God, still to be propitiated, not alone by sacrifices, but by prayers,
ceremonies, and praise. In the world of action lay the strength of Islam
and the genius of its founder; it is therefore in the impress it made
upon events and not in its theology and philosophy that its secret is to
be found. But besides the acceptance of one God as Lord, Islam forced
upon its devotees a still more potent idea, whose influence is felt both
in the spheres of thought and action.

As an outcome of its political and military needs Mahomet created and
established its unassailable belief in fatality--not the fatalism
of cause and effect, bearing within itself the essence of a reason too
vast for humanity to comprehend, but the fatalism of an omnipotent and
capricious power inherent in the Mahomedan conception of God. With this
mighty and irresponsible being nothing can prevail. Before every event
the result of it is irrevocably decreed. Mankind can alter no tiniest
detail of his destined lot. The idea corresponds with Mahomet's vision of
God--an awful, incomprehensible deity, who dwells perpetually in the
terrors of earth, not in its gentleness and compassion. The doctrine of
fatalism proved Islam's greatest asset during its first hard years of
struggle, for it gave to its battlefields the glory of God's
surveillance: "Death is a favour to a Muslim." But with prosperity and
conquest came inaction; then fatalism, out of the weakening of endurance,
created the pessimism of Islam's later years. Being philosophically
uncreative, it descended into the sloth of those who believe, without
exercise of reason or will, in the uselessness of effort.

Before Islam decayed into inertia it had experienced a fierce and flaming
life. The impulse bestowed upon it by its founder operated chiefly in the
religious world, and indirectly in the realm of political and military
power. How far the religion of Islam is indebted to Mahomet's knowledge