to adopt either course of action,
they might have swept away Christianity as easily as Ferdinand and Isabella
drove Islam out of Spain, or Louis XIV made Protestantism penal in France,
or the Jews were kept out of England for 350 years. The Eastern Churches
in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christendom,
throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their
behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of these
Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally [80]tolerant
attitude of the Muhammadan governments towards them. 142

Of the ancient Churches in Western Asia at the time of the Muhammadan
conquest, there still survive about 150,000 Nestorians, 143 and their number
would have been larger but for the proselytising efforts of other Christian
Churches; the Chaldees who have submitted to the Church of Rome number
70,000, in 1898 the Nestorian Bishop Mār Jonan, with several of the clergy
and 15,000 Nestorians were received into the Orthodox Russian Church;
and numbers of Nestorians have also become Protestants. 144 The Jacobite

Patriarch of Antioch exercises jurisdiction over about 80,000 members of
this ancient Church, while 25,000 families of Uniat Jacobites obey the
Syrian Catholic Patriarch. 145 Belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church,
there are 28,836 families under the Patriarch of Antioch and more than
15,000 persons under the Patriarch of Jerusalem, 146 while the Melchites or
Greek-Catholics number about 130,000. 147 The Maronite Church, which has
been in union with the Roman Catholic Church since the year 1182, has a
following of 300,000. 148

The marvel is that these isolated and scattered communities should have
survived so long, exposed as they have been to the ravages of war,
pestilence and famine, 149 living in a country that was for centuries a
continual battle-field, overrun by Turks, Mongols and Crusaders, 150 it being
[81]further remembered that they were forbidden by the Muhammadan law
to make good this decay of their numbers by proselytising efforts—if
indeed they had cared to do so, for they seem (with the exception of the
Nestorians) even before the Muhammadan conquest, to have lost that
missionary spirit, without which, as history abundantly shows, no healthy
life is possible in a Christian Church. It has also been suggested that the
monastic ideal of continence so widespread in the East, and the Christian
practice of monogamy, together with the sense of insecurity and their
servile condition, may have acted as checks on the growth of the Christian
population. 151

Of the details of conversion to Islam we have hardly any information. At
the time of the first occupation of their country by the Arabs, the Christians
appear to have gone over to Islam in very large numbers. Some idea of the
extent of these early conversions in ʻIrāq for example may be formed from
the fact that the income from taxation in the reign of ʻUmar was from 100
to 120 million dirhams, while in the reign of ʻAbd al-Malik, about fifty
years later, it had sunk to forty millions: while this fall in the revenue is
largely attributable to the devastation caused by wars and insurrections, still
it was chiefly due to the fact that large numbers of the population had

become Muhammadan and consequently could no longer be called upon to
pay the capitation-tax. 152

This same period witnesses the conversion of large numbers of the
Christians of K͟ hurāsān, as we learn from a letter of a contemporary
ecclesiastic, the Nestorian Patriarch Īshōʻyabh III, addressed to Simeon, the
Metropolitan of Rev-Ardashīr and Primate of Persia. We possess so very
few Christian documents of the first century of the Hijrah, and this letter
bears such striking testimony to the peaceful character of the spread of the
new faith, and has moreover been so little noticed by modern historians—
that it may well be quoted here at length. “Where are thy sons, O father
bereft of sons? Where is that great people of Merv, who though they beheld
neither sword, nor fire or tortures, captivated [82]only by love for a moiety
of their goods, have turned aside, like fools, from the true path and rushed
headlong into the pit of faithlessness—into everlasting destruction, and
have utterly been brought to nought, while two priests only (priests at least
in name), have, like brands snatched from the burning, escaped the
devouring flames of infidelity. Alas, alas! Out of so many thousands who
bore the name of Christians, not even one single victim was consecrated
unto God by the shedding of his blood for the true faith. Where, too, are the
sanctuaries of Kirmān and all Persia? it is not the coming of Satan or the
mandates of the kings of the earth or the orders of governors of provinces
that have laid them waste and in ruins—but the feeble breath of one
contemptible little demon, who was not deemed worthy of the honour of
demons by those demons who sent him on his errand, nor was endowed by
Satan the seducer with the power of diabolical deceit, that he might display
it in your land; but merely by the nod of his command he has thrown down
all the churches of your Persia.… And the Arabs, to whom God at this time
has given the empire of the world, behold, they are among you, as ye know
well: and yet they attack not the Christian faith, but, on the contrary, they
favour our religion, do honour to our priests and the saints of the Lord, and
confer benefits on churches and monasteries. Why then have your people of
Merv abandoned their faith for the sake of these Arabs? and that, too, when

the Arabs, as the people of Merv themselves declare, have not compelled
them to leave their own religion but suffered them to keep it safe and
undefiled if they gave up only a moiety of their goods. But forsaking the
faith which brings eternal salvation, they clung to a moiety of the goods of
this fleeting world: that faith which whole nations have purchased and even
to this day do purchase by the shedding of their blood and gain thereby the
inheritance of eternal life, your people of Merv were willing to barter for a
moiety of their goods—and even less.” 153 The reign of the caliph ʻUmar II
(a.d. 717–720) particularly was marked with very extensive conversions: he
organised a zealous missionary movement and offered every kind of
inducement to the [83]conquered peoples to accept Islam, even making them
grants of money; on one occasion he is said to have given a Christian
military officer the sum of 1000 dīnārs to induce him to accept Islam. 154 He
instructed the governors of the provinces to invite the d͟ himmīs to the
Muslim faith, and al-Jarrāḥ b. ʻAbd Allāh, governor of K͟ hurāsān, is said to
have converted about 4000 persons. 155 He is even said to have written a
letter to the Byzantine Emperor, Leo III, urging on him the acceptance of
the faith of Islam. 156 He abrogated the decree passed in a.d. 700 for the
purpose of arresting the impoverishment of the treasury, according to which
the convert to Islam was not released from the capitation-tax, but was
compelled to continue to pay it as before; even though the d͟ himmī
apostatised the very day before his yearly payment of the jizyah was due or
while his contribution was actually being weighed in the scales, it was to be
remitted to the new convert. 157 He no longer exacted the k͟ harāj from the
Muhammadan owners of landed property, and imposed upon them the far
lighter burden of a tithe. These measures, though financially most ruinous,
were eminently successful in the way the pious-minded caliph desired they
should be, and enormous numbers hastened to enrol themselves among the
Muslims. 158

It must not, however, be supposed that such worldly considerations were
the only influences at work in the conversion of the Christians to Islam. The
controversial works of St. John of Damascus, of the same century, give us

glimpses of the zealous Muslim striving to undermine by his arguments the
foundations of the Christian faith. The very dialogue form into which these
treatises are thrown, and the frequent repetition of such phrases as “If the
Saracen asks you,”—“If the Saracen says … then tell him” …—give them
an air of vraisemblance and make them appear as if they were intended to
provide the Christians with ready answers to the numerous objections
which their Muslim neighbours brought against the Christian creed. 159 That
the aggressive attitude of the Muhammadan disputant is [84]most
prominently brought forward in these dialogues is only what might be
expected, it being no part of this great theologian’s purpose to enshrine in
his writings an apology for Islam. His pupil, Bishop Theodore Abū Qurrah,
also wrote several controversial dialogues 160 with Muhammadans, in which
the disputants range over all the points of dispute between the two faiths,
the Muslim as before being the first to take up the cudgels, and enabling us
to form some slight idea of the activity with which the cause of Islam was
prosecuted at this period. “The thoughts of the Agarenes,” says the bishop,
“and all their zeal, are directed towards the denial of the divinity of God the
Word, and they strain every effort to this end.” 161 The Nestorian Patriarch,
Timotheus, used to hold discussions on religious matters in the presence of
the caliphs, al-Hādī and Hārūn al-Rashīd, and embodied them in a work that
is now lost. 162 Timotheus had secured his election to the patriarchate in the
face of the active opposition of many of the most powerful ecclesiastics of
his own Church; among these was Joseph, the metropolitan of Merv, who
intrigued against him with the caliph, al-Mahdī (775–785), but was
persuaded by the caliph to accept Islam and was rewarded for his apostasy
with rich presents and an official appointment in Baṣrah. 163

These details from the first two centuries of the Hijrah are meagre in the
extreme and rather suggest the existence of proselytising efforts than
furnish definite facts. The earliest document of a distinctly missionary
character which has come down to us, would seem to date from the reign of
al-Maʼmūn (813–833), and takes the form of a letter 164 written by a cousin
of the caliph to a Christian Arab of noble birth and of considerable

distinction at the court, and held in high esteem by al-Maʼmūn himself. In
this letter he begs his friend to embrace Islam, in terms of affectionate
appeal and in language that strikingly illustrates the tolerant attitude of the
Muslims towards the Christian Church at this period. This letter occupies an
almost unique place in the early history of the propagation of Islam, and has
[85]on this account been given in full in an appendix. 165 In the same work we
have a report of a speech made by the caliph at an assembly of his nobles,
in which he speaks in tones of the strongest contempt of those who had
become Muhammadans merely out of worldly and selfish motives, and
compares them to the Hypocrites who while pretending to be friends of the
Prophet, in secret plotted against his life. But just as the Prophet returned
good for evil, so the caliph resolves to treat these persons with courtesy and
forbearance until God should decide between them. 166 The record of this
complaint on the part of the caliph is interesting as indicating that
disinterested and genuine conviction was expected and looked for in the
new convert to Islam, and that the discovery of self-seeking and unworthy
motives drew upon him the severest censure.

Al-Maʼmūn himself was very zealous in his efforts to spread the faith of
Islam, and sent invitations to unbelievers even in the most distant parts of
his dominions, such as Transoxania and Farg͟ hānah. 167 At the same time he
did not abuse his royal power, by attempting to force his own faith upon
others: when a certain Yazdānbak͟ ht, a leader of the Manichæan sect, came
on a visit to Bag͟ hdād 168 and held a disputation with the Muslim theologians,
in which he was utterly silenced, the caliph tried to induce him to embrace
Islam. But Yazdānbak͟ ht refused, saying, “Commander of the faithful, your
advice is heard and your words have been listened to; but you are one of
those who do not force men to abandon their religion.” So far from
resenting the ill-success of his efforts, the caliph furnished him with a
bodyguard, that he might not be exposed to insult from the fanatical
populace. 169 [86]

Some scanty references are made by Christian historians to cases of
ecclesiastical dignitaries who became Muhammadans, e.g. George, Bishop
of Baḥrayn, about the middle of the ninth century, having been deposed
from his office for some ecclesiastical offence, exchanged the Christian
faith for that of Islam, 170 and the conversion of a brother of Gabriel,
metropolitan of Fārs about the middle of the tenth century, only receives
mention because the fact of his having become a Muslim was alleged as
disqualifying Gabriel for election to the patriarchate of the Nestorian
church. 171

In the early part of the same century, Theodore, the Nestorian Bishop of
Beth Garmai, became a Muslim, and there is no mention of any force or
compulsion by the ecclesiastical historian 172 who records the fact, as there
undoubtedly would have been, had such existed. Some years later (between
a.d. 962 and 979), Philoxenos, a Jacobite Bishop of Ād͟ harbayjān, also
became a Muslim, 173 and in the following century, in 1016, Ignatius, 174 the
Jacobite Metropolitan of Takrīt, who had held this office for twenty-five
years, set out for Bag͟ hdād and embraced Islam in the presence of the caliph
al-Qādir, taking the name of Abū Muslim. 175 It would be exceedingly
interesting if an Apologia pro Vita Sua had survived to reveal to us the
religious development that took place in the mind of either of these
converts. The Christian chronicler hints at immorality in the last three cases,
but such an accusation uncorroborated by any further evidence is open to
suspicion, 176 much as it would be [87]if brought forward by a Roman
Catholic when recording the conversion of a priest of his own communion
to the Protestant faith. It is doubtless owing to their exalted position in the
Church that the conversion of these prominent ecclesiastics of two hostile
Christian sects has been handed down to us, while that of more obscure
individuals has not been recorded. As Barhebræus brings his ecclesiastical
chronicle nearer to his own time, he gives fuller details of the career of such
converts, e.g. in recording the public lapse of some of the Jacobite bishops,
in the middle of the twelfth century he makes particular mention of Aaron,
bishop of a town in K͟ hurāsān, as having become a Muhammadan after

having been convicted of some moral fault; repenting of this change, he
wished to regain his episcopal status, and when this was refused him, went
to Constantinople and abjured the Monophysite doctrines of the Jacobite
Church; then apparently dissatisfied with the reception he received in
Constantinople, he returned to the Jacobite Patriarch, but a second time
went over to Islam “without any reason”; then repenting again, he finally
ended his days among the Maronites of Mount Lebanon. 177 A contemporary
of Barhebræus, in the middle of the thirteenth century—Daniel, Bishop of
Khabur—who is said to have been proficient in secular learning, sought to
be appointed to the diocese of Aleppo, but disappointed in this ambition, he
abandoned the Christian faith and to the grief and shame of all Christian
people “became a Muslim; but God (praise be to His grace!) soon consoled
his afflicted people and took away the shame from the redeemed, the
redeemed of the Lord; for a few months later that unhappy wretch died
miserably in a caravanserai; his name perished, he was taken away out of
our midst, and no man knoweth his abiding place.” 178

But that these conversions were not merely isolated instances we have the
valuable evidence of Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre (1216–1225), who
thus speaks of the Eastern Church from his experience of it in the Holy
Land:—[88]“Weakened and lamentably ensnared, nay rather grievously
wounded, by the lying persuasions of the false prophet and by the
allurements of carnal pleasure, she hath sunk down, and she that was
brought up in scarlet, hath embraced dunghills.” 179

So far the Christian Churches that have been described as coming within
the sphere of Muhammadan influence, have been the Orthodox Eastern
Church and the heretical communions that had sprung out of it. But with the
close of the eleventh century a fresh element was added to the Christian
population of Syria and Palestine, in the large bodies of Crusaders of the
Latin rite who settled in the kingdom of Jerusalem and the other states
founded by the Crusaders, which maintained a precarious existence for
nearly two centuries. During this period, occasional conversions to Islam

were made from among these foreign immigrants. In the first Crusade, for
example, a body of Germans and Lombards under the command of a certain
knight, named Rainaud, had separated themselves from the main body and
were besieged in a castle by the Saljūq Sultan, Arslān; on pretence of
making a sortie, Rainaud and his personal followers abandoned their
unfortunate companions and went over to the Turks, among whom they
embraced Islam. 180

The history of the ill-fated second Crusade presents us with a very
remarkable incident of a similar character. The story, as told by Odo of
Deuil, a monk of St. Denis, who, in the capacity of private chaplain to
Louis VII, accompanied him on this Crusade and wrote a graphic account
of it, runs as follows. While endeavouring to make their way overland
through Asia Minor to Jerusalem the Crusaders sustained a disastrous defeat
at the hands of the Turks in the mountain-passes of Phrygia (a.d. 1148), and
with difficulty reached the seaport town of Attalia. Here, all who could
afford to satisfy the exorbitant demands of the Greek merchants, took ship
for Antioch; while the sick and wounded and the mass of the pilgrims were
left behind at the mercy of their treacherous allies, the Greeks, who
received five hundred [89]marks from Louis, on condition that they provided
an escort for the pilgrims and took care of the sick until they were strong
enough to be sent on after the others. But no sooner had the army left, than
the Greeks informed the Turks of the helpless condition of the pilgrims, and
quietly looked on while famine, disease and the arrows of the enemy carried
havoc and destruction through the camp of these unfortunates. Driven to
desperation, a party of three or four thousand attempted to escape, but were
surrounded and cut to pieces by the Turks, who now pressed on to the camp
to follow up their victory. The situation of the survivors would have been
utterly hopeless, had not the sight of their misery melted the hearts of the
Muhammadans to pity. They tended the sick and relieved the poor and
starving with open-handed liberality. Some even bought up the French
money which the Greeks had got out of the pilgrims by force or cunning,
and lavishly distributed it among the needy. So great was the contrast

between the kind treatment the pilgrims received from the unbelievers and
the cruelty of their fellow-Christians, the Greeks, who imposed forced
labour upon them, beat them and robbed them of what little they had left,
that many of them voluntarily embraced the faith of their deliverers. As the
old chronicler says: “Avoiding their co-religionists who had been so cruel to
them, they went in safety among the infidels who had compassion upon
them, and, as we heard, more than three thousand joined themselves to the
Turks when they retired. Oh, kindness more cruel than all treachery! They
gave them bread but robbed them of their faith, though it is certain that
contented with the services they performed, they compelled no one among
them to renounce his religion.” 181

The increasing intercourse between Christians and Muslims, the growing
appreciation on the part of the Crusaders of the virtues of their opponents,
which so strikingly distinguishes [90]the later from the earlier chroniclers of
the Crusades, 182 the numerous imitations of Oriental manners and ways of
life by the Franks settled in the Holy Land, did not fail to exercise a
corresponding influence on religious opinions. One of the most remarkable
features of this influence is the tolerant attitude of many of the Christian
Knights towards the faith of Islam—an attitude of mind that was most
vehemently denounced by the Church. When Usāma b. Munqid͟ h, a Syrian
Amīr of the twelfth century, visited Jerusalem, during a period of truce, the
Knights Templar, who had occupied the Masjid al-Aqṣā, assigned to him a
small chapel adjoining it, for him to say his prayers in, and they strongly
resented the interference with the devotions of their guest on the part of a
newly-arrived Crusader, who took this new departure in the direction of
religious freedom in very bad part. 183 It would indeed have been strange if
religious questions had not formed a topic of discussion on the many
occasions when the Crusaders and the Muslims met together on a friendly
footing, during the frequent truces, especially when it was religion itself
that had brought the Crusaders into the Holy Land and set them upon these
constant wars. When even Christian theologians were led by their personal
intercourse with the Muslims to form a juster estimate of their religion, and

contact with new modes of thought was unsettling the minds of men and
giving rise to a swarm of heresies, it is not surprising that many should have
been drawn into the pale of Islam. 184 The renegades in the twelfth century
were in sufficient numbers to be noticed in the statute books of the
Crusaders, the so-called Assises of Jerusalem, according to which, in certain
cases, their bail was not accepted. 185

It would be interesting to discover who were the Muslims who busied
themselves in winning these converts to Islam, but they seem to have left no
record of their labours. We know, however, that they had at their head the
great Saladin himself, who is described by his biographer as setting before
[91]his Christian guest the beauties of Islam and urging him to embrace it. 186

The heroic life and character of Saladin seems to have exercised an especial
fascination on the minds of the Christians of his time; some even of the
Christian knights were so strongly attracted towards him that they
abandoned the Christian faith and their own people and joined themselves
to the Muslims; such was the case, for example, with a certain English
Templar, named Robert of St. Albans, who in a.d. 1185 gave up Christianity
for Islam and afterwards married a grand-daughter of Saladin. 187 Two years
later, Saladin invaded Palestine and utterly defeated the Christian army in
the battle of Ḥiṭṭīn, Guy, king of Jerusalem, being among the prisoners. On
the eve of the battle, six of his knights, “possessed with a devilish spirit,”
deserted the king and escaped into the camp of Saladin, where of their own
accord they became Saracens. 188 At the same time Saladin seems to have
had an understanding with Raymund III, Count of Tripoli, according to
which he was to induce his followers to abandon the Christian faith and go
over to the Muslims; but the sudden death of the Count effectually put a
stop to the execution of this scheme. 189

The fall of Jerusalem and the successes of Saladin in the Holy Land stirred
up Europe to undertake the third Crusade, the chief incident of which was
the siege of Acre (a.d. 1189–1191). The fearful sufferings that the Christian

army was exposed to, from famine and disease, drove many of them to
desert and seek relief from the cravings of hunger in the Muslim camp. Of
these deserters, many made their way back again after some time to the
army of the Crusaders; on the other hand, many elected to throw in their lot
with the Muslims; some, taking service under their former enemies, still
remained true to the Christian faith and (we are told) were well pleased with
their new masters, while others embracing Islam became good Muslims. 190
The conversion of these deserters is recorded also by the chronicler who
accompanied Richard I upon this Crusade:—“Some [92]of our men (whose
fate cannot be told or heard without grievous sorrow) yielding to the
severity of the sore famine, in achieving the salvation of the body, incurred
the damnation of their souls. For after the greater part of the affliction was
past, they deserted and fled to the Turks: nor did they hesitate to become
renegades; in order that they might prolong their temporal life a little space,
they purchased eternal death with horrid blasphemies. O baleful trafficking!
O shameful deed beyond all punishment! O foolish man likened unto the
foolish beasts, while he flees from the death that must inevitably come
soon, he shuns not the death unending.” 191

From this time onwards references to renegades are not infrequently to be
met with in the writings of those who travelled to the Holy Land and other
countries of the East. The terms of the oath which was proposed to St. Louis
by his Muhammadan captors when he was called upon to promise to pay
the ransom imposed upon him (a.d. 1250), were suggested by certain
whilom priests who had become Muslims; 192 and while this business of
paying the ransom was still being carried on, another renegade, a
Frenchman, born at Provins, came to bring a present to the king: he had
accompanied King John of Jerusalem on his expedition against Damietta in
1219 and had remained in Egypt, married a Muhammadan wife and become
a great lord in that country. 193 The danger of the pilgrims to the Holy Land
becoming converts to Islam was so clearly recognised at this time that in a
“Remembrance,” written about 1266 by Amaury de la Roche, the master of
the Knights Templar in France, he requests the Pope and the legates of

France and Sicily to prevent the poor and the aged and those incapable of
bearing arms from crossing the sea to Palestine, for such persons either got
killed or were taken prisoners by the Saracens or turned renegades. 194
Ludolf de Suchem, who travelled in the Holy Land from 1336 to 1341,
speaks of three renegades he found at Hebron; they had come from the
diocese of Minden and had been in the service of a [93]Westphalian knight,
who was held in high honour by the Soldan and other Muhammadan
princes. 195

These scattered notices are no doubt significant of more extensive
conversions of Christians to Islam, of which no record has come down to
us: e.g. there were said to be about 25,000 renegades in the city of Cairo
towards the close of the fifteenth century, 196 and there must have been many
also to be found in the cities of the Holy Land after the disappearance of the
Latin princedoms of the East. But the Muhammadan historians of this
period seem to have been too busily engaged in recording the exploits of
princes and the vicissitudes of dynasties, to turn their attention to religious
changes in the lives of obscure individuals; and (as far as I have been able
to discover) they as little notice the conversions of Christians to Islam as of
those of their own co-religionists to Christianity. Consequently, we have to
depend for our knowledge of both of these classes of events on Christian
writers, who, while they give us detailed and sympathetic accounts of the
latter, bear unwilling testimony to the existence of instances of the former
and represent the motives of the renegades in the worst light possible. The
possibility of any Christian becoming converted to Islam from honest
conviction, probably never entered into the head of any of these writers, and
even had such an idea occurred to them they would hardly have ventured to
expose themselves to the thunders of ecclesiastical censure by giving open
expression to it.

As an example of the rare instances of such a conversion being recorded,
the account may here be cited which Fürer von Haimendorf, who was in
Cairo in 1565, gives of the conversion of a German scholar who had studied

in the University of Leipzig. “Sed dum nos hanc moram Cairi nectimus,
accidit ut Justus quidam Stevenius Germanus Hamelensis qui in iisdem
ædibus nobiscum habitaverat, fide Christianorum abnegata Turcarum
religioni se initiandum atque circumcidendum obtulerit. Vir erat doctus, qui
diu se Witebergæ ac Lipsiæ studiis operam dedisse sæpe nobis [94]narrabat:
verum de hoc facto interrogatus, peculiarem nunc sibi Spiritum adesse
ajebat, sine cujus instinctu nihil vel facere sibi, vel cogitare fas esset; quæ
hominis apostasia nimium quantum animos nostros commovit, et ad fugam
quasi excitavit. Eodem quoque die Judæus quidam, qui paucis diebus ante
religionem Mahumetanam amplexus fuerat, triumphali pompa per urbem
circumducebatur; quod idem cum Stevenio isto futurum esse, Janissarii
quidam nobis affirmabant.” 197

From the historical sources quoted above, we have as little information
respecting the number of these converts as of the proselytising efforts made
to induce them to change their faith. A motive frequently assigned for going
over to Islam is the desire to escape the death penalty by means of apostasy.
European travellers make frequent mention of such cases. A late example of
such an account may be selected, for the picturesqueness of its language,
from the report of a Jesuit, who was in Cairo in 1627; he saw a Copt who,
having allowed himself to be carried away “partly by passion and partly by
the violence of an indiscreet zeal, had killed his brother with his own hand,
in detestation of his having in a dastardly manner left Jesus Christ to
embrace Mahometanism, in order to deliver himself from the vexation of
the Turks. The poor man was at once seized in the heat of his crime, and he
boldly confessed that the renegade, unworthy of being his brother, could
only wipe out so black a spot by his blood. He was urged to abandon his
faith in order to save his life,” but he declared that he was resolved to die a
Christian; the cruel torments, however, inflicted on him by the executioners,
weakened his resolution and he yielded at the last moment. “This disaster
changed him in a moment from a confessor into a renegade, from a martyr
into an apostate, from a saint into one of the damned, and from an angel
into a veritable devil. He made the profession of faith or rather of perfidy,

after the manner of the Mahometans … he was set at liberty, the liberty not
of the sons of God, but of the sons of perdition.” Later on, the reproaches of
his conscience caused him again to recant [95]and he was put to death by the
Muhammadans for his apostasy. 198

The monk Burchard, 199 writing about 1283, a few years before the
Crusaders were driven out of their last strongholds and the Latin power in
the East came utterly to an end—represents the Christian population as
largely outnumbering the Muslims throughout the whole of the
Muhammadan world, the latter (except in Egypt and Arabia) forming not
more than three or four per cent. of the whole population. This language is
undoubtedly exaggerated and the good monk was certainly rash in
assuming that what he observed in the cities of the Crusaders and of the
kingdom of Little Armenia held good in other parts of the East. But his
words may be certainly taken to indicate that during the period of the
Crusades there had been no widespread conversion to Islam, and that when
the Muhammadans resumed their sovereignty over the Holy Land, they
extended the same toleration to the Christians as before, suffering them to
“purchase peace and quiet” by the payment of the jizyah. The presumption
is that the conversions that took place were of individual Christians, who
were persuaded in their own minds before they took the final step. Instances
have already been given of Christians who took service under
Muhammadan masters, in the full enjoyment of their own faith, and the
Assises of Jerusalem made a distinction between “those who have denied
God [96]and follow another law” and “all those who have done armed
service to the Saracens and other miscreants against the Christians for more
than a year and a day.” 200

The native Christians certainly preferred the rule of the Muhammadans to
that of the Crusaders, 201 and when Jerusalem fell finally and for ever into
the hands of the Muslims (a.d. 1244), the Christian population of Palestine
seems to have welcomed the new masters and to have submitted quietly and
contentedly to their rule. 202

This same sense of security of religious life under Muslim rule led many of
the Christians of Asia Minor, also, about the same time, to welcome the
advent of the Saljūq Turks as their deliverers from the hated Byzantine
government, not only on account of its oppressive system of taxation, but
also of the persecuting spirit of the Greek Church, which had with such
cruelty crushed the heresies of the Paulicians and the Iconoclasts. In the
reign of Michael VIII (1261–1282), the Turks were often invited to take
possession of the smaller towns in the interior of Asia Minor by the
inhabitants, that they might escape from the tyranny of the empire; and both
rich and poor often emigrated into Turkish dominions. 203

Some account still remains to be given of two other Christian Churches of
Western Asia, viz. the Armenian and the Georgian. Of the former it may be
said that of all the Eastern Churches that have come under Muhammadan
rule, the Armenian Church has probably given fewer of its members (in
proportion to the size of the community) to swell the ranks of Islam, than
any other. So in spite of the interest that attaches to the story of the struggle
of [97]this brave nation against overwhelming odds and of the fidelity with
which it has clung to the Christian faith—through centuries of warfare and
oppression, persecution and exile—it does not come within the scope of the
present volume to do more than briefly indicate its connection with the
history of the Muhammadans. The Armenian kingdom survived the shock
of the Arab conquest, and in the ninth century rose to be a state of some
importance and flourished during the decay of the caliphate of Bag͟ hdād, but
in the eleventh century was overthrown by the Saljūq Turks. A band of
fugitives founded the kingdom of Lesser Armenia, but this too disappeared
in the fourteenth century. The national life of the Armenian people still
survived in spite of the loss of their independence, and, as was the case in
Greece under the Turks, their religion and the national church served as the
rallying point of their eager, undying patriotism. Though a certain number,
under the pressure of cruel persecution, have embraced Islam, yet the bulk
of the race has remained true to its ancient faith. As Tavernier 204 rather
unsympathetically remarks, “There may be some few Armenians, that

embrace Mahometanism for worldly interest, but they are generally the
most obstinate persons in the world, and most firm to their superstitious
principles.”

The Georgian Church (founded in the early part of the fourth century) was
an offshoot from the Greek Church, with which she has always remained in
communion, although from the middle of the sixth century the Patriarch or
Katholikos of the Georgian Church declared himself independent. Torn
asunder by internal discords and exposed to the successive attacks of
Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Turks and Mongols, the history of this heroic
warrior people is one of almost uninterrupted warfare against foreign foes
and of fiercely contested feuds between native chiefs: the reigns of one or
two powerful monarchs who secured for their subjects brief intervals of
peace, serving only to bring out in more striking contrast the normally
unsettled state of the country. The fierce independent spirit of the Georgians
that could not brook a foreign rule has often exasperated well-nigh [98]to
madness the fury of their Muhammadan neighbours, when they failed to
impose upon them either their civil authority or their religion. It is this
circumstance—that a change of faith implied loss of political independence
—which explains in a great measure the fact that the Georgian Church
inscribes the names of so many martyrs in her calendar, while the annals of
the Greek Church during the same period have no such honoured roll to
show.

It was not until after Georgia had been overrun by the devastating armies of
the Mongols, leaving ruined churches and monasteries and pyramids of
human heads to mark the progress of their destroying hosts, and
consequently the spiritual wants of the people had remained long
unprovided for, owing to the decline in the numbers and learning of the
clergy—that Christianity began to lose ground. 205 Even among those who
still remained Christian, some added to the sufferings of the clergy by
plundering the property of the Church and appropriating to their own use

the revenues of churches and monasteries, and thus hastened the decay of
the Christian faith. 206

In 1400 the invasion of Tīmūr added a crowning horror to the sufferings of
Georgia, and though for a brief period the rule of Alexander I (1414–1442)
delivered the country from the foreign yoke and drove out all the
Muhammadans—after his death it was again broken up into a number of
petty princedoms, from which the Turks and the Persians wrested the last
shreds of independence. But the Muhammadans always found Georgia to be
a turbulent and rebellious possession, ever ready to break out into open
revolt at the slightest opportunity. Both Turks and Persians sought to secure
the allegiance of these troublesome subjects by means of conversion to
Islam. After the fall of Constantinople and the increase of Turkish power in
Asia Minor, the inhabitants of Akhaltsikhé and other districts to the west of
it became Muhammadans. 207 In 1579 two Georgian princes—brothers—
came on an embassy to Constantinople with a large retinue of about two
hundred [99]persons: here the younger brother together with his attendants
became a Musalman, in the hope (it was said) of thereby supplanting his
elder brother. 208 At a rather later date, the conquests of the Turks brought
some of the districts in the very centre of Georgia into their power, the
inhabitants of which embraced the creed of the conquerors. 209 From this
period Samtzkhé, the most western portion of Georgia, recognised the
suzerainty of Turkey: its rulers and people were allowed to continue
undisturbed in the Christian faith, but from 1625 the ruling dynasty became
Muhammadan and many of the chiefs and the aristocracy followed their
example.

