A literary history of Persia

190 THE ARAB INVASIONrespect to immaterial and supra-sensual things ;his egotisticaland self-reliant nature found no place and felt no need for aGod who, if powerful to protect, was exacting of service andself-denial. For the rest, Allah ta'd/d, the Supreme Godpreached by Muhammad, was no new discovery of Islam, andif He received from the old Pagan Arabs less attention andpoorer offerings than the minor deities,it was because thelatter, being in a sense the property of the tribe, might fairlybe expected to concern themselves more diligently about itsaffairs. Yet even to them scant reverence was paid, unlessmatters went as their worshippers desired. " A la moindreoccasion," says Dozy, "on se f&chait contre les dieux, onleur disait comme il faut leurs ve"rites et on les outrageait."Oracles which failed to givethe desired reply were insulted ;idols which did not accept the sacrifices offered to them in abecoming manner were abused and pelted with stones ; godswere deposed and improvised on the smallest provocation.Yet all this did not dispose the Arabs to accept a new andexacting religion.The old gods, if ineffectual, were at leastintimate and inoffensive, and if they gave little, they expectedin itslittle in return. Islam, moreover, was uncompromisingattitude towards them ; they and their followers even thosewho lived before the Light came were in hell-fire,and nofavourite fetish was suffered to endure for a moment by theiconoclastic zeal of the new faith. More than this, asDr. Goldziher has well shown in the first chapterof hisluminous and erudite Muhammedanische Studien y wherein,under the " title Dm and Muruwwa," he contrasts the idealsof the or jfdhiliyya, pagan times, with those of Islam, theseideals were inmany respects incompatible, and even diametricallyopposed. Personal courage, unstinted generosity,lavish hospitality,unswerving loyalty to kinsmen, ruthlessness in avengingany wrong or insult offered to one's self or one's relations ortribesmen : these were the cardinal virtues of the old paganArab jwhile resignation, patience, subordination of personal