Dissensions of the Arabs.  But, though Mohammedanism had not reached its culmination, the dominion of the khalifs had.  Not the sword of Charles Martel, but the internal dissension of the vast Arabian Empire, was the salvation of Europe.  Though the Ommiade Khalifs were popular in Syria, elsewhere they were looked upon as intruders or usurpers; the kindred of the apostle was considered to be the rightful representative of his faith.  Three parties, distinguished by their colors, tore the khalifate asunder with their disputes, and disgraced it by their atrocities.  The color of the Ommiades was white, that of the Fatimites green, that of the Abassides black; the last represented the party of Abbas, the uncle of Mohammed.  The result of these discords was a tripartite division of the Mohammedan Empire in the tenth century into the khalifates of Bagdad, of Cairoan, and of Cordova.  Unity in Mohammedan political action was at an end, and Christendom found its safeguard, not in supernatural help, but in the quarrels of the rival potentates.  To internal animosities foreign pressures were eventually added and Arabism, which had done so much for the intellectual advancement of the world, came to an end when the Turks and the Berbers attained to power.

The Saracens had become totally regardless of European opposition—­they were wholly taken up with their domestic quarrels.  Ockley says with truth, in his history:  “The Saracens had scarce a deputy lieutenant or general that would not have thought it the greatest affront, and such as ought to stigmatize him with indelible disgrace, if he should have suffered himself to have been insulted by the united forces of all Europe.  And if any one asks why the Greeks did not exert themselves more, in order to the extirpation of these insolent invaders, it is a sufficient answer to any person that is acquainted with the characters of those men to say that Amrou kept his residence at Alexandria, and Moawyah at Damascus.”

As to their contempt, this instance may suffice:  Nicephorus, the Roman emperor, had sent to the Khalif Haroun-al-Raschid a threatening letter, and this was the reply:  “In the name of the most merciful God, Haroun-al-Raschid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog!  I have read thy letter, O thou son of an unbelieving mother.  Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my reply!” It was written in letters of blood and fire on the plains of Phrygia.

Political effect of polygamy.  A nation may recover the confiscation of its provinces, the confiscation of its wealth; it may survive the imposition of enormous war-fines; but it never can recover from that most frightful of all war-acts, the confiscation of its women.  When Abou Obeidah sent to Omar news of his capture of Antioch, Omar gently upbraided him that he had not let the troops have the women.  “If they want to marry in Syria, let them; and let them have as many female slaves as