Christianity retained its hold upon the peasants much longer, but when the
clergy of Samtzkhé refused allegiance to the Katholikos of Karthli, there
ceased to be regular provision made for supplying the spiritual needs of the
people: the nobles, even before their conversion, had taken to plundering
the estates of the Church, and after becoming Musalmans they naturally

ceased to assist it with their offerings, and the churches and monasteries
falling into decay were replaced by mosques. 210

The rest of Georgia had submitted to Persia, and when Tavernier visited this
part of the country, about the middle of the seventeenth century, he found it
divided into two kingdoms, which were provinces of the Persian empire,
and were governed by native Georgian princes who had to turn
Muhammadan before being advanced to this dignity. 211 One of the first of
such princes was the Tsarevitch Constantine, son of King Alexander II of
Kakheth, who had been brought up at the Persian court and had there
embraced Islam, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. 212 The first
Muhammadan king of Karthli, the Tsarevitch Rustam (1634–1658), had
also been brought up in Persia, and he and his successors to the end of the
century were all Muhammadans. 213

Tavernier describes the Georgians as being very ignorant in matters of
religion and the clergy as unlettered and vicious; some of the heads of the
Church actually sold the [100]Christian boys and girls as slaves to the Turks
and Persians. 214 From this period there seems to have been a widespread
apostasy, especially among the higher classes and those who sought to win
the favour of the Persian court. 215 In 1701 the occupant of the throne of
Georgia, Wakhtang VI, was a Christian: for the first seven years of his reign
he was a prisoner in Ispahan, where great efforts were made to induce him
to become a Muhammadan; when he declared that he preferred to lose his
throne rather than purchase it at the price of apostasy, it is said that his
younger brother, although he was the Patriarch of Georgia, offered to
abandon Christianity and embrace Islam, if the crown were bestowed upon
him, but though invested by the Persians with the royal power, the
Georgians refused to accept him as their ruler, and drove him out of the
kingdom. 216

Towards the close of the eighteenth century, the king of Georgia placed his
people under the protection of the Russian crown. Hitherto their intense

patriotic feeling had helped to keep the Christian faith alive among them so
long as their foreign invaders had been Musalmans, but now that the foreign
power that sought to rob them of their independence was Christian, this
same feeling operated in some of the districts north of the Caucasus to the
advantage of Islam. In Daghistan a certain Darvīsh Manṣūr endeavoured to
unite the different tribes of the Caucasus to oppose the Russians; preaching
the faith of Islam he succeeded in converting the princes and nobles of
Ubichistan and Daghistan, who have remained faithful to Islam ever since;
many of the Circassians, too, were converted by his preaching, and
preferred exile to submitting to the Russian rule. 217 But in 1791 he was
taken prisoner, and in 1800 Georgia was formally incorporated in the
Russian empire.

Darvīsh Manṣūr was not alone in his efforts to convert the Circassians.
When the treaty of Kūchak-Qaïnarji in 1774 had recognised the
independence of the Crimea and [101]opened the Black Sea to Russian
vessels, the Turkish government became alarmed at the prospect of a further
movement of Russian domination along the eastern coast of the Black Sea
and resolved to make an attempt to stir the Circassians to resistance. A
Turkish officer, named Faraḥ ʻAlī, was sent in 1782 to establish a military
colony at Anāpa, near the outlet of the sea of Azov, and to enter into
relations with the Circassian tribes. Faraḥ ʻAlī’s first care was to seek the
hand of a daughter of one of the Circassian beys, offering rich presents of
arms, horses, etc., to her father; the marriage was celebrated with great
pomp and ceremony, and Faraḥ ʻAlī encouraged his soldiers to follow his
example, by promising to defray the expenses of their nuptials. The result
was that a number of Circassian women joined the little colony and
accepted the religion of their husbands, and with the zeal of new converts
won over to Islam their fathers and brothers. An active movement of
proselytism began, and the Circassians who came in contact with the
Turkish colony appear readily to have abandoned their pagan beliefs for the
religion of the Qurʼān, the mollas were kept busy in instructing the new
Muslims, and help had to be sought from Constantinople to deal with the

increasing number of conversions. 218 But the work of Faraḥ ʻAlī was short-
lived; he died in 1785 and his tomb was reverenced as that of a saint, but his
work perished with him. Anāpa passed into the hands of the Russians in
1812, and when the resistance of the Circassians was finally overcome in
1864, more than half a million Circassian Muhammadans migrated into
Turkish territory.

Under Russian law conversions to any faith other than that of the Orthodox
Church were illegal, and the further progress of Islam was stayed until the
promulgation of the edict of toleration in 1905. One of the results of this in
the Caucasus was a large accession to Islam from among the Abkhazes,
who had long been nominal converts to Christianity, but now became
Muhammadans in such numbers that the Orthodox clergy became alarmed
and founded a special society for the distribution of religious tracts among
them, in the hope of combating Muhammadan influences. 219 [102]

Döllinger, pp. 5–6. ↑
1
Caetani, Studi di Storia Orientale, I, p. 365 sqq. (Milano, 1911.) ↑
2
This interpretation of the Arab conquests as the last of the great Semitic migrations has
3
been worked out in a masterly manner by Caetani, vol. ii. pp. 831–61. ↑
Caetani, vol. ii. p. 455; vol. v. p. 521. (“In Madīnah si formò un considerevole nucleo religioso,
4
composto d’elementi eterogenei, ma forse in maggioranza madinesi, i quali presero l’Islām molto
sul serio e cercarono sinceramente di osservare la nuova dottrina, per la convinzione che, così agendo
facevan bene, ed in devoto omaggio alla volontà del Profeta.”) ↑
Masʻūdī, tome iv. p. 238. ↑
5
Muir’s Caliphate, pp. 121–2. ↑
6
Caetani, vol. iii. p. 814 (§ 323). ↑
7
Caetani, vol. ii. pp. 260, 299, 351. ↑
8
Id. pp. 792–3; vol. iii. p. 253 (§ 8). ↑
9
Id. pp. 1112–15. ↑
10
Muir, Caliphate, pp. 90–4. ↑
11
Caetani, vol. ii. p. 299. Wellhausen, iv. p. 156 (n. 5). ↑
12
Ṭabarī, Prima Series, p. 2482. ↑
13

For an exhaustive study of the jizyah, with a masterly array and critical examination of all the
14
available historical materials, see Caetani, vol. v. p. 319 sqq.; for Egypt during the first century of
Muslim rule, see Bell, p. 167 sqq., and Becker, Beiträge zur Geschichte Aegyptens unter dem Islam,
p. 81 sqq. ↑
Caetani (vol. iv. p. 227) believes that this story is the invention of a later epoch, to explain the
15
fiscal anomaly of a Christian tribe being treated as if it were Muslim. ↑
The few meagre notices of this tribe in the works of Arabic historians have been admirably
16
summarised by Lammens: Le Chantre des Omiades. (J. A., ix. sér., tome iv. pp. 97–9, 438–59.)
See also Caetani, vol. iv. p. 227 sqq. ↑
Caetani, vol. ii. p. 1180. ↑
17
Barhebræus (3), pp. 134–5. ↑
18
Caetani, vol. ii. p. 828. ↑
19
Ṭabarī, i. p. 2041. ↑
20
Masʻūdī, tome iv. p. 256. ↑
21
“Gli Arabi nei primi anni non perseguitarono invece alcuno per ragioni di fede,
22
non si diedero pena alcuna per convertire chicchessia, sicchè sotto l’Islām, dopo
le prime conquiste, i cristiani Semiti goderno d’una tolleranza religiosa quale non si era mai vista da
varie generazioni.” (Caetani, vol. v. p. 4.) ↑
Sir Henry Layard: Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia, vol. i. p. 100. (London,
23
1887); R. Hartmann: Die Herrschaft von al-Karak. (Der Islam, vol. ii. p. 137.) ↑
Burckhardt (2), p. 564. ↑
24
W. G. Palgrave: Essays on Eastern Questions, pp. 206–8. (London, 1872.) ↑
25
I. A. Dorner: A System of Christian Doctrine, vol. iii. pp. 215–16. (London, 1885.) J. C.
26
Robertson: History of the Christian Church, vol. ii. p. 226. (London, 1875.) ↑
That such fears were not wholly groundless may be judged from the emperor’s intolerant
27
behaviour towards many of the Monophysite party in his progress through Syria after the defeat of
the Persians in 627. (See Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 412, and Caetani, vol. ii. p. 1049.) For the
outrages committed by the Byzantine soldiers on their co-religionists in the reign of Constans II
(642–668), see Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 443. ↑
Michael the Elder, vol. ii. pp. 412–13. Barhebræus, about a century later, wrote in a similar strain.
28
(Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, ed. J. B. Abbeloos et Lamy, p. 474.) ↑
Azdī, p. 97. ↑
29
Balād͟ hurī, p. 137. ↑
30
Caetani, vol. iii. p. 813; vol. v. p. 394. (“Gli abitanti accettarono con non celato favore il
31
mutamento di governo, appena ebbero compreso che gli Arabi avrebbero rispettato i loro
diritti individuali, ed avrebbero lasciata completa libertà di coscienza in materia religiosa. In Siria,
città ed interi distretti si affrettarono a trattare con gli Arabi anche prima della rotta finale dei Greci.

Nel Sawād si lasciarono passivamente sopraffare accettando il nuovo dominio senza pattuire
condizioni di sorta; è probabile che anche in Siria questo fosse il caso per molte regioni remote dalle
grandi vie di comunicazioni.”) ↑
Gottheil has brought together a valuable collection of documentary evidence as to the condition of
32
the protected peoples under Muslim rule in his “Dhimmīs and Moslems in Egypt.” ↑
Balād͟ hurī, pp. 74 (ad fin.), 116, 121 (med.). ↑
33
For a discussion of this document, see Caetani, vol. iii. p. 952 sqq. ↑
34
Ṭabarī, i. p. 2405. ↑
35
Balād͟ hurī, p. 129. ↑
36
Ibn Sʻad, III, i. p. 246. ↑
37
Mémoire sur la conquête de la Syrie, p. 143 sq. ↑
38
Annali dell’Islām, vol. iii. p. 957. ↑
39
Some authorities on Muhammadan law held that this rule did not extend to
40
villages and hamlets, in which the construction of churches was not to be
prevented. (Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 219.) ↑
“The ʻUlamāʼ are divided in opinion on the question of the teaching of the Qurʼān: the sect of
41
Mālik forbids it: that of Abū Ḥanīfah allows it; and Shāfiʻī has two opinions on the subject: on the
one hand, he countenances the study of it, as indicating a leaning towards Islam; and on the other
hand, he forbids it, because he fears that the unbeliever who studies the Qurʼān being still impure
may read it solely with the object of turning it to ridicule, since he is the enemy of God and the
Prophet who wrote the book; now as these two statements are contradictory, Shāfiʻī has no formally
stated opinion on this matter.” (Belin, p. 508.) ↑
Such as the forms of greeting, etc., that are only to be used by Muslims to one another. ↑
42
Abū Yūsuf (p. 82) says that Christians were to be allowed to go in procession once a year with
43
crosses, but not with banners; outside the city, not inside where the mosques were. ↑
The nāqūs, lit. an oblong piece of wood, struck with a rod. ↑
44
Gottheil, pp. 382–4, where references are given to the various versions of this document. ↑
45
There is evidence to show that the Arab conquerors left unchanged the fiscal system that
46
they found prevailing in the lands they conquered from the Byzantines, and that the
explanation of jizyah as a capitation-tax is an invention of later jurists, ignorant of the true condition
of affairs in the early days of Islam. (Caetani, vol. iv. p. 610 (§ 231); vol. v. p. 449.) H. Lammens:
Ziād ibn Abīhi. (Rivista degli Studi Orientali, vol. iv. p. 215.) ↑
Goldziher, vol. i. pp. 50–7, 427–30. Caetani, vol. v. p. 311 sqq. ↑
47
Caetani, vol. v. pp. 424 (§ 752), 432. ↑
48
Balād͟ hurī, pp. 124–5. ↑
49
A. von Kremer (1), vol. i. pp. 60, 436. ↑
50

A dirham is about fivepence. ↑
51
Bell, pp. xxv, 173. ↑
52
Abū Yūsuf, pp. 69–71. ↑
53
Ṭabarī, Prima Series, p. 2055. ↑
54
Id. p. 2050. ↑
55
Abū Yūsuf, p. 81. ↑
56
Balād͟ hurī, p. 159. ↑
57
Ṭabarī, Prima Series, p. 2665. ↑
58
Marsigli, vol. i. p. 86 (he calls them “Musellim”). ↑
59
Finlay, vol. vi. pp. 30, 33. ↑
60
Lazăr, p. 56. ↑
61
De la Jonquière, p. 14. ↑
62
Thomas Smith, p. 324. ↑
63
Dorostamus, p. 326. ↑
64
De la Jonquière, p. 265. ↑
65
Lammens, p. 13. ↑
66
Ibn Abī Usaybiʻah, vol. i. p. 164. ↑
67
Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 475. ↑
68
Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 71 (l. 16). Abū
69
Nūḥ al-Anbārī wrote a refutation of the
Qurʼān and other theological works (Wright, p. 191 n. 3). ↑
Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 84. ↑
70
Hilāl al-Ṣābī, p. 95. ↑
71
Ibn al-At͟ hīr, vol. ix. p. 16. ↑
72
Von Kremer (1), vol. i. pp. 167–8. Lammens, p. 11. ↑
73
Renaudot, pp. 430, 540. ↑
74
Von Kremer (1), vol. ii. pp. 180–1. ↑
75
Von Kremer (1), vol. i. p. 183. ↑
76
Caetani, vol. iii. pp. 350 sq., 387 sqq. ↑
77
Gottheil, pp. 360–1. Goldziher: Zur Literatur des Ichtilâf al-maḏâhib,
78
ZDMG., vol. 38, pp. 673–4. ↑
On this theoretical character of much of Muslim legal literature, see Snouck Hurgronje:
79
Mohammedanisches Recht in Theorie und Wirklichkeit. ↑

Gottheil, p. 363. ↑
80
Gottheil, pp. 358–9, however, doubts whether there is evidence for attributing this intolerance
81
to ʻUmar II. ↑
Journal Asiatique, IVme série, tome xviii. (1851), pp. 433, 450. Ṭabarī, III, p. 1419. ↑
82
Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 476. Renaudot, p. 189. ↑
83
Eutychius, II, p. 41 init. Severus (p. 139) says “two churches.” ↑
84
Von Kremer (1), vol. ii. p. 175. ↑
85
Michael the Elder, vol. ii. pp. 490, 491. ↑
86
Ibn K͟ hallikān, vol. i. p. 485. ↑
87
Elias of Nisibis, p. 128. ↑
88
A. J. Butler: The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt, vol. i. p. 181. (Oxford,
89
1884.) ↑
Yāqūt, vol. ii. p. 662. ↑
90
Yāqūt, vol. ii. p. 670. ↑
91
Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 73. ↑
92
Ishok of Romgla, p. 266. ↑
93
Eutychius, II, p. 58. ↑
94
Von Kremer (1), vol. ii. pp. 175–6. ↑
95
Butler: Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt, vol. i. p. 76. ↑
96
Renaudot, p. 399. ↑
97
Ishok of Romgla, p. 333. ↑
98
Abū Ṣāliḥ, p. 92. ↑
99
A Dominican monk from Florence, by name Ricoldus de Monte
100
Crucis, who visited the East about the close of the thirteenth and
the beginning of the fourteenth century, speaks of the toleration the Nestorians had enjoyed under
Muhammadan rule right up to his time: “Et ego inveni per antiquas historias et autenticas aput
Saracenos, quod ipsi Nestorini amici fuerunt Machometi et confederati cum eo, et quod ipse
Machometus mandauit suis posteris, quod Nestorinos maxime conseruarent. Quod usque hodie
diligenter obseruant ipsi Sarraceni.” (Laurent, p. 128.) ↑
J. Labourt: De Timotheo I, Nestorianorum Patriarcha, p. 37 sqq. (Paris, 1904.) ↑
101
E. von Dobschütz, p. 390–1. ↑
102
Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 439–40. ↑
103
Makīn, p. 12. J. Labourt: Le Christianisme sous la dynastie sassanide, p. 139 sq.
104
(Paris, 1904.) ↑

Renaudot, p. 169. ↑
105
Von Kremer well remarks: “Wir verdanken dem unermüdlichen Sammelfleiss der arabischen
106
Chronisten unsere Kenntniss der politischen und militärischen Geschichte jener Zeiten,
welche so genau ist als dies nur immer auf eine Entfernung von zwölf Jahrhunderten der Fall sein
kann; allein gerade die innere Geschichte jener denkwürdigen Epoche, die Geschichte des Kampfes
einer neuen, rohen Religion gegen die alten hochgebildeten, zum Theile überbildeten Culte ist kaum
in ihren allgemeinsten Umrissen bekannt.” (Von Kremer (2), pp. 1–2.) ↑
Thomas of Margā, vol. ii. p. 309 sq. ↑
107
Thomas of Margā, vol. ii. pp. 310, 324 sq. ↑
108
Cf. in addition to the passages quoted below, MʻClintoch & Strong’s Cyclopædia, sub art.
109
Mohammedanism, vol. vi. p. 420. James Freeman Clarke: Ten Great Religions, Part ii. p.
75. (London, 1883.) ↑
Thus the Emperor Heraclius is represented by the Muhammadan historian as saying, “Their
110
religion is a new religion which gives them new zeal.” (Ṭabarī, p. 2103.) ↑
History of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. pp. 216–17. ↑
111
Caetani, vol. ii. pp. 1045–6. ↑
112
A paper read before the Church Congress at Wolverhampton, October 7th, 1887. ↑
113
For the oppressive fiscal system under the Byzantine empire, see Gfrörer:
114
Byzantinische Geschichten, vol. ii. pp. 337–9, 389–91, 450. ↑
“Der Islam war ein Rückstoss gegen den Missbrauch, welchen Justinian mit der Menschheit,
115
besonders aber mit der christlichen Religion trieb, deren oberstes geistliches und weltliches
Haupt er zu sein behauptete. Dass der Araber Mahomed, welcher 571 der christlichen Zeitrechnung,
sechs Jahre nach dem Tode Justinians, das Licht der Welt erblickte, mit seiner Lehre unerhörtes
Glück machte, verdankte er grossentheils dem Abscheu, welchen die im Umkreise des
byzantinischen Reiches angesessenen Völker, wie die benachbarten Nationen, über die von dem
Basileus begangenen Greuel empfanden.” (Gfrörer: Byzantinische Geschichten, vol. ii. p. 437.) ↑
Id. vol. ii. pp. 296–306, 337. ↑
116
Id. vol. ii. pp. 442–4. ↑
117
Id. vol. ii. p. 445. ↑
118
Masʻūdī, vol. ii. p. 387. ↑
119
Von Kremer (2), p. 8. ↑
120
Id. p. 54 and (3), p. 32. Nicholson, p. 231. ↑
121
Among the Muʻtazilite philosophers, Muḥammad b. al-Huzayl, the teacher
122
of al-Maʼmūn, is said to have converted more than three thousand persons
to Islam. (Aḥmad b. Yaḥyạ̄ b. al-Murtaḍạ̄, p. 26, l. 7.) ↑
Von Kremer (2), pp. 3, 7–8. C. H. Becker: Christliche Polemik und islamische Dogmenbildung
123
(Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, xxvi. 1912). ↑

Ibn K͟ hallikān, vol. i. p. 45. ↑
124
Wüstenfeld, p. 103. ↑
125
Michael the Elder, vol. ii. pp. 412–13. Caetani, vol. v. p. 508. (“Le vittorie sui Greci e sui
126
Persiani non solamente erano il trionfo della razza araba sulle popolazioni delle provincie
conquistate, ma nella mente orientale che vede in tutto la mano di Dio, costituivano un trionfo del
principio islamico su quello cristiano e mazdeista, ma sovrattutto sul cristiano.”) ↑
Goldziher, vol. i. chaps. 3 and 4. ↑
127
The last of these was prompted by the discovery of an attempt on the part of the Christians to
128
burn the city of Cairo. (De Guignes, vol. iv. pp. 204–5.) Gottheil, p. 359, Journal Asiatique,
IVme série, tome xviii. (1851), pp. 454, 455, 463, 484, 491. ↑
Assemani, tom. iii. pars. 2, p. c. Renaudot, pp. 432, 603, 607. ↑
129
Muir: The Caliphate, p. 475. ↑
130
Von Kremer (3), p. 246. ↑
131
Muir (1), pp. 508, 516–17. ↑
132
Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 79 sq. Ṣalībā b. Yuḥannā, p. 71. ↑
133
Gottheil, p. 364 sqq. ↑
134
Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 114 (ll. 14–16). ↑
135
This tradition appears in several forms, e.g. “Whoever wrongs one
136
with whom a compact has been made (i.e. a d͟ himmī) and lays on him
a burden beyond his strength, I will be his accuser.” (Balād͟ hurī, p. 162, fin.) (Yaḥyā b. Ādam, p. 54
(fin.), adds the words, “till the day of judgment.”) “Whoever does violence to a d͟ himmī who has paid
his jizyah and evidenced his submission—his enemy am I.” (Usd al-G͟ hāba, quoted by Goldziher, in
the Jewish Encyclopædia, vol. vi. p. 655.) The Christian historian al-Makīn (p. 11) gives, “Whoever
torments the d͟ himmīs, torments me.” ↑
Journal Asiatique, IVme série, tome xix. p. 109. (Paris, 1852.) See also R. Gottheil: A Fetwa on
137
the appointment of D͟ himmīs to office. (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, vol. xxvi. p. 203 sqq.) ↑
Belin, pp. 435–40, 442, 448, 456, 459–61, 479–80. ↑
138
Id. p. 435, n. 2. ↑
139
Id. p. 478. ↑
140
Mārī b. Sulaymān (p. 115, ll. 1–2) offers this explanation of the defections that
141
followed the persecution towards the close of the tenth century: ‫واسلم خلق كثير وكان‬
‫اصل ذلك تجّوز الناس في اديانہم وقبح سيرة الكہنة في المذبح والبيع ونيوت المقدس‬‎↑
The Caliph of Egypt, al-Ḥākim (a.d. 996–1020), did in fact order all the Jews and Christians to
142
leave Egypt and emigrate into the Byzantine territory, but yielded to their entreaties to revoke his
orders. (Maqrīzī (1), p. 91.) It would have been quite possible, however, for him to have enforced its
execution as it would have been for the ferocious Salīm I (1512–1520), who with the design of
putting an end to all religious differences in his dominions caused 40,000 Shīʻahs to be massacred, to

have completed this politic scheme by the extermination of the Christians also. But in allowing
himself to be dissuaded from this design, he most certainly acted in accordance with the general
policy adopted by Muhammadan rulers towards their Christian subjects. (Finlay, vol. v. pp. 29–30.) ↑
Silbernagl, p. 268. ↑
143
Id. p. 354. ↑
144
Id. pp. 307, 360. ↑
145
Id. p. 25–6. ↑
146
Id. p. 335. ↑
147
Id. p. 384. ↑
148
See A. von Kremer (1), vol. ii. pp. 490–2. ↑
149
The sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 may be taken as
150
a type of the treatment that the Eastern Christians met with at the
hands of the Latins. Barhebræus complains that the monastery of Harran was sacked and plundered
by Count Goscelin, Lord of Emessa, in 1184, just as though he had been a Saracen or a Turk.
(Barhebræus (1), vol. ii. pp. 506–8.) ↑
H. H. Milman, vol. ii. p. 218. ↑
151
A. von Kremer (1), vol. i. p. 172. ↑
152
Assemani, tom. iii. Pars Prima, pp. 130–1. ↑
153
Ibn Saʻd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. v. p. 258. ↑
154
Id. p. 285. ↑
155
Maḥbūb al-Manbijī, p. 358 (ll. 2–3). ↑
156
Ibn Saʻd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. v. p. 262. ↑
157
August Müller, vol. i. p. 440. ↑
158
Migne: Patr. Gr., tom. 96, pp. 1336–48. ↑
159
Migne: Patr. Gr., tom. 97, pp. 1528–9, 1548–61. ↑
160
Id. p. 1557. ↑
161
ʻAmr b. Mattai, p. 65. ↑
162
Id. p. 72. ↑
163
Risālah ʻAbd Allāh b. Ismāʻīl al-Hāshimī ilạ̄
164
ʻAbd al-Masīḥ b. Isḥāq al-Kindī, pp. 1–37.
(London, 1885.) ↑
Appendix I. For an account of Muslim controversial literature, see Appendix II. ↑
165
Kindī, pp. 111–13. ↑
166
Balād͟ hurī, pp. 430. ↑
167

It is very probable that the occasion of this visit of Yazdānbak͟ ht to Bag͟ hdād was the summoning
168
of a great assembly of the leaders of all the religious bodies of the period, by al-Maʼmūn, when it
had come to his ears that the enemies of Islam declared that it owed its success to the sword and not
to the power of argument: in this meeting, the Muslim doctors defended their religion against this
imputation, and the unbelievers are said to have acknowledged that the Muslims had satisfactorily
proved their point. (Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍạ̄: Al-munyah wa’l-amal fī sharḥ kitāb al-milal
wa’l-niḥal. British Museum, Or. 3937, fol. 53 (b), ll. 9–11.) ↑
Kitāb al-Fihrist, vol. i. p. 338. ↑
169
Barhebræus (1), vol. iii. p. 194. ↑
170
Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 101 (ll. 3–4). ↑
171
Barhebræus (1), vol. iii. p. 230. ↑
172
Id., (1), vol. iii. p. 248. ↑
173
All the Jacobite Patriarchs assumed the name of Ignatius; before his
174
consecration he was called Mark bar Qīqī. ↑
Barhebræus (1), vol. iii. pp. 288–90. Elias of Nisibis, pp. 153–4. He returned to the Christian
175
faith, however, before his death, which took place about twenty years later. Two similar cases are
recorded in the annals of the Jacobite Patriarchs of Antioch in the sixteenth century: of these one,
named Joshua, became a Muhammadan in 1517, but afterwards recanting fled to Cyprus (at that time
in the hands of the Venetians), where prostrate at the door of a church in penitential humility he
suffered all who went in or out to tread over his body; the other, Niʻmat Allāh (flor. 1560), having
abjured Christianity for Islam, sought absolution of Pope Gregory XIII in Rome. (Barhebræus (1),
vol. ii. pp. 847–8.) ↑
In fact Elias of Nisibis, the contemporary chronicler of the conversion of the Jacobite Patriarch,
176
makes no mention of such a failing, nor does Mārī b. Sulaymān (pp. 115–16), the historian of the
rival Nestorian Church, [87]though he accuses him of plundering the sacred vessels and ornaments of
the churches. As Wright (Syriac Literature, p. 192) says of Joseph of Merv, “We need not believe all
the evil that Barhebræus tells us of this unhappy man.” ↑
Barhebræus (1), vol. ii. p. 518. ↑
177
Id. vol. ii. p. 712 sq. ↑
178
Historia Orientalis, C. 15 (p. 45). ↑
179
De Guignes, tome ii. (Seconde Partie), p. 15. ↑
180
Odo de Diogilo. (De Ludovici vii. Itinere. Migne, Patr. Lat., tom. cxcv. p. 1243.)
181
“Vitantes igitur sibi crudeles socios fidei, inter infideles sibi compatientes ibant
securi, et sicut audivimus plusquam tria millia iuvenum sunt illis recedentibus sociati. O pietas omni
proditione crudelior! Dantes panem fidem tollebant, quamvis certum sit quia, contenti servitio,
neminem negare cogebant.” ↑
Guizot: Histoire de la civilisation en Europe, p. 234. (Paris, 1882.) ↑
182
Usāma b. Munqid͟ h, p. 99. ↑

Prutz, pp. 266–7. ↑
183 184
Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois. (Recueil des historiens des Croisades, Assises de
185
Jérusalem, tome ii. p. 325.) ↑
Bahā al-Dīn, p. 25. ↑
186
Roger Hoveden, vol. ii. p. 307. ↑
187
Benedict of Peterborough, vol. ii. pp. 11–12. ↑
188
Id., vol. ii. pp. 20–1. Roger Hoveden, vol. ii. pp. 316, 322. ↑
189
Abū Shāmah, p. 150. ↑
190
Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Richardi, p. 131. (Chronicles and
191
Memorials of the reign of Richard I. Edited by William Stubbs.) (London,
1864.) ↑
Joinville, p. 238. ↑
192
Id. p. 262. ↑
193
Mas Latrie (1), vol. ii. p. 72. ↑
194
Ludolf de Suchem, p. 71. ↑
195
Lionardo Frescobaldi, quoted in the preface of Defrémery and Sanguinetti’s
196
edition of Ibn Baṭūṭah, vol. i. p. xl. ↑
Christophori Füreri ab Haimendorf Itinerarium Ægypti, p. 42. (Norimbergæ, 1620.) ↑
197
Le Voyage en Ethiopie entrepris par le Père Aymard Guérin. (Rabbath, pp. 17–18.) ↑
198
“Notandum autem in rei veritate, licet quidam contrarium senciant, qui ea volunt asserere,
199
que non viderunt, quod oriens totus ultra mare Yndiam et Ethiopiam nomen Christi
confitetur et predicat, preter solos Sarracenos et quosdam Turcomannos, qui in Cappadocia sedem
habent, ita quod pro certo assero, sicut per memet ipsum vidi et ab aliis, quibus notum erat, audivi,
quod semper in omni loco et regno preterquam in Egypto et Arabia, ubi plurimum habitant Sarraceni
et alii Machometum sequentes, pro uno Sarraceno triginta vel amplius invenies Christianos. Verum
tamen, quod Christiani omnes transmarini natione sunt orientales, qui licet sint Christiani, quia tamen
usum armorum non habent multum, cum impugnantur a Sarracenis, Tartaris, vel aliis quibuscumque,
subiciuntur eis et tributis pacem et quietem emunt, et Sarraceni sive alii, qui eis dominantur, balivos
suos et exactores in terris illis ponunt. Et inde contigit, quod regnum illud dicitur esse Sarracenorum,
cum tamen in rei veritate sunt omnes Christiani preter ipsos balivos et exactores et aliquos de familia
ipsorum, sicut oculis meis vidi in Cilicia et Armenia minori, que est subdita dominio Tartarorum.”
(Burchardi de Monte Sion, Descriptio Terræ Sanctæ, p. 90.) ↑
Recueil des historiens des Croisades. (Assises de Jérusalem, tome i. p. 325.) ↑
200
Prutz, pp. 146–7, 150. ↑
201
The prelates of the Holy Land wrote as follows, in 1244, concerning the invasion of the
202
K͟ hwarizmians, whom Sultan Ayyūb had called in to assist him in driving out the
Crusaders:—“Per totam terram usque ad partes Nazareth et Saphet libere nullo resistente discurrunt,

occupantes eandem, et inter se quasi propriam dividentes, per villas et cazalia Christianorum legatos
et bajulos præficiunt, suscipientes a rusticis redditus et tributa, quæ Christianis præstare solebant, qui
jam Christianis hostes effecti et rebelles dictis Corosminis universaliter adhæserunt.” (Matthei
Parisiensis Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, vol. iv. p. 343.) (London, 1872–83.) ↑
Finlay, vol. iii. pp. 358–9. J. H. Krause: Die Byzantiner des Mittelalters, p. 276. (Halle, 1869.) ↑
203
Tavernier (1), p. 174. ↑
204
Joselian, p. 125. All the Abkhazes, Djikhethes, Ossetes, Kabardes and Kisthethes fell
205
away from the Christian faith about this time. ↑
Id. p. 127. ↑
206
Id. p. 143. ↑
207
David Chytræus, p. 49. ↑
208
Joselian, p. 157. ↑
209
Brosset, IIe partie, Ire livraison, pp. 227–35. Description géographique de la
210
Géorgie par le Tsarévitch Wakhoucht, p. 79. (St. Petersburg, 1842.) ↑
The Six Voyages, p. 123. ↑
211
Joselian, p. 149. ↑
212
Id. pp. 160–1. ↑
213
Tavernier (1), pp. 124, 126. He estimates the number of Muhammadans at about
214
twelve thousand. (Id. p. 123.) ↑
Brosset, IIe partie, Ire livraison, pp. 85, 181. ↑
215
Documens originaux sur les relations diplomatiques de la Géorgie avec la France vers la fin
216
du règne de Louis XIV, recueillis par M. Brosset jeune. (J. A. 2me série, tome ix. (1832), pp.
197, 451.) ↑
Mackenzie, p. 7. Garnett, p. 194. ↑
217
Barbier de Meynard, p. 45 sqq. ↑
218
R. du M. M., VII, p. 320 (1909). ↑
219

