WITHIN the last ten or twenty years, the mind of Christian Europe has been
directed, with more studious earnestness and dispassionate inquiry, towards
the rise of Islam, than in any preceding period: and the progress made in
searching out the truths of that crisis in the world's history, is
characterised by corresponding success. Indeed, the amount of facts carefully
collected, and of data philosophically weighed, within this short term is,
perhaps, of greater value than all the labours of Christian writers during the
twelve preceding centuries.
