It was a regrettable change from the original program and it
did very little good to the cause of Mohammedanism. As for
the prophet himself, he went on preaching the truth of Allah
and proclaiming new rules of conduct until he died, quite
suddenly, of a fever on June the seventh of the year 632.
His successor as Caliph (or leader) of the Moslems was
his father-in-law, Abu-Bekr, who had shared the early dangers
of the prophet's life. Two years later, Abu-Bekr died and
Omar ibn Al-Khattab followed him. In less than ten years
he conquered Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Syria and Palestine
and made Damascus the capital of the first Mohammedan world
empire.
Omar was succeeded by Ali, the husband of Mohammed's
daughter, Fatima, but a quarrel broke out upon a point of
Moslem doctrine and Ali was murdered. After his death,
the caliphate was made hereditary and the leaders of the faithful
who had begun their career as the spiritual head of a religious
sect became the rulers of a vast empire. They built
a new city on the shores of the Euphrates, near the ruins of
Babylon and called it Bagdad, and organising the Arab horsemen
into regiments of cavalry, they set forth to bring the
happiness of their Moslem faith to all unbelievers. In the
year 700 A.D. a Mohammedan general by the name of Tarik
crossed the old gates of Hercules and reached the high rock
on the European side which he called the Gibel-al-tarik, the
Hill of Tarik or Gibraltar.
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