An apology for Mohammed and the Koran

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PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY
PRESENTED BY

Paul H. i'erkle

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1887

1921

FROM THE LIBRARY OF

SAMUEL M. ZWEMER

CAIRO, EGYPT.

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AN APOLOGY

FOR

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN.

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BY

JOHN DAVENPORT,

AUTHOR OP THE ' LIFK OP ALI PACHA OF JAXINA ; ' ' DUDE VINDICATED ; ' ' KOORG

AND ITS RAJAHS,' 'AIDE MEMOIRE TO THE HISTORY OF INDIA;' 'HISTORICAL

CLASS BOOK,' AND VARIOUS EDUCATIONAL WORKS.

Conttnts :

I. Mahomed : a Biography.

II. The Koran and its Morality.

III. Charges against Mohammed refuted.

IV. Beauties ok the Koran.

" I confess I can make nothing of the critics in these times, who would
accuse Mohammed of deceit prepense ; of conscious deceit generally, or,
perhaps, at all ; still more, of living in a mere element of conscious deceit,
and writing this Koran as a forger and a juggler would have done. Every
candid eye, I think, will read the Koran far otherwise than so."— C A.BLYLE's
Works, Vol. VI., p. 214.

.1. DAW i^ SONS, 1.S7, LONG ACRE, LONDON,

1882.

DRYDEN PRESS :
J. DAVY AND SONS, 137, LONG ACRE, ^.ONDO^'.

V

Jte

PREFACE

rpHE present work is an humble but earnest endea-
vour to free the history of Mohammed from
false accusations and illiberal imputations, and to
vindicate his just claim to be regarded as one of the
greatest benefactors of mankind.

The writers who, misguided by a blind zeal, have
thus assailed the fair fame of the Restorer of the
Worship of the Unity, have not only shown them-
selves to be wholly uninfluenced by the spirit of that
charity so strongly and emphatically inculcated by
the Saviour himself, but have also erred in judg-
ment, for the least reflection Avould have convinced
them that it is not from a Christian and modern
stand-point that the Prophet and his doctrines ought
to be examined and criticised, but from an Eastern
one ; in other words, Mohammed should be contem-
plated and judged as a rehgious reformer and legis-
lator living in Arabia in the seventh century after
Christ, and he must then, most undoubtedly, be
acknowledged as the very greatest man whom Asia

iv PREFACE.

can claim as her son, if not, one of the rarest
and most transcendent geniuses the world itself
ever produced.
f\ ij^ I^ ^® consider what the Arabs were before Moham-

-r-r^ med's appearance and what they became after it — if
^ te^*^ ^® reflect, moreover, upon the enthusiasm kindled

>H^ KA^ ^^^ ^®P* ^^^^® ^y ^^^^ doctrine in the breasts of more
^ CJ^J^ than one hundred and sixty milHons of the human

j/A' I V race— we cannot but feel that to withhold our admira-
'^ p j;^)^ tion from so extraordinary and so great a man would
U" be the most flagrant injustice, and that to attribute

his advent to mere blind chance would be to doubt
the over-rding power of Divine Providence.

In conclusion, the author would state that, in a
few instances, when diffident of his own powers to
do ample justice to so interesting and important a
subject, he has availed himself of the ideas and
language of other writers, an aid which he takes
the present opportunity of candidly and gratefully
acknowledging.

LIFE OF MOHAMMED.

CHAPTER I.

Authentic character of Mohammed's life — Condition of Arabia at his
birth — Religion of the Arabs — Corruptions of the Jewish and Chris-
tian religions — Exact date of Mohammed's birth uncertain — That of
Jesus Christ still more so — Mohammed's descent from Ishmael — The
Kaaba and the Black Stone — Burckhardt quoted — Circumcision un-
necessary in Mohammed's case ; why — The twelve prepuces of Jesus
Christ (note) — Death of Mohammed's mother — His filial piety —
Mohammed's gratitude to his foster-nurse — He accompanies his uncle
in his commercial expeditioiis — Adventure in the Desert — Marries
Khadija, the rich widow — Two descriptions of his personal appearance
— Interval in his life similar to the one in that of Jesus Christ —
Mohammed's melancholy and contemplative disposition — Apparition
of the Angel Gabriel to him — Is declared God's apostle — Notice of
celebrated visionaries (note) — Mohammed's first converts — Failure —
A miracle demanded and refused — Grotius's pious falsehood — Ali,
Mohammed's Vizier — Mohammed's public preaching — Omar's con-
version— Mohammed and his disciples persecuted — The first Hegira
or fiight — Protection aft'orded by the Nejashee of Abyssinia.

TT may be truly affirmed that of all known legislators and
conquerors, not one can be named, the history of whose
life has been written with gi-eater authenticity and fuller
detail, than that of Mohammed. In fact, strip his biography
of the prodigies which Asiatic writers have ever affected,
and what remains may confidently defy incredulity itself.

At the period of Mohammed's birth a great part of
Arabia was under a foreign yoke ; all the northern portion
of xlrabia Petrtea, as well as Syria, Palestine and Egypt,

B

2 AN APOLOGY FOR

M^as under the sway of the Emperors of Constantinople.
The shores of the Persian Gulf, the countries watered by the
Tigris and the Euphrates, and the southern provinces of the
Peninsula, acknowledged the supremacy of the Chosroes of
Persia. A portion of the coasts of the Eed Sea to the
south of Mecca was subject to the Christian kings of
Abyssinia. Mecca and the all but inaccessible countries
of the interior had preserved their independence. The
political state of the country necessarily determined, to a
great extent, the religious belief of the inhabitants. Thus,
where the Greek and Abyssinian authority prevailed, there
Christianity had the ascendancy ; the doctrines of the Magi
and that of the Manicheans, both of which recognised two
antagonistic principles, were predominant in the Persian
provinces, while everywhere else idolatry held unbounded
sway. In the first ages the Arabs had adored one supreme
God (Allah Taala) creator of the heavens and the earth, but
subsequently, had abandoned that worship and raised temples
for the adoration of demons, sons of God, who, residing in
the planets and fixed stars, governed the earth. These
Gods were not universally adored throughout the country ;
each tribe, each family had its particular divinities, its
Lares, in fact, in honour of which even human victims were
7 immolated. The Arabs believed neither in a future state
nor in the creation of the world, but attributed the formation
of the universe to nature, and its future destruction to
time. Debauchery and robbery everywhere prevailed,
and since death was regarded as the end, strictly so
called, of existence, so was there neither recompense for
virtue nor punishment for vice. A like moral and religious
corruption was to be found among the Christians and the
Jews who, for ages had established themselves in the Ara-
bian Peninsula, and had there formed very powerful parties.
The Jews had come to seek in that land of liberty an asylum
from the persecution of the Ptomans ; the Christians had

MOHAMMED AND THE KOKAX. 3

also fled thither in order to escape the massacres occasioned
by the Nestorian Eutychianism* and Arian discussions. It
is not easy to conceive of anything more deplorable than the
condition of Christianity at this time.f The scattered
branches of the Christian Church in Asia and Africa were
at variance with each other, and had adopted the wildest
heresies and superstitions. They were engaged in perpetual
controversies and torn to pieces by the disputes of the
Arians, Sabellians, Nestorians, and Eutychians, whilst the
simony, the incontinence, the general barbarism and igno-
rance which were to be found amongst the clergy caused
great scandal to the Christian religion, and introduced uni-
versal profligacy of manners among the people. In Arabia
the deserts swarmed with ignorant and infatuated Cenobites,
or recluses, wasting their lives in vain but fiery speculations,
and then rushing, often armed, in mobs into the cities,
preaching their fantasies in the churches, and enforcing
assent to them by the sword. The grossest idolatry had
usurped the place of the simple worship instituted by Jesus
— that of an all-wise, almighty, and all-beneficent Being,
without equal and without similitude; a new Olympus had
been imagined, peopled with a crowd of martyrs, saints, and
angels, in lieu of the ancient gods of paganism. There were
found Christian sects impious enough to invest the wife of
Joseph with the honours and attributes of a goddess.^ Ee-
lics and carved and painted images were objects of the most

* The doctrine of Eutyches, a famous Greek heresiarch of the fifth cen-
tury, who taught that the divine aud human natures of Christ, after their
union, became so blended together as to constitute but one nature, the
hmnan nature being absorbed by the divine one, as a drop of water is by
the sea.

t In fact, the corruption of the teachers of Christianity had alienated
the popular mind. "Their lies, their legends, their saints and their mira-
cles, but, above all, the abandoned behaviour of their priesthood, had
brought their churches in Arabia very low'' (Bruce's 'Travels,' vol. i.
p. 501).

t The so-called Marianites are ^said to have even attempted the intro-
duction of an heretical Trinity by substituting the Virgin for the Holy
Ghost.

b2

4 AN APOLOGY FOE

fervid worship on the part of those whom the word of Christ
commanded to address their prayers to the living God alone_
Such were the scenes which the Church of Christ presented
in Alexandria, in Aleppo, and in Damascus. At the time
of Mohammed's advent all had abandoned the principles of
their religion to indulge in never-ending wranglings upon
dogmas of a secondary importance, and the Arabian people
could not but see that they had lost sight of the most essen-
tial point of every religious doctrine — the pure and true
worship of God — and that, as regarded the most disgraceful
and the grossest superstition, they were upon a par with their
pagan contemporaries.

Mohammed was born at Mecca,* in what year is doubtful,
those of A.D. 560, 571, 572, 575, 600 and 620 being assigned
by different writers, but that which is considered the most
authentic is November 10, 571. It is remarkable that a
similar if not greater uncertainty obtains as to the birth of
Jesus Christ, which was actually unknown for chronological
purposes until after the commencement of the 6th century,
when Dionysius Exiguus, a Eoman abbot, brought it into
use during the reign of the Emperor Justinian ; and the
only result of the subsequent laborious but conflicting calcu-
lations of Eusebius, Tertullian, and others, was the singular
anomaly, " Christ born a.m. 3999, B.C. 5."t

Mohammed's grandfather and his lineal descendants ap-
pear, both in foreign and domestic transactions, as the
princes of their country, but reigning by the opinion of their
wisdom and integrity. The sceptre was afterwards trans-

* Mecca, sometimes also called Becca, which words are synonymous,
meaning a place of great intercourse, is certainly one of the most ancient
cities in the world (see Sale's ' Introductory Discourse '). Its government,
about the time of Mohammed's birth, was a kind of aristocratic republic,
administered by ten hereditary magistrates, to each of whom were assigned
particular duties, and who formed a senate presided over by the eldest one
of its members.

t See Dr. Coverhill's ' Exposition ' and Dr. Hall'a ' Analysis, ' vol. i.
p. 188.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 5

ferred to a younger branch of the Koreish, one of the most
influential tribes throughout Arabia, claiming, as it did, to
be descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham. Arab
authors, it is true, differ among themselves as to the num-
ber of generations from Ishmael to Mohammed, some count-
ing thirty, and others sixty, but they all agree that there
were twenty-one from Adnan, one of the descendants of
Ishmael, to Mohammed, and they only differ as to the
number of those from Adnan to Ishmael.*

It was from the tribe of Koreish that had been chosen,
for a period of five generations, the magistrates of the above-
named city, as well as the priests of the Kaaba,-|- or holy
temple therein situated. Before Mohammed's time this
temple was the place of worship and pilgrimage of the idola-
trous Arabs, and contained not less than 360 idols, equal-
ling the number of days in the Arabian year. It was
especially revered on account of the tradition that it had
been erected by Abraham and Ishmael, and because it was
reputed to be the first structure ever raised by the hand of
man to the glory of the Most High. The Kaaba, like the
temple of Delphi in Greece was regarded as the sanctuary
of the entire nation; thither came all who were eminent
for their skill in eloquence and poetry, the only intellectual
qualifications valued by the Arabians, and within its pre-
cincts were suspended the compositions deemed worthy of
being had in remembrance. Its vast antiquity also, for
history placed its foundation 993 years before that of the

* See ' Mohainmedanism Unveiled,' by the Rev. Charles Foster, vol. i.
p. 139 ; and the Genealogical Tables in Sale's ' Koran.'

t This building, considered the holiest earthly object of Mohammedan
regard, is supported by pillars of aloe-wood, between which hang silver
lamps, while a golden spout carries off the rain water from the roof. The
walls are hung on the outside with black damask, ornamented with a gold
band,which is changed every year at the expense of the Grand Seignior.
Buii'khardt, describing the Kaaba at the present day, says—" The effect of
the whole scene, the mysterious drapery, tin- profusion of gold and silver,
the blaze of lamps, and the kneeling multitude, surpasses anything the
imagination could have pictured,"

6 AN APOLOGY FOR

temple of Solomon, or 2000 years before the Christian era,
insured it additional respect. In the south-east corner of
this temple is a small stone, set in silver, and fixed about
four feet from the ground. It is an object of great reve-
rence with Mohammedans, who believe it to have been
one of the stones of Paradise, which, having fallen down
with Adam from heaven, served afterwards as a pillow
for that patriarch. It is said to be white within, but to have
been turned black on the outside either by the touch of
an impure woman or by the sins of the people, or more
probably, by the kisses of the numerous pilgrims visiting
Mecca.*

Arabian writers vie with one another in recording in
glowing language the prodigies they believed to have sig-
nalized the natal hour of their future prophet; thus they
affirm that, among other numerous and amazing marvels,
the heavens were at his birth illuminated by a preternatural
light, that the lake of Sama dried up instantaneously, and
that the sacred fire of the Persians, which had burned unre-
mittingly for 1,000 years, suddenly and without any assign-
able cause, became extinguished.

The name of Mohammed's father was Abdallah, that of his
mother Amina ; and on the birth of this their son, the
brother of the latter, being an astrologer, cast the child's
nativity, and thence predicted that he would rise to vast
power and found a mighty empire. On the seventh day
after the child's birth, his grandfather Abd-el-Mutallab gave
a grand feast to the heads of his tribe, and presenting the
child to them on the occasion, as the dawning glory of their

* " The idolatrous worship of such shapeless or conical blocks of stone,
was by no means unknown to the wayward genius of ancient Polytheism.
"We meet with a similar form of idolatry in the mythology of the Greeks,
though set off and embellished by the peculiar fancy of that people ; and
instances of a like kind were to be found in the worship which the neigh-
bouring people of Syria paid to Belu, or Baal." (Schlegel, ' Philosophy
of History'). It is also known to the Hindoos under the name of
"Lingham,"

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 7

race, gave him on that account the name of Mohammed
{praised or most glorious).'^

The child was scarcely two years old when his father
died, leaving him no other inheritance than two camels, a
few sheep, and a female black slave named Barukut. His
mother had hitherto suckled him, but cares and sorrows
had dried up the fountains of her breast, and she therefore
sought a nurse for him from among the Badwuna tribe. To
succeed in this was, however, very difficult, for as these
women always set a high price upon their services, they
turned with contempt from this heir of poverty. At length,
the wife of a Saadite shepherd, moved by compassion, took
the helpless infant to her home in one of the villages near
Mount Tayif, situated to the east of Mecca. He had not
been long with these his foster-parents when their super-
stitious fears having been awakened by finding a mole
between his shoulders, and which they attributed to the
agency of the Djins or demons, they carried him back to
his mother at Mecca, f

* Some Mohammedan writers assert that the performance of the rite
of circumcision upon this infant was unnecessary, from his having been
miraculously born without a foreskin. Goropius Becanus, in his * Ori-
gines Antverpianse,' relates the following curious circumstance respecting
the foreskin of the Saviour. During the first crusade, Godet'roi de
Bouillon having heard that the women of Antwerp worshipped Priapus
under the name of Ters, sent them the foreskin of Jesus Christ in the hope
of its weaning them from so gross a superstition, but unfortunately with-
out success.— The foreskins still extant of the Saviour are reckoned to be
twelve in number: one was in the possession of the monks of Coulombs ;
another at the Abbey of Charroux ; a third at Hildesheim, in Germany; a
fourth at Rome in the Church of St. Jean-de-Latran ; a fifth at Antwerp ;
a sixth at Puyen Velay, in the church of Notre Dame, &c.

t Short as was the time he was with his foster-mother, Mohammed
ever retained a grateful recollection of the kindness he had received from
her. Halim^ (tliat was the woman's name) visited him at Mecca, after his
marriage with Khadij ah. " It was," says tradition, "a year of drought, m
which many cattle perished, and Mohammed spake unto Khadijah, and
she gave to Halim^ a camel trained to carry a litter, and two score sheep,
and she departed for her home with joyful heart.'' Upon another oc-
casion, Mohammed spread his mantel for her to sit upon, in token of
great regard, placing his hand upon her in a familiar and aflfectionate
manner.

8 AN APOLOGY FOR

When Mohammed was six years old his mother died, on
her return from a visit she and her son had paid to some
relatives at Yathreb,* and was buried at Abwa, a village
between Medina and Mecca. Nothing can give a better
idea of the prophet's sensibility than the fact that her grave
was a place of pious resort and tender recollections to her
son to the latest hour of his existence. There is no doubt
but that this early loss imparted to the youthful Mohammed
somewhat of that pensive and meditative character which
afterwards so distinguished him. In his seventh year he
could appreciate the severity of his loss and feel the desola-
tion of his orphan state, a subject to which he afterwards
touchingiy alludes in the Koran, when, reassuring his soul
of the Divine favour and protection, and recounting the
mercies of the Almighty, he exclaims, "Did he not find
thee an orphan and furnish thee with a refuge ?"t

At a subsequent period of his life, when on a pilgrimage
from Medina to Hodaiba, he visited his mother's tomb, and
some of his followers, who knew not that Amina lay buried
there, seeing him weep sorely, inquired the cause : " This,"
replied he, "is my dear mother's grave; the Lord hath
permitted me to visit it; I have sought permission to pray
for her, but it has not been granted; so, calling her to my
remembrance, the tender recollection of her overcame me,
and I wept."|

After his mother's death, the care of the orphan devolved
upon his paternal grandfather, Abd-el-Mutalleb, at that time
high priest, and he also dying two years after, his son and

* This was the ancient name of Medina, which was chiefly inhabited
by the tribes of the Charegites and the Awsites, and by two colonies of
Jews of a sacerdotal race, and who by introducing among their Arab
fellow citizens a taste for science and religion, had gained for that city the
name of the Gity of the Book — that is, of the Prophet.

t Chapter xciii.

X This prohibition against praying for his mother's salvation forms _ a
singular instance of the sternness and severity of the dogmas of Islam in
respect of those who die in ignorance of the faith.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. \i

successor Abu Thaleb took the charge of the boy upon
himself, treating him in every respect as one of his own
children. It was now that Mohammed began to exhibit
indications of an intelligent and inquiring mind. He loved
to indulge in solitary meditation, so much so that when
his playmates wished him to join in their amusements he
replied, " Man is created for a nobler purpose than indul-
gence in frivolous pursuits." On Mohammed's attaining
his thirteenth year, his uncle, who was a wealthy merchant,
being on the eve of departing with the caravan for Syria,
complied with his nephew's request to be allowed to accom-
pany him, and the youth acquitted himself so well in this
his first journey as to obtain no little credit. The next year
he served in a military capacity, a circumstance which esta-
blishes the curious fact that the professions of the soldier
and the trader, far from being considered by the Arabs as
incompatible with each other, were frequently, among their
most distinguished tribes, if not actually united, at least
practised in rapid alternation. The active share taken by
the youthful Mohammed in these expeditions developed in
him both superior address and military talent, and the
esteem and confidence procured him by these qualities were
still more heightened by the sincerity of his words and
actions, the regularity of his life, and the accuracy of his
judgment. As he advanced in years, other merchants, gladly
availing themselves of his great tact and ability, employed
him as agent in their commercial transactions.

In one of the expeditions he made with his uncle, having
arrived at a monastery in the Syrian desert, the superior of
the establishment, fixing his scrutinizing gaze upon the face
of the young traveller, took Abu Tlialeb aside, saying, " Be
very careful of thy nephew, and protect him from Jewish
treachery, for truly he is born unto great things " — a
prophetic warning, according to some writers, of the
troubles and opposition which it was ordained the future

10 AN APOLOGY FOE

prophet was to encounter from the descendants of Abra-
ham.

It was while engaged in his commercial journeys that
Mohammed frequented many of the various fairs held at
different times in several parts of Arabia, and at which the
popular traditions of the Arabs were recited, and the vario.us
religious faiths of the country expounded and enforced, and
the experience he thus acquired upon these subjects con-
vinced him more and more of the grossness and absurdity
of the idolatry and degrading superstitions of his country-
men.

About this time the Kaaba, having been injured by fire,
was undergoing repairs, in the course of which the sacred
stone was to be replaced, and in order to avoid disputes, it
was agreed that the honour of laying it, for the second
time, should belong to him who first entered the sacred
precincts ; this was Mohammed, whom chance had con-
ducted to the spot. He accordingly deposited the stone
with all due ceremony, amid the acclamations of the by-
standers, thus consecrating a temple devoted to the service
of the very idols which it was afterwards the chief object of
his mission to destroy; so that it was not merely a stone
which he thus laid, but the foundation of a new religion of
which he himself was to be the head and the pontiff.

Mohammed continued in his uncle's employment until his
twenty-fifth year, when one of the leading men of the city
dying, and his widow, by name, Khadijah, requiring a factor
to manage her business, he was recommended to her as a
fit person for the purpose. Having accepted the terms she
offered him, he traded for her during three years, at Da-
mascus and other places, and upon returning to Mecca,
proceeded to Khadijah's house that he might report to her
in person the result of his commercial labours. The widow
was highly satisfied with the balance sheet; but there was
a charm in the dark and pensive eye, in the noble features

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 11

and graceful form of her assiduous agent, as he stood in a
submissive attitude before her, which delighted her even
more than did the increase of her wealth. The comely-
widow was at this time forty years of age, she had been
twice married, and had borne two sons and a daughter, yet
unable to resist the charm of so manly a person and the
attractions of so sensible and enthusiastic a mind, it was not
long ere she presented her hand to him in marriage.

At this time Mohammed was in the pride of manhood :
his figure was commanding, his aspect majestic, his features
regular and most expressive, his eyes black and piercing, his
nose slightly aquiline, his mouth well formed and furnished
with pearly teeth, while his cheeks were ruddy with robust
health. Art had imparted to his naturally black flowing
hair and beard a lighter chestnut hue. His captivating
smile, his rich and sonorous voice, the graceful dignity of
his gestures, the apparent frankness and heartiness of his
manner, sained him the favourable attention of all whom he
addressed. He possessed talents of a superior order— his
perception was quick and active, his memory capacious and
retentive, his imagination lively and daring, his judgment
clear and perspicuous, his courage dauntless, and whatever
may be the opinion of some as to the sincerity of his convic-
tions, his tenacity of purpose in the pursuit of the great object
of his life, and his patient endurance, cannot but extort the
admiration of all. His natural eloquence was enhanced by
the use of the purest dialect of Arabia, and adorned by the
charm of a graceful elocution.

Not less favourable is the following description of
Mohammed at a later period of his life, from the graphic
pen of Gibbon: — " Mohammed was distinguished by the
beauty of his person, an outward gift which is seldom
despised, except by tliose to whom it has been refused.
Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affec-
tions whether of a public or a private audience. They

12 ■ AN APOLOGY FOE

applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect,
his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his
countenance which painted every sensation of his soul, and
the gestures that enforced each expression of the tongue.
In the familiar offices of life, he scrupulously adhered to
the grave and ceremonious politeness of his country ; his
respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified
by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizen of
Mecca ; the frankness of his manner concealed the artifice
of his views, and the habits of courtesy were imputed to
personal friendship or universal benevolence ; his memory
was capacious and retentive, his wit easy and social, his ima-
gination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid and decisive.
He possessed the courage both of thought and action ;* and
although his designs might gradually expand with success,
the first idea which he entertained of his divine mission
bears the stamp of an original and superior genius. The
son of Abdallah was brought up in the bosom of the
noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of Arabia, and
the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced by
the practice of discreet and seasonable silence."

As to acquired learning, in the common acceptation of
the word, it is confessed that Mohammed had none at all,t
having had no other education than what was customary in
his tribe, who neglected and, perhaps, despised what we
call literature, esteeming no language in comparison with
their own, their skill in which they gained by use and not
by books, contenting themselves, moreover, with improving
their private experience by committing to memory such
passages of their poets as they judged might be of use to
them in active life. The Arab, therefore, who never had a

* "Moses and Mohammed were not men of speculation ; they were men
of action. It was in proposing action to their fellow countrymen and to
their contemporaries, that they governed humanity." (Renan, "Life of
Jesus," chap, iv.)

t See Sitrass, chapters vii., xxix., xcvi.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 13

teacher was often, nevertheless, a very superior man, for the
tent is a kind of school always open, where, from the con-
tact with men of experience and ability, there is produced a
great intellectual and even literary movement. What we
call education has nothing in common with the refinement
of manners and the acuteness of intellect of the Orientals.

The story of Mohammed's marriage as told by Arab
writers is, in the highest degree, graceful and interesting, i , vsKy^''

the nuptials being celebrated with extraordinary magni- j l/W^
licence; two camels were slain for the entertainment, and
Khadijah's slaves danced to the sound of timbrels to amuse
the guests.

At the time of his marriage, Mohammed was twenty-
eight years of age, and his wife forty, though still beautiful;
but, notwithstanding this great disparity of years, he seemed
to have lived in the most affectionate manner with his bene-
factress, never having availed himself of his country's law,
which allowed him to have other wives, at discretion.

A period, of fifteen years now occurs, during which the
Prophet's history remains obscure and impenetrable. Such
was the interval during which Jesus worked in the shop of
Joseph the carpenter;* a sacred interval in which the man
may be said to have assisted at the birth of his own genius,
preparing in silence and maturing by meditation, the mis-
sion entrusted to him by the Almighty. To purify his life
and render it unassailable by censure or malice, was now
Mohammed's constant and anxious solicitude and occupa-
tion. Every year he is said to have passed one month in a
grotto of Mount Hara, about three leagues to the west of
Mecca ; and here it was that he studied the Bible and the
Gospels, indulged his contemplative disposition, and enjoyed
the luxury of meditation. Such intense occupation of the

* " He (Jesus) followed the trade of His father, which was that of a car-
penter. This was not, in any degree, humiliating or grievous. The Jewish
custom required that a man devoted to intellectual work should learn a
trade." (Kenan, "Life of Jesus," chap, v.)

r^

14 AN APOLOGY FOR

mind on one subject, accompanied by fervent enthusiasm of
spirit, could not but have a powerful effect upon his frame.
He became subject to dreams, ecstasies and trances.* For
six months successively, according to one of his biographers,
he had constant dreams bearing upon the subject of his
waking thoughts.

What was the real character of Mohammed's ecstatic
periods; whether they were simply reveries of profound
meditation,' or swoons connected with a morbid excitability
of the mental or physical constitution, it would be difficult
to determine ; but certain it is that at the moment of
inspiration, anxiety pressed upon him and his countenance
was troubled. He would fall to the ground like one intoxi-
cated or overcome with sleep, and^ on the coldest day, his
farehead would be bedewed with big drops of perspiration,
Nay, it is even asserted that if he happened to be astride
his camel when so excited, the animal would itself become
affected by a wild restlessness — now falling upon her
haunches, then starting up again ; at one time fixing her
feet rigidly in the ground, and anon throwing her legs
about as if wishing to rid herself of them.

The assertion, so often repeated, that Mohammed was
subject to epileptic fits, is a base invention of the Greeks,
who would seem to impute that morbid aff'ection to the
apostle of a novel creed as a stain upon his moral character
deserving the reprobation and abhorrence of the Christian
world. Surely, those malignant bigots might have re-
flected that if Mohammed had really been afflicted with that
dreadful malady Christian charity ought to have commanded
them to pity his misfortune rather than rejoice over it, or
affect to regard it in the light of a sign of Divine wrath.

* Mohammed was sorrowful in temperament ; continually meditating :
he had no rest ; he never spoke except from necessity ; he used to be long
silent ; he opened and ended his speech from the corners of his mouth ; he
expressed himself in pregnant sentences, using neither too few, nor too
many words." (From the "Katib al Wackidi," p. 81| c.)

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 15

It was in the fortieth year of his life, that while passing, as
above described, the month of Eamadlian,* he lay wrapped in
his mantle during the silent watches of the night, that he
heard a voice calling him by name. Uncovering his head, there
suddenly broke in upon him a flood of light of such intolerable
splendour and intensity that he swooned away. On recovering
his senses, an angel, in human form, approaching him, dis-
played to his view a silken cloth covered with writing: —

"Eead!" said the anoel.

"I know not how to read/'f

"Eead, in the name of Allah, the Creator of all things,
who made man from a clot of blood ! Eead, in the name of
the Most High, who taught man the use of the hullam (pen),
and^ who can dart into his soul the beams of knowledge." J^

Mohammed's mind was instantaneously illumined, and
he read, with ease, the writing on the silken cloth; then,
under the influence of an irresistible excitement, he rushed
forth and plunged into the innermost recesses of the forest, ?
from all sides whereof he heard a voice crying aloud, —
" Mohammed ! thou art the Apostle of God the Most High,
and I, I am the angel Gabriel."

If it be considered that it is by no means uncommon for
the mind when in solitude, to embody, as it were, the phan-
toms of the imagination, and to mistake its own creations
for absolute existences, and, moreover, that men, and some-
times women, even of the strongest intellect, are particu-
larly hable to such impressions, as in the case of the ghost of
Caesar in the tent of Brutus; J the gigantic figure which fore-

* The word Ramadhan comes from Ramad (burning), the month being
so called because, in the solar year of the ancient Arabs, it occurred at the
time of the greatest heats.

t See page 12, note f.

i "Thus, a little before he (Brutus) left Asia, he was sitting alone in
his tent, by a dim light, and at a lute hour, the whole army lay in sleep
and silence, while the general, wrajit in meditation, thought he perceived
something enter his tent ; turning towards the door, he saw a horrible and
monstroas spectre standing silently by his side." (Langhorn's ' Plutarch ')

16 AN APOLOGY FOR

told Cromwell's greatness ; * and in later times, Molinos,t
Madame de Guyon,| Swedenborg,§ and Madame Krudner,||
it becomes more than probable that so far from Mohammed
having been guilty of a falsehood in afterwards announcing
that the angel Gabriel commanded him to undertake the
prophetic mission, he really and conscientiously believed
himself to be the divinely inspired Apostle of God.

On the morning of the 24th Eamadan, Mohammed ap-
peared before his wife, apparently, greatly disturbed in
mind. He called out to her to " wrap him up, to affuse him
with cold water, as his soul was greatly troubled ! " and

* Many stories are told of Cromwell's enthusiasm in this, tlie early
part of his life, one of which we shall mention. Lying melancholy upon
his bed, in the day time, he fancied he saw a spectre, which told him he
should be the greatest man in the kingdom." (Chalmers' Biographical
Dictionary ').

t Molinos, a Spaniard, was born at Saragossa, and was the author of
that species of mysticism called Quietism, a system afterwards espoused in
France by Madame Guyon and the virtuous Fenelon, Archbishop of
Cambray. He taught, in his 'Spiritual Guide,' that the pious mind must
possess quietude in order to secure its spiritual progress ; that for this
purpose it must be abstracted from visible objects ; that being thus drawn
within itself, it becomes susceptible of heavenly influence ; and that the
special functions of the intellect and of the will are merged wholly in God.
Molinos was thrown into prison in 1685 on account of these doctrines,
and notwithstanding his recantation of them, he was in 1687 condemned
to perpetual imprisonment, and died, imreleased, in 1697.

% Madame de Guyon was born at Montargis in 1648. The amiable
Fenelon and Madame de Maintenon were converts to her doctrines, which
reduced all religion to a pure love of God. After six years' imprisonment ;
at the instigation of Bossuet, she was banished to Diziers, near Blois, and
died there in 1717.

§ Swedenborg was born at Stockhohn in 1688. His vast acquirements
in general literature and natural philosophy procured him a European
reputation, and he became a member of several learned societies. Suddenly
seized in 1745 with the conviction that he was destined to regenerate
Christianity, he declared that, warned by a divine appearance, he would
abandon his uncompleted studies, and devote himself to the new office to
which he was called. He imagined that he not only saw and discoursed
with spirits, but that he actually lived with them as a spirit, seeing all
things in the spirit world, as one of themselves. He died in 1772.

II A celebrated mystic, born in 1784, and who, after living a very dissi-
pated life gave herself up to an extravagant devotion, imagining that she
had a mission fron heaven to regenerate Christianism. In 1815 she
obtained so great an influence over the Emperor of Eussia, Alexander I.,
as to have had a great share in the formation of the "Holy Alliance."
She died in the Crimea in 1824.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 17

having recovered himself, proceeded to break to his amazed
spouse the secret of his divine mission. Nor did she hesi-
tate one moment to believe it implicitly; and no wonder,
for Mohammed, to his honour be it written, had proved
a most kind and attentive husband to her whose affection
had raised him above the pressure of want. He had ab-
stained, and, till her death, continued to abstain from avail-
ing himself of the right of polygamy. He had proved his
tridh to her by unvarying affection : how, then, could she
possibly have doubted his word ? She therefore regarded
and believed the vision to be a real manifestation of God's
will.* The next converts were Zeid, his Arab slave, to
whom he granted his freedom, and his own cousin, Ali, the
son of Abii-Thaleb. He then addressed himself, and with
complete success, to Abu-Bekr,-f- a man of wealth and
influence among the Koreish, and by his example and
exhortations, other principal inhabitants of Mecca became
converted to the new faith.

It is strongly corroborative of Mohammed's sincerity that
the earliest converts to Islam were his bosom friends and
the people of his household, who, all intimately acquainted
with his private life, could not fail otherwise to have detected
those discrepancies which more or less invariably exist
between the pretentions of the hypocritical deceiver and his
actions at home.

But a check soon followed this first success, for having
convened a meeting of the chief members of his tribe,
Mohammed no sooner declared to them his mission than the
announcement was received with coldness and incredulity,

* "I do not remember to have read," says Sale ('Prel. Disc.,' p. 58, note
3), "in any Eastern writer that Khadijah ever rejected her husband's
pretences as delusions, or suspected him of imposture."

+ Abu-Bckr's orijjinal name was Ahdel-Kaaba (servant of the Kaaba) ;
this he afterwards changed for that of Abdallah, but after giving hia
daughter Ayesha to the Prophet, in marriage, he assumed, as an honour-
able distinction, the name of Abu-Bekr (father of the Virgin).

18 AN APOLOGY FOR

but when, not content with insisting upon the unity of the
Godhead and his own Apostleship, he informed his auditors
that it was his intention to overthrow idolatry and bring his
countrymen back to the religion of Abraham, their indigna-
tion burst forth from all sides, and it was proposed to silence
him at once ; nor were any more violent in this their oppo-
sition than the other families of his own tribe. Abu-Thaleb,
however, though he did not become a convert, still continued
his protection to his nephew.

For the next few years Mohammed's life was passed in a
state of persecution and insult, which extended itself to his
few disciples. Once, indeed, his adversaries made offers of
wealth or of leadership if he would abandon his purpose ;
but he replied by reciting that portion of the Koran known
as the 41st Chapter, and from which the following are a few
extracts : —

" A revelation from the Compassionate, the Merciful ! I
am but a man like unto you. It is revealed unto me that
your God is one God; go straight then unto Him and im-
plore His pardon. And woe to such as join Gods with
Gods:

" Wlio pay not the alms of obligation, and in the life to
come, believe not :

" But they who believe and do the things that are right,
shall, assuredly, receive a perfect never failing recompense.

"Do ye, indeed, disbelieve in Him who, in two days,
created the earth ? and do ye assign unto Him, peers ? The
Lord of the Worlds is He !

" He hath placed on the earth the firm mountains which
above it tower ; and He hath blessed it, and in four days
distributed food throughout it, for the cravings of all.

" Next did He apply Himself unto the Heavens which
then were but smoke ; and to them and the earth did he say.
< Come ye, whether in accordance with or against your will,'
and they both replied : ' We come, obedient.'

