When the Jew had finished, a Turk, who had smoked throughout the
meeting, washed his mouth, recited the formula “Allah Illah,” and
said to me:
I have listened to all these dreamers. I have gathered that thou
art a dog of a Christian, but thou pleasest me because thou seemest
liberal, and art in favour of gratuitous predestination. I believe
thou art a sensible man, assuming that thou dost agree with me.
Most of thy dogs of Christians have spoken only folly about our
Mohammed. A certain Baron de Tott, a man of much ability and
geniality, who did us great service in the last war, induced me
some time ago to read a book of one of your most learned men, named
Grotius, entitled _The Truth of the Christian Religion_. This Grotius
accuses our great Mohammed of forcing men to believe that a pigeon
spoke in his ear, that a camel conversed with him during the night,
and that he had put half the moon in his sleeve. If the most learned
of your Christ-worshippers can write such asinine stuff, what must I
think of the others?
No, Mohammed did none of these village-miracles, of which people
speak only a hundred years after the supposed event. He wrought none
of those miracles which Baron de Tott read to me in the _Golden
Legend_, written at Geneva. He wrought none of your miracles in the
manner of St. Médard, which have been so much derided in Europe, and
at which a French ambassador has laughed so much in our presence.
The miracles of Mohammed were victories. God has shown that he was
a favourite by subjecting half our hemisphere to him. He was not
unknown for two whole centuries. He triumphed as soon as he was
persecuted.
His religion is wise, severe, chaste, and humane. Wise, because
it knows not the folly of giving God associates, and it has no
mysteries; severe, because it prohibits games of chance, and wine,
and strong drinks, and orders prayer five times a day; chaste,
because it reduces to four the prodigious number of spouses who
shared the bed of all oriental princes; humane, because it imposes on
us almsgiving more rigorously than the journey to Mecca.
Add tolerance to all these marks of truth. Reflect that we have in
the city of Stamboul alone more than a hundred thousand Christians of
all sects, who carry out all the ceremonies of their cults in peace,
and live so happily under the shelter of our laws that they never
deign to visit you, while you crowd to our imperial gate.