monasteries special quarters where kings or great nobles could be entertained.

The influence of the Benedictine monks upon the history of Europe is so great as to be incalculable. Twenty-four popes are claimed to have been chosen from their ranks, and nearly five thousand archbishops and bishops. They have produced thousands of writers, some of them of very great distinction. Their work as missionaries was of the utmost value to the Roman Catholic Church-St. Augustine and his monks were Benedictines, and, after Christianity had been firmly established in England, English Benedictines-Wilfrid, Willibrord, and others—evangelized Friesland and Holland, and another, Winfrid or Boniface, founded and organized the German Church and became Archbishop of Mayence. Other Benedictine missionaries went still farther afield to the Scandinavian countries and to Poland and Prussia. The monasteries which sprang up on the scenes of the labours of all these monks became centres of civilization on account of the object lessons which they presented in organized work, in farming, and in such industries as masonry and glass-making. They were also seats of learning at a time when learning was little if at all valued by the mass of the people. One of the greatest of the early Benedictine scholars was an Englishman named Baeda, often called the Venerable Bede (673–735), a monk of Jarrow, in Northumbria, who wrote an admirable history of the English Church-our chief source of information about the period with which it deals. It was a period of unrest and general insecurity throughout Western Europe, and the monasteries were almost the only places where literature could be written, where ancient manuscripts were preserved, and where there was reasonable assurance of a humane and well-ordered life.

THE RISE AND SPREAD OF THE MOHAMMEDAN

POWER

HE Mohammedan religion originated in Arabia, a coun

TH

try which from time immemorial has been inhabited by nomadic tribes, over whom at various times a somewhat shadowy authority has been exerted by Egypt, Persia, Macedonia, and Rome. This country is, for the most part, sparsely populated and thinly cultivated. Among its important towns are Medina and Mecca, both of them on the main caravan route from Syria. Mecca, from early times, has been a holy city containing a temple called the Kaaba, the most important part of which is a black meteoric stone, which was at one time regarded as the chief of the many gods whom the Arabs worshipped. During certain months of the year all the tribes of Arabia observed a truce from the struggles for power in which they frequently indulged, and then pilgrims flocked to Mecca, and after their religious ceremonies had been duly performed it was their custom to hold contests of musical and literary skill, a practice which resembles the Olympic festivals of the ancient Greeks.

It was in the holy city of Mecca that the founder of Mohammedanism was born in the year 570. Mohammed was the son of very poor parents, and so badly educated that it is doubtful whether he ever learned how to write. He entered the service of a certain Khadija, the widow of a rich merchant, and eventually married her. It is probable that he accompanied her caravans to Syria and Palestine, and so became acquainted with the monotheistic beliefs of the Jews and the Christians, which made a deep impression upon his mind. But it was not until he was forty years of age that he proclaimed a new religion which meant the worship of one god, and which he declared had been revealed to him by the

archangel Gabriel. At first his only converts were his wife Khadija, his adopted son Ali, his friend Abu Bekr, and a slave named Zeid, and the authorities at Mecca treated him with indulgent contempt, but when the number of his disciples began to increase they became alarmed. The city was so sacred that no blood could be shed in it, and other methods, such as confiscation of property and the boycott, had to be adopted against the Mohammedans. This caused many of them to leave Mecca. Mohammed, however, who was not subjected to the petty annoyances and persecutions of his more obscure followers, remained until an invitation reached him to visit Medina and expound his religion there. At first he sent some of his disciples to do the work of missionizing, and did not follow himself until his enemies in Mecca, alarmed at the conversion of Medina, decided to violate the sanctity of their city and kill the prophet. Mohammed's flight is known as the Hijira. It took place in 622, and it was taken by his followers as the beginning of a new era, the Year One as all true Mohammedans reckon time.

Mohammed was enthusiastically received by the people of Medina, and there immediately followed a series of wars, or rather skirmishes, between them and the people of Mecca, ending in 629 in the complete victory of Mohammed, who entered the town of Mecca as its master after a treaty with its inhabitants which involved a little compromise, such as the retention of the sacred stone of the Kaaba as an object to which all the people of Arabia should render homage. When pilgrims go to Mecca to-day they still walk round the Kaaba seven times, and on each occasion they kiss the black stone, which is fixed in the outside wall at the south-east corner. After the fall of Mecca the power of Mohammed was extended, until when he died in 632 he was the master of the whole of Arabia. His character after the Hijira shows some deterioration. Perhaps power had a slightly intoxicating effect upon him. Until Khadija died, when he was fifty years of age, he

seems to have been the faithful husband of one wife. After her death he married many wives, some of them very young women, and at times his love affairs were such as to warrant special explanation in the Koran or Mohammedan Bible, lest his more critical followers might misconstrue the purity of the prophet's motives. In his diplomatic and political relations during his years of power Mohammed hardly showed much advance upon the methods of the ordinary seeker for power who does not claim any divine revelation. He could be treacherous and ruthless, as well as compromising and merciful as the occasion demanded.

The Koran is, for the most part, a collection of the sayings of Mohammed, written down by his disciples as they heard them from his lips, and collected into a volume shortly after his death. It contains the chief beliefs of the new religion as well as the rules which are to regulate the lives of all good Mohammedans. Some of them, such as the treatment of women, would not appeal to a Western mind. Women are to be kept in a separate quarter of the house known as the harem; they are not to go outside without the permission of the master; and whenever they do go out they are to be veiled. Moreover, every man is allowed four wives, but, generally speaking, it is only the richer Mohammedans who have availed themselves of this permission. In many respects, however, the religion which Mohammed founded is worthy to be compared with the best of the world's religions. It teaches reverence for one god, 'the lord of the worlds, the merciful and compassionate', and admits that Abraham, Moses, and Jesus 1 were great prophets (but none of them as great as Mohammed); it enjoins honour to parents, charity towards the poor and afflicted, and justice towards all men ; and it bids men abstain from strong drink altogether. Like the Christian religion, it speaks confidently of a life after

I There is no mention of Gautama Buddha, probably because Mohammed had never heard of him.

death and of a last judgement, when all men shall receive the reward of their earthly actions. Those who have refused to accept the doctrines of Islam will be banished to hell, where they will make vain endeavours to slake their thirst with scalding water; those who have obeyed the precepts of the Koran will go to the delightful gardens of Paradise, where they will recline upon sumptuous divans and be attended by beautiful maidens with eyes like pearls, and where they will be given wine to drink, wine which does not have a heady effect.

Mohammedanism was a much simpler religion than the religion of the Christian Church of the Middle Ages; it was easily understood and it contained no doctrines likely to confuse and perplex men's minds. It did not provide for a priesthood and it was not obscured and overcast by a multitude of ceremonies. The Mohammedan mosque is a house of prayer and a place for reading the Koran; it has no altars and no images or pictures of any kind; its walls are adorned with passages from the Koran, and rich rugs cover the floors. Many of the mosques are very beautiful, with colonnaded courtyards, exquisite mosaic work, and lovely stained-glass windows. They have one or more minarets, from which an official called the muezzin calls the people to prayer five times a day, for every true Mohammedan is expected to pray just before sunrise, just after noon, just before and after sunset, and when the day has closed. In addition there are four other things which he is expected to do. He must recite daily the simple creed, 'There is no god but God (Allah), and Mohammed is his prophet'; he must give alms to the poor; he must make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once during his lifetime; and he must fast during the month Ramadan, when he was allowed neither to eat nor drink from sunrise to sunset, for it was in this month that the archangel Gabriel came down from heaven to reveal the sacred Koran to Mohammed.

When Mohammed died his place as the leader of Islam was