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 19

" If a lure from Satan entice thee, then take thou refuge
in God, for He is the Hearing the Knowing.

" Falsehood, from whatsoever side it cometh, shall not
approach. It (the Koran) is a missive sent down from the
Wise, the Praise-worthy.

" Nothing hath been said to thee (Mohammed) which hath
not been said of old to apostles before thee. Verily, with
thy Lord is forgiveness and with Him is terrible re-
tribution."

Mohammed's opponents answered this by requiring him
to work a miracle in proof of his divine mission : but he
refused, saying that he was sent to preach truth, not to work
miracles ; appealing, at the same time, to the Koran, he
challenged his adversaries to produce any work that could
rival it in beauty and sublimity.*

No proof, indeed, has ever been adduced that Mohammed
at any time descended to any artifices or pseudo-miracles to
enforce his doctrines or establish his apostolic claims. He
appears on the contrary to have relied entirely upon reason
and eloquence, and to have been supported by religious
enthusiasm in this earlier stage of his career. Religious
enthusiasm was, in fact, Mohammed's ruling passion; it
appeared in his every action, and displayed itself in every
stage of his existence.

It is singular that although Mohammed so expressly
disclaimed all miraculous powers, yet every kind of miracles
has been fathered upon him, and that the true history and
the true teaching of the prophet should have been as much
disfigured by fable and comments, as the history and teach-
ing of any Christian saint. In fact, the notices in the

* "And if ye be in doubt as to that which We (God) have sent down
unto our servant (Mohammed), then produce a chapter like unto it" (cliap.
ii). Mohammed considered the unprecedented union of the Aralis, under
him, as testifying the truth of his mission, for he says in chapter viii.,
" If thou (Mohammed) hadst expended whatever riches are on the eartli,
thou could'st not have united their hearts, but God united them, for He is
mighty and wise."

c2

20 AN APOLOGY FOR

Koran are almost as unlike the legendary history of Moham-
med as the narrative of the Gospels differs from the fanciful
ideas of Buonaventura.*

Gibbon has favoured us with the following account of one
of these attributed marvels : —

" The Christians, rashly enough, have ascribed to Mo-
hammed a tame pigeon that seemed to descend from Heaven
and whisper in his ear. As this pretended miracle was
brought forward by Grotius {De veritate religionis Chris-
tiance), his Arab translator, the learned Pococke, inquired
of him the names of his authors, and Grotius was obliged
to confess that it was unknown to the Mohammedans them-
selves. Lest, however, it should provoke their indignation
and ridicule, the jpious lie was suppressed in the Arabic ver-
sion, but still maintains a conspicuous place in the numerous
editions of the Latin text.f

Seeing that Mohammed's enemies still remained most
inveterate against him, Abu-Thaleb earnestly dissuaded his
nephew from pursuing his purpose any further, but his reply
was, " Though the Koreishites should arm against me, the
sun and the moon (alluding to the divinities which they
ignorantly worshipped), the one on my right hand and the
other on my left, I would not be shaken from my
resolution."

Nothing daunted, therefore, by opposition, he again
assembled a few guests, chiefly belonging to his own tribe
placed before them, it is said, a lamb and a bowl of milk,
and, after the frugal meal, rose up, declared his sacred
character, offered the treasures of time and of eternity to
whomsoever should become his disciples, and concluded an
address remarkable for its native eloquence, by the demand,

* A celebrated doctor of the Catholic Church, born in 1221. He be-
came general of the Franciscan order. His works, remarkable for their
mysticism, procured him the appelation of the Seraphic Doctor.

t Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall,' vol. 5. p. 511 (note). Bohn's edition.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 21

" Who among you will aid me to bear this burden ? Who
will be my lieutenant and vizier, as Aaron was to Moses ? "

The assembly remained mute with astonishment, not one
venturing to accept the proffered perilous office, until the
young and impetuous Ali, Mohammed's cousin, started up,
exclaiming, " 0 prophet ! I will ; though I am, indeed, the
youngest of these present, the most rheumy of them as to
eyes, the biggest of them as to belly, and the slenderest of
them as to legs, I, 0 prophet ! will be thy Vizier over
them ! "

On which, throwing his arms around the generous youth,
and pressing him to his bosom, Mohammed exclaimed,
" Behold, my brother, my Vizier ! "*

Having thus made a commencement, Mohammed began
to preach publicly in Mecca, daily adding to the number of
his disciples, his favourite places for preaching being the
hills of Safa and Kubeis, in the neighbourhood of the
above city; but he still made occasional visits to Mount
Hara, returning thence with fresh suras or chapters for
the book subsequently known as the Koran.

It was about this time that he acquired a new and
important convert in the person of Omar, one of the most
uncompromising but most generous of his enemies. Omar
had been already highly displeased with his sister, Ameina,
for having embraced the new faith, so that finding her
one day reading the Koran aloud, he struck her violently
dashing, at the same time, the book on the ground. The
maiden, calm and collected, picked up the volume, but
still persisted in refusing to give it to her brother, who,
now still more exasperated, snatched it from her, but his eye
glancing involuntarily over some of its lines, he was seized
with wonder, and conviction succeeding to admiration,

* Some writers render All's words thus : — "I wiU beat out the teeth,
pull out the eyes, rip up the bellies, and break the legs of all who oppose
thee;" a mistake which originated in the mis- translation of the original
by Gagnier in his ' Life of Abu-el-Teda.'

22 AN APOLOGY FOR

he became a Mussulman on the spot. He then immediately
ran, armed as he was, to the castle of Safa, the asylum of
Mohammed, who, upon seeing him approach, exclaimed,
" Whence comest thou, 0 Omar ! Wilt thou remain here
until crushed beneath the vaulted roof that will fall upon
thee ? " "I come," replied Omar, " a true believer in the
true God, and in thee, his chosen apostle !"

The Koreish, finding that Mohammed still zealously per-
sisted in the promulgation of his doctrines, tried what they
could do by violence, treating his followers so cruelly that
it was not safe for them to continue at Mecca, whereupon
Mohammed gave permission to such as had not friends to
protect them to seek for refuge elsewhere, which they did,
and found it in Abyssinia. This first hegira, or, more properly,
hedjira (flight) took place in the fifth year of Mohammed's
mission. The number of the refugees amounted successively
to eighty men and women and a few children. The
fugitives were kindly received by the Nejashee, or king of the
country, who refused to deliver them up to the parties sent
by the Koreish to demand their extradition, becoming
himself, as Arabian writers assert, a convert to Islam.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 23

CHAPTER IL

Death of Mohammed's uncle — Perilous situation of the Prophet — Death
of Khadijah — Her tomb (note) — Mohammed's grateful recollection
of her — Ayesha reproved — Further persecutions of the Prophet —
Mohammed's numerous wives — Charge of sensuality rebutted —
Mohammed preaches during the sacred month — Converts made at
Yahtreb — The miraculous night journey — Koreish conspiracy against
the Prophet — He flees from Mecca — Ali's devotedness — The Prophet's
reliance upon God — His miraculous escape — Arrives at Yahtreb —
Name of that city changed to Medina — The Prophet establishes
forms and ceremonies of worship — Mohammed at once monarch,
general, judge and priest — His simple mode of life — Battle and
victory of Bedr — Mohammed defeated by the Meccans — Ali's
courage and reward — The four holy women — Treachery — Plots to
assassinate the Prophet — Medina besieged by the Koreish and the
Jews — They are defeated — Cold-blooded massacre — A calumny
refuted — Ayesha accused of infidelity and acquitted — War of the
Moat — Narrow escape of the Prophet from poison — Submission of
Jewish towns — Mohammed's march to Mecca — Terms proposed by
the Koreish — Treaty.

In the second year of his mission, Mohammed's party
growing powerful and formidable at Mecca, the city passed
a decree forbidding any more citizens to become his fol-
lowers. This, however, did not much affect him while his
uncle Abu-Thaleb lived to protect him, but he dying two
years after, Mohammed's position became very critical, inas-
much as the property and influence of that relative passed
into the hands of his (Mohammed's) enemies, who, being
now more powerful than ever, were the more inveterate
against him, insulting him upon every occasion, even while
he was at prayers, throwing all sorts of filth upon his food,
and harassing him with every other kind of contumely. To
add to these misfortunes, Thaleb had only been dead a few
days when the prophet's faithful wife Khadijah expired in

24 AN APOLOGY FOR

his arms. The death of this his beloved partner was indeed
a heart-rending calamity for him. For twenty years she
had been his counseller and supporter, and now his soul
and his hearth had become desolate. Notwithstanding that
at so advanced an age she must have lost every youthful
charm, yet Mohammed had remained faithful to her to the
last, and refrained, as already said, from taking other wives.

Khadijah was buried in the cemetery at Mecca, situated to
the north-west of the city ; and we learn from Burckhardt,
the celebrated traveller, that her tomb is still remaining and
is regularly visited by pilgrims, especially on Friday
mornings, but that it presents no object of curiosity except
the tombstone, which has a fine inscription in Cufic
characters, containing a passage from the chapter of the
Koran entitled Souret-ul-Kursy.

Mohammed's gratitude to her memory survived her to
his latest hour. The tenderness of this his recollection of
her having aroused the reproachful and insolent jealousy of
Ayesha, the most youthful and blooming of the wives who
had replaced her — " Was she not old, and has not Heaven
giving thee a fairer and a better ? " " No, before God ! "
cried Mohammed, in a burst of generous emotion, " there
never was a better or a kinder helpmate : she believed in me
when I was despised and mocked of men ; she comforted and
relieved me when I was poor, despised and persecuted by the
world."

The persecution to which Mohammed was now subjected,
wholly unprotected as he was, from such even of the Koreish
who were his near relations, or who had at one time been
his friends, compelled him to seek a place of refuge ; so
that, followed by his faithful Zeid, he fled to the small town
of Tayif, about sixty miles to the east of Mecca, and where
resided another uncle of his, by name, Abbas. Upon arriving
there he immediately addressed himself to three principal
men of the place, explaining his mission and inviting them

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 25

to merit the honour of supporting the new faith and assisting
him in propagating it, but he failed in producing conviction ;
they cast in his teeth the common objections of his
own people, and advised him to seek protection elsewhere.
He, however, remained there for one month, and was treated
with some little respect by the better disposed and more
considerate of the people, but at length the slaves and the
lower classes rose against him, pelted him with stones, and
chased him for two or three miles across the sandy plain
as far as the foot of the hills that surround the city. There,
weary and exhausted, he took refuge in one of the numerous
orchards and rested himself for some time under a vine;
after which he resumed his journey to Mecca, and having
arrived in its vicinity, despatched a message to Mota' ab
Ebn Adi, a man of much influence, and who was favourably
disposed to him, entreating that he would secure a safe
entrance for him into the city. His request was granted.
Mota' ab assembled his sons and retainers, ordering them
to take their stand, armed, by the Kaaba. Upon which
Mohammed and Zeid entered Mecca, his protector forbidding
that any ill treatment or violence should be offered
them ; and the prophet, then advancing, kissed the sacred
stone and returned to his house, escorted by Mota' ab and his
party.

About two months after the death of Khadijah, Mohammed
married Sawda, a widow, and nearly at the same time
Ayesha, the young and beautiful daughter of his bosom
friend Abu-Bekr, the principal object of this last union
being to cement still more strongly their mutual attach-
ment.

Mohammed is said to have taken after the death of
Khadijah, at different periods, eleven or twelve wives, out
of fifteen or thirteen who had been betrothed to him, and he
is constantly upbraided on this account by the controversial
writers who adduce this circumstance as a demonstrative

26 AN APOLOGY FOR

proof of his sensuality. But over and above the considera-
tion that polygamy, though it is forbidden by European law,
was in Mohammed's time generally practised in Arabia and
other parts of the East, and was far from being counted an
immorality, it should be recollected that he lived from the
age of five-and-twenty to that of fifty years satisfied with
one wife ; that until she died at the age of sixty-three he
took no other, and that she left him without male issue ; and
it may then be asked, is it likely that a very sensual man, of
a country where polygamy was a common practice, should
be contented for five-and-twenty years with one wife, she
being fifteen years older than himself ; and is it not far more
probable that Mohammed took the many wives he did during
the last thirteen years of his life chiefly from a desire of
having male issue ?

The sacred month in which the caravans of pilgrims came
to Mecca was a season of universal peace ; while it lasted
the fiercest animosities were suspended, and crowds came
fearlessly from every quarter to celebrate the annual jubilee
in the national temple. Mohammed eargerly seized so
favourable an opportunity for preaching to the assembled
multitudes, and gained several proselytes, inhabitants of
Yahtreb, and who on their return home spoke in high com-
mendation of the new religion, zealously exhorting their
friends and fellow-citizens to embrace the same, and their
success was the greater from the fact of the new religion being
unpopular at Mecca, for commercial jealousy had excited a
spirit of rivalry between the two cities.

In the twelfth year of his Mission Mohammed related the
history of his night journey {maraj) to Jerusalem, and thence
to heaven, on the creature called Bl Barak, and under the
guidance of the angel Gabriel, and respecting which the
Koran contains some obscure intimation in Chapter xvii.*

* The passage is as follows : " Praise be to Him who carried his servant
by night from the Sacred Temple to the farther Temple, the environs of

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 27

The account, as given by the prophet, was, that one night
as he was asleep by the side of his wife Ayesha, he heard a
knocking at his door, upon which, having arisen, he found
there the angel Gabriel, and standing close to him Al Barak,
a mysterious animal, with a human face, the ears of an
elephant, the neck of a camel, the body of a horse, the tail
of a mule, and the hoofs of a bullock; in colour he was
as white as milk ; and his swiftness equalled that of light-
ning itself. The angel, now expanding his seventh pair of
wings, took flight, and the prophet, mounted upon Al Barak,
followed him. Arrived at Jerusalem, Mohammed met there
Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ, whom he saluted, calling
them brothers, and uniting with them in prayer. After
this, leaving Jerusalem with Gabriel, Mohammed found a
ladder of light ready fixed for them, and which they imme-
diately ascended, having first fastened El Barak to an iron
ring rivetted in the solid rock, that he might await their
return. Having reached the celestial abodes, Gabriel intro-
duced his companion successively, as Virgil did Dante,* into
the different heavens, seven in number, and on his entering
the first one, Mohammed saw a multitude of angels of all
manner of shapes — some in that of a man, others in that of
hirds, and others in that of leasts of every description ; and
among the birds he saw a cock of enormous size and with
plumage as white as snow ; all the angels having come
from the earth to intercede with God for all the living
creatures dwelling thereon. At length the travellers pene-
trated to where the sacred Lotus tree stands, marking the

which we have Ijlessed, that we might show him some of our signs.
Verily, he it is that heareth and seeth." A fuller narrative of this night ■
journey will be found in Taylor's ' History of Mohammedanism,' Ap-
pendix ii. p. 334.

* " Ond' io per lo tuo me' penso e discemo
Che tu mi segni, ed io saro tua guida."

'Deir Inferno,' canto primo, 1. 112 & 113.
(I for thy profit pondering now devise,
Will lead thee hence, and be to thee a guide.)

28 AN APOLOGY FOR

limit to the garden of delights ; the fruits of this tree being
so enormously large that one only would suffice to feed for
an immense length of time, all created beings. Here they
met with a barrier hitherto impassable to any mortal, and
which separates the heavens from the Almighty's throne.
At the Lotus tree a new angelic guide was awaiting them,
by whom Mohammed was led over infinite tracts of space
and through myriads of celestial intelligencies incessantly
employed in singing the praises of God. At length he
entered the beatific presence, and was permitted to ap-
proach within two bows' length of the throne of the Most
High, on which he beheld, graven in characters of flaming
fire, the formula he afterwards adopted as the symbol
of his faith — " There is no God but God, and Mohammed is
his Apostle." The words spoken by the Almighty to His
servant could not be revealed ; all we are told is, that God
ordered that Mussulmans should pray fifty times a day, but
that the prophet, by the advice of Moses, begged that the
number might be reduced to five, a request which was
granted.

Kejoicing Gabriel, both of them set forth on their return
to Mecca. At Jerusalem the prophet remounted Barak,
and was by that animal brought safe home again. So
brief a portion of mundane time having, according to some
commentators, been consumed in this so marvellous a journey,
that a pitcher full of water, accidentally overturned by
Mohammed when rising from his bed to join Gabriel, had
not reached the floor on his return; so that he actually
replaced it ere a single drop had been spilled.

This narrative of the " night journey " is one in which
tradition revels with congenial ecstasy. The rein has been
given loose to a pious imagination. Both the journey
and the ascent to Heaven are decked out in the most ex-
travagant colouring of romance, and in all the gorgeous
drapery that fancy could conceive.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN, 29

There was much dispute among Mohammed's followers
upon the subject of the "night-journey;" some asserted
that it was nothing but a vision or a dream,* others-f- that the
prophet was conveyed bodily to Jerusalem, and that the
spirit only ascended thence to Heaven ; and others, that he
performed both the night-journey to Jerusalem and the
ascension to Heaven, in his body. This last opinion was the
most prevalent, and it seems that Mohammed did not deny
its correctness. J In the same year in which the maraj
or night -journey is said to have occurred, and which is
called by Mohammedans the accepted year, twelve men of
Yahtreb came to Mecca and took an oath of fidelity to the
prophet at Akaba, a hill to the north of that city. This
oath was called the Woman's oath, not that any women were
present at the time, but because it was the same oath that
was afterwards exacted of the women : viz., that they should
not steal nor commit fornication, nor kill their children (as
the pagan Arabs did whenever they apprehended that they
should not be able to maintain them), nor forge calum-
nies, and that they should obey the Prophet in all things
reasonable.

Whilst Mohammed's nocturnal journey was the subject of
warm discussion at Mecca, Yahtreb resounded with his
praises, and crowds repaired to him; from among whom
he retained awhile twelve for the purpose of instructing
them in the new faith, after which they were sent back to

* Ayesha declared that it must have been a dream, Mohammed
having been in bed with her throughout the night on which the journey
was said to have been performed.

t The Sonnites, and among them the pious Al Jannabi, declare in an
article of faith, that to deny the nocturnal journey of the Prophet is to
disbelieve the Koran.

X The ridicule and sarcasm in which many Christian writers have
indulged on the subject of this narrative, are, to say the least, inju-
dicious, as being equallj^ applicable to the visions of Jacob. (Genesis,
chap. xvii. 11 and 12 ; Ezekiel, chap. i. 4 to 29 inclusive ; chap. iv. 12
to 15 inclusive ; Daniel, chap. vii. passim; Acts of the Apostles, chap,
ix. 3, 6, 9 ; Revelations, fnssim.)

30 AN APOLOGY FOR

the above city as his twelve apostles, there to propagate
Islamism. In this they laboured so successfully as in a short
time to draw over to the new faith the greater part of the
inhabitants; a circumstance of which Mohammed was no
sooner informed than he resolved to repair thither imm-
diately, the more so as Abu Sophian, the Prophet's inve-
terate and implacable foe, had succeeded Abu-Thaleb as
Governor of Mecca ; and as it had, moreover, been deter-
mined by the Koreish to employ assassins with the view of
ridding themselves of an enemy whose popularity and
influence were daily increasing.

The secret of this conspiracy being betrayed to Mohammed,
he and his friend Abu-Bekr escaped in the silence and
darkness of the night, Ali being directed to lie down in his
place and cover himself with the Prophet's well-known
green mantle. After surrounding the house, the assassins
then forcibly entered it, but finding, instead of their pur-
posed victim, the youthful Ali, calmly and resignedly
awaiting the death intended for his chief, so much devoted-
ness excited the pity even of those men of blood, and Ali
was left unharmed.

In the meantime, Mohammed and his friend had taken
refuge in one of the caves of Mount Thor, at a short distance
from Mecca, and here they remained three days, Abu-
Bekr's son and daughter bringing them intelligence and
supplies of food. Wliile thus lying concealed, Abu-Bekr
seeing the Prophet in such great peril, became very dejected
and said, " How can we escape, for we are but two" ?
" Not so," replied Mohammed, " for there is yet a third,
God himself, and He will protect us," The assassins, still
continuing the pursuit, arrived before the cavern, but seeing
at its entrance a pigeon's nest crossed by a spider's web
(both miraculously placed there), they concluded the cave to
be empty and renewed their search in a different direction.
On this Mohammed and his companion left the cave, and

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 31

taking a by-road, arrived safely at Yahtreb, whither Ali
followed them three days afterwards. This second flight
or emigration (hegira) took pace on the 16th of July,
A.D. 622, thirteen years after Mohammed had announced
his mission, and during the reign of Khosrou Paranis
in Persia,* the Prophet being at the time fifty-three years
old. Mohammed was enthusiastically welcomed at Yahtreb,
the citizens, in honour of him, changing this ancient
name of their city to that of Medenat-el Nabi (the city of
the prophet).

At Medina he assumed the sacerdotal and regal office,
and there, leaning against a palm-tree, or in a rough,
unadorned pulpit, he inveighed against the idolatry of his
nation, breathing into his hearers such a spirit of zeal^
enthusiasm and devotedness, that, both in the camp and
without the walls of the city, the ambassadors from Mecca
were compelled to confess that he was treated with greater
respect, and commanded more implicit obedience than even
the Chosroes of Persia or the Caesars of Constantinople.

Hitherto the new religion had been exclusively doctrinal
but it now became necessary to place it upon a firm and
unalterable basis, to devise forms of worship, and institute
practical observances, and accordingly, Mohammed ap-
pointed the daily prayers, the hour at which they were to be
recited, and the point of the heavens toward which the
faithful were to turn in their worship.f At this time also

* This flight, or emigration, was not, as we have seen, the first, but
it was the most famous. The Hegira was first appointed by Omar, the
third Caliph or Emperor of the Saracens, and dates, as is said in the text,
from the 16th of July, 622. Indeed, the day that Mohammed left
Mecca was on the first of the preceding Rabia, and he came to Medina
on the 12th of the same month, that is on the 12th of our September ; but
the Hegira begins two months before, from the 1st of Moharram ; for
that being the first month of the Arabian year, Omar would make no
alteration as to that, but anticipated the computation 59 days, that he
might commence his era from the beginning of that year in which the
flight of Mohammed happened, and from which it took its name.

t Among the Eastern nations, this point is called the Kebla. Among

32 AN APOLOGY FOR

the first mosque was built, a structure of the simplest and
most unpretending character; Mohammed worked at it
with his own hands. Now, likewise, was introduced the
custom of summoning the faithful to prayers by muezin
(criers), who, ascending one of the minarets cried aloud
with stentorian voice, " God is great ; there is no God but
one, and Mohammed is his prophet. Come to prayers !
God is great, and the only one !"* Mohammed may now
be regarded as uniting in his own person the of&ces of
monarch, general, judge, and priest ; his Divine inspiration
was generally acknowledged, nor ever was there devoted-
ness equal to that received by him from his followers ; so
great, indeed, was the reverence paid him, that whatever
had touched his person was deemed sacred. But, although
possessed of more than imperial power, nothing could
exceed the prophet's simple style of living; thus we are
told by Ayesha, that he swept out his own chamber, lit his
own fire, and mended his own clothes ; that his food con-
sisted of dates and barley bread, with milk and honey,
which were supplied to him by the charity of the faithful.-j-
But while thus engaged in spiritual matters, the prophet's
attention was not the less directed to secular ones. Having
received intelligence that a rich caravan of a thousand camels,
and under the command of Abu Sophian, was coming from
Syria, and for whose protection the Meccans had sent an
escort of 950 chosen men, Mohammed resolved to attack it,
although he could muster only 313 soldiers, sixty camels,
and two horses. He took post near the well of Bedr, on

the Jews it was towards the temple of Jerusalem ; the Mohammedans
towards the Kaaba of Mecca ; the Sabians towards the meridian ; and
the Magians towards the rising sun.

* Mohammed instituted this custom, as he considered that of sum-
moning believers to prayer by means of the sound of drums and trumpets,
or by that of the ringing of bells, as among the Christians, unsuitable
to the solemnity of the occasion.

t " God," says Al Bokhari, " offered him the treasures of the earth,
but he would not accept them."

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 33

the Mecca road, not far from the Ked Sea, and had scarcely
drawn up his troops in order of battle when the advanced
colunm of the Meccans appeared over the rising sands in
front, but their greatly superior numbers were concealed by
the fall of the ground behind. Mohammed was perfectly
alive to his critical situation, and well knowing, as he did,
that the very fate of Islam hung upon the issue, he lifted up
his hands to Heaven, and poured forth these earnest prayers :
— " 0 Lord, I beseech thee, forget not thy promise both of
aid and of victory ! 0 Lord, should this little band be dis-
comfited, idolatry will prevail, and the pure and true worship
of Thee cease throughout the earth !" And now began the
deadly contest, in the midst of w^hich the prophet, with fire-
flashing eyes and loud voice, declared the gates of paradise
open to all who should die in the sacred cause of God. " The
angels," shouted he, " are on our side. I see them ad-
vancing towards us ! Hark ! I hear the angel Gabriel call-
ing his charger Hissoum ! it is the sword of God which
smiteth !" Then, stooping down and taking up a handful
of sand, he cast it towards the Meccans, exclaiming, " Let
their faces be confounded !" The enthusiastic fury of the
Moslems proved irresistible, and Mohammed returned vic-
torious to Medina, where the immense spoil he had taken
was equally divided among his faithful followers. The battle
of Bedr is frequently mentioned in the Koran, and it is to
the prestige it gave Mohammed that he was largely indebted
for his subsequent success.

The next year, a.d. 624, the fierce resentment of Abu
Sophian and of the Koreish brought into the field, against
Mohammed, a body of 3000 men headed by Abu Sophian,
who advanced to within six miles of Medina, where he en-
countered the Prophet at the head of 950 followers on Mount
Ahed.* The Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent,

* Ahed signifies o)ie ; this name being givon t<i tlie mountain on account
of its standing isolated in the plain.

34 AN APOLOGY FOR

the right wing of the cavalry being led by Kaled, the fiercest
and most redoubtable of the Arab warriors. Mohammed
had made his dispositions with considerable skill ; his troops
were successful at first and broke the enemy's centre ; but
their eagerness for spoil threw their ranks into disorder,
and Kaled immediately attacked them in the flank and rear.
Mohammed was wounded in the face with a javelin, and two
of his teeth were shattered by a stone. Kaled exclaimed
with a loud voice that the lying prophet was slain, upon
which, without stopping to ascertain the truth, the followers
of Islam fled panic-stricken, while a few of the most devoted
adherents of the prophet gathered round him and conveyed
him to a place of safety. In order to reward the heroism
displayed by his cousin Ali in this fierce and disastrous
engagement, Mohammed gave him, in marriage, his beloved
daughter Fatima, a maiden of such rare beauty and virtue
that the Arabs included her in the number of the four holy
women — Pharaoh's wife, the Virgin Mary, Khadijah and
herself.

The year after this marriage, Mohammed instituted the
feast of Eamadan. * -f- About this time several Arab
tribes, pretending to have been converted to Islam, desired
Mohammed to send them two of his disciples for the pur-
pose of instructing them in the doctrines of his religion,
but the missionaries had so sooner arrived than they were
treacherously and cruelly murdered. The Jews, likewise,

* See page 15, note*.

t The punishment assigned by Mohammed for the violation of this fast
is particularly lenient and reasonable : " And those who can keep it (the
fast), and do not, must redeem their neglect by the maintenance of one
poor man" ('Koran,' chap, ii.) Under the Christian Emperor Charle-
magne, on the contrary, and even so late as the 17th century, the breaking
of the Christian fast was punished with death by decapitation, as appears
from a sentence passed by the Chief Judge of the Saint Claude Jurisdic-
tion, upon one Claude Guillon, convicted of having eaten, on the 1st April,
1629, some pieces of a horse which had been killed and left in a meadow ;
a sentence that was duly executed on the 28th of the following July. On
which side, it may be asked, were humanity and civilization ?

MOHAMMED AND THE KOUAN, 35

opposed the nascent religion in every way; plots for the
Prophet's assassination were continually being concocted,
but were all defeated by his imperturbable coolness and
incessant vigilance. So great was now Mohammed's in-
fluence that he succeeded in abolishing the use of wine,
causing the juice of the grape to be held in abhorrence by
all true Mussulmans. This moral ascendency was indis-
pensably necessary in order to save Islam from succumbing
under the assaults of the numerous and bitter enemies by
which it was surrounded. In fact the Koreish had now
united themselves with the Jews ; many Arabian tribes
also arrived from their deserts, and all these forces making
common cause together, advanced against Medina, where
Islam awaited them with no other support than the deter-
mined will of a man of genuis, an inextinguishable enthu-
siasm, and an invincible constancy and devotedness. All
the efforts of the besiegers failed. After every sortie
Mohammed re-entered Medina triumphant, and the siege
being at length raised, Mohammed directed his army against
the tribe of the Coraids, and, in a pitched battle, defeated
them utterly.

It is necessary to notice here, with a view to refutation,
a malicious charge brought, about this time, against Mo-
hammed, by his enemies — that of having committed incest
by marrying the divorced wife of his adopted son. The
real facts are these : long before the promulgation of Islam,
it was a custom among the Arabs that if any person hap-
pened to call his wife, mother, he could no longer continue
to cohabit with her ; or should he call any youth, son, the
latter would thenceforth be entitled to all the rights of a
real one. Now, both these customs having been abolished
by the Koran, a man might therefore still continue to live
with his wife, even after he had called her mother, or
could marry the wife of his adopted son upon her being
divorced. Mohammed having a great esteem for a maiden

D 3

36 AN APOLOGY FOR

named Zainab, proposed her marriage with Zeid, a youth
for whom also he had a like esteem. The marriage not
proving a happy one, Zeid determined upon a divorce, not-
withstanding all the remonstrances of Mohammed. The
latter, conscious that he himself was to blame in having
originally recommended the marriage, and moved by the
tears and distress of Zainab, resolved to make her the only
reparation in his power, that of marrying her himself after
her divorce from Zeid. It was with difficulty he determined
upon this step, being apprehensive that such of his country-
men who still retained the custom above mentioned would
accuse him of incest, but a strong sense of duty overcame
these objections, and Zainab became the wife of the
Prophet.

At the close of a successful expedition against the tribes,
Ayesha, so dearly beloved of the Prophet, was accused of
having been guilty of adultery with a young officer by
name Sawa, but her artless and unreserved explanation,
aided by the irresistible eloquence of tears and beauty,
sufficed to convince Mohammed of her innocence, and her
accusers were punished by receiving, severally, eighty
stripes.

The Jews dwelling in the neighbourhood of Mula Medina
having been attacked and severely treated by Mohammed,
applied to the Meccans for aid, and having received a
strong auxiliary force, marched against Medina. Moham-
med, whom the defeat at Ahed had rendered cautious,
having, by the advice of a Persian convert, dug a moat
round the city for its defence, allowed the enemy to pillage
the open country, after which they proceeded to lay siege
to the city, but being repulsed in several attempts to storm
it, and dissensions also arising among them, they broke up
their encampment and returned home. This war, called
" the war of the Moat" took place a.d. 625-26, being the
fourth year of the Hegira. Mohammed now assumed the

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 37

offensive, seizing tlie fortresses of Nacon and Elocoab, and
after a fierce and obstinate resistance, that of Khaibar,
which last town he entered little aware of tlie danger there
awaiting him, and which was as follows : — A young Jewess
who had lost her father, her husband, her brother and other
relatives in the late battles, impelled by a spirit of revenge,
determined to destroy IMoliammed as the enemy of her race
and family. Having, therefore, dressed a kid, and steeped
it in a deadly poison, she placed it, with fair words, before
the Prophet at the hour of liis evening repast. Scarcely
had he swallowed the first mouthful, than he cried out,
" Hold ; surely this kid has been poisoned !" Bisr, one of
his officers, who had eaten more than Mohammed, at once
turned pale, moving neither hand nor foot, until he died.
Mohammed, who was also seized with excruciating pains,
immediately caused himself, and all those who like himself
had partaken of the dish, to be freely cupped l>etween the
shoulders. The young Jewess being summoned and inter-
rogated, boldly replied : " Thou, Mohammed, slewedst my
father, husband and brother, therefore, I said to myself, ' if
he be a real prophet, he will be aware that the kid is poi-
soned, but if he be a mere pretender, then shall we be rid of
him and the Jews will once more prosper!'" She was
instantly put to death. The Prophet was ill for a long
time after, and as he never completely recovered from the
effects of the poison, it is by no means surprising that the
vengeance he took upon the Jews was so terrible that many
of their towns, struck with fear, submitted, uncondition-
ally, the Prophet's power being thereby still more firmly
established. Allies, also, from all quarters, offered them-
selves, their conversion having, in many cases, been effected
by the profound impression which the reading of the Koran
produced upon their minds.

To visit that ancient and hallowed Kaaba, to which, when
reciting his daily prayers, ho turned his rcven'iiliid gaze.

38 AN APOLOGY FOR

had long been the pious and devout wish of every true
Mussulman, a desire which Mohammed encouraged to the
utmost, impelled as he himself was by the hope of con-
quering and converting Mecca, and of entering as a
victorious monarch a city where he had formerly been
subjected to so many insults and exposed to such great
dangers. He therefore lost no time in placing himself
at the head of all the faithful for the purpose of
undertaking what he called a peaceful pilgrimage to the
Kaaba, and, although he met with opposition at almost
every step, nevertheless, he and his thousand followers
advanced victoriously towards the city. Islam, moreover,
had already within the walls its secret partisans, and the
terror inspired by the very name of Mohammed, added to
the marvels said to have accompanied his mission, all con-
tributed to induce the Koreish to be the first to propose
terms of accommodation, which ended in a treaty between
themselves and the Mohammedans, the conditions of the
treaty being : —

1. A truce of three years shall be faithfully observed,
and kept between the contracting parties.

2. The Arab tribes shall be at liberty to take part either
with Mohammed or with the Meccans.

3. Mohammed and his followers shall quit the sacred
territory within the present year.

4. The Mohammedans may, during this year, visit the
holy places known as the Eleeda.

5. The Mohammedans shall enter Mecca with no other
arms than their sheathed swords.

6. They shall sojourn therein three days, and shall not
compel any citizen to quit it against his will.

The above treaty was the greatest success hitherto
achieved by Mohammed, for although the Prophet himself
might return to Medina after having duly performed the
ceremonies enjoined by the Koran, Islamism still remained

MOHAMMED AND THE KOKAN. 39

firmly established there, and the power of eacli of the 360
idols* was sapped to its very foundation as soon as the
Prophet, standing erect beside the Black Stone, in the
Kaaba, proclaimed aloud the name of the true God.

* The ancient year of the Arabians contained 360 clays, each of which
had its idol. These idols represented men, eagles, lions and antelopes,
among which stood conspicuous the most popular of them, the statue of
Hobal, fashioned of red agate by a Syrian artist, and holding in his hand
seven arrows without heads or feathers, the instruments and symbols of
profane divination.

40 AN apolo(;y foi;

CHAPTER III.

Embassies from princes to the Prophet — King of Abyssinia's letter — The
Prophet's seal — Letter to the King of Persia, who insults the Prophet
■ — Mohammed's denunciation of him — Expedition against Besra —
Merciful injunctions of the Prophet — Heroic deaths of Zeid, Jauffer
and Abdoollah — Khaled the " Sword of God " — The Koreish violate
the treaty — Exj^edition against Mecca — The city surrenders at dis-
cretion—Idols demolished by Mohammed's own hand — His clemency
to the conquered — Restitution of spoil— Proposal of Moseilama
Prince of Yemen — The Prophet's indignant reply — Idolatry extir-
pated throughout Arabia — Successful expedition against Syria —
Death of the Prophet's only son — Eclipse of the sun — Mohammed
rebukes the superstition of his followers — Particulars of Mohammed's
death — Story respecting his coffin refuted — The number of the Beast,
666, applied to Mohammed — Thos. Carlyle's view of Mohammed's
character — Tlie vastness of the Empire founded by him, and rapid
progress of his religion — Christian relics replaced by Mohammedan
ones — Omar in the Church of St. Sophia.