[Contents]

CHAPTER IV.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE
CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF AFRICA.
Islam was first introduced into Africa by the Arab army that invaded Egypt
under the command of ʻAmr b. al-ʻĀṣ in a.d. 640. Three years later the
withdrawal of the Byzantine troops abandoned the vast Christian population
into the hands of the Muslim conquerors. The rapid success of the Arab
invaders was largely due to the welcome they received from the native
Christians, who hated the Byzantine rule not only for its oppressive
administration, but also—and chiefly—on account of the bitterness of
theological rancour. The Jacobites, who formed the majority of the
Christian population, had been very roughly handled by the Orthodox
adherents of the court and subjected to indignities that have not been
forgotten by their children even to the present day. 1 Some were tortured and
then thrown into the sea; many followed their Patriarch into exile to escape
from the hands of their persecutors, while a large number disguised their
real opinions under a pretended acceptance of the Council of Chalcedon. 2
To these Copts, as the Jacobite Christians of Egypt are called, the
Muhammadan conquest brought a freedom of religious life such as they had
not enjoyed for a century. On payment of the tribute, ʻAmr left them in
undisturbed possession of their churches and guaranteed to them autonomy
in all ecclesiastical matters, thus delivering them from the continual
interference that had been so grievous a burden under [103]the previous rule;
he laid his hands on none of the property of the churches and committed no
act of spoliation or pillage. 3 In the early days of the Muhammadan rule
then, the condition of the Copts seems to have been fairly tolerable, 4 and
there is no evidence of their widespread apostasy to Islam being due to
persecution or unjust pressure on the part of their new rulers. Even before
the conquest was complete, while the capital, Alexandria, still held out,
many of them went over to Islam, 5 and a few years later the example these

had set was followed by many others. 6 In the reign of ʻUt͟ hmān (a.d. 643–
655), the revenue derived from Egypt amounted to twelve millions; a few
years later, in the reign of Muʻāwiyah (661–679), it had fallen to five
millions owing to the enormous number of conversions: under ʻUmar II
(717–720) it fell still lower, so that the governor of Egypt 7 proposed that in
future the converts should not be exempted from the payment of the
capitation-tax, but this the pious caliph refused to allow, saying that God
had sent Muḥammad to call men to a knowledge of the truth and not to be a
collector of taxes. 8

But later rulers recognised that for fiscal reasons such a policy was ruinous
to the state, and insisted on the converts continuing to pay taxes as before;
there was, however, no continuity in such a policy, and individual governors
acted in an arbitrary and irregular manner. 9 When Ḥafṣ b. al-Walīd, who
was governor of Egypt in a.d. 744, promised that all those who became
Muslims would be exempted [104]from the payment of jizyah, as many as
24,000 Christians are reported to have accepted Islam. 10 A similar
proclamation is said to have been made by al-Saffāḥ, the first of the
ʻAbbāsid caliphs, soon after his accession in a.d. 750, for “he wrote to the
whole of his dominions saying that every one who embraced his religion
and prayed according to his fashion, should be quit of the jizyah, and many,
both rich and poor, denied the faith of Christ by reason of the magnitude of
the taxation and the burdens imposed upon them.” 11 In fact many of the
Christians of Egypt seem to have abandoned Christianity as lightly and as
rapidly as, in the beginning of the fourth century, they had embraced it.
Prior to that period, a very small section of the population of the valley of
the Nile was Christian, but the sufferings of the martyrs in the persecution
of Diocletian, the stories of the miracles they performed, the national
feeling excited by the sense of their opposition to the dictates of the foreign
government, 12 the assurance that a paradise of delights was opened to the
martyr who died under the hands of his tormentors,—all these things stirred
up an enthusiasm that resulted in an incredibly rapid spread of the Christian
faith. “Instead of being converted by preaching, as the other countries of the

East were, Egypt embraced Christianity in a fit of wild enthusiasm, without
any preaching, or instruction being given, with hardly any knowledge of the
new religion beyond the name of Jesus, the Messiah, who bestowed a life of
eternal happiness on all who confessed Him.” 13

In the seventh century Christianity had probably very little hold on a great
mass of the people of Egypt. The theological catchwords that their leaders
made use of, to stir up in them feelings of hatred and opposition to the
Byzantine government, could have been intelligible to a very few, and the
rapid spread of Islam in the early days of the Arab occupation was probably
due less to definite efforts to attract than to the inability of such a
Christianity to retain. The theological basis for the existence of the
[105]Jacobites as a separate sect, the tenets that they had so long and at so
great a cost struggled to maintain, were embodied in doctrines of the most
abstruse and metaphysical character, and many doubtless turned in utter
perplexity and weariness from the interminable controversies that raged
around them, to a faith that was summed up in the simple, intelligible truth
of the Unity of God and the mission of His Prophet, Muḥammad. Even
within the Coptic Church itself at a later period, we find evidence of a
movement which, if not distinctly Muslim, was at least closely allied
thereto, and in the absence of any separate ecclesiastical organisation in
which it might find expression, probably contributed to the increase of the
converts to Islam. In the beginning of the twelfth century, there was in the
monastery of St. Anthony (near Iṭfīḥ on the Nile), a monk named Balūṭus,
“learned in the doctrines of the Christian religion and the duties of the
monastic life, and skilled in the rules of the canon-law. But Satan caught
him in one of his nets; for he began to hold opinions at variance with those
taught by the Three Hundred and Eighteen (of Nicæa); and he corrupted the
minds of many of those who had no knowledge or instruction in the
Orthodox faith. He announced with his impure mouth, in his wicked
discourses, that Christ our Lord—to Whom be glory—was like one of the
prophets. He associated with the lowest among the followers of his religion,
clothed as he was in the monastic habit. When he was questioned as to his

religion and his creed, he professed himself a believer in the Unity of God.
His doctrines prevailed during a period which ended in the year 839 of the
Righteous Martyrs (a.d. 1123); then he died, and his memory was cut off
for ever.” 14

Further, a theory of the Christian life that found its highest expression in
asceticism of the grossest type 15 could offer little attraction, in the face of
the more human morality of Islam. 16 On account of the large numbers of
Copts that [106]from time to time have become Muhammadans, they have
come to be considered by the followers of the Prophet as much more
inclined to the faith of Islam than any other Christian sect, and though they
have had to endure the most severe oppression and persecution on many
occasions, yet the Copts that have been thus driven to abandon their faith
are said to have been few in comparison with those who have changed their
religion voluntarily, 17 and even in the nineteenth century, when Egypt was
said to be the most tolerant of all Muhammadan countries, there were yearly
conversions of the Copts to the Muslim faith. 18 Still, persecution and
oppression have undoubtedly played a very large part in the reduction of the
numbers of the Copts, and the story of the sufferings of the Jacobite Church
of Egypt,—persecuted alike by their fellow Christians 19 and by the
followers of the dominant faith, is a very sad one, and many abandoned the
religion of their fathers in order to escape from burdensome taxes and
unendurable indignities. The vast difference in this respect between their
condition and that of the Christians of Syria, Palestine and Spain at the
same period finds its explanation in the turbulent character of the Copts
themselves. Their long struggle against the civil and theological despotism
of Byzantium seems to have welded the zealots into a national party that
could as little brook the foreign rule of the Arabs as, before, that of the
Greeks. The rising of the Copts against their new masters in 646, when they
drove the Arabs for a time out of Alexandria and opened the gates of the
city to the Byzantine troops (who, however, treated the unfortunate Copts as
enemies, [107]not having yet forgotten the welcome they had before given to
the Muhammadan invaders), was the first of a long series of risings and

insurrections, 20—excited frequently by excessive taxation,—which exposed
them to terrible reprisals, and caused the lot of the Jacobite Christians of
Egypt to be harder to bear than that of any other Christian sect in this or
other countries under Muhammadan rule. But the history of these events
belongs rather to a history of Muhammadan persecution and intolerance
than to the scope of the present work. It must not, however, be supposed
that the condition of the Copts was invariably that of a persecuted sect; on
the contrary there were times when they rose to positions of great affluence
and importance in the state. They filled the posts of secretaries and scribes
in the government offices, 21 farmed the taxes, 22 and in some cases amassed
enormous wealth. 23 The annals of their Church furnish us with many
instances of ecclesiastics who were held in high favour and consideration
by the reigning princes of the country, under the rule of many of whom the
Christians enjoyed the utmost tranquillity. 24 To such a period of the peace of
the Church belongs an incident that led to the absorption of many Christians
into the body of the faithful.

During the reign of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin) (1169–1193) over Egypt, the
condition of the Christians was very happy under the auspices of this
tolerant ruler; the taxes that had been imposed upon them were lightened
and several swept away altogether; they crowded into the public offices as
secretaries, accountants and registrars; and for nearly a century under the
successors of Saladin, they enjoyed the same toleration and favour, and had
nothing to complain of except the corruption and degeneracy of their own
clergy. Simony had become terribly rife among them; the priesthood was
sold to ignorant and vicious persons, while postulants for the sacred office
who were unable to pay the sums demanded for ordination, were repulsed
with scorn, in spite of their [108]being worthy and fit persons. The
consequence was that the spiritual and moral training of the people was
utterly neglected and there was a lamentable decay of the Christian life. 25
So corrupt had the Church become that when, on the death of John, the
seventy-fourth Patriarch of the Jacobites, in 1216, a successor was to be
elected, the contending parties who pushed the claims of rival candidates,

kept up a fierce and irreconcilable dispute for nearly twenty years, and all
this time cared less for the grievous scandal and the harmful consequences
of their shameless quarrels than for the maintenance of their dogged and
obstinately factious spirit. On more than one occasion the reigning sultan
tried to make peace between the contending parties, refused the enormous
bribes of three, five, and even ten thousand gold pieces that were offered in
order to induce him to secure the election of one of the candidates by the
pressure of official influence, and even offered to remit the fee that it was
customary for a newly-elected Patriarch to pay, if only they would put aside
their disputes and come to some agreement,—but all to no purpose.
Meanwhile many episcopal sees fell vacant and there was no one to take the
place of the bishops and priests that died in this interval; in the monastery
of St. Macarius alone there were only four priests left as compared with
over eighty under the last Patriarch. 26 So utterly neglected were the
Christians of the western dioceses, that they all became Muslims. 27 To this
bald statement of the historian of the Coptic Church, we unfortunately have
no information to add, of the positive efforts made by the Musalmans to
bring these Christians over to their faith. That such there were, there can be
very little doubt, especially as we know that the Christians held public
disputations and engaged in written controversies on the respective merits
of the rival creeds. 28 That these [109]conversions were not due to
persecution, we know from direct historical evidence that during this
vacancy of the patriarchate, the Christians had full and complete freedom of
public worship, were allowed to restore their churches and even to build
new ones, were freed from the restrictions that forbade them to ride on
horses or mules, and were tried in law-courts of their own, while the monks
were exempted from the payment of tribute and granted certain privileges. 29

How far this incident is a typical case of conversion to Islam among the
Copts it is difficult to say; a parallel case of neglect is mentioned by two
Capuchin missionaries who travelled up the Nile to Luxor in the
seventeenth century, where they found that the Copts of Luxor had no
priest, and some of them had not gone to confession or communion for fifty

years. 30 Under such circumstances the decay of their numbers can readily be
understood.

A similar neglect probably contributed to the decay of the Nubian Church
which recognised the primacy of the Jacobite Patriarch of Alexandria, as do
the Abyssinians to the present day. The Nubians had been converted to
Christianity about the middle of the sixth century, and retained their
independence when Egypt was conquered by the Arabs; a treaty was made
according to which the Nubians were to send every year three hundred and
sixty slaves, with forty more for the governor of Egypt, while the Arabs
were to furnish them with corn, oil and raiment. 31 In the reign of al-
Muʻtaṣim (833–842), ambassadors were sent by the caliph renewing this
treaty, and the king of Nubia visited the capital, where he was received with
great magnificence and dismissed with costly presents. 32 In the twelfth
century they were still all Christian, 33 and retained their old independence in
spite of the frequent expeditions sent against them from Egypt. 34 In 1275
the nephew of the then king of Nubia obtained from the sultan of Egypt a
body of troops to assist him in his revolt against his uncle, [110]whom he by
their help succeeded in deposing; in return for this assistance he had to cede
the two northernmost provinces of Nubia to the sultan, and as the
inhabitants elected to retain their Christian faith, an annual tribute of one
dīnār for each male was imposed upon them. 35 But this Muhammadan
overlordship was temporary only, and the Nubians of the ceded provinces
soon reasserted their independence. 36

But settlements of Arabs had been established in Nubia for several centuries
earlier and the Arabs on the Blue Nile had so increased in number and
wealth in the tenth century that they were able to ask permission to build a
mosque in Soba, 37 the capital of the Christian kingdom. 38 In the thirteenth
and especially from the beginning of the fourteenth century there began a
general process of interpenetration through the migration into Nubia of
Arabs, especially of the Juhaynah tribe, who intermarried with the women
of the land and gradually succeeded in breaking up the power of the Nubian

princes. 39 In the latter half of the fourteenth century Ibn Baṭūṭah 40 tells us
that the Nubians were still Christians, though the king of their chief city,
Dongola, 41 had embraced Islam in the reign of Nāṣir (probably Nāṣir b.
Qulāūn, one of the Mamlūk sultans of Egypt, who died a.d. 1340); the
repeated expeditions of the Muslims so late as the fifteenth century had not
succeeded in pushing their conquests south of the first cataract, near which
was their last fortified place, 42 while Christianity seems to have extended as
far up the Nile as Sennaar.

The Christian Nubian kingdom appears to have come to an end partly
through internal dissensions and partly [111]through the attacks of Arab and
Negro tribes on its borders, and finally by the establishment of the powerful
Fūnj empire in the fifteenth century. 43

But it is probable that the progress of Islam in the country was all this time
being promoted by the Muhammadan merchants and others that frequented
it. Maqrīzī (writing in the early part of the fifteenth century) quotes one of
those missionary anecdotes which occur so rarely in the works of Arabic
authors; it is told by Ibn Salīm al-Aswāni, and is of interest as giving us a
living picture of the Muslim propagandist at work. Though the convert
referred to is neither a Christian nor a Nubian, still the story shows that
there was such a thing as conversion to Islam in Nubia in the fifteenth
century. Ibn Salīm says that he once met a man at the court of the Nubian
chief of Muqurrah, who told him that he came from a city that lay three
months’ journey from the Nile. When asked about his religion, he replied,
“My Creator and thy Creator is God; the Creator of the universe and of all
men is One, and his dwelling-place is in Heaven.” When there was a dearth
of rain, or when pestilence attacked them or their cattle, his fellow-
countrymen would climb up a high mountain and there pray to God, who
accepted their prayers and supplied their needs before even they came down
again. When he acknowledged that God had never sent them a prophet, Ibn
Salīm recounted to him the story of the prophets Moses and Jesus and
Muḥammad, and how by the help of God they had been enabled to perform

many miracles. And he answered, “The truth must indeed have been with
them, when they did these things; and if they performed these deeds, I
believe in them.” 44

Very slowly and gradually the Nubians seem to have drifted from
Christianity into Muhammadanism. 45 The spiritual life of their Church had
sunk to the lowest ebb, and as no movement of reform sprang up in their
midst, and as they had lost touch with the Christian Churches beyond their
borders, it was only natural that they should seek for an expression of their
spiritual aspirations in the [112]religion of Islam, whose followers had so
long borne witness to its living power among them, and had already won
over some of their countrymen to the acceptance of it. A Portuguese priest,
who travelled in Abyssinia from 1520–1527, has preserved for us a picture
of the Nubians in this state of transition; he says that they were neither
Christians, Jews nor Muhammadans, but had come to be without faith and
without laws; but still “they lived with the desire of being Christians.”
Through the fault of their clergy they had sunk into the grossest ignorance,
and now there were no bishops or priests left among them; accordingly they
sent an embassy of six men to the king of Abyssinia, praying him to send
priests and monks to instruct them, but this the king refused to do without
the permission of the Patriarch of Alexandria, and as this could not be
obtained, the unfortunate ambassadors returned unsuccessful to their own
country. 46 The same writer was informed by a Christian who had travelled
in Nubia, that he had found 150 churches there, in each of which were still
to be seen the figures of the crucified Christ, of the Virgin Mary, and other
saints painted on the walls. In all the fortresses, also, that were scattered
throughout the country, there were churches. 47 Before the close of the
following century, Christianity had entirely disappeared from Nubia “for
want of pastors,” but the closed churches were to be found still standing
throughout the whole country. 48 The Nubians had yielded to the powerful
Muhammadan influences that surrounded them, to which the proselytising
efforts of the Muslims who had travelled in Nubia for centuries past no
doubt contributed a great deal; on the north were Egypt and the Arab tribes

that had made their way up the Nile and extended their authority along the
banks of that river; 49 on the south, the Muhammadan state of the Belloos,
separating them from Abyssinia. [113]These Belloos, in the early part of the
sixteenth century, were, in spite of their Muslim faith, tributaries of the
Christian king of Abyssinia; 50 and—if they may be identified with the
Baliyyūn, who, together with their neighbours, the Bajah (the inhabitants of
the so-called island of Meroe), are spoken of by Idrīsī, in the twelfth
century, as being Jacobite Christians, 51—it is probable that they had only a
few years before been converted to Islam, at the same time as the Bajah,
who had been incorporated into the Muhammadan empire of the Fūnj, when
these latter extended their conquests in 1499–1530 from the south up to the
borders of Nubia and Abyssinia and founded the powerful state of Sennaar.
When the army of Aḥmad Grāñ invaded Abyssinia and made its way right
through the country from south to north, it effected a junction about 1534
with the army of the sultan of Maseggia or Mazaga, a province under
Muhammadan rule but tributary to Abyssinia, lying between that country
and Sennaar; in the army of this sultan there were 15,000 Nubian soldiers
who, from the account given of them, appear to have been Musalmans. 52
Fragmentary and insufficient as these data of the conversion of the Nubians
are, we may certainly conclude from all we know of the independent
character of this people and the tenacity with which they clung to the
Christian faith, so long as it was a living force among them, that their
change of religion was a gradual one, extending through several centuries.

Let us now pass to the history of Islam among the Abyssinians, who had
received Christianity two centuries before the Nubians, and like them
belonged to the Jacobite Church.

The tide of Arab emigration does not seem to have set across the Red Sea,
the western shores of which formed part of the Abyssinian kingdom, until
many centuries after Arabia had accepted the faith of the prophet. Up to the
tenth century only a few Muhammadan families were to be found residing
in the coast towns of Abyssinia, but at the end of the twelfth century the

foundation of an Arab dynasty alienated some of the coast-lands from the
Abyssinian kingdom. In 1300 a missionary, named Abū ʻAbd Allāh
Muḥammad, made his way into Abyssinia, calling [114]on the people to
embrace Islam, and in the following year, having collected around him
200,000 men, he attacked the ruler of Amhara in several engagements. 53
King Saifa Arʻād (1342–1370) took energetic measures against the
Muhammadans in his kingdom, putting to death or driving into exile all
those who refused to embrace Christianity. 54 At the close of the same
century the disturbed state of the country, owing to the civil wars that
distracted it, made it possible for the various Arab settlements along the
coast to make themselves masters of the entire seaboard and drive the
Abyssinians into the interior, and the king, Baʼeda Māryām (1468–1478), is
said to have spent the greater part of his reign in fighting against the
Muhammadans on the eastern border of his kingdom. 55 In the early part of
the sixteenth century, while the powerful Muhammadan kingdom of Adal,
between Abyssinia and the southern extremity of the Red Sea, and some
others were bitterly hostile to the Christian power, there were others again
that formed peaceful tributaries of “Prester John”; e.g. in Massowah there
were Arabs who kept the flocks of the Abyssinian seigniors, wandering
about in bands of thirty or forty with their wives and children, each band
having its Christian “captain.” 56 Some Musalmans are also mentioned as
being in the service of the king and being entrusted by him with important
posts; 57 while some of these remained faithful to Islam, others embraced the
prevailing religion of the country. What was implied in the fact of these
Muhammadan communities being tributaries of the king of Abyssinia, it is
difficult to determine. The Musalmans of Ḥadya had along with other
tribute to give up every year to the king a maiden who had to become a
Christian; this custom was in accordance with an ancient treaty, which the
king of Abyssinia has always made them observe, “because he was the
stronger”; besides this, they were forbidden to carry arms or put on war-
apparel, and, if they rode, their horses were not to be saddled; “these
orders,” they said, “we have always obeyed, so that the [115]king may not
put us to death and destroy our mosques. When the king sends his people to

fetch the maiden and the tribute, we put her on a bed, wash her and cover
her with a cloth, and recite the prayers for the dead over her and give her up
to the people of the king; and thus did our fathers and our grandfathers
before us.” 58

These Muhammadan tributaries were chiefly to be found in the low-lying
countries that formed the northern boundary of Abyssinia, from the Red Sea
westward to Sennaar, 59 and on the south and the south-east of the
kingdom. 60 What influence these Muhammadans had on the Christian
populations with which they were intermingled, and whether they made
converts to Islam as in the present century, is matter only of conjecture.
Certain it is, however, that when the independent Muhammadan ruler of
Adal, Aḥmad Grāñ—himself said to have been the son of a Christian priest
of Aijjo, who had left his own country and adopted Islam in that of the
Adals 61—invaded Abyssinia from 1528 to 1543, many Abyssinian chiefs
with their followers joined his victorious army and became Musalmans, and
though the Christian populations of some districts preferred to pay jizyah, 62
others embraced the religion of the conqueror. 63 But the contemporary
Muslim historian himself tells us that in some cases this conversion was the
result of fear, and that suspicions were entertained of the genuineness of the
allegiance of the new converts. 64 But such apparently was not universally
the case, and the widespread character of the conversions in several districts
give the impression of a popular movement. The Christian chiefs who went
over to Islam made use of their personal influence in inducing their troops
to follow their example. They were, as we are told, in some cases very
ignorant of their own religion, 65 and thus the change of faith was a less
difficult matter. Particularly instrumental in conversions of this kind were
those Muhammadan chiefs who had previously entered the service of the
king of Abyssinia, and those renegades who took the opportunity of the
invasion of the country by a conquering Musalman [116]army to throw off
their allegiance at once to Christianity and the Christian king and declare
themselves Muhammadans once more. 66

One of these in 1531 wrote the following letter to Aḥmad Grāñ:—“I was
formerly a Muslim and the son of a Muslim, was taken prisoner by the
polytheists and made a Christian by force; but in my heart I have always
clung to the true faith and now I seek the protection of God and of His
Prophet and of thee. If thou wilt accept my repentance and punish me not
for what I have done, I will return in penitence to God; and I will devise
means whereby the troops of the king, that are with me, may join thee and
become Muslims;”—and in fact the greater part of his army elected to
follow their general; including the women and children their numbers are
said to have amounted to 20,000 souls. 67

But with the help of the Portuguese, the Abyssinians succeeded in shaking
off the yoke of their Muhammadan conquerors and Aḥmad Grāñ himself
was slain in 1543. Islam had, however, gained a footing in the country,
which the troublous condition of affairs during the remainder of the
sixteenth and the following century enabled it to retain, the rival Christian
Churches being too busily engaged in contending with one another, to
devote much attention to their common enemy. For the successful
proselytising of the Jesuits and other Roman Catholic missionaries and the
active interference of the Portuguese in all civil and political matters,
excited violent opposition in the mass of the Abyssinian Christians;—
indeed so bitter was this feeling that some of the chiefs openly declared that
they would rather submit to a Muhammadan ruler than continue their
alliance with the Portuguese; 68—and the semi-religious, semi-patriotic
movement set on foot thereby, rapidly assumed such vast proportions as to
lead (about 1632) to the expulsion of the Portuguese and the exclusion of all
foreign Christians from the country. The condition of Abyssinia then
speedily became one of terrible confusion and anarchy, of which some
tribes of the Galla race took [117]advantage, to thrust their way right into the
very centre of the country, where their settlements remain to the present
day.

The progress achieved by Islam during this period may be estimated from
the testimony of a traveller of the seventeenth century, who tells us that in
his time the adherents of this faith were scattered throughout the whole of
Abyssinia and formed a third of the entire population. 69 During the
following century the faith of the Prophet seems steadily to have increased
by means of the conversion of isolated individuals here and there. The
absence of any strong central government in the country favoured the rise
of petty independent chieftains, many of whom had strong Muhammadan
sympathies, though (in accordance with a fundamental law of the state) all
the Abyssinian princes had to belong to the Christian faith; the
Muhammadans, too, aspiring to the dignity of the Abyssinian aristocracy,
abjured the faith in which they had been born and pretended conversion to
Christianity in order to get themselves enrolled in the order of the nobles,
and as governors of Christian provinces made use of all their influence
towards the spread of Islam. 70 One of the chief reasons of the success of this
faith seems to have been the moral superiority of the Muslims as compared
with that of the Christian population of Abyssinia. Rüppell says that he
frequently noticed in the course of his travels in Abyssinia that when a post
had to be filled which required that a thoroughly honest and trustworthy
person should be selected, the choice always fell upon a Muhammadan. In
comparison with the Christians, he says that they were more active and
energetic; that every Muhammadan had his sons taught to read and write,
whereas Christian children were only educated when they were intended for
the priesthood. 71 This moral superiority of the Muhammadans of
[118]Abyssinia over the Christian population goes far to explain the
continuous though slow progress made by Islam during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries; the degradation and apathy of the Abyssinian clergy
and the interminable feuds of the Abyssinian chiefs, have left Muhammadan
influences free to work undisturbed. Mr. Plowden, who was English consul
in Abyssinia from 1844 to 1860, speaking of the Ḥabāb, three Tigrē tribes
dwelling between 16° and 17° 30′ lat., the north-west of Massowah, says
that they have become Muhammadan “within the last 100 years, and all,
save the latest generation, bear Christian names. They have changed their

faith, through the constant influence of the Muhammadans with whom they
trade, and through the gradual and now entire abandonment of the country
by the Abyssinian chiefs, too much occupied in ceaseless wars with their
neighbours.” 72 They have a tradition that one of their chiefs named Jāwej
rejected Christianity for Islam, in the belief that the latter faith brought good
luck and long life; he then said to his priest, “Break in pieces the Tābōt”; 73
the priest answered, “I dare not break in pieces the Tābōt of Mary”; so
Jāwej seized the Tābōt with his own hands and cut it in pieces with an axe;
the Christian priests then adopted Islam, and all their descendants are
shayk͟ hs of the tribe to the present day. 74

Other sections of the population of the northern districts of the country were
similarly converted to Islam during the same period, because the priests had
abandoned these districts and the churches had been suffered to fall into
ruins,—apparently entirely through neglect, as the Muhammadans here are
said to have been by no means fanatical nor to have borne any particular
enmity to Christianity. 75 Similar testimony to the progress of Islam in the
early part of the nineteenth century is given by other travellers, 76 who found
numbers of Christians to be continually passing over to that faith. The
Muhammadans were especially favoured by Ras ʻAlī, one of the vice-
regents of Abyssinia and practically master of the country before the
accession [119]of King Theodore in 1853. Though himself a Christian, he
distributed posts and even the spoils of the churches among the followers of
Islam, and during his reign one half of the population of the central
provinces of Abyssinia embraced the faith of the Prophet. 77 Such deep roots
had this faith now struck in Abyssinia that its followers had in their hands
all the commerce as well as all the petty trade of the country, enjoyed vast
possessions, were masters of large towns and central markets, and had a
firm hold upon the mass of the people. Indeed, a Christian missionary who
lived for thirty-five years in this country, rated the success and the zeal of
the Muslim propagandists so high as to say that were another Aḥmad Grāñ
to arise and unfurl the banner of the Prophet, the whole of Abyssinia would
become Muhammadan. 78 Embroilments with the Egyptian government

(with which Abyssinia was at war from 1875 to 1882) brought about a
revulsion of feeling against Muhammadanism: hatred of the foreign Muslim
foe reacted upon their co-religionists within the border. In 1878, King John
summoned a Convocation of the Abyssinian clergy, who proclaimed him
supreme arbiter in matters of faith and ordained that there should be but one
religion throughout the whole kingdom. Christians of all sects other than
the Jacobite were given two years in which to become reconciled to the
national Church; the Muhammadans were to submit within three, and the
heathen within five, years. A few days later the king promulgated an edict
that showed how little worth was the three years’ grace allowed to the
Muhammadans; for not only did he order them to build Christian churches
wherever they were needed and to pay tithes to the priests resident in their
respective districts, but also gave three months’ notice to all Muhammadan
officials to either receive baptism or resign their posts. Such compulsory
conversion (consisting as it did merely of the rite of baptism and the
payment of tithes) was naturally of the most ineffectual character, and while
outwardly conforming, the Muslims in secret protested their loyalty to their
old faith. Massaja saw some such go straight from the church [120]in which
they had been baptised to the mosque, in order to have this enforced
baptism wiped off by some holy man of their own faith. 79 These mass
conversions were rendered the more ineffectual by being confined to the
men, for as the royal edict had made no mention of the women they were in
no way molested,—a circumstance that probably proved to be of
considerable significance in the future history of Islam in Abyssinia, as
Massaja bears striking testimony to the important part the Muhammadan
women have played in the diffusion of their faith in this country. 80 By 1880
King John is said to have compelled about 50,000 Muhammadans to be
baptised, as well as 20,000 members of one of the pagan tribes and half a
million of Gallas, 81 but as their conversion went no further than baptism and
the payment of tithes, it is not surprising to learn that the only result of
these violent measures was to increase the hatred and hostility of both the
Muslim and the heathen Abyssinians towards the Christian faith. 82 The king
of the petty state of Kafa (which had almost always acknowledged the

supremacy of Abyssinia),—Sawo-Teheno,—took advantage of the
embarrassment of King John, who was threatened at once by the Italians
and the followers of the Mahdī, to assert his independence, and became a
Musalman, in order to do so more effectively. He successfully resisted all
attacks until 1897, when his state was reconquered and he himself taken
prisoner by the Emperor Menelik, the former king of Shoa, who had
established his authority over the whole of Abyssinia after the death of King
John in 1889. Christianity was re-established as the state religion
throughout Kafa and Christian worship renewed in the churches, which had
been left uninjured, being either shut up or turned into mosques. 83 But these
violent measures taken in the interests of the Christian faith have failed to
arrest the growing power of Islam during the nineteenth century. Whole
tribes that were once Christian and still bear Christian names, such as
Taklēs (“Plant of Jesus”), Hebtēs (“Gift of Jesus”) [121]and Temāryām (“Gift
of Mary”), have become Muslim. The two Mänsaʻ tribes which were
entirely Christian about the middle of the nineteenth century had become
Muslim, for the most part, at the beginning of the twentieth century; the
propagandist efforts of the Muslims who converted them appear to have
been facilitated through the ignorance of the Christian clergy. A similar
Muhammadanising process has been going on for some time among other
tribes also. 84

We must return now to the history of Africa in the seventh century, when
the Arabs were pushing their conquests from East to West along the north
coast. The comparatively easy conquest of Egypt, where so many of the
inhabitants assisted the Arabs in bringing the Byzantine rule to an end,
found no parallel in the bloody campaigns and the long-continued
resistance that here barred their further progress, and half a century elapsed
before the Arabs succeeded in making themselves complete masters of the
north coast from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. It was not till 698 that the fall
of Carthage brought the Roman rule in Africa to an end for ever, and the
subjugation of the Berbers made the Arabs supreme in the country.

