A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c18.2

c18.2

Within about eighty years after the death of Muhammad in A. D. 632 the followers of his religion reigned supreme over Arabia, Persia, Syria, Western Turkistan, Sind, Egypt, North Africa, and Southern Spain, the marvellously rapid extension of Muhammadan power having been rendered possible by the barbarism and weakness of the subjugated kingdoms in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The first contact of Islam, as MM. Le Bon and Saladin observe, was stimulating to what remained alive of the older forms of civilization. Muslim armies, recruited in Persia, Syria, and Egypt, carried with them crowds of Asiatic skilled craftsmen, who introduced everywhere the arts of Asia, and modified the various local forms of art so as to suit the needs of the new faith and satisfy the luxurious tastes of magnificent courts. The Arabs, although possessing little art of their own, succeeded in impressing upon the local styles which they utilized for Muslim purposes a general character of uniformity, which we now recognize as that of Musalman art.