Of all the rides since the birth of time, Told in story or sung in rhyme, On Apuleius's Golden Ass, Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, Witch astride of a human hack, Islam's prophet on Al-Borák, The strangest ride that ever was sped Was Ireson's out from Marblehead!

The political decay of Islâm, the increasing number of Mohammedans under foreign rule, appears to them, therefore, doubly dangerous, as they have little faith in the proof of Islam's spiritual goods against life in a freedom which to them means license.

For never a storm of fatal fight has raged In Islam's track of rout and ruin swept From Egypt to Gebail, but when the ebb Of battle came I and my host have lain, Scarred, scorched, safe somewhere on its fiery shore.

The doctrine of fatalism proved Islam's greatest asset during its first hard years of struggle, for it gave to its battlefields the glory of God's surveillance: "Death is a favour to a Muslim."

But with prosperity and conquest came inaction; then fatalism, out of the weakening of endurance, created the pessimism of Islam's later years.

He felt that it strengthened Islam's connection with the beliefs and ceremonies of his ancestors, legendarily free from idolatry under the governance of Abraham and Ishmael.

Thus at the hour of Islam's birth, before its founder had proclaimed his ideas, the influence of Christianity is indisputable.

Humayun had, indeed, fought his way back to Delhi and Agra, but he had by no means settled with all the numerous disputants for the sovereignty of Hindustan, which Sultan Islam's death had left in the field; and his departure from Kabul had been the signal for revolt in that quarter.

If AKBAR was pitiful, Islam's great sworder, Shall she of the Ægis be less so than he?