The risk was imminent, and an appeal went
forth for help to meet the danger. The battle-cry resounded from one end
of Arabia to the other, and electrified the land. Levy after levy, _en
masse_, started up at the call from every quarter of the peninsula, and
the Bedouin tribes, as bees from their hive, streamed forth in swarms,
animated by the prospect of conquest, plunder, and captive damsels, or,
if slain in battle, by the still more coveted prize of the "martyr" in
the material paradise of Mohammed. With a military ardor and new-born
zeal in which carnal and spiritual aspirations were strangely blended,
the Arabs rushed forth to the field, like the war-horse of Job, "that
smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the
shouting." Sullen constraint was in a moment transformed into an
absolute devotion and fiery resolve to spread the faith. The Arab
warrior became the missionary of Islam.
[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.
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