our present Treatise. It agrees very closely with what Muhammad had said when sending Zaid ibn Harithah, his adopted son, on a similar expedition before the march to Tabuk "Slay ¹ your enemies and God's enemies that are in Syria. There you will find a class of men who live retired in cells. Give them no trouble. And slay not woman and boy and suckling; cut not down the date-palms and trees, nor destroy the houses." But this must not be taken to indicate mercy to the women, for they were often reserved for a fate far worse than death. We have already seen that Muhammad had caused women who had offended him to be put to death in both Medinah and Mecca. Nor were the Muslims more merciful to women after his death. As Suyuti tells ² us of the treatment suffered by two women of the Arabs, one of whom had abused Muhammad and the other had lampooned the Muslims. In each case the woman's hand was cut off and one of her front teeth knocked out. Abu Bakr, hearing of this, wrote to say that, if he had been consulted, he would have ordered the former of the two to be put to death.

The spirit in which the conversion of the neighbouring countries was undertaken is clearly shown in the following lines, ascribed to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib:—

"Our ³ flowers are the sword and the dagger:
Narcissus and myrtle are nought.
Our drink is the blood of our foemen;
Our goblet his skull, when we've fought."

This is in accord with the teaching of the Qur'an, as far as putting opponents to death is concerned, for in Surah v. 27, it is written: "Verily the recompense

of those who wage war against God and His Apostle and run after evil in the land is that they be slain or crucified, or that their hands and their feet be cut off on opposite sides, or that they be banished from the land." In Surah ix. we find it enacted that, after the end of the four sacred months of A.H. 11, no agreement with the Polytheists was to be regarded as binding (vers. 1-4.). "When the sacred months are past, then slay the Polytheists wherever ye find them, and seize them and besiege them and lie in ambush for them in every ambuscade" (ver 5). Only on condition of their paying zakat and observing the fixed times of prayer and repenting, that is, becoming Muslims, were they to be spared. As for the "People of the Book", we find their sentence in the same Surah, for to the Muslims is given the command: " Fight ¹ ye against those who believe not in God nor in the, Last Day, nor forbid what God and His Apostle have forbidden, nor profess the true religion, from among those who have been brought the Book, until they give the jizyah-tax out of hand and be brought low" (or "are little "). This command is still incumbent upon Muslims, whose duty it still is to compel Jews and Christians either to become Muslims or to be reduced to a condition worse than that of slaves. As we shall now show, the early Muslims recognized this obligation, and therefore conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Persia, and other lands. Doubtless the chief reason with many of them for engaging in such conquests was the love of war and the desire of plunder and female slaves: but all this was sanctioned and encouraged by their religion. Hence the professed object of each war was the spread of Islam, and thus it was proclaimed a Jihad. We have seen that Abu Bakr called the invasion of Syria by this name. The Khalifah 'Umar, in the letter ² in which he ordered Ayaz ibnu'l Ghanam to march to the conquest of Diar Bakr and