In the ninth year of the Hegira embassies arrived at Mecca
and Medina from all parts to tender the submission of various
princes to the Prophet. The king of Abyssinia, to whom
Mohammed had despatched a special messenger, re]3lied,
" Peace be to God, the Holy King, the faithful, true,
powerful and mighty Saviour ! I attest that there is but
one God, and that Mohammed is his prophet. The Apostle
of God hath written to me to ask, in marriage, my
daughter, Omome Hababa. I joyfully fulfil his wish, and
give, as her dower, 4,000 gold crowns."

About this time, also, Mohammed had a seal made, bear-
ing this inscription, " Mohammed, the Apostle of God."
This was to be used in sealing the letters written by him to
divers princes, inviting them to embrace Islam. His first
letter to this effect was sent to Badham, Viceroy of Yemen,

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 41

to be forwarded to Khosroes, King of Persia. Khosroes tore
the letter in pieces, ordering Badhani either to restore the
Proi)het to his right mind, or to send him his head. As
soon as this insult was made known to the Prophet, he
exclaimed, " Thus shall Allah tear asunder the kinodom of
Khosroes, and reject his supplications." Khosroes was soon
after murdered by his son Sirses. Badham, with his people,
became Mussulmans, and INIohammed continued him in his
government. Herodius, the Roman Emperor, who, as Arab
historians assure us, received an epistle adtlressed to him
by Mohammed, with the utmost respect, placing it under
his pillow, despatched an embassy to the Prophet, with rich
presents. Two other sovereigns, Hawansa and Elmonda,
had come, of their own accord, to visit Mohammed, and
embrace Islam at his feet. Such success is easily ac-
counted for by the fact that in Mohammed was to be found
united, not only great elevation of character and a mighty
power of the sword, but also a rich persuasive eloquence, so
that words falling from his lips having all the force of
inspiration, made the deepest impression upon the imagina-
tion of the Arabs, and being repeated from mouth to mouth,
reached the remotest parts. The Booh, also, which Mo-
hammed offered to them and to the whole Eastern world,
was full of magnificent promises ; a book, moreover, which
exacted little but rewarded much, and whence emanated an
irresistible authority attracting everything to itself.

While establishing a sovereignty at Mecca and Medina
the Prophet had endeavoured to extend the revolution to
the people and princes of the adjacent countries ; but the
messenger to the Governor of Bossa, near Damascus, was
taken prisoner and murdered by Sherheil, an emir of a
Christian and Arabian tribe, tributary to Heraclius, the
Greek emperor. The injury was trifling, but the insult w^as
great. Tlirce thousand men were immediately equipped ;
the Prophet exhorted them to display their courage in the

42 AN APOLOGY FOR

cause of the Most High, and painted to them, in glowing
colours, the joys of an earthly and heavenly paradise, the
reward of such Moslems who were victorious or were slain.
At the same time, however, he enjoined them to collect
their booty not from the tears of the provincials, but from
the public treasuries of the conquered state : " In avenging
my injuries," said he, " molest not the harmless votaries of
domestic seclusion ; spare the weakness of the softer sex,
the infant at the breast, and those who, in the course of
nature, are hastening from this scene of mortality. Abstain
from demolishing the dwellings of the unresisting inhabi-
tants, and destroy not the means of subsistence; respect
their fruit trees, nor injure the palm, so useful to Syria for
its shade and so delightful for its verdure."*

The Greeks being vastly superior in number (for, in-
cluding the auxiliary Arabs, they had an army of about a
hundred thousand men), the Moslems were repulsed in the
first attack, and lost successively three of their generals, Zeid,
Jauffer and AbdooUah, appointed by Mohammed to replace
each other in case of loss. Zeid fell like a soldier in the
foremost ranks. The death of Jauffer was heroic and
memorable ; his right hand being severed from the arm, he
shifted the standard to his left, and upon losing this his
remaining hand, he embraced the sacred banner with his
bleeding stumps until transfixed with fifty honourable
wounds. Abdoollah, filling up the vacant place, cried aloud,
" Forward ; and victory or Paradise is our own !" A Greek
lance determined the alternative, but the falling standard
was seized by Khaled, a new proselyte ; nine swords were
broken in his hand, and his valour withstood and repulsed
the almost overwhelming forces of the Christians. Victory
at length declared itself for the Moslems, and Khaled
whose skill and intrepidity had so greatly contributed to

* " Revere," says the Koran, " your aunt, the palm tree ; for it if
made of the remainder of the clay of which Adam was formed."

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 43

insure it had, as a reward, the honourable title of " The
sword of God," conferred upon him by Mohammed.

The Koreish had broken the treaty entered into, as above
narrated, by affording aid to the enemies of Mohammed,
and it therefore became necessary to reduce them to subjec-
tion. After making the requisite preparations, Mohammed
left Medina at the head of ten thousand men ; but the suc-
cess of the expedition was nearly compromised by private
treachery. Sarah, a female servant, had been sent by her
master, Haleb, to convey a letter to the Meccans, in which
he informed them of the danger that threatened them, but
Ali having learnt the circumstance just in time, mounting
his horse, pursued and overtook the messenger. She
stoutly denied having any letter about her, nor, upon
searching her, was it to be found. Ali, enraged at being
thus baffled, drew his scimitar, and was brandishing it over
the girl's head, when, trembling with terror, she loosened
her long tresses, from which fell a letter containing these
words : — " Haleb, son of Batten, to the Meccans — ^liealth !
The apostle of God is preparing to attack you ! To
arms !"

Such was the celerity of Mohammed's movements that he
was at the gates of Mecca before the Koreish had any idea
of his approach. The city surrendered at discretion, and
Mohammed, clad in a scarlet robe and mounted on his
favourite camel, Al Kaswa, entered it in triumph. Abu
Sophian being brought before him, purchased life upon the
condition of embracing Islam. Mohammed next proceeded
to demolish, with his own hand, the idols in the temple,
and having ridden seven times round the Kaaba, promul-
gated the sacred formula, " There is but one God, and
Mohammed is his prophet!" He then went to quench his
thirst at the well of Zamzam, the same which the
angel had shown to Hagar in the wilderness, after which
he read to the assembled people the 48th chapter of the

44 AN APOLOGY FOR

Koran.* Then, when he heard the Muezin for the first
time call the people to prayers, when the fragments of the
broken idols had been removed, and all the multitude
pressed around him, " What," said he, " do you ask of me ?"
" That you treat us as a father," replied a thousand sup-
pliant voices. " Go," was the answer, " go ; and may the
blessing of Allah rest upon you !"

In the meantime the Havazen and Koreish tribes com-
manded by Abalak, being deeply incensed at seeing their
sacred idols demolished, took up arms and appeared in
battle array in the valley of Honain, about three miles from
Mecca. Twelve thousand men, including two thousand
Meccans, recently converted, promised themselves an easy
victory over those tribes so inferior in numbers ; but, being
unexpectedly assailed with a storm of darts, the Mussulman
army, terrified by so sudden an attack, was about to make
a disgraceful retreat. Under such circumstances something
more was necessary than to invoke the name of Allah, or
call for angelic aid. The active arm, as well as the directing
head was required. Mohammed, therefore, rushed into the
thickest of the fight, and by his personal intrepidity and
valour arrested the flight of his troops, and ultimately de-
feated his foe. After a long and vigorous pursuit, the
Havazens tendered their submission, and Abalak set the
example to his people of embracing the new faith. Six
thousand prisoners, twenty-four thousand horses, four thou-
sand mouhars, and the like number of ounces of silver, fell
into the victor's hands. The division of this rich spoil was

* " Verily, We (God) have won for thee (Mohammed) a manifest
Victory —

" In token that God forgiveth thy earlier and later sins, and fulftlleth
His goodness to thee, and guideth thee on the right way,

" And that God succoureth thee with a mighty succour.

" He it is who sendeth down a spirit of secure repose into the hearts
of the faithful that they might add faith to their faith (for God's are the
armies of the heavens and of the earth) ; and God is knowing and
wise," etc., etc.

MOHAMMED AND TIIR KORAN. 45

about to be made when deputies arrived, who, with tears
and lamentations, besought Moliammed not to ruin so many
families ; upon which the Prophet, assembling his sol-
diers, addressed to them these few and simple words : —
" Mussulmans, your brethren have come to you led by
repentance ! They have besought me to give freedom to
their fathers, mothers and children, and restore to them
their property and effects. I could not resist their prayer.
Your approval will afford me heart-felt satisfaction ; but,
should any one think himself injured thereby, let him speak,
and I will promise to indemnify him at the next battle,
when Allah shall vouchsafe unto us still richer spoils." Not
a murmur was heard when Mohammed finished his appeal ;
everything taken was restored, all the captives were set at
liberty, and the spirit of religion and justice replaced that
of violence and rapine.

Among the Arab princes who now came in crowds to
make profession of Islam was Moseilama, Prince of Yemen.
This personage, who was nothing better than an ambitious
hypocrite, on returning to his dominions, was tempted by
Mohammed's success, and forgetting that genius and con-
viction were essential for enacting the part of prophet,
apostatized and wrote thus to Mohammed : — Moseilama,
the Apostle of God, to Mohammed, the Apostle of God !
Let one half of the world be mine, and the other half thine."

Mohammed answered thus : — " Mohammed, the Apostle
of God, to Moseilama, the liar. The earth belongeth to
God, who giveth the inheritance thereof to whom it pleaseth
him."

In the tenth year of the Hegira, Ali was sent into Yemen,
there to propagate the faith of Islam, and it is said that the
whole tribe of Hemden were converted in one day, an
example quickly followed by all the inhabitants of that
province, with the exception only of those of Nejram, who
being Christians, preferred paying trilmte.

46 AN APOLOGY FOR

Thus was Islam established and idolatry rooted out, in
Mohammed's lifetime (for he died the very next year),
throughout Arabia ; nor was this success attributable to his
warlike genius alone, but also to his being a reformer as
well as a conqueror, to the religion which he promulgated
being that of the patriarchs of old, and, lastly, to his system
of morality, which, however it may appear to modern Chris-
tians, was purity itself when compared with the contem-
porary practice of Arabia. Add to this, that his law
which prohibited retaliation, without the previous sanction
of a trial and a judicial sentence, was a bold and laudable
attempt to bridle the vindictive passions of his countrymen,
so long fostered by the practice of private war, and for that
very reason materially conduced to the same end.

The conversion of the Arabs, therefore, was probably as
sincere as it was general ; and their religious spirit being
now thoroughly aroused, every feeling of their enthusiastic
nature was turned into one channel : to conquer in the
cause of God, or to die in asserting his unity and greatness,
was the ardent and ever-present wish of every Mussulman ;
the love of power or of spoil, the thirst for glory, and even
the hopes of Paradise, only contributed to swell the tide of
this absorbing passion.

The whole of Arabia being, as above said, purified from
idolatry and acknowledging Mohammed's formula — " There
is but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet " — this
religious conqueror turned his anxious thoughts to the
subjugation of Syria, with the view of wresting that country
from the Greeks and establishing Islam therein ; a project
which he publicly announced in the year a.d. 639. No time
was to be lost in executing his intention. A long cam-
paign was to be commenced when the fruits were ripening,
the harvests were ready, and when the sun heated still more
intensely the burning sands of Arabia. It was now that a
more implicit obedience than ever was paid to a will the

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 47

more powerful because believed to have come from God.
Twenty thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry, all well
armed and appointed, set forth under the command of
Mohammed, from the peaceful walls of the city of Medina.
But the obstacles and dangers of the march surpassed even
the most sinister forebodings. After hitherto unheard of
sufferings and privations, the expedition at length reached
Syria, where scarcely any opposition was encountered,
for, after a few skirmishes, all the petty princes among
whom that country was then divided, came into the Mussul-
man camp and prostrated themselves at the feet of the
Prophet, the fame of whose exploits sufficed to vanquish
them. Mohammed imposed tribute and exacted ransoms,
but in every instance respected the religious belief of the
conquered, always, it is true^ recommending his religion,
but never enforcing its adoption by law ; thus carrying into
execution what he had written in the Koran, " Say unto
the blind (in spirit), 'Embrace Islam, and you shall be
enlightened.' " " If they are rebels, you are only charged
with preaching unto them ; God knoweth how to distinguish
his servants !"*

Mohammed's success in this instance principally arose
from the clemency and moderation he showed to the Chris-
tians, from whom he claimed only a moderate tribute. Thus,
when he returned to Medina, he left in the country he had
subjected every heart astonished at the clemency of his
religion.

About this period of Mohammed's history, an event
occurred which, in the opinion of every candid and im-
partial mind, exonerates him from aU the imputations of
imposture with which he has been assailed. His only son,
Ibrahim, whom he had by Mariyeh, a Coptic slave-girl,
when he was sixty-one years of age, had just died when
seventeen years old. It was, indeed, an agonizing loss for
* See chapters ii., xlv., ami l.xxxviii.

48 AN. APOLOGY FOR

the father thus to see extinguished in him the only one
who could transmit to posterity so illustrious a name. An
eclipse of the sun occurring precisely at the very hour of
the youth's decease, the common people saw in this prodigy
a sure token that the heavens themselves shared the general
grief ; but so far from encouraging this superstitious feeling
on the part of his ignorant followers — so far from listening
to the voice of flattery — Mohammed called the people
together, and said to them : " Fellow citizens, the sun and
the stars are the works of God's hands, but they are neither
eclipsed nor effaced to announce the birth or the death of
mortals."* From this time Mohammed was chiefly occupied
in receiving the homage of all w^ho came to Medina to
reverence the Koran, and in enacting the laws and estab-
lishing the institutions of that einpire which was destined
to extend itself over one half, and that, the fairest portion,
of the globe. Wishing, by a striking example, to impress
upon the minds of the people a due regard and respect for
the external rites of his religion, he caused it to be every-
where announced that he intended performing a pilgrimage
to Mecca, and, as if he had had some presentiment that it
would be his last one, the Prophet was careful to make it
the most splendid ceremonial that had ever been witnessed
in that city. A brief outline of the forms he observed upon
this occasion is here given, they being the rules by which
pilgrims to Mecca are guided even in the present day.
Having performed the prescribed ablutions and shaved his
head, Mohammed proceeded to the Temple, kissed the Black
Stone, made seven times the circuit of the Kaaba ; then
leaving the city, he walked with slow and solemn steps to
the hill of Sufa, and turning himself in the direction of the

* This privation of male issue was a never-ceasing source of regret,
humiliation, and mortification to Mohammed ; inasmuch as those who
were envious of his success gave him the nickname of Abdar (one whose
tail ha.s been cut off) — that is to say, childless.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 49

Kaaba, exclaimed with a loud voice, " God is great ; there
is no God but God ! He hath no companions ; to Him
alone belong might, majesty and power ! Praised be His
holy name ! There is no God but God !" — Leaving Sufa, he
repeated the same formula at Merva and the other sacred
stations : lastly, he sacrificed sixty-three camels, one for
each year of his life and liberated the like number of
slaves.

Mohannned now returned to Medina, where death awaited
him, in the midst of all the mighty projects still meditated
by that inexhaustible genius. Shortly after his arrival he
was attacked by a bilious fever, and believing that it would
prove dangerous, if not fatal, he was desirous of being sur-
rounded by those whom he ^ most dearly loved. He chose as
his dying place the apartments of his favourite wife, Ayesha.
His agony was long and painful, and, during the paroxysms,
he often cried out : " It is the Jewish poison that is killing
me ; I feel every vein in my heart cracking !" He retained,
notwithstanding, the full possession of his faculties, so much
so, indeed, that he arranged all the details of another expe-
dition into Syria, blessed the standard of Islam, and en-
trusted it to the zeal, fidelity and valour of Omar, who was
to command the troops. Till the third day before his death,
he regularly performed the ceremonies of public worship ;
but when he was so ill as to enter the mosque resting on
the shoulders of his servants, his feet dragging after him,
he ordered his ancient and faithful friend Abu-Bekr to read
the service. On the last time of his attendance, and on the
conclusion of the prayers, he edified all present by the hu-
mility and sincerity of his penitence, in thus addressing
them : — " Men and brethren, if I have caused any one of
you to be unjustly scourged, I here submit my own shoulders
to the lash of retaliation. Have I aspersed the good name of
any Mussulman ? let him proclaim my faults before this con-
gregation ! Has any one been despoiled of his goods ? the

E

50 AN APOLOGY FOR

little that I have shall discharge the debt, both principal
and interest !" One present claiming an old debt of three
drachmas, Mohammed immediately caused him to be paid,
saying, "I would rather blush in this world than in that
which is to come!" His daughter Fatima came frequently
to sit by his dying bed : " Daughter," said he to her,
" wherefore weepest thou ? art thou not satisfied with being,
both on earth and in heaven, the chiefest amongst women ?"
He then gave liberty to his slaves. To his other relatives,
who, bathed in tears, surrounded his couch, he said, " I
shall now instruct you what you are to do after my decease.
Having washed my corpse, wrapped it in the shroud, and
laid it in the coffin, you will rest it on the edge of the grave,
whicli must be dug beneath the spot where I now am ;
these duties fulfilled, you will then depart." After a pause,
he continued : " The first who will come to pray for me will
be my faithful friend Gabriel, followed by Asraphael and
Michael, and after them, the Angel of Death accompanied
by his legions. Upon their departure you may enter, in
groups, to pray for me and implore for me the peace of
heaven. My family must put on mourning, thus setting an
example to be followed by all the faithful. My most earnest
wish and desire are that no wailings or lamentations disturb
my repose." Mohammed now became, for a few moments,
unconscious, but having recovered, said, "I will dictate a
book which shall prevent your ever backsliding into error;"
on which, Omar holding up the Koran, immediately exclaimed,
" The book is written !" After this all quitted the room,
his beloved Ayesha only excepted. On the day of his
decease he bathed his hands in water, crying out, " 0 God !
fortify my soul against the terrors of death !" Soon after
he became faint. " The moment of his agony," says
Ayesha, "was come. I was seated by his side, his head
reclining on my lap. Suddenly opening his eyes, he raised
them towards the roof of the house, and with a steadfast

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 51

look, but faltering voice, uttered these last broken, although
articulate words, ' 0 God, pardon my sins ! Ah, my
companion (Gabriel), I attend thee to the realms above,'
and he then peacefully expired on a carpet spread on the
floor."

Mohammed died on the 13th Raby, the first day of the
eleventh year of the Hegira, and answering to the 8th of
June, 632 a.d., at the age of sixty-three, during the last
twenty-seven of which he had assumed the character of a
prophet. He was buried at Medina, not at Mecca ; his coffin
is not suspended in the air by the attraction of loadstones
of equal power, as has been so ridiculously asserted,* but
is deposited in the ground, to the right of those of Abu-Bekr
and Omar.-|-

Mohammed's death produced a general consternation ; the
question was everywhere asked, " Can the religion survive
him, seeing that the living letter is dead ?" Omar replied,
that the Prophet could not perish. " As in the cases of
Moses and Jesus Christ," said he, " his soul has disappeared
for an instant, but it will return into the midst of the faith-
ful." It required all the authority of Abu-Bekr to combat
the opinion, which Omar was ready to maintain at the sword's
point. " Is it of Mohammed or of God that you speak, 0
Omar ? The God of Mohammed is immortal ; but Moham-
med was a man like unto one of us, and perished as we
ourselves shall." Abu-Bekr had still some difficulty in
allaying the tumult, but at length succeeded by reading

* The idea was, no doubt, taken from Pliny the Elder, who states
(' Hist. Natur.,' lib. xxxiv. 42) that Dinocrates, the Greek architect, who
rebuilt the famous temple of Ephesus, which had been destroyed by
Erostrates, had begun to roof the temple of Arsinoe, at Alexandria, with
loadstones, in order that the image of that queen, which was made of
iron, might appear to hang in the air.

t The Mohammedans believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth
at the end of the world ; that he will slay the Anti-Christ, die, and be
raised again. A vacant place is reserved for Christ's body in Moham-
med's tomb at Medina. (See Lieut. Burton's * Pilgrimage,' vol. ii.)

e2

52 AN APOLOGY FOR

those passages of the Koran wherein the prophet himself
asserted his mortality.

The fonr immediate successors of Mohammed w^ere Abu-
Bekr, Omar, Othman and Ali, who all reigned under the title
of Caliph.*

It may here be remarked that the sword which had been
so irresistible in the hand of Mohammed was never sheathed
by his successors till it had established a vast empire, com-
prising extensive portions of Asia, Africa, and Europe,
Under the banners of Omar, Khaled, and other chief captains
of Mohammed, victory followed victory. Persia, Palestine,
Syria, and Egypt submitted in rapid succession to their
Saracenic invaders. In twelve years they reduced to obe-
dience thirty-six thousand cities, towns or castles ; destroyed
four thousand temples or churches ; and built fourteen hun-
dred mosques dedicated to the religion of their foimder;
nor did they stay their progress until they had subjugated
the Moors, and brought all Africa, from Alexandria tO'
Tangiers, together with the greatest part of Spain, under
their lordly sway.

On the graces and intellectual gifts of nature to the son
of Abdoollah, the Arabian writers dwell with the proudest
and fondest satisfaction. His politeness to the great, his
affability to the humble, and his dignified bearing to the
presumptuous, procured him respect, admiration and ap-
plause. His talents were equally fitted for persuasion or
command. Deeply read in the volume of nature, though
entirely ignorant of letters, his mind could expand into con-
troversy witli the acutest of his enemies, or contract itself
to the apprehension of the meanest of his disciples. His
simple eloquence, rendered impressive by the expression of
a countenance wherein awfulness of majesty was tempered

* Our biographical nienioir naturally and properly terminating with
the Prophet's" death, the reader is referred to the controversial writers,
for an account of the disputes between the Soonites and the Sheahs
lespiH-ting the succession to the Calipliate.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 53

by an amiable sweetness, excited emotions of veneration
and love ; and he was gifted with that authoritative air of
genius which alike influences the learned and commands
the illiterate. As a friend and a parent, he exhibited the
softest feelings of our nature;* but, while in possession of
the kind and generous emotions of the heart, and engaged in
the discharge of most of the social and domestic duties, he
disgraced not his assumed title of an apostle of God. Witli
all that simplicity which is so natural to a great mind, he
performed the humbler offices whose homeliness it would be
idle to conceal with pompous diction ; even while Lord of
Arabia, he mended his own shoes and coarse woollen gar-
ments, milked the ewes, swept the hearth, and kindled the
fire. Dates and water were his usual fare, and milk and
honey his luxuries. When he travelled he divided his
morsel with his servant. Tlie sincerity of his exhortations
to benevolence were justified at his death by the exhausted
state of his coffers, f

The view taken by Thomas Carlyle of this hero-prophet
is too original, just and striking to be here omitted : — " The
deep-hearted son of the wilderness," writes he, "with his
beaming black eyes, and open, social, deep soul, had other
thoughts in him than ambition. A silent, great soul ; he
was one of those who cannot but be in earnest ; whom

* Upon the death of Zeid, who was killed at the battle of Mutah, one
of Mohammed's disciples surprised him weeping in his chamljer with the
daughter of that faithful servant and friend. " What do I see ?" ex-
claimed the intruder, astonished that the wefikness of humanity should
dwell in the breast of an apostle from heaven. " You see," replied the
Prophet, "one who is deploring the loss of a beloved and devoted
friend." Mohammed's affection for Fatima, his daughter by Khadijuh,
was of unbounded tenderness, and when he followed his other children
to an untimely grave, he wept in all the agony that can rend the fond
heart of a parent.

t The more insight is obtained from undoubted historical sources as
to the real character of Moh;mimed, the less reason will there be found
to justify the strong and vituperative language poured upon his head by
Maracci, Prideaux, and more recently by Frederick Schlegel and others,

54 AN APOLOGY FOR

Nature herself has appointed to be sincere. While others
walk in formulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell
therein, this man could not screen himself in formulas : he
was alone with his own soul and the reality of things. The
great mystery of existence glared in upon him, with its
terrors, with its splendours ; no hearsays could hide that
unspeakable fact, ' Here am I !' Such sincerity as we named,
it has, in truth, something of divine. The word of such a
man is a voice direct from Nature's own heart. Men do and
must listen to that, or to nothing else ; all else is wind in
comparison. From of old, a thousand thoughts in his pil-
grimages and wanderings had been in this man. ' What am
I ? What is this unfathomable Thing I live in, which
men name Universe ? What is Life ? What is Death ?
What am I to believe ? What am I to do ? ' The grim
rocks of Mount Hara, of Mount Sinai, the stern sandy soli-
tudes answered not. The great heaven rolling sOently
overhead with its blue glancing stars, answered not. There
was no answer. The man's own soul, and what of God's
inspiration dwelt there, had to answer !"*

Mohammed, a private man, made himself to be looked
upon as a prophet by his own family. Mohammed, a simple
Arab, united the distracted, scanty, naked and hungry
tribes of his country into one compact and obedient body,
and presented them with new attributes and a new character
among the people of the earth. In less than thirty years

one of whom has even pretended to find in the Byzantine Maomeths the
number of the Beast (Rev. xii.) thus : —

M 40

A 1

O 70

M 40

E 5

T 300

H 10

S 200

Number of the Beast, 666
* Carlyle's Works, vol. vi. p. 225.

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 55

this system defeated the Emperor of Constantinople, over-
threw the Kings of Persia; subdued Syria, Mesopotamia,
Egypt ; and extended its conquests from the Atlantic to the
Caspian Ocean, and to the Oxus ; from which limits, during
twelve centuries, its political sway has never, with the ex-
ception of Spain only, receded ; while the faith has continued
to extend, and is, at this hour, extending in Northern Asia,
in Central Africa, and on the Caspian.

Such was Mohammed, the hero-prophet, whose enthusiasm
and genius founded a religion which was to reduce the fol-
lowers of Zoroaster to a few scattered communities, to invade
India, to overpower the ancient Brahmanism, as well as the
more wide-spread Buddhism even beyond the Ganges; to
wrest her most ancient and venerable provinces from
Christianity, to subjugate by degrees the whole of her
Eastern dominions and Eoman Africa, from Egypt to the
Straits of Gibraltar, to assail Europe at its western extre-
mity, to possess the greater part of Spain, and to advance
to the borders of the Loire, which was to make the elder
Kome tremble for her security, and, finally, to establish
itself in triumph, within the new Eome of Constantinople.*

* Among the relics, Constantinople still preserves Mohammed's cloak
(burda), and black banner called Okab (black eagle) ; these, replaced in
the church of St. Sophia (the Christian Church of the Lower Empire,
changed into a mosque), the remains and the nails of the true Cross on
which Jesus Christ was crucified ; and which relics had been brought
from Jerusalem by the mother of Constantino the Great. It was in this
same church of St. Sophia, on one of its pillars, that a mark appears
made by Omar, who, riding his war-horse into the ch\irch, on the
heaped-up bodies of the Christians slain, dashed the marble with his
bloody hand, to show, as it were, the high-water mark of God's indigna-
tion against a perverse generation, which, having had the truth delivered
to it, fell away to weakness, wickedness, folly and lust.

i

■H-"

AN APOLOGY FOR

Translation of an Arabic poem entitled the "Borda," written in
praise of Mohammed by Sharf-ood-din Al-Basari.

(Vv^

Mohammed is the Prince of both the worlds, ^

That of men and that of Genii.
Sovereign, likewise, is he of the two worlds

Of Arabians and of barbarians.
He is our Prophet, who unto us prescribeth

What we should do and what we should avoid.
Of all men Mohammed the most truthful is,

Whether he aflftrm or whether he deny ;
He is the friend of God ; his intercession it is

On which alone our every hope is based ;
Ajid in him alone a defence is to be sought

Against the most appalling of dangers.
It is he that hath called the sons of men

To know the true, the only God ;

Whosoever shall lay fast hold upon him

Graspeth a cable that will not part asunder.

All other prophets Mohammed hath surpassed
By the excellence of his external qualities
By his moral and intellectual gifts.
In virtue and in knowledge none approacheth him.

From God's apostle every soul soliciteth
One draught from out the ocean of his knowledge,

One drop of the copious showers of his virtues.

Near Mohammed each filleth the rank befitting him,
For as a point or accent ifi to the written word.
So are their knowledge and virtue in comparison of his,
He it is who is alike perfect and estimable

By the qiialities and graces of the heart and person.
The Creator of the soul selected him for friend ;

No earthly being can aspire to share with him
His incomparable and boundless virtues.
His alone is the substance of excellence itself.
/Let the dignity of their prophet be, of Christians,

The profane and fallacious boast ;
But do thou, excepting only the Divine essence,

Sing, unrestricted, the praises of the Prophet !
Extol to the utmost the excellence of his valour ;

Applaud to the full the eminence of his merits ;
For the excellence of God's apostle is boundless ;

Nor are there words wherewithal to set it forth ;

MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN. 57

Vainly would men strive to comprehend

The excellence of his mental endowments,
Just as when seen from far , of day's bright orb

The enormous magnitude is not apparent,
But dazzles and confounds the vision

Of him who near beholds it.
How can mortals, plunged in oblivious sleep,

And contented with imagination's idle dreams,
Attain, in this world, to the perfect ken

Of what God's prophet truly is ?
That he is a man, and of all God's creatures

The most excellent, is all of him we know,
How worthy of admiration is the prophet's face,

Of which the charms by virtues are enhanced !
In him is centred every captivating grace ;

But for his real, and distinctive character
Are features beaming with amiability and candour.
Verily, in his person he doth unite

The delicate beauty of the flower of spring
"With the majestic grandeur of the moon.
Vast as the sea is his generosity, his designs

As time itself, extensive and enduring.
Such is the majesty of the Prophet's countenance.

That even when alone his presence is

Unto every beholder as redoubtable

As when at the head of mighty armies,

Or in the midst of conquering cohorts.
The fragrance of the earth which covereth his bones

Surpasseth far the richest perfumes.
Happy, thrice happy, those who inhale that fragrance,

And who moisten the soil with their kisses !
Now let me hymn the Prophet's holy oracles.
As in some lofty mountain shines from far,

Amid the darkness of the moonless night,
A tire beacon lighted by some kindly hand

To lead the traveller to some friendly hearth,
So do those oracles irradiate with their beams

The gloom and darkness of a sinful world.
From mercy's God did come those oracles divine ;

In time truly have they been produced ;
But born of Him whose essence is eternal,

Therefore themselves, eternal are ;
Neither can any mortal epoch be to them assigned.
From them we learn what on the last tremendous day,

58 AN APOLOGY FOR MOHAMMED AND THE KORAN.

The day of retributive justice,
Shall come to pass ; from them we learu

What happen'd in the days of Ad and Iran.

O thou who enjoyest this happiness supreme,
Eejoice ! for thou hast seized the cable
Which is the Almighty — God himself !
Beware permitting it to escape thy grasp !
Shouldest thou therein read, to find a refuge
Safe from Hell's scorching heat,

The refreshing waters of the Book divine

Will cool the ardours of th' infernal pit.
Straight as is the bridge of Sirah,
Just as is the balance wherein are weighed

The deeds of all who live.
These oracles are the sole, the only source

Of right and justice among the sons of men.
Marvel not their worth should be denied

By envious men; who act in this as if insane.
Although possessed of knowledge and discernment.
Seest thou not that to the eye bedimmed with age

The brightness of day's orb seems overcast ;
And that the palate of him who's sick

Appreciates not the flavour of the clear, pellucid stream.
0 thou most excellent of all created beings !
To whom but thee can I flee for refuge

In that moment so terrible to every mortal?

0, Apostle of God ! thy glory will not be tarnished
By whatsoever aid thou may'st vouchsafe me

In that tremendous day wherein the Almighty
Himself shall manifest as the Avenger !

Verily this world, as well as that which is to come.
Are the wondrous works of his beneficence !

And every decree traced by the eternal pen
Upon the tablets of the Most High,

Form part of thy transcendant knowledge !

PART 11.

THE KORAN.

THE KORAN.

CHAPTER I.

Derivation of the word Koran — Other appellations given to it — Editions
of (note) — Is the miracle of Mohammed — The table of God's decrees
and the KuUum — Revelation of the Koran to Mohammed — Metrical
account of the 6666 verses of the Koran — The Koran the most
poetical work of the East — Gothe's opinion of it — How it was pre-
served— Conversion of the poet Lebid — Reverence of Mohammedans
for the Koran — The Koran a code of laws — Differs materially from
the Bible — Mistrust of priests both by Jesus Christ and Mohammed
(Renan quoted) — Mohammedan idea of the Deity — Hindoo definition
of the divinity — Mohammed's high and mysterious respect for Jesus
Christ — The Immaculate Conception borrowed from the Koran
Celebrated text of the " three witnesses" — The Trinity (note) — Belief
of Christ's return to the earth — Place for him in Mohanmied's tomb
— General design of the Koran — Analysis of it — Moslem conquerors
and Roman pontiffs compared — I\I. Jurieu quoted — Exclusive cha-
racter of Judaism — The four Gospels (note) — Christian Church in
Constantine's time— Intellectual image of the Deity never disgraced
by any visible idol — Propagation of Islam by the sword, a monstrous
error — Mohammedism ordained for much eventual good.

o^

The word Koran is derived from the word Koraii (he
read), and properly signifies "the reading"; or, rather,
*' that which ought to be read." The following names are
also given to it — Al Kitah (the Book), Kitah Allah (the
Book of God), Kitab Atzvj (the precious Book), Kalam
Cher if (the Sacred Word), Mahof (the Supreme Code), Al

* The first edition of the 'Koran,' tliat of Alexander Paganini, of
Brixan, appears to have been publi.slieil at Venice, about the year 1599,
according to some, but about 1515 or 1530, according to others. It was

62 THE KORAN.

Furkan (that which distinguished what is good and true
from what is evil and false), and Tamil (descended from
heaven).

The Koran is held by Mohammedans to be not only of
divine origin, but also as eternal and uncreated ; remaining,
as some express it, in the very essence of God, on which
account the Almighty made the miracle of Mohammed to
consist in an inimitable style, as exhibited in the Koran.
The first transcript of it has been from everlasting, near
God's throne, written on a table of vast dimensions, called
the preserved TahU, on which are also recorded the divine
decrees — past, present, and to come. Mohammedans also
believe that before all other things God created this Table
of His decrees, and after that His Kullum, or pen : that this
table is one entire precious stone of vast magnitude, and
that the pen consists of one pearl, from whose slit is dis-
tilled the light that serves as the true and only ink employed
by God, or rather by the angels, in obedience to His com-
mands, in registering the words and deeds of men. A
copy from this table, in one volume, on paper, Avas by the
ministry of the angel Gabriel, sent down to tlie lowest
heaven, in the month of Ramadan, on the night of power ;
from whence Gabriel revealed it to Mohammed, piecemeal,
some portions at Mecca and some at Medina, at different
times, during the space of twenty-three years, as the
exigency of circumstances required ; giving him, however,
the consolation of seeing it, bound in silk and ornamented
with the precious stones of Paradise, once in twelve months,
a privilege which was doubled during the last year of his
life.

burnt by order of the Pope. Sale's translation into English, with its
valuable introduction, is well known and duly appreciated. There are
also French translations, one by Du Ruyter and the other by Savary.
A translation by Ludovico Marraccius was not allowed to appear, unless
accompanied by a Prodomus ad refutationem Alcorani, Padua, 1698. Not
a single copy of Paganini's edition is now to be found in any library.

THE KORAN. 63

It is said that few chapters were delivered entire, the
most part being revealed in detached portions, and written
down from time to time, by the Prophet's amanuensis, in
such and such a chapter, until completed, according to
Gabriel's directions. The first part that was revealed is
generally agreed to have been the first five verses of the
96th chapter, as follows : —

" Recite thou, in the name of thy Lord who created ;
Created man from clots of blood !
Recite thou ! for the Lord is the most Beneficent,

Who hath taught tliee the use of the pen (to record Revelation),
Hath taught man that which he knoweth not."