The details of these campaigns it is no part of our purpose to consider, but
rather to attempt to discover in what way Islam was spread among the
Christian population. Unfortunately the materials available for such a
purpose are lamentably sparse and insufficient. What became of that great
African Church that had given such saints and theologians to Christendom?
The Church of Tertullian, St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, which had
emerged victorious out of so many persecutions, and had so stoutly
championed the cause of Christian orthodoxy, seems to have faded away
like a mist.

In the absence of definite information, it has been usual to ascribe the
disappearance of the Christian population to fanatical persecutions and
forced conversions on the part of the Muslim conquerors. But there are
many considerations that militate against such a rough and ready settlement
of this question. First of all, there is the absence [122]of definite evidence in
support of such an assertion. Massacres, devastation and all the other
accompaniments of a bloody and long-protracted war, there were in horrible
abundance, but of actual religious persecution we have little mention, and
the survival of the native Christian Church for more than eight centuries
after the Arab conquest is a testimony to the toleration that alone could have
rendered such a survival possible.

The causes that brought about the decay of Christianity in North Africa
must be sought for elsewhere than in the bigotry of Muhammadan rulers.
But before attempting to enumerate these, it will be well to realise how very
small must have been the number of the Christian population at the end of
the seventh century—a circumstance that renders its continued existence
under Muhammadan rule still more significant of the absence of forced
conversion, and leaves such a hypothesis much less plausibility than would
have been the case had the Arabs found a large and flourishing Christian
Church there when they commenced their conquest of northern Africa.

The Roman provinces of Africa, to which the Christian population was
confined, never extended far southwards; the Sahara forms a barrier in this
direction, so that the breadth of the coast seldom exceeds 80 or 100 miles. 85
Though there were as many as 500 bishoprics just before the Vandal
conquest, this number can serve as no criterion of the number of the
faithful, owing to the practice observed in the African Church of appointing
bishops to the most inconsiderable towns and very frequently to the most
obscure villages, 86 and it is doubtful whether Christianity ever spread far
inland among the Berber tribes. 87 When the power of the Roman Empire
declined in the fifth century, different tribes of this great race, known to the
Romans under the names of Moors, Numidians, Libyans, etc., swarmed up
from the south to ravage and destroy the wealthy cities of the coast. These
invaders were certainly heathen. The Libyans, whose devastations are so
pathetically bewailed [123]by Synesius of Cyrene, pillaged and burnt the
churches and carried off the sacred vessels for their own idolatrous rites, 88
and this province of Cyrenaica never recovered from their devastations, and
Christianity was probably almost extinct here at the time of the Muslim
invasion. The Moorish chieftain in the district of Tripolis, who was at war
with the Vandal king Thorismund (496–524), but respected the churches
and clergy of the orthodox, who had been ill-treated by the Vandals,
declared his heathenism when he said, “I do not know who the God of the
Christians is, but if he is so powerful as he is represented, he will take
vengeance on those who insult him, and succour those who do him
honour.” 89 There is some probability that the nomads of Mauritania also
were very largely heathen.

But whatever may have been the extent of the Christian Church, it received
a blow from the Vandal persecutions from which it never recovered. For
nearly a century the Arian Vandals persecuted the orthodox with relentless
fury; sent their bishops into exile, forbade the public exercise of their
religion and cruelly tortured those who refused to conform to the religion of
their conquerors. 90 When in 534, Belisarius crushed the power of the
Vandals and restored North Africa to the Roman Empire, only 217 bishops

met in the Synod of Carthage 91 to resume the direction of the Christian
Church. After the fierce and long-continued persecution to which they had
been subjected the number of the faithful must have been very much
reduced, and during the century that elapsed before the coming of the
Muhammadans, the inroads of the barbarian Moors, who shut the Romans
up in the cities and other centres of population, and kept the mountains, the
desert and the open country for themselves, 92 the prevalent disorder and ill-
government, and above all the desolating plagues that signalised the latter
half of the sixth century, all combined to carry on the work of destruction.
Five millions of Africans are said to have been consumed by the wars and
government of the Emperor Justinian. The wealthier [124]citizens abandoned
a country whose commerce and agriculture, once so flourishing, had been
irretrievably ruined. “Such was the desolation of Africa, that in many parts
a stranger might wander whole days without meeting the face either of a
friend or an enemy. The nation of the Vandals had disappeared; they once
amounted to an hundred and sixty thousand warriors, without including the
children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely surpassed
by the number of Moorish families extirpated in a relentless war; the same
destruction was retaliated on the Romans and their allies, who perished by
the climate, their mutual quarrels, and the rage of the barbarians.” 93

In 646, the year before the victorious Arabs advanced from Egypt to the
subjugation of the western province, the African Church that had
championed so often the purity of Christian doctrine, was stirred to its
depths by the struggle against Monotheletism; but when the bishops of the
four ecclesiastical provinces in the archbishopric of Carthage, viz.
Mauritania, Numidia, Byzacena and Africa Proconsularis, held councils to
condemn Monotheletism, and wrote synodal letters to the Emperor and the
Pope, there were only sixty-eight bishops who assembled at Carthage to
represent the last-mentioned province, and forty-two for Byzacena. The
numbers from the other two dioceses are not given, but the Christian
population had undoubtedly suffered much more in these than in the two
other dioceses which were nearer to the seat of government. 94 It is

exceedingly unlikely that any of the bishops were absent on an occasion
that excited so much feeling, when zeal for Christian doctrine and political
animosity to the Byzantine court both combined in stimulating this
movement, and when Africa took the most prominent part in stirring up the
opposition that led to the convening of the great Lateran Council of 648.
This diminution in the number of the African bishops certainly points to a
vast decrease in the Christian population, and in consideration of the
numerous causes contributing to a decay of the population, too great
[125]stress even must not be laid upon the number of these, because an
episcopal see may continue to be filled long after the diocese has sunk into
insignificance.

From the considerations enumerated above, it may certainly be inferred that
the Christian population at the time of the Muhammadan invasion was by
no means a large one. During the fifty years that elapsed before the Arabs
assured their victory, the Christian population was still further reduced by
the devastations of this long conflict. The city of Tripolis, after sustaining a
siege of six months, was sacked, and of the inhabitants part were put to the
sword and the rest carried off captive into Egypt and Arabia. 95 Another city,
bordering on the Numidian desert, was defended by a Roman count with a
large garrison which bravely endured a blockade of a whole year; when at
last it was taken by storm, all the males were put to the sword and the
women and children carried off captive. 96 The number of such captives is
said to have amounted to several hundreds of thousands. 97 Many of the
Christians took refuge in flight, 98 some into Italy and Spain, 99 and it would
almost seem that others even wandered as far as Germany, judging from a
letter addressed to the diocese of St. Boniface by Pope Gregory II. 100 In fact,
many of the great Roman cities were quite depopulated, and remained
uninhabited for a long time or were even left to fall to ruins entirely, 101
while in several cases the conquerors chose entirely new sites for their chief
towns. 102

As to the scattered remnants of the once flourishing Christian Church that
still remained in Africa at the end [126]of the seventh century, it can hardly
be supposed that persecution is responsible for their final disappearance, in
the face of the fact that traces of a native Christian community were to be
found even so late as the sixteenth century. Idrīs, the founder of the dynasty
in Morocco that bore his name, is indeed said to have compelled by force
Christians and Jews to embrace Islam in the year a.d. 789, when he had just
begun to carve out a kingdom for himself with the sword, 103 but, as far as I
have been able to discover, this incident is without parallel in the history of
the native Church of North Africa. 104

The very slowness of its decay is a testimony to the toleration it must have
received. About 300 years after the Muhammadan conquest there were still
nearly forty bishoprics left, 105 and when in 1053 Pope Leo IX laments that
only five bishops could be found to represent the once flourishing African
Church, 106 the cause is most probably to be sought for in the terrible
bloodshed and destruction wrought by the Arab hordes that had poured into
the country a few years before and filled it with incessant conflict [127]and
anarchy. 107 In 1076, the African Church could not provide the three bishops
necessary for the consecration of an aspirant to the dignity of the
episcopate, in accordance with the demands of canon law, and it was
necessary for Pope Gregory VII to consecrate two bishops to act as
coadjutors of the Archbishop of Carthage; but the numbers of the faithful
were still so large as to demand the creation of fresh bishops to lighten the
burden of the work, which was too heavy for these three bishops to perform
unaided. 108 In the course of the next two centuries, the Christian Church
declined still further, and in 1246 the bishop of Morocco was the sole
spiritual leader of the remnant of the native Church. 109 Up to the same
period traces of the survival of Christianity were still to be found among the
Kabils of Algeria; 110 these tribes had received some slight instruction in the
tenets of Islam at an early period, but the new faith had taken very little
hold upon them, and as years went by they lost even what little knowledge
they had at first possessed, so much so that they even forgot the Muslim

formula of prayer. Shut up in their mountain fastnesses and jealous of their
independence, they successfully resisted the introduction of the Arab
element into their midst, and thus the difficulties in the way of their
conversion were very considerable. Some unsuccessful attempts to start a
mission among them had been made by the inmates of a monastery
belonging to the Qādiriyyah order, Sāqiyah al-ḥamrāʼ, but the honour of
winning an entrance among them for the Muslim faith was reserved for a
number of Andalusian Moors who were driven out of Spain after the taking
of Granada in 1492. They had taken refuge in this monastery and were
recognised by the shayk͟ h to be eminently fitted for the arduous task that
had previously so completely baffled the efforts of his disciples. Before
dismissing them on this pious errand, he thus addressed them: “It is a duty
incumbent [128]upon us to bear the torch of Islam into these regions that
have lost their inheritance in the blessings of religion; for these unhappy
Kabils are wholly unprovided with schools, and have no shayk͟ h to teach
their children the laws of morality and the virtues of Islam; so they live like
the brute beasts, without God or religion. To do away with this unhappy
state of things, I have determined to appeal to your religious zeal and
enlightenment. Let not these mountaineers wallow any longer in their
pitiable ignorance of the grand truths of our religion; go and breathe upon
the dying fire of their faith and re-illumine its smouldering embers; purge
them of whatever errors may still cling to them from their former belief in
Christianity; make them understand that in the religion of our lord
Muḥammad—may God have compassion upon him—dirt is not, as in the
Christian religion, looked upon as acceptable in the eyes of God. 111 I will
not disguise from you the fact that your task is beset with difficulties, but
your irresistible zeal and the ardour of your faith will enable you, by the
grace of God, to overcome all obstacles. Go, my children, and bring back
again to God and His Prophet these unhappy people who are wallowing in
the mire of ignorance and unbelief. Go, my children, bearing the message of
salvation, and may God be with you and uphold you.”

The missionaries started off in parties of five or six at a time in various
directions; they went in rags, staff in hand, and choosing out the wildest and
least frequented parts of the mountains, established hermitages in caves and
clefts of the rocks. Their austerities and prolonged devotions soon excited
the curiosity of the Kabils, who after a short time began to enter into
friendly relations with them. Little by little the missionaries gained the
influence they desired through their knowledge of medicine, of the
mechanical arts, and other advantages of civilisation, and each hermitage
became a centre of Muslim teaching. [129]Students, attracted by the learning
of the new-comers, gathered round them and in time became missionaries
of Islam to their fellow-countrymen, until their faith spread throughout all
the country of the Kabils and the villages of the Algerian Sahara. 112

The above incident is no doubt illustrative of the manner in which Islam
was introduced among such other sections of the independent tribes of the
interior as had received any Christian teaching, but whose knowledge of
this faith had dwindled down to the observance of a few superstitious
rites; 113 for, cut off as they were from the rest of the Christian world and
unprovided with spiritual teachers, they could have had little in the way of
positive religious belief to oppose to the teachings of the Muslim
missionaries.

There is little more to add to these sparse records of the decay of the North
African Church. A Muhammadan traveller, 114 who visited al-Jarīd, the
southern district of Tunis, in the early part of the fourteenth century, tells us
that the Christian churches, although in ruins, were still standing in his day,
not having been destroyed by the Arab conquerors, who had contented
themselves with building a mosque in front of each of these churches. Ibn
K͟ haldūn (writing towards the close of the fourteenth century), speaks of
some villages in the province of Qastīliyyah, 115 with a Christian population
whose ancestors had lived there since the time of the Arab conquest. 116 At
the end of the following century there was still to be found in the city of
Tunis a small community of native Christians, living together in one of the

suburbs, quite distinct from that in which the foreign Christian merchants
resided; far from being oppressed or persecuted, they were employed as the
bodyguard of the Sultan. 117 These were doubtless [130]the same persons as
were congratulated on their perseverance in the Christian faith by Charles V
after the capture of Tunis in 1535. 118

This is the last we hear of the native Christian Church in North Africa. The
very fact of its so long survival would militate against any supposition of
forced conversion, even if we had not abundant evidence of the tolerant
spirit of the Arab rulers of the various North African kingdoms, who
employed Christian soldiers, 119 granted by frequent treaties the free exercise
of their religion to Christian merchants and settlers, 120 and to whom
Popes 121 recommended the care of the native Christian population, while
exhorting the latter to serve their Muhammadan rulers faithfully. 122 [131]

Amélineau, p. 3; Caetani, vol. iv. p. 81 sq. Justinian is said to have had 200,000 Copts put to death
1
in the city of Alexandria, and the persecutions of his successors drove many to take refuge in the
desert. (Wansleben: The Present State of Egypt, p. 11.) (London, 1678.) ↑
Renaudot, p. 161. Severus, p. 106. ↑
2
John, Jacobite bishop of Nikiu (second half of seventh century), p. 584. Caetani, vol. iv. pp.
3
515–16. ↑
Bell, p. xxxvii. But the exactions and hardships that, according to Maqrīzī, the Copts had to
4
endure about seventy years after the conquest hardly allow us to extend this period so far as Von
Ranke does: “Von Aegypten weiss man durch die bestimmtesten Zeugnisse, dass sich die Einwohner
in den nächsten Jahrhunderten unter der arabischen Herrschaft in einem erträglichen Zustand
befunden haben.” (Weltgeschichte, vol. v. p. 153, 4th ed.) ↑
John of Nikiu, p. 560. ↑
5
Id. p. 585. “Or beaucoup des Égyptiens, qui étaient de faux chrétiens, renièrent la sainte
6
religion orthodoxe et le baptême qui donne la vie, embrassèrent la religion des Musulmans, les
ennemis de Dieu, et acceptèrent la détestable doctrine de ce monstre, c’est-à-dire de Mahomet; ils
partagèrent l’égarement de ces idolâtres et prirent les armes contre les chrétiens.” ↑
Qurra b. Sharīk (governor of Egypt from 709 to 714), or his predecessor, appears to have insisted
7
on the converts continuing to pay jizyah. (Becker, Papyri Schott-Reinhardt, p. 18.) ↑
Ibn Saʻd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. v. p. 283. ↑
8
Caetani, vol. iv. p. 618; vol. v. pp. 384–5. ↑
9
Severus, pp. 172–3. ↑

Id. pp. 205–6. ↑
10 11
“Sans aucun doute il y eut dans la multiplicité des martyrs une sorte de résistance nationale
12
contre les gouverneurs étrangers.” (Amélineau, p. 58.) ↑
Amélineau, pp. 57–8. ↑
13
Abū Ṣāliḥ, pp. 163–4. ↑
14
Amélineau, pp. 53–4, 69–70. ↑
15
Abū Ṣāliḥ gives an account of some monks who embraced the faith of the Prophet, and
16
these are probably representative of a larger number of whom the historian has left no
record, as lacking the peculiar circumstances of loss to the monastery or of recantation that made
such instances of interest to him (pp. 128, 142). ↑
Lane, pp. 546, 549. ↑
17
Lüttke (1), vol. i. pp. 30, 35. Dr. Andrew Watson writes: “No year has passed during my
18
residence of forty-four years in the Nile valley without my hearing of several instances of
defection. The causes are, chiefly, the hope of worldly gain of various kinds, severe and continued
persecution, exposure to the cruelty and rapacity of Moslem neighbours, and personal indignities as
well as political disabilities of various kinds.” (Islam in Egypt: Mohammedan World, p. 24.) ↑
Severus, pp. 122, 126, 143. One of the very first occasions on which they had to complain of
19
excessive taxation was when Menas, the Christian prefect of Lower Egypt, extorted from the city
of Alexandria 32,057 pieces of gold, instead of 22,000 which ʻAmr had fixed as the amount to be
levied. (John of Nikiu, p. 585.) Renaudot (p. 168) says that after the restoration of the Orthodox
hierarchy, about seventy years after the Muhammadan conquest, the Copts suffered as much at its
hands as at the hands of the Muhammadans themselves. ↑
Maqrīzī mentions five other risings of the Copts that had to be crushed by force of arms, within
20
the first century of the Arab domination. (Maqrīzī (2), pp. 76–82.) ↑
Renaudot, pp. 189, 374, 430, 540. ↑
21
Id. p. 603. ↑
22
Id. pp. 432, 607. Nāṣir-i-K͟ husrau: Safar-nāmah, ed. Schefer, pp. 155–6. ↑
23
Renaudot, pp. 212, 225, 314, 374, 540. ↑
24
Renaudot, p. 388. ↑
25
Id. pp 567, 571, 574–5. ↑
26
Wansleben, p. 30. Wansleben mentions another instance (under different
27
circumstances) of the decay of the Coptic Church, in the island of Cyprus,
which was formerly under the jurisdiction of the Coptic Patriarch: here they were so persecuted by
the Orthodox clergy, who enjoyed the protection of the Byzantine emperors, that the Patriarch could
not induce priests to go there, and consequently all the Copts on the island either accepted Islam or
the Council of Chalcedon, and their churches were all shut up. (Id. p. 31.) ↑
Renaudot, p. 377. ↑
28

Renaudot, p. 575. ↑
29
Relation du voyage du Sayd ou de la Thebayde fait en 1668, par les PP. Protais et Charles-
30
François d’Orleans, Capuchins Missionaires, p. 3. (Thevenot, vol. ii.) ↑
Caetani, vol. iv. p. 520. ↑
31
Ishok of Romgla, pp. 272–3. ↑
32
Idrīsī, p. 32. ↑
33
Maqrīzī (2), tome i. 2me partie, p. 131. ↑
34
Maqrīzī, pp. 128–30. ↑
35
Burckhardt (1), p. 494. ↑
36
About twelve miles above the modern Khartum. ↑
37
Artin, pp. 62, 144. ↑
38
Becker, Geschichte des östlichen Sūdān, p. 160. ↑
39
Vol. iv. p. 396. ↑
40
Slatin Pasha records a tradition current among the Danagla Arabs
41
that this town was founded by their ancestor, Dangal, who called
it after his own name. (This however is impossible, inasmuch as Dongola was in existence in ancient
Egyptian times, and is mentioned on the monuments. See Vivien de Saint-Martin, vol. ii. p. 85.)
According to their tradition, this Dangal, though a slave, rose to be ruler of Nubia, but paid tribute to
Bahnesa, the Coptic bishop of the entire district lying between the present Sarras and Debba. (Fire
and Sword in the Sudan, p. 13.) (London, 1896.) ↑
Ibn Salīm al-Aswānī, quoted by Maqrīzī: Kitāb al-K͟ hiṭaṭ, vol. i. p. 190. (Cairo, a.h. 1270.) ↑
42
Budge, vol. ii. p. 199. Artin, p. 144. ↑
43
Maqrīzī: Kitāb al-K͟ hiṭaṭ, vol. i. p. 193. ↑
44
Morié, vol. i. pp. 417–18. ↑
45
Lord Stanley of Alderley in his translation of Alvarez’ Narrative from the original
46
Portuguese, gives the answer of the king as follows: “He said to them that he had his
Abima from the country of the Moors, that is to say from the Patriarch of Alexandria; … how then
could he give priests and friars since another gave them” (p. 352). (London, 1881.) ↑
Viaggio nella Ethiopia al Prete Ianni fatto par Don Francesco Alvarez Portughese (1520–1527).
47
(Ramusio, tom. i. pp. 200, 250.) ↑
Wansleben, p. 30. For descriptions of the ruins that still remain, see Budge, vol. ii. p. 299 sqq.,
48
and G. S. Nileham, Churches in Lower Nubia. (Philadelphia, 1910.) ↑
Burckhardt (1), p. 133. ↑
49
Alvarez, p. 250. ↑
50
Idrīsī, p. 32. ↑
51

ʻArabfaqīh, p. 323. ↑
52
Maqrīzī (2), tome ii. 2me partie, p. 183. ↑
53
Basset, p. 240. ↑
54
Id., p. 247. ↑
55
Alvarez. (Ramusio, tom. i. pp. 218, 242, 249.) ↑
56
ʻArabfaqīh, pp. 83, 191. ↑
57
ʻArabfaqīh, p. 275–6. ↑
58
Id. pp. 319, 324. ↑
59
Id. pp. 28, 129, 275. ↑
60
Plowden, p. 36. ↑
61
ʻArabfaqīh, pp. 321, 335, 343. ↑
62
Id. passim. ↑
63
Id. pp. 175, 195, 248. ↑
64
Id. p. 178. ↑
65
ʻArabfaqīh, pp. 34–5, 120–1, 182–3, 244, 327. ↑
66
ʻArabfaqīh, pp. 181–2, 186. ↑
67
Iobi Ludolfi ad suam Historiam Æthiopicam
68
Commentarius, p. 474. (Frankfurt a. M.,
1691.) ↑
Histoire de la Haute Ethiopie, par le R. P. Manoel d’Almeïda, p. 7. (Thevenot, vol. ii.) ↑
69
Massaja, vol. ii. pp. 205–6. “Ognuno comprende che movente di queste conversioni essendo la
70
sete di regnare, nel fatto non si riducevano che ad una formalità esterna, restando poi i nuovi
convertiti veri mussulmani nei cuori e nei costumi. E perciò accadeva che, elevati alla dignità di Râs,
si circondavano di mussulmani, dando ad essi la maggior parte degli impieghi e colmandoli di titoli,
ricchezze e favori: e così l’Abissinia cristiana invasa e popolata da questa pessima razza, passò
coll’andar del tempo sotto il giogo dell’islamismo.” (Id. p. 206.) ↑
Rüppell, vol. i. pp. 328, 366. ↑
71
Plowden, p. 15. ↑
72
Tābōt, the ark of the covenant. ↑
73
Littmann, pp. 69–70. ↑
74
Plowden, pp. 8–9. ↑
75
Beke, pp. 51–2. Isenberg, p. 36. ↑
76
Reclus, vol. x. p. 247. Massaja, vol. xi. p. 125. ↑
77
Massaja, vol. xi. p. 124. ↑

Massaja, vol. xi. pp. 77–8. ↑
78 79
Id. pp. 124, 125. ↑
80
Oppel, p. 307. Reclus, tome x. p. 247. ↑
81
Massaja, vol. xi. pp. 79, 81. ↑
82
Morié, vol. ii. p. 449. ↑
83
Littmann, pp. 68–70. K. Cederquist: Islam and Christianity in Abyssinia, p.
84
154 (The Moslem World, vol. ii.). ↑
Gibbon, vol. i. p. 161. ↑
85
Id. vol. ii. p. 212. ↑
86
C. O. Castiglioni: Recherches sur les Berbères atlantiques, pp. 96–7. (Milan, 1826.) ↑
87
Synesii Catastasis. (Migne: Patr. Gr., tom. lxvi. p. 1569.) ↑
88
Neander (2), p. 320. ↑
89
Gibbon, vol. iv. pp. 331–3. ↑
90
Id. vol. v. p. 115. ↑
91
Tijānī, p. 201. Gibbon, vol. v. p. 122. ↑
92
Gibbon, vol. v. p. 214. ↑
93
Neander (1), vol. v. pp. 254–5. J. E. T. Wiltsch: Hand-book of the
94
geography and statistics of the Church, vol. i. pp. 433–4. (London,
1859.) J. Bournichon: L’Invasion musulmane en Afrique, pp. 32–3. (Tours, 1890.) ↑
Leo Africanus. (Ramusio, tom. i. p. 70, D.) ↑
95
“Deusen, una città antichissima edificata da Romani dove confina il regno di Buggia col
96
diserto di Numidia.” (Id. p. 75, F.) ↑
Pavy, vol. i. p. iv. ↑
97
“Tous ceux qui ne se convertirent pas à l’islamisme, ou qui (conservant leur foi) ne voulurent
98
pas s’obliger à payer la capitation, durent prendre la fuite devant les armées musulmanes.”
(Tijānī, p. 201.) ↑
Leo Africanus. (Ramusio, tom. i. p. 7.) ↑
99
“Afros passim ad ecclesiasticos ordines (procedentes) prætendentes nulla ratione suscipiat
100
(Bonifacius), quia aliqui eorum Manichæi, aliqui rebaptizati sæpius sunt probati.” Epist. iv.
(Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. lxxxix, p. 502.) ↑
Leo Africanus. (Ramusio, pp. 65, 66, 68, 69, 76.) ↑
101
Qayrwān or Cairoan, founded a.h. 50; Fez, founded a.h. 185; al-Mahdiyyah, founded a.h.
102
303; Masīlah, founded a.h. 315; Marocco, founded a.h. 424. (Abū’l-Fidā, tome ii. pp. 198,
186, 200, 191, 187.) ↑
Ibn Abī Zarʻ, p. 16. ↑

A doubtful case of forced conversion is attributed to ʻAbd al-Muʼmin, who conquered Tunis
103 104
in 1159. See De Mas Latrie (2), pp. 77–8. “Deux auteurs arabes, Ibn-al-Athir, contemporain,
mais vivant à Damas au milieu de l’exaltation religieuse que provoquaient les victoires de Saladin,
l’autre El-Tidjani, visitant l’Afrique orientale au quatorzième siècle, ont écrit que le sultan, maître de
Tunis, força les chrétiens et les juifs établis dans cette ville à embrasser l’islamisme, et que les
réfractaires furent impitoyablement massacrés. Nous doutons de la réalité de toutes ces mesures. Si
l’arrêt fatal fut prononcé dans l’emportement du triomphe et pour satisfaire quelques exigences
momentanées, il dut être éludé ou révoqué, tant il était contraire au principe de la liberté religieuse
respecté jusque-là par tous les princes maugrebins. Ce qu’il y a de certain, c’est que les chrétiens et
les juifs ne tardèrent pas à reparaître à Tunis et qu’on voit les chrétiens avant la fin du règne d’Abd-
el-Moumen établis à Tunis et y jouissant comme par le passé de la liberté, de leurs établissements, de
leur commerce et de leur religion.… ‘Accompagné ainsi par Dieu même dans sa marche, dit un
ancien auteur maugrebin, il traversa victorieusement les terres du Zab et de l’Ifrikiah, conquérant le
pays et les villes, accordant l’aman à ceux qui le demandaient et tuant les récalcitrants.’ Ces derniers
mots confirment notre sentiment sur sa politique à l’égard des chrétiens qui acceptèrent l’arrêt fatal
de la destinée.” ↑
De Mas Latrie (2), pp. 27–8. ↑
105
S. Leonis IX. Papæ Epist. lxxxiii. (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. cxliii. p. 728.) This letter deals with
106
a quarrel for precedence between the bishops of Gummi and Carthage, and it is quite possible
that the disordered condition of Africa at the time may have kept the African bishops ignorant of the
condition of other sees besides their own and those immediately adjacent, and that accordingly the
information supplied to the Pope represented the number of the bishops as being smaller than it really
was. ↑
A. Müller, vol. ii. pp. 628–9. ↑
107
S. Gregorii VII. Epistola xix. (Liber tertius). (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. cxlviii. p. 449.) ↑
108
De Mas Latrie, p. 226. A number of Spanish Christians, whose ancestors had been
109
deported to Morocco in 1122, were to be found there as late as 1386, when they were
allowed to return to Seville through the good offices of the then sultan of Morocco. (Whishaw, pp.
31–4.) ↑
C. Trumelet: Les Saints de l’Islam, p. xxxiii. (Paris, 1881.) ↑
110
Compare the articles published by a Junta held at Madrid in 1566, for the reformation of the
111
Moriscoes; one of which runs as follows: “That neither themselves, their women, nor any
other persons should be permitted to wash or bathe themselves either at home or elsewhere; and that
all their bathing houses should be pulled down and demolished.” (J. Morgan, vol. ii. p. 256.) ↑
C. Trumelet: Les Saints de l’Islam, pp. xxvi–xxxvii. ↑
112
Leo Africanus says that at the end of the fifteenth century all the mountaineers of Algeria and
113
of Buggia, though Muhammadans, painted black crosses on their cheeks and palms of the
hand (Ramusio, i. p. 61); similarly the Banū Mzab to the present day still keep up some religious
observances corresponding to excommunication and confession (Oppel, p. 299), and some nomad

tribes of the Sahara observe the practice of a kind of baptism and use the cross as a decoration for
their stuffs and weapons. (De Mas Latrie (2), p. 8.) ↑
Tijānī, p. 203. ↑
114
The modern Touzer, in Tunis. ↑
115
Taʼrīk͟ h al-duwal al-islāmiyyah biʼl mag͟ hrib, I. p. 146. (ed. De Slane. Alger, 1847.) ↑
116
Leo Africanus. (Ramusio, tom. i. p. 67.) ↑
117
Pavy, vol. i. p. vii. ↑
118
De Mas Latrie (2), pp. 61–2, 266–7. L. del Marmol-Caravajal: De l’Afrique,
119
tome ii. p. 54. (Paris, 1667.) ↑
De Mas Latrie (2), p. 192. ↑
120
e.g. Innocent III, Gregory VII, Gregory IX and Innocent IV. ↑
121
De Mas Latrie (2), p. 273. ↑
122

[Contents]

CHAPTER V.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE
CHRISTIANS OF SPAIN.
In 711 the victorious Arabs introduced Islam into Spain: in 1502 an edict of
Ferdinand and Isabella forbade the exercise of the Muhammadan religion
throughout the kingdom. During the centuries that elapsed between these
two dates, Muslim Spain had written one of the brightest pages in the
history of mediæval Europe. Her influence had passed through Provence
into the other countries of Europe, bringing into birth a new poetry and a
new culture, and it was from her that Christian scholars received what of
Greek philosophy and science they had to stimulate their mental activity up
to the time of the Renaissance. But these triumphs of the civilised life—art
and poetry, science and philosophy—we must pass over here and fix our
attention on the religious condition of Spain under the Muslim rule.

