Early History of the East India Trade [pp. 273-286]

DE B OW'S REV E W.
ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1846.
OCTOBER, 1867.
ART. I.-EARLY HISTORY OF THE EAST INDIA TRADE.-THE
ARABS BEFORE M[AHOMET.
IF ever a single individual, by the felicitous opportunity of
his appearance, or by the force of his own genius, or by both
of these united, raised his countrymen at one bound from the
obscurity of disconnected tribes to the splendor of a conquering
nation and to enduring historical eminence, that person was
Mahomet, the prophet, ruler, legislator, and leader of the Sara cenic race. The conquests of the Arabians were achieved in a
single century, and the inundation began to subside and the
waters to contract themselves within their ancient limits, but
they covered the whole soil over which they had spread with
an alluvium which has enriched it in its most remote bounds
throughout succeeding ages. The Wahabee in the heart of the
Nedjid, and the wandering Bedouin from Morocco to the Euphrates, may be the sorry modern representative of the followers of Kaled and Amrow, of Kateybah and Akbar; but the
Empire of Morocco in the west, and the remnants of the Dooranee monarchy and of the Mahratta principalities in Affghanistan and India, attest to this day the power as well as the
range of influence communicated by "the Prophet of God" to
his own and to surrounding populations.
The life of Mahomet has been often written-never with
much credibility or consistency till very recent years. The
history of Saracenic conquest was too attractive and too brilliant a picture to escape the attention of historians; and never
has any historical topic been treated with more vigor and magnificence than the origin and diffusion of the Mahometan creed
and dominion have been portrayed in the glowing pages of Gibbon. But neither Gibbon, nor any other writer on the religion
or fortunes of Islamism, has furnished any satisfactory explanation of the marvellous phenomenon of a divided race expanding
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