but it also had a religious meaning as a theocracy. Fighting between Medina and Mecca was averted by a ten-year truce, but after a Muslim was killed by a Meccan, Mecca was conquered. A pro-Muslim movement started among the more distant tribes, a testimony to the strength and prestige of the Umma. Mohammed died in 632 after achieving a great deal. He had brought a new religion, and he provided it with a revealed book, the Koran. He established a community and a state. For the traditional Muslim, he was the greatest of the Apostles of God, sent to bring the final revelation of God's word to mankind. It might be charged that he had borrowed numerous elements from other religions and even from pagan customs, and it has also been pointed out that his own life was not a sterling example of the piety he expected from others: "But no man understood his fellowmen better than he. And, for all his weaknesses, it was his understanding that enabled him to triumph against selfishness and superstition and to create a new faith that was ultimately to capture the hearts of one-eighth of the human race" (Nutting 32).
Much of the story of the Arabs that Nutting tells after the time of Mohammed depends on Mohammed and Islam for its power, its direction, and its successes and failures. At the beginning of the 7th Century, the Near and Middle East was divided between Byzantium and Persia, after some three centuries of struggle. After the death of Mohammed there was a sort of constitutional crisis that was solved by the imposition of Abu Bakr as sole successor to the Prophet, and he led a war of conquest that went far beyond the boundaries of Arabia to Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. Each of these invasions added to the territory controlled by the Arabs, and the Arabs took over only state lands and the lands of enemies of the regime. The Muslims did not interfere with the internal civil and religious administration of the conquered peoples. Islam w...