He
was strict in his religious duties, but prone to expense and lavish of
his riches.
"In the conquests of Syria, Persia, and Egypt," says a modern writer,
"the fresh and vigorous enthusiasm of the personal companions and
proselytes of Mahomet was exercised and expended, and the generation of
warriors whose simple fanaticism had been inflamed by the preaching of
the pseudo-prophet was in a great measure consumed in the sanguinary and
perpetual toils of ten arduous campaigns."
We shall now see the effect of those conquests on the national character
and habits; the avidity of place and power and wealth superseding
religious enthusiasm; and the enervating luxury and soft voluptuousness
of Syria and Persia sapping the rude but masculine simplicity of the
Arabian desert. Above all, the single-mindedness of Mahomet and his two
immediate successors is at an end. Other objects besides the mere
advancement of Islamism distract the attention of its leading
professors; and the struggle for worldly wealth and worldly sway, for
the advancement of private ends, and the aggrandizement of particular
tribes and families, destroy the unity of the empire, and beset the
caliphate with intrigue, treason, and bloodshed.
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