A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

exaggerated; when the Arabs conquered, they usually showed themselves to be tolerant rulers.)
After the defeat at Syllaeum, the myth of Arab invincibility was at an end.
Unfortunately, the Arab conquests did nothing to heal the splits within Islam. The Caliph Omar was
assassinated in 644; his successor, Othman, twelve years later, by followers of Ali. Muawiyah, the
governor of Syria, swore to revenge Othman and led an army against Ali, who was now the Caliph.
They eventually made peace, but Ali was assassinated in 661 by a dissident. Muawiyah became
Caliph, and it was he who besieged Constantinople. When he died in 680, his son Yazid succeeded
him, but the Shi’a - followers of Ali - felt he had no right to the position. Ali’s eldest son Hasan had
died some years before under mysterious circumstances, believed poisoned by Muawiyah. Now his
second son, Hussein, was invited to become Caliph by dissidents in Iraq. Yazid’s army defeated
him in battle and his head was sent to Yazid in a basket. In 680, most of Ali’s family was
assassinated, including Fatima, the prophet’s daughter. But the murderers missed one sickly child,
who lived to continue the dynasty.
So Islam itself was torn by the same violent internal dissensions as ancient Rome, and the average
life expectancy of a ruler or pretender seemed much the same as under the Caesars. Muawiyah and
his son Yazid were the founders of a dynasty - the Ummayads - but this also led to further divisions
and slaughter. Yazid died after only two years, and his son shortly after this. The Ummayads chose
Marwan, a cousin of Muawiyah, while another candidate was favoured in Syria, Egypt and Iraq.
There was a battle in 684, with tremendous slaughter of the rival candidate’s forces. Marwan
became Caliph, but it was the beginning of a disastrous feud which would eventually cause the
downfall of the Ummayads. The Shi’a continued to hold the Ummayads in contempt, regarding
them as worldly and corrupt - which, on the whole, was true. Meanwhile, Arab expansion went on
slowly - rather more slowly than before the siege of Constantinople, but surely nevertheless. In 711
they invaded Spain, and others reached India - in 713 there was even an incursion into China. By
715, the Arabs were masters of Spain. Their expansion north continued until the fateful year 732,
when they were finally halted at Tours by Charles the Hammer - Charles Martel. The Muslims
retreated back over the Pyrenees and never reappeared in Europe. The battle of Tours was as
decisive for Europe as the battle of Chalons, where Attila the Hun had been defeated in 451.
Understandably, the Christian world loathed and feared the Arabs; Mahomet’s name was corrupted
to Mahound and became a synonym for the Devil. And we might well raise our eyebrows at the
notion that a great religious movement, whose central belief was that man should surrender himself
totally to the will of God, should lead its devotees to impose their beliefs with fire and sword. This
would be naive. Man is a creature with a thorn in his side, with a perpetual will to ‘go somewhere’.
At least, he must have the feeling that he is ‘getting somewhere’. This is why human beings sweat
and struggle and strive, instead of browsing peacefully like cows in a field. This is why all human
children seem to have a perpetual craving for toys, and why human adults continue to need their
own grown-up toys: colour televisions, video-recorders, fast cars etc. And when masses of men are
united - particularly when these men are ‘have-nots’ - they instantly begin to look around for
something to conquer. Expansion is a basic law of history. It is very regrettable, but it is so. It
means, in effect, that man is a natural burglar. When a nation takes to the sea and invades another
country, it is committing burglary just as surely as the thief who forces open your back window
with a jemmy. The Arabs did not even have the excuse that they were converting pagans. The
Persians and the Spaniards believed in God as much as they did themselves, and some small
disagreement about prophets – Zoroaster, Mani or Jesus - was neither here nor there, since
Mahomet himself always acknowledged these prophets as genuine. The truth is that religion only