"
The Christian confessor and the Moslem martyr.]
Before leaving this part of our subject it may be opportune to quote a
few more passages from Al Kindy, in which he contrasts the inducements
that, under the military and political predominance of Islam, promoted
its rapid spread, and the opposite conditions under which Christianity
made progress, slow, indeed, comparatively, but sure and steady. First,
he compares the Christian confessor with the Moslem "martyr:"
I marvel much, he says, that ye call those _martyrs_ that fall in
war. Thou hast read, no doubt, in history of the followers of
Christ put to death in the persecutions of the kings of Persia and
elsewhere. Say, now, which are the more worthy to be called
martyrs, these, or thy fellows that fall fighting for the world and
the power thereof? How diverse were the barbarities and kinds of
death inflicted on the Christian confessors! The more they were
slain the more rapidly spread the faith; in place of one sprang up
a hundred. On a certain occasion, when a great multitude had been
put to death, one at court said to the king, "The number of them
increaseth instead of, as thou thinkest, diminishing.
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