Luther looked upon him as "a devil and first-born child of Satan."" Maracci held that Mohammed and Mohammedanism were not very dissimilar to Luther and Protestantism. Mohammed was at first sincere, but later, carried away by success, practiced deception wherever it could help gain an edge. Khadija, his first wife, was the difference in his life and the suppressing agent of all those evil desires. Mohammed became prey to his evil passions after her death. Some said that his alleged revelations came from his epileptic fits or from a paroxysm of cataleptic insanity."" The life of Mohammed can be criticized by most standards, first of the Old and New Testaments, both of which Mohammed acknowledged as Divine Revelations; second by the pagan morality of his Arabian counterparts; and lastly by the new law that he made which he claimed to be the "divinely appointed medium and custodian."" According to some, the prophet failed to meet that standards set by the heathen brigands among whom he lived, grossly violating the easy sexual morality of his own system. After this, it is hardly necessary to say that Mohammed fell far short of the most elementary requirements of Scriptural morality.
After Mohammed's death, Mohammedanism aspired to become a world power and a universal religion. The weakness of the Byzantine Empire, combined with the unfortunate rivalry between the Greek and Latin Churches, the failing power of the Sassanian dynasty of Persia, the lax moral code of the new religion, the hope of plunder, the love of conquest, and the power of the sword in the hands of a fanatic all pointed to decaying in the west. The genius of the caliphs, successors of Mohammed, took this opportunity to conquer Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, and the south of Spain. Moslems even crossed the Pyrenees, threatening to stable their horses in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, but at last were defeated by Charles Martel at Tours in 732 A.