Islamism had great advantages over Christianity. The early converts succeeded to places of trust and profit, all were exhorted to unite themselves with a rising cause, "Cast in thy lot among us, let us have one purse." The wealth and influence of Mohammed and his connections, his time-serving policy, his fame and pretensions as a prophet, the enthusiasm inspired into his troops, fighting the battles of heaven by the side of its accredited agent; those seducing tenets, the doctrine of inevitable fate, and the highest heavens to those who were slain; death or tribute to the vanquished, the religious and political situation of the independent tribes in Arabia, split into factions, but without any preponderating power, and requiring only a suitable direction to be given to their energies, together with the disturbed condition of the neighbouring kingdoms and the dismemberment of the Roman empire: these all formed a body of