When the Muhammadans first brought their religion into Spain they found
Catholic Christianity firmly established after its conquest over Arianism.
The sixth Council of Toledo had enacted that all kings were to swear that
they would not suffer the exercise of any other religion but the Catholic,
and would vigorously enforce the law against all dissentients, while a
subsequent law forbade any one under pain of confiscation of his property
and perpetual imprisonment, to call in question the Holy Catholic and
Apostolic Church, the Evangelical Institutions, the definitions of the
Fathers, the decrees of the Church, and the Holy Sacraments. The clergy
had gained for their order a preponderating influence in the affairs of the
state; 1 the bishops and chief [132]ecclesiastics sat in the national councils,
which met to settle the most important business of the realm, ratified the
election of the king and claimed the right to depose him if he refused to
abide by their decrees. The Christian clergy took advantage of their power
to persecute the Jews, who formed a very large community in Spain; edicts

of a brutally severe character were passed against such as refused to be
baptised; 2 and they consequently hailed the invading Arabs as their
deliverers from such cruel oppression, they garrisoned the captured cities on
behalf of the conqueror and opened the gates of towns that were being
besieged. 3

The Muhammadans received as warm a welcome from the slaves, whose
condition under the Gothic rule was a very miserable one, and whose
knowledge of Christianity was too superficial to have any weight when
compared with the liberty and numerous advantages they gained, by
throwing in their lot with the Muslims.

These down-trodden slaves were the first converts to Islam in Spain. The
remnants of the heathen population of which we find mention as late as a.d.
693, 4 probably followed their example. Many of the Christian nobles, also,
whether from genuine conviction or from other motives, embraced the new
creed. 5 Many converts were won, too, from the lower and middle classes,
who may well have embraced Islam, not merely outwardly, but from
genuine conviction, turning to it from a religion whose ministers had left
them ill-instructed and uncared for, and busied with worldly ambitions had
plundered and oppressed their flocks. 6 Having once become Muslims, these
Spanish converts showed themselves zealous adherents of their adopted
faith, and they and their children joined themselves to the Puritan party of
the rigid Muhammadan theologians as against the careless and luxurious
life of the Arab aristocracy. 7

At the time of the Muhammadan conquest the old Gothic virtues are said by
Christian historians to have declined [133]and given place to effeminacy and
corruption, so that the Muhammadan rule appeared to them to be a
punishment sent from God on those who had gone astray into the paths of
vice; 8 but such a statement is too frequent a commonplace of the
ecclesiastical historian to be accepted in the absence of contemporary
evidence. 9

But certainly as time went on, matters do not seem to have mended
themselves; and when Christian bishops took part in the revels of the
Muhammadan court, when episcopal sees were put up to auction and
persons suspected to be atheists appointed as shepherds of the faithful, and
these in their turn bestowed the office of the priesthood on low and
unworthy persons, 10 we may well suppose that it was not only in the
province of Elvira 11 that Christians turned from a religion, the corrupt lives
of whose ministers had brought it into discredit, 12 and sought a more
congenial atmosphere for the moral and spiritual life in the pale of Islam.

Had ecclesiastical writers cared to chronicle them, Spain would doubtless
be found to offer instances of many a man leaving the Christian Church like
Bodo, a deacon at the French court in the reign of Louis the Pious, who in
a.d. 838 became a Jew, in order that (as he said), forsaking his sinful life, he
might “abide steadfast in the law of the Lord.” 13 [134]

It is very possible, too, that the lingering remains of the old Gothic
Arianism—of which, indeed, there had been some slight revival in the
Spanish Church just before the Arab conquest 14—may have predisposed
men’s minds to accept the new faith whose Christology was in such close
agreement with Arian doctrine, 15 and a later age may have witnessed
parallels to that change of faith which is the earliest recorded instance of
conversion to Islam in western Europe and occurred before the Arab
invasion of Spain—namely the conversion of a Greek named Theodisclus,
who succeeded St. Isidore (ob. a.d. 636) as Archbishop of Seville; he was
accused of heresy, for maintaining that Jesus was not one God in unity with
the Father and the Holy Spirit, but was rather Son of God by adoption; he
was accordingly condemned by an ecclesiastical synod, deprived of his
archbishopric and degraded from the priesthood. Whereupon he went over
to the Arabs and embraced Islam among them. 16

Of forced conversion or anything like persecution in the early days of the
Arab conquest, we hear nothing. Indeed, it was probably in a great measure

their tolerant attitude towards the Christian religion that facilitated their
rapid acquisition of the country. The only complaint that the Christians
could bring against their new rulers for treating them differently to their
non-Christian subjects, was that they had to pay the usual capitation-tax of
forty-eight dirhams for the rich, twenty-four for the middle classes, and
twelve for those who made their living by manual labour: this, as being in
lieu of military service, was levied only on the able-bodied males, for
women, children, monks, the halt, and the blind, and the sick, mendicants
and slaves were exempted therefrom; 17 it must moreover have appeared
[135]the less oppressive as being collected by the Christian officials
themselves. 18

Except in the case of offences against the Muslim religious law, the
Christians were tried by their own judges and in accordance with their own
laws. 19 They were left undisturbed in the exercise of their religion; 20 the
sacrifice of the mass was offered, with the swinging of censers, the ringing
of the bell, and all the other solemnities of the Catholic ritual; the psalms
were chanted in the choir, sermons preached to the people, and the festivals
of the Church observed in the usual manner. They do not appear to have
been condemned, like their co-religionists in Syria and Egypt, to wear a
distinctive dress as sign of their humiliation, and in the ninth century at
least, the Christian laity wore the same kind of costume as the Arabs. 21 They
were at one time even allowed to build new churches. 22

We read also of the founding 23 of several fresh monasteries in addition to
the numerous convents both for monks and nuns that flourished undisturbed
by the Muhammadan rulers. The monks could appear publicly in the
woollen robes of their order and the priest had no need to conceal the mark
of his sacred office, 24 nor at the same time did their religious profession
prevent the Christians from being entrusted with high offices at court, 25 or
serving in the Muslim armies. 26 [136]

Certainly those Christians who could reconcile themselves to the loss of
political power had little to complain of, and it is very noticeable that
during the whole of the eighth century we hear of only one attempt at revolt
on their part, namely at Beja, and in this they appear to have followed the
lead of an Arab chief. 27 Those who migrated into French territory in order
that they might live under a Christian rule, certainly fared no better than the
co-religionists they had left behind. In 812 Charlemagne interfered to
protect the exiles who had followed him on his retreat from Spain from the
exactions of the imperial officers. Three years later Louis the Pious had to
issue another edict on their behalf, in spite of which they had soon again to
complain against the nobles who robbed them of the lands that had been
assigned to them. But the evil was only checked for a little time to break out
afresh, and all the edicts passed on their behalf did not avail to make the lot
of these unfortunate exiles more tolerable, and in the Cagots (i.e. canes
Gothi), a despised and ill-treated class of later times, we probably meet
again the Spanish colony that fled away from Muslim rule to throw
themselves upon the mercy of their Christian co-religionists. 28

The toleration of the Muhammadan government towards its Christian
subjects in Spain and the freedom of intercourse between the adherents of
the two religions brought about a certain amount of assimilation in the two
communities. Inter-marriages became frequent; 29 Isidore of Beja, who
fiercely inveighs against the Muslim conquerors, records the marriage of
ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, the son of Mūsạ̄, with the widow of King Roderic, without a
word of blame. 30 Many of the Christians adopted Arab names, and in
outward observances imitated to some extent their Muhammadan
neighbours, e.g. many were circumcised, 31 and in matters [137]of food and
drink followed the practice of the “unbaptized pagans.” 32

The very term Muzarabes (i.e. mustʻaribīn or Arabicised) applied to the
Spanish Christians living under Arab rule, is significant of the tendencies
that were at work. The study of Arabic very rapidly began to displace that
of Latin throughout the country, 33 so that the language of Christian theology

came gradually to be neglected and forgotten. Even some of the higher
clergy rendered themselves ridiculous by their ignorance of correct
Latinity. 34 It could hardly be expected that the laity would exhibit more zeal
in such a matter than the clergy, and in 854 a Spanish writer brings the
following complaint against his Christian fellow-countrymen:—“While we
are investigating their (i.e. the Muslim) sacred ordinances and meeting
together to study the sects of their philosophers—or rather philobraggers—
not for the purpose of refuting their errors, but for the exquisite charm and
for the eloquence and beauty of their language—neglecting the reading of
the Scriptures, we are but setting up as an idol the number of the beast.
(Apoc. xiii. 18.) Where nowadays can we find any learned layman who,
absorbed in the study of the Holy Scriptures, cares to look at the works of
any of the Latin Fathers? Who is there with any zeal for the writings of the
Evangelists, or the Prophets, or Apostles? Our Christian young men, with
their elegant airs and fluent speech, are showy in their dress and carriage,
and are famed for the learning of the gentiles; intoxicated with Arab
eloquence they greedily handle, eagerly devour and zealously discuss the
books of the Chaldeans (i.e. Muhammadans), and make them known by
praising them with every flourish of rhetoric, knowing nothing of the
beauty of the Church’s literature, and looking down with contempt on the
streams of the Church that flow forth from Paradise; alas! the Christians are
so ignorant [138]of their own law, the Latins pay so little attention to their
own language, that in the whole Christian flock there is hardly one man in a
thousand who can write a letter to inquire after a friend’s health intelligibly,
while you may find a countless rabble of all kinds of them who can
learnedly roll out the grandiloquent periods of the Chaldean tongue. They
can even make poems, every line ending with the same letter, which display
high flights of beauty and more skill in handling metre than the gentiles
themselves possess.” 35

In fact the knowledge of Latin so much declined in one part of Spain that it
was found necessary to translate the ancient Canons of the Spanish Church
and the Bible into Arabic for the use of the Christians. 36

While the brilliant literature of the Arabs exercised such a fascination and
was so zealously studied, those who desired an education in Christian
literature had little more than the materials that had been employed in the
training of the barbaric Goths, and could with difficulty find teachers to
induct them even into this low level of culture. As time went on this want of
Christian education increased more and more. In 1125 the Muzarabes wrote
to King Alfonso of Aragon: “We and our fathers have up to this time been
brought up among the gentiles, and having been baptised, freely observe the
Christian ordinances; but we have never had it in our power to be fully
instructed in our divine religion; for, subject as we are to the infidels who
have long oppressed us, we have never ventured to ask for teachers from
Rome or France; and they have never come to us of their own accord on
account of the barbarity of the heathen whom we obey.” 37

From such close intercourse with the Muslims and so diligent a study of
their literature—when we find even so bigoted an opponent of Islam as
Alvar 38 acknowledging that the Qurʼān was composed in such eloquent and
beautiful language that even Christians could not help reading and
[139]admiring it—we should naturally expect to find signs of a religious
influence: and such indeed is the case. Elipandus, bishop of Toledo (ob.
810), an exponent of the heresy of Adoptionism—according to which the
Man Christ Jesus was Son of God by adoption and not by nature—is
expressly said to have arrived at these heretical views through his frequent
and close intercourse with the Muhammadans. 39 This new doctrine appears
to have spread quickly over a great part of Spain, while it was successfully
propagated in Septimania, which was under French protection, by Felix,
bishop of Urgel in Catalonia. 40 Felix was brought before a council, presided
over by Charlemagne, and made to abjure his error, but on his return to
Spain he relapsed into his old heresy, doubtless (as was suggested by Pope
Leo III at the time) owing to his intercourse with the pagans (meaning
thereby the Muhammadans) who held similar views. 41 When prominent
churchmen were so profoundly influenced by their contact with
Muhammadans, we may judge that the influence of Islam upon the

Christians of Spain was very considerable, indeed in a.d. 936 a council was
held at Toledo to consider the best means of preventing this intercourse
from contaminating the purity of the Christian faith. 42

It may readily be understood how these influences of Islamic thought and
practice—added to definite efforts at conversion 43—would lead to much
more than a mere approximation and would very speedily swell the number
of the converts to Islam so that their descendants, the so-called Muwallads
—a term denoting those not of Arab blood—soon formed a large and
important party in the state, indeed the majority of the population of the
country, 44 and as early [140]as the beginning of the ninth century we read of
attempts made by them to shake off the Arab rule, and on several occasions
later they come forward actively as a national party of Spanish Muslims.

We have little or no details of the history of the conversion of these New-
Muslims. Instances appeared to have occurred right up to the last days of
Muslim rule, for when the army of Ferdinand and Isabella captured Malaga
in 1487, it is recorded that all the renegade Christians found in the city were
tortured to death with sharp-pointed reeds, and in the capitulation that
secured the submission of Purchena two years later, an express promise was
made that renegades would not be forced to return to Christianity. 45 Some
few apostatised to escape the payment of some penalty inflicted by the law-
courts. 46 But the majority of the converts were no doubt won over by the
imposing influence of the faith of Islam itself, presented to them as it was
with all the glamour of a brilliant civilisation, having a poetry, a philosophy
and an art well calculated to attract the reason and dazzle the imagination:
while in the lofty chivalry of the Arabs there was free scope for the
exhibition of manly prowess and the knightly virtues—a career closed to
the conquered Spaniards that remained true to the Christian faith. Again, the
learning and literature of the Christians must have appeared very poor and
meagre when compared with that of the Muslims, the study of which may
well by itself have served as an incentive to the adoption of their religion.
Besides, to the devout mind Islam in Spain could offer the attractions of a

pious and zealous Puritan party with the orthodox Muslim theologians at its
head, which at times had a preponderating influence in the state and
struggled earnestly towards a reformation of faith and morals.

Taking into consideration the ardent religious feeling that animated the
mass of the Spanish Muslims and the provocation that the Christians gave
to the Muhammadan government through their treacherous intrigues with
their co-religionists over the border, the history of Spain under
Muhammadan rule is singularly free from persecution. [141]With the
exception of three or four cases of genuine martyrdom, the only approach to
anything like persecution during the whole period of the Arab rule is to be
found in the severe measures adopted by the Muhammadan government to
repress the madness for voluntary martyrdom that broke out in Cordova in
the ninth century. At this time a fanatical party came into existence among
the Christians in this part of Spain (for apparently the Christian Church in
the rest of the country had no sympathy with the movement), which set
itself openly and unprovokedly to insult the religion of the Muslims and
blaspheme their Prophet, with the deliberate intention of incurring the
penalty of death by such misguided assertion of their Christian bigotry.

This strange passion for self-immolation displayed itself mainly among
priests, monks and nuns between the years 850 and 860. It would seem that
brooding, in the silence of their cloisters, over the decline of Christian
influence and the decay of religious zeal, they went forth to win the
martyr’s crown—of which the toleration of their infidel rulers was robbing
them—by means of fierce attacks on Islam and its founder. Thus, for
example, a certain monk, by name Isaac, came before the Qāḍī and
pretended that he wished to be instructed in the faith of Islam; when the
Qāḍī had expounded to him the doctrines of the Prophet, he burst out with
the words: “He hath lied unto you (may the curse of God consume him!),
who, full of wickedness, hath led so many men into perdition, and doomed
them with himself to the pit of hell. Filled with Satan and practising Satanic
jugglery, he hath given you a cup of deadly wine to work disease in you,

and will expiate his guilt with everlasting damnation. Why do ye not, being
endowed with understanding, deliver yourselves from such dangers? Why
do ye not, renouncing the ulcer of his pestilential doctrines, seek the eternal
salvation of the Gospel of the faith of Christ?” 47 On another occasion two
Christians forced their way into a mosque and there reviled the
Muhammadan religion, which, they declared, would very speedily bring
upon its followers the destruction of hell-fire. 48 Though [142]the number of
such fanatics was not considerable, 49 the Muhammadan government grew
alarmed, fearing that such contempt for their authority and disregard of
their laws against blasphemy, argued a widespread disaffection and a
possible general insurrection, for in fact, in 853 Muḥammad I had to send
an army against the Christians at Toledo, who, incited by Eulogius, the
chief apologist of the martyrs, had risen in revolt on the news of the
sufferings of their co-religionists. 50 He is said to have ordered a general
massacre of the Christians, but when it was pointed out that no men of any
intelligence or rank among the Christians had taken part in such doings 51
(for Alvar himself complains that the majority of the Christian priests
condemned the martyrs 52), the king contented himself with putting into
force the existing laws against blasphemy with the utmost rigour. The
moderate party in the Church seconded the efforts of the government; the
bishops anathematised the fanatics, and an ecclesiastical council that was
held in 852 to discuss the matter agreed upon methods of repression 53 that
eventually quashed the movement. One or two isolated cases of martyrdom
are recorded later—the last in 983, after which there was none as long as
the Arab rule lasted in Spain. 54

But under the Berber dynasty of the Almoravids at the [143]beginning of the
twelfth century, there was an outburst of fanaticism on the part of the
theological zealots of Islam in which the Christians had to suffer along with
the Jews and the liberal section of the Muhammadan population—the
philosophers, the poets and the men of letters. But such incidents are
exceptions to the generally tolerant character of the Muhammadan rulers of
Spain towards their Christian subjects.

One of the Spanish Muhammadans who was driven out of his native
country in the last expulsion of the Moriscoes in 1610, while protesting
against the persecutions of the Inquisition, makes the following vindication
of the toleration of his co-religionists: “Did our victorious ancestors ever
once attempt to extirpate Christianity out of Spain, when it was in their
power? Did they not suffer your forefathers to enjoy the free use of their
rites at the same time that they wore their chains? Is not the absolute
injunction of our Prophet, that whatever nation is conquered by Musalman
steel, should, upon the payment of a moderate annual tribute, be permitted
to persevere in their own pristine persuasion, how absurd soever, or to
embrace what other belief they themselves best approved of? If there may
have been some examples of forced conversions, they are so rare as scarce
to deserve mentioning, and only attempted by men who had not the fear of
God, and the Prophet, before their eyes, and who, in so doing, have acted
directly and diametrically contrary to the holy precepts and ordinances of
Islam which cannot, without sacrilege, be violated by any who would be
held worthy of the honourable epithet of Musulman.… You can never
produce, among us, any bloodthirsty, formal tribunal, on account of
different persuasions in points of faith, that anywise approaches your
execrable Inquisition. Our arms, it is true, are ever open to receive all who
are disposed to embrace our religion; but we are not allowed by our sacred
Qurʼān to tyrannise over consciences. Our proselytes have all imaginable
encouragement, and have no sooner professed God’s Unity and His
Apostle’s mission but they become one of us, without reserve; taking to
wife our daughters, and being employed in posts of trust, honour and profit;
we [144]contenting ourselves with only obliging them to wear our habit, and
to seem true believers in outward appearance, without ever offering to
examine their consciences, provided they do not openly revile or profane
our religion: if they do that, we indeed punish them as they deserve; since
their conversion was voluntarily, and was not by compulsion.” 55

This very spirit of toleration was made one of the main articles in an
account of the “Apostacies and Treasons of the Moriscoes,” drawn up by

the Archbishop of Valencia in 1602 when recommending their expulsion to
Philip III, as follows: “That they commended nothing so much as that
liberty of conscience, in all matters of religion, which the Turks, and all
other Muhammadans, suffer their subjects to enjoy.” 56

What deep roots Islam had struck in the hearts of the Spanish people may
be judged from the fact that when the last remnant of the Moriscoes was
expelled from Spain in 1610, these unfortunate people still clung to the faith
of their fathers, although for more than a century they had been forced to
outwardly conform to the Christian religion, and in spite of the emigrations
that had taken place since the fall of Granada, nearly 500,000 are said to
have been expelled at that time. 57 Whole towns and villages were deserted
and the houses fell into ruins, there being no one to rebuild them. 58 These
Moriscoes were probably all descendants of the original inhabitants of the
country, with little or no admixture of Arab blood; the reasons that may be
adduced in support of this statement are too lengthy to be given here; one
point only in the evidence may be mentioned, derived from a letter written
in 1311, in which it is stated that of the 200,000 Muhammadans then living
in the city of Granada, not more than 500 were of Arab descent, all the rest
being descendants of converted Spaniards. 59 Finally, it is of interest to note
that even up to the last days of its power in Spain, Islam won converts to the
faith, for the historian, when writing of events that occurred in the year
1499, seven years after the fall of Granada, draws attention to the fact that
among the Moors were a few Christians who had lately embraced the faith
of the Prophet. 60 [145]

Baudissin, p. 22. ↑
1
Helfferich, p. 68. ↑
2
Makkarī, vol. i. pp. 280–2. ↑
3
Baudissin, p. 7. ↑
4
Dozy (2), tome ii. pp. 45–6. ↑
5
A. Müller, vol. ii. p. 463. ↑
6
Dozy (2), tome ii. pp. 44–6. ↑
7

So St. Boniface (a.d. 745, Epist. lxii.). “Sicut aliis gentibus Hispaniæ et Provinciæ et
8
Burgundionum populis contigit, quæ sic a Deo recedentes fornicatæ sunt, donec index omnipotens
talium criminum ultrices pœnas per ignorantiam legis Dei et per Saracenos venire et sævire
permisit.” (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. lxxxix. p. 761.) Eulogius: lib. i. § 30. “In cuius (i.e. gentis
Saracenicæ) ditione nostro compellente facinore sceptrum Hispaniæ translatum est.” (Migne: Patr.
Lat., tom. cxv. p. 761.) Similarly Alvar (2), § 18. “Et probare nostro vitio inlatum intentabo
flagellum. Nostra hæc, fratres, nostra desidia peperit mala, nostra impuritas, nostra levitas, nostra
morum obscœnitas … unde tradidit nos Dominus qui institiam diligit, et cuius vultus æquitatem
decernit, ipsi bestiæ conrodendos” (pp. 531–2). ↑
Dozy (3), tome i. pp. 15–20. Whishaw, pp. 38, 44. ↑
9
Samson, pp. 377–8, 381. ↑
10
Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 210. ↑
11
Bishop Egila, who was sent to Southern Spain by Pope Hadrian I, towards the end of the
12
eighth century, on a mission to counteract the growing influence of Muslim thought,
denounces the Spanish priests who lived in concubinage with married women. (Helfferich, p. 83.) ↑
Alvari Cordubensis, Epist. xix. “Ob meritum æternæ retributionis devovi me sedulum in lege
13
Domini consistere.” (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. cxxi. p. 512.) ↑
Helfferich, pp. 79–80. ↑
14
“Bedenkt man nun, wie wichtig gerade die alttestamentliche Idee des Prophetenthums in der
15
Christologie des germanischen Arianismus nachklang und auch nach der Annahme des
katholischen Dogmas in dem religiösen Bewusstsein der Westgothen haften blieb, so wird man es
sehr erklärlich finden, dass unmittelbar nach dem Einfall der Araber die verwandten Vorstellungen
des Mohammedanismus unter den geknechteten Christen auftauchten.” (Helfferich, p. 82.) ↑
Lucæ Diaconi Tudensis Chronicon Mundi. (Andreas Schottus: Hispaniæ Illustratæ, tom. iv. p. 53.)
16
(Francofurti, 1603–8.) ↑
Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 41. Whishaw, p. 17. ↑
17
Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 39. ↑
18
Baudissin, pp. 11–13, 196. ↑
19
Eulogius: Mem. Sanct., lib. i. § 30, “inter ipsos sine molestia fidei degimus” (p. 761).
20
Id., ib., lib. i. § 18, “Quos nulla præsidialis violentia fidem suam negare compulit, nec a
cultu sanctæ piæque religionis amovit” (p. 751). John of Gorz (who visited Spain about the middle of
the tenth century) § 124, “(Christiani), qui in regno eius libere divinis suisque rebus utebantur.”
A Spanish bishop thus described the condition of the Christians to John of Gorz. “Peccatis ad hæc
devoluti sumus, ut paganorum subiaceamus ditioni. Resistere potestati verbo prohibemur apostoli.
Tantum hoc unum relictum est solatii, quod in tantæ calamitatis malo legibus nos propriis uti non
prohibent; qui quos diligentes Christianitatis viderint observatores, colunt et amplectuntur, simul
ipsorum convictu delectantur. Pro tempore igitur hoc videmur tenere consilii, ut quia religionis nulla
infertur iactura, cetera eis obsequamur, iussisque eorum in quantum fidem non impediunt
obtemperemus” § 122 (p. 302). ↑

Baudissin, pp. 16–17. ↑
21
Eulogius, ob. 859 (Mem. Sanct. lib. iii. c. 3) speaks of churches recently erected (ecclesias
22
nuper structas). The chronicle falsely ascribed to Luitprand records the erection of a church at
Cordova in 895 (p. 1113). ↑
Eulogius: Mem. Sanct., lib. iii. c. 11 (p. 812). ↑
23
Baudissin, p. 16. ↑
24
Id. p. 21, and John of Gorz, § 128 (p. 306). ↑
25
Whishaw, pp. 272, 301. ↑
26
Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 42. ↑
27
Baudissin, pp. 96–7. ↑
28
See the letter of Pope Hadrian I to the Spanish bishops: “Porro diversa capitula
29
quæ ex illis audivimus partibus, id est, quod multi dicentes se catholicos esse,
communem vitam gerentes cum Iudæis et non baptizatis paganis, tam in escis quamque in potu et in
diversis erroribus nihil pollui se inquiunt: et illud quod inhibitum est, ut nulli liceat iugum ducere
cum infidelibus, ipsi enim filias suas cum alio benedicent, et sic populo gentili tradentur.” (Migne:
Patr. Lat., tome xcviii. p. 385.) ↑
Isidori Pacensis Chronicon, § 42 (p. 1266). ↑
30
Alvar: Indic. Lum., § 35 (p. 53). John of Gorz, § 123 (p. 303). ↑
31
Letter of Hadrian I, p. 385. John of Gorz, § 123 (p. 303). ↑
32
Some Arabic verses of a Christian poet of the eleventh century are still extant, which
33
exhibit considerable skill in handling the language and metre. (Von Schack, II. 95.) ↑
Abbot Samson gives us specimens of the bad Latin written by some of the ecclesiastics of his
34
time, e.g. “Cum contempti essemus simplicitas christiana,” but his correction is hardly much
better, “contenti essemus simplicitati christianæ” (pp. 404, 406). ↑
Alvar: Indic. Lum., § 35 (pp. 554–6). ↑
35
Von Schack, vol. ii. p. 96. ↑
36
Orderic Vitalis, p. 928. ↑
37
Alvar: Ind. Lum., § 29. “Compositionem verborum, et preces omnium eius membrorum
38
quotidie pro eo eleganti facundia, et venusto confectas eloquio, nos hodie per eorum
volumina et oculis legimus et plerumque miramur.” (Migne: Patr. Lat., tome cxxi. p. 546.) ↑
Enhueber, § 26, p. 353. ↑
39
Helfferich, p. 88. ↑
40
“Postmodum transgressus legem Dei, fugiens ad paganos consentaneos, periuratus effectus
41
est.” Frobenii dissertatio de hæresi Elipandi et Felicis, § xxiv. (Migne: Patr. Lat., tome ci. p.
313.) ↑

Pseudo-Luitprandi Chronicon, § 341 (p. 1115). “Basilius Toletanum concilium contrahit; quo
42
providetur, ne Christiani detrimentum acciperent convictu Saracenorum.” ↑
There is little record of such, but they seem referred to in the following sentences of Eulogius
43
(Liber Apologeticus Martyrum, § 20), on Muḥammad: “Cuius quidem erroris insaniam,
prædicationis deliramenta, et impiæ novitatis præcepta quisquis catholicorum cognoscere cupit,
evidentius ab eiusdem sectæ cultoribus perscrutando advertet. Quoniam sacrum se quidpiam tenere et
credere autumantes, non modo privatis, sed apertis vocibus vatis sui dogmata prædicant.” (Migne:
Patr. Lat., tome cxv. p. 862.) ↑
Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 53. ↑
44
Lea, The Moriscos, pp. 17, 18. ↑
45
Samson, p. 379. ↑
46
Eulogius: Mem. Sanct. Pref., § 2. (Migne, tom. cxv. p. 737.) ↑
47
Id. c. xiii. (p. 794.) ↑
48
The number of the martyrs is said not to have exceeded forty. (W. H. Prescott:
49
History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i. p. 342, n.) (London,
1846.) ↑
Dozy (2), tome ii. pp. 161–2. ↑
50
Eulogius: Mem. Sanct. I, iii. c. vii. (p. 805). “Pro eo quod nullus sapiens, nemo urbanus,
51
nullusque procerum Christianorum huiusce modi rem perpetrasset, idcirco non debere
universos perimere asserebant, quos non præit personalis dux ad prælium.” ↑
Alvar: Ind. Lum., § 14. “Nonne ipsi qui videbantur columnæ, qui putabantur Ecclesiæ petræ, qui
52
credebantur electi, nullo cogente, nemine provocante, iudicem adierunt, et in præsentia
Cynicorum, imo Epicureorum, Dei martyres infamaverunt? Nonne pastores Christi, doctores
Ecclesiæ, episcopi, abbates, presbyteri, proceres et magnati, hæreticos eos esse publice clamaverunt?
et publica professione sine desquisitione, absque interrogatione, quæ nec imminente mortis sententia
erant dicenda, spontanea voluntate, et libero mentis arbitrio, protulerunt?” (Migne: tom. cxxi. p.
529.) ↑
Alvar: Indic. Lum., § 15. “Quid obtendendum est de illis quos ecclesiastice interdiximus, et a
53
quibus ne aliquando ad martyrii surgerent palmam iuramentum extorsimus? quibus errores
gentilium infringere vetuimus, et maledictum ne maledictionibus impeterent? Evangelio et cruce
educta vi iurare improbiter fecimus, imo feraliter et belluino terrore coegimus, minantes inaudita
supplicia, et monstruosa promittentes truncationum membrorum varia et horrenda dictu audituve
flagella?” (Migne: tom. cxxi. p. 530.) ↑
Baudissin, p. 199. ↑
54
Morgan, vol. ii. pp. 297–8, 345. ↑
55
Id. p. 310. ↑
56
Lea, The Moriscos, p. 259. ↑
57
Morgan, vol. ii. p. 337. ↑

Id. p. 289. ↑
58 59
Stirling-Maxwell, vol. i. p. 115. ↑
60

[Contents]

CHAPTER VI.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE
CHRISTIAN NATIONS IN EUROPE UNDER THE
TURKS.
We first hear of the Ottoman Turks at the commencement of the thirteenth
century, when fleeing before the Mongols, to the number of about 50,000,
they came to the help of the Sultan of Iconium, and in return for their
services both against the Mongols and the Greeks, had assigned to them a
district in the north-west of Asia Minor. This was the nucleus of the future
Ottoman empire, which, increasing at first by the absorption of the petty
states into which the Saljūq Turks had split up, afterwards crossed over into
Europe, annexing kingdom after kingdom, until its victorious growth
received a check before the gates of Vienna in 1683. 1

