of Arab authors, who naturally regarded Islam as the beginning of all things.  In every detail of practical life they regarded the prophet and his contemporaries as their ruling ideal, and therefore naturally assumed that the constitutional practices of the prophet were his own invention.  The organisation of the conquering race with its tribal subordination was certainly purely Arab in origin.  In fact the conquerors seemed so unable to adapt themselves to the conditions with which they met, that foreigners who joined their ranks were admitted to the Muhammedan confederacy only as clients of the various Arab tribes.  This was, however, a mere question of outward form:  the internal organisation continued unchanged, as it was bound to continue unless chaos were to be the consequence.  In fact, pre-existing administrative regulations were so far retained that the old customs duties on the former frontiers were levied as before, though they represented an institution wholly alien to the spirit of the Muhammedan empire.  Those Muhammedan authors, who describe the administrative organisation, recognise only the taxes which Islam regarded as lawful and characterise others as malpractices which had crept in at a later date.  It is remarkable that these so-called subsequent malpractices correspond with Byzantine and Persian usage before the conquest:  but tradition will not admit the fact that these remained unchanged.  The same fact is obvious when we consider the progress of civilisation in general.  In every case the Arabs merely develop the social and economic achievements of the conquered races to further issues.  Such progress could indeed only be modified by a general upheaval of existing conditions and no such movement ever took place.  The Germanic tribes destroyed the civilisations with which they met; they adopted many of the institutions of Christian antiquity, but found them an impediment to the development of their own genius.  The Arabs simply continued to develop the civilisation of post-classical antiquity, with which they had come in contact.

This procedure may seem entirely natural in the department of economic life, but by no means inevitable where intellectual progress is concerned.  Yet a similar course was followed in either case, as may be proved by dispassionate examination.  Islam was a rising force, a faith rather of experience than of theory or dogma, when it raised its claims against Christianity, which represented all pre-existing intellectual culture.  A settlement of these claims was necessary and the military triumphs are but the prelude to a great accommodation of intellectual interests.  In this Christianity played the chief part, though Judaism is also represented:  I am inclined, however, to think that Jewish ideas as they are expressed in the Qoran were often transmitted through the medium of Christianity.  There is no doubt that in Medina Muhammed was under direct Jewish influence of extraordinary power.  Even at that