After the newly-revealed passages had been, from the
Prophet's mouth, taken down in writing by his scribe, they
were published to his followers, several of whom took copies
for their private use, but the far greater number got them
by heart. The originals, when returned, were put promis-
cuously into a chest, observing no order of time, for which
reason it is uncertain when many passages were revealed.

The Koran is divided into 114 large portions of very un-
equal length, called by us chapters, or suras, but by the
Arabians sowar in the singular, plural, sura.'^ These
chapters are not in the manuscript copies distinguished by
the numerical order, but by titles taken, sometimes, from a
peculiar subject treated of, or a person mentioned therein,
but usually from the first word of note. Some chapters have
two or more titles occasioned by the difference of the copies,
some of them having been said to have been revealed at
Mecca, and others at Medina, the noting of which difference
makes a part of the title. Each chapter is divided into smaller
portions of very unequal length also, which are commonly

* «»

• It must be remarked tliat all the suras, or chapters, were intended
not for readers, but for hearers— WvAt they were all promulgated by
public rccitaZ— and that much was left, as the imperfect sentences show,
to the manner and suggestive action of the speaker." — The ' Koran,'
translated by the Rev. J. M. Rodwell, M.A.

64 THE KORAN.

called verses, the Arabic name being Ayiit (sign or wonder.)
Next after this title, at the head of every chapter, excepting
the ninth only, is prefixed the following solemn form, called
by the Mohammedans " Besmallah" — "In the name of the
Most High."*

The Koran has always been held by the Mohammedans
as the greatest of all miracles, and equally stupendous with
the act of raising the dead. The miracles of Moses and
Jesus,t they say, were transient and temporary, but that of
Mohammed is permanent and perpetual, and, therefore, far
superior to all the miraculous events of preceding ages.

In a literary point of view, the Koran is the most poetical
work of the East. The greater portion of it is in a rhymed
prose, conformably to the taste which has, from the remotest
times, prevailed in the above portion of the globe. It is
universally allowed to be written with the utmost purity
and elegance of language in the dialect of the tribe of the
Koreish, the most noble and polite of all the Arabs, but
with some mixture, although very rarely, of other dialects.
It is, confessedly, the standard of the Arabian language,
and abounds with splendid imagery and the boldest meta-
phors ; and, notwithstanding that it is sometimes obscure
and verging upon tumidity, is generally vigorous and sublime,

* The following is a metrical account of the verses, etc., of the Koran,
taken from a very beautiful copy, once the property of the luifortunate
Tippoo Sahib, but now preserved in the public library at Cam1n-idge : —

The verses of the Koran, whicli is good and heart delighting,

Are six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six ;

One thousand of it command, one thousand strongly prohibit,

One thousand of it promise, one thousand of it threaten,

One thousand of it read in choice stories ;

And know, one thousand of it to consist in instructive parables,

Five hundred of it in discussions, lawful and unlawful,

One hundred of it in prayers for morn and even.

Of such an one I have now told you the whole.

t Jesus Christ is revered by all the doctors as tlie greatest of the pro-
phets before the Arabian legislator ; as the Messiah of nations and the
Spirit of God. The Saviour is regarded as predestined to return in the
plenitude of ages, to reassemble all men in unitv of one belief. —
(D'Obson, vol. i. p. 305. See note (t), p. 38.)

THE KORAN. (35

SO as to justify the observation of the celebrated Goethe, that
the Koran is a work with whose dulness the reader is at first
disgusted, afterwards attracted by its charms, and finally,
irresistibly ravished by its many beauties.

While Mohammed lived the Koran was kept in loose
sheets only. His successor, Abu-Bekr, first collected them
into a single volume, not only from the palm leaves, skins,
and shoulder-bones of mutton whereon they had been
written, but also from the mouths of those who had com-
mitted them to memory ; and, when the transcript was
completed, the keeping of it was entrusted to Haphsa, the
daugliter of Omar, one of the widows of Mohammed, in order
for its being consulted as an original. As, however, a con-
siderable degree of diversity was found to exist between
the several copies already dispersed throughout tlie pro-
vinces, Othman, the successor of Abu-Bekr, in the thirtieth
year of the Hegira, procured a great number of them to be
taken from that of Haphsa, suppressing, at the same time,
all the others not conformable to the original.

In order properly to estimate the merits of the Kenyan, it
should be considered that when the Prophet arose eloquence
of expression and purity of diction were much cultivated,
and that poetry and oratory were held in the highest estima-
tion. " The miracle of the Koran," says a Mohammedan
author, " consists in its elegance, purity of diction, and
melody of its sentences, so that every Ajemer who hears it
recited perceives at once its suj)eriority over all other Arabic
compositions. Every sentence of it inserted in a composi-
tion, however elegant, is like a brilliant ruby, and shines as
a gem of the most dazzling lustre, while in its diction it is
so inimitable as to have been the subject of astonishment to
all learned men, ever since its first promulgation."

It was to the Koran so considered as a permanent miracle
that Mohammed appealed as the chief confirmation of liis
mission, publicly challenging the most eloquent men in

F

66 THE KOKAN,

Arabia, then abounding with persons whose sole study and
ambition it was to excel in elegance of style and composition,
to produce even one single chapter that might compete
therewith.*

Accordino- to tradition, Lebid Abu Eabia, a native of
Yehmen, and one of the seven whose verses constituted the
Maallakat (a series of prizes suspended in the Kaaba), was
still an idolator when Mohammed announced publicly his
law. One of the poems began with the verse, " All praise
is vain which referreth not unto God, and all good that
proceedeth not from Him is but a shadow." For some time
no poet could be found to compete with it, but at length the
^ chapter of the Koran entitled Barat was af&xed to a gate in

^^^^ the same temple, and Lebid was so overcome by the first

few verses as to declare that they could only have been
produced by the inspiration of God himself, and he forthwith

embraced Islamism.f

The passage from the Koran which effected this conversion

was the following : —

" There is nothing doubtful in this book : it is a direction
to the pious who believe the mysteries of faith, who observe
the appointed times of prayer, who distribute alms out of
what We (God) have bestowed upon them ; who believe in
the Eevelation that hath been sent down unto thee (Mo-
hammed), as well as in that delivered unto the Prophets
before thee, and who have a firm assurance in the life to
come ; such, verily, are under the guidance of their Lord
and they shall prosper."

"As for unbelievers .... they are like unto one who

* The statement that Mohammed composed the Koran by the aid of
a Christian monk, and AbdaDah Salam, a Persian Jew, refutes itself, for
it is not to be credited that the excellence of the Arabian language
should be derived from two foreigners, of whom the one was a Syrian
and the other a Persian.

t Lebid was afterwards of great service to Mohammed m answering
the satires and invectives that were made upon and against him and his
religion by the infidels, and particularly by Amri, at Kais, prince of the
tribe of Asad, and author of one of the seven poems called Al Maallakat.

THE KORAN. 67

kindleth a fire, and when it hath thrown light upon every-
thing around him, shutteth his eyes. God taketh away
their light, and leaveth them in darkness ; they shall not
see ; they are deaf and dumb, and blind ; therefore, will
they not repent. Or, like unto a storm-cloud from heaven,
fraught with darkness, thunder and lightning, they put
their fingers in their ears, because of the noise of the
thunder, for fear of death. God compasseth the infidels ;
the lightning doth all but blast them with blindness ; so
long as it enlighteneth them, they walk therein, but when
the darkness cometh on, paralyzed they stand." *

The admiration with which the reading of the Koran inspires
the Arabs is due to the magic of its style, and to the care with
which Mohammed embellished his prose by the introduction of
poetical ornaments; by his giving it a cadenced march and by
making the verses rhyme ; its variety also is very striking,
for sometimes, quitting ordinary language, he paints, in
majestic verse, the Eternal, seated on His throne, dispensing
laws to the universe ; his verses become melodious and
thrilling when he describes the everlasting delights of Para-
dise ; they are vigorous and harrowing when he depicts the
flames of hell.

The Koran is held by Mohammedans in the greatest
reverence and respect. The more strict among them dare
not touch it without being first washed or legally purified,f
which, lest they should do, through inadvertence, they some-
times write these words on the book itself, or on its cover :
" None shall touch it, but they who are purified." They
read it reverentially, never holding it below their girdle ;
they swear by it, in all affairs of importance ; carry it with
them in military expeditions ; inscribe sentences from it
upon their banners ; adorn it with gold and precious stones ;

* Chapter II.

ive a like veneration for their book,
washed hands.

F 2

t The Jews have a like veneration for their book, never presuming to
touch it with unwashed hands.

68 THE KORAN.

and, knowingly, never suffer it to be in the possession of an
unbeliever. It is made the foundation of their education,
and the children in all schools are taught to chaunt it, and
commit the whole of it to memory. It is admitted every-
where as the standard of all law and practice. Their judges
swear by it.* All Mohammedans are bound to study it, in
order to find therein the light of their life. They have
mosques where the whole is read through, daily, thirty relays
of Korra (readers) taking it up in succession. For twelve
hundred years has the voice of this book been thus kept
resounding, at all moments, through the ears and hearts of so
many millions of men. There are instances of Mohannnedan
doctors who had read it through seventy thousand times.

The Koran repeatedly enjoins belief in one God, resigna-
tion to His will, and perfect obedience to His commands,
charity, mildness, abstinence from spirituous liquors, and
toleration, ascribing particular merit to dying in the cause of
religion ; while, as to practical duties, besides the obligation
to propagate Islam, the first which are inculcated in the
Koran, are prayers directed towards the temple of Mecca,-f-
at five appointed hours of the day ; fasting J during the
mouth of Eamadan and alms, to which the one-fortieth
part of a person's property must be appropriated and be-
stowed even upon foes and the brute creation. Of these
three chief duties Mohammed considered prayer so indis-
pensable and necessary that he used to call it the 'pillar of
religion and the hey to Paradise ; declaring also that there could
be no good in any religion wherein there was no prayer.§

* This custom was introduced by the Emperor.

t This point is called the Kebla, and tables have been constructed tor
finding it when no other indication is to be had. (See page 31, note f-)

J According to the Mohammedan divines, there are three degrees of
fasting : — 1. The restraining the belly and other parts of the body from
satisfying their lusts. 2. The restraining the ears, eyes, tongue, hands,
feet, and other members from sin ; and 3. The fasting of the heart from
worldly cares, and refraining the thoughts from everything but God.

§ Of the comparative efl&cacy of these three duties it is said — Prayer
leads half-way to heaven ; Fasting carries the faithful to heaven's gate ;
and Alms-giving gains them admittance.

THE KORAN. 69

The injunction regarding washing and cleanliness is an
accessory to prayer. Sale, in his ' Preliminary Dissertation,'
]i. l.'')9, says: "That his followers might be more punctual
ill this duty, Mohammed is said to have declared that the
])ractice of religion is founded on cleanliness, which is the
one-half of the faith, and the key of prayer, without which
it will not be heard by God. That these expressions may
be the better understood, Al Ghazali reckons four degrees
of purification; of which the first is the cleansing of the
1 >ody from all pollution, filth and excrement ; the second
the cleansing of the members of the body from all wicked-
ness and unjust actions ; the third, the cleansing of the
heart from all blameable inclinations and odious vices ; and
the fourth, the purging a man's secret thoughts from all
affections which may divert their attendance from God ;
adding, that the body is but the outward shell with respect
to the heart, which is as the kernel. And for this reason he
highly complains of those who are superstitiously solicitous
in exterior purifications, avoiding those persons as unclean
who are not so scrupulously nice as themselves, and at the
same time have their minds lying waste and overrun
with pride, ignorance and hypocrisy. Wlience it plainly
appears with how little foundation the Mahometans have
been charged by some writers with teaching, or imagining
that these formal washings alone cleanse them from their
sins."

But the injunctions of the Koran were not confined to reli-
gious and moral duties. " From the Atlantic to the Ganses,"
says Gibbon, " the Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental
code, not only of theology, but of civil and criminal jurispru-
dence, and the laws which regulate the actions and the property
of mankind are governed by the immutable sanctions of the
will of God." Or, in other words, the Koran is the general
code of the Mohammedans ; a religious, social, civil, com-

r

70 THE KOKAN.

mercial, military, judicial, criminal, penal code ; it regulates
everything, from the ceremonies of religion to those of daily
life ; from the salvation of the soul to the health of the body ;
from the rights of all to those of each individual ; from the
interests of man to those of society ; from morality to crime ;
from punishment here to that in the life to come.

The Koran, consequently, differs materially from the Bible,
which, according to Combe, " contains no system of theology,
but is composed chiefly of narratives, descriptions, sublime
effusions of devotional emotions, and much sound morality^
bound together by no striking logical connexion." * Nor
is it, like the Gospels, to be considered merely as the
standard by which the religious opinions, the worship, and
the practice of its followers are regulated, but it is also a
political system ; for on this foundation the throne itself is
erected; hence every law of the State is derived, and by
this authority every question of life and property is finally
decided.

Mohammed was so alive to the danger attending priest-
hoods in political States, and of their tendency to corrupt
all governments, that he disapproved of the allowance of
any such institution, and desired that every Mussulman
should possess a copy of the Koran, and le his own priest ;
a wise wish, in which the Prophet did but imitate tlie
divinely inspired Jesus ; for the only religion founded by
the latter was a pure worship, a religion without priests and
external observances, resting solely on the feelings of the
heart, on the imitation of God. " Never," says M. Eenan^
" was there a man less a priest than Jesus ; never was there
a greater enemy than he to those forms which stifle religion
under the pretext of protecting it." Again : " No hierarchy
properly so called existed in the new sect. They were to
call each other ' brother,' but Jesus absolutely proscribed

* 'Essay on the Relation between Science and Eeligion.

THE KORAN.

71

titles of superiority, such as ' Eahbi,' ' master,' ' father ' : he
(Jesus) alone being ' master,' and God alone being ' father.'

Islam, therefore, is witliout a priesthood. The doctors of
the law are the doctors of divinity, because the law is the
Koran : but they are not supported by tithes ; their func-
tions are not sacerdotal, but judicial. Their wealth is derived
neither from Church property, nor from tithes, nor from
State pensions. They are supported by judicial fees in
litigated cases, amounting to 2| per cent., and by the
revenues of lands appropriated to the mosques. The doc-
tors of the law, indeed, form a corporation no less authori-
tative than the Church in England, with this difference, that
there is no dissent.

Mohammed's creed was likewise free from suspicion and
ambiguity, and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the
unity of God. Eejecting the worship of idols and men,*
of stars and planets, on the rational principle that whatever
is born must die ; that whatever rises must set ; and that
whatever is corruptible must perish and decay, Mohammed's
rational enthusiasm confessed and adored an infinite and
eternal Being without form or place, without issue or simili-
tude, present to our most secret thoughts, existing by the
necessity of His own nature, and deriving from himself all
intellectual perfection. These subjects thus announced, in
the language of the Prophet (chapters 2, 57, 58), are firmly
held and revered by his disciples, and defined with mathe-
matical precision by the interpreters and expounders of the
Koran. A philosophical theist might subscribe the popular
creed of the Mohammedans.

The God of Nature has written His existence in all His
works, and His law in the heart of man. To restore the
knowledge of the one and the practice of the other has been

* The Mohammedans never say that God created man after his own
image, holding it the highest impiety and presumption in any one to
attempt to give any description of God's form.

< -

72

THE KOKAN.

the real or the pretended aim of the prophets of every age ;
the liberality of Mohammed allowed to his predecessors the
same credit which he claimed for himself, and the claim to
inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam to the pro-
mulgation of the Koran. For the author of Christianity, the
Mohammedans are taught by the Prophet to entertain a
high and mysterious reverence (chapters 7, 10),* and the
Latin Church has not disdained to borrow from the Koran
the immaculate conception of Christ's virgin mother.f During
600 years was the way of truth, but the Christians insensibly
forgot the example of their founder. The piety of Moses
and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet
more illustrious than themselves ; and the Evangelist's
promise of the Paraclete or Holy Ghost, the Comforter, was
prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the person, of
the greatest and the last of God's prophets.

The first and principal article of the Koran is, as we have
said, the tmitij of God, and the certainty of the mission of
Mohammed, who gives himself the title of the prophet and
messenger of God, as understood by Mohammed, the chief,
or rather the only cause of his prophetic mission. " The
Christians," said he, " having fallen into error, corrupted
this dogma by introducing the doctrine of the Trinity; J

%t^

^ >V

v^

\A

* As one among many other proofs of this, the following fact may be
adduced. During the reign of Mahomet IV., the same whose Grand
Vizier besieged Vienna in 1683, but was defeated by John Sobieski,
King of Poland, a Christian priest had made profession of Islam, and,
to prove his zeal, reviled our Saviour, applying to him the epithet of
"impostor," which he had been accustomed to give to Mohammed.
The Mussulmans, shocked at the outrage, carried him before the Divan,
and he was ordered for innnediate execution.

t See Sale's 'Koran,' chap. iii. p. 39, and note d. St. Ambrose and
g St. Augustine, two fathers of the Church, have employed the most
' obscene terms in their disputation respecting this mystery ; so much so,
that decency will not permit us to quote them.

X The celebrated text of the three witnesses (John i. v. 7) which is
the foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity, has been proved, by the
labours of Newton, Gibbon, Porson, and others, to have been an inter-
polation ; and Calmet himself acknowledges that this verse is not found

THE KORAN. 73

and God, who would not leave the essential truths without
testimony, sent his prophet to re-establish them. This is
the reason why, in the Koran, the Mohammedans give them-
selves the designation of " Unitarians," in opposition ta
the so-called " Orthodox Christians " who are denominated
" AssociANTS," because, according to Mohammed, they asso-
ciate with God other objects of adoration and religious
worship. Thus (in chapter 3) Mohammed says, " 0 people
of the Book," — that is to say, " 0 Jews and Christians, let
not your worship transgress just bounds ; say naught that is
contrary to truth, when you speak of God ; Jesus, the
Messiah, the son of Mary, is nothing more than a prophet
of God.* Believe then in God and His prophets, and make
no mention of the Trinity. Set just bounds to your dis-
courses. God is only one God ; all praise he unto Him ! God
hath no son."

Another great object of the Koran was to unite the
professors of the three different religions then followed in
the knowledge and worship of one God, under the sanction
of certain laws and ceremonies partly of ancient and partly
of novel institutions enforced by the consideration of re-
wards and punishments both temporal and eternal, and to
bring them all to the obedience of Mohammed as the prophet
and ambassador of God, who, after repeated admonitions,
promises and threats of former ages, was sent at last to
establish and propagate God's religion upon earth, and
to l)e acknowledged as Cliief Pontiff in spiritual matters,

i)i any ancient copy of the Bible. Jesus taught the belief in One God, but
Paul, with the Apostle John, who was a Platonist, despoiled Christ's reli-
<!\o\\ of all its unity and simplicity, by introducing the incomprehensible
Trinity of Plato, or Triad of the East, and also by deifying two of God's
attributes — namely. His Holy Spirit, or the Agion Pneimia of Plato ; and
His Divine Intelligence, called by Plato the Logos (Word), and applied
un<ler this form to Jesus (John i.).

* " The Mussulmans are Christians, if Locke reasons justly, because
tliey firmly believe the immaculate conception, divine character and
miracles of the Messiah." (Sir William Jones, 'Asiatic Review,' vol. i.
p. 275.)

74 THE KOKAN.

as well as supreme prince in temporal ones. The great
doctrine, then, of the Koran is the "unity" of God, to
restore which, Mohammed asserted, was the chief end of
his mission, it being laid down by him that there never was
nor ever can be more than one true, orthodox religion, that
although the particular laws or ceremonies are only tem-
porary and subject to alteration, according to the divine
direction, yet the substance of it being eternal truth, is not
liable to change, but continues immutably the same, and
that whenever this religion became neglected or corrupted
in essentials, God vouchsafed to re-inform and re-admonish
mankind thereof by several prophets, of whom Moses and
Jesus were the most distinguished, till the appearance of
Mohammed.

Mohammed never gave himself out as the founder of a
new religion, but, on the contrary, he maintains (chapters 2,
3, 16, 26, &c.) his religion to be that of Abraham, which
was revealed to him (Mohammed) by the Angel Gabriel
(chapter 33). The sole object of the Koran is that of cor-
recting the Scriptures, which he accused the Jews and
Christians of having falsified, especially in what concerned
his mission (chapters 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 16, 37). According
to tradition, the book (Koran) was brought to him by the
Angel Gabriel, written upon the skin of the ram sacrificed
by Abraham in the place of his son Isaac, and ornamented
with gold, silk and precious stones, but, according to another
version, almost generally received among Christians, he com-
posed with the aid of a Persian Jew named Eabbi Warada-
Ebn-Nawal, and of a Christian monk. Abbot of the Nestorian
convent of Adol Kaisi, at Bosra in Syria. This opinion is
very ancient, since we see Mohammed opposing and indig-
nantly repelling it (chapters 10, 11, 16, 25).*

The Koran teaches, in the most explicit manner, the exist-
ence of one only God (chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 17, 18, 34, 37,

* See note, page 66.

THE KORAN. 75

39, 40, 42, 59); eternal, who was imbegotten and has no
children; without equal (chapter 112), Creator of all things
(chapters 16, 17), good and merciful (chapters 3, 5, 6, 10,
40), protecting those who are not ungrateful to Him (chap-
ters 3, 9, 64), pardoning those who offend Him provided
they repent (chapters 25, 110), Sovereign Judge at the day
of resurrection (chapters 2, 14, 16, 17, 18, 22); He will
render to every one, according to his works (chapters 2, 3,
4, 10, 28), that is, to the good, and to those who fight and
die in his cause (chapter 22) ; eternal felicity, the volup-
tuous description of which may, for beauty, be compared
with all that the imagination of poets has ever created
(chapters 4, 7, 13, 15, 18, 32, 35), and especially (chapters 27,
38, 45, 52, 55, 56, 76, 88) to the wicked eternal punishment
in a heU beyond conception horrible.* With the dogma of
the existence of a God are joined those of Providence
(chapters 15, 16, 23, 29, 32) and predestination (chapters 13,
114). The Koran also teaches the existence of angels
(chapters 2, 7, 9), but it forbids that these as well as the
Prophet should be objects of adoration (chapter 3). Every
man has two protecting angels, who watch over his actions
(chapter 35). Demons are the natural enemies of human
kind (chapters 35, 36, 38). The Mussulmans should also
believe in the existence of good and bad genii, different
degrees of angels and demons (chapters 26, 55), and above
all, in the divine mission of Mohammed, but without re-
garding hiiu as superior to other men in respect of his nature
(chapters 17, 29).

The morality of the Koran has not been less unjustly
attacked than its dogmas. It condemns debauchery and
excesses of every kind (chapters 4, 17), usury (chapter 2),

* The punishments of hell consisted in the damned being made to
drink nothing but Vjoiling and stinking water, and to breathe nothing but
exceedingly hot winds (things most tcrrilde in Arabia) ; to dwell for
ever in continual hre, intensely burning ; and to be surrounded by and
enveloped in a black, hot, salt smoke, as with a coverlet.

76 THE KORAN.

avarice and pride (chapters 4, 17, 18), slander and calmiiny
(chapter 104), covetousness (chapters 4, oo), hypocrisy
(chapters 4, 63), the thirsting after worldly goods (chapters
100, 102) ; it ordains, on the contrary, alms-giving (chap-
ters 2, 3, 30, 50, 57, 90), filial piety (chapters 4, 17, 29, 46),
gratitude towards God (chapter 5), fidelity to engagements
(chapters 5, 16), sincerity (chapters 6, 17, 23, 83), justice
(chapters 5, 6), especially towards orphans (chapters 13, 90)
and without respect of persons (chapter 80), chastity and
decency even in words (chapters 24, 25), the ransoming of
captives (chapters 13, 90), patience (chapters 346, 374),
submission (chapter 3), benevolence (chapter 28), forgive-
ness of injuries (chapters 3, 16, 24, 43), the returning of
good for evil (chapter 23), and the walking in the path of
virtue, not with the view of obtaining the approbation of the
world, but for being acceptable unto God (chapter 22).

The Koran, as already said, is not only a religious code,
but contains, in addition, the civil laws of the Mohamme-
dans, as the Pentateuch contains those of the Jews ; it
restrains polygamy by limiting the number of wives to four
(chapter 4), prescribes the ceremonies to be observed at
marriages (chapters 2, 6), determines the matrimonial duties
of the married pair (chapter 4), even the length of the time
for suckling (chapter 2), that of widowhood (chapter 2), and
regulates the dowry and jointure (chapters 2, 4), as well as
the course to be pursued in separations and divorces (chap-
ters 2, 4, 65), Inheritances, wills, guardianships, contracts
have not escaped the attention of the Prophet, who treats
of them in the same chapters as last mentioned. Lastly,
punishments are pronounced against false witnesses (chapters
5, 9), prevarication in judges (chapter 5), fraud (chapter 4),
theft (chapter 5), homicide * (chapters 2, 4, 6, 25), infan-
ticide (chapters 6, 17), incest (chapter 4), immodesty and
adultery (chapters 4, 19, 24, 25). Here Mohammed exhibits

* As a proof of the great humanity inculcated in the Koran, it may be

THE KORAN. 77

himself not only as an apostle but as a legislator, whence
it may be fairly presumed that these laws were not
promulgated until after the Hegira, or, at least, until his
doctrine had already made great progress — perhaps even
some of them were not given till after the conquest of
Mecca.

Such is the Koran which has been received by Moham-
medans with a degree of reverence rarely witnessed among
Christians towards the Holy Scriptures. In it they view
the whole code of religious belief, civil law, and moral
obligation. The belief which they generally profess as
drawn from the Koran consists in the following leading
points. Eeligion is divided into two branches, Inian
(faith) and Din (practice). Faith includes belief in God,
his angels, his revelations in the Koran, his prophets, the
resurrection and day of judgment, and God's absolute de-
crees. Practice includes prayer, comprehending under tliis
head the purifications necessary before prayer, alms-giving,
fasting, and the pilgrimage to Mecca.*

In order fully to appreciate the difference between Chris-
tianity and Mohammedanism, it must be borne in mind that
whereas the hold which the former has over its professors is
naturally referred by them to its dogmas, thus causing re-
ligion and morals to be regarded as distinct from each other :
in the latter it is, on the contrary, not the dogmatic,
but the practical portion which has influenced the moral,
social, legal, and political ideas and circumstances of its
believers. So that to the Mohannnedan mind, patriotism,

mentioned that there can scarcely be found in it one capital punishment,
except such as are denounced in wholesale warfare against unbelievers, as
in the Mosaic code. The retaliation of blood for blood is softened into
a money compensation ; civil oft'ences merely ati'ecting property are not
heavily punished ; while towards the unfortunate debtor the law is
strikingly lenient.

* The pilgrimage to Mecca was but a regulation, in accordance with
previous habits, to maintain the unity of doctrine, and to refresh the
zeal and ardour of its professors.

78 THE KOKAN.

legality, tradition, constitution, right, are all included in that
one word — Islam!

Among many excellencies of which the Koran may justly
boast are two eminently conspicuous ; the one being the
tone of awe and reverence which it always observes when
speaking of or referring to the Deity, to whom it never
attributes human frailties and passions ; the other the total
absence throughout it of all impure, immoral and indecent
ideas, expressions, narratives, &c., blemishes, which, it is
much to be regretted, are of too frequent occurrence in
the Jewish Scriptures. So exempt, indeed, is the Koran
from these undeniable defects, that it needs not the slightest
castration, and may be read, from beginning to end,
without causing a blush to suffuse the cheek of modesty
itself.

The religion thus established by the Koran is a stern
and severe monotheism : it has nothing abstract and indis-
tinct in its primary notion of the Godhead. Allah, so far
from being a mere philosophic first cause regulating the
universe by established laws, while itself stands aloof in
unapproachable majesty ; is an ever-present, ever working
energy. It is a religion, moreover, stripped of all con-
troversy, and which, proposing no mystery to offer violence
to reason, restricts the imagination of men to the being
satisfied with a plain, invariable worship, notwithstanding
the fiery passions and blind zeal that so often transported
them beyond themselves. Lastly, it is a religion from
which all worship of saints and martyrs, relics and images,
all mystery and metaphysical subtlety ; aU monastic seclu-
sion and enthusiastic penance is banished ; and which bears
internal proofs of having been the result of long and deep
meditation upon the nature of things, upon the state and
condition of the nations of the world at that time, and upon
the reconcilement of the objects of religion with those of
reason. No wonder, therefore, that such a worship should

THE KOKAN. 79

supersede the idolatrous ceremonies of the Kaaba, the rites
of Sabianism, and the altars of Zoroaster.

We now proceed to offer a few remarks upon Moham-
medanism as based upon the Koran.

Islam has never interfered with the dogmas of any faith
— never persecuted, never established an inquisition, never
aimed at proselytism. It offered its religion, but never
enforced it. " Let there be no violence in religion." *
" Surely those who believe and those who Judaize, and
Christians, and Sabians, whoever believeth in God, and the
last day, and doetli that which is right, they shall have
their reward with their Lord ; there shall not come any fear
upon them, neither shall they be grieved." f The accept-
ance of that religion, moreover, conferred equal rights with
the compiering body and emancipated the vanquished states
from the conditions wldch every conqueror, since the world
existed up to the period of Mohammed, had invariably
imposed. Islam put an end to infanticide then prevalent in
the surrounding countries. It put an end to slavery, the
adscription to the soil. It administered even-handed justice
not only to those who professed its religion, but to those
who were conquered by its arms. It reduced taxation,
the sole tribute to the state consistino- of one-tenth. It
freed commerce from charges and impediments, it freed
professors of other faiths from all fixed contributions to their
church or their clergy, from all contributions whatsoever to
the dominant creed. The repetition of a single phrase was
the only form required or pledge exacted from proselytes ;
for circumcision was not, as is generally supposed, imperatively
insisted upon.

A full explanation of the causes which contributed to the
progress of Mohammedanism is not, perhaps, even in the
present day, completely attainable ; but it is possible to point
out several of leading importance. In the first place, those

* ' Koran,' chapter ii. t Ibid.

80 THE KORAN.

just and elevated notions of the Divine nature and of moral
duties which pervade the Koran, and that were particularly
qualified to strike a serious and reflecting people, already,
perhaps, disinclined by intermixture with their Jewish and
Christian fellow citizens, to the superstitions of their ancient
idolatry ; next the judicious incorporation of tenets, usages
and traditions from the various religions that existed in
Arabia; and, thirdly, the extensive application of the pre-
cepts of the Koran to all the legal transactions and all the
business of life. To these causes some authors have added
the indulgence to voluptuousness. But an unprejudiced
and candid mind will reject such a supposition, for it will
be found that Mohammed placed no reliance upon induce-
ments of this kind for the diffusion of his system. It is not
by the rules of Christian purity or European practice that
this point is to be judged. If polygamy was a prevailing
usage in Arabia, as it unquestionably was, its permission
gave no additional license to the proselytes of Mohammed
who will be found to have narrowed the unbounded liberty
of Oriental manners* in this respect, while his decided con-
demnation of adultery and of incestuous connexions so
frequent among barbarous nations does not argue any
lax and accommodating morality. A devout Mussulman
exhibits much more of the stoical than the epicurean cha-
racter ; nor can any one read the Koran without being
sensible that it breathes an austere and scrupulous spirit.
In fact, the founder of a new religion or sect is but little
likely to obtain permanent success by indulging the vices
and luxuries of mankind. The severity, therefore, of the
Mohammedan discipline may be reckoned as among the

* It must also be taken into consideration that a man, in order to avail
himself of Mohammed's permission to have four wives, must be rich in
order to maintain them according to his condition ; few, therefore, except
great lords and wealthy persons, avail themselves of the privilege, for
wliich reason a plurality of wives does not produce so much injury in
Muhauuiiedan states, as we are generally in the habit of supposing.

THE KORAN. 81

other causes of success. Precepts of ritual observance
being always definite and unequivocal, are less likely to be
neglected after their observation has been acknowledged,
tlian those of moral virtue. Thus the long fastings, the
pilgrimages, the regular prayers and ablutions, the constant
almsgiving, the abstinence from stimulating liquors enjoined
by the Koran, created a visible standard of practice among its
followers and preserved a continual recollection of their law.

The fact that the Mohammedans connected their com-
merce with the advancement of the Koran may also be
regarded as another cause, for the settlements they made
in the East introduced it to the knowledge of princes who
had, before, only a very imperfect idea of any religion. On
parts of the Malabar coast, and at Malacca, the Moham-
medans were favourably received. The kings of Ternate
and Tidor, together with other Eastern princes, adopted their
creed ; and when the Moguls ruled over Candahar, Cambay,
Gujerat and many other kingdoms, which had hitherto been
jealous of the Mohammedan influence, they appear to have
obtained some proselytes to the Koran.

When the Portuguese arrived in India they found the
Mohammedan religion flourishing amid the superstitions of
the Hindoos. It was recorded that the ancient Zamorin or
emperor, whose principal residence was at Calicut, had, more
than 600 years before their arrival, received the Moors with
the greatest hospitality, and having introduced them into
credit in his kingdom, had at last embraced their faith.
Sarama Payrimal, the last of these princes, sailed in an
Arabian vessel to end his days at Mecca.

Mohammed's intolerance has been designedly exaggerated.
To idolaters, indeed, or those who acknowledge no special
revelation, one alternative only was proposed — conversion
or the sword — the people of the Book, as they are termed
in the Koran, or, the four sects of Christians, Jews, Magians
and Sabians, w(>re ])ormitted to redeem their adherence to

82 THE KORAN.

their ancient law, by the payment of tribute and by other
marks of humiliation and servitude.* But the limits which
Mohammedan intolerance had prescribed to itself were
seldom transgressed, the word they pledged to unbelievers
was rarely forfeited, and, with all their insolence and
oppression, the Moslem conquerors were mild and tolerant
in comparison with those who obeyed the Pontiffs of Rome
and Constantinople. So much so that it may be affirmed
with certain truth, that if the Western princes had lieeii
lords of Asia instead of the Saracens and Turks, they
would not have tolerated Mohammedanism as Moham-
medans have tolerated Christianity, since they persecuted,
with the most relentless cruelty, those of their own faith
whom they deemed heterodox.f " It may be truly said,"
observes M. Jurieu, " that there is no comparison between
the cruelty of the Saracens against the Christians and tliat
of Popery against the true believers. In the wars against
the Vaudois, or in the massacres alone on St. Bartholomew's
day, there was more blood spilt on account of religion than
was shed by the Saracens in all their persecutions of the
Christians. It is expedient to cure men of this prejudice,
namely that Mohammedanism is a cruel sect, which was
propagated by putting men to their choice of death or the
abjuration of Christianity. This is in no wise true ; and the
conduct of the Saracens was as evangelical meekness in
comparison with that of Popery, which exceeded the cruelty
of the cannibals."

* " When tribute was once agreed to, whether vohmtarily or by
compulsion, the inhabitants were entitled to all their former privileges,
including the free exercise of their religion. When a sovereign con-
sented to pay trilnite, he retained his territory, and only became subject
to the usual relations of a tributary prince." (Elphinstone's " History
of India," p. 261.)

+ " Had the Saracens, Turks, and other Mohammedan tribes," says
Chatfield ('Historical Review,' p. 311), "adopted the same conduct
towards the Christians as the European nations had practised towards
the followers of the Koran, it is probable that the Christian religion
would have been extinguished in the East.

