Chapter 28
第二十八章
Mohammed
穆罕默德
Ahmed, the camel-driver, who became the prophet of the arabian desert and whose followers almost conquered the entire known world for the greater glory of allah,the only true god
趕駱駝?wù)甙⒐鲁蔀榘⒗衬南戎瑸榱宋ㄒ徽嬷靼怖臉s耀,他的追隨者幾乎征服了整個世界
Since the days of Carthage and Hannibal we have said nothing of the Semitic people. You will remember how they filled all the chapters devoted to the story of the Ancient World. The Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Jews, the Arameans, the Chaldeans, all of them Semites, had been the rulers of western Asia for thirty or forty centuries. They had been conquered by the Indo-European Persians who had come from the east and by the Indo-European Greeks who had come from the west. A hundred years after the death of Alexander the Great, Carthage, a colony of Semitic Phoenicians, had fought the Indo-European Romans for the mastery of the Mediterranean. Carthage had been defeated and destroyed and for eight hundred years the Romans had been masters of the world. In the seventh century, however, another Semitic tribe appeared upon the scene and challenged the power of the west. They were the Arabs, peaceful shepherds who had roamed through the desert since the beginning of time without showing any signsof imperial ambitions.
自從迦太基和漢尼拔之后,我們再未說起過偉大的閃米特種族。如果你記性不錯,你應(yīng)該還能想起他們的事跡是如何體現(xiàn)在本書講述古代世界的所有章節(jié)的。巴比倫人、亞述人、腓尼基人、猶太人、阿拉米爾人、迦勒底人,這些統(tǒng)治西亞三四千年的民族都屬于閃米特種族。后來,他們被來自東面的印歐語族的波斯人和來自西面的印歐種族的希臘人夾擊,終于喪失了統(tǒng)治地位。亞歷山大大帝死去100年后,腓尼基人的非洲殖民地迦太基城和羅馬共和國展開了爭奪地中海統(tǒng)治權(quán)的戰(zhàn)爭。迦太基戰(zhàn)敗后為羅馬人徹底摧毀。此后的800年,羅馬人一直是世界之主。不過到公元7世紀(jì),又一支閃米特部族赫然出現(xiàn)在歷史的地平線上,挑戰(zhàn)西方世界的權(quán)威。他們就是阿拉伯人,游牧在阿拉伯沙漠的天性溫 和的牧羊人部落。一開始,他們并未流露出任何帝國野心的征兆。
Then they listened to Mohammed, mounted their horses and in less than a century they had pushed to the heart of Europe and proclaimed the glories of Allah, "the only God," and Mohammed, "the prophet of the only God," to the frightened peasants of France.
后來,他們追隨了穆罕默德,聽從他的訓(xùn)導(dǎo),跨上遠征的戰(zhàn)馬。在不到1個世紀(jì)里,阿拉伯騎兵已經(jīng)推進到歐洲的心臟地帶,向渾身顫抖、驚慌失措的法蘭西農(nóng)民,宣講"唯一的真神安拉"的榮耀和"安拉的先知"穆罕默德的信條。