The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

A.D. 633-4] THE ARMIES COMPARED 69
also in equipment, the Byzantine must vastly have surpassed A.n. 12-13.
the Arab force. But the Bedawi horse excelled in celerit\-
and dash. Their charge, if light, was galling, and so rapidl)-
delivered that ere the surprise was over, the troop itself
might be out of sight. The Byzantine army, it is true, The Greek
had Bedawi auxiliaries as numerous, perhaps, as the whole ^""-^''
Muslim army. But their spirit widely differed. The fealty
of the Syrian Arab was lax and loose. Christian in name, the
yoke of his faith sat lightly on him. Indeed, throughout the
empire, Christianity was eaten up of strife and rancour.
With reinforcements came a troop of Monks and Bishops,
who, bearing banners, waving gold crosses, and shouting that
the faith was in jeopardy, sought thus to rouse the passion
of the army. The passion roused was often but the scowl
of hatred.
Bitter schisms then rent the Church, and the cry
of the Orthodox for help would strike a far different chord
than that of patriotism in the Kutychian and Nestorian
breast. Lastly, the social and ancestral associations of the
Syrian Bedawi, alien from his l^yzantine masters, were in
full accord with his brethren from Arabia ; and of such
instinctive feeling, the invaders knew well to take advantage.
With this lukewarm and disunited host, compare the Muslim and the
in its virgin vigour, bound together as one man, and fired
with a wild and fanatic fervour to " fight in the way of the
Lord," winning thus at one and the same time heavenly
favour and worldly fortune. For the survivors there were
endless spoil, captive maidens, fertile vales, houses which
the)' builded not, and wells which they had not digged.
Should they fall by the sword, there were the Martyr's prize
of paradise, and black-eyed " Houries " waiting impaticntl)'
for the happ\' hour. The soldiers' imagination was inflamed
by tales of heaven opened on the very battlefield, and the
expiring warrior tended by two virgins wiping awa)- the
sweat and dust from off his f^ice, and with
the wanton graces
of paradise drawing him upwards in their fond embrace.
Of an army, nerved by this strange combination of incentives,
divine and human,—of the flesh and of the spirit, faith and
rapine, heavenly devotion and passion for the sex even in
the throes of death,—ten might chase a hundred of the halfhearted
Greeks. The 40,000 Muslims were stronger far than
the 240,000 of the enem}-.
^' "'''"'•