THE KORAN. 83

The religion of Mohammed, if not spiritual, was at least
consistent and practical, and it was laid down, like a
firm causeway across a quagmire of superstition and
gnosticism, wherein the Christian name was profaned and
the morality of nature put to the blush, so that there is
no exaggeration in asserting that never in the course of
their history have Mohammedans been brought into contact
with any form of Christianity that was not too degenerate
in its rites, its doctrines, and its effects to be worthy of
their esteem.*

It is pretty clear that the mission of Moses was to the
Israelites alone, and was, so far from being intended f.r
any other nation, that the law respecting proselytes made
it difficult for a stranger to be admitted into the con-
gregation of the sons of Jacob, and it is also plain from
the books attributed f to the Evangelists that the Apostles
had some doubts whether any but the Jews were to be
admitted into the benefit of their new dispensation, though
upon a consultation it was determined that the Gentiles
should have the Gospel preached unto them. It is evident
from Christian authors themselves that as soon as tlie
Christian religion became established at court, it retained
very little of that simplicity and purity which are visible
in the Gospels. Pride, avarice, feuds, and factions divided
the teachers of it, and never-ending wars were com-
menced by the pens of the writers of all sides. " Lon<T
before Constantine's time," says Milton, " the generality of

♦ Smith and Dwight's " Missionary Researches," vol. ii. p. .3,34.

t " Each of the four Gospels," says M. Renan (' Life of Jesus,'
Introduction, p. 8), " bears at its head the name of a personage known
either in the Apostolic history, or in the Gospel history it.self. These
four personages are not strictly given to us as the" authors. The
formulas 'according to St. Matthew, — according to St. Mark, — according
to St. Luke,— -according to St. John,' do not imply that in the most
ancient opinion these recitals were written from beginning to end by
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ; they merely signify that they were the
tradition, proceeding from each (jf these Apostles, aiid claiming their
authority."

g2

84 THK KOKAN.

Christians had lost much of the primitive sanctity and
integrity, both of their doctrine and manners. Afterwards,
when he had enriched the church, they began to fall in love
with honours and civil power, and the Christian religion
went to wreck."

In the sixth century Mohanmied appeared in the East and
settled his religion, extirpating idolatry out of a great part
of Asia, Africa, and Egypt, in all which parts the worship of
the one true God remains to this day. The minds of the
multitude were tempted by the invisible as well as temporal
blessings of the Arabian prophet, and charity will hope that
many of the proselytes entertained a serious conviction of
the truth and sanctity of his revelation. In the eye of an
inquisitive polytheist it must appear worthy of the human
and the Divine nature. More pure than the system of
Zoroaster, more liberal than the law of Moses, the religion
of Mohammed might seem less inconsistent with reason
than the creed of mystery and superstition which in the
seventh century disgraced the simplicity of the Gospel

The most convincing proof of the power of Mohammed's
religion over the minds of its professors may be found in the
fact that although Islam is old enough to have experienced
that decrepitude of all other beliefs — the putting the creature
in the place of the Creator — its followers have firmly with-
stood the temptation of reducing the object of their faith
and devotion to a level with the senses and the imagination
of men, and have remained free from bigotry and superstition,
never disgracing the intellectual image of the Deity by any
visible idol, " I believe in one God, and in Mohammed the
apostle of God," is the simple and invariable profession of
Islamism.

It is a monstrous error to suppose, as some have done,
and others still do, that the faith taught by the Koran
was propagated by the sword alone, for it wiU be readily
admitted by all unprejudiced minds, that Mohammed's

THE KORAN. 85

religion, — by which prayers and alms were substituted for the
blood of liuman victims, and which, instead of hostility and
perpetual feuds, breathed a spirit of benevolence and of the
social virtues, and must, therefore, have had an im]X)rtant
influence upon civilisation ; — was a real blessing to the
Eastern world, and, consequently, could not have needed
exclusively the sanguinary means so unsparingly and so
unscrupulously used by Moses for the extirpation of idolatry.
How idle and ridiculous was it, therefore, to bestow
nothing but insolent opprobrium and ignorant declamation
upon one of the most powerful instruments which the hand
of Providence has raised up to influence the opinions and
doctrines of mankind, through a long succession of ages.
The whole subject, whether viewed with relation to the
extraordinary rise and progress, either of the founder per-
sonally or of the system itself, cannot be otherwise than one
of the deepest interest, nor can there l»e any doubt, but that
of those who have investigated and considered the compara-
tive merits of Mohammedanism and Christianity, there are
few who have not at times felt confounded at the survey,
and been compelled not only to admit that even the former
must have been ordained for many wise and beneficent
purposes, but even to confide in its instrumentality in the
production, at least, of much eventual good.

86 THE KORAN.

CHAPTER II.

Reverence of the Arabians for learning— The Saracens and the Moors of
Spain the first movers of philosophy and the sciences — Mosheim
quoted — Intellectual progress of the Saracens far more rapid than that
of the Greeks or the Romans— Abu-Giatlar Almansor, the great
patron of learning, founds Bagdad — Haroun-al-Raschid— Grecian
and Roman literature revived in Arabian MSS.— The Alidalrhamans
of Spain— Omar exonerated from the charge of burning the Alex-
andrian library —Debt of gratitude due from Europe to the Saracens
—Vandalism of Cardinal Ximenes— Baconian philosophy derived
from the Mohammedans — Military and naval exploits of the Mus-
.sulmaus— Comparisons— Mohammedan sovereigns in India — Con-
trast of Mohammedan and Christian rule— Oppressive Character
of British rule- Lord Clive, Warren Hastings— Mill quoted— The
Oude case— Speech of Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville,
quoted — Turkish opinion of English good faith — State paper —
Truthfulness and honesty of the Mussulmans — Their toleration and
charity — Their humanity towards the brute creation.

The correctness of the observation with which we concluded
the foregoing chapter will be rendered more evident from
the following facts and considerations.

No nation, perhaps, ever existed which felt and expressed,
early and late, a deeper reverence for the cause of learning
than the Arabians. "No sooner," says a Mohammedan
poet " do I see a learned man than I long to prostrate
myself before him, and kiss the dust of his feet." Both the
written and the traditional law came in aid to this praise-
worthy sentiment: — "Equally valuable are the ink of the
doctor and the blood of the martyr ;" " Paradise is open to
him who leaves behind him his pens and his ink," in other
words, who commends learning by his example to his de-
scendants ; " The world is supported by four things only, the
learning of the wise and the justice of the great, the prayers

THE KORAN. B7

of the good and the valour of the brave." But what is still
stronger, they introduce the Supreme Being Himself, in the
Koran, calling riches a trivial, but learning an invaluable,
good. Mohammed himself recommended it with singular
earnestness, and his son-in-law, Ali, acknowledged the justice
of the providential dispensation which withheld riches and
im[)arted knowledge. The first revivers of philosophy and
the sciences, the link, as they have been termed, between
ancient and modern literature, were, most undoubtedly,
according to every species of testimony, the Saracens of
Asia and the Moors of Spain under the Abasside and
Ommiade Caliphs. Letters which originally came to Europe
from the East were brought thither, a second time, by the
irenius of Mohammedanism. It is well known that arts and
sciences flourished among the Arabians for almost six hun-
dred years; whilst among us, rude barbarism reigned and
literature became almost extinct.

" According to the unanimous accounts," says Mosheim,
" of the most credible witnesses, nothing could be more
melancholy and deplorable than the darkness that reigned
in the western world during this (the tenth) century, which,
with respect to learning and philosophy, at least, may be

called the iron age of the Latins The philosophy

of the Latins extended no further than the single science of
logic or dialectics, which they looked upon as the sum and
substance of all human wisdom. It is certain that the
Arabian philosophers had already founded numerous schools
in Spain and Italy, whither numbers of enquirers after
knowledge repaired and having adopted the Arabian philo-
sophical tenets and systems, introduced them into the Chris-
tian schools." And, again, " It must be owned, that all
the knowledge, whether of physic, astronomy, philosophy
or mathematics which flourished in Europe from the tenth
century was originally derived from the Arabian schools;
and that the Spanish Saracens, in a more particular manner

88 THE KOKAN.

may be looked upon as the fathers of European philosophy."
To the Arabs, modern Europe is indebted for its first bud
of poetic imagination and of its visions of romance. Turning
to good account the advantages obtained from their con-
tjuest of other nations, it was not long before they formed a
language and a literature of their own ; and having so done,
the rapidity of their intellectual progress, when compared
with that of the peoples preceding them was wonderful.
It was eisht centuries before the literature of Greece was
formed; as many were necessary for the Eoman world to
produce its great writers and poets. The same period
elapsed from the formation of the Roman provengal of the
South of France, until that nation could boast a literature
of its own. It was barely more than one hundred and fifty
years from the Hegira that the Arabs had become a people
advanced in letters and the conservators of ancient philo-
sophy, poetry and art."

It had occupied the Roman and the Goth each a period,
including the greater part of two hundred years, to com-
plete the subjugation of Spain. In twenty years the Arabs
had subdued the peninsula and advanced across the Pyre-
nees into the heart of France. Their influence in learning
was no less rapid and remarkable than their arms.

Ali, the nephew of the Prophet, and the fourth of the
Caliphs, first extended his patronage and protection to
letters. Under Moawyah, in whom the Caliphate became
hereditary, the Arabs collected the sciences of the Greeks.
After him, Abu Giafar Almansor, the second caliph of the
Abasside dynasty, seems to take the lead in the patronage
of learning and the sciences. Amidst several insurrections
and many splendid conquests, he still found time, taste and
money for a liberal encouragement of the arts, and founded
a metropolis, Bagdad, unequalled for magnificence and
population, and which continued to be the seat of his
descendants for above five hundred years. His grandson,

THE KOKAX. 89

TTaroun al Easchid, so dreaded by the Oreeks for his valour
and military skill, was better known in Europe and more
deservedly celebrated there for tlie arts of peace, his
love of science, and his encouragement of learning. He
was the friend and correspondent of Charlemagne, the
studious enquirer, the liberal patron, the importer of ust-ful
mechanical inventions into tlie barbarous nations that
lay beyond him. But to Almammon, his son, must be
awarded the palm of having laid the foundation of the
literary fame of tlie Arabians. Hundreds of camels laden
with MSS. were to be seen contiuuallv arrivin<i at his
court. From Seville to Ispahan their literary treasures
were quickly spread. Bagdad and Cufa, with Bassora,
Cairo, Fez and Morocco, Cordova, Granada and Valencia,
with Seville, ere long, heard the eloquence of the academy
and the pulpit. Philosophy spread more rapidly to the
West, especially that of Aristotle, whom the Arabs almost
worshipped as a god. The sciences were cultivated, the
literature of Greece and Eome lived again in Arabian MSS.
Poetry, confined, however, to the lyric and didactic, with
love-songs innumerable abounded, as well as rhyme, either
immediate or alternate. Such were the brilliant lights
whicli were shed from the Arabian schools from the ninth
to the fourteenth centuries.

The next most distinguished Mohammedan patrons o1
learning were the Abdalrhamans of Spain, descendants of
Abdalrhaman, who established the Ommiade dynasty in thai
country in a.d. 749. Of these princes there appears to have
been three, of whom the greatest was the third and last of
that name. He was the eighth Caliph, and was the first
who assumed the title of Emir Almoumenin (Commander of
the Faithful). In his reign those political divisions which
soon proved fatal to the dynasty had risen to an alarming
height, and afforded sufficient trial to his wisdom and cou-
rage ; but he found time and opportunity to practise, on all

90 THE KORAN.

occasions, a zealous attachment to learning. The long
reign of more than fifty years, happening, too, in the tenth
century, when Europe lay plunged in the grossest igno-
rance, while it necessarily advanced the literature of his
own country, diffused some gleams of light on our intel-
lectual darkness. The schools of Bagdad, Bocchara, and
Bassora, however celebrated, were too distant to tempt the
curiosity of European travellers and students; and had not
Spain, under this generous protector, opened its academies
and seminaries, the benefits of Arabian learnintr niie:ht have
been faintly felt, or irreparably lost. Of the arts Abdal-
rhaman was a splendid cultivator, and in the magnificence
of his courts, the architecture of his palaces, and the dispo-
sition of his gardens, he equalled, if not excelled, his Eastern
competitors. The Zehra, a city and palace, three miles from
Cordova, was the labour of twenty-five years, at the cost of
six millions sterling. His seraglio comprised an establish-
ment of above six thousand persons, and his hunting
attendants were a formidable army of twelve thousand
cavaliers.

A short digression is here necessary for the purpose of
refuting the charge brought against the Caliph Omar, of
having, in the year a.d. 641, ordered his lieutenant Amrou to
destroy the Alexandrian library, by making its valuable
M8S. serve as fuel for heating the public baths of that city ;
a charge the more preposterous, as it is well known that
the library of the Ptolemies, with its four or seven hundred
thousand volumes, was burned during a military operation
of Julius Caesar. That this accusation, so confidently re-
peated by one historian after another, is wholly unfounded,
is moreover proved — firstly, by the fact that such a deed
would have been a violation of the law of Mohammed, which
expressly enjoins that the religious books of the Jews and
Christians acquired by the right of conquest, should never
be destroyed, and that the productions of profane science,

THE KORAN.

91

history, poetry, philosophy, etc., may be lawfully made use
of for the benefit of the faithful ; secondly, that Albufaraj,*
from whose " dynasties " the relation of the burning is taken,
lived 600 years after the alleged event, whilst annalists of a
much earlier date, Christians and natives of Egypt, have been
perfectly silent on the subject; thirdly, that Saint Croix,
who published his learned researches upon the libraries of
Alexandria, pronounces it to be a mere fable, for the oldest
and most considerable libraries at Alexandria did not exist
further back than the fourth century.

That modern authors are to be found still repeating this
myth, is the more surprising since the historian Gibbon
has thrown doubt upon the story, on account of its own
improbability and its absence of contemporary authority for
it, either Christian or Mussulman ; and lias said that, even
" if the ponderous mass of Arabian and Monophysite con-
troversy were indeed consumed in the public baths, a philo-
sopher may allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted
to the benefit of mankind."

But supposing it to be true that the Saracens did burn
the Alexandrian Hbrary, how can this be made a charge
by those who evinced no indignation at the burning, by
Cardinal Ximenes, of all the Arab works on history,
medicine and agriculture, on the ground that they were
Alcorans ; or at a like destruction of the Summer Palace,
and the still far greater loss, by that vandalic act, of ancient
monuments and uninterrupted records of the Chinese
Empire, &c. &c. ?

But to resume : Europe is still further indebted to Moham-
medanism, for, not to mention that to the struggles during
the Crusades we mainly owe the abolition of the onerous
parts of the feudal system, and the destruction of those

* The tale of Albufaraj would not have been so industriously circu-
lated, had it not served the purpose of those who wished to impute to
the barbarians of Rome the guilt of darkening the world. (See Gibbon,
vol. vi, p. 6G, note by Editor. Bohu's edition.)

92 THE KORAN.

aristocratic despotisms on the ruins of which arose the
proudest bulwark of our liberties, Europe is to be reminded
that she is indebted to the followers of Mohammed, as the
link which connects ancient and modern literature ; for the
preservation, during a long reign of Western darkness, of the
works of many of the Greek philosophers ; and for the culti-
vation of some of the most important branches of science,
mathematics, medicine, etc., which are highly indebted to
their labours. Spain, Cassino, and Salernum were the nur-
series of the literature of the age ; and the works of Avicenna,
Averroes, Beithar, Abzazel and others, gave new vigour and
direction to the studies of those who were emerging from a
state of barbarism. Their zeal in the pursuit of geographical
knowledge impelled them to explore and found kingdoms
even in the desert regions of Africa. Through its brightest
periods, nay, even from its origin, Mohammedanism Avas,
comparatively, favourable to literature. Mohammed himself
said " that a mind without erudition was like a body without
a soul ; that glory consists not in wealth, but in knowledge ;"
and he charged his followers to seek for learning in the
remotest parts of the globe.

The Caliphate was held, for several ages, by a race of
monarchs who rank among the most accomplished by whom
any sceptre has been swayed. Eeligious differences were
forgotten : " I chose this learned man," said the Caliph
Almammon, speaking of Mussul, a Christian whom he was
blamed for making president of a college at Damascus,
" not to be my guide in religious matters, but to be my
teacher of science."

Who has not mourned over the fate of the last remnant
of chivalry, the fall of the Mussulman empire in Spain ?
Who has not felt his bosom swell with admiration towards
that brave and generous nation of whose reign for eight
centuries, it is observed even by the historians of their
enemies, that not a single instance of cold-blooded cruelty

THE KOKAN. 93

is recorded? Who has not blushed to see a Christian
priesthood goading on the civil power to treat with unex-
ampled bigotry and devilish cruelty, a people from whom
they had always received humanity and protection ; and to
record the political fanaticism of Ximenes in consigning to
the flames the labours of the philosophers, mathematicians,
and poets of Cordova, the literature of a splendid dynasty
of seven hundred years.

It is in the compositions of Friar Bacon, who was born in
1214, and who learned the Oriental languages, that we dis-
cover the most extensive acquaintance with the Arabian
authors. He quotes Albumazar, Thabet-Ebu-Corah, Ali
Alhacer, Alkandi, Alfraganus, and Arzakeb ; and seems to
have been as familiar with them as with the Greek and
Latin classics, especially with Avicenna, whom he calls " the
chief and prince of philosophy."* The great Lord Bacon,
it is well known, imbibed and borrowed the first principles
of his famous experimental philosophy from his predecessor
and namesake Ptoger Bacon, a fact which indisputably esta-
blishes the derivation of the Baconian philosophical system
from the descendants of Ishmael and disciples of Mohammed.

In reply to the almost stereotyped assertion that " Mo-
hammedanism is in the present day an enemy to science and
letters, it has been observed, that so far from this being the
truth, Islam has outstripped the enlightenment of our age by
making instruction a fundamental law. Every child must be
put to school in its fifth year. It is the duty of the State to
instruct the citizen, that he may understand the laws he
has to obey, and of the family to teach the child the means
by which he may acquire his livelihood. Every scholar is
instructed in a handicraft, and some of them have earned
thereby their subsistence. There have been, however, no
educational heart-burnings, because each commonalty had
to teach its children for and by itself. At Constantinople,

* See Sharon Turner's ' History of England during the Middle Ages.'
Tol. iv., p. 418.

94 THE KORAN.

when a quarter is burned down, which is by no means an
unfrequent occurrence, the inhabitants are obliged to rebuild
the school, but the mosque is not restored until provided
by its own endowments, or by some pious persons.*

Another assertion, viz, that modern Turkey is a despotic
country, will, if examined, be found as void of truth as the
one above, for " Turkey is the only government in the world
which is not struggling with its people to wrench from
them their privileges. It is, on the contrary, engaged in
an attempt to confer them. A Sultan can impose no tax,
make no law, declare no war, contract no debt. If the
constitution of Islam were translated and applied to any
country in Europe, it would be considered a beautiful but
impracticable theory of Utopian freedom. "f

As for the military exploits of the Mussulmans, they are,
without doubt, the most glorious recorded in history. What
can be found more wonderful than the empire of the Sara-
cens, which extended from the Straits of Gibraltar as far as
India ? See the Turks on one side and the Tartars on the
other, who preserve the grandeur and the renown of Mo-
hammed ! Find, if it be possible, among the conquering
Christian princes, any that can be put in the balance with
the Saladins, the Gengis Khans, the Tamerlanes, the Amu-
raths, the Bajazets, the Mahomets II., and the Solymans.
Did not the Saracens confine Christianity within the bounds
of the Pyrennean mountains ? Did they not assail Italy,
and proceed as far as the heart of France? Did not the
Turks extend their conquests to the confines of Germany and
the Gulf of Venice ? The leagues, the crusades of Christian
powers, those grand expeditions which drained the Latin
church of men and money, can they not be compared to a
sea whose waves flow from the west to the east, to be broken
when they encounter the Mohammedan power as against
some towering and stupendous rock?

* See 'The East and the West,' p. 178.
t Ibid., p. 184.

THE KORAN. 95

Still more wonderful were the naval triumphs of this
extraordinary people; in the days of Mohammed so dreaded
was the sea by the Arabs, that he declared its intervention
would be a valid excuse for not performing the pilgrimage
to Mecca. A generation had not passed away when their
flag floated triumphantly in the Mediterranean. Crete was
taken, and the islands in the south of the Archipelago shared
its fate ; Sicily fell a prey to the Mohammedans of northern
Africa, who also obtained permanent settlements in Corsica,
Sardinia and the south of Italy.

The Saracens for a long time maintained a naval supe-
riority in the Mediterranean, whether for the purposes of
war or of commerce, some of their vessels being of a very
large size. About the year 970 Abdalrahman, the Saracen
Sultan or Caliph of the greater part of Spain, built a vessel
larger than any that had ever been seen in those parts, and
loaded her with innumerable articles of merchandise to be
sold in the Eastern regions. Meeting on her way with a
ship carrying despatches from the Emir of Sicily to Alnioez,
a sovereign on the African coast, she siezed and pillaged it.
On this Almoez, who was also sovereign of Sicily, which he
governed by an emir or viceroy, fitted out a fleet, that
took the great Spanish ship as it was returning from Alex-
andria, laden with rich wares for Abdalrahman's own use.
Many other instances of ships of a very large size having
been constructed by the Saracens have been recorded; and
it has been suggested as highly probable that it was in
imitation of those ships that the Christian Spaniards intro-
duced the use of large ones, for which they were distin-
guished during the reign of Philip II., whose "invincible
Armada" consisted of ships much larger than the English
vessels opposed to them.

No treatment can be more unjust than that which Moham-
medanism has received at the hands of English writers of
Indian history. Thus, they contrast the Mogul Emperors

96 THE KORAN.

of the fourteenth century with "the victorious, mild and
merciful progress of the British arms in the East in the
nineteenth." But if their object were a fair one, they should
contrast the Mussulman invasion of Hindostan with the
contemporaneous Norman invasion of England — the cha-
racters of the Mussulman Sovereigns with those of their
contemporaries in tlie West — their Indian wars of the
fourteenth century with our French wars or with the
Crusades — the effect of the Mohammedan conquest upon
the character of the Hindoo, with the effect of the Norman
Conquest upon the Anglo-Saxon, "when to be called an
Englishman was considered as a reproach — when those who
were appointed to administer justice were the fountains of
all iniquity — when magistrates whose duty it was to pro-
nounce righteous judgments were the most cruel robbers —
when the great men were inflamed with such a greed for
money that they cared not by what violence they acquired
it — when the licentiousness was so great that a princess of
Scotland found it necessary to wear a religious habit in
order to preserve her person from violence."*

The history of the Mohammedan dynasties in India is
full, it is said, of lamentable instances of the cruelty and
rapacity of the early conquerors, not without precedent,
however, in contemporary Christianity, for when Jerusalem
was taken by the first Crusadersf under Godfrey de Bouillon
at the close of the tenth century, the garrison, consisting of
40,000 men, was put to the sword, without distinction;
arms protected not the brave, nor submission the timid ; no

* Henry Huntingdon and Eadmer.

t Speaking of the Crusades, Clarke observes :— " Morals certainly
reaped no benefit from them ; for of all the armies of any age or nation,
none seem ever to have surpassed in profligacy and licentiousness those
of the Holy Wars. The Crusades fixed a stamp of permanency on popular
superstition ; they encouraged the utmost violence of fanaticism ; Yi^ar
became a sacred duty ; and, instead of prayer and acts of benevolence, the
slaughter of human beings was inculcated as an expiation for offences."
(' \'e.stigia Anglicana,' vol. i. p. 339).

THE KORAN. 97

age or sex received mercy ; infants perished by the same
sword that pierced their mothers. The streets of Jerusalem
were covered with heaps of slain, and the shrieks of agony
and despair resounded from every dwelling. When Saladin,
the Soldan of Egypt and Syria, retook it in the second
Crusade, 7io lives were lost after the sicrrender, and he showed
the greatest kindness to the Christian captives, giving those
who luere poor their liberty without ransom. Before the
name and morals of this illustrious man the pretensions of
Philip of France, and even the renown of Eichard himself,
fade away. Possessing some literature and more science,
he ever, during the progress of his conquests, respected the
arts. Whilst he practised towards himself the restraint
and abstinence of an ascetic, towards others his indulgence
and liberality were unbounded. Clemency and other virtues
were exemplified in his person, and his life exhibited a cha-
racter which his rivals would have done well to imitate, and
which would not have disgraced any aspirant to Christian
excellence. " The Soldan was doubtless a person of emi-
nent bravery, wisdom and generosity ; he died, soon after
the truce, at Damascus, bequeathing alms to be distributed
among the poor, without distinction of Jew, Christian or
Mussulman."* Now, mark the contrast: The Christian
hero, Richard I., was a Sovereign whose splendour and
magnificence were maintained by immense sums extorted
from his subjects by the most unjustifiable means. His
avarice was insatiable, and an unbridled lust impelled
him not only to neglect his beautiful Queen Berengaria,
daughter of Sancho, King of Navarre, but even to a
nameless sin. A poor hermit upbraided him with his
detestable crime before tlie whole Court, conjuring him, in
(rod's name, to reflect on the destruction of Sodom.f

Most of the Sovereigns of the Mussulman dynasties were

* ' Vestigia Anglicana,' vol. i., i>. 337. t Eapin, p. 400.

H

98 THE KORAN.

men of extraordinary character. The prudence, activity
and enterprise of Mahmoud of Ghizni, and his encourage-
ment of literature and the arts were conspicuous. He
showed so much munificence to individuals of eminence that
his capital exhibited a greater assemblage of men of genius
than any other monarch in Asia has ever been able to collect
together. If rapacious in acquiring wealth, he was unri-
valled in the judgment and grandeur with which he knew
how to expend it. His four immediate successors were
patrons of literature, and acceptable to their subjects as
good governors. Can as much be said for their contempo-
raries, William the Norman, and his descendants ?

When Louis VII. of France, in the twelfth century, made
himself master of the town of Vitri, he ordered it to be set
on fire; in consequence of which inhuman command, 1,300
persons perished in the flames. In England, at the same
time, under King Stephen, civil war was carried on with so
much fury that the land was left uncultivated, and the
implements of husbandry were destroyed or abandoned;
while the result of our French wars in the fourteenth century
was a state of things more horrible and destructive than had
ever been experienced in any age or country. The insatiable
cruelty of the Mohammedan conquerors, it is said, stands
recorded upon more undeniable authority than the insatiable
benevolence of the Mohammedan conquerors. We have
abundant testimony of the cruelty of contemporary Chris-
tian conquerors; have we any evidence of their benevo-
lence ?

Feroze Shah III. ascended the throne in 1351, and dis-
tinguished himself by many useful public works, consisting
of fifty dams across rivers to promote irrigation, forty
mosques and thirty colleges, one hundred caravansaries,
thirty reservoirs, one hundred hospitals, one hundred public
baths, one hundred and fifty bridges, besides many other
edifices for pleasure and ornament, and, above all, the canal

THE KORAN. 09

from the point in the Jumna, where it leaves the mountains
in Carnoul, to Hansi and Hissa.

Baber, the first Sovereign of the Mogul dynasty, was the
most engaging of men, and one of the noblest that ever
lived or that ever entered India, and appears with as much
simplicity as dignity. The stains of vices which disgraced
his youth were wiped away, in the eyes of men, by the
moral fortitude that enabled him to overcome them, and to
become distinguished by the purity of his after life. He was
an obedient son, a kind father and brother, a generous friend
and placable enemy ; he was majestical yet affable, temperate
in his diet, sparing in sleep, skilful in making gems, casting
ordnance, and in other mechanical arts. He was bold,
frank, open-handed and high-minded, scorning the national
love of intrigue. His tastes were refined, his mind culti-
vated, his knowledge extensive, and, considering the circum-
stances of his birth and training, it redounds to his immortal
honour that his Life was,

" Like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darken'd by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven."

Humayon, his son, whose character was free from violent
passions and unstained by vices, was defeated and driven
from Hindoostan by Shir Shah, an Afghan Prince, who took
possession of the throne, and, after reigning five years, left
the crown to his son Adil Shah ; nor was it till after a period
of sixteen years that Humayon succeeded in recovering his
rights. Shir Shah, the successful usurper, was a Prince of
consummate prudence and ability, and notwithstanding his
constant activity in the field during a short reign, had
brought his territories into the highest order, and intro-
duced many improvements into his civil government. He
made a high road, extending for four months' journey, from
Bengal to the Western Ehotas near the Indus, with caravan-
saries at every stage, and wells at every mile and a half.
There was an imam and a muezim at every mosque, with

II 2

100 THE KORAN.

attendants of proper castes for Hindoos as well as for
Mohammedans. The road was planted with rows of trees
for shade, and in many places was in the state described,
when seen by travellers, after it had stood eighty-two
years.

It is almost superfluous to dwell upon the character of
the celebrated Akber, who was alike great in the cabinet
and the field, and renowned for his learning, toleration,
liberality, courage, clemency, temperance, industry and
magnanimity; but it is to his internal policy that Akber
owes his place in that highest order of princes whose reigns
have been a blessing to mankind. He forbade trials by
ordeal and marriages before the age of puberty, and the
slaughter of animals for sacrifice. He also permitted widows
to marry a second time, contrary to Hindoo law. Above
all, he positively prohibited the burnings of Hindoo widows
against their will. He employed his Hindoo subjects equally
with Mohammedans, abolished the capitation tax on infidels
as well as all taxes on pilgrims, and strictly prohibited the
making slaves of persons taken in war. He perfected aU
the financial reforms which had been commenced by Shir
Shah. He caused all the lands capable of cultivation within
the empire to be re-measured, ascertained the produce of
each begah (somewhat more than half an acre), determined
the proportion to be paid by the public, commuting the same
for a fixed money rent, giving the cultivator the option of
paying in kind if he thought the money rate too high. He
abolished, at the same time, a vast number of vexatious taxes
and office fees.

The result of these wise measures was to reduce the
amount of the public demand considerably. His directions
to his revenue officers have come down to us, and show his
anxiety for the liberal administration of his system, and for
the ease and comfort of his subjects. The tone of his
instructions to his judicial officers was just and benevolent.

THE KORAN. 101

He enjoined them to be sparing in capital punishments, and,
unless in cases of dangerous sedition, to inflict none until the
Emperor's confirmation had been received. He forbade mu-
tilation or other cruelty as the accompaniment of capital
punishments. He re-formed and new modelled his army,
paying his troops in cash from the treasury instead of by
assignments on the revenue. Besides fortifications and
other public works, he erected many magnificent buildings
which have been described and eulogized by the late
Bishop Heber.* System and method were introduced into
every part of the public service, and the whole of his
establishments present an astonishing picture of magnifi-
cence and good order, where unwieldy numbers are managed
without disturbance, and economy is attended to in the
midst of profusion.

The distinguished Italian traveller, Pietro del Valle, also,
who visited India during the reign of Jehanghiz, Akber's
son, and who wrote a description of his visit, in 1623, bears
testimony to the character of that prince, as well as to the
condition of the people under his rule, whom he found
living, not only in a comfortable and even splendid manner,
but also in perfect security ; becau.se the King, knowing
that his subjects were inclined to such vanities, did not
persecute them with false accusations, but took delight in
seeing them living in splendour, and with every appearance
of wealth.

But the reign of Shah Jehan, the grandson of Akber, was
the most prosperous ever known in India, His own domi-
nions enjoyed almost uninterrupted tranquillity, and good
government, and although Sir Thomas Rowe was struck
with astonishment at the profusion of wealth displayed
when he visited the Emperor in his camp in 1615, in which
at least two acres of ground were covered with silk, gold
carpets and hangings, as rich as velvet embossed with gold

* Travels, vol. ii. p. 81-7.

102 THE KORAN.

and precious stones could make them, yet we have the testi-
mony of Tavernier that he who caused the celebrated
peacock throne to be constructed, who, at the festival of his
accession, scattered among the bystanders money and precious
things equal to his own weight, "reigned not so much
as a king over his subjects, but more as a father over his
family." His vigilance over his internal government was
unremitting, and for the order and arrangement of his terri-
tory, and the good administration of every department of
the State, no prince that ever reigned in India could be
compared to Shah Jehan.

It was during the reign of this magnificent prince that
the famous Delhi canal was constructed under the superin-
tendence of his architect, Ali Murdan Khan. After having
ministered to the necessities of the husbandmen, during a
course of several hundred miles, this magnificent aqueduct
was made subservient to the luxury and taste of the imperial
city. A thousand streams flowed from its solid bed on either
side, and spreading themselves through masonry channels
into every quarter of Dellii, disported, in varied shapes,
through marble jets, or cooled the fevered limbs in sculptured
baths, or trickled over the gorgeous flowers in harems, lawns,
and terraces; or, anon, flowed to the humble houses of
labourers, and slaked the poor man's thirst and bathed the
poor man's brow.

Thus, although it has been asserted, but not proved, that
the Mohammedan rulers of India wrung as much from the
inhabitants as has been taken by their English successors,
the advocates of the former may at least maintain, what
cannot be advanced by the latter, that they gave full value
for what they took ; that they administered a full measure
of justice, high and low ; that the trader could convey his
goods many hundreds of miles along roads at all times safe
and in good repair ; and that whatever fault may be found
with this system, the bulk of the people lived, in those

THE KORAN.

103

times, in comparative affluence and security. That this must
have been so, the moss-grown marble terraces, the stagnant
water-courses, the owl-inhabited mansions and temples, the
solitary pillar and arch, sufficiently attest. In fact, it may
be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that each of those
so-called barbarous sovereigns expended as much money in
works of public utility as would have supported any of the
standing armies in these days.

It may not be altogether uninstructive to compare the
noble and enduring works of these Eastern princes with the
progress made in a like direction in our own country, or,
indeed, in any western kingdom, at that period. The two
pictures, it is greatly to be feared, would not bear comparison.
In tlds country, we know, at any rate, that at the epoch
alluded to, we possessed not a single canal ; that our roads
were, with few exceptions, mere cattle-tracks ; that our largest
cities could not boast of the supply of water, or of the police
protection accorded to the humblest towns within the empire
of Delhi; nor had an English traveller, journeying from
London to Highgate, in those early days, so great a certainty
of reaching his destination in safety, as had any of Shah
Jehan's meanest subjects in travelling from the Punjaub
frontier to Delhi, or from the latter city to Allahabad.

Mr. Holwell gives us an account of the people of Bengal
under their native sovereigns, which might be deemed even
fabulous, did it not come from one who had been long resident
in the country, and who spoke from an intimate acquaintance
with the subject.

"In truth," says that gentleman, "it would be almost
cruelty to molest this happy people, for in this district are
the only vestiges of the beauty, purity, piety, regularity
equity and strictness of the ancient Hindostan government.
Here the property, as well as the liberty of the people, are
inviolate. Here, no robberies are heard of, either public or
private. The traveller, either with or without merchandise

104 THE KORAN.

becomes the immediate care of the government, which allots
him guards, without any expenses, to conduct him from stage
to stage ; and these are accountable for the safety and ac-
commodation of his person and effects. At the end of the
first stage he is delivered over, with certain benevolent
formalities, to the guards of the next, who, after interrogating
the traveller as to the usage he had received in his journey,
dismiss the first guard with a written certificate of their beha-
viour, and a receipt for the traveller and his effects, which
certificate and receipt are returnable to the commanding
officer of the first stage who registers the same and regularly
reports it to the Eajah.

" In this form, the traveller is passed along through the
country, and if he only passes, he is not suffered to be at any
expense for food, accommodation, or carriage for his merchan-
dise or luggage ; but it is otherwise if he is permitted to make
any residence in one place above three days, unless occasioned
by sickness or any unavoidable accident. If anything is lost
in this district, — for instance, a bag of money or other valu-
able,— the person who finds it hangs it on the next tree, and
gives notice to the nearest choutry or place of guard, the
officer of which orders immediate publication of the same by
beat of tom-tom, or drum."*

It will now be shown, by way of contrast, what was the
state of Christian and enlightened England during the reigns
of the sovereigns contemporaneous with the above-named
Mohammedan emperors.

1381. Insurrection of Wat Tyler ; and upon its suppres-
sion by the barons, not fewer than 1500 of the insurgents
were hanged, many of them without trial.

1394. The followers of Wiclif, the Eeformer, persecuted.

1398. Tyrannical rule of Eichard II. Eebellion in Ireland,
on account of the " Kilkenny Statutes," passed in 1367. By
* " Interesting Historical Events," Part I., p. 198.

THE KORAN. 105

these Statutes, presenting Irishmen to benefices, admitting
them to monasteries, entertaining their bards, etc., were made
penal ; while to tax an EngHshman was declared felony.

