conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects fled to the happy land
where they might profess what they thought, and practise what they
professed. The religions of the Sabians and Magians, of the Jews and
Christians, were disseminated from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In
a remote period of antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Asia by
the science of the ChaldÊans and the arms of the Assyrians. From the
observations of two thousand years, the priests and astronomers of
Babylon deduced the eternal laws of nature and providence. They adored
the seven gods or angels, who directed the course of the seven planets,
and shed their irresistible influence on the earth. The attributes
of the seven planets, with the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the
twenty-four constellations of the northern and southern hemisphere, were
represented by images and talismans; the seven days of the week were
dedicated to their respective deities; the Sabians prayed thrice
each day; and the temple of the moon at Haran was the term of their
pilgrimage. But the flexible genius of their faith was always ready
either to teach or to learn: in the tradition of the creation, the
deluge, and the patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with their
Jewish captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and
Enoch; and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the last
remnant of the Polytheists into the Christians of St. John, in the
territory of Bassora. The altars of Babylon were overturned by the
Magians; but the injuries of the Sabians were revenged by the sword of
Alexander; Persia groaned above five hundred years under a foreign yoke;
and the purest disciples of Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of
idolatry, and breathed with their adversaries the freedom of the desert.
Seven hundred years before the death of Mahomet, the Jews were settled
in Arabia; and a far greater multitude was expelled from the Holy Land
in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles aspired to
liberty and power: they erected synagogues in the cities, and castles
in the wilderness, and their Gentile converts were confounded with
the children of Israel, whom they resembled in the outward mark of
circumcision. The Christian missionaries were still more active and
successful: the Catholics asserted their universal reign; the sects
whom they oppressed, successively retired beyond the limits of the
Roman empire; the Marcionites and ManichÊans dispersed their _fantastic_
opinions and apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the princes
of Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the Jacobite and
Nestorian bishops. The liberty of choice was presented to the tribes:
each Arab was free to elect or to compose his private religion: and the
rude superstition of his house was mingled with the sublime theology of
saints and philosophers. A fundamental article of faith was inculcated
by the consent of the learned strangers; the existence of one supreme
God who is exalted above the powers of heaven and earth, but who has
often revealed himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels and
prophets, and whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable
miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the Arabs
acknowledged his power, though they neglected his worship; and it was
habit rather than conviction that still attached them to the relics of
idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the people of the _Book_; the
Bible was already translated into the Arabic language, and the volume
of the Old Testament was accepted by the concord of these implacable
enemies. In the story of the Hebrew patriarchs, the Arabs were pleased
to discover the fathers of their nation. They applauded the birth and
promises of Ismael; revered the faith and virtue of Abraham; traced his
pedigree and their own to the creation of the first man, and imbibed,
with equal credulity, the prodigies of the holy text, and the dreams and
traditions of the Jewish rabbis.
The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful calumny of the
Christians, who exalt instead of degrading the merit of their adversary.
His descent from Ismael was a national privilege or fable; but if the
first steps of the pedigree are dark and doubtful, he could produce many
generations of pure and genuine nobility: he sprung from the tribe of
Koreish and the family of Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs,
the princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of the Caaba. The
grandfather of Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, a wealthy
and generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with the
supplies of commerce. Mecca, which had been fed by the liberality of the
father, was saved by the courage of the son. The kingdom of Yemen was
subject to the Christian princes of Abyssinia; their vassal Abrahah was
provoked by an insult to avenge the honor of the cross; and the holy
city was invested by a train of elephants and an army of Africans. A
treaty was proposed; and, in the first audience, the grandfather of
Mahomet demanded the restitution of his cattle. "And why," said Abrahah,
"do you not rather implore my clemency in favor of your temple, which I
have threatened to destroy?" "Because," replied the intrepid chief, "the
cattle is my own; the Caaba belongs to the gods, and _they_ will defend
their house from injury and sacrilege." The want of provisions, or
the valor of the Koreish, compelled the Abyssinians to a disgraceful
retreat: their discomfiture has been adorned with a miraculous flight
of birds, who showered down stones on the heads of the infidels; and the
deliverance was long commemorated by the Êra of the elephant. The glory
of Abdol Motalleb was crowned with domestic happiness; his life was
prolonged to the age of one hundred and ten years; and he became the
father of six daughters and thirteen sons. His best beloved Abdallah
was the most beautiful and modest of the Arabian youth; and in the first
night, when he consummated his marriage with Amina, of the noble race of
the Zahrites, two hundred virgins are said to have expired of jealousy
and despair. Mahomet, or more properly Mohammed, the only son of
Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, four years after the death of
Justinian, and two months after the defeat of the Abyssinians, whose
victory would have introduced into the Caaba the religion of the
Christians. In his early infancy, he was deprived of his father, his
mother, and his grandfather; his uncles were strong and numerous; and,
in the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share was reduced to
five camels and an ∆thiopian maid-servant. At home and abroad, in peace
and war, Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide
and guardian of his youth; in his twenty-fifth year, he entered into the
service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded
his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage
contract, in the simple style of antiquity, recites the mutual love of
Mahomet and Cadijah; describes him as the most accomplished of the tribe
of Koreish; and stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty
camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle. By this
alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored to the station of his
ancestors; and the judicious matron was content with his domestic
virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age, he assumed the title of
a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran.
