Disbelieving in the Prophet's claims, or, if believing them, preferring hell-fire in the company of his ancestors to the paradise offered to him as the reward of belief, he yet would not suffer his nephew to be molested at the hands of strangers.

The period extending from the hijra or Flight of the Prophet (June, A.D. 622) to the death of 'Umar, the second of the Four Orthodox Caliphs (al-Khulafá'u 'r-Ráshidún), in A.D. 644, may be regarded as the golden age of pious, as opposed to philosophical, Islám; for though the ideal theocracy depicted by al-Fakhrí in the passage already cited endured till the death of 'Alí (A.D. 661), who is regarded by a large section of the Muslim world as the noblest, best, and worthiest of the Prophet's successors, discord, schism, murder, civil war, and internecine feuds entered in during the disastrous rule of the third Caliph, 'Uthmán. Muḥammad lived to see all Arabia apparently submissive to his doctrine, but no sooner was he dead than a widespread revolt against Islám broke out amongst the Arab tribes, and not till this was quenched in blood, and the “renegades” either slain or reduced to obedience, could Abú Bakr seriously turn his attention to the conquest and conversion of non-Arabian lands. Of these Persia alone concerns us, and once more we may with advan­tage turn to that graphic and picturesque historian al-Fakhrí, who, after detailing the signs and warnings which caused Núshírwán and Khusraw Parwíz such disquietude, and remarking that “the like of these ominous portents continually succeeded each other until the end of the matter,” continues as follows:—

“And verily when Rustam went forth to do battle with Sa'd the son of Abú Waqqáṣ he saw in his dream as it were an Angel who Al-Fakhrí's account of the Conquest of Persia. descended from heaven, and gathered up the bows of the Persians, and set a seal upon them, and ascended with them into heaven. Then there was added there­unto what they constantly witnessed in respect to the resolute speech of the Arabs, and their confidence in themselves, and their extreme patience under hardships; and thereafter the dissentient voices which arose amongst themselves towards the end of the matter, after the death of Shahriyár and the accession of Yazdigird to the royal throne, he being then but a young lad, feeble in council; and lastly the supreme catastrophe, which was the veering of the wind against them during the Battle of Qádisiyya, so that it blinded them with dust and encompassed them in a universal destruction. There was Rustam slain and their host put to rout: look, then, at these omens, and know that God hath a purpose which He fulfilleth.