From the earliest days of the extension of their kingdom in Asia Minor, the
Ottomans exercised authority over Christian subjects, but it was not until
the ancient capital of the Eastern empire fell into their hands in 1453 that
the relations between the Muslim Government and the Christian Church
were definitely established on a fixed basis. One of the first steps taken by
Muḥammad II, after the capture of Constantinople and the re-establishment
of order in that [146]city, was to secure the allegiance of the Christians, by
proclaiming himself the protector of the Greek Church. Persecution of the
Christians was strictly forbidden; a decree was granted to the newly elected
patriarch which secured to him and his successors and the bishops under
him, the enjoyment of the old privileges, revenues and exemptions enjoyed
under the former rule. Gennadios, the first patriarch after the Turkish
conquest, received from the hands of the Sultan himself the pastoral staff,
which was the sign of his office, together with a purse of a thousand golden
ducats and a horse with gorgeous trappings, on which he was privileged to

ride with his train through the city. 2 But not only was the head of the
Church treated with all the respect he had been accustomed to receive from
the Christian emperors, but further he was invested with extensive civil
power. The patriarch’s court sat to decide all cases between Greek and
Greek: it could impose fines, imprison offenders in a prison provided for its
own special use, and in some cases even condemn to capital punishment:
while the ministers and officials of the government were directed to enforce
its judgments. The complete control of spiritual and ecclesiastical matters
(in which the Turkish government, unlike the civil power of the Byzantine
empire, never interfered), was left entirely in his hands and those of the
grand Synod which he could summon whenever he pleased; and hereby he
could decide all matters of faith and dogma without fear of interference on
the part of the state. As a recognised officer of the imperial government, he
could do much for the alleviation of the oppressed, by bringing the acts of
unjust governors to the notice of the Sultan. The Greek bishops in the
provinces in their turn were treated with great consideration and were
entrusted with so much jurisdiction in civil affairs, that up to modern times
they have acted in their dioceses almost as if they were Ottoman prefects
over the orthodox population, thus taking the place of the old Christian
aristocracy which had been exterminated by the conquerors, and we find
that the higher clergy were generally more active as Turkish agents than as
Greek priests, and they always taught their people that the Sultan
[147]possessed a divine sanction, as the protector of the Orthodox Church. A
charter was subsequently published, securing to the orthodox the use of
such churches as had not been confiscated to form mosques, and
authorising them to celebrate their religious rites publicly according to their
national usages. 3

Consequently, though the Greeks were numerically superior to the Turks in
all the European provinces of the empire, the religious toleration thus
granted them, and the protection of life and property they enjoyed, soon
reconciled them to the change of masters and led them to prefer the
domination of the Sultan to that of any Christian power. Indeed, in many

parts of the country, the Ottoman conquerors were welcomed by the Greeks
as their deliverers from the rapacious and tyrannous rule of the Franks and
the Venetians who had so long disputed with Byzantium for the possession
of the Peloponnesos and some of the adjacent parts of Greece; by
introducing into Greece the feudal system, these had reduced the people to
the miserable condition of serfs, and as aliens in speech, race and creed,
were hated by their subjects, 4 to whom a change of rulers, since it could not
make their condition worse, would offer a possible chance of improving it,
and though their deliverers were likewise aliens, yet the infidel Turk was
infinitely to be preferred to the heretical Catholics. 5 The Greeks who lived
under the immediate government of the Byzantine court, were equally
unlikely to be averse to a change of rulers. The degradation and tyranny that
characterised [148]the dynasty of the Palæologi are frightful to contemplate.
“A corrupt aristocracy, a tyrannical and innumerable clergy, the oppression
of perverted law, the exactions of a despicable government, and still more,
its monopolies, its fiscality, its armies of tax and custom collectors, left the
degraded people neither rights nor institutions, neither chance of
amelioration nor hope of redress.” 6 Lest such a judgment appear dictated by
a spirit of party bias, a contemporary authority may be appealed to in
support of its correctness. The Russian annalists who speak of the fall of
Constantinople bring a similar indictment against its government. “Without
the fear of the law an empire is like a steed without reins. Constantine and
his ancestors allowed their grandees to oppress the people; there was no
more justice in their law courts; no more courage in their hearts; the judges
amassed treasures from the tears and blood of the innocent; the Greek
soldiers were proud only of the magnificence of their dress; the citizens did
not blush at being traitors; the soldiers were not ashamed to fly. At length
the Lord poured out His thunder on these unworthy rulers, and raised up
Muḥammad, whose warriors delight in battle, and whose judges do not
betray their trust.” 7 This last item of praise 8 may sound strange in the ears
of a generation that has constantly been called upon to protest against
Turkish injustice; but it is clearly and abundantly borne out by the
testimony of contemporary historians. The Byzantine historian who has

handed down to us the story of the capture of Constantinople tells us how
even the impetuous Bāyazīd was liberal and generous to his Christian
subjects, and made himself extremely popular among them by admitting
them freely to his society. 9 Murād II distinguished himself by his attention
to the administration of justice and by his reforms of the abuses
[149]prevalent under the Greek emperors, and punished without mercy those
of his officials who oppressed any of his subjects. 10 For at least a century
after the fall of Constantinople a series of able rulers secured, by a firm and
vigorous administration, peace and order throughout their dominions, and
an admirable civil and judicial organisation, if it did not provide an
absolutely impartial justice for Muslims and Christians alike, yet caused the
Greeks to be far better off than they had been before. They were harassed
by fewer exactions of forced labour, extraordinary contributions were rarely
levied, and the taxes they paid were a trifling burden compared with the
endless feudal obligations of the Franks and the countless extortions of the
Byzantines. The Turkish dominions were certainly better governed and
more prosperous than most parts of Christian Europe, and the mass of the
Christian population engaged in the cultivation of the soil enjoyed a larger
measure of private liberty and of the fruits of their labour, under the
government of the Sultan than their contemporaries did under that of many
Christian monarchs. 11 A great impulse, too, was given to the commercial
activity of the country, for the early Sultans were always ready to foster
trade and commerce among their subjects, and many of the great cities
entered upon an era of prosperity when the Turkish conquest had delivered
them from the paralysing fiscal oppression of the Byzantine empire, one of
the first of them being Nicæa, which capitulated to Urkhān in 1330 under
the most favourable terms after a long-protracted siege. 12 Like the ancient
Romans, the Ottomans were great makers of roads and bridges, and thereby
facilitated trade throughout their empire; and foreign states were compelled
to admit the Greek merchants into ports from which they had been excluded
in the time of the Byzantine emperors, but now sailing under the Ottoman
[150]flag, they assumed the dress and manners of Turks, and thus secured
from the nations of Western Europe the respect and consideration which the

Catholics had hitherto always refused to the members of the Greek
Church. 13

There is, however, one notable exception to this general good treatment and
toleration, viz. the tribute of Christian children, who were forcibly taken
from their parents at an early age and enrolled in the famous corps of
Janissaries. Instituted by Urkhān in 1330, it formed for centuries the
mainstay of the despotic power of the Turkish Sultans, and was kept alive
by a regular contribution exacted every four years, 14 when the officers of
the Sultan visited the districts on which the tax was imposed, and made a
selection from among the children about the age of seven. The
Muhammadan legists attempted to apologise for this inhuman tribute by
representing these children as the fifth of the spoil which the Qurʼān assigns
to the sovereign, 15 and they prescribed that the injunction against forcible
conversion 16 should be observed with regard to them also, although the
tender age at which they were placed under the instruction of Muslim
teachers must have made it practically of none effect. 17 Christian Europe
has always expressed its horror at such a barbarous tax, and travellers in the
Turkish dominions have painted touching pictures of desolated homes and
of parents weeping for the children torn from their arms. But when the
corps was first instituted, its numbers were rapidly swelled by voluntary
accessions from among the Christians themselves, 18 and the circumstances
under which this tribute was first imposed may go far to explain the apathy
which the Greeks themselves appear to [151]have exhibited. The whole
country had been laid waste by war, and families were often in danger of
perishing with hunger; the children who were thus adopted were in many
cases orphans, who would otherwise have been left to perish; further, the
custom so widely prevalent at that time of selling Christians as slaves may
have made this tax appear less appalling than might have been expected.
This custom has, moreover, been maintained to have been only a
continuation of a similar usage that was in force under the Byzantine
emperors. 19 It has even been said that there was seldom any necessity of an
appeal to force on the part of the officers who collected the appointed

number of children, but rather that the parents were often eager to have
their children enrolled in a service that secured for them in many cases a
brilliant career, and under any circumstances a well-cared-for and
comfortable existence, since these little captives were brought up and
educated as if they were the Sultan’s own children. 20 This institution
appears in a less barbarous light if it be true that the parents could often
redeem their children by a money payment. 21 Metrophanes Kritopoulos,
who was Patriarch of Constantinople and afterwards of Alexandria, writing
in 1625, mentions various devices adopted by the Christians for escaping
from the burden of this tax, e.g. they purchased Muhammadan boys and
represented them to be Christians, or they bribed the collectors to take
Christian boys who were of low birth or had been badly brought up or such
as “deserved hanging.” 22 [152]Thomas Smith, among others, speaks of the
possibility of buying off the children, so impressed: “Some of their parents,
out of natural pity and out of a true sense of religion, that they may not be
thus robbed of their children, who hereby lie under a necessity of
renouncing their Christianity, compound for them at the rate of fifty or a
hundred dollars, as they are able, or as they can work upon the covetousness
of the Turks more or less.” 23 The Christians of certain cities, such as
Constantinople, and of towns and islands that had made this stipulation at
the time of their submission to the Turks, or had purchased this privilege,
were exempted from the operation of this cruel tax. 24 These extenuating
circumstances at the outset, and the ease with which men acquiesce in any
established usage—though serving in no way as an excuse for so inhuman
an institution—may help us to understand what a traveller in the
seventeenth century calls the “unaccountable indifference” 25 with which the
Greeks seem to have fallen in with this demand of the new government,
which so materially improved their condition.

Further, the Christian subjects of the Turkish empire had to pay the
capitation-tax, in return for protection and in lieu of military service. The
rates fixed by the Ottoman law were 2½, 5 and 10 piastres a head for every
full-grown male, according to his income, 26 women and the clergy being

exempt. 27 In the nineteenth century the rates were 15, 30 and 60 piastres,
according to income. 28 Christian writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries generally speak of this tax as being a ducat a head, 29 but it [153]is
also variously described as amounting to 3, 5 or 5⅞ crowns or dollars. 30 The
fluctuating exchange value of the Turkish coinage in the seventeenth
century is the probable explanation of the latter variations. To estimate with
any exactitude how far this tax was a burden to those who had to pay it,
would require a lengthened disquisition on the purchasing value of money
at that period and a comparison with other items of expenditure. 31 But by
itself it could hardly have formed a valid excuse for a change of faith, as
Tournefort points out, when writing in 1700 of the conversion of the
Candiots: “It must be confessed, these Wretches sell their Souls a
Pennyworth: all they get in exchange for their Religion, is a Vest, and the
Privilege of being exempt from the Capitation-Tax, which is not above five
Crowns a year.” 32 Scheffler also, who is anxious to represent the condition
of the Christians under Turkish rule in as black colours as possible, admits
that the one ducat a head was a trifling matter, and has to lay stress on the
extraordinary taxes, war contributions, etc., that they were called upon to
pay. 33 The land taxes were the [154]same both for Christians and
Musalmans, 34 for the old distinction between lands on which tithe was paid
by the Muhammadan proprietor, and those on which k͟ harāj was paid by the
non-Muhammadan proprietor, was not recognised by the Ottomans. 35
Whatever sufferings the Christians had to endure proceeded from the
tyranny of individuals, who took advantage of their official position to
extort money from those under their jurisdiction. Such acts of oppression
were not only contrary to the Muhammadan law, but were rare before the
central government had grown weak and suffered the corruption and
injustice of local authorities to go unpunished. 36 There is a very marked
difference between the accounts we have of the condition of the Christians
during the first two centuries of the Turkish rule in Europe and those of a
later date, when the period of decadence had fully set in. But it is noticeable
that in those very times in which the condition of the Christians had been
most intolerable there is least record of conversion to Islam. In the

eighteenth century, when the condition of the Christians was worse than at
any other period, we find hardly any mention of conversions at all, and the
Turks themselves are represented as utterly indifferent to the progress of
their religion and considerably infected with scepticism and unbelief. 37 A
further proof that their sufferings have been due to misgovernment rather
than to religious persecution is the fact that Muslims and Christians suffered
alike. 38 [155]The Christians would, however, naturally be more exposed to
extortion and ill-treatment owing to the difficulties that lay in the way of
obtaining redress at law, and some of the poorest may thus have sought a
relief from their sufferings in a change of faith.

But if we except the tribute of the children, to which the conquered Greeks
seem to have submitted with so little show of resistance, and which owed
its abolition, not to any revolt or insurrection against its continuance, but to
the increase of the Turkish population and of the number of the renegades
who were constantly entering the Sultan’s service, 39—the treatment of their
Christian subjects by the Ottoman emperors—at least for two centuries after
their conquest of Greece—exhibits a toleration such as was at that time
quite unknown in the rest of Europe. The Calvinists of Hungary and
Transylvania, and the Unitarians of the latter country, long preferred to
submit to the Turks rather than fall into the hands of the fanatical house of
Hapsburg; 40 [156]and the Protestants of Silesia looked with longing eyes
towards Turkey, and would gladly have purchased religious freedom at the
price of submission to the Muslim rule. 41 It was to Turkey that the
persecuted Spanish Jews fled for refuge in enormous numbers at the end of
the fifteenth century, 42 and the Cossacks who belonged to the sect of the
Old Believers and were persecuted by the Russian State Church, found in
the dominions of the Sultan the toleration which their Christian brethren
denied them. 43 Well might Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch in the seventeenth
century, congratulate himself when he saw the fearful atrocities that the
Catholic Poles inflicted on the Russians of the Orthodox Eastern Church:
“We all wept much over the thousands of martyrs who were killed by those
impious wretches, the enemies of the faith, in these forty or fifty years. The

number probably amounted to seventy or eighty thousand souls. O you
infidels! O you monsters of impurity! O you hearts of stone! What had the
nuns and women done? What the girls and boys and infant children, that
you should murder them?… And why do I pronounce them (the Poles)
accursed? Because they have shown themselves more debased and wicked
than the corrupt worshippers of idols, by their cruel treatment of Christians,
thinking to abolish the very name of Orthodox. God perpetuate the empire
of the Turks for ever and ever! For they take their [157]impost, and enter into
no account of religion, be their subjects Christians or Nazarenes, Jews or
Samarians: whereas these accursed Poles were not content with taxes and
tithes from the brethren of Christ, though willing to serve them; but they
subjected them to the authority of the enemies of Christ, the tyrannical
Jews, who did not even permit them to build churches, nor leave them any
priests that knew the mysteries of their faith.” 44 Even in Italy there were
men who turned longing eyes towards the Turks in the hope that as their
subjects they might enjoy the freedom and the toleration they despaired of
enjoying under a Christian government. 45 It would seem, then, that Islam
was not spread by force in the dominion of the Sultan of Turkey, and though
the want of even-handed justice and the oppression of unscrupulous
officials in the days of the empire’s decline, may have driven some
Christians to attempt to better their condition by a change of faith, such
cases were rare in the first two centuries of the Turkish rule in Europe, to
which period the mass of conversions belong. It would have been
wonderful indeed if the ardour of proselytising that animated the Ottomans
at this time had never carried them beyond the bounds of toleration
established by their own laws. Yet it has been said by one who was a
captive among them for twenty-two years that the Turks “compelled no one
to renounce his faith.” 46 Similar testimony is borne by others: an English
gentleman who visited Turkey in the early part of the seventeenth century,
tells us that “There is seldom any compulsion of conscience, and then not
by death, where no criminal offence gives [158]occasion.” 47 Writing about
thirty years later (in 1663), the author 48 of a Türcken-Schrifft says:
“Meanwhile he (i.e. the Turk) wins (converts) by craft more than by force,

and snatches away Christ by fraud out of the hearts of men. For the Turk, it
is true, at the present time compels no country by violence to apostatise; but
he uses other means whereby imperceptibly he roots out Christianity.…
What then has become of the Christians? They are not expelled from the
country, neither are they forced to embrace the Turkish faith: then they must
of themselves have been converted into Turks.”

The Turks considered that the greatest kindness they could show a man was
to bring him into the salvation of the faith of Islam, 49 and to this end they
left no method of persuasion untried: a Dutch traveller of the sixteenth
century, tells us that while he was admiring the great mosque of Santa
Sophia, some Turks even tried to work upon his religious feelings through
his æsthetic sense, saying to him, “If you become a Musalman, you will be
able to come here every day of your life.” About a century later, an English
traveller 50 had a similar experience: “Sometimes, out of an excess of zeal,
they will ask a Christian civilly enough, as I have been asked myself in the
Portico of Sancta Sophia, why will you not turn Musalman, and be as one
of us?” The public rejoicings that hailed the accession of a new convert to
the faith, testify to the ardent love for souls which made these men such
zealous proselytisers. The new Muslim was set upon a horse and led in
triumph through the streets of the city. If he was known to be genuinely
honest in his change of faith and had voluntarily entered the pale of Islam,
or if he was a person of good position, he was received with high honour
and some provision made for his support. 51 There was certainly abundant
evidence for saying that “The Turks are preposterously zealous in praying
for the conversion, or perversion rather, of Christians to their irreligious
religion: they pray heartily, and every day in their Temples, that Christians
may imbrace the [159]Alcoran, and become their Proselytes, in effecting of
which they leave no means unassaied by fear and flattery, by punishments
and rewards.” 52

These zealous efforts for winning converts were rendered the more effective
by certain conditions of Christian society itself. Foremost among these was

the degraded condition of the Greek Church. Side by side with the civil
despotism of the Byzantine empire, had arisen an ecclesiastical despotism
which had crushed all energy of intellectual life under the weight of a
dogmatism that interdicted all discussion in matters of morals and religion.
The only thing that disturbed this lethargy was the fierce controversial war
waged against the Latin Church with all the bitterness of theological
polemics and race hatred. The religion of the people had degenerated into a
scrupulous observance of outward forms, and the intense fervour of their
devotion found an outlet in the worship of the Virgin and the saints, of
pictures and relics. There were many who turned from a Church whose
spiritual life had sunk so low, and weary of interminable discussions on
such subtle points of doctrine as the Double Procession of the Holy Spirit,
and such trivialities as the use of leavened and unleavened bread in the
Blessed Sacrament, gladly accepted the clear and intelligible theistic
teaching of Islam. We are told 53 of large numbers of persons being
converted, not only from among the simple folk, but also learned men of
every class, rank and condition; of how the Turks made a better provision
for those monks and priests who embraced the Muslim creed, in order that
their example might lead others to be converted. While Adrianople was still
the Turkish capital (e.g. before [160]1453) the court was thronged with
renegades, and they are said to have formed the majority of the magnates
there. 54 Byzantine princes and others often passed over to the side of the
Muhammadans, and received a ready welcome among them: one of the
earliest of such cases dates from 1140 when a nephew of the emperor John
Comnenes embraced Islam and married a daughter of Masʻūd, the Sultan of
Iconium. 55 After the fall of Constantinople, the upper classes of Christian
society showed much more readiness to embrace Islam than the mass of the
Greeks; among the converts we meet with several bearing the name of the
late imperial family of the Palæologi, and the learned George Amiroutzes of
Trebizond abandoned Christianity in his declining years, and the names of
many other such individuals have found a record. 56 The new religion only
demanded assent to its simple creed, “There is no god but God: Muḥammad
is the apostle of God”; as the above-mentioned writer 57 says, “The whole

difficulty lies in this profession of faith. For if only a man can persuade
himself that he is a worshipper of the One God, the poison of his error
easily infects him under the guise of religion. This is the rock of offence on
which many have struck and fallen into the snare that has brought perdition
on their souls. This is the mill-stone that hung about the necks of many has
plunged them into the pit of despair. For when these fools hear the Turks
execrate idolatry and express their horror of every image and picture as
though it were the fire of hell, and so continually profess and preach the
worship of One God, there no longer remains any room for suspicion in
their minds.”

The faith of Islam would now be the natural refuge for [161]those members
of the Eastern Church who felt such yearnings after a purer and simpler
form of doctrine as had given rise to the Paulician heresy so fiercely
suppressed a few centuries before. This movement had been very largely a
protest against the superstitions of the Orthodox Church, against the
worship of images, relics and saints, and an effort after simplicity of faith
and the devout life. As some adherents of this heresy were to be found in
Bulgaria even so late as the seventeenth century, 58 the Muhammadan
conquerors doubtless found many who were dissatisfied with the doctrine
and practice of the Greek Church; and as all the conditions were
unfavourable to the formation of any such Protestant Churches as arose in
the West, such dissentient spirits would doubtless find a more congenial
atmosphere in the religion of Islam. There is every reason to think that such
was the result of the unsuccessful attempt to Protestantise the Greek Church
in the beginning of the seventeenth century. The guiding spirit of this
movement was Cyril Lucaris, five times Patriarch of Constantinople, from
1621 to 1638; as a young man he had visited the Universities of Wittenberg
and Geneva, for the purpose of studying theology in the seats of Protestant
learning, and on his return he kept up a correspondence with doctors of the
reformed faith in Geneva, Holland and England. But neither the doctrines of
the Church of England nor of the Lutherans attracted his sympathies so
warmly as the teachings of John Calvin, 59 which he strove to introduce into

the Greek Church; his efforts in this direction were warmly supported by
the Calvinists of Geneva, who sent a learned young theologian, named
Leger, to assist the work by translating into Greek the writings of Calvinist
theologians. 60 Cyril also found warm friends in the Protestant embassies at
Constantinople, the Dutch and English ambassadors especially assisting
him liberally with funds; the Jesuits, on the other hand, supported by the
Catholic ambassadors, tried in every way to thwart this attempt to Calvinise
the Greek Church, and actively seconded the intrigues of the party of
opposition among the Greek clergy, who finally compassed the death [162]of
the Patriarch. In 1629 Cyril published a Confession of Faith, the main
object of which seems to have been to present the doctrines of the Orthodox
Church in their opposition to Roman Catholicism in such a way as to imply
a necessary accord with Protestant teaching. 61 From Calvin he borrows the
doctrines of Predestination and salvation by faith alone, he denies the
infallibility of the Church, rejects the authority of the Church in the
interpretation of Holy Scripture, and condemns the adoration of pictures: in
his account of the will and in many other questions, he inclines rather to
Calvinism than to the teachings of the Orthodox Church. 62 The
promulgation of this Confession of Faith as representing the teaching of the
whole Church of which he was the spiritual head, excited violent opposition
among the mass of the Greek clergy, and a few weeks after Cyril’s death a
synod was held to condemn his opinions and pronounce him to be
Anathema; in 1642 a second synod was held at Constantinople for the same
purpose, which after refuting each article of Cyril’s Confession in detail, as
the first had done, thus fulminated its curse upon him and his followers:
—“With one consent and in unqualified terms, we condemn this whole
Confession as full of heresies and utterly opposed to our orthodoxy, and
likewise declare that its compiler has nothing in common with our faith, but
in calumnious fashion has falsely charged his own Calvinism on us. All
those who read and keep it as true and blameless, and defend it by written
word or speech, we thrust out of the community of the faithful as followers
and partakers of his heresy and corruptors of the Christian Church, and
command that whatever be their rank and station, they be treated as heathen

and publicans. Let them be laid under an anathema for ever and cut off from
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost in this life and in the life to come,
accursed, excommunicated, be lost after death, and be partakers of
everlasting punishment.” 63 In 1672 a third synod met at Jerusalem to
repudiate the heretical articles of this Confession of Faith and vindicate the
orthodoxy of the Greek Church against those [163]who represented her as
infected with Calvinism. The attempt to Protestantise the Greek Church
thus completely failed to achieve success: the doctrines of Calvin were
diametrically opposed to her teachings, and indeed inculcated many articles
of faith that were more in harmony with the tenets of Muslim theologians
than with those of the Orthodox Church, and which moreover she had often
attacked in her controversies with her Muhammadan adversaries. It is this
approximation to Islamic thought which gives this movement towards
Calvinism a place in a history of the spread of Islam: a man who inveighed
against the adoration of pictures, decried the authority and the very
institution of the priesthood, maintained the doctrines of absolute
Predestination, denied freedom to the human will and was in sympathy with
the stern spirit of Calvinism that had more in common with the Old than the
New Testament—would certainly find a more congenial atmosphere in
Islam than in the Greek Church of the seventeenth century, and there can be
little doubt that among the numerous converts of Islam during that century
were to be found men who had been alienated from the Church of their
fathers through their leanings towards Calvinism. 64 We have no definite
information as to the number of the followers of Cyril Lucaris and the
extent of Calvinistic influences in the Greek Church; the clergy, jealous of
the reputation of their Church, whose orthodoxy and immunity from heresy
were so boastfully vindicated by her children, and had thus been impugned
through the suspicion of Calvinism, wished to represent the heretical
patriarch as standing alone in his opinions. 65 But a following he
undoubtedly had: his Confession of Faith had received the sanction of a
synod composed of his followers; 66 those who sympathised with his
heresies were anathematised both by the second synod of Constantinople
(1642) and by the synod of Jerusalem (1672) 67—surely a meaningless

repetition, had no such persons existed; moreover the names of some few of
these [164]have come down to us: Sophronius, Metropolitan of Athens, was
a warm supporter of the Reformation; 68 a monk named Nicodemus Metaras,
who had brought a printing-press from London and issued heretical treatises
therefrom, was rewarded with a metropolitan see by Cyril in return for his
services; 69 the philosopher Corydaleus, a friend of Cyril, opened a
Calvinistic school in Constantinople, and another Greek, Gerganos,
published a Catechism so as to introduce the teachings of Calvin among his
fellow-countrymen; 70 and Neophytus II, who was made Patriarch in 1636,
while Cyril was in exile in the island of Rhodes, was his disciple and
adopted son; he recalled his master from banishment and resigned the
patriarchal chair in his favour. 71 In a letter to the University of Geneva
(dated July, 1636), Cyril writes that Leger had gained a large number of
converts to Calvinism by his writings and preaching; 72 in another letter
addressed to Leger, he describes how he had made his influence felt in
Candia. 73 His successor 74 in the patriarchal chair was banished to Carthage
and there strangled by the adherents of Lucaris in 1639. 75 The Calvinists are
said to have entertained hopes of Parthenius I (the successor of Cyril II), but
his untimely end (whether by poison or banishment is uncertain)
disappointed their expectations. 76 Parthenius II, who was Patriarch of
Constantinople from 1644 to 1646, was at heart a thorough Calvinist, and
though he did not venture openly to teach the doctrines of Calvin, still his
known sympathy with them caused him to be deposed, sent into exile and
strangled. 77 Thus the influence of Calvinism was undoubtedly more
widespread than the enemies of Cyril Lucaris were willing to admit, and as
stated above, those who refused to bow to the anathemas of the synods that
condemned their leader, had certainly more in common with their
Muhammadan neighbours than with the Orthodox clergy who cast them out
of their midst. There is no actual evidence, it is true, of Calvinistic
influences in Turkey [165]facilitating conversion to Islam, 78 but in the
absence of any other explanation it certainly seems a very plausible
conjecture that such were among the factors that so enormously increased
the number of the Greek renegades towards the middle of the seventeenth

century—a period during which the number of renegades from among the
middle and lower orders of society is said to have been more considerable
than at any other time. 79 Frequent mention is made of cases of apostasy
from among the clergy, and even among the highest dignitaries of the
Church, such as a former Metropolitan of Rhodes. 80 In 1676 it is said that in
Corinth some Christian people went over every day to “the Turkish
abomination,” and that three priests had become Musalmans the year
before; 81 in 1679 is recorded the death of a renegade monk. 82 On the
occasion of the circumcision of Muṣṭafā, son of Muḥammad IV, in 1675,
there were at least two hundred proselytes made during the thirteen days of
public rejoicing, 83 and numerous other instances may be found in writings
of this period. A contemporary writer (1663) has well described the mental
attitude of such converts. “When you mix with the Turks in the ordinary
intercourse of life and see that they pray and sing even the Psalms of David;
that they give alms and do other good works; that they think highly of
Christ, hold the Bible in great honour, and the like; that, besides, any ass
may become parish priest who plies the Bassa with presents, and he will
[166]not urge Christianity on you very much; so you will come to think that
they are good people and will very probably be saved; and so you will come
to believe that you too may be saved, if you likewise become Turks.
Herewith will the Holy Trinity and the crucified Son of God, with many
other mysteries of the faith, which seem quite absurd to the unenlightened
reason, easily pass out of your thoughts, and imperceptibly Christianity will
quite die out in you, and you will think that it is all the same whether you be
Christians or Turks.” 84

Thomas Smith, who was in Constantinople in 1669, speaks of the number
of Christian converts about this period, but assigns baser motives. “’Tis sad
to consider the great number of wretched people, who turn Turks; some out
of meer desperation; being not able to support the burthen of slavery, and to
avoid the revilings and insultings of the Infidels; some out of a wanton light
humour, to put themselves into a condition of domineering and insulting
over others … some to avoid the penalties and inflictions due to their

heinous crimes, and to enjoy the brutish liberties, that Mahomet consecrated
by his own example, and recommended to his followers. These are the great
and tempting arguments and motives of their apostasy, meer considerations
of ease, pleasure and prosperity, or else of vanity and guilt; for it cannot be
presumed, that any through conviction of mind should be wrought upon to
embrace the dotages and impostures of Turcisme.” 85 Records of conversions
after this period are rare, but Motraye gives an account of several
renegades, who became Muhammadans in Constantinople in 1703; among
them was a French priest and some other French Catholics, and some
priests from Smyrna. 86

Another feature in the condition of the Greek Church that contributed to the
decay of its numbers, was the corruption and degradation of its pastors,
particularly the higher clergy. The sees of bishops and archbishops were put
up to auction to the highest bidders, and the purchasers sought to recoup
[167]themselves by exacting levies of all kinds from their flocks; they
burdened the unfortunate Christians with taxes ordinary and extraordinary,
made them purchase all the sacraments at exorbitant rates, baptism,
confession, holy communion, indulgences, and the right of Christian burial.
Some of the clergy even formed an unholy alliance with the Janissaries, and
several bishops had their names and those of their households inscribed on
the list of one of their Ortas or regiments, the better to secure an immunity
for their excesses and escape the punishment of their crimes under the
protection of this corporation which the weakness of the Ottoman rulers had
allowed to assume such a powerful position in the state. 87 The evidence of
contemporary eye-witnesses to the oppressive behaviour of the Greek
clergy presents a terrible picture of the sufferings of the Christians.
Tournefort in 1700, after describing the election of a new Patriarch, says:
“We need not at all doubt but the new Patriarch makes the best of his time.
Tyranny succeeds to Simony: the first thing he does is to signify the
Sultan’s order to all the Archbishops and Bishops of his clergy: his greatest
study is to know exactly the revenues of each Prelate; he imposes a tax
upon them, and enjoins them very strictly by a second letter to send the sum

demanded, otherwise their dioceses are adjudg’d to the highest bidder. The
Prelates being used to this trade, never spare their Suffragans; these latter
torment the Papas: the Papas flea the Parishioners and hardly sprinkle the
least drop of Holy Water, but what they are paid for beforehand. If
afterwards the Patriarch has occasion for money, he farms out the gathering
of it to the highest bidder among the Turks: he that gives most for it, goes
into Greece to cite the Prelates. Usually for twenty thousand crowns that the
clergy is tax’d at, the Turk extorts two and twenty; so that he has the two
thousand crowns for his pains, besides having his charges borne in every
diocese. In virtue of the agreement he has made with the Patriarch, he
deprives and interdicts from all ecclesiastical functions, those prelates who
refuse to pay their tax.” 88 The Christian [168]clergy are even said to have
carried off the children of the parishioners and sold them as slaves, to get
money for their simoniacal designs. 89

The extortions practised in the seventeenth have found their counterpart in
the nineteenth century, and the sufferings of the Christians of the Greek
Church in Bosnia, before the Austrian occupation, exactly illustrate the
words of Tournefort. The Metropolitan of Serajevo used to wring as much
as £10,000 a year from his miserable flock—a sum exactly double the
salary of the Turkish Governor himself—and to raise this enormous sum the
unfortunate parishioners were squeezed in every possible way, and the
Turkish authorities had orders to assist the clergy in levying their exactions;
and whole Christian villages suffered the fate of sacked cities, for refusing,
or often being unable, to comply with the exorbitant demands of Christian
Prelates. 90 Such unbearable oppression on the part of the spiritual leaders
who should protect the Christian population, has often stirred it up to open
revolt, whenever a favourable opportunity has offered itself. 91 It is not
surprising then to learn that many of the Christians went over to Islam, to
deliver themselves from such tyranny. 92

Ecclesiastical oppression of a rather different character is said to have been
responsible for the conversion of the ancestors of a small community of

about 4000 Southern Rumanians, at Noanta in the Meglen district of the
vilayet of Salonika; they have a tradition that in the eighteenth century the
Patriarch of Constantinople persuaded the reigning Sultan that only the
Christians who spoke Greek could be loyal subjects of the Turkish empire;
the Sultan [169]thereupon forbade the Christians to speak anything but
Greek, on pain of having their tongues cut out; when the news of this
reached Noanta, a part of the population fled into the woods and founded
fresh villages, but those who were left behind went over to Islam, with their
bishop at their head, in order thereby to retain their mother-tongue. 93

Though the mass of the parish clergy were innocent of the charges brought
against their superiors, 94 still they were very ignorant and illiterate. At the
end of the seventeenth century, there were said to be hardly twelve persons
in the whole Turkish dominions thoroughly skilled in the knowledge of the
ancient Greek language; it was considered a great merit in the clergy to be
able to read, while they were quite ignorant of the meaning of the words of
their service-books. 95

While there was so much in the Christian society of the time to repel, there
was much in the character and life of the Turks to attract, and the
superiority of the early Ottomans as compared with the degradation of the
guides and teachers of the Christian Church would naturally impress devout
minds that revolted from the selfish ambition, simony and corruption of the
Greek ecclesiastics. Christian writers constantly praise these Turks for the
earnestness and intensity of their religious life; their zeal in the performance
of the observances prescribed by their faith; the outward decency and
modesty displayed in their apparel and mode of living; the absence of
ostentatious display and the simplicity of life observable even in the great
and powerful. 96 The annalist of the embassy from the Emperor Leopold I to
the Ottoman Porte in 1665–1666, especially eulogises the devoutness and
regularity of the Turks in prayer, and he even goes so far as to say, “Nous
devons dire à la confusion des Chrêtiens, que les Turcs têmoignent
beaucoup plus de soin et de zèle à l’exercice de leur Religion: que les

Chrêtiens n’en font paroître à la pratique de la leur.… Mais ce qui passe
tout ce que nous experimentons de dévot entre les Chrêtiens: c’est que
pendant le tems de la prière, vous ne [170]voyez pas une personne distraite
de ses yeux: vous n’en voyez pas une qui ne soit attachée à l’objet de sa
prière: et pas une qui n’ait toute la révérence extérieure pour son Créateur,
qu’on peut exiger de la Créature.” 97

Even the behaviour of the soldiery receives its meed of praise. During the
march of an army the inhabitants of the country, we are told by the secretary
to the Embassy sent by Charles II to the Sultan, had no complaints to make
of being plundered or of their women being maltreated. All the taverns
along the line of march were shut up and sealed two or three days before the
arrival of the army, and no wine was allowed to be sold to the soldiers
under pain of death. 98

Many a tribute of praise is given to the virtues of the Turks even by
Christian writers who bore them no love; one such who had a very poor
opinion of their religion, 99 speaks of them as follows:—“Even in the dirt of
the Alcoran you shall find some jewels of Christian Virtues; and indeed if
Christians will but diligently read and observe the Laws and Histories of the
Mahometans, they may blush to see how zealous they are in the works of
devotion, piety, and charity, how devout, cleanly, and reverend in their
Mosques, how obedient to their Priest, that even the great Turk himself will
attempt nothing without consulting his Mufti; how careful are they to
observe their hours of prayer five times a day wherever they are, or
however employed? how constantly do they observe their Fasts from
morning till night a whole month together; how loving and charitable the
Muslemans are to each other, and how careful of strangers may be seen by
their Hospitals, both for the Poor and for Travellers; if we observe their
Justice, Temperance, and other moral Vertues, we may truly blush at our
own coldness, both in devotion and charity, at our injustice, intemperance,
and oppression; doubtless these Men will rise up in judgment against us;

and surely their devotion, piety, [171]and works of mercy are main causes of
the growth of Mahometism.”

