Even in the Umayyad period, as we have seen, the maxim that Knowledge is Power was strikingly illustrated by the immense social influence which Persian divines exerted in the Muḥammadan community.[509] Nevertheless, true Arabs of the old type regarded these _Mawálí_ and their learning with undisguised contempt. To the great majority of Arabs, who prided themselves on their noble lineage and were content to know nothing beyond the glorious traditions of heathendom and the virtues practised by their sires, all literary culture seemed petty and degrading. Their overbearing attitude towards the _Mawálí_, which is admirably depicted in the first part of Goldziher's _Muhammedanische Studien_, met with a vigorous response. Non-Arabs and Moslem pietists alike appealed to the highest authority--the Koran; and since they required a more definite and emphatic pronouncement than was forthcoming from that source, they put in the mouth of the Prophet sayings like these: "He that speaks Arabic is thereby an Arab"; "whoever of the people of Persia accepts Islam is (as much an Arab as) one of Quraysh." This doctrine made no impression upon the Arabian aristocracy, but with the downfall of the Umayyads the political and social equality of the _Mawálí_ became an accomplished fact. Not that the Arabs were at all disposed to abate their pretensions. They bitterly resented the favour which the foreigners enjoyed and the influence which they exercised. The national indignation finds a voice in many poems of the early ‘Abbásid period, _e.g._:-- "See how the asses which they used to ride They have unsaddled, and sleek mules bestride! No longer kitchen-herbs they buy and sell,[510] But in the palace and the court they dwell; Against us Arabs full of rage and spleen, Hating the Prophet and the Moslem's _dín_."[511] [Sidenote: The Shu‘úbites.]