According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet was distinguished
by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which is seldom despised,
except by those to whom it has been refused. Before he spoke, the orator
engaged on his side the affections of a public or private audience. They
applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing
eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that
painted every sensation of the soul, and his 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 citizens 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 imagination sublime; his judgment clear, rapid, and
decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and action; and,
although his designs might gradually expand with his 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 educated 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. With these powers of eloquence,
Mahomet was an illiterate Barbarian: his youth had never been instructed
in the arts of reading and writing; the common ignorance exempted
him from shame or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of
existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors, which reflect to our
mind the minds of sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man
was open to his view; and some fancy has been indulged in the political
and philosophical observations which are ascribed to the Arabian
_traveller_. He compares the nations and the regions of the earth;
discovers the weakness of the Persian and Roman monarchies; beholds,
with pity and indignation, the degeneracy of the times; and resolves
to unite under one God and one king the invincible spirit and primitive
virtues of the Arabs. Our more accurate inquiry will suggest, that,
instead of visiting the courts, the camps, the temples, of the East, the
two journeys of Mahomet into Syria were confined to the fairs of Bostra
and Damascus; that he was only thirteen years of age when he accompanied
the caravan of his uncle; and that his duty compelled him to return as
soon as he had disposed of the merchandise of Cadijah. In these hasty
and superficial excursions, the eye of genius might discern some objects
invisible to his grosser companions; some seeds of knowledge might be
cast upon a fruitful soil; but his ignorance of the Syriac language
must have checked his curiosity; and I cannot perceive, in the life
or writings of Mahomet, that his prospect was far extended beyond the
limits of the Arabian world. From every region of that solitary world,
the pilgrims of Mecca were annually assembled, by the calls of devotion
and commerce: in the free concourse of multitudes, a simple citizen, in
his native tongue, might study the political state and character of the
tribes, the theory and practice of the Jews and Christians. Some
useful strangers might be tempted, or forced, to implore the rights of
hospitality; and the enemies of Mahomet have named the Jew, the Persian,
and the Syrian monk, whom they accuse of lending their secret aid to the
composition of the Koran. Conversation enriches the understanding, but
solitude is the school of genius; and the uniformity of a work denotes
the hand of a single artist. From his earliest youth Mahomet was
addicted to religious contemplation; each year, during the month of
Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and from the arms of Cadijah: in
the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca, he consulted the spirit of
fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is not in the heavens, but in the mind
of the prophet. The faith which, under the name of _Islam_, he preached
to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal truth, and a
necessary fiction, That there is only one God, and that Mahomet is the
apostle of God.
It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the learned nations
of antiquity were deluded by the fables of polytheism, their simple
ancestors of Palestine preserved the knowledge and worship of the true
God. The moral attributes of Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with
the standard of _human_ virtue: his metaphysical qualities are darkly
expressed; but each page of the Pentateuch and the Prophets is an
evidence of his power: the unity of his name is inscribed on the first
table of the law; and his sanctuary was never defiled by any visible
image of the invisible essence. After the ruin of the temple, the
faith of the Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and enlightened, by the
spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the authority of Mahomet will
not justify his perpetual reproach, that the Jews of Mecca or Medina
adored Ezra as the son of God. But the children of Israel had ceased to
be a people; and the religions of the world were guilty, at least in the
eyes of the prophet, of giving sons, or daughters, or companions, to the
supreme God. In the rude idolatry of the Arabs, the crime is manifest
and audacious: the Sabians are poorly excused by the preÎminence of the
first planet, or intelligence, in their celestial hierarchy; and in
the Magian system the conflict of the two principles betrays the
imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians of the seventh century
had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism: their public and
private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the
temples of the East: the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud
of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration;
and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of
Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess.
The mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation _appear_ to contradict the
principle of the divine unity. In their obvious sense, they introduce
three equal deities, and transform the man Jesus into the substance of
the Son of God: an orthodox commentary will satisfy only a believing
mind: intemperate curiosity and zeal had torn the veil of the sanctuary;
and each of the Oriental sects was eager to confess that all, except
themselves, deserved the reproach of idolatry and polytheism. The creed
of Mahomet is free from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a
glorious testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca rejected
the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational
principle that whatever rises must set, that whatever is born must die,
that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish. In the Author of the
universe, his rational enthusiasm confessed and adored an infinite
and eternal being, without form or place, without issue or similitude,
present to our most secret thoughts, existing by the necessity of
his own nature, and deriving from himself all moral and intellectual
perfection. These sublime truths, thus announced in the language of the
prophet, are firmly held by his disciples, and defined with metaphysical
precision by the interpreters of the Koran. A philosophic theist might
subscribe the popular creed of the Mahometans; a creed too sublime,
perhaps, for our present faculties. What object remains for the fancy,
or even the understanding, when we have abstracted from the unknown
substance all ideas of time and space, of motion and matter, of
sensation and reflection? The first principle of reason and revolution
was confirmed by the voice of Mahomet: his proselytes, from India to
Morocco, are distinguished by the name of _Unitarians_; and the danger
of idolatry has been prevented by the interdiction of images. The
doctrine of eternal decrees and absolute predestination is strictly
embraced by the Mahometans; and they struggle, with the common
difficulties, _how_ to reconcile the prescience of God with the freedom
and responsibility of man; _how_ to explain the permission of evil under
the reign of infinite power and infinite goodness.
