and praise. He sees the city leap into magical life, the dark figures of
the Muslim hurrying to the Holy Place that lies shimmering in the golden
light of early day, and knows that, behind this outward manifestation,
lies a faith, at root incomprehensible by reason of its aloofness from
the advancing streams of modern thought, a faith spiritually impotent,
since it flees from mysticism, generating an energy which has expended
its vital force in conquest, only to find itself too intellectually
backward and physically sluggish to gather in prosperity the fruits of
its attainments. Its lack of imagination, its utter ignorance of the lure
of what is strange, have been responsible for its achievement of
stupendous tasks, for the driving energy behind was never appalled by
anticipation, nor checked by any realisation of coming stress and terror.
And the same qualities that led the Muslim to world-conquest thereafter
caused their downfall, for their minds could not visualise that world of
imagination necessary for any creative science, while they were not
attuned in intellect for the reception of such generative ideas as have
contributed to the philosophic and speculative development of the Western
world.

All the characteristics which distinguish Islam to the making and the
blasting of its fortunes may be found in embryo in the small Medinan
community; for their leader, by his own creative ardour, imposed upon his
flock every idea which shaped the form and content of its future career
from its rising even to its zenith and decline.




CHAPTER XI