[Sidenote:  Arabs, a military body, subsidized and mobilized by Omar.] It was now the care of Omar, the second caliph or ruler of the new-born empire, to establish a system whereby the spirit militant, called into existence with such force and fervor, might be rendered permanent.  The entire Arabian people was subsidized.  The surplus revenues which in rapidly increasing volume began to flow from the conquered lands into the Moslem treasuries were to the last farthing distributed among the soldiers of Arabian descent.  The whole nation was enrolled, and the name of every warrior entered upon the roster of Islam.  Forbidden to settle anywhere, and relieved from all other work, the Arab hordes became, in fact, a standing army threatening the world.  Great bodies of armed men were kept thus ever mobilized, separate and in readiness for new enterprise.

[Sidenote:  Mission of Islam described by Fairbairn.] The change which came over the policy of the Founder of the Faith at Medina, and paved the way for this marvelous system of world-wide rapine and conversion to Islam, is thus described by a thoughtful and sagacious writer: 

Medina was fatal to the higher capabilities of Islam.  Mohammed became then a king; his religion was incorporated in a State that had to struggle for its life in the fashion familiar to the rough-handed sons of the desert.  The prophet was turned into the legislator and commander; his revelations were now laws, and now military orders and manifestoes.  The mission of Islam became one that only the sword could accomplish, robbery of the infidel became meritorious, and conquest the supreme duty it owed to the world....

The religion which lived an unprospering and precarious life, so long as it depended on the prophetic word alone, became an aggressive and victorious power so soon as it was embodied in a State.[40]

[Sidenote:  And by von Kremer.] Another learned and impartial authority tells us: 

The Mussulman power under the first four caliphs was nothing but a grand religio-political association of Arab tribes for universal plunder and conquest under the holy banner of Islam, and the watch-word, “There is no god but the Lord, and Mohammed is his apostle.”  On pretext of spreading the only true religion the Arabs swallowed up fair provinces lying all around, and, driving a profitable business, enriched themselves simultaneously in a worldly sense.[41]

[Sidenote:  Religious merit of “fighting in the ways of the Lord.”] The motives which nerved the armies of Islam were a strange combination of the lower instincts of nature with the higher aspirations of the spirit.  To engage in the Holy War was the rarest and most blessed of all religious virtues, and conferred on the combatant a special merit; and side by side with it lay the bright prospect of spoil and female slaves, conquest and glory.  “Mount thy horse,” said Osama ibn Zeid to Abu Bekr