The same conclusion is drawn by a modern historian, 100 who writes:—“We
find that many Greeks of high talent and moral character were so sensible
of the superiority of the Mohammedans, that even when they escaped being
drafted into the Sultan’s household as tribute-children, they voluntarily
embraced the faith of Mahomet. The moral superiority of Othoman society
must be allowed to have had as much weight in causing these conversions,
which were numerous in the fifteenth century, as the personal ambition of
individuals.”

A generation that has watched the decay of the Turkish power in Europe
and the successive curtailment of its territorial possessions, and is
accustomed to hearing it spoken of as the “sick man,” destined to a speedy
dissolution, must find it difficult to realise the feelings which the Ottoman
empire inspired in the early days of its rise in Europe. The rapid and
widespread success of the Turkish arms filled men’s minds with terror and
amazement. One Christian kingdom after another fell into their hands:
Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, and Hungary yielded up their independence as
Christian states. The proud Republic of Venice saw one possession after
another wrested from it, until the Lion of St. Mark held sway on the shores
of the Adriatic alone. Even the safety of the Eternal City itself was menaced
by the capture of Otranto. Christian literature of the latter half of the
fifteenth and of the sixteenth centuries is full of direful forebodings of the
fate that threatened Christian Europe unless the victorious progress of the
Turk was arrested; he is represented as a scourge in the hand of God for the
punishment of the sins and backslidings of His people, 101 or on the other
hand as the unloosed power of the Devil working for the destruction of
Christianity under the hypocritical guise of religion. But—what is most
important to notice here—some men began to ask themselves, “Is it
possible that God would allow the Muhammadans to increase in such
countless numbers without good reason? Is it conceivable that so many

thousands [172]are to be damned like one man? How can such multitudes be
opposed to the true faith? since truth is stronger than error and is more
loved and desired by all men, it is not possible for so many men to be
fighting against it. How could they prevail against truth, since God always
helps and upholds the truth? How could their religion so marvellously
increase, if built upon the rotten foundation of error?” 102 Such thoughts, we
are told, appealed strongly to the Christian peoples that lived under the
Turkish rule, and with especial force to the unhappy Christian captives who
watched the years drag wearily on without hope of release or respite from
their misery. Can we be surprised when we find such a one asking himself?
“Surely if God were pleased with the faith to which you have clung, He
would not have thus abandoned you, but would have helped you to gain
your freedom and return to it again. But as He has closed every avenue of
freedom to you, perchance it is His pleasure that you should leave it and
join this sect and be saved therein.” 103

The Christian slave who thus describes the doubts that arose in his mind as
the slow-passing years brought no relief, doubtless gives expression here to
thoughts that suggested themselves to many a hapless Christian captive
with overwhelming persistency, until at last he broke away from the ties of
his old faith and embraced Islam. Many who would have been ready to die
as martyrs for the Christian religion if the mythical choice between the
Qurʼān and the sword had been offered them, felt more and more strongly,
after long years of captivity, the influence of Muhammadan thought and
practice, and humanity won converts where violence would have failed. 104
For though the lot of many of the Christian captives was a very pitiable one,
others who held positions in the households of private individuals, were
often no worse off than domestic servants in the rest of Europe. [173]As
organised by the Muhammadan Law, slavery was robbed of many of its
harshest features, nor in Turkey at least does it seem to have been
accompanied by such barbarities and atrocities as in the pirate states of
Northern Africa. The slaves, like other citizens, had their rights, and it is
even said that a slave might summon his master before the Qāḍī for ill

usage, and that if he alleged that their tempers were so opposite, that it was
impossible for them to agree, the Qāḍī could oblige his master to sell
him. 105 The condition of the Christian captives naturally varied with
circumstances and their own capabilities of adapting themselves to a life of
hardship; the aged, the priests and monks, and those of noble birth suffered
most, while the physician and the handicraftsman received more
considerate treatment from their masters, as being servants that best repaid
the money spent upon them. 106 The galley-slaves naturally suffered most of
all, indeed the kindest treatment could have but little relieved the hardships
incident to such an occupation. 107 Further, the lot of the slaves who were
state property was more pitiable than that of those who had been purchased
by private individuals. 108 As a rule they were allowed the free exercise of
their religion; in the state-prisons at Constantinople, they had their own
priests and chapels, and the clergy were allowed to administer the
consolations of religion to the galley-slaves. 109 The number of the Christian
slaves who embraced Islam was enormous; some few cases have been
recorded of their being threatened [174]and ill-treated for the very purpose of
inducing them to recant, but as a rule the masters seldom forced them to
renounce their faith, 110 and put the greatest pressure upon them during the
first years of their captivity, after which they let them alone to follow their
own faith. 111 The majority of the converted slaves therefore changed their
religion of their own free choice; and when the Christian embassies were
never sure from day to day that some of their fellow-countrymen that had
accompanied them to Constantinople as domestic servants, might not turn
Turk, 112 it can easily be understood that slaves who had lost all hope of
return to their native country, and found little in their surroundings to
strengthen and continue the teachings of their earlier years, would yield to
the influences that beset them and would feel few restraints to hinder them
from entering a new society and a new religion. An English traveller 113 of
the seventeenth century has said of them: “Few ever return to their native
country; and fewer have the courage and constancy of retaining the
Christian Faith, in which they were educated; their education being but
mean, and their knowledge but slight in the principles and grounds of it;

whereof some are frightened into Turcism by their impatience [175]and too
deep resentments of the hardships of the servitude; others are enticed by the
blandishments and flatteries of pleasure the Mahometan Law allows, and
the allurements they have of making their condition better and more easy by
a change of their Religion; having no hope left of being redeemed, they
renounce their Saviour and their Christianity, and soon forget their original
country, and are no longer looked upon as strangers, but pass for natives.”

Much of course depended upon the individual character of the different
Christian slaves themselves. The anonymous writer, so often quoted above,
whose long captivity made him so competent to speak on their condition,
divides them into three classes:—first, those who passed their days in all
simplicity, not caring to trouble themselves to learn anything about the
religion of their masters; for them it was enough to know that the Turks
were infidels, and so, as far as their captive condition and their yoke of
slavery allowed, they avoided having anything to do with them and their
religious worship, fearing lest they should be led astray by their errors, and
striving to observe the Christian faith as far as their knowledge and power
went. The second class consisted of those whose curiosity led them to study
and investigate the doings of the Turks: if, by the help of God, they had
time enough to dive into their secrets, and understanding enough for the
investigation of them and light of reason to find the interpretation thereof,
they not only came out of the trial unscathed, but had their own faith
strengthened. The third class includes those who, examining the Muslim
religion without due caution, fail to dive into its depths and find the
interpretation of it and so are deceived; believing the errors of the Turks to
be the truth, they lose their own faith and embrace the false religion of the
Muslims, hereby not only compassing their own destruction, but setting a
bad example to others: of such men the number is infinite. 114

Conversion to Islam did not, as some writers have affirmed, release the
slave from his captivity and make him a free man, 115 [176]for emancipation
was solely at the discretion of the master; who indeed often promised to set

any slave free, without the payment of ransom, if only he would embrace
Islam; 116 but, on the other hand, would also freely emancipate the Christian
slave, even though he had persevered in his religion, provided he had
proved himself a faithful servant, and would make provision for his old
age. 117

There were many others who, like the Christian slaves, separated from early
surroundings and associations, found themselves cut loose from old ties and
thrown into the midst of a society animated by social and religious ideals of
an entirely novel character. The crowds of Christian workmen that came
wandering from the conquered countries in the fifteenth century to
Adrianople and other Turkish cities in search of employment, were easily
persuaded to settle there and adopt the faith of Islam. 118 Similarly the
Christian families that Muḥammad II transported from conquered provinces
in Europe into Asia Minor, 119 may well have become merged into the mass
of the Muslim population by almost imperceptible degrees, as was the case
with the Armenians carried away into Persia by Shāh ʻAbbās I (1587–
1629), most of whom appear to have passed over to Islam in the second
generation. 120

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there would seem to have
been a decay of the missionary spirit among the Turks, but the latter years
of the reign of Sultan ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd witnessed a renewed interest in
Muslim propaganda, and Turkish newspapers began to record instances of
conversion. Among the most noteworthy of such converts were some
eighteen amīrs of the princely family of Shihāb in Mount Lebanon, which
had been Christian for about a century; they are said to claim descent from
the Quraysh, and the Turks made every effort to bring them back to the fold
of Islam; those who became [177]Muslims were appointed to lucrative posts
in the Turkish civil service. 121

In the following pages it is proposed to give a more detailed and particular
account of the spread of Islam among the Christian populations of Albania,

Servia, Bosnia and Crete, as the history of each of these countries after its
conquest by the Ottomans presents some special features of interest in the
history of the propagation of Islam.

The Albanians, with the exception of some settlements in Greece, 122 inhabit
the mountainous country that stretches along the east shore of the Adriatic
from Montenegro to the Gulf of Arta. They form one of the oldest and
purest-blooded races in Europe and are said to belong to the Pelasgic
branch of the Aryan stock.

Their country was first invaded by the Turks in 1387, but the Turkish forces
soon had to withdraw, and the authority of the Sultan was recognised for the
first time in 1423. For a short period Albania regained its independence
under George Kastriota, who is better known under his Muhammadan name
of Scanderbeg or Sikandarbeg. Recent investigations have established the
falsity of the romantic fictions that had gathered round the story of his early
days—how that as a boy he had been surrendered as a hostage to the Turks,
had been brought up among them as a Muslim and had won the special
favour of the Sultan. The truth is, that the days of his youth were passed in
his native mountains and his warfare with the Turks began with the victory
gained over them in 1444; for more than twenty years he maintained a
vigorous and successful resistance to their invading forces, but after his
death in 1467, the Turks began again to take possession of Albania. Krūya,
the capital of the Kastriot dynasty, fell into their hands eleven years later,
and from this date there appears to have been no organised resistance of the
whole country, though revolts were frequent and the subjection of the
country was never complete. Some of the sea-port towns held out much
longer; Durazzo was captured in 1501, while Antivari, the northernmost
point of the sea-coast of Albania, did not [178]surrender until 1571. The
terms of capitulation were that the city should retain its old laws and
magistrature, that there should be free and public exercise of the Christian
religion, that the churches and chapels should remain uninjured and might
be rebuilt if they fell into decay; that the citizens should retain all their

movable and immovable property and should not be burdened by any
additional taxation.

The Albanians under Turkish rule appear always to have maintained a kind
of semi-autonomy, and the several tribes and clans remained as essentially
independent as they were before the conquest. Though vassals of the
Sultans, they would not brook the interference of Turkish officials in their
internal administration, and there is reason to believe that the Turkish
Government has never been able to appoint or confirm any provincial
governor who was not a native of Albania, and had not already established
his influence by his arms, policy or connections. 123 Their racial pride is
intense, and to the present day, the Albanian, if asked what he is, will call
himself a Skipetar, 124 before saying whether he is a Christian or a
Muhammadan—a very remarkable instance of national feeling obliterating
the fierce distinction between these two religions that so forcibly obtrudes
itself in the rest of the Ottoman empire. The Christian and Muhammadan
Albanians alike, just as they speak the same language, so do they cherish
the same traditions, and observe the same manners and customs; and pride
in their common nationality has been too strong a bond to allow differences
of religious belief to split the nation into separate communities on this
basis. 125 Side by side they served in the [179]irregular troops, which soon
after the Turkish conquest became the main dependence of the government
in all its internal administration, and both classes found the same ready
employment in the service of the local pashas, being accounted the bravest
soldiers in the empire. Christian Albanians served in the Ottoman army in
the Crimean War, 126 and though they have perhaps been a little more quiet
and agricultural than their Muslim fellow-countrymen, still the difference
has been small: they have always retained their arms and military habits,
have always displayed the same fierce, proud, untameable spirit, and been
animated with the same intense national feeling as their brethren who had
embraced the creed of the Prophet. 127

The consideration of these facts is of importance in tracing the spread of
Islam in Albania, for it appears to have been propagated very gradually by
the people of the country themselves, and not under pressure of foreign
influences. The details that we possess of this movement are very meagre,
as the history of Albania from the close of the fifteenth century to the rise of
ʻAlī Pasha three hundred years later, is almost a blank; what knowledge we
have, therefore, of the slow but continuous accession of converts to Islam
during this period, is derived from the ecclesiastical chronicles of the
various dioceses, 128 and the reports sent in from time to time to the Pope
and the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. 129 But it goes without saying that
the very nature of these sources gives the information derived from them
the stamp of imperfection—especially in the matter of the motives assigned
for conversion. For an ecclesiastic of those times to have even entertained
the possibility of a conversion to Islam from genuine conviction—much
less have openly expressed such an opinion in writing to his superiors—is
well-nigh inconceivable. [180]

During the sixteenth century, Islam appears to have made but little progress,
though the tide of conversion had already set in. In 1610 the Christian
population exceeded the Muhammadan in the proportion of ten to one, 130
and as most of the villages were inhabited by Christians, with a very small
admixture of Muhammadans, 131 the conversions appear to have been more
frequent in the large towns. In Antivari, for example, while many Christians
elected to emigrate into the neighbouring Christian countries, the majority
of those who remained, both high-born and low, went over gradually to the
Muslim faith, so that the Christian population grew less and less day by
day. 132 As the number of accessions to Islam increased, churches were
converted into mosques—a measure which, though contrary to the terms of
the capitulation, seems justified by the change in the religion of the
people. 133 In 1610 two collegiate churches only remained in the hands of the
Latin Christians, but these appear to have sufficed for the needs of the
community; 134 what this amounted to can only roughly be guessed from the
words of Marco Bizzi: “There are about 600 houses inhabited

indiscriminately by Muhammadans and Christians—both Latin and
Schismatics (i.e. of the Orthodox Greek Church): the number of the
Muhammadans is a little in excess of the Christians, and that of the Latins
in excess of the Schismatics.”

In the accounts we have of the social relations between the Christians and
the Muslims, and in the absence of any sharp line of demarcation between
the two communities, we find some clue to the manner in which
Muhammadan influences gradually gained converts from among the
Christian population in proportion as the vigour and the spiritual life of the
Church declined. [181]

It had become very common for Christian parents to give their daughters in
marriage to Muhammadans, and for Christian women to make no objection
to such unions. 135 The male children born of these mixed marriages were
brought up as Musalmans, but the girls were allowed to follow the religion
of their mother. 136 Such permission was rendered practically ineffective by
the action of the Christian ecclesiastics, who ordered the mothers to be
excluded from the churches and from participation in the sacraments; 137 and
consequently (though the parish priests often disregarded the commands of
their superiors) many of these women embraced the faith of their husbands.
But even then they kept up a superstitious observance of the rite of baptism,
which was supposed to be a sovereign specific against leprosy, witches and
wolves, 138 and Christian priests were found ready to pander to this
superstition for any Muhammadan woman who wished to have her children
baptised. 139 This good feeling between the members of the two religions 140
is similarly illustrated by the attendance of Muhammadans at the festivals
of Christian saints; e.g. Marco Bizzi says that on the feast-day of St. Elias
(for whom the Albanians appear to have had a special devotion) there were
as many Muhammadans present in the church as Christians. 141 Even to the
present day we are told that Albanian Muhammadans revere the Virgin
Mary and the Christian saints, and make pilgrimages to their shrines,
[182]while Christians on the other hand resort to the tombs of Muslim saints

for the cure of ailments or in fulfilment of vows. 142 In the town of
Calevacci, where there were sixty Christian and ten Muhammadan
households, the followers of the Prophet contributed towards the support of
the parish priest, as the majority of them had Christian wives. 143 Under such
circumstances it is hardly surprising to learn that many openly professed
Islam, while satisfying their consciences by saying that they professed
Christianity in their hearts. 144 Marco Bizzi has three explanations to offer
for such a lapse—the attraction of worldly advantage, the desire to avoid
the payment of tribute, and the want of a sufficiently large number of
intelligent clergy to supply the spiritual needs of the country. 145 Conversions
are frequently ascribed to the pressure of the burden of taxation imposed
upon the Christians, and whole villages are said to have apostatised to avoid
payment of the tribute. As no details are given, it is impossible to judge
whether there was really sufficient ground for the complaint, or whether this
was not the apology for their conduct alleged by the renegades in order to
make some kind of excuse to their former co-religionists—or indeed an
exaggeration on the part of ecclesiastics to whom a genuine conversion to
Islam on rational grounds seemed an absolute impossibility. A century later
(in 1703) the capitation-tax was six reals a head for each male and this
(with the exception of a tax, termed sciataraccio, of three reals a year) was
the only burden imposed on the Christians exclusively. 146 Men must have
had very little attachment to their religion to abandon it merely in order to
be quit of so slight a penalty, and with no other motive; and the very
existence of so large a body of Christians in Albania at the present time
shows that the burden could not have been so heavy as to force them into
apostasy without any other alternative.

If only we had something more than vague general complaints against the
“Turkish tyranny,” we should be better able to determine how far this could
have had such a [183]preponderating influence as is ascribed to it: but the
evidence alleged seems hardly to warrant such a conclusion. The vicious
practice followed by the Ottoman Court of selling posts in the provinces to
the highest bidder and the uncertainty of the tenure of such posts, often

resulted in the occupants trying to amass as large a fortune as possible by
extortions of every kind. But such burdens are said to have weighed as
heavily on Muhammadans as Christians. 147 Though certainly an avaricious
and unjust official may have found it easier to oppress the Christians than
the Muslims, especially when the former were convicted of treasonable
correspondence with the Venetians and other Christian states and were
suspected of a wish to revolt.

However this may have been, there can be little doubt of the influence
exerted by the zealous activity and vigorous life of Islam in the face of the
apathetic and ignorant Christian clergy. If Islam in Albania had many such
exponents as the Mullā, whose sincerity, courtesy and friendliness are
praised by Marco Bizzi, with whom he used to discuss religious questions,
it may well have made its way. 148 The majority of the Christian clergy
appear to have been wholly unlettered: most of them, though they could
read a little, did not know how to write, and were so ignorant of the duties
of their sacred calling that they could not even repeat the formula of
absolution by heart. 149 Though they had to recite the mass and other
services in Latin, there were very few who could understand any of it, as
they were ignorant of any language but their mother tongue, and they had
only a vague, traditionary knowledge of the truths of their religion. 150
Marco Bizzi considered the inadequate episcopate of the country
responsible for these evils, as for the small numbers of the clergy, and their
ignorance of their sacred calling, and for the large number of Christians
who grew old and even died without being confirmed, and apostatised
almost everywhere; 151 and unless this were [184]remedied he prophesied a
rapid decay of Christianity in the country. 152 Several priests were also
accused of keeping concubines, and of drunkenness. 153

It may here be observed that the Albanian priests were not the repositories
of the national aspirations and ideals, as were the clergy of the Orthodox
Church in other provinces of the Turkish empire, who in spite of their
ignorance kept alive among their people that devotion to the Christian faith

which formed the nucleus of the national life of the Greeks. 154 On the
contrary, the Albanians cherished a national feeling that was quite apart
from religious belief, and with regard to the Turks, considered, in true
feudal spirit, that as they were the masters of the country they ought to be
obeyed whatever commands they gave. 155

There is a curious story of conversion which is said to have taken place
owing to a want of amicable relations between a Christian priest and his
people, as follows: “Many years since, when all the country was Christian,
there stood in the city of Scutari a beautiful image of the Virgin Mary, to
whose shrine thousands flocked every year from all parts of the country to
offer their gifts, perform their devotions, and be healed of their infirmities.
For some cause or other, however, it fell out that there was dissension
between the priest and the people, and one day the latter came to the church
in great crowds, declaring that unless the priest yielded to them they would
then and there abjure the faith of Christ and embrace in its stead that of
Muḥammad. The priest, whether right or wrong, still remaining firm, his
congregation tore the rosaries and crosses from their necks, trampled them
under their feet, and going to the nearest mosque, were received by the
Mollah into the fold of the True Believers.” 156

Through the negligence and apathy of the Christian clergy [185]many abuses
and irregularities had been allowed to creep into the Christian society; in
one of which, namely the practice of contracting marriages without the
sanction of the Church or any religious ceremony, we find an
approximation to the Muhammadan law, which makes marriage a civil
contract. In order to remedy this evil, the husband and wife were to be
excluded from the Church, until they had conformed to the ecclesiastical
law and gone through the service in the regular manner. 157

In the course of the seventeenth century, the social conditions and other
factors, indicated above, bore fruit abundantly, and the numbers of the
Christian population began rapidly to decline. In the brief space of thirty

years, between 1620 and 1650, about 300,000 Albanians are said to have
gone over to Islam. 158 In 1624 there were only 2000 Catholics in the whole
diocese of Antivari, and in the city itself only one church; at the close of the
century, even this church was no longer used for Christian worship, as there
were only two families of Roman Catholics left. 159 In the whole country
generally, the majority of the Christian community in 1651 was composed
of women, as the male population had apostatised in such large numbers to
Islam. 160 Matters were still worse at the close of the century, the Catholics
being then fewer in number than the Muhammadans, the proportions being
about 1 to 1⅓, 161 whereas less than a hundred years before, they had
outnumbered the Muhammadans in the proportion of 10 to 1; 162 in the
Archbishopric of Durazzo the Christian population had decreased by about
half in twenty years, 163 in another town (in the diocese of Kroia) the entire
population passed from Christianity to Islam in the course of thirty years. 164
In spite of the frequent protests and regulations made by their ecclesiastical
superiors, the parish priests continued to countenance the open profession
of Islam along with a secret adherence to Christianity, on the part of many
male members of their flocks, by administering to them the Blessed
Sacrament; the result of which was that the children [186]of such persons,
being brought up as Muhammadans, were for ever lost to the Christian
Church. 165 Similarly, Christian parents still gave their daughters in marriage
to Muhammadans, the parish priests countenancing such unions by
administering the sacrament to such women, 166 in spite of the fulminations
of the higher clergy against such indulgence. 167 Such action on the part of
the lower clergy can hardly, however, be taken as indicating any great zeal
on behalf of the spiritual welfare of their flocks, in the face of the
accusations brought against them; the majority of them are accused of being
scandalous livers, who very seldom went to confession and held drunken
revels in their parsonages on festival days; they sold the property of the
Church, frequently absented themselves from their parishes, and when
censured, succeeded in getting off by putting themselves under the
protection of the Turks. 168 The Reformed Franciscans and the Observants
who had been sent to minister to the spiritual wants of the people did

nothing but quarrel and go to law with one another; much to the scandal of
the laity and the neglect of the mission. 169 In the middle of the seventeenth
century five out of the twelve Albanian sees were vacant; the diocese of
Pullati had not been visited by a bishop for thirty years, and there were only
two priests to 6348 souls. 170 In some parishes in the interior of the country,
there had been no priests for more than forty years; and this was in no way
due to the oppression of the “Turkish tyrant,” for when at last four
Franciscan missionaries were sent, they reported that they could go through
the country and exercise their sacred office without any hindrance
whatever. 171 The bishop of Sappa, to the great prejudice of his diocese, had
been long resident in Venice, where he is said to have lived a vicious life,
and had appointed as his vicar an ignorant priest who was a notorious evil-
liver: this man had 12,400 souls under his charge, and, says the
ecclesiastical visitor, “through the absence of the bishop there is danger of
his losing his own [187]soul and compassing the destruction of the souls
under him and of the property of the Church.” 172 The bishop of Scutari was
looked upon as a tyrant by his clergy and people, and only succeeded in
keeping his post through the aid of the Turks; 173 and Zmaievich complains
of the bishops generally that they burdened the parishes in their diocese
with forced contributions. 174 It appears that Christian ecclesiastics were
authorised by the Sultan to levy contributions on their flocks. Thus the
Archbishop of Antivari (1599–1607) was allowed to “exact and receive”
two aspers from each Christian family, twelve for every first marriage (and
double the amount for a second, and quadruple for a third marriage), and
one gold piece from each parish annually, and it seems to have been
possible to obtain the assistance of the Turkish authorities in levying these
contributions. 175

Throughout the whole of Albania there was not a single Christian school, 176
and the priests were profoundly ignorant: some were sent to study in Italy,
but Marco Crisio condemns this practice, as such priests were in danger of
finding life in Italy so pleasant that they refused to return to their native
country. With a priesthood so ignorant and so careless of their sacred duties,

it is not surprising to learn that the common people had no knowledge even
of the rudiments of their faith, and that numerous abuses and corruptions
sprang up among them, which “wrought the utmost desolation to this
vineyard of the Lord.” 177 Many Christians lived in open concubinage for
years, still, however, being admitted to the sacraments, 178 while others had a
plurality of wives. 179 In this latter practice we notice an assimilation
between the habits of the two communities—the Christian and the Muslim
—which is further illustrated by the admission of Muhammadans as
sponsors at the baptism of Christian children, while the old superstitious
custom of baptising Muhammadan children was still sanctioned by the
priests. 180 [188]

Such being the state of the Christian Church in Albania in the latter half of
the seventeenth century, some very trifling incentive would have been
enough to bring about a widespread apostasy; and the punishment inflicted
on the rebellious Catholics in the latter half of the century was a
determining factor more than sufficient to consummate the tendencies that
had been drawing them towards Islam and to cause large numbers of them
to fall away from the Christian Church. The rebellious movement referred
to seems to have been instigated by George, the thirty-ninth Archbishop of
Antivari (1635–1644), who through the bishops of Durazzo, Scodra and
Alessio tried to induce the leaders of the Christian community to conspire
against the Turkish rule and hand over the country to the neighbouring
Christian power, the Republic of Venice. As in his time Venice was at peace
with the Turks a fitting opportunity for the hatching of this plot did not
occur, but in 1645 war broke out between Turkey and the Republic, and the
Venetians made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Antivari,
which before the Turkish conquest had been in their possession for more
than three centuries (1262–1571). The Albanian Catholics who had sided
with the enemy and secretly given them assistance were severely punished
and deprived of their privileges, while the Greek Christians (who had
everything to fear in the event of the restoration of the Venetian rule and
had remained faithful to the Turkish government) were liberally rewarded

and were lauded as the saviours of their country. Many of the Catholics
either became Muhammadans or joined the Greek Church. The latter fact is
very significant as showing that there was no persecution of the Christians
as such, nor any attempt to force the acceptance of Islam upon them. The
Catholics who became Muhammadans did so to avoid the odium of their
position after the failure of their plot, and could have gained the same end
and have at the same time retained their Christian faith by joining the Greek
Church, which was not only officially recognised by the Turkish
government but in high favour in Antivari at this time: so that those who
neglected to do so, could have had very little attachment to the Christian
religion. The same remark holds good of the numerous conversions [189]to
Islam in the succeeding years: Zmaievich attributes them in some cases to
the desire to avoid the payment of tribute, but, from what has been said
above, it is very unlikely that this was the sole determining motive.

