[Sidenote:  Continuing inducements in times of peace.] Such, then, was the hostile attitude of Islam militant in its early days; such the pressure brought to bear on conquered lands for its acceptance; and such the disabilities imposed upon recusant Jews and Christians.  On the one hand, rapine, plunder, slavery, tribute, civil disability; on the other, security, peace, and honor.  We need not be surprised that, under such constraint, conquered peoples succumbed before Islam.  Nor were the temporal inducements to conversion confined to the period during which the Saracens were engaged in spreading Islam by force of arms.  Let us come down a couple of centuries from the time of Mohammed, and take the reign of the tolerant and liberal-minded sovereign, Al Mamun.

[Sidenote:  Evidence of Al Kindy in second century of Hegira, A.D. 830.  Speech of Al Mamun.] Among the philosophers of all creeds whom that great caliph gathered around him at Bagdad was a noble Arab of the Nestorian faith, descended from the kingly tribe of the Beni Kinda, and hence called Al Kindy.  A friend of this Eastern Christian, himself a member of the royal family, invited Al Kindy to embrace Islam in an epistle enlarging on the distinguished rank which, in virtue of his descent, he would (if a true believer) occupy at court, and the other privileges, spiritual and material, social and conjugal, which he would enjoy.  In reply the Christian wrote an apology of singular eloquence and power, throwing a flood of light on the worldly inducements which, even at that comparatively late period, abounded in a Moslem state to promote conversion to Islam.  Thus Al Mamun himself, in a speech delivered before his council, characterizes certain of his courtiers accused as secret adherents of the Zoroastrian faith: 

“Though professing Islam, they are free from the same.  This they do to be seen of me, while their convictions, I am well aware, are just the opposite of that which they profess.  They belong to a class which embrace Islam, not from any love of this our faith, but thinking thereby to gain access to our court, and share in the honor, wealth, and power of the realm.  They have no inward persuasion of that which they outwardly profess."[53]

[Sidenote:  Converts from sordid motives.] Again, speaking of the various classes brought over to Islam by sordid and unworthy motives, Al Kindy says: 

Moreover, there are the idolatrous races—­Magians and Jews—­low people aspiring by the profession of Islam to raise themselves to riches and power and to form alliances with the families of the learned and honorable.  There are, besides, hypocritical men of the world, who in this way obtain indulgences in the matter of marriage and concubinage which are forbidden to them by the Christian faith.  Then we have the dissolute class given over wholly to the lusts of the flesh.  And lastly there are those who by this means obtain a more secure and easy