Excerpt from A Short History of the Saracens: Being a Concise Account of the Rise and Decline of the Saracenic Power and of the Economic, Social and Intellectual Development of the Arab Nation From the Earliest Times to the Destruction of Bagdad, and the Expulsion of the Moors From Spain The racial pride which caused the Saracen to look down on conquered nations, his failure to recognise that mere justice never won the affection of subject peoples, that to achieve this something more was needed - the sympathy of a Mamun, the large-heartedness of a Nasir - that neither nations nor individuals lose by generous, courteous, and liberal dealing - the encouragement in later times of intrigue, sycophancy, and unworthiness with such disastrous results to the Arab's power and greatness - may all be ascribed to one cause. History, which comes down to us rich with the spoils of time, had no lesson for him. The Saracen's genius for government was intuitive, inborn, self-taught - not acquired. With an overweening sense of pride in his race and creed, for which allowance can easily be made, he stalked through the world feeling, although not pro claiming, that he was an Arab citizen, a member of a great and powerful commonwealth. There was no critical Schopenhauer to laugh him to scorn. Even the tactless treatment of the barbarian tribesmen of Northern Spain must be ascribed to the same cause. The great Hzijib could weep that the lesson of conciliation came too late. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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