(2) But however brightly burned the Arab's zeal for God, the cause was not {102} without enticements of a very concrete and attractive nature. The prospect of plunder and Paradise played a big part. These uncivilized, simple-living Arabs were fighting against two mighty, rich, and luxurious empires. The very first battle with Persia revealed such spoils as no Arab had ever even dreamt of. And so, from the very first, the invading armies had the intoxicating hope of spoils that were greater and richer by just so much as Rome and Persia were greater and richer than Arabia. Mohammed knew the Arab heart, and instituted the plan of dividing the spoils among the soldiers; and the captured women were given to them for wives and concubines. These things acted as new wine to the Arabs. God was indeed with them! What wonder that all Arabia believed in the Prophet's doctrine of the Jihâd--the duty of fighting in the path of God--and became one huge depôt for the army of the Faith! And Paradise. It, too, had come as a new hope to the pagan Arab--a paradise, so the Prophet painted it, where every desire of man would be fulfilled; a place of gardens and flowers and fruits, and {103} maidens such as never were seen, full of sensual delights that appealed to the base appetites of ribald soldiery--and its best places were for those who fell in war for the Faith. So real and so attractive was it to his warriors, that they dashed into the fight heedless whether it was plunder or Paradise that they would gain, choosing often for the latter, never doubting it one single instant. Khâlid, the famous general of the early Caliphate, spoke truly in his splendid message to the Persian general--'A people is upon thee, loving death as thou lovest life.' We heard Mohammed summoning Medina to the battle of Badr. He did not hesitate then to appeal to the plunder-motive, nor did the early Caliphs and their successors ever since. Mothanna, who led the Moslem soldiers against the army of Persia--their first trial of strength against the organized army of a mighty empire--'haranguing his troops at the outset of the campaign, and, in the very first flush of religious enthusiasm, says much of plunder, captives, concubines, and forfeit lands, but not one word about Islam, God, and the Faith.' Sir William Muir {104} tells the story of a Moslem soldier eighty years old who, seeing a comrade fall by his side, cried out, 'O Paradise, how close thou art beneath the arrow's point and the falchion's flash! O Hâshim, even now I see Heaven opened, and black-eyed maidens all bridally arrayed, who clasp thee in their fond embrace.' True to its formal character, Islam asks no question as to motives of 'belief.' Those who struck for God alone, or for God plus Paradise, or for Paradise and plunder without God, or for plunder pure and simple, were all the 'Blessed of the Lord,' heroes and saints, and, if they perished, martyrs in the 'path of God.'