[Cronos]

One of the Umayyad Caliphs was quoted saying, "milk the Persians and once their milk dries, suck their blood".

[Gratia]

Persia and Greece wore themselves out fighting each other just in time for worshippers of mohammed to take advantage of the consequent fatal weakness.

[Wuli]

ping

[Wuli]

It is a very old human story. When the secular state and religion are married, corruption enters - the state corrupts the religion, turning it into a legally granted orthodoxy and its orthodoxy corrupts the state, turning it into an arm of enforcement of the orthodoxy - and decay follows.