1399. Forced abdication and subsequent murder of
Kichard II. by Bolingbroke, who usurped the crown under
the title of Henry IV.

1410. John Badby burnt at Smithfield for heresy, the
Prince of Wales (afterwards Henry V.) being present.
About the time of Henry IV. severe tortures were thus
applied : — " The man or woman shall be remanded to the
prison, and laid there in some low and dark house, where
they shall lie naked on the bare earth, without any litter,
rushes or other clothing, and without any garments about
them .... and that they shall lie upon their backs, their
heads uncovered, and their feet and one arm shall be drawn
to one quarter of the house with a cord, etc., the other arm
to another quarter ; and in the same manner shall be done
with their legs ; and there shall be laid upon their bodies
iron and stone, so much as they may bear and more ; and
the next day following they shall have three morsels of
barley bread without any drink ; and the second day they
shall drink thrice of the water that is next to the house of
the prison (except running water), without any bread ; and
this shall be their diet until they be dead." This horrible
torture continued to be legal down to the time of George III.
The date at which it was last inflicted has not been ascer-
tained, but certainly it was the recognised mode by which
prisoners charged with felony were compelled to put them-
selves on their trial, by pleading either guilty or not guilty.
Mr. Barrington, in his " Ancient Statutes, p. 86, mentions
two instances which happened in the reign of George II., in
the year 1741.*

From the year 1468 until the Commonwealth, the prac-

* See the article ' Peine Forte et Dure,' in the ' Political Cyclopaedia,'
vol. iv. p. 500.

106 THE KOEAN.

tice of torture was frequent. The last instance on record
occurred in 1640, when one Archer, a glover, who was sup-
posed to have been concerned in the riotous attack upon
Archbishop Laud's palace at Lambeth, " was racked in the
Tower," as a contemporary letter states, "to make him
confess liis companions." A copy of the warrant, under the
Privy Seal, authorising the torture in this case, is in the
State Paper Office. James IL, when in Scotland, had been
present during the infliction of torture.

1441. Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, the
astronomer Eoger Bolingbroke, Canon Southwell, Margery
Jourdayne and John Hum, condemned for Witchcraft ;
the Duchess was banished ; Bolingbroke hanged, drawn and
quartered ; Margery Jourdayne burnt ; Southwell died in
prison ; and Hum was pardoned.

1455. Commencement of the wars of " The Eoses."
These wars terminated in 1485, and in them perished 12
princes of the blood royal, 200 nobles, and 100,000 gentry
and common people. Ahnost the whole country was depo-
pulated, and its aristocracy exterminated.

1483. Usurpation of Kichard III. ; murder of his young
nephews King Edward V. and the Duke of York in the
Tower of London, and of Lord Ptivers and others in Pom fret
Castle.

1485. Accession of Henry VII. Immense sums accu-
mulated by extortion and confiscations enabled him to rule
without the assistance or control of Parliament. He revived
the arbitrary taxes known by the ironical name of benevo-
lences.

1509. Accession of Henry VIIL, a tyrant who boasted
" that he never spared man in his rage, or woman in his
lust." During his reign, the royal prerogative attained its
greatest height. The creation of new and unheard of trea-
sons also characterised it.

1532. Punishment of boiling to death inflicted upon a
man convicted of poisoning seventeen persons.

THE KORAN. 1 U7

1535. Nine clergymen, who refused to admit the spiritual
supremacy of Henry, hanged and quartered at Tyburn.
Archbishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More (the Chancellor)
beheaded for the same reason.

1537. The revenues of 193 monasteries, amounting to
£2,653,000. confiscated to the crown. The abbey lands
partitioned among Henry's courtiers.

1539. The abbots of Eeading, Glastonbury and Col-
chester for denying the king's supremacy were hanged and
quartered. Publication of the ''Bloody Statue," or "Six
articles in support of the papal doctrines of transubstantia-
tion," &c., &c. Persecution of Pteformers in Scotland —
seven burnt for heresy. The king's proclamations voted by
Parliament to have the force of law. Total dissolution of
religious houses in England and Wales — 643 monasteries,
90 colleges, 2374 churches and free chapels, and 100
hospitals.

1541. The venerable Countess of Salisbury, Margaret,
daucfhter of George Duke of Clarence, and the last of the
Plantagenets, beheaded May 27. She refused to lay her
head on the block, scorning to die as a criminal, not being
conscious of any crime. The executioner pursued her round
and round the scaffold, aiming at her hoary head, which he
at last struck off, after mangling the neck and shoulders in
the most horrible manner.

1546. Torture and execution of Anne Ascue for heresy ;
three men being burned with her for rejecting transubstan-
tiation.

1547. Death of Henry VIIL, January 28, aged 56. No
English sovereign ever exercised a more despotic authority
over his people. Accession of Edward VI.

1549. Beggary and misery thoughout the land. Laws
of the utmost severity passed. Justices empowered to
order the letter V. (Jor vagabond) to be branded or burnt
upon any vagrant's breast, and adjudge him to serve the
informer for two years as his slave.

108 THE KORAN.

1553. Accession of Mary, who re-establishes Popery.

1555. Persecution of Protestants. Bishops Ridley and
Latimer burnt at Oxford as obstinate heretics. The prisons
are crowded with heretics. Mary resigns the Church lands
and tithes "as essential to her salvation." Crimes greatly
increase ; highway robberies and disgusting offences abound ;
fifty criminals hanged at one assizes at Oxford ; men of rank
become robbers.

1558. Death of Queen Mary, November 17, aged 42.
During this Queen's short reign of five years, 285 persons
were burned alive — including 5 bishops, 21 clergymen, 56
women and 4 children, while thousands suffered, for con-
science sake, the loss of goods, liberty and health.

Accession of Queen Elizabeth. Persecution and burning
of Roman Catholics for refusing to deny the Pope's power to
depose the Queen.

1587. Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded, February 8,
aged 44.

1588. Dreadful severities towards Irish Catholics.

1601. Accession of James I. Declaration against religious
toleration.

1604. James endeavours to suppress Presbyterianism in
Scotland; 10 leaders imprisoned, 300 clergymen ejected.
Other persecutions follow. Laws against witchcraft and
witches. In 1603 James published the third edition of his
work upon Demonology, in which he gives a very formal
account of the practices and illusion of evil spirits, the
compacts of witches, the ceremonies used by them, the
manner of detecting them, and the justice of punishing
them. Parliament passed a statute, and such was its servile
subserviency to this monarch that it was acted upon and

* And yet of this royal pedant, called the wisest fool in Christendom,
and who, as Macaulay says, was placed on the throne by Providence, in
order to show the world what a king ought not to be, the then Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, declared that " undoxihtedly His Majesty spoke by
the special assistance of Ood's spirit."

THE KORAN. 109

enforced with the severest vigilance ; so much so that from
his accession to the latter end of the 17th century, however
incredible it may appear, the enormous number of three
thousand, one hundred and ninety-two individuals were
condemned and executed in Great Britain alone under the
accusation of witchcraft, sorcery, or conjuration.* Amongst
these victims were two widows sentenced to be hanged by
Chief Justice Hale, on the mere evidence of their enemies
for having bewitched three children, who were too ill to appear
in court, but next day called upon the Judge, in perfect
health, having been restored at the very moment conviction
was pronounced.

1625. Death of James I., aged 69, He is succeeded by
Charles I., his son. Forced loans, arbitrary taxation, and
imprisonments produce the greatest discontent.

1629. The power of the " Star Chamberf" enforced.

The four following instances will suffice to give some idea
of the atrocious proceedings of this miscalled court of justice.
Prynne, a barrister, having written a book obnoxious to the
Court party, was condemned to be expelled the bar, to stand
in the pillory at Westminster and Cheapside, and to lose both
ears, one in each of those places, to pay a fine of £5000. to
the King, and to perpetual imprisonment.

Colonel Lilburne, being accused of writing and dissemi-
nating seditious pamphlets, was ordered to be examined,

* Mackiniion's ' History of Civilisation,' vol. ii. p. 310 : — " The chief
promoters of the accusations for sorcery at this time," says the above
author, " were James VI. of Scotland, Pope Innocent X., S[)renger,
Boilenus, and Matthew Stephens — a worthy confraternity !" About the
same time (that is in 1601) the Inquisition in Portugal actually con-
demned to death and burned alive the horse of an Englishman which
performed those docile feats this noble animal can be trained to, alleging
that it was through diabolical aid.

t So called from the Starra, or Jewish covenants, deposited there in
the reign of Eichard I. No star was allowed to be valid except found
in these repositories. The court was instituted 2 Henry VII., 1487, for
trials by a committee of the Privy Council. In Charles I.'s reign it
exercised its power in<le]ienilent ol' any law. There were from 2ii to 42
judges. It was abolished IG Charles I., 1G41.

110 THE KOKAN.

but refused to take the oath used in the Star Chamber,
namely, that he would answer interrogatories although his
replies might criminate himself. For this contempt of Court,
as it was called, he was sentenced to be whipped, pillo-
ried, and imprisoned ; and as, while undergoing flagellation,
he declaimed loudly against the tyranny of the Govern-
ment, the Star Chamber, then sitting, ordered him to be
gagged.

Williams, the learned Bishop of Lincoln, whose popular
preaching marked him for the vengeance of Laud, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, was, for no other reason, fined £10,000.,
committed to the Tower during the King's pleasure, and
suspended from his episcopal duties. Nor was this all, for
during the seizure of his furniture and books, there having
been found some letters addressed to him by one Osbaldi-
stone, a schoolmaster, another fine of £8000. was levied upon
him, while the poor pedagogue, being brought to trial, was
sentenced to pay a fine of £5000., and to have his ears nailed
to the pillory before his own school.

1641. Eebellion in Ireland and massacre of 40,000
Protestants.

1649. Charles, arraigned as a " tyrant, traitor, murderer,
and public enemy to the Commonwealth," was found guilty
January 12, and beheaded at Whitehall on January 30.

1656. Cromwell inaugurated as Lord Protector, at West-
minster Hall, June 26. Severity of his government; men
executed without legal trial ; many prisoners taken in war,
together with fifty gentlemen, who were disaffected to the
existing Government, were transported to Barbadoes, there
to be sold as slaves.

But, passing on to more recent times, let us now consider
what was our own conduct in India after we became pos-
sessed of power there.

Keferring to the occurrences subsequent to our deposing

THE KOKAN. Ill

Meer Cossim from the government of Bengal, " I can only-
say," writes Clive, " that such a scene of anarchy, corrup-
tion, and extortion was never seen or heard of in any country
but Bengal ; the three provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa,
producing a revenue of £3,000,000. sterling, have been under
the absolute management of the Company's servants ever
since Meer Jaf&er's restoration to the Soubahship ; and
they have, both civil and military, exacted and levied
contributions from every man of power and consequence
from the Nabob down to the lowest Zemindar. The
trade has been carried on by free merchants acting as
gomastahs to the Company's servants, who, under the
sanction of their names, have committed actions which make
the name of the English stink in the nostrils of a Gentoo and
a Mussulman ; and the Company's servants have interfered
with the revenues of the Nabob, and turned out and put in
ofiEicers of the Government at their pleasure, and made every
one pay for their preferment."*

A severe famine followed upon this misgovernment, so
that it is not surprising to find the Governor-General, Lord
Cornwallis, twenty years afterwards, describing Bengal as a
country that was hastening to decay. These are his words :
" I am sorry to be obliged to say that agriculture and com-
merce have, for many years, been gradually declining, and
that, at present, excepting the class of Sheefs and Banyans,
who reside almost entirely in great towns, the inhabitants of
these provinces are advancing hastily to a general state of
poverty and wretchedness. In this description I must even
include almost every Zemindar in the Company's territories ;
which, though it may have been partly occasioned by their
own indolence and extravagance, I am afraid must also be in
a great measure attributed to the defects of our former
system of mismanagement."t

Nor was it in our own territory alone that the evil of our
* See Macaulay's * Essay on Lord Clive.' + See Correspondence.

112 THE KOKAN.

misrule was felt. It spread into the dominions of our allies.
From our first connection with the Nabob of Oude, his
principality was made a carcass for the British to prey upon.
" I fear," said Mr. Hastings, when still vested with the
supreme rule over India, and describing a state of things
which he himself had been a party in producing, " I fear
that our encroaching spirit, and the insolence with which it
has heen exerted, has caused our alliance to he as much
dreaded hy all the powers of Hindostan as our arms. Our
encroaching spirit and the uncontrolled and even protected
licentiousness of individuals have done more injury to our
national reputation than our arms and the credit of our
strength has raised it. Every person in India dreads a
connection with us, which they see attended with mortify-
ing humiliation to those who have availed themselves of
it."* And as a signal example of this feeling, and of
measures which awakened it, he adduces our dealings with
Oude.

" Before those dealings commenced, Oude," says the
historian Mill, " was in a high state of prosperity ; it
yielded, without pressure upon the people, a clear income
of three millions, but by quartering, not only an army of
soldiers, but a host of civilians upon him, we soon reduced
the Nabob to a state of the bitterest distress and his country
to poverty; so that, after bearing the burthen for some
years, he found his income reduced to half its former
amount. In nine years, unjustifiable extortions, to the
amount of thirty-four lacs of rupees (£340,000) per annum
had been practised in that dependent province." t "The
numbers, influence and enormous amount of the salaries,
pensions and encroachments of the Company's service, civil
and military, in the Vizier's service," said Mr. Hastings,
" have become an intolerable burthen upon the revenue and

* Gleis's ' Life of Warren Hastings,' vol. ii.
t Mill's ' History of India,' vol. v. p. 316.

THE KOKAN, 113

authority of his Excellency, and exposed us to the enmity
and resentment of the whole country, by excluding the
native servants and adherents of the Vizier from the rewards
of their services and attachment. I am afraid that few men
would understand me if I were to ask by what right or
policy we levied a tax on the Nabob Vizier for the benefit
of patronized individuals, and fewer still if I questioned the
right or policy of imposing upon him an army for his
protection, which he could not pay and which he does not
want ; with what expression of features could I tell him to
his face, ' You do not want it, but you shall pay for it.' "*

Mr. Hastings did not content himself with this exposure
of events which had occurred under his own administration.
He withdrew a portion of that army which the Nabob " did
not want, but for which he was obliged to pay ;" but this
burthen was fastened upon him again with additions by
Mr. Hastings' successor. Lord Cornwallis, in spite of the
Nabob's earnest deprecations. Having gradually increased
our demands under the name of subsidy from £250,000. to
£700,000. per annum, Lord Teignmouth (Sir John Shore)
further increased it, and Lord Wellesley, under a threat of
seizing upon the whole, in 1801, extorted a surrender from
the Nabob of one-half of his dominions, valued at £1,300,000.
of annual revenue, in satisfaction of a demand which he had
imposed upon him of £700,000. But our exactions did
not stop here ; between the years 1815 and 1825 were
extracted more than four millions under the name of loans
from the Nabob, or, "as they might be more justly
described," says the Governor-General Lord Bentinck, "as
unwilling contributions extorted for fear of our power, for
which we gave him the empty title of King, and a territory
entirely unproductive, little better than a wilderness."

A short digression will here be necessary to complete the
story of British injustice to Oude.

* ' Life of Warren Hastings,' vol. ii. p. 458.

114 THE KOEAN.

The climax to the wrongs of Oude was its annexation by
Lord Dalhousie in open violation of the Treaty of 1837,
which he scrupled not to declare " was null and void, having
been wholly disallowed by the Honourable Court of Directors
as soon as they received it." And this in defiance of the
facts— that the treaty bore the signatures of the then
Governor-General Lord Auckland and three members of the
Council in the usual form ; that it had been formally referred
to as a subsisting treaty in two separate communications
from the Governor-General to the King of Oude in the
years 1839 and 1847 ; and lastly that it was included in a
volume which was published in 1845 by the authority of
Government. {See Oude Blue Book.)

The case having been submitted in 1857 to the eminent
jurist, Dr. Travers Twiss, for his opinion, that learned gentle-
man gave it as follows :

" Upon the best consideration which I have been able to
give to all these facts, I am constrained to come to the con-
clusion that the Governor-General of India in Council was
not authorised by the law of nations to set aside the treaty
of 1837 as inoperative."

And yet, notwithstanding this opinion of so eminent an
authority, a recent writer who appears to have about as
much respect for the Decalogue as for the Law of Nations,
scruples not to defend the annexation of Oude, by the stet
pro ratione voluntas argument, an argument which would
equally justify the thus ennobled art of kleptomania whether
practised by the bold brigand or the sneaking pickpocket.
" There was still," says Mr. Kaye* another province to be
absorbed into the British Empire, under the administration
of Lord Dalhousie ; not by conquest, for its rulers had ever
been our friends and its people had recruited our armies >
not by lapse, for there had always been a son or a brother,
or some member of the royal house to fulfil, according to

* Kaye's ' History of tlie Sepoy War in India,' vol. i. p. 112.

THE KORAN. 115

the Mohammedan law of succession, the conditions of
heirship, and there was still a king, the son of a king,
upon the throne ; hut hy the simple assertion of the domi-
nant loill of the British Government. This was the great
province of Oude, in the very heart of Hindostan, which
had long tempted us alike hy its local situation and the
reputed loealth of its natural resources." Hear this, ye
venerable shades of Grotius, Puffendorf and Vattel ! Eead
this, ye so-called independent princes of India, and meditate
thereon !

Lord Cornwallis was indisputably a just man. Lord
Teignmouth a religious man, and Lord Wellesley a great
man ; nevertheless, there was nothing wise or great, just or
religious in their treatment of their helpless allies the sove-
reign princes of Oude.

Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, bears like testimony
against our treatment of native Indian princes. In a speech
delivered by him in the House of Commons on April 15th,
1782, he said :

" There were four principal conterminous powers in India
— the Mahratta States ; the dominions of Hyder Ali ; the
dominions of the Nizam of the Deccan, and the dominions
of the Eajah of Berar. Besides these, there were several
inferior powers, such as the Nabob of Arcot, the Eajah of
Tanjore, etc. But the four principal powers had all been
inflamed against us, with two of whom we were at open war *
and the other two were justly incensed against us. The
Presidency of Bombay entered into a negotiation with
Rngoba, a person who had pretensions to be a ruler of the
Mahrattas States, promising to seat him in the Government,
if he would give up, when so seated, certain territories to
the Company. With this treaty they entered upon the war,
and soon after, the Presidency of Bengal formed a treaty of
exactly the same kind with Moodegee Benslah, the Eajah of
l^erar, offering to seat him in tlie Government of the

I 2

116 THE KOEAN.

Mahrattas, if he would cede certain districts. This double
dealing was discovered, and Moodegee Benslah resented it
as insidious and unfaithful. The Nizam of the Deccan's
dominions lay to the north of our possessions, and they
were so obnoxious to them that we ought to be very careful
in our treatment of him. He ceded to the Company certain
districts, which were to be paid for by an annual tribute.
The tribute we failed to pay. The consequence was that he
declared the British to be a nation which no promises could
bind, and no rules of justice, honour or faith could restrain ;
and he invited the power of Hyder Ali against us ; for no
Indian was safe while the English had an inch of territory
in India."

After the above instances, recorded by Englishmen them-
selves, of British bad faith and misrule in India, the opinions
and sentiments expressed in the following State Paper, de-
livered to Sir Kobert Ainslie, the English Ambassador at
Constantinople, by the Grand Vizier, will appear neither
surprising nor unjust. The document in question was
read by Mr. Grey, M.P., in the House of Commons, on
the 29th February, 1792, during the debate on the Russian
armament.

Towards the close of his speech, Mr. Grey said : " Those
alHes, the Turks — whom we pretended to support, but
afterwards betrayed — had given the highest proof of their
abhorrence and contempt of our conduct. I know not
whether I shall be blamed or ridiculed for what I have done,
but I have taken the pains to procure the best information
on the subject, and have obtained a copy of the Grand
Vizier's answer to Sir Eobert Ainslie, our ambassador
at Constantinople, of which the following is the sub-
stance:*—

* 'Parliamentary History,' vol. xxix., p. 933. See also the Times
newspaper of Feb. 29, 1792.

THE KORAN 117

State Paper.

" The Grand Seignior wars for himself, and for himself
makes peace. He can trust his own slaves, servants, and
subjects. He knows their faith, has experienced their
virtue, and can rely upon their fidelity — a virtue long since
banished your corner of Europe. If all other Christians tell
truth, no reliance is to be had on England ; she buys and
sells all mankind. The Ottomans have no connexion with
your King nor your country ; we never sought for your
advice, your interference, or your friendship ; we have no
minister, no agency, no correspondence with you; for what
reason offer you then to mediate for us with Russia ? Why
seek ye to serve an empire of Infidels, as ye call us Mussul-
man ? We want not your friendship, aid, or mediation.
Your Vizier, of whom you speak so higlily, must have some
project of deception in view, some oppressive scheme to
amuse your nation, who, we are told, are credulous, servile,
and adorers only of money. Avarice, if we are well
informed, is your chief characteristic ; you sell and buy
your God — money is your deity ; and all things is commerce
with your ministry, with your nation — come ye, then, to sell
us to Russia? No, let us bargain for ourselves. Wlien
fate has spun out the thread of our good fortune we must
yield ; what has been decreed by God and the Prophet of
men must and will come to pass. The Ottomans know no
finesse ; duplicity and cunning are your Christian morals.
We are not ashamed to be honest, downright, plain and
faithful in our state maxims. If we fall in war, we submit
to the will of heaven, decreed from the beginning. We
have long lived in splendour, the first power on earth, and
we glory in having triumphed for ages over Christian infi-
delity and depravity, mixed with all sorts of vice and hypo-
crisy. We adore the God of nature and believe in Mahomet.
You neither believe in the God you pretend to worship, nor in

118 THE KORAN.

Ms Son, wliom you call both your God and your Prophet.
Wliat reliance can there be upon so sacrilegious a race?
Truth you banish, as you do virtue, from all your conduct
and actions with each other. Eead the catalogue of com-
plaints, manifestoes, declarations, and remonstrances of all
the Christian Kings, Monarchs, and Emperors, who have
lived and warred with each other. You find them all
equally blasphemous, equally perfidious, equally cruel, equally
unjust, and faithless to their engayements. Did the Turk
ever forfeit his promise, word, or honour ? Never ! Did
ever a Christian Povjer keep an engageinent hut while it
suited his own avarice or awMtion ? No ! How, then, do
you think we are to trust you, a nation at this moment, if
the truth be told, ruled by a perfidious administration without
one grain of virtue to guide the machine of State. The
Grand Seignior has no public intercourse with your Court —
he wants none — he wishes for none. If you wish to remain
here as a spy, or, as you term yourself, an ambassador for
your Court, you may live with those of other Christian
nations, while you demean yourself with propriety, but we
want neither your aid by sea or land, nor your council or
mediation. I have no order to thank you for your offer,
because it is by the Divan deemed officious, nor have I any
command to thank you for the offer of your naval assistance,
because it is what the Porte never dreamed of admitting
into our sea. Wliat you have to do with Eussia we neither
know nor care ; our concerns with that Court we mean to
finish as suits ourselves and the maxims of our laws and
State policy. If you are not the most profhgate Christian
nation, as you are charged to be, you are undoubtedly the
boldest in presumption and effrontery, in offering to bring
such a power as Eussia to terms. Such as you and some
other trivial Christians united fancy yourselves equal to
command ; we know better, and therefore this effrontery of
yours amounts rather to audacity, and to an imbecile dicta-

THE KORAN. 119

tion, which must render your councils at home mean and
contemptible, and your advice abroad unworthy of wisdom
or attention from any power, much less the regard of the
Porte, which on all occasions wherein its ministers have
listened to you have experienced evil either in your designs
or in your ignorance.

"His Sublime Highness cannot be too much upon his
guard against the attempts and presumption of a nation so
perfidious to the interests of its subjects (or colonists), but
it is the usual way of Christian Princes to sell and cede over
their subjects to each other for money. Every peace made
amongst you, as we are well informed, is made favourable to
the King that best bribes. The Ottoman Ministry have too
long and too often given ear to European councils, and as
often as they did so they either were betrayed, sold, or
deceived. Away, then, with your interference for the Porte
with Eussia, It has been your aim to embroil all mankind,
and thereafter profit by your perfidy. We ask not, want
not, nor desire your commerce, because our merchants have
been sacrificed to your double dealings. You have no religion
but gain ; avarice is your only God, and the Christian faith
you profess but as a mask for your hypocrisy. We will
hear no more from you, therefore you are commanded to
make no reply.

With the view of proving how powerful and beneficial an
influence the doctrines of the Koran exert over the feelings
and actions of the Mohammedans, we shall conclude the
present chapter with a few extracts from a work entitled
* La Turquie Actuelle,' written by A. Ubbicini, and pub-
lished by him in 1855 : —

Truthfulness and Honesty.

" The aspect of these vast galleries (bazaars), presenting
an assemblage of all the nations and all the industries of

120 THE KOKAN.

Turkey, offers an opportunity of adding some features to
the physiognomy of the Osmanli or Turk. See him there
gravely seated on the front of his stall, beside his Armenian
or Greek fellow-tradesmen ; whilst they watch with the eye
the passing customer, and invite him with the voice — ' Hola
he ! Captain ! Ichl^bi ! Signer Captain ! ' — he continues
quietly to smoke his pipe or to pass the beads of his
chapter. If you stop before his berth and ask him the
price of an object, he will answer politely but laconically,
' Fifty — a hundred piastres.' If unaccustomed to the habits
of the place, you commence to bargain, his only answer will
be a gentle raising of the chin and a resumption of his pipe.
In vain will you insist, he will not lower his price a para.
It is quite otherwise with the Christians and the Jews.
From the hundred piastres they will come down to eighty,
to sixty, to forty, or even below.

" As a general rule, offer to an Armenian the half of the
price he asks, the third to a Greek, the fourth to a Jew.
But for the Mussulman, if you want to get his goods, it
is far better to resign yourself at once to pay what he asks
for them.

" As no one could make an Osmanli'^ breah his word, he
believes implicitly in the word of others. Make an oath
that such a thing is true, he will believe you. A French
officer went to the bazaar to buy a piece of cloth, and asked
for the same his comrade had bought the day before; but
the merchant had no more of it. He went to another who
asked a higher price. The officer complained and showed
him his pattern. The merchant having examined the pat-
tern, and seen that the quality was the same as that of his
own piece, proposed to his customer to make oath as to the
price which he had given for his cloth. The officer, anxious

* The Persians call the Turks Osmanlis, because they assert " that Osman
or Othman was the true and lawful successor of Mohammed, the great
Caliph and lawful sovereign, to whom alone belonged the interpretation of
the Koran, and the deciding the difficulties which arise in the law."

THE KORAN. 121

to see what the result would be, did so, upon which the
merchant gave him the cloth for the same price as the
other.

" I confess," says M. Ubbicini, " that this confidence in
a man's word, this dignity and reserve please me. I know
not why the seller with us should affect to place himself so
much below the buyer. In Turkey there is no such distinc-
tion. In fact, the seller troubles himself little about his
sale, and sees, without jealousy, the greater success of his
neighbour. ' My turn will come to morrow,' he says. When
the voice of the Muezin is heard, he performs his prayers
and prosternations in his shop, in the middle of all the
comers and goers, as little disturbed as if he were in the
Desert; or he goes to the neighbouring mosque, leaving
his merchandise under the guardianship of the public faith.
In this immense capital (Constantinople), where the mer-
chants are accustomed to absent themselves from their
shops at fixed hours, known to every one, where the doors
of houses are only shut at night, by a simple latch, there
are not four rohlerics committed in the whole year. At
Pera and Galata, exclusively inhabited by Christians, there
is not a day passes without hearing of robberies and
murders.

There is the same honesty to be found in the country
parts ; here is the narrative of an English traveller, in a
letter lately addressed to the Daily News : —

" Yesterday, I hired a Bulgarian peasant, with his waggon,
to carry my baggage and that of my companion, consisting
of trunks, portmanteaus, carpet-bags cloaks, furs, and
shawls. Wishing to buy some hay to stretch ourselves on
during the night, a Turk, polite, if ever a man was, offered
to accompany us. The peasant unyoked his oxen, and left
them with all our baggage in the street. When I saw that
he was also going away, I said, 'Some one must remain
here.' 'Whyl' asked the Turk, with surprise. ' To watch

122 THE KOEAN.

over my goods.' ' Oh ! ' replied the Mussulman, ' they may
remain here all the week, night and day, and no one will
touch them.' I yielded, and when I returned, I found all
safe. Observe that the Turkish soldiery were continually
passing the spot. Let this be told to the Christians from
the pulpits of London. Some will think that they dream.
Let them awake." ....

The honesty of the porters (hammals) is even more to be
depended upon than that of our Auvergnats. It is they
who carry the bales of spices from the counting-houses of
Galata to the vessels, and vice versa ; and I believe there is
not a single example of one packet being wanting. It is
true, this is rendered more easy by the proverbial honesty
of the whole nation.

A merchant of Galata was returning to Constantinople
with a sack of two thousand piasters in bechlics — pieces of
five piasters — while disembarking at the landing-place at
Topkhane, the sack bursts, the pieces fall out and are
scattered on the quay ; some of them roll into the sea.
The crowd throws itself on the pavement ; some plunge
into the water. The alarmed owner follows all these
movements ; he begins to be re-assured as he sees that
from all sides the piasters as they are found are replaced in
the sack. A hammal then takes up the sack on his
shoulders and accompanies the merchant to his house.
The latter having paid the hammal for his job, hastens to
count his bechlics ; not one was missing.

Toleration and Charity.

Our negligence in observing the precepts of our religion,
the human considerations that interfere with its most essential
parts, the facility with which we abandon it for the most
miserable motives, are taken by the Turks as so many proofs
of the inferiority of this religion. It is on that account they

THE KORAN. 123

call Europe " the land of the infidels," and that in speaking
of us they join the epithet Mitlhcd (impious) to that of
Ghaiour (infidel).

But this contempt does not lead to persecution. I have
elsewliere shown on the authority of many examples how
the spirit of proselytism and intolerance of which the Turks
are often accused, is not only contrary to the principle, but
to the constant practice of Islamism. As nothing in the
world can cause an Osmanli to renounce his religion, so he
never seeks to disturb the faith of another. If you please
him, and if you have attracted his affection, he may say to
you, " God grant to thee a happy end," which means, " God
sive thee grace to become a Mussulman," But that would
be all ; to go further would be to encroach upon the " divine
domain." " The conversion of souls," say the Mussulman
doctors, " belongs to God." Here is another maxim of these
doctors — " Do good to every one, and dispute not with the
ignorant." Turkey has never known religious persecutions;
on the contrary, she offers an asylum upon her territory to
the unhappy victims of Christian fanaticism. Consult history.
In the 15th century, thousands of Israelites, driven out of
Spain and Portugal, found a refuge in this same Turkey,
where their descendants for four centuries have led a quiet
existence, except in those places (must one confess it ?) where
they had to defend themselves against the persecutions of the
Christians, and above aU of the orthodox (Catholics). Even
to-day, at Athens, so long as Easter lasts, a Jew dares not
show himself in the streets. In Turkey, if the Israelitish
race are exposed to insult from the Greek and Armenian
Christians, at least the local authorities interfere to protect
them.

All religions, as well as all nationalities, are to be found,
side by side, in the vast and pacific dominions of the Sultan.
Tlie mosque, it is true, overtops the Church and the Syna-
gogue, but it does not exclude them. Catholicism is freer

124 THE KOEAN.

at Constantinople and at Smyrna, than at Paris and at Lyons.
No law restrains its outward manipulations and imprisons
God in the sanctuary. The dead when carried to their last
resting-place, are followed by a long line of monks, carrying
candles and singing psalms. The day of the Fete Dieu, all
the churches of Pera and Galata walk in procession, preceded
by the cross and the banner, and escorted by a piquet of
soldiers, who oblige the Osmanlis themselves to give way for
the procession to pass.

But I shall be told, the Catholics of the East are protected
by France and by Austria, as Eussia protects the Greeks,
and England the Protestants. Well, be it so ; but the poor
Jews, who protects them ? Four or five years ago, a Jewish
muleteer was brought before the Pasha of Mussoul, accused
of having blasphemed the Prophet, which had excited the
whole of the population. When he heard the sacrilegious
words imputed to the accused, the Pasha drew back in
horror, exclaiming — " It is impossible that any man could
have spoken thus without immediately drawing upon his
head the vengeance of God. I cannot, therefore, believe that
this muleteer is guilty, and it would be presumptuous in me
to punish him whom God has not condescended to chastise."

This is a fine example of tolerance ! Yet how many people
in France believe, upon the faith of the Augsburg Gazette,
and the Athens Ohserver, that in Turkey they every day
torture and impale those " dogs of Christians," as they believe
on the faith of the writers of dramas and comic operas, in the
handkerchief thrown by the Sultan to his favourite slave, or
in the women sewn up alive in sacks and thrown into the
Bosphorus.

The Turkish Government has derogated in practice from
its tolerant maxims only when it has seen the spirit of pro-
selytism, under cover of this very toleration, becoming aggres-
sive, and bringing trouble at once into the consciences of men
and the affairs of the State. The Lazerists only, who first

THE KORAN. 125

appeared in Turkey in 1781, have wisely understood their
vocation ; thus, their missions, which now cover the whole of
the Levant, are the only ones which at present bear real fruit.
The local authorities, far from hindering them, are the first
to encourage them in a zeal which seems to be excited only
by benevolence. Was it not a Turk, and that one of the prin-
cipal functionaries of the Porte, Hassib Effendi, who, in 1844,
after a visit which he had made to the School of the Sisters
of Charity, sent to the Superior a magnificent First Communion
robe for the poor pupil who should be judged worthy of that
favour ?

To do good is to the Osmanlis the first of obligations. —
"Let thy door be always open to the dervish and the
poor," said the poet Nabi in his advice to his son ; "to do
this is more agreeable to God than to build mosques, than
to fast continually, or to make many times pilgrimages to
Mecca." With them charity is not distinct from religion.
He who fails to give alms does not merely neglect his duty
as a Mussulman, he ceases by that alone to be one; for
charity, as well as the pilgrimage, the fast of the Eamazan
and prayer, form, with the profession of Faith, the five
fundamental points of Islamism.

I have elsewhere spoken of " that charity and benevo-
lence universal, unlimited, to be exercised, without distinc-
tion of belief, or even of personal hatred and animosities,
going even to the exhaustion of private resources, as Tacitus
says of the ancient Germans ; and that, not merely in the
towns, but even over the whole of the public roads, where
puljlic and private beneficence has provided for the pro-
tection and support of the traveller and the indigent, not
in respect to one's neighbours only, but even to the
animals."

In the passage above referred to, M. Ubicini, after describ-
ing the stray dogs in Constantinople, says, " Hunted away
by the Europeans, great numbers have retreated into the

126 THE KORAN.

remotest quarters of the city. There they still find some
charitable souls who distribute food to them every morning,
assist the females when whelping, save the puppies from
perishing with cold during the winter, and even carry their
humanity so far as, in their last moments, to bequeath them
a legacy for their support. It is true that the dog, like the
pig, is considered by the Osmanlis as an unclean animal, so
much as to violate by its presence the state of legal purity.
The dog is, therefore, never suffered in the house, but the
owner of the latter regards himself as the natural protector
of all such as have domiciliated themselves in the quarter
he inhabits. Benevolence is commanded by the Prophet,
as the first of all virtues ; a benevolence which is extended
to all animals.*

" To sum up, in one word, / know no jpeojpU more humane,
in the true sense of the word, than those Turks whom ive still
to-day continue to treat as Barbarians."

* ' La Tvirquie Actuelle,' p. 78. " To all the brute creation," writes
Miss Pardoe (' City of the Sultan ') " the Turks are not only merciful,
but ministering friends ; and to so great an extent do they carry this
kindness towards the inferior animals, that they will not kill an un-
weaned lamb, in order to spare unnecessary suffering to the mother ;
and an English sportsman, who had been unsuccessful in the chase,
having on one occasion, in firing off his piece previously to disembarking
from his caique, brought down a gull that was sailing above his head,
was reproached by his rowers with as much horror and emphasis as
though he had l^een guilty of homicide."

