to every one in legendary form through the Arabian Nights. His court was a brilliant centre of
luxury, poetry, and learning; his revenue was enormous; his empire stretched from the Straits of
Gibraltar to the Indus. His will was absolute; he was habitually accompanied by the
executioner, who performed his office at a nod from the caliph. This splendour, however, was
short-lived. His successor made the mistake of composing his army mainly of Turks, who were
insubordinate, and soon reduced the caliph to a cipher, to be blinded or murdered whenever the
soldiery grew tired of him. Nevertheless, the caliphate lingered on; the last caliph of the
Abbasid dynasty was put to death by the Mongols in 1256, along with 800,000 of the
inhabitants of Baghdad.
The political and social system of the Arabs had defects similar to those of the Roman Empire,
together with some others. Absolute monarchy combined with polygamy led, as it usually does,
to dynastic wars whenever a ruler died, ending with the victory of one of the ruler's sons and the
death of all the rest. There were immense numbers of slaves, largely as a result of successful
wars; at times there were dangerous servile insurrections. Commerce was greatly developed, the
more so as the caliphate occupied a central position between East and West. "Not only did the
possession of enormous wealth create a demand for costly articles, such as silks from China and
furs from Northern Europe, but trade was promoted by certain special conditions, such as the
vast extent of the Muslim empire, the spread of Arabic as a world-language, and the exalted
status assigned to the merchant in the Muslim system of ethics; it was remembered that the
Prophet himself had been a merchant and had commended trading during the pilgrimage to
Mecca." * This commerce, like military cohesion, depended on the great roads which the Arabs
inherited from Romans and Persians, and which they, unlike the Northern conquerors, did not
allow to fall into disrepair. Gradually, however, the empire broke up into fractions--Spain,
Persia, North Africa, and Egypt successively split off and acquired complete or almost complete
independence.
One of the best features of the Arab economy was agriculture, particularly the skilful use of
irrigation, which they learnt from living
* Cambridge Medieval History, IV, 286.