Page:A Short History of the World.djvu/263

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The Great Days of the Arabs 243 TjS^ GEOKVTH ofth^ TVlOgI.EM POWER, m 2S yeax's^ "Moslata Smpiri at ihi de^th of ^ at ih& daaAaf 0&injui,656. gration but with its effect upon the human mind and upon the general destinies of our race. The Arab intelligence had been flung across the world even more swiftly and dramatically than had the Greek a thousand years before. The intellectual stimulation of the whole world west of China, the break up of old ideas and development of new ones, was enormous. ' i In Persia this fresh excited Arabic mind came into contact not only with Manichasan, Zoroastrian and Christian doctrines, but with the