[3] When it was demanded of Moez from what branch of Mohammed's family he drew his title, "This," said he, showing his cimeter, "is my pedigree; and these," throwing gold among his soldiers, "are my children."
Literature and Science of the Arabs.--Their Facilities for Literary and Scientific Pursuits.--Patronage of Literature by the Princes of the House of Abbas.--Almamoun.--Arabian Schools.--Eloquence.--Poetry.--The Arabian Tales.--History.--Geography.--Speculative Sciences.--Astrology.--Mathematical Knowledge of the Arabs.--Astronomy.--Architecture.--The Fine Arts.--Agriculture.--Medicine.--Chymistry.--Our obligations to Arab Literature.
The early followers of the Arabian prophet were only enthusiastic military adventurers, subduing in their wide and rapid progress most of the nations of the then known world. The lust of power, and successful military enterprise, are commonly unfavourable to the cultivation of the liberal arts, so that a conquering people usually exhibit but little taste for science or literature. The Goths and the Huns, for instance, were among the most implacable foes of knowledge. Nor did the early Arabs regard it with more favour. Mohammed found his countrymen sunk in the deepest barbarism: he was incapable of any direct effort to raise them; and, from the ruthless destruction of the Alexandrean library by Omar, one of his earliest successors, they appear not to have been in a much { 244} better condition after the close than at the commencement of his eventful career.
Their settlement in the countries they had subdued, the unlimited resources which their wide-spread conquests placed within their reach, and probably the leisure which their almost universal dominion afforded, speedily led to a change in their character in relation to literary pursuits, of which the more enlightened nations of the West are still reaping the advantage. It was about the middle of the seventh century that Omar committed the famous library of Alexandrea to the flames: before the end of the eighth, literature began to enjoy the munificent patronage of the caliphs of the Abbassidan race, who superinduced upon the stern fanaticism of the followers of the Prophet the softening influences of learning; and, by an anomaly in the history of mankind, the most valuable lessons in science and the arts have been received from a people who pursued with relentless hostility the religion and liberties of every other nation.