40 millions in the reign of Abd-al-Malik some fifty years later.1 'Iraq was, however, a turbulent province often wasted by rebellion and war.

Facts like these, however, could not be viewed with equanimity by the Moslem governors. It was this fiscal difficulty which lay behind the ruthless policy of Hajjaj, the notorious but capable Omayyad governor of 'Iraq. People were forbidden to leave their land and their villages. Those who had left were sent back. The name of their district was even branded upon their hands. The Jizya was exacted from those who had become Moslems, and lands which had passed into Moslem hands had still to pay its share of the tribute. Into these matters this is not the place to enter. They troubled Islam for many years, and were amongst the causes which led to the downfall of the Omayyad dynasty. What interests us is that it is proof of the fact that great numbers of the Christian population were passing over to Islam, and it indicates a very potent reason for that mass-conversion.

To sum up then: By the extraordinary rapid extension of the Arab conquests Islam had, while still unformed, been transplanted from Arabia to lands which had long been the homes of a culture far in advance of anything which the land of its origin had ever known. The centre of its worldly power was transferred first to Damascus, then to Baghdad, and these places soon became also the centres of its intellectual life. Both were situated in lands which had been deeply penetrated by Hellenic Christian culture, though in Baghdad

there was a strong infusion of Persian and perhaps also Indian influences. This youthful religion had to adapt itself to circumstances and assimilate ideas of which its founder had never dreamed, and the pressure of events made it necessary that it should do so with what, for such a development, may be called extraordinary rapidity. It was all the time in contact with faiths older than itself. The Christian Church continued to exist in the lands where this development took place, opposing to it an intellectual system which had been built up through centuries of keen mental activity, founded upon a philosophy which had a still older tradition behind it. Further, Islam soon numbered among its adherents multitudes who had been brought up under other faiths. The Persians, the Aramaic and Egyptian Christians who adopted Islam soon far outnumbered the Arabs. The men to whom the intellectual development of Islam was ultimately due were for the most part not Arabs, but the descendants of the conquered populations who had adopted the faith of the conquerors but did not fail to exercise a considerable transforming influence upon it. What part Christianity played in the consolidation of Islam will be the subject of the next lecture.