In 1649 a still more widespread insurrection broke out, an Archbishop of
Antivari, Joseph Maria Bonaldo (1646–1654), being again the main
instigator of the movement; and the leading citizens of Antivari, Scodra and
other towns conspired to throw open their gates to the army of the Venetian
Republic. But this plot also failed and the insurrection was forcibly crushed
by the Turkish troops, aided by the dissensions that arose among the
Christians themselves. Many Albanians whose influence was feared were
transported from their own country into the interior of the Turkish
dominions; a body of 3000 men crossed the border into Venetian territory;
those who remained were overawed by the erection of fortresses and the
marching of troops through the disaffected districts, while heavy fines were
imposed upon the malcontents. 181

Unfortunately the Christian writers who complain of the “unjust tributes
and vexations” with which the Turks oppressed the Albanians, so that they
apostatised to Islam, 182 make use only of general expressions, and give us
no details to enable us to judge whether or not such complaints were
justified by the facts. Zmaievich prefaces his account of the apostasy of

2000 persons with an enumeration of the taxes and other burdens the
Christians had to bear, but all these, he says, were common also to the
Muhammadans, with the exception of the capitation-tax of six reals a year
for each male, and another tax, termed sciataraccio, of three reals a year. 183
He concludes with the words: “The nation, wounded by these taxes in its
weakest part, namely, worldly interest, to the consideration of which it has a
singular leaning either by nature or by necessity, has given just cause for
lamenting the deplorable loss of about 2000 souls who apostatised from the
true faith so as not to be subject to the tribute.” 184 There is nothing in his
report to show that [190]the taxes the Catholics had to pay constituted so
intolerable a burden as to force them to renounce their creed, and though he
attributes many conversions to Islam to the desire of escaping the tribute, he
says expressly that these apostasies from the Christian faith are mainly to be
ascribed to the extreme ignorance of the clergy, 185 in great measure also to
their practice of admitting to the sacraments those who openly professed
Islam while in secret adhering to the Christian faith: 186 in another place he
says, speaking of the clergy who were not fit to be parish priests and their
practice of administering the sacraments to apostates and secret Christians:
“These are precisely the two causes from which have come all the losses
that the Christian Church has sustained in Albania.” 187 There is very little
doubt that the widespread apostasy at this time was the result of a long
series of influences similar to those mentioned in the preceding pages, and
that the deliverance from the payment of the tribute was the last link in the
chain.

What active efforts Muhammadans themselves were making to gain over
the Christians to Islam, we can hardly expect to learn from the report of an
ecclesiastical visitor. But we find mention of a district, the inhabitants of
which, from their intercourse with the Turks, had “contracted the vices of
these infidels,” and one of the chief causes of their falling away from the
Christian faith was their contracting marriages with Turkish women. 188
There were no doubt strong Muhammadan influences at work here, as also
in the two parishes of Biscascia and Basia, whose joint population of nearly

a thousand souls was “exposed to the obvious risk of apostatising through
lack of any pastor,” and were “much tempted in their faith, and needed to be
strengthened in it by wise and zealous pastors.” 189

Zmaievich speaks of one of the old noble Christian families in the
neighbourhood of Antivari which was represented at that time by two
brothers; the elder of these had been “wheedled” by the prominent
Muhammadans of the place, who were closely related to him, into denying
his [191]faith; the younger wished to study for the priesthood, in which
office “he would be of much assistance to the Christian Church through the
high esteem in which the Turks held his family; which though poor was
universally respected.” 190 This indeed is another indication of the fact that
the Muhammadans did not ill-treat the Christians, merely as such, but only
when they showed themselves to be politically disaffected. Zmaievich, who
was himself an Albanian, and took up his residence in his diocese instead of
in Venetian territory, as many of the Archbishops of Antivari seem to have
done, 191 was received with “extraordinary honours” and with “marvellous
courtesy,” not only by the Turkish officials generally, but also by the
Supreme Pasha of Albania himself, who gave him the place of honour in his
Divan, always accompanying him to the door on his departure and
receiving him there on his arrival. 192 This “barbarian” who “showed himself
more like a generous-hearted Christian than a Turk,” gave more substantial
marks of good feeling towards the Christians by remitting—at the
Archbishop’s request—the tribute due for the ensuing year from four
separate towns. 193 If any of the Christian clergy were roughly treated by the
Turks, it seems generally to have been due to the suspicion of treasonable
correspondence with the enemies of the Turks; ecclesiastical visits to Italy
seem also to have excited—and in many cases, justly—such suspicions.
Otherwise the Christian clergy seem to have had no reason to complain of
the treatment they received from the Muslims; Zmaievich even speaks of
one parish priest being “much beloved by the principal Turks,” 194 and
doubtless there were parallels in Albania to the case of a priest in the
diocese of Trebinje in Herzegovina, who in the early part of the eighteenth

century was suspected, on account of his familiar intercourse with
Muhammadans, of having formed an intention to embrace Islam, and was
accordingly sent by his bishop to Rome under safe custody. 195

No subsequent period of Albanian history appears to [192]have witnessed
such widespread apostasy as the seventeenth century, but there have been
occasional accessions to Islam up to more recent times. In Southern
Albania, the country of the Tosks, the preponderance of the Muhammadan
population placed the Christians at a disadvantage, and a story is told of the
Karamurtads, inhabitants of thirty-six villages near Pogoniani, that up to the
close of the eighteenth century they were Christians, but finding themselves
unable to repel the continual attacks of the neighbouring Muhammadan
population of Leskoviki, they met in a church and prayed that the saints
might work some miracle on their behalf; they swore to fast till Easter in
expectation of the divine assistance; but Easter came and no miracle was
wrought, so the whole population embraced Islam; soon afterwards they
obtained the arms they required and massacred their old enemies in
Leskoviki and took possession of their lands. 196 Community of faith in
Albania is never allowed to stand in the way of a tribal feud. Even up to the
nineteenth century Albanian tribes and villages have changed their religion
for very trivial reasons; part of one Christian tribe is said to have turned
Muhammadan because their priest, who served several villages and visited
them first, insisted on saying mass at an unreasonably early hour. 197

At the present day the Muhammadans in Albania are said to number about
1,000,000 and the Christians 480,000, but the accuracy of these figures is
not certain. The Mirdites are entirely Christian; they submitted to the Sultan
on condition that no Muslim would be allowed to settle in their territory, but
adherents of both the rival creeds are found in almost all the other tribes.
Central Albania is said to be almost entirely Muhammadan, and the
followers of Islam form about sixty per cent. of the population of Northern
Albania; the Christian population attains its largest proportion in Southern
Albania, especially in the districts bordering upon Greece.

The kingdom of Servia first paid tribute to the Ottomans in 1375 and lost its
independence after the disastrous defeat of Kossovo (1389), where both the
king of Servia and the [193]Turkish sultan were left dead upon the field. The
successors of the two sovereigns entered into a friendly compact, the young
Servian prince, Stephen, acknowledged the suzerainty of Turkey, gave his
sister in marriage to the new sultan, Bāyazīd, and formed with him a league
of brotherhood. At the battle of Nikopolis (1394), which gave to the Turks
assured possession of the whole Balkan peninsula, except the district
surrounding Constantinople, the Servian contingent turned the wavering
fortune of the battle and gave the victory to the Turks. On the field of
Angora (1402), when the Turkish power was annihilated and Bāyazīd
himself taken prisoner by Tīmūr, Stephen was present with his Servian
troops and fought bravely for his brother-in-law, and instead of taking this
opportunity of securing his independence, remained faithful to his
engagement, and stood by the sons of Bāyazīd until they recovered their
father’s throne. Under the successor of Stephen, George Brankovich, Servia
enjoyed a semi-independence, but when in 1438 he raised the standard of
revolt, his country was again overrun by the Turks. Then for a time Servia
had to acknowledge the suzerainty of Hungary, but the defeat of John
Hunyady at Varna in 1444 brought her once more under tribute, and in 1459
she finally became a Turkish province.

It is not impossible that the Servians who had embraced Islam after the
battle of Kossovo had knowledge of the fate of the little Muslim community
that had been rooted out of Hungary about a century before, and therefore
preferred the domination of the Turks to that of the Hungarians. Yāqūt gives
the following account of his meeting, about the year 1228, with some
members of this group of followers of the Prophet in mediæval Europe,
who had owed their conversion to Muslims who had settled among them.
“In the city of Aleppo, I met a large number of persons called Bashkirs,
with reddish hair and reddish faces. They were studying law according to
the school of Abū Ḥanīfah (may God be well pleased with him!) I asked
one of them who seemed to be an intelligent fellow for information

concerning their country and their condition. He told me, ‘Our country is
situated on the other side of Constantinople, in a kingdom of a people of the
Franks called the Hungarians. [194]We are Muslims, subjects of their king,
and live on the border of his territory, occupying about thirty villages,
which are almost like small towns. But the king of the Hungarians does not
allow us to build walls round any of them, lest we should revolt against
him. We are situated in the midst of Christian countries, having the land of
the Slavs on the north, on the south, that of the Pope, i.e. Rome (now the
Pope is the head of the Franks, the vicar of the Messiah in their eyes, like
the commander of the faithful in the eyes of the Muslims; his authority
extends over all matters connected with religion among the whole of them);
on the west, Andalusia; on the east, the land of the Greeks, Constantinople
and its provinces.’ He added, ‘Our language is the language of the Franks,
we dress after their fashion, we serve with them in the army, and we join
them in attacking all their enemies, because they only go to war with the
enemies of Islam.’ I then asked him how it was they had adopted Islam in
spite of their dwelling in the midst of the unbelievers. He answered, ‘I have
heard several of our forefathers say that a long time ago seven Muslims
came from Bulgaria and settled among us. In kindly fashion they pointed
out to us our errors and directed us into the right way, the faith of Islam.
Then God guided us and (praise be to God!) we all became Muslims and
God opened our hearts to the faith. We have come to this country to study
law; when we return to our own land, the people will do us honour and put
us in charge of their religious affairs.’ ” 198 Islam kept its ground among the
Bashkirs of Hungary until 1340, when King Charles Robert compelled all
his subjects that were not yet Christians to embrace the Christian faith or
quit the country. 199

The Servian Muslims may, therefore, well have been pleased to escape from
the rule of Hungary, like their Christian fellow-countrymen, for when these
were given the choice between the Roman Catholic rule of Hungary and the
Muslim rule of the Turks, the devotion of the Servians to the Greek Church
led them to prefer the tolerance of the Muhammadans to the

uncompromising proselytising [195]spirit of the Latins. An old legend thus
represents their feelings at this time:—The Turks and the Hungarians were
at war; George Brankovich sought out John Hunyady and asked him, “If
you are victorious, what will you do?” “Establish the Roman Catholic
faith,” was the answer. Then he sought out the sultan and asked him, “If you
come out victorious, what will you do with our religion?” “By the side of
every mosque shall stand a church, and every man shall be free to pray in
whichever he chooses.” 200 The treachery of some Servian priests forced the
garrison of Belgrade to capitulate to the Turks; 201 similarly the Servians of
Semendria, on the Danube, welcomed the Turkish troops who in 1600
delivered them from the rule of their Catholic neighbours. 202

The spread of Islam among the Servians began immediately after the battle
of Kossovo, when a large part of the old feudal nobility, such as still
remained alive and did not take refuge in neighbouring Christian countries,
went over voluntarily to the faith of the Prophet, in order to keep their old
privileges undisturbed. 203 In these converted nobles the sultans found the
most zealous propagandists of the new faith. 204 But the majority of the
Servian people clung firmly to their old religion through all their troubles
and sufferings, and only in Stara Serbia or Old Servia, 205 which now forms
the north-eastern portion of modern Albania, has there been any very
considerable number of conversions. Even here the spread of
Muhammadanism proceeded very slowly until the seventeenth century,
when the Austrians induced the Servians to rise in revolt and, after the ill-
success of this rising, the then Patriarch, Arsenius III Tsernoïevich, in 1690
emigrated with 40,000 Servian families across the border into Hungary;
another exodus in 1739 of 15,000 families under the leadership of Arsenius
IV Jovanovich, well nigh denuded this part of the country of its original
Servian population. 206 [196]

Albanian colonists from the south pressed into the country vacated by the
fugitives: these Albanians at the time of their arrival were Roman Catholics
for the most part, but after they settled in Old Servia they gradually adopted

Islam and at the present time the remnant of Roman Catholic Albanians is
but small, though from time to time it is recruited by fresh arrivals from the
mountains: the new-comers, however, usually follow the example of their
predecessors, and after a while become Muhammadans. 207

After this Albanian immigration, Islam began to spread more rapidly among
the remnant of the Servian population. The Servian clergy were very
ignorant and unlettered, they could only manage with difficulty to read their
service-books and hardly any had learned to write; they neither preached to
the people nor taught them the catechism, consequently in whole villages
scarcely a man could be found who knew the Lord’s Prayer or how many
commandments there were; even the priests themselves were quite as
ignorant. 208 After the insurrection of 1689, the Patriarch of Ipek, the
ecclesiastical capital of Servia, was appointed by the Porte, but in 1737, as
the result of another rebellion, the Servian Patriarchate was entirely
suppressed and the Servian Church made dependent upon the Greek
Patriarch of Constantinople. The churches were filled with Greek bishops,
who made common cause with the Turkish Beys and Pashas in bleeding the
unfortunate Christians: their national language was proscribed and the Old
Slavonic service-books, etc., were collected and sent off to
Constantinople. 209 With such a clergy it is not surprising that the Christian
faith should decline: e.g. in the commune of Gora (in the district of
Prizren), which had begun to become Muhammadanised soon after the great
exodus of 1690, the Servians that still clung to the Christian faith, appealed
again and again to the Greek bishop of Prizren to send them priests, at least
occasionally, but all in vain; their children remained unbaptised, weddings
and burials were conducted without the blessing of the Church, and the
consecrated buildings fell into decay. 210 In the neighbouring district [197]of
Opolje, similarly, the present Muslim population of 9500 souls is probably
for the most part descended from the original Slav inhabitants of the
place. 211 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Bizzi found in the city
of Jagnevo, 120 Roman Catholic households, 200 Greek and 180
Muhammadan; 212 less than a hundred years later, every house in the city

was looked upon as Muhammadan, as the head of each family professed
this faith and the women only, with some of the children, were Christian. 213
About the middle of the eighteenth century, the village of Ljurs was entirely
Catholic; in 1863 there were 90 Muslim and 23 Christian families, but at
the present day this village, together with the surrounding villages, has
wholly given up Christianity. 214 Until recently some lingering survivals of
their old Christian faith, such as the burning of the Yule-log at Christmas,
etc., were still to be met with in certain villages, but such customs are now
fast dying out.

After the battle of Kossovo and the downfall of the Servian empire, the wild
highlands of Montenegro afforded a refuge to those Servians who would
not submit to the Turks but were determined to maintain their
independence. It is not the place here to relate the history of the heroic
struggles of this brave people against overwhelming odds, how through
centuries of continual warfare, under the rule of their prince-bishops, 215 they
have kept alive a free Christian state when all their brethren of the same
race had been compelled to submit to Muhammadan rule. While the very
basis of their separate existence as a nation was their firm adherence to the
Christian faith it could hardly have been expected that Islam would have
made its way among them, but in the seventeenth century many
Montenegrins in the frontier districts became Muhammadans and took
service with the neighbouring Pashas. But in 1703, Daniel Petrovich, the
then reigning bishop, called the tribes together and told them that the only
hope for their country and their faith lay in the destruction of the
Muhammadans living among them. Accordingly, on Christmas Eve, all
[198]the converted Montenegrins who would not forswear Islam and
embrace Christianity were massacred in cold blood. 216

To pass now to Bosnia:—in this country the religious and social conditions
of the people, before the Turkish conquest, merit especial attention. The
majority of the population belonged to a heretical Christian sect, called
Bogomiles, who from the thirteenth century had been exposed to the

persecution of the Roman Catholics and against whom Popes had on several
occasions preached a Crusade. 217 In 1325, Pope John XXII wrote thus to the
king of Bosnia: “To our beloved son and nobleman, Stephen, Prince of
Bosnia,—knowing that thou art a faithful son of the Church, we therefore
charge thee to exterminate the heretics in thy dominion, and to render aid
and assistance to Fabian, our Inquisitor, forasmuch as a large multitude of
heretics from many and divers parts collected hath flowed together into the
principality of Bosnia, trusting there to sow their obscene errors and dwell
there in safety. These men, imbued with the cunning of the Old Fiend, and
armed with the venom of their falseness, corrupt the minds of Catholics by
outward show of simplicity and the sham assumption of the name of
Christians; their speech crawleth like a crab, and they creep in with
humility, but in secret they kill, and are wolves in sheep’s clothing, covering
their bestial fury as a means to deceive the simple sheep of Christ.” In the
fifteenth century, the sufferings of the Bogomiles became so intolerable that
they appealed to the Turks to deliver them from their unhappy condition, for
the king of Bosnia and the priests were pushing the persecution of the
Bogomiles to an extreme which perhaps it had never reached before; as
many as forty thousand of them fled from Bosnia and took refuge in
neighbouring countries; others who did not succeed in making their escape,
were sent in chains to Rome. But even these violent measures did little to
diminish the strength of the Bogomiles in Bosnia, as in 1462 we are told
that heresy was as powerful as ever in this country. The following year,
when Bosnia was invaded by Muḥammad II, the Catholic [199]king found
himself deserted by his subjects: the keys of the principal fortress, the royal
city of Bobovatz, were handed over to the Turks by the Bogomile governor;
the other fortresses and towns hastened to follow this example, and within a
week seventy cities passed into the hands of the Sultan, and Muḥammad II
added Bosnia to the number of his numerous conquests. 218

From this time forth we hear but little of the Bogomiles; they seem to have
willingly embraced Islam in large numbers immediately after the Turkish
conquest, and the rest seem to have gradually followed later, while the

Bosnian Roman Catholics emigrated into the neighbouring territories of
Hungary and Austria. It has been supposed by some 219 that a large
proportion of the Bogomiles, at least in the earlier period of the conquest,
embraced Islam with the intention of returning to their faith when a
favourable opportunity presented itself; as, being constantly persecuted they
may have learnt to deny their faith for the time being; but that, when this
favourable opportunity never arrived, this intention must have gradually
been lost sight of and at length have been entirely forgotten by their
descendants. Such a supposition is, however, a pure conjecture and has no
direct evidence to support it. We may rather find the reason for the
willingness of the Bogomiles to allow themselves to be merged in the
general mass of the Musalman believers, in the numerous points of likeness
between their peculiar beliefs and the tenets of Islam. They rejected the
worship of the Virgin Mary, the institution of Baptism and every form of
priesthood. 220 They abominated the cross as a religious symbol, and
considered it idolatry to bow down before religious pictures and the images
and relics of the saints. Their houses of prayer were very simple and
unadorned, in contrast to the gaudily decorated Roman Catholic churches,
and they shared the Muhammadan dislike of bells, which they styled “the
devil’s trumpets.” They believed that [200]Christ was not himself crucified
but that some phantom was substituted in his place: in this respect agreeing
partially with the teaching of the Qurʼān. 221 Their condemnation of wine
and the general austerity of their mode of life and the stern severity of their
outward demeanour would serve as further links to bind them to Islam, 222
for it was said of them: “You will see heretics quiet and peaceful as lambs
without, silent, and wan with hypocritical fasting, who do not speak much
nor laugh loud, who let their beard grow, and leave their person
incompt.” 223 They prayed five times a day and five times a night, repeating
the Lord’s Prayer with frequent kneelings, 224 and would thus find it very
little change to join in the services of the mosque. I have brought together
here the many points of likeness to the teachings of Islam, which we find in
this Bogomilian heresy, but there were, of course, some doctrines of a
distinctly Christian character which an orthodox Muslim could not hold;

still, with so much in common, it can easily be understood how the
Bogomiles may gradually have been persuaded to give up those doctrines
that were repugnant to the Muslim faith. Their Manichæan dualism was
equally irreconcilable with Muslim theology, but Islam has always shown
itself tolerant of such theological speculations provided that they did not
issue in a schism and that a general assent and consent were given to the
main principles of its theory and practice.

The Turks, as was their usual custom, offered every advantage to induce the
Bosnians to accept their creed. All who embraced Islam were allowed to
retain their lands and possessions, and their fiefs were exempt from all
taxation, 225 and it is probable that many rightful heirs of ancient houses who
had been dispossessed for heretical opinions by the Catholic faction among
the nobility, now embraced the opportunity of regaining their old position
by submission to the dominant creed. The Bosnian Muhammadans
[201]retained their nationality and still for the most part bear Serb names and
speak only their national tongue; 226 at the same time they have always
evinced a lively zeal for their new faith, and by their military prowess, their
devotion to Islam and the powerful influence they exercised, the Bosnian
nobility rapidly rose into high favour in Constantinople and many were
entrusted with important offices of state, e.g. between the years 1544 and
1611 nine statesmen of Bosnian origin filled the post of Grand Vizier.

The latest territorial acquisition of the Ottoman conquests was the island of
Crete, which in 1669 was wrested from the hands of the Venetian Republic
by the capture of the city of Candia after a long and desperate siege of
nearly three years, which closed a struggle of twenty-five years between
these rival powers for the possession of the island.

This was not the first time that Crete had come under Muslim rule. Early in
the ninth century the island was suddenly seized by a band of Saracen
adventurers from Spain, and it remained in their power for nearly a century
and a half (a.d. 825–961). 227 During this period well nigh the whole

population of the island had become Muslim, and the churches had either
fallen into ruins or been turned into mosques; but when the authority of the
Byzantine empire was once re-established here, the people were converted
again to their ancient faith through the skilful preaching of an Armenian
monk, and the Christian religion became the only one professed on the
island. 228 In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Venetians purchased
the island from Boniface, Duke of Montserrat, to whose lot it had fallen
after the partition of the Byzantine empire, and they ruled it with a heavy
hand, apparently looking upon it only in the light of a purchase that was to
be exploited for the benefit of the home government and its colonists. Their
administration was so oppressive and tyrannical as to excite several revolts,
which were crushed with pitiless severity; on one of these occasions whole
cantons in the provinces of Sfakia and Lassiti were depopulated, and it was
forbidden under pain of death to sow any corn there, so that these districts
remained barren [202]and uncultivated for nearly a century. 229 The terrific
cruelty with which the Venetian senate suppressed the last of these attempts
at the beginning of the sixteenth century added a crowning horror to the
miserable condition of the unhappy Cretans. How terrible was their lot at
this time we learn from the reports of the commissioners sent by the
Venetian senate in the latter part of the same century, in order to inquire into
the condition of the islanders. The peasants were said to be crushed down
by the cruelest oppression and tyranny on the part of the Venetian nobles,
their feudal lords, being reduced to a worse condition than that of slaves, so
that they never dared even to complain of any injustice. Each peasant had to
do twelve days’ forced labour for his feudal lord every year without
payment, and could then be compelled to go on working for as long as his
lord required his services at the nominal rate of a penny a day; his vineyards
were mulcted in a full third of their produce, but fraud and force combined
generally succeeded in appropriating as much as two-thirds; his oxen and
mules could be seized for the service of the lord, who had a thousand other
devices for squeezing the unfortunate peasant. 230 The protests of these
commissioners proved ineffectual to induce the Venetian senate to alleviate
the unhappy condition of the Cretans and put a stop to the cruelty and

tyranny of the nobles: it preferred to listen to the advice of Fra Paolo Sarpi
who in 1615 thus addressed the Republic on the subject of its Greek
colonies: “If the gentlemen of these Colonies do tyrannize over the villages
of their dominion, the best way is not to seem to see it, that there may be no
kindness between them and their subjects.” 231

It is not surprising to learn from the same sources that the Cretans longed
for a change of rulers, and that “they would not much stick at submitting to
the Turk, having the example of all the rest of their nation before their
eyes.” Indeed, many at this time fled into Turkey to escape the intolerable
burden of taxation, following in the footsteps of countless others, who from
time to time had taken refuge [203]there. 232 Large numbers of them also
emigrated to Egypt, where many embraced Islam. 233 Especially galling to
the Cretans were the exactions of the Latin clergy who appropriated the
endowments that belonged of right to the Greek ecclesiastics, and did
everything they could to insult the Christians of the Greek rite, who
constituted nine-tenths of the population of the island. 234 The Turks, on the
other hand, conciliated their good-will by restoring the Greek hierarchy.
This, according to a Venetian writer, was brought about in the following
manner: “A certain papas or priest of Canea went to Cusseim the Turkish
general, and told him that if he desired to gain the good-will of the Cretan
people, and bring detestation upon the name of Venice, it was necessary for
him to bear in mind that the staunchest of the links which keep civilised
society from falling asunder is religion. It would be needful for him to act in
a way different from the line followed by the Venetians. These did their
utmost to root out the Greek faith and establish that of Rome in its place,
with which interest they had made an injunction that there should be no
Greek bishops in the island. By thus removing these venerated and
authoritative shepherds, they thought the more easily to gain control over
the scattered flocks. This prohibition had caused such distress in the minds
of the Cretans that they were ready to welcome with joy and obedience any
sovereignty that would lend its will to the re-institution of this order in their
hierarchy—an order so essential for the proper exercise of their divine

worship. He added, that it would be a further means of conciliating the
people if they were assured that they would not only be confirmed in the
old privileges of their religion, but that new privileges would be granted
them. These arguments seemed to Cusseim so plausible that he wrote at
once to Constantinople with a statement of them. Here they were approved,
and the Greek Patriarch was bidden to institute an archbishop who should
be metropole of the Province of Candia. Under the metropolitan seven other
bishops were also to be nominated.” 235 [204]

The Turkish conquest seems to have been very rapidly followed by the
conversion of large numbers of the Cretans to Islam. It is not improbable
that the same patriotism as made them cling to their old faith under the
foreign domination of the Venetians who kept them at arm’s length and
regarded any attempt at assimilation as an unpardonable indignity, 236 and
always tried to impress on their subjects a sense of their inferiority—may
have led them to accept the religion of their new masters, which at once
raised them from the position of subjects to that of equals and gave them a
share in the political life and government of their country. Whatever may
have been the causes of the widespread conversion of the Cretans, it seems
almost incredible that violence should have changed the religion of a people
who had for centuries before clung firmly to their old faith despite the
persecution of a hostile and a foreign creed. Whatever may have been the
means by which the ranks of Islam were filled, thirty years after the
conquest we are told that the majority of the Muslims were renegades or the
children of renegades, 237 and in little more than a century half the
population of Crete had become Muhammadan. From one end of the island
to the other, not only in the towns but also in the villages, in the inland
districts and in the very heart of the mountains, were (and are still) found
Cretan Muslims who in figure, habits and speech are thoroughly Greek.
There never has been, and to the present day there is not, any other
language spoken on the island of Crete except Greek; even the few Turks to
be found here had to adopt the language of the country and all the firmans
of the Porte and decrees of the Pashas were read and published in Greek. 238

The bitter feelings between the Christians and Muhammadans of Crete that
have made the history of this island during the nineteenth century so sad a
one, was by no means so virulent before the outbreak of the Greek
revolution, in days when the Cretan Muslims were very generally in the
habit of taking as their wives Christian maidens, the children of their
Christian friends. 239 The social communication between the two
communities was further signified by their common dress, [205]as the
Cretans of both creeds dressed so much alike that the distinction was often
not even recognised by residents of long standing or by Greeks of the
neighbouring islands. 240

Recent political events have brought about a considerable diminution in the
Muhammadan population of Crete. In 1881 the number of Muhammadans
in the island was 73,234; in 1909, in consequence of continual emigrations,
it had been reduced to 33,496. 241 [206]

This is no place to give a history of these territorial acquisitions, which may be briefly summed up
1
thus. In 1353 the Ottoman Turks first passed over into Europe and a few years later Adrianople
was made their European capital. Under Bāyazīd (1389–1402), their dominions stretched from the
Ægæan to the Danube, embracing all Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly and Thrace, with the exception
of Chalkidike and the district just round Constantinople. Murād II (1421–1451) occupied Chalkidike
and pushed his conquests to the Adriatic. Muḥammad II (1451–1481) by the overthrow of
Constantinople, Albania, Bosnia and Servia, became master of the whole South-Eastern peninsula,
with the exception of the parts of the coast held by Venice and Montenegro. Sulaymān II (1520–
1566) added Hungary and made the Ægæan an Ottoman sea. In the seventeenth century Crete was
won and Podolia ceded by Poland. ↑
Phrantzes, pp. 305–6. ↑
2
Finlay, vol. iii. p. 522. Pitzipios, seconde partie, p. 75. M. d’Ohsson, vol. iii. p. 52–4.
3
Arminjon, vol. i. p. 16. ↑
A traveller who visited Cyprus in 1508 draws the following picture of the tyranny of the Venetians
4
in their foreign possessions: “All the inhabitants of Cyprus are slaves to the Venetians, being
obliged to pay to the state a third part of all their increase or income, whether the product of their
ground or corn, wine, oil, or of their cattle, or any other thing. Besides, every man of them is bound
to work for the state two days of the week wherever they shall please to appoint him: and if any shall
fail, by reason of some other business of their own, or for indisposition of body, then they are made
to pay a fine for as many days as they are absent from their work: and which is more, there is yearly
some tax or other imposed on them, with which the poor common people are so flead and pillaged
that they hardly have wherewithal to keep soul and body together.” (The Travels of Martin

Baumgarten, p. 373.) See also the passages quoted by Hackett, History of the Orthodox Church of
Cyprus, p. 183. ↑
Finlay, vol. iii. p. 502. ↑
5
Urquhart, quoted by Clark: Races of European Turkey, p. 82. ↑
6
Karamsin, vol. v. p. 437. ↑
7
Martin Crusius writes in the same spirit: “Et mirum est, inter barbaros, in tanta tantæ
8
urbis colluvie, nullas cædes audiri, vim iniustam non ferri, ius cuivis dici. Ideo
Constantinopolin Sultanus, Refugium totius orbis scribit: quod omnes miseri, ibi tutissime latent:
quodque omnibus (tam infimis quam summis: tam Christianis quam infidelibus) iustitia
administretur.” (Turcogræcia, p. 487.) (Basileæ, 1584.) ↑
Phrantzes, p. 81. ↑
9
Phrantzes, p. 92. ↑
10
Finlay, vol. v. pp. 5, 123. Adeney, p. 311. Gerlach, writing in the year 1577, says: “Wo
11
Christen oder Juden in den Orten wohnen, da es Kadi oder Richter und Subbassi oder
Vögte hat, dass die gemeinen Türcken nicht ihres Gefallens mit ihnen umbgehen dörffen, sind sie
viel lieber unter den Türcken, dann unter den Christen. Wann sie Jährlich ihren Tribut geben, sind sie
hernach frey. Aber in der Christenheit ist das gantze Jahr des Gebens kein Ende.” (Tage-Buch, p.
413.) ↑
Hertzberg, pp. 467, 646, 650. ↑
12
Finlay, vol. v. pp. 156–7. ↑
13
This interval was, however, not a fixed one; at first, the levy took place every seven or five
14
years, but later at more frequent intervals according to the exigencies of the state. (Menzel,
p. 52.) Metrophanes Kritopoulos, writing in 1625, states that the collectors came to the cities every
seventh year and that each city had to contribute three or four, or at least two boys (p. 205). ↑
Qurʼān, viii. 42. ↑
15
Id. x. 99. 100. ↑
16
“On ne forçait cependant pas les jeunes Chrétiens à changer de foi. Les principes du
17
gouvernement s’y opposaient aussi bien que les préceptes du Cour’ann; et si des officiers,
mus par leur fanatisme, usaient quelquefois de contrainte, leur conduite à cet égard pouvait bien être
tolérée; mais elle n’était jamais autorisée par les chefs.” (M. d’Ohsson, tome iii. pp. 397–8.) ↑
Hertzberg, p. 472. ↑
18
“Sed hoc tristissimum est, quod, ut olim Christiani imperatores, ex singulis oppidis, certum
19
numerum liberorum, in quibus egregia indoles præ cæteris elucebat, delegerunt: quos ad
publica officia militiæ togatæ et bellicæ in Aula educari curarunt: ita Turci, occupato Græcorum
imperio, idem ius eripiendi patribus familias liberos ingeniis eximiis præditos, usurpant.” (David
Chytræus, pp. 12–14.) ↑
Creasy, p. 99. M. d’Ohsson, tome iii. p. 397. Menzel, p. 53. Thomas Smith, speaking of such
20
parents, says: “Others, to the great shame and dishonour of the Religion, Christians only in name,