A new and a more formidable force than Zoroastrianism made its appearance in the form of a religion in the East. Western Asia seems to have been made for a theater and almost all the great actors in the annals of the dramatic history of the world enacted their _roles_ there. Towards the close of the sixth century the sunny and sandy plains of Arabia became the home of a male child who was to be a hero, a warrior, a law-giver, and the founder of a new religion which shaped the destiny of millions of human beings and flooded many a country with the blood of its inhabitants. “Mohammed, half imposter, half enthusiast, enunciated a doctrine, and by decrees worked out a religion, which proved capable of uniting in one the scattered tribes of the Arabian desert, while at the same time it inspired them with a confidence, a contempt for death, and a fanatic valor, that rendered them irresistible by the surrounding nations.”[46] This self-made and self-called apostle of Arabia, Mohammed, had the greatest difficulty in finding few adherents in his native city, Mecca,[47] he found the opposition to his claims too great and his life in danger and fled to Medina, where he received a welcome. At the head of his adherents he commenced to attack unawares wayfaring merchants on their way from the northern countries; of course, seeing that these merchants are of his former opponents. The plunder and the booty taken from the robbed or conquered were freely distributed among his followers. This surely was a great inducement to the pillage-loving and war-delighting Arabs to swell the army of Mohammed. His followers have been doing the same ever since, unless restrained by a superior force. Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, one after the other, within a comparatively short time, fell under the sway of the followers of Mohammed. Bagdad was made the capital of the successors, or Caliphs of Mohammed, from whence the hordes of Arabs or Saracens--so were they called by the western writers--spread death and destruction east, west, and north. The first Saracenic invasion into Armenia took place during the caliphate of Omar (A.D. 640), under the generalship of Abdurahman, who marched through Assyria and entered Armenia unopposed. Diran Mamiganian with some difficulty mustered a small force hardly as large as one-third of that of the enemy, but he made a noble defense of his country against the new enemy of the home and religion. Alas! in the little army of Diran there was another like Vasag, a man by the name Sahurr, who hastened the defeat and the annihilation of noble Diran’s little force; the fire and the sword of the enemy soon swept the country. Abdurahman returned to Bagdad with 35,000 Armenian captives.