"Of warriors
nerved by this strange combination of earth and heaven, of the flesh and
of the spirit, of the incentives at once of faith and rapine, of
fanatical devotion to the prophet and deathless passion for the sex, ten
might chase a hundred half-hearted Romans. The forty thousand Moslems
were stronger far than the two hundred and forty thousand of the enemy."
The combat lasted for weeks; but at the last the Byzantine force was
utterly routed, and thousands hurled in wild confusion over the beetling
cliffs of the Yermuk into the yawning chasm of Wacusa.[48]
[Sidenote: Islam planted by aid of material force.]
Such, then, was the nature of the Moslem propaganda, such the agency by
which the faith was spread, and such the motives at once material and
spiritual by which its martial missionaries were inspired. No wonder
that the effete empires of Rome and Persia recoiled and quivered at the
shock, and that province after province quickly fell under the sway of
Islam. It is far from my intention to imply that the truths set forth by
the new faith had nothing to do with its success. On the contrary, it
may well be admitted that but for those truths success might have been
impossible.
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