mitic nations with which we are best

acquainted, the Hebrews and the Arabs, have

done. The genuine Arab is thoroughly
aristocratic. Many a feud turns upon the
precedence of one family or tribe over another.
In the first two centuries after Mohammed
bloody wars were waged on such rivalries.
Even now it is with a heavy heart that the Arab
sees set over him a man of less noble
extraction than himself. The deeds of ancestors
are accepted as legitimation, but are also
the spur of emulation. In the councils of the
tribe or of the community, it is difficult for the
man of humble origin to acquire influence.
Even a caliph so early as the third in the series
owed his throne to the influence of his clan,
the Omayyads, who yet shortly before had
been the bitterest enemies of the Prophet, but
nevertheless, after their subjection, retained
the position of greatest prominence in Mecca,
and so in the new State. But for the
consideration in which his family was held,
Mowiya, the real founder of the Omayyad
dynasty, with all his talent and all his services
to the empire, would never have attained to the
supreme command. In this matter, indeed,
Islam has gradually effected a mighty change.
At his first appearance Mohammed gave
offence to the upper-class Meccans by
admitting to the number of his followers
slaves, freedmen, and other people of no
family or account. The might of the religious
idea triumphed over old prejudices. In
presence of the almighty extra-mundane God
all mortals are on an absolute equality;
whosoever went over to Islam received the
same rights, and undertook the same duties as
the highest and the meanest believer. But, in
spite of all this, Mohammed himself made
many concessions to the aristocratic temper,
and this temper continued for a long time after
to be a great power; it was the complete
development of the despotism, after the old
Oriental fashion, that levelled all subjects. But
even to this day aristocratic ideas prevail
among the Arabs of the desert, and also among
the sedentary Arabs in remoter regions. The
genuine Arab has in connection with his
aristocratic notions a sense of chivalry, a fine
feeling for points of honour (not necessarily
the same as we ourselves take), but also a
strong propensity to vanity and boasting. There
are many evidences that in the communities of
ancient Israel also an aristocratic rule (elders
and nobles) prevailed. That the constitution of
Carthage was in its essential features
aristocratic is well known. The same is true of
the Syrian city of Palmyra, though its
constitution was modified by the general
conditions of the Roman empire, to which it
had to accommodate itself.
As the Semite can hardly be induced,
voluntarily, to submit to a strict discipline, he
does not, on the whole, make a good soldier.
Skirmishes and little surprises are what the
Arab finds inspiriting; of the adventures of his
heroes and robbers he tells stories, as the
Hebrews before him did about Samson. Like
all vigorous nations with an exuberant vitality,
the Arabs delight in narratives of battle and
victory, especially if these are properly
exaggerated and flatter their pride of family or
race. The Old Testament speaks less of heroes
than of saints, but then it is a religious book;
its many tales of the wars of the Lord
nevertheless bear witness that the peaceful
Hebrew could also be thoroughly warlike.
How could it possibly have been otherwise in
a land that had been conquered with the sword,
and very often required to be similarly
defended? When Chwolson tries to
demonstrate the absolutely peaceable
disposition of the Israelites by reference to the
ideal kingdom of peace which was the object
of their hopes, it can be argued on the other
side that the very prophet who promises the
beating of swords into ploughshares, and of
spears into pruning-hooks, depicts the
daughter of Zion as trampling on the nations or
wasting the land of Assyria with the sword
(Micah iv., v.). But Semitic armies have
seldom done anything great. This might be
ascribed to the circumstance that among the
Semites the power of taking in complex unities
at a glance, the talent for arrangement, is rare,
and that therefore they have had no generals;
but we have only to think of Hannibal and
other great Carthaginians to reject this view.
These, however, carried on their campaigns
with foreign troops. For it is quite undeniable
that the Semites do not readily make good
soldiers. For moulding the Arabs into powerful
armies in the early years of Islam, unusual
impulses were required: the enthusiasm
generated by a new national religion which
promised a heavenly reward, and the
allurements which the prospects of booty and
of settlement in rich lands offered to the
inhabitants of the sterile wilderness. Over and
above all this there was a wonderful
intellectual outburst which showed itself in the
appearance of a singular series of highly gifted
generals, statesmen, and men of eminence in
various directions. And these were precisely
the men who then stood at the head of the
nation. To subsequent generations the youth of
Islam, the true prime of the Arabs, is
unintelligible. They are unable to appreciate
the great spiritual forces which, either in
conjunction with, or in hostile opposition to,
each other, were then unfolded. The
theological school discerns everywhere only
theological battles, and this school dominates
the view of later Moslems. This is the chief
reason why the names of the great warriors
and statesmen of that period have long been
almost forgotten in the East, while those of
theologians and saints are popular. The later
Jews also often fought with the utmost
bravery, but only when the defence of their
religion was in question. To become subject to
a stern discipline, and to encounter death
merely for the sake of freedom and fatherland,
was not a thought that came naturally to them.
Chwolson seems to prefer the enthusiasm of
religion to the enthusiasm of patriotism; but I
take it that the heroes of Marathon laid the
world under a debt of obligation by no means
less deep than did the armies of the
Maccabees.