COMMERCE AND THE ARTS.--The Moslems engaged actively in commerce. They acquired much skill in various branches of mechanical art. The weapons of _Damascus_ and of _Toledo_, the silks of _Granada_, the saddles of _Cordova_, the muslins, silks, and carpets of the Moslem dominions in the East, were highly prized in Christian countries. They manufactured paper. Forbidden to represent the human form in painting and sculpture, their distinction in the fine arts is confined to architecture. Peculiar to them is the _Arabesque_ ornamentation found in their edifices: the idea of the arch was borrowed from the Byzantine style. One of their most famous monuments is the mosque at _Cordova_. The ruins of the _Alhambra_, in Spain, a palace and a fortress, illustrate the richness and elegance of the Saracenic style of building. THE ARABIAN MIND.--Neither in architecture, nor in any other department, were the Arabs in a marked degree original. They invented nothing. They were quick to learn, and to assimilate what they learned. They were apt interpreters and critics, but they produced no works marked by creative genius. Many of the scholars at the court of the caliphs were Christians and Jews. Yet _Bagdad, Samarcand, Cairo, Grenada, Cordova_, were centers of intellectual activity and of learning when the nations of Western Europe had not escaped from the barbarism resulting from the Teutonic invasions. LITERATURE.--Lives of Mohammed by MUIR, SPRENGER (German), Irving: _Encycl. Brit._, Art. _Mohammedanism_; Kuenen, _National Religions and Universal Religions;_ Nöldeke, _Gesch. d. Quorans_ (1860); Muir, _The Corân_ (1878); R. B. Smith, _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_ (1875); Stobart, _Islam and its Founder_; Ockley, _History of the Saracens_ (sixth edition, 1857); FREEMAN, _History and Conquests of the Saracens_ (1870). THE CARLOVINGIAN HOUSE