Islam Under The Arabs

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It constitutes a whole in itself and is the first of a series of works which will trace the progress of Islam from Mekka to Delhi. The second work will be entitled ‘The Khalifs of Baghdad,’ and the third, ‘Islam in India.” The period of Muhammadan history which extends from the first preaching of Muhammad to the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols, falls naturally into three divisions: The rule of the Arabs; The rule of the Persians; The rule of the Turks. The present volume deals with the first of these. This period terminated in A. H. 132 with the overthrow of the House of Ommaya and the accession to power of the Khalifs of the House of Abbas.

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Durie Osborn (1835-1889) was a British army officer. Osborn was born at Agra, India, on 6 Aug. 1835. His father, Henry Roche Osborn, entered the British East India Company's service in May 1819, and served most of his time in the 54th Native Infantry, but later was lieutenant-colonel of the 13th Native Infantry; he died at Ferozepore in 1849. Robert was educated as a cadet at Dr. Greig's school at Walthamstow, and was appointed ensign of the 26th Bengal Native Infantry 16 Aug. 1854, becoming lieutenant on 31 July 1857. He served throughout the Indian Mutiny campaign of 1857-1859, and was present in the actions of Boolundshuhur on 27 Sept., and of Allyghur on 5 Oct. 1857. Osborn was a serious thinker on both religious and political topics. As a young man he enjoyed the friendship of F. D. Maurice and of Charles Kingsley, and occasionally wrote papers in the magazines on Maurice's religious position and influence. While in India, he was a conscientious student of Eastern religions, and spent fourteen years in studying materials for his two works, Islam under the Arabs, 1876, and Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad, 1877; 2nd ed. 1880. These books are highly valued by serious students.

I think the purpose of this book will be explained most easily by stating how it came to be written. Any officer who has served in India with native troops must have perceived how genial and cordial are the relations among all ranks, from the commanding officer down to the private, so long as a regiment is on active service. The dangers and hardships which have to be endured by all, keep alive and strengthen the feel- ing of comradeship. But when the regiment returns into quarters this feeling dies away. It is not that the English officer is, at heart, less interested in the well- being of his men, but that there is no longer any object of interest common to both, outside of the mere routine of their profession. They have nothing to talk about. The native soldier knows nothing of English history or of anything that interests Englishmen; and very few English officers know more of the men they command than that they are called Sikhs, Afghans, Ghoorkhas, or Mahrattas. What these names signify-what was the history of those who bear them, in the past: what are the memories. which still thrill them with pleasure or pride-these are matters of which the officers in our native army have small knowledge. And what a potent magnet for winning the hearts of our native soldiers is, from this ignorance, permitted to rust unused, is known only to those who do possess this knowledge, and have watched its effects.