PAKT III.

CHARGES REFUTED.

SOLE CHAPTER

The charges brought agamst Mohammed are reducible to
four, as follows : —

I. The promulgating a new and false religion as a revelation from
God, it being, on the contrary, but a mere invention of his own,
for the purpose of gratifying his ambition and lust.
II. That Mohammed propagated his religion by the sword, thereby
causing an enormous waste of human blood, and a vast amount
of human misery.

III. The sensual character of his Paradise as described in the Koran.

IV. The encouragement he has given to licentiousness by legalizing

Polygamy.

We proceed to rebut the above charges, to the best of
our ability.

Charge I.

The promulgating a neio and false religion as a revelation
from God, it being, ' on the contrary, hut a inere invention
of his own for the purpose of gratifying his ambition
and lust.

That Mohammed was wholly free from the vice of ambi-
tion is proved by almost every circumstance of his life, but
more especially by the indisputable fact that, after living to

128 CHARGES REFUTED.

see his religion fully established, and himself in possession
of unlimited jiower, he never availed himself of it for the
purposes of self-aggrandizement, but retained to the very-
last his original simplicity of manners.* As to his grati-
fying his appetite for women, considering that when he
appeared, unbounded polygamy obtained throughout Arabia,
it must certainly seem somewhat parodoxical that he should
restrict licentiousness, the better to satisfy his own lust.

In addition to what has been before observed upon this
point, ■)* it may be further urged in Mohammed's defence,
that, like all his countrymen, he was, by temperament, an
ardent lover of the fair sex ; that he never affected to be
exempt from human frailties, saying, on the contrary, " I
am a man like unto you,| and that in comparison with
David the prophet and king, " the man after God's own
heart," he " was as pure as is the icicle that hangs on Dian's
temple." Michal, Saul's second daughter, was David's first
wife. She was taken from him during his disgrace ;§
he married successively several others, || and still continued
to demand back the first. Before she could be restored to
him, she had to be forced from a husband who loved her
exceedingly, and who followed her as far as he could,
crying like a child. H David did not scruple to match with
a daughter of an un circumcised prince,** and though he
had children by several wives, yet he took concubines at
Jerusalem — and lastly, in the case of Bathsheba,tt he added
to the sin of adultery, the crime of a deliberate and cold-
blooded murder.

When David, by reason of old age, could not be warmed
by all the clothes they covered him with, it was thought
proper to seek for a young virgin, who might take care of

* See Life, p. 53. || 2 Samuel, chap. iii. v.

+ Page 26. 1 2 Samuel, chap. iii. 16.

X Koran, chap. xli. ** Talmai, King of Geshur, ibid. v. 3.

§ 1 Samuel, chap. xxv. 46. ft 1 Kings, chap. i.

CHARGES REFUTED. 129

him and lie with him. He suffered them to bring him the
most beautiful girl they could find. Now, can this be said to
be the action of a very chaste man ? Surely the Christian
writers, when they upbraid Mohammed with incontinence,
should recollect the saying "that those who live in glass
houses should not be the first to throw stones."

In acquiring and using power, Mohammed did but follow
the example of Moses, who could not have effected the
deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, had he
not assumed the authority of a leader and a head — the maker
or dispenser of the laws ; and surely no man ever yet up-
braided him with making ambition the end and design of
that achievement, since without that power he could not
have accomplished the mission upon which he had been
sent by Jehovah. And thus it was in the case of Arabia,
which, being divided into many tribes, frequently at war with
one another, Mohammed had no other way of uniting them
into one body, and of establishing his religion among them
than by making himself their head or leader, a circumstance
which fully exonerates him from the charge of personal
ambition.

As to the term imposture, meaning falsehood or forgery,
which has been so unsparingly bestowed upon Mohammed's
doctrine, the fact that his first principle was the unity of the
Godhead— Q, principle preached by Jesus Christ himself—
sufficiently shows its injustice. The word— imposture, how-
ever, may be meant to apply to his pretension of being a
prophet. Now, it is certain that the abolishing of idolatry
and the setting up of the worship of the one true God, among
a people lost in the first, and ignorant of the latter, was an
errand worthy of a mission from heaven. It is also certain
that Mohammed did establish the worship of one God in
Arabia, and so eff'ectually abolished idolatry in that country
that it has never re-appeared there, in any shape, for above
one thousand years, whereas idolatry no sooner got footing

K

130 CHARGES REFUTED.

again among the Christians, than that section of them that
had gained the ascendancy condemned the Iconoclasts as
heretics, solely for demolishing the idols that had been set up
by them.*

Mohammed's precepts, excepting such as enjoin the extir-
pating of idolatry wherever his religion prevailed, enforce the
practice of the moral duties which have for object the regu-
lating men's actions towards one another, and that these
are recommended with wonderful warmth and pertinacity
throughout the Koran is what has been acknowledged by the
greatest of his enemies.

Among the many parables and allegories in which, agreeably
to the custom of the Arabians who delighted in that way of
speakii)g and writing, not a few of Mohammed's doctrines are
wrapped up, none has excited so much the sarcasm and ridi-
cule of Christian writers as " the night journey to heaven." f
But surely these critics should have recollected that such a
tale or legend is not a whit more incredible, not a whit more
preposterous than that of Christ's temptation by the Devil, in
the wilderness.

" Again, the devil taketh him (Christ) up into an exceeding
high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the
earth and the glory of them," &c.| The fact is that the
" night journey" is an allegory of easy explanation. Thus,
Al Barak, which signifies lightning, is thought, which moves
more swiftly than even the electric fluid, and the ladder of
light by which Gabriel and he ascended up to heaven, was —
contemplation — by which we pass through all the heavens up
to the throne of God ; and the wonderful cock, whose crowing

* Thus the celebrated Irene, Empress of the East, and wife of Leo IV.,
surnamed ihe " Icouoclase," having been declared by her husband, before
bis death, regent of the Empire for their son, Constantine, caused the
latter's eyes to be put out ; then ascended the Imperial throne, and con-
voked the Council of Nicea in 787, by which the worship of images was
re-established.

+ See ' Life,' p. 26.

+ Gospel according to St. Matthew, iv. 8.

CHARGES REFUTED. 131

God took delight in hearing, and which man never heard
or regarded, was the prayer of the just, and so on with all
the rest.

Upon this point, moreover, it may be fairly asked why
Mohammed should be denied the benefit of metaphor and
allegory, to wliicli most of the Christian theologians are fain
to have recourse in order to solve many things in their own
system, and escape from that absurdity which otherwise they
would be under ; as in the story of the prophet who repre-
sents the God of truth as consulting with a lying Spirit in
order to deceive Ahab.

" And the Lord said, who shall persuade Ahab that he may
go up and fall at Eamoth Gilead ? And one said, in this
manner ; and another said, in that manner,"

" And there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord,
and said, I will persuade him."

" And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? And he said,
I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all
his prophets. And He (God) said, Thou shalt persuade him,
and prevail also ; go forth and do so.*

Is not the whole of Solomon's song maintained to be an
allegory of Christ's love for His Church ? Thus again, with
respect to the New Testament, the same excuse must be
pleaded when Christ says he is a vine, a way, a door, as well
as when he says that the Bread and Wine are his Body and
Blood, since from rejecting the metaphor in this case has
sprung up a most notorious piece of idolatry (transubstantia-
tion) among Christians belonging to the Church of Kome, so
that it really seems but an equitable request that Mohamme-
dans should be allowed to make use of the same advantage
of the allegory and metaphor to solve the difficulties and
seeming absurdities which otherwise their system might be
charged with, none of which are so great or nearly so

* 1 Kings, chap. .xxii. 20, 21, 22.

k2

132 CHARGES REFUTED.

daiK^erous as that which establishes the doctrine whereby
it is taught that a piece of bread or a wafer can be changed
by certain words pronounced by a priest, though never so
stupid, ignorant or wicked, into the God that created the
universe.

It has also been objected that Mohammed, while pretending
not to deliver any new religion to the Arabians, but only to
revive that old one which God had revealed to Abraham, and
Abraham had delivered to Ishmael, the founder of their
nation, actually did found a new religion, and, consequently,
spake that which was false. But if that only be a new reli-
gion which differs from the former in the object of its worship,
and the moral duties imposed by it, then, certainly, neither
that of Moses, nor that of Jesus Christ, nor that of Moham-
med, were new religions. That of Moses M'as no more than
the renewal and enforcement by laws of that religion which
Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Ishmael professed,
and which was to adore the one only God, and Him to love
and obey with their whole soul, and to practise those moral
duties which the necessity of human society as well as the
will of God imposed upon mankind. Thus, Jesus Christ tells
us that to love God above all things and our neighbour as
ourselves was the whole law and the prophets, that is, that
Moses and the prophets taught the Israelites a religion which
entirely consisted in the love and adoration of one eternal
God, and an extensive love of one another ; and hence the
doctrine of Jesus Christ himself was not new, but the same
that Moses had taught before, with this only difference, that
our moral duties to one another were commanded with more
force than before, and this admirable and divine rule set
down, by which the meanest and most ignorant of mankind
mio-ht know with almost certainty when he offended against
these moral duties and when not, as the precept, "do
unto others as you would they should do unto you" clearly
shows.

CHARGES REFUTED. 133

At the appearance of Jesus, the Jews inhabiting Judea
were extremely corrupt in their morals, and a criminal self-
love and egotism having been long spread among them,
both priests and people, there was nothing to be found but
avarice, rapine, injustice and oppression, for, placing their
righteousness in the rigid observance of some ceremonies
and formulas of religion, they had entirely lost its real
substance. To restore this seems to have been the whole
aim, drift and design of the mission of Christ, for to that
all his doctrines plainly tend — a consideration sufficient to
show that the Christian religion in its foundation was but
the renewing of that of Moses. The business of Mohammed
was not only to enforce moral doctrines, but also to esta-
blish the adoration of one God, for the people among whom
it was his lot to be cast were gone vastly astray in both ;
it was, therefore, his intent to revive the religion of Ishmael
the founder of his nation — namely, the worship of one God;
and this is enough to prove that Mohammed did but speak
the truth when he told the Arabians that he did not preach
to them a new religion, but only the ancient one which their
forefather Ishmael had proposed many ages before.

Is it possible to conceive, we may ask, that the man who
effected such great and lasting reforms in his own country
by substituting the worship of the one only true God for
the gross and debasing idolatry in which his countrymen
had been plunged for ages ; who abolished infanticide,
prohibited the use of spirituous liquors and games of chance
(those sources of moral depravity), who restricted within
comparatively narrow limits the unrestrained polygamy
which he found in existence and practice — can we, we
repeat, conceive so great and zealous a reformer to have
been a mere impostor, or that his whole career was one of
sheer hypocrisy? Can we imagine that his divine mission
was a mere invention of his own of whose falsehood he was
conscious throughout ? No, surely, nothing but a con-

134 CHARGES REFUTED.

sciousness of really righteous intentions could have carried
Mohammed so steadily and constantly without ever flinch-
ing or wavering, without ever betraying himself to his
most intimate connections and companions, from his first
revelation to Khadijah to his last agony in the arms of
Ayesha.

Surely a good and sincere man, full of confidence in his
Creator, who makes an immense reform both in faith and
practice, is truly a direct instrument in the hands of Godj
and may be said to have a commission from Him. Why
may not Mohammed be recognized, no less than other
faithful, though imperfect servants of God, as truly a
servant of God, serving him faithfully though imperfectly ?
Why may it not be believed that he was, in his own age
and country, a preacher of truth and righteousness, sent to
teach his own people the unity and righteousness of God,
to give them civil and moral precepts suited to their
condition.

Mohammed, then, was doubtless fully convinced of his
own mission, as well as that in the name of God, and in the
character of his Apostle, he wrought a great, albeit perhaps
an imperfect, reform in his own country. Nor was his
belief in his own mission ill founded. Through mockery
and persecution the Prophet kept unflinchingly his path;
no threats, no injuries hinder him from still preaching to
his people the unity and the righteousness of God, and
exhorting to a far better and purer morality than had ever
up to his time been set before them. He claimed no tem-
poral power, no spiritual domination, he asked but for simple
toleration, free permission to win men by persuasion into the
way of truth. He required that men should do justice and
love mercy, and walk humbly before their God, and, as the
sanction of all, he taught that there will be a resurrection of
the dead as well of the just and the unjust.

Compare Mohammed with his own degenerate followers,

CHARGES REFUTED. 135

with Timour at Ispahan, and Nadir Shah at Delhi, with the
wretches who, in our times, have desolated Chios and
Cyprus, and Kassandra. The entry of an Eastern victor is
ordinarily the signal for murder and massacre alike of the
armed and unarmed, of the innocent and the guilty. Mo-
hammed had his wrongs to avenge, but they are satisfied by
a handful of exceptions to a general amnesty, and the ma-
jority, even of these, are ultimately forgiven. It is the
temple of God desecrated by idols, which he had come to
ransom. With the sublime words, " Truth is cortie, let false-
hood disappear" he shivers, in succession, the 360 abomi-
nations which were standing erect, in the holy place, and
his work once accomplished, he did not, like his victorious
namesake, in later times, fix his throne in the city he had
won. He reared no palace for his own honour by the side
of the temple which he had recovered to the honour of God-
The city of his fathers, the metropolis of his race, the shrine
of his religion, was again deserted for his humble dwelling
among those who had stood by him in the day of trial.

Charge II.

That Mohammed propagated his religion hy the sword, thereby
causing an enormous ivaste of human blood, and a vast
amount of human misery.

Now, even admitting this to have been the case to a
certain extent, and granting that numbers of idolators
perished for refusing to acknowledge the existence of the
one and only true God, it may be replied, that what God
has once commanded can never be unjust at any time, and
since Christians are bound to believe that God did command
the Israelites to exterminate and extirpate the Canaanites
for their idolatry, and that Jehovah even worked a miracle
in the execution of that command, by causing the sun and
moon to stand still, in order to afford the light necessary

136 CHARGES REFUTED.

for enabling Joshua to complete the slaughter of the enemy,
they must, if consistent, admit that Mohammed was justified
in propagating his doctrines by the same means, for, if they
do not, it would be tantamount to affirming that idolatry
was more hateful to God then than now ; that it was less
odious to him in the time of Mohammed than in that of
Moses, or in that of the kings of Israel, whose nation,
together with themselves, was destroyed by the Almighty
for this sin alone.

That Mohammed waged wars is certain, but they differed
essentially from those of Moses in not being wars of exter-
mination, because the laudable objects of the former were to
unite the Arabian tribes in one empire, to reclaim them from
idolatry and instruct them in the worship of the one and
only God, the Creator of all things.

Mohammed received generously and with open arms all
who would submit to his law ; he, indeed, put the obstinate
to death, but he ever spared the innocent blood of women,
maidens and infants. In short, he strictly commanded his
followers never to molest, but to treat as brethren, all who
would accept and obey the Koran. Moses, on the contrary,
slaughtered whole nations, without offering or accepting any
conditions of mercy ; an example never followed by Mohammed,
although in many instances by Christian Powers, and more
especially by the Spaniards in their conquest of Peru and
Mexico.* Nowhere throughout the Koran can be found
attributed to the Deity commands wholly opposed to all
human ideas of justice and mercy, in fact, as the following
among many others.

* That the Spaniards thought themselves justified by the Bible,
appears by the book which Sepulveda wrote for the express purpose of
vindicating them in the murder of twelve millions of Indians, " by the
example of the Israelites towards the people of Canaan." Las Casas says in
his ' Brevissinia relacion de la destruccion de las Indias,' " I have seen in
the islands of St. Domingo and Jamaica, gibbets erected all over the
country to hang thirteen Indians at a time in honour of the thirteen
apostles. I have seen," continues he, " young children tlirown to the
dogs to be devoured alive."

CHARGES REFUTED. 137

" And Moses said, * Thus saith tlie Lord, put, every man his sword by
his side, and go in and out throughout the camp, and slay, every man,
his brother, and, every man, his covipanion, and every man, his neigh-
bour.' "*

" Joshua smote all the country and all their kings, he left none remain-
ing, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel had
commanded." j-

" Now go (said Samuel to Saul) and smite Amalek and utterly destroy
all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman,
infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."X

" But of the cities of those people which the Lord thy God doth give
thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.

" But thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely, the Hittites, the Amorites,
the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God
hath commanded thee." §

In like manner, where is there to be found in Christ's
Sermon on the Mount — a discourse which breathes naught
but mercy, loving-kindness and peace — the least sanction or
authority for the horrible atrocities afterwards perpetrated
in his revered name ? To whom, then, it may be asked, are
they attributable ? The answer is easy — to the Emperor
Constantino, falsely surnamed the Great. After the death of
Christ, there were two distinct and successive versions of
His doctrines, to which the name of Christianity was given ;
the first, introduced by the authority of the Apostles, Paul
and John ; the second by that of Constantino. This
emperor, who, from political motives exclusively, had em-
braced Christianity, but who, on account of his cruelty, has
justly been called a second Nero,1[ presided over the famous

* Exodus xxxi. 27. t Joshua x. 40.

t 1 Samuel xv. 3. § Deuteronomy xx. 17.

IT He drowned his wife in boiling water ; put to death his own son
Crispus ; murdered the two husl)ands of his sisters, Constantia and
Anastasia ; murdered his own fatlier-iu-law, Maxiniilian Hercules ;
murdered his nephew the sou of his .sister Oonstantia, a boy only twelve
years of age, together with some others not so nearly related, among
whom was Sopator, a pagan priest, who refused to give him absolution
for the murder of his (Coustantine's) father-in-law. Such was the first
Christian emperor !

138 CHARGES REFUTED.

Council of Nicea, commonly called Nice, in A.D. 324, in which
the doctrine of Christ's divinity was, for the first time,
established.

Regarding the ceaseless, bloody and unprofitable religious
disputes in which the lives of thousands of Christians were
sacrificed and the most unexampled cruelty exercised, by
those who ought to have lived like brothers and friends,
St. Hilary, who lived at the time — viz., the fourth century —
was Bishop of Poictiers, and one of the early " fathers of
the Church," expresses his regret, disapproval and condem-
nation in these words : —

" It is a thing, equally deplorable and dangerous, that
there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many
doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy
as there are faults among us ; because we make creeds arbi-
trarily, and explain them as arbitrarily Every year,

nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe the
invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have done, we
defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we
defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in
ourselves, or our own in that of others ; and reciprocally
tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of
each other's ruin."*

It was at the Council of Nicea that Constantine invested
the priesthood with that power whence flowed the most dis-
astrous consequences, as the following summary will show :
the massacres and devastations of nine mad crusades of
Christians against unoffending Turks, during nearly two
hundred years, in which many millions of human beings
perished ; the massacres of the Anabaptists ; the massacres
of the Lutherans and Papists, from the Ehine to the extre-
mities of the North ; the massacres of St. Bartholomew in
France;! and forty years more of other massacres between

* See Gibbon ' Decline and Fall,' vol. ii. p. 411. Bohn's edition,
t Above 500 persons of rank, and 10,000 of inferior condition perished
in Paris alone, besides many thousands who were slaughtered in the

CHARGES REFUTED. 139

the time of Francis I. and the entry of Henry IV. into Paris ;
the massacres of tlie Inquisition,* which are more execrable
still as being judicially committed, to say nothing of the
innumerable schisms, and twenty years of popes against
popes, bishops against bishops, tlie poisonings, assassinations,
the cruel rapines and insolent pretensions f of more than
a dozen popes, who far exceeded a Nero or a Caligula in
every species of crime, vice and wickedness ; and lastly, to
conclude this frightful list, the massacre of twelve millions
of the inhabitants of the new world, executed Crucifix
in hand !

It surely must be confessed that so hideous and almost
uninterrupted a chain of religious wars, for fourteen cen-
turies, never subsisted but among Christians, and that none
of the numerous nations stigmatized as heathen, ever spilled
a drop of blood on the score of theological arguments.

" We must," says M. Jurieu, " freely declare the truth.
The kings of France planted Christendom in the country of
the Frisons and the Saxons, by Mahometan ways, and the
like force was made use of to plant it in the Nortli. The
same means were employed against the sects of the Wal-

provinces. The then Pope Gregory XIII. not only granted a plenary
indulgence to all who were concerned in the niassacre, hut also ordered
public rejoicings to celebrate the event ; and high muss was performed
with every circumstance of pomp and splendour. Nay, so unblushing
was the elfrontery of this vicar of Christ (!) that he caused a medal to
be struck in honour of the <leed, bearing on one side the likeness of
himself, and on the other an effigy of the destroying angel, surmounted
by the inscription " Huguenotonim strages" (the slaughter of the
Huguenots).

* According to the estimate of Llorente, who wrote the history of the
Inquisition, the aggregate number of victims burnt from 1481 to 1808
was 34,024.

t In 1627 Pope Urban VIII. promulgated the famous Bull, "In ccena
Domini," which cxc imniunicates all who dare to appeal to a futureCouncil
against the bulls and briefs of the Pope ; all princes who (hire to levy
taxes without the permission of the Pope ; those who make treaties of
alliance with Turks and heretics ; and those who complain to secular
judges against th^ wrongs and injuries received from the Court of R( me.
When, it may be asked, did Mohamme<l or any of his successors arrogate
to themselves so extensive a power as this ?

140 CHARGES REFUTED.

denses and the Albigenses who had dared to condemn the
Popes, and were also used in the New World. From all
which, it plainly appears that we can no longer reproach
Mahomet for having propagated his religion by force — that
is by denying toleration to any other ; for he might argue
thus, ad hominem, if force be wrong in its own nature, it
can never be lawfully made use of; but you have made use
of it from the fourth century up to the present time, and yet
you pretend you have done nothing in all this, but what is
very commendable. You must, therefore, con less that this
way or means is not wrong in its own nature ; and, conse-
quently, I might lawfully make use of it in the first years of
my vocation. For, it would be absurd to pretend that a
thing which was very criminal in the first century should
become just in the fourth, or that a thing which was just in
the fourth century should not be so in the first one. This
might be pretended if God had made new laws in the fourth
century. The Mahometans, according to the principles of
their faith, are required to employ violence to destroy other
religions, and yet they tolerate them now, and have done so
for many ages. The Christians have no order but to preach
and instruct, and yet, time out of mind, they destroy with
fire and sword those whj are not of their religion."

The tolerant spirit of Mohammedanism, as contrasted
with the bigotry and fanaticism of Christianity, is thus
admirably shown by the celebrated historian, Gibbon : " The
wars of the Mohammedans were sanctified by the Prophet,
but among the various precepts and examples of his life>
the Caliphs selected the lessons of toleration that might
tend to disarm the resistance of the unbelieving. Arabia
was the temple and patrimony of the God of Mohammed ;
but he beheld with less jealousy and affection the other
nations of the earth. The polytheists and idolators who
were ignorant of his name might be lawfully extirpated, but
a wise policy supplied the obligations of justice, and after

CHARGES REFUTED. 141

some acts of intolerant zeal, the Mohammedan conquerors
of Hindoostan have spared the pagodas of that devout and
populous country. The disciples of Abraham, of Moses and
of Jesus were solemnly invited to accept the more perfect
revelation of Mohammed ; but, if they preferred the pay-
ment of a moderate tribute, they were entitled to the free-
dom of conscience and religious worship. In a field of
battle, the forfeit lives of the prisoners were redeemed by
the profession of Islamism ; the females were bound to
embrace the religion of their masters, and a race of sincere
proselytes was gradually multiplied by the education of the
infant captives. But the millions of African and Asiatic
converts who swelled the native bands of the faithful Arabs,
must have been allured rather than constrained to declare
their belief in one God and the Apostle of God. By the
repetition of a sentence and the loss of a foreskin, the sub-
ject or the slave, the captive or the criminal, arose, in a
moment, the free and equal companion of the victorious
Moslem. Every sin was expiated, every engagement was
dissolved ; the vow of celibacy was superseded by the indul-
gence of nature, the native spirits who slept in the cloister
were awakened by the trumpet of the Saracens, and in the
convulsions of the world, every member of a new society
ascended to the natural level of his capacity and courage."

In proof of the correctness of the view thus taken by the
historian of the tolerant character of Mohammed, the fol-
lowing public document is here inserted, being extracted
from a work entitled ' A Description of the East and other
Countries,' by Richard Pococke, Bishop of Meath, and pub-
lished in 1743, vol. i. p. 268. The high character of its
author for piety, integrity and learning is a sufficient
voucher for the authenticity of the document, which is as
follows : —

142 CHARGES REFUTED.

The Patent of Mohammed, which he granted to the Monks of
Mount Sinai, and to Christians in general.

"As God is great and governeth, from whom all the
prophets are come, for there remaineth no record of in-
justice against God ; through the gifts that are given unto
men, Mohammed, the son of Abdallah, the Apostle of God,
and careful guardian of the whole world, has written the
present instrument, to all those that are his national people,
and of his religion, as a secure and positive promise to be
accomplished to the Christian nation and relations of the
Nazareen, whosoever they may be, whether they be the
noble or the vulgar, the honourable or otherwise, saying
thus :

" I. Whosoever of my nation shall presume to break my promise and
oath which is contained in this present agreement, destroys the promise
of God, acts coiitmiy to the oath and will be a resister of the faith (which
God forbid !), for he becometh worthy of the curse, whether he be the
king himself or a poor man, or what person soever he may be.

" II. That whenever any of the monks in his travels shall happen to
settle on any mountain, hill, village, or in any other habitable place, on
the sea or in deserts, or in any convent, church, or house of prayer, I
shall be in the midst of them, as the preserver and protector of them,
their goods and effects, with my soul, aid and protection, jointly with
all my national people, because they are a part of my own people, and
an honour to me.

" III. Moreover, I command all officers not to require any poll tax of
them or any other tribute, because they shall not be forced or compelled
to anything of this kind.

« IV. None shall presume to change their judges or governors, but
they shall remain in their office without being deposed.

« V. No one shall molest them when they are travelling on the road.

" VI. Whatever churches they are possessed of, no one is to deprive
them of them.

" VII. Who-^oever shall annul any of these my decrees, let him know
positively that lie annuls the ordinance of God.

« VIII. Moreover, neither their judges, governors, monks, servants,
diaciples, or any others depending on them, shall pay any poll tax, or

CHARGES REFUTED. 143

be molested on that account, because I am their protector, wheresoever
they shall 1)8, either by land or sea, east or west, north or south ; because
both they and all that belong to them are included in this my
promissory oath and patent.

" IX. And of those that live quietly and solitary upon the moun-
tains, they shall exact neither poll tax nor tithes from their incomes,
neither shall any Mussulman partake of what they have, for they labour
only to maintain themselves.

" X. Whenever the crop of the earth shall be plentiful in its due
time, the inhabitants shall be obliged, out of every bushel, to give them
a certain measure.

" XI. Neither in time of war shall they take them out of their
habitation, nor compel them to go to the wars, nor even then shall they
require of them any poll tax."

[In these eleven chapters is to be found whatever relates
to the monks ; as to the remaining seven chapters they direct
what relates to every Christian.]

" XII. Those Christians who are inhabitants, and with their riches
and traffic are able to pay the poll tax, shall pay no more than 12
drachmas.

"XIII. Excepting this, nothing more shall be required of them,
according to the express word of God, that says : ' Do not molest those
that have a veneration for the Books that are sent from God, but rather,
in a kind manner, give of your good things to them, and converse with
them, and hinder every one from molesting them.'

" XIV. If a Christian woman shall happen to marry a Mussulman,
the Mussulman shall not cross the inclination of his wife to keep her
from her chapel and prayers and the practice of her religion. *

" XV. That no person hinder them from repairing their churches.

" XVI. Whosoever acts contrary to this my grant, or gives credit to
anything contrary to it, becomes truly an apostate from God and his
divine Apostle, because this protection I have granted to them according
to this promise.

" XVII. No one shall bear arms against them, but, on the contrary,
the Mussulmans shall wage war for them.

* Turkish lawyers give as an example of this point, that the Mussul-
man son of a Christian mother is bound to convey her, when old or
infirm, to the church door, upon a beast (horse or mule, &c.) ; and
should he be poor and possess no beast, he is bound to carry her on his
shoulders.

144 CHARGES REFUTED.

" XVIII. And by this I ordain that none of my nation shall presume
to do or act contrary to this promise until the end of the world.

Witnesses :

Ali, the son of Abu Thaleb. Abombaker, the son of Ambi Kaphe.

Homar, the son of Hattavi. Ottman, the son of Gatas.

Ziphir, the son of Abuan. Ambtelack, the son of Messutt.

Saith, the son of Maat. Phazer, the son of Abbas.

Thavitt, the son of Nesis. Talat, the son of Amptonlack.
Amphachin, the son of Hassan. Saat, the son of Abbatt.

Muathem, the son of Kasvi. Kasmer, the son of Abid.

Azur, the son of Jassin. Ambtullack, the son of Omar.

" This present was written by the leader, the successor of Ali, the
eon of Abu Thaleb ; the prophet marking it with his own hand at the
Mosque of the Prophet (on whom be peace !) in the second y^ar of the
Hegira, the third day of the month of Machorem." *

The above facts and arguments will, it is presumed, suffice
to convince every candid and unprejudiced mind that this
second charge against Mohammed being utterly devoid of
foundation, is, therefore, both false and scandalous.

Charge III.

The sensual character of his Paradise as described hy the Koran.

Another charge brought against Mohammed is the sensual
character of the joys promised by him in his Paradise to
those who shall receive his Law, and conform their lives to
the precepts it contains ; but, upon reflection, it will be
•found that there is nothing so absurd in this as is generally
imagined by Christians, when it is considered that our bodies
will, as we are told, assume, at the resurrection, a form so
perfect as infinitely to surpass all that we can conceive, and

* Mohammed himself had recommended the Christian sectaries to his
captains, and had granted them protections which were confirmed by
the third Caliph Omar, and preserved and continued imder Othman
and Ali. It not being customary in those days to date documents, it is
very probable that the original patent had no date, and that the one
given in the text was assigned it at a subsequent period by the writer.

CHARGES REFUTED. 145

that our senses will acquire so extraordinary an activity and
vigour as to be susceptible of the greatest pleasures, each
according to the difference of their objects, for, indeed, if we
take away from those faculties their proper exercise, if we
deprive them of the fit objects to please and gratify them, it
cannot be otherwise than supposed that they have not only
been given us to no purpose, but even to inflict upon us
continiial disappointment and pain. For, in fact, by sup-
posing that the soul and body are restored to us, as must
necessarily be the case if our bodies are restored in a perfect
state, it is not clear upon what grounds it can be supposed
that the senses should not have objects to exercise upon, in
order to be capable of bestowing and of tasting all the plea-
sures which they may be capable of affording. Can there be
any sin, crime, shame or degradation in the enjoyment of
such pleasures ? And as to that pleasure more particularly
denounced — that of the sexes — did not the Almighty insti-
tute and grant it to the two most perfect creatures who ever
appeared in the world ? and as the Almighty had freely and
liberally provided for them whatever was necessary for the
preservation of life, so He made them susceptible of the
most rapturous delight in the act and duty of multiplying
their species.

That Mohammed, in his Koran, promises the faithful the
use of women, and mentions delightful gardens and other
sensual deliglits, is true, ])ut that he places the chief happi-
ness in these things is a mistake. For as the soul is more
noble than the body, so he was willing to allow the body its
own pleasures, tliat by the reward he promised he might tlie
more easily allure the rude Arabians who thought of nothing
but what was gross and sensual, to fall into the worship of
the one and only true God, as expounded in his doctrine.
But Mohammed always assigned to the soul its own peculiar
pleasures, viz., the beholding the face of God, which will be
the greatest of all delights, the fulness of joy, and whieli \\\\\

L

146 CHARGES REFUTED.

cause all the other pleasures of Paradise to be forgotten, they
being common to the cattle which graze in the field. He that
beholdeth his gardens, wives, goods and servants, reaching
through the space of a thousand years' journey, is but in the
lowest degree among the inhabitants of Paradise ; but among
them he is in the supreme degree of honour with God, who con-
templates His divine countenance every morn. It is, therefore,
false that the pleasures of the Mohammedan Paradise consist
exclusively in corporeal things and the use of them ; it is
false, also, tliat all Mohammedans l)elieve those pleasures to
be corporeal, for many contend, on the contrary, that those
things are said parabolically, and are to be considered as of
spiritual delights, in the same manner as the Doctors of the
Christian Church maintain that " Solomon's Song" is not a
mere Epithalamium, but is to be understood in a spiritual
sense as typical of Christ's love for His Church.*

The famous Hyde, in his ' Not : ad Biboi, Turcar, Liturg.,'
p. 21, writes, "That those sensual pleasures of Paradise are
thought by wiser Mohammedans to be allegorical — that they
may be then better conceived by human understanding, just
as in the Holy Scriptures many things are said after the
manner of men. For, writing to the Morocco ambassador,
when I mentioned a garden pleasant like that of Paradise,^
he, checking me, wrote back that Paradise was such a place
to which nothing in the world could be likened ; such as
neither eye hath seen, ear heard, neither hath it entered into
the heart of man to conceive." To this may likewise be added,
the testimony of the famous Herbelot who, after having shown
in his ' Bibliotheca Orientalis,' that the Mohammedans place
the chief good in the Communion of God, and the celestial
joys in the fruition of the light of the Divine countenance

* " A Moslem of some learning professed to me that he considered
the description of Paradise (given in the Koran) to be, in a great
measure, figurative, ' like those,' said he, ' in the book of the Revelations-
of St. John,' and he assured me that many learned Moslems were of the
same opinion."— (Lane's ' Modern Egypt,' vol. i. p. 75, note.)

CHARGES REFUTED. 147

which makes Paradise wherever it is, writes thus : — " It is
not, therefore, true which many authors who have opposed
Mahometans have asserted — that the Mussulmans know no
other happiness in Heaven but the use of pleasures which
affect the senses."

From what precedes, it follows that much more than is
just has been said and written about the sensual character
of Mohammed's religion. No doubt that from a Christian
point of view, and taken in the abstract, certain usages of
the peoples of the East present themselves to European criti-
cism as real defects and as great vices, but with a little
more of evangelical charity we should treat them less
severely. We should take more into account the influence
of origin and climate and the material necessity of social
obligations.

Equally mistaken, if not wilfully unjust, are those who find
in Mohammed's sensual Paradise, a reflex of his own
character, and represent the Prophet (impostor they call
him) as a sensual voluptuary, for, so much to the contrary, he
was a poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided man, careless of what
vulgar men so eagerly labour and contend for.

Charge IV.

The encouragement Mohammed has given to licentiousness by

legalizing Polygamy.

Polygamy was a custom general throughout the East, so
long back as the days of the Patriarch Abraham, and which,
it is certain, from innumerable passages in Scripture, some
of which we shall quote, could not in those purer ages of
mankind, have been regarded as sinful.

Polygamy was permitted among the ancient Greeks, as
in the case of the detachment of young men from the army,
mentioned by Plutarch, It was also defended by Euripides
and Plato. The ancient Eomans were more severe in their
morals, and never practised it, although it was not forbidden

L 2

148 CHAKGES EEFUTED.

among them: and Marc Antony is mentioned as the first
who took the liberty of having two wives. From that time
it became pretty frequent in the empire till the reigns of
Theodosius, Honorius and Arcadius, who first prohibited it
by an express law, a.d. 393. After this the Emperor Valen-
tinian permitted, by an edict, all the subjects of the empire,
if they pleased, to marry several wives ; nor does it appear,
from the ecclesiastical history of those times, that the
bishops made any objection to its introduction. Valen-
tinianus Constantius, son of Constantine the Great, had
many wives. Clotaire, King of France, and Heribartus and
Hypericus his sons, had a plurality also. Add to these,
Pepin and Charlemagne, of whom St. Urspergensus wit-
nesses that they had several wives, Lothaire and his son, as
likewise Arnolphus VII., Emperor of Germany (a.d. 888),
and a descendant of Charlemagne, Frederic Barbarossa and
Philip Theodatus, King of France. Among the first race of
the Kings of the Franks, Gontran, Caribert, Sigebert and
Chilperic had several wives, at one time. Gontran had
within his palace Veneranda and Mercatrude and Ostregilde,
acknowledged as his legitimate wives ; Caribert had Merflida,
Marconesa and Theodogilda.

