Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/383

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 361 splendent as vermillion, and odoriferous as musk ; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cheru- bim." The intrepid souls of the Arabs were fired with enthu- siasm ; the picture of the invisible world was strongly painted on their imagination ; and the death which they had always despised became an object of hope and desire. The Koran inculcates, in the most absolute sense, the tenets of fate and predestination, which would extinguish both industry and virtue, if the actions of man were governed by his speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has exalted the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first companions of Mahomet ad- vanced to battle with a fearless confidence ; there is no danger where there is no chance : they were ordained to perish in their beds ; or they were safe and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy.i'^*' Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the flight his defensive of Mahomet, had they not been provoked and alarmed bv the the Koreish •'of Mecca vengeance of an enemy who could intercept their Syrian trade as it passed and repassed through the territory of Medina. Abu Sophian himself, with only thirty or forty followers, con- ducted a wealthy caravan of a thousand camels ; the fortune or dexterity of his march escaped the vigilance of Mahomet ; but the chief of the Koreish was informed that the holy robbers were placed in ambush to await his return. He dispatched a messenger to his brethren of Mecca and they were roused by the fear of losing their merchandise and their provisions, unless they hastened to his relief with the military force of the city. The sacred band of Mahomet was formed of three hundred and thirteen Moslems, of whom seventy-seven were fugitives, and the rest auxiliaries ; they mounted by turns a train of seventy camels (the camels of Yathreb were formidable in war) ; but such was the poverty of his first disciples that only two could appear on horseback in the field. i^" In the fertile and famous 136 The doctrine of absolute predestination, on which few religions can reproach each other, is sternly exposed in the Koran (c. 3, p. 52, 53, c. 4, p. 70, &c., with the notes of Sale, and c. 17, p. 413, with those of Maracci). Reland (de Relig. Mohamm. p. 61-64) s^^d Sale (Prelim. Discourse, p. 103) represent the opinions of the doctors, and our modern travellers the confidence, the fading confidence, of the Turks. 137 Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 9) allows him seventy or eighty horse ; and on two other occasions, prior to the battle of Ohud, he enlists a body of thirty (p. lo), and of 500 (p. 66), troopers. Yet the Musulmans, in the field of Ohud, had no more than two horses, according to the better sense of Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohamm. c. 31 p. 65). In the Stony province, the camels were numerous ; but the horse appears to have been less common than in the Happy or the Desert Arabia.