st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
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THE MAHOMETAN RULE IN SYRIA. 21<br />
such men might be capricious and tyrannical rulers,<br />
might leave their soldiers unpaid, their lands untilled,<br />
their subjects the prey <strong>of</strong> rapacious <strong>of</strong>ficials but<br />
Jews or Chri<strong>st</strong>ians, as such, were not likely to suffer<br />
so much comparatively as under ma<strong>st</strong>ers <strong>of</strong> <strong>st</strong>ricter<br />
orthodoxy. In later times indeed Damascus has been<br />
notorious for the intolerance <strong>of</strong> its Mussulman popu<br />
lation. But under the free-thinking caliphs <strong>of</strong> the<br />
house <strong>of</strong> Omeiyah, Chri<strong>st</strong>ians were <strong>of</strong>ten found<br />
occupying important po<strong>st</strong>s. Intermarriages were<br />
not unknown. The mother <strong>of</strong> Khalid ibn Abdallah,<br />
whom Hisham had appointed governor <strong>of</strong> Irak, was<br />
a Chri<strong>st</strong>ian. Akhtal, the court poet <strong>of</strong> Abd al Malek,<br />
who was led in a robe <strong>of</strong> honour through the <strong>st</strong>reets<br />
<strong>of</strong> Damascus, with a herald proclaiming<br />
:<br />
the poet <strong>of</strong> the Commander <strong>of</strong> the Faithful !<br />
greate<strong>st</strong> bard among the Arabs !<br />
Behold<br />
the<br />
was also a Chri<strong>st</strong>ian.<br />
It was not until the reign <strong>of</strong> the same caliph that<br />
even the <strong>st</strong>ate records were ordered to be kept in<br />
Arabic. Before that time the records <strong>of</strong> Irak had<br />
been kept in Persian, those <strong>of</strong> Syria in Creek. The<br />
value <strong>of</strong> the knowledge derived by We<strong>st</strong>ern Europe<br />
from the Saracens has been <strong>of</strong>ten over-e<strong>st</strong>imated.<br />
Mo<strong>st</strong> <strong>of</strong> the learning they gained was in fact picked<br />
up from the conquered races. The Arabs have<br />
rendered a la<strong>st</strong>ing service to mankind by acting for<br />
a time as the depositories <strong>of</strong> science ;<br />
but they<br />
could not originate. They could but transmit what<br />
they had received. Mere Bedouins <strong>of</strong> the desert,"<br />
writes Major Osborn, 1<br />
they found themselves all at<br />
once the ma<strong>st</strong>ers <strong>of</strong> va<strong>st</strong> countries with everything to<br />
1<br />
Osborn, p. 93.