Father Daniel confesses the polygamy of the French Kings.
He denies not the three wives of Dagobert I., expressly
asserting that Theodobert espoused Dentary, although she
had a husband, and himself another wife, named Visigelde.
He adds, that in this he imitated his uncle Clotaire, who
espoused the widow of Creodomir, although he had already

three wives.

With respect to the physiological reasons for polygamy,
it has been observed by the celebrated Montesquieu that
women in hot climates are marriageable at eight, nine or
ten years of age ; thus, in those countries, infancy and
marriage almost always go together. They are old at
twenty. Their reason, therefore, never accompanies their

CHARGES EEFUTED. 149

beauty. Wlien beauty demands the empire, the want of
reason forbids the claim; when reason is obtained, beauty
is no more. These women must necessarily be in a state of
dependence; for reason cannot procure, in old age, that
mnpire which even youth and beauty combined could not
bestow. It is, therefore, extremely natural that in these
places a man, when no law opposes it, should leave one
wife to take another, and also that polygamy should be
introduced.

In temperate climates, where the charms of women are
best preserved, where they arrive later at maturity and
have children at a more advanced season of life, tlie old age
of their husbands, in some degree, follows theirs; and as
they have more reason and knowledge at the time of
marriage, if it be only on account of their having continued
longer in life, it must naturally introduce a kind of equality
between the sexes, and, in consequence of this, the law of
having only one wife. Nature, which has distinguished
men by their reason and bodily strength, has set no other
bounds to their power than those of this strength and
reason. It has given charms to women, and ordained that
their ascendancy over men shall end with those charms ; but
in hot countries these are found only at the beginning, and
never in the progress of life.

Thus the law which permits only one wife is physically
conformable to the climate of Europe, and not to that of
Asia. This is the reason why Mohammedanism was estab-
lished with such facility in Asia, and extended with so much
difficulty in Europe; why Christianity is maintained in
Europe, and almost destroyed in Asia ; and, in fine, why
the Mohammedans have made such progress in China and
the Christians so little.

It appears, from Caesar, that in early times our ancestors
practised polyandry, ten or twelve husbands having only
one wife among them. When the Roman Catholic mis-

150 CHARGES KEFUTED.

sionaries came among these primitive people, they encou-
raged celibacy, and held that the marriage of a man with
a widow was bigamy, and punishable canonically. At length
we subsided into monogamy, as appears to have been the
practice of the ancient Germans, agreeably to Tacitus (' De
Moribus Germanorum.')*

As to the lawfulness of polygamy, it will be seen by
referring to the following passages in Scripture, that it was
not only approved but even blessed by Jehovah himself : —
Genesis, xxx., v. 22 ; Exodus, xxi., v. 11 ; Deuteronomy, xvii.,
V. 17 ; 1 Samuel, i., v. 1, 2, 11, 20 ; 1 Samuel, xxv., v. 42, 43 ;
2 Samuel, xii., v. 8 ; 2 Samuel, v., v. 13 ; Judges, viii., v. 30 ;
Judges, X., V. 4 ; Judges, xii., v. 9, 14.

St. Chrysostom, speaking of Abraham and Hagar, says,
" These things were not then forbidden." So St. Augustine
observes that " there was a blameless custom of one man
having many wives, which at that time might be done in a
way of duty, which now cannot be done but from licentious-
ness, because, for the sake of multiplying posterity, no laio
forhad a plurality of wives, f

Boniface, Confessor of Lower Germany, having consulted
Pope Gregory, in the year 726, in order to know in what
cases a husband might be allowed to have two wives,
Gregory replied, on the 22nd November of the same year,
in these words — " If a wife be attacked by a malady which
renders her unfit for conjugal intercourse, the husband may
marry another, but in that case he must allow his sick wife
all necessary support and assistance."

Many works have been published in defence of polygamy
even by writers professing Christianity. Bernardo Ochinus,
General of the Order of Capuchins, published, about the
middle of the sixteenth century, dialogues in favour of the
practice, and about the same time appeared a treatise on

* Prope soli barbarorum singulis iixoribus contenti sunt.
t See Grotius, ' De Jure,' vol. i. p. 268, note.

CHARGES REFUTED. 151

behalf of a plurality of wives ; the author, whose real name
was Lysarus, having assumed the pseudo one of Theophilus
Aleuthes.

Selden proves, in his ' Uxor Hebraica,' that polygamy was
allowed not only among the Jews, but likewise among all
other nations.

But the most distinguished defender of polygamy was the
celebrated Jolm Milton, who, in his ' Treatise on Christian
Doctrine,* after quoting various passages from the Bible in
defence of the practice, says : " Moreover, God, in an alle-
gorical fiction (Ezekiel xxiii,), represents Himself as having
espoused two wives, Aholah and Aholiah, — a mode of speak-
ing which Jehovali would by no means have employed,
especially at such length even in a parable, nor, indeed,
have taken upon Himself such a character at all, if the prac-
tice which it implied had been intrinsically dishonourable or
shameful."

" On what gi-ounds, then, can a practice be considered as
so dishonourable or shameful which is prohibited to no one
even under the Gospel ; for that dispensation annuls none
of the merely civil regulations which existed previously to
its introduction. It is only enjoined that elders and deacons
should be chosen from such as were husbands of one wife
(1 Tim. iii., v. 2, and Tim. i., 6). This implies, not that to
be the husband of more than one wife would be a sin,
for, in that case, the restriction would have been equally
imposed on all, but that in proportion as they were less
entangled in domestic affairs, they would be more at leisure
for the business of the Church. Since, therefore, polygamy
is interdicted in this passage to the ministers of the Church
alone, and that, not on account of any sinfulness in the
practice, and since none of the other members are precluded
from it, either here or elsewhere, it follows that it was
permitted, as aforesaid, to all the remaining members of

* Page 237 et seq.

152 CIIAEGES REFUTED.

the Church, and that it was adopted by many without
offence."

" Lastly, I argue as follows, from Hebrews, xiii., v. 4 : —
Polygamy is either marriage, fornication or adultery. The
Apostle recognises no fourth state. Eeverence for so many
patriarchs who were polygamists will, I trust, deter every
one from considering it as fornication or adultery, for
' whoremongers and adulterers God loill judge,' whereas the
Patriarchs were the objects of his especial favour, as he
himself witnesses. If, then, polygamy be marriage properly
so called, it is also lawful and honourable : according to the
same Apostle, ' marriage is Jionourahle in all and the bed
undefiled.

Mohammed, therefore, did but legalize a practice not only
honoured but even blessed by God Himself, under the old
dispensation, and declared to be lawful and honourable under
the new one ; and, consequently, he must be exonerated from
the charge of having sanctioned polygamy, and thereby
encouraged licentiousness.

The chief arguments adduced against polygamy are that
it introduces into the matrmionial state a despotic usurpa-
tion which destroys the equality of rank between the sexes ;
that it is destructive of real love and friendship ; that it is
the parent of jealousy and domestic dissensions.

The belief that the possessor of a harem of wives in those
countries where polygamy is permitted, exercises a despotic
sway over them, is one of those errors which Western people
adopt from their ignorance of Asiatic manners. Where
marital discipline prevails in the East it is, on the contrary,
amongst those whom poverty condemns to monogamy. It
often happens that where there are many wives, one will
rule the rest, and the husband into the bargain. Those
who have looked into the works written by natives of the
East, which give true particulars of Oriental manners, will
at once perceive that the notion of women being the

CHARGES KEFUTEJ). 53

objects of domestic tyranny in that part oi the world is
merely ideal. "Little," says Mr. Atkinson,* "is under-
stood in England of the real situation of women in the East
beyond the impression of their being everywhere absolute
slaves to their tyrant husbands, and cooped up in a harem,
which to them, it is supposed, can be nothing better than
a prison." But this he denies, and he shows how much
power and how many privileges Mohammedan women
possess. So far from the harem being a prison to the
wives, it is a place of liberty, where the husband himself is
treated as an interloper. The moment his foot passes the
threshold, everything reminds him that he is no longer lord
and master ; children, servants and slaves look alone to the
principal lady ; in short, she is paramount : when she is in
good humour, everything goes on well, and when in bad,
nothing goes right. Mirza Abu Thaleb Khan, a Persian
nobleman, who visited England between sixty and eighty
years ago, and paid great attention to our domestic habits,
in the account of his visit which he afterwards published,
and which was translated into English, assigns reasons to
show that the Mohammeden woman have more power and
liberty, and are invested with greater privileges than Euro-
pean ones, and he annihilates at once the notion of the
marital despotism of polygamy, by observing, " From what
I know it is easier to live with two tigresses than with
two wives."

The celebrated traveller Niebuhr is of the same opinion.
" Europeans," he observes, -f " are mistaken in thinking that
the state of marriage is so different amongst the Moham-
medans from what it is with Christian nations. I could not
discern any such difference in Arabia. The women of that
country seem to be as free and happy as those of Europe
can possibly be. Polygamy is permitted, indeed, amongst

* ' Customs and Manners of the Women of Persia.'
t 'Travels.'

154 CHARGES REFUTED.

Mohammedans, and the delicacy of our ladies is shocked at
this idea ; but the Arabians rarely avail themselves of the
priveleges of marrying four lawful wives, and entertaining,
at the same time, any number of female slaves. None but
rich voluptuaries marry so many wives, and their conduct is
blamed by all sober men. Men of sense, indeed, think the
privilege rather troublesome than convenient. A husband
is, by law, obliged to treat his wives suitably to their con-
dition, and to dispense his favours amongst them with
perfect equality ! but these are duties not a little dis-
agreeable to most Mussulmans, and such modes of luxury
are too expensive to the Arabians, who are seldom in easy
circumstances."

Then as to its being destructive of real love and friend-
ship, it may be doubted whether amongst the higher classes
in this hemisphere, to whom polygamy, if permitted, would
be chiefly confined (owing to the expense it would entail in
establishments), there would be less real and less reciprocal
friendship in a second or third connection than at present
in the first. The cold formality of marriage settlements, pin-
money, the separate carriages, and other domestic arrange-
ments common among the upper classes, must destroy all
the tender sentiments which belong to pure, disinterested
love ; and women in our fashionable life are more frequently
bought and sold than in polygamic countries.

As to polygamy being an extinguisher of love, this is a
notion springing from the same source of absurd prejudices
as that which suggests Old England to be the only land of
liberty and happiness. If polygamy deserved all the hard
things said of it, if it was the source of so many evils and
the spring of so few enjoyments, we should scarcely see it
in vogue throughout so large a portion of the world, where
refinement has made so little progress.

PAET IV.

BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

SOLE CHAPTER

Alms-giving, its reward — Happiness of true believers in Paradise —
Creation of the world — God, no God but the One who is without
peers and eternal — All His works praise Him — Refutation of the
assertion that Jehovah rested from His labours on the seventh day
— Corsi, God's throne or tribunal (note) — God's universal presence —

- It beseemeth not God to beget children — Path of happiness or of
misery, for whom — Ingratitude of man towards God — Terrors of the
Day of Judgment ; the atom's weight of good and the atom's weight
of evil — Under what circumstances the soul shall be made to know
the sins it has committed — Accountability of irrational animals —
Infanticide — Kindness and respect due to parents, Al Forkan (note
— The Koran not to be touched but by the purified (note) — Just
balance — The Koran a mission from God to Mohammed — God's
protection of Mohammed — Wine and games of chance forbidden —
Respect and love for parents (note) — Justice towards orphans — True
piety — Prayer enjoined — Punishment of the slanderer — The soul,
how preserved and how lost — Women.

Alms.

Whatsoever ye put out at usury, to iucrease with the
substance of others, shall have no increase from God ; but
whatsoever ye shall give in alms, as seeking the face of God,
shall be doubled unto you.

Fear God, then, with all your might, and hear and obey,
and give alms for your own weal ; for such as are saved
from their own greed, shall prosper.

156 BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

They who give away their substance in alms, by night
and day, in private and public, shall have their reward with
their Lord ; no fear shall come upon them, neither shall
they be put to grief.

And whatsoever ye shall give, and whatsoever ye shall
vow, of a truth God knoweth it, but they who act unjustly
shall have no helpers. Give ye your alms openly ? it is
well. Do ye conceal them and give them to the poor ? this,
too, is well, and will advantage you and will cleanse you of
your sins. God is cognizant of your actions.

Believers (the reward of).

But to those who have believed and done the things which
are right (we will lay on no one a burden beyond his power
to bear) these shall be inmates of Paradise, for ever shall
they abide therein.

And we will remove whatever rancour was in their
bosoms ; rivers shall flow at their feet, and they shall say,
" Praise be to God, who hath guided us hither ! We had
not been guided, had not God guided us ! Of a surety the
apostles of our Lord came to us with truth," and a voice shall
say unto them, " This is Paradise, of which, as the meed of
your works, ye are made lieirs."

But for those who have believed and done the things that
are right, we will bring them into gardens 'neath which the
rivers flow — therein to abide eternally ; therein shall they
have wives of stainless purity ; and them will we bring into
aye-shadowing glades.

Creation.

It is God who hath created the heavens without pillars
thou canst behold ; then ascended He His throne, and to
the sun and moon assigned He laws, each travelleth to its
appointed goal. He ordereth all things. He maketh his
signs clear that ye may have firm faith in a meeting with
your Lord.

I5EAUTIES OF TIIK KORAN. 157

He (God) hath created the heavens and the earth to set
forth His truth ; high let Him be exalted above the gods they
join with Him.

Do ye, indeed, disbelieve in Him who, in two days, created
the earth ? and do ye assign unto Him peers ? The Lord of
the Worlds is He.

And He hath ]>laced on the earth tlie firm mountains
which above it tower ; and He hath blessed it and dis-
tributed food throughout for the cravings of all alike, in four
days.

Then applied He himself unto the heaven which then was
but smoke, and to it and the earth did He say : " Come ye,
whetlier in obedience or against your will ;" and they both
replied : " We come, obedient."

God ! — there is no God but He, tlie Living, the Eternal !
Nor slumber seizeth Him, nor sleep. His, whatsoever is in
the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. Who is there
that can intercede with Him but by His own permission ? He
knoweth what hath been before them (the heavens and the
earth), and what shall be after them, yet nought of His know-
ledge shall they comprehend, save that which He willeth.
His throne is extended high over heaven and earth, and the
upholding of both is no burden to Him; — He is the High —
the Mighty!*

Whatsoever is in heaven and earth singeth praise unto
God, He is mighty and wise. His is the kingdom of
heaven and earth. He giveth life and He putteth to death,
and he is almighty. He is the lirst and the last ; the
manifest and the hidden ; and He knoweth all things : — it
is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days, and

* This throne, in Arabic called Corsi, is by the Mahomnieclans sup-
posed to be God's tribunal, or seat of justice ; Ijeinj,' placed under the
other, which is called Al Arjsh, being His imperial throne. The Corsi
allegorically signifies — the divine providence, which sustains and
governs the heaven and the earth, and is infinitely above all human
comprehension.

158 BEAUTIES OF THE KOKAN.

then ascended the throne.* He knoweth that which entereth
the earth and that which issueth out of the same, and that
which descendeth from heaven and that which ascendeth
thereto ; and He is with you, wheresover ye may be ; for God
seeth that which ye do. His is the kingdom of heaven and
earth, and unto God do all things return. He causeth the
night to succeed the day, and he causeth the day to succeed
the night; and He knoweth the innermost parts of men's
hearts.

GOD.f

Praise be unto God, the Lord of creation,
The all-mercil'ul, the all-compassionate !

Ruler of the Day of Reckoning !
Thee do we worship, and Thee do we invoke for help.

Lead us in the straight path,
The path of those to whom Thou hast been gracious,
Not in that of those who are the objects of wrath,
Or who walk in error !

Say : " He is God alone ;

God ! the Eternal !
He begetteth not and is not begotten,
Nor is there any like unto Him."
Blessed be He in whose hands is the kingdom, and over

All things is He potent.
Who hath created Death and Life, to prove which

Of you is most righteous in his deeds.
He is the mighty — the forgiving.
Who hath created seven heavens, one above another ;
No defect can'st thou discover in the creation of
The God of Mercy ; repeat thy gaze, and it
Shall return unto thee dulled and weary.

* " We created the heavens and the earth, and whatever ia between
them in six days ; and no weariness affected us " (Koran, chap. 50).
Upon this passage, Sale observes, " This was revealed in answer to the
Jews, who said that God rested from His work of creation on the seventh
day, and reposed Himself on His throne as one fatigued."

t This prayer is recited several times in each of the five daily prayers,
as well as on many other occasions, as in concluding a bargain, entering
into an engagement, etc. It is called ' The Initial Prayer,' and answers
to the ' Lord's Prayer ' of the Christians. The Mohammedans hold it in
the utmost reverence, giving it several other honourable titles, as the
chapter of prayer, of praise, of thanksgiving, of treasure, etc., and esteem-
ing it as the quintessence of the Koran.

BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN. 159

Perceivest thou not that God knoweth whatever is in
heaven and in earth ? There is no private discourse among
three persons, but He is the fourth of them ; nor among five,
but he is the sixth of them ; neither among a smaller number
than this, nor a larger, but He is with them, wheresoever they
may be ; and He will declare unto them that which they
have done, on the day of resurrection, for God knoweth all
things.

With God are the keys of the secret things ;

None knoweth them besides Himself ;
He knoweth that which is on the dry land, and in the sea ;

There falleth not a leaf but He knoweth it ;
Neither is there a single grain in the dark recesses of the earth,

Neither a green thing, nor a dry thing,
But it is written in the perspicuous Book.

Glory unto Him (God) ! immensely high is He exalted !
The seven heavens praise Him, the earth and all who are therein.
Neither is there aught which doth not celebrate His power ;
But their utterance of praise ye understand not.

With Him (God) are the secrets of the heavens and the earth.

Look thou and hearken unto Him alone !
Man hath no guardian but He, nor many share in his judgments.

Whatever is in the heaven and the earth — is God's ;
And whether you bring forth to light what is in your minds,

Or conceal the same,
God will surely reckon with you fur it.

Swear not by God, when ye make oath that ye will be
virtuous and fear God, and promote peace among men ; for
God is He who Heareth, Knoweth.

God will not punish you for a mistake in your oaths ; but
He will punish you for that which your hearts have done.
God is Gracious, Merciful.

To God belong the secret things of the heavens and the earth ;

Unto Him all things return ;
Worship Him then and put your trust in Him ;
Thy Lord is not regardless of thy doings.

160 BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

Oh men! ye are paupers in need of God, but God is the
rich, the praiseworthy.

Who supplieth you from heaven and earth ? Who hath
power over hearing and sight ? and who bringeth forth the
living from the dead, and the dead from the living ? Surely,
they will answer — "God!" then say: "What, will ye not
therefore fear Him?"

Doth any one desire greatness ? All greatness is in God.
The good word riseth up to Him, and the righteous deed will
He exalt. But a terrible punishment awaiteth the planner
of iniquity, and the machinations of such will He surely
confound.

They say, the Merciful hath begotten issue. Now have
ye uttered an impious thing; it wanteth little but on occa-
sion thereof, the heavens be rent, and the earth cleave
asunder, and the mountains fall down in fragments, for that
they attribute a son to the God of mercy, when it beseemeth
not the All-merciful to beget children. Verily, there is none
in heaven and in eartli but shall approach the Merciful as
His servant.

Happiness and Misery (for whom).

By the Night when she spreadeth her veil ;

By the Day when she brightly shineth ;

By Hm who created the male and female ;

Of a truth, at different ends do ye aim !

But as for him who giveth alms and feareth God,

And yieldeth assent unto the good :

Unto him will We make easy the path to happiness ;

But as for him who is covetous and bent xipon riches,

And who calleth the Good, a lie,

Unto him will We make easy the path of misery.

It is God who hath given you the earth as a sure founda-
tion, and over it built the heavens and formed you and made
your form comely, and feedeth you with good things. This
is God your Lord, Blessed then be God, the Lord of the

BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN. 161

Worlds ! Ho is the living God. No god is there, except
He. Call, therefore, upon Him and offer unto Him a pure
worship. Praise be unto God, the Lord of the Worlds ! It
is He who giveth life and death ; and when He decreeth a
thing, He only saith of it : " Be," and it is.

Ingratitude (of man to God.)

By the snorting chargers !

And the war-liorses that dash off sparks of fire !

And tliosc tliat rush to the attack at morn !

And stir therein the dust aloft !

And cleave therein their midway through a host !

Truly man to his Lord ungrateful is,

And of this he is himself a witness :

And truly he is keen in the love of this world's good ;

Ah ! wottetli he not that when that which is in the grave

Shall be laid bare,
And that which is in men's hearts shall be brought forth ?
Verily, their Lord shall, on that day, be informed

Concerning them.

Judgment Day.

On that day (the last) there shall be a blast upon the
trumpet, and all that are on earth shall be terror-stricken,
save him whom God pleaseth to deliver ; and all shall come
unto him as suppliants.

And thou shalt see the mountains, which thou thinkest
so firm, dissolve away like unto the passing of a cloud. 'Tis
the work of God, who ordereth all things. Of all that ye do,
He is well aware.

When the Earth with her quaking shall tremble,

And the Earth shall cast forth her burdens.

And men shall cry, " What aileth her 1"

On that day shall she unfold her tidings,

For, verily, the Lord shall have inspired her.

On that day shall the sons of men come forward in ranks.

To behold their works ;
And whosoever an atom's weight of good shall have wrought

Shall behold the same ;
And whosoever an atom's weight of evil shall have wrought

Sliall behold the same,

M

162 BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

When the heavens shall cleave asunder,
And when the stars shall be scattered,
And when the oceans shall be commingled,
And when the graves shall be turned upside down.
Each soul shall behold its earliest and its latest deeds.

But when one blast shall be blown on the trumpet,
And the earth and the mountains shall be upheaved.
And shall both be crushed into dust at a single crushing.
On that day the woe that must come suddenly shall
Suddenly come,
And the heaven shall cleave asunder, for on that day
It shall be fragile :
On that day ye shall be brought before Him ;
Nor shall any of your hidden deeds remain concealed.

When the sun shall be folded up,*

And when the stars shall fall,

And when the mountains shall be made to pass away.

And when the camels, ten months gone with young, shall be

neglected, f
And when the wild beasts shall be gathered together, J
And when the seas shall boil.

And when souls shall be again united to their bodies.
And when the female child that had been buried alive shall be

asked
For what crime she was put to death, §
And when the leaves of the Book shall be laid open.
And when the Heaven shall be stripped away, ||
And when Hell shall be made to blaze.
And when Paradise shall be brought near,
Then shall every soul know what it hath wrought.

* That is, like a garment that is laid by.

t To express the greatness of the terror of the day, the she-camels
with young (a most valuable part of the substance of Arabs) shall be
utterly neglected.

% For the Mohammedans believe that not only mankind, but irrational
animals also, shall be judged on that tremendous day ; when the unarmed
cattle shall take vengeance on the horned, till entire satisfaction shall be
given to the injured.

§ For it was customary among the ancient Arabs to bury their
daughters alive, as soon as Vjorn, for fear they should become im-
poverished by providing fur them, or should suffer disgrace on their
account.

11 Like a skin from an animal when flayed.

beauties of the koran. 163

Kindness and Hospitality (recommended).

Be good unto parents,* and to kindred, and to orphans,
and to the poor, and to a neighbour, whether kinsman or
new-comer, and to a fellow-traveller, and to the wayfarer,
and to the slaves which your right hands hold.

Moreover, we have enjoined on man to show kindness
unto his parents. With pain his mother beareth him ; with
pain she bringeth him fortli ; and his bearing and weaning
are thirty months, and when he attaineth his strength and
attaineth to forty years, he saith, " 0, Lord ! cause me to be
grateful for thy favours wherewith thou hast favoured me
and my parents."

Koran (the).

Blessed be He who hath sent down Al FoRKANf (the illuminator)
unto his servant, that unto all creatures he may be a warner.
His the kingdom of the Heavens and of the Earth !
No son hath He begotten ! No partner hath He in His empire !

All things hath He created,

And, decreeing, hath decreed their destinies !

By the Star when it setteth,

Your companion Mohammed erreth not, nor is he led astray ;

Neither doth he speak of his own will.

The Koran is no other than a Revelation revealed to him ;

One mighty in power J endued with wisdom taught it him.

What think ye? the tire which ye strike,
Do ye produce the tree whence ye obtain the same.
Or are We the producers thereof 1

* " An undutiful son is very seldom heard of among the Egyptians or
the Arabians, in general. Sons scarcely ever sit, or eat, or smoke, in
the presence of the father, unless bidden to do so ; and they often wait
upon him and upon his guests at meals, and on other occasions ; they
do not cease to act thus when they Viecomc men." (Lane's 'Modem
Egypt,' vol. i.)

+ The word Forkmi, taken in a general sense, means illumination,
deliverance ; it was derived l)y Mohaiiuued frimi tlie Jews, who applic(I
it to the Pentateuch in the same manner as the Arabian prophet applied
it to the Koran.

t The angel Gabriel, to the meaning of whose name, as the strong one
of God, these words probably apply.

164 BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

We have ordained the same for an admonition,*

And an advantage to the wayfarers of the desert.

Wherefore praise the name of thy Lord, the Great God.

Moreover, I swear by the setting of the stars,

(And it is a great oath, if ye knew it)

That this is the honourable Koran,

The original of which is written in the preserved Book :t

Let none touch it but the purified ;t

It is a revelation from the Lord of all creatures.

Measure (should be just).

Woe unto those who stint the measure or weight !
Who when they take by measure from others exact the full,

But when they mete out or weigh to them minish !
What, have they no thought that they shall be raised again?
For the Great Day, that Day when mankind
Shall stand before the Lord of the Worlds?

The Lord of mercy hath taught his servant the Koran,
Hath created man, a:id taught him articulate speech.
The sun and the moon have each their times.
And the plants and the trees bend in adoration.
And the Heaven hath He reared it up on high.

And hath appointed a balance :
That in the balance ye should not transgress ;
Weigh, therefore, with fairness, and scant not the balance.

The striking !§ what is the striking?

Who shall teach thee what the striking is?

The day when men shall be like scattered moths.

And the mountains shall be like flocks of carded wool.

Then as to him whose balances are heavy — his

Shall be a life that shall please Him well ;
As to him whose balances are light, his

Dwelling-place shall be the pit.

* To put men in mind of the resurrection, which the production of
fire in some sort resembles, or of the fire of hell.

t That is, the prototype of the Koran written down in the book kept
by God himself. (See p. 62.)

X Purity both of mind and body being requisite in him who should
use this book with the respect he ought, and hopes to edify by it ; for
which reason these words are iisually written on the cover. (See p. 67.)

§ Sometimes called " The Bloio." This is one of the names or epithets
given to the last day, because it will strike the hearts of all creatures with
terror.

BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

165

And who shall make thee to understand
How frightful the pit (of Hell) is !
Verily is it a raging fire !

Mohammed.

(The Koran sent down to him.)

Not to sadden thee (Mohammed) have We sent down

This Koran unto thee,

But as a warning for whomsoever feareth ;

It is a missive from Him

Who hath made the Earth and the lofty Heavens.

The God of mercy sitteth on his throne.

His whatsoever is in the Heavens,

And whatsoever is on the Earth,

And whatsoever is between them both,

And whatsoever is beneath the humid soil ;

No need hast thou to raise thy voice, for

He knoweth the secret whisper, and what is yet more hidden.

God ! there is no God but He !
Most excellent are His titles.*
By the noonday brightness,!
And by the night when it darkeneth.
The Lord hath not forsaken thee,
Neither hath He been displeased.
Be assured the future shall be better for thee than the past.
And the Lord shall give thee a reward wherewith thou shalt be content ;
Did He not find thee an orphanj and give thee a home 1
And found thee erring, and guided thee 1 §
And found thee needy, and enriched thee 1
Wherefore, oppress not the orphan, nor repulse the beggar,
But declare the goodness of thy Lord.

* Expressing his glorious attributes. Of these the Mohammedan Arabs
have no less than ninety-three, which are reckoned up by Maracci in
his Al Goran, p. 414.

t This chapter is said to have been the expression of deep mental
anxiety into which Mohammed had fallen on account of not having
been favoured with any revelation for several days.

X The charge of Mohammed, when left an orphan, was undertaken by
his grandfather. (See p. 8.)

§ Up to hi? fortieth year, Mohammed had followed the religion of his
count rvnien.

166 fiEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

Recite, thou, in the name of the Lord, who created — *
Created Man from nought but congealed blood.
Recite ! for thy Lord is beneficent.
It is He who hath taught (to record Revelation) with a pen ;
Hath taught man what he knoweth not,

I swear by the declining day,+
Verily, man's lot is cast amid destruction !
Save those who believe and do the things which are right,

And enjoin truth, and recommend steadfastness to one another.

Moral In.junctions.

Have nought to do with adultery, for it is a foul thing and
an evil way.

Speak unto the believers that they restrain their eyes and
observe continence. Thus will they be more pure. God is
well aware of what they do.

Walk not proudly on the earth, for thou canst not
cleave the earth, neither canst thou equal the mountains
in stature. All this is evil and abominable in the sight of
the Lord.

Be patient with those who call upon the Lord at morn
and even, seeking His face : and let not thine eyes be
turned away from them in quest of the pomp of this life ;
neither obey him whose heart we have caused to neglect
the remembrance of Us, and who followeth his lusts and
leaveth the truth behind him.

Come, I will rehearse what your Lord hath made binding
upon you : that ye assign not aught to Him as partner ;
that ye be good to your parents ; and that ye slay not your
children because of poverty, for them and for you will "We

* The command delivered by the angel Gabriel to Mohammed. (See
p. 15.)

t Said to have been recited in the Mosque shortly before his death,
by Mohammed.

BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN. 167

provide ; that ye come not near to pollution, outward or
inward, and that ye slay not one whom God hath forbidden
you, unless for a just cause. This hath He enjoined on you,
to the intent that ye may understand.

0 believers ! surely wine and games of chance,* and
statues and the divining arrows f are an al)omination of
Satan's work ! Avoid them, that ye may jirosper. Satan
seeketh to sow hatred and strife among you, liy wine and
games of chance, and to turn you aside from the remembrance
of (Jod and prayer ; will ye not, therefore, abstain from
them? Obey (lod, and obey the Apostle, and be upon
vour guard.

&"

0, ye, who believe ! stand fast to justice when ye bear
witness before God, though it be against yourselves or your
parents, or your kindred, whether the party be rich or
whether he be poor. God is more worthy than both ; there-
fore follow not your own lusts in bearing testimony, lest ye
swerve from truth : and if ye wrest your testimony or decline
giving it, God verily is aware of what ye do.

What thing is weightiest in bearing testimony ? Say
" God is witness between me and thee," and this Koran hath
been revealed unto me that I should warn thereby both thee
and all whom it mav reacli.

Orphans.

Give unto orphans theii' property ; substitute not worth-
less things of your own for their valuable ones ; and devour
not their substance, for this is a great sin.

* Tlie .strict observers of the letter of the Koran forbid even the game
of cliess, but the Persians and Indians are generally more lilieral in
their interpretation of this ver.se.

t For the mode of casting lots by arrows, much practised among the
Pagan Arabs, see Sale's ' Preliminary Discourse,' sect. 5.

168 BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

And they will also enquire of thee concerning orphans.
Say, " Fair dealing with them is best." But if ye inter-
meddle with tlie management of what belongs to them, do
them no wrong, for they are your brethren : God knoweth
the corrupt dealer from the righteous one ; and if God please,
He will surely distress you.*

Parents.

The Lord hath ordained that ye worship none but Him,
and that ye show kindness to your ])arents, whether one or
both of them attain to old age with thee ; and say not to
them "Fie!" neither reproach them, but with respectful
speech address them both, deferring humbly to them out of
tenderness ; and say, " Lord have compassion on them both,
even as they reared me when I was a little one !"

Moreover We have enjoined on man to show kindness
unto his parents. With pain his mother beareth him ; with
pain she bringeth him I'ortli ; and his bearing and his
weaning are thirty months.f

Piety.

There is no piety in turning your faces towards the East
or towards the West ; Init he is pious who believeth in God,
and the last day, and the angels, and the Scriptures ; who,
for the love of God, disburseth his wealth to his kindred

* By his curse, which will certainly bring to nothing what the orphans
shall have been robbed of.

t " An equally beautiful feature in the character of the Turks is their
reverence and respect for the author of their being. Their wives advise
and reprimand, unheeded, their words are — bosh, nothing ; but the
mother is an oracle. She is consulted, confided in, listened to with respect
and deference, honoured to her latest hour, and remembered with regret
and affection beyond the grave. ' My wives die, and I can replace them,'
says the Osnianli ; ' my children perish, and others may be born to me ;
but who shall restore to me the mother who has passed away, and who
is seen no more.' " (' City of the Sultan,' by Miss Pardoe, 4th edit,
p. 3U.;

BEAUTIES OF THE KOKAN. 1 «)9

and to the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, and to
those who ask and for ransoms, who observeth prayer and
payeth the legal alms, and who is of those who are faithful
to their engagements when they have engaged in them, and
who are patient under hardships and in times of adversity ;
these are they who are just and pious, these are they who
fear tlic Lord.

Prayer.

Recite that which hath been revealed unto thee of the
Koran, and be constant in prayer, for prayer restraineth
from the filthy and the blame-worthy, and surely is the
remembering of God a most important duty.

Be ye constant in prayer, and give alms ; and whatsoever
good ye have done and sent before for your souls, ye shall
find it with God ; for, of a surety, God seeth that which
ye do.

To God belongeth both the East and the West, therefore,
whithersoever you turn yourselves to pray, there is God ; for
He is the Omnipresent, the Omniscient.

Verily, they who recite the Book of God, and observe
prayer, and give alms in public and in private from what we
have bestowed upon them, may hope for a merchandise that
shall not perish.

Slanderers — Backbiters.

Woe to every .slanderer and backbiter !

Who aniasseth wealtli, and storeth it aj^ainst the future !

He thinketh surely that his wealth shall abide with him for ever.

Nay; for verily he shall be flung into the crushing Al Hotoma;*

And who shall teach thee what that crushing Hotoma is ]

It is God's kindled fire,

Which shall mount above the hearts of the damned ;

It shall verily rise over them like unto an arched vault,

On columns of vast extent.

* One of the names of Hell,

170 BEAUTIES OF THE KORAN.

By the sun and his noou'day brightness !

By the moon when she followeth him !

By the day when it revealeth His glory !

By the night when it enshroudeth him ?

By the heaven, and by Him who built it !

By the earth, and by Him who spread it forth.

By the soul and Him who deftly fashioned it.

Endowing it with knowledge to distinguish

And power to choose, or righteousness, or iniquity ;

Blessed is he who hath preserved His pure,

And LOST is he who hath defiled it !

Women.

And speak to the believing women, that they refrain their
eyes and observe continence ; and that they display not
their ornaments* except to their husbands or their fathers,
or their sons or their husband's sons, or their women or their
slaves, or male domestics who have no natural power ; or to
children who note not women's nakedness. And let them
not strike their feet together, so as to discover their hidden
ornaments.^

Neither let women laugh to scorn other women, who, haply,
may be better than themselves. Neither defame one another,
nor call one another by opprobrious names.

* As their clothes, jewels, and the furniture of their toilet^much lesa
such parts of their bodies as ought not to be seen.

_ + The pride which the Jewish ladies of old, also, took in making a
tinkling noise with the ornaments of their feet, such as rings, anklets?
&c., which were usually of gold and silver, is severely reproved by the
prophet Isaiah, ch. iii. 16, 18.

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