308 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

vested Vienna, the capital of Austria. Though he did not
succeed in capturing it, he conquered Hungary and the
island of Cyprus from the Christians. Suleiman's empire
extended from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to the
shores of the Atlantic Ocean along North Africa. It inclu-
ded Asia-Minor, Egypt, the islands-of the Eastern Medi-
terranean, the Black Sea, the Balkan peninsula, and Hun-
gary. The decline followed only after the death of Sulei-
man the Great. "Compared with other European states
of that time, the Ottoman empire was well governed and
prosperous; trade, learning, and literature flourished ; his-
torical writing attained high excellence."1

In India the period of history traced above covers the
centuries from the death of Harsha (647) to the establish-
ment of the Mughal Empire by Babur (1526). They
were centuries of neither less interest nor of less consequen-
ce to World History. We must therefore make here at
least a brief survey of happenings in India.

Muhammad the Prophet of Islam was a contemporary
of Sri Harsha of Kanouj. We have witnessed in the ear-
lier chapters the remarkable rapidity with which Islam
spread over the three continents oif Asia, Africa, and
Europe. The Arabs were no strangers to India, and after
their conversion to Islam they conquered Sind at the same
time (712) as they conquered Spain. The circumstances
under which this happened are familiar to readers of In-
dian history. India was not politically united ; even so-
cially she needed rejuvenation. Hence, in the words of
E. B. Havell, it appeared as if " the sword of Islam was the
Creator's pruning knife which removed the decaying bran-
ches and cut back the unfruitful growth of the Tree of

J. Renouf, Outlines of General History, p. 234.