The God of nature has written his existence on 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 real or pretended aim of
the prophets of every age: the liberality of Mahomet allowed to his
predecessors the same credit which he claimed for himself; and the chain
of inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam to the promulgation
of the Koran. During that period, some rays of prophetic light had
been imparted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand of the elect,
discriminated by their respective measure of virtue and grace; three
hundred and thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission
to recall their country from idolatry and vice; one hundred and four
volumes have been dictated by the Holy Spirit; and six legislators of
transcendent brightness have announced to mankind the six successive
revelations of various rites, but of one immutable religion. The
authority and station of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and
Mahomet, rise in just gradation above each other; but whosoever hates
or rejects any one of the prophets is numbered with the infidels. The
writings of the patriarchs were extant only in the apocryphal copies of
the Greeks and Syrians: the conduct of Adam had not entitled him to the
gratitude or respect of his children; the seven precepts of Noah were
observed by an inferior and imperfect class of the proselytes of the
synagogue; and the memory of Abraham was obscurely revered by the
Sabians in his native land of ChaldÊa: of the myriads of prophets, Moses
and Christ alone lived and reigned; and the remnant of the inspired
writings was comprised in the books of the Old and the New Testament.
The miraculous story of Moses is consecrated and embellished in the
Koran; and the captive Jews enjoy the secret revenge of imposing their
own belief on the nations whose recent creeds they deride. For the
author of Christianity, the Mahometans are taught by the prophet to
entertain a high and mysterious reverence. "Verily, Christ Jesus, the
son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his word, which he conveyed unto
Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from him; honorable in this world, and in
the world to come, and one of those who approach near to the presence
of God." The wonders of the genuine and apocryphal gospels are profusely
heaped on his head; and the Latin church has not disdained to borrow
from the Koran the immaculate conception of his virgin mother. Yet Jesus
was a mere mortal; and, at the day of judgment, his testimony will
serve to condemn both the Jews, who reject him as a prophet, and the
Christians, who adore him as the Son of God. The malice of his enemies
aspersed his reputation, and conspired against his life; but their
intention only was guilty; a phantom or a criminal was substituted on
the cross; and the innocent saint was translated to the seventh heaven.
During six hundred years the gospel was the way of truth and salvation;
but the Christians insensibly forgot both the laws and example of
their founder; and Mahomet was instructed by the Gnostics to accuse the
church, as well as the synagogue, of corrupting the integrity of the
sacred text. The piety of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance
of a future prophet, more illustrious than themselves: the evangelical
promise of the _Paraclete_, or Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name,
and accomplished in the person, of Mahomet, the greatest and the last of
the apostles of God.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.--Part IV.
The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and
language: the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate without effect
on the ear of a peasant; yet how minute is the distance of _their_
understandings, if it be compared with the contact of an infinite and a
finite mind, with the word of God expressed by the tongue or the pen of
a mortal! The inspiration of the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and
evangelists of Christ, might not be incompatible with the exercise of
their reason and memory; and the diversity of their genius is strongly
marked in the style and composition of the books of the Old and New
Testament. But Mahomet was content with a character, more humble, yet
more sublime, of a simple editor; the substance of the Koran, according
to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal; subsisting in the
essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of light on the table of
his everlasting decrees. A paper copy, in a volume of silk and gems, was
brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel, who, under
the Jewish economy, had indeed been despatched on the most important
errands; and this trusty messenger successively revealed the chapters
and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect
measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at
the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the emergencies
of his policy or passion; and all contradiction is removed by the
saving maxim, that any text of Scripture is abrogated or modified by any
subsequent passage. The word of God, and of the apostle, was diligently
recorded by his disciples on palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of
mutton; and the pages, without order or connection, were cast into a
domestic chest, in the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the
death of Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by
his friend and successor Abubeker: the work was revised by the caliph
Othman, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira; and the various editions
of the Koran assert the same miraculous privilege of a uniform and
incorruptible text. In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet
rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book; audaciously
challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page;
and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable
performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout
Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture; whose ear is
delighted by the music of sounds; and whose ignorance is incapable of
comparing the productions of human genius. The harmony and copiousness
of style will not reach, in a version, the European infidel: he will
peruse with impatience the endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, and
precept, and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea,
which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds.
The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian missionary; but
his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book
of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country, and in the same
language. If the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a man
to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or
the Philippics of Demosthenes? In all religions, the life of the founder
supplies the silence of his written revelation: the sayings of Mahomet
were so many lessons of truth; his actions so many examples of virtue;
and the public and private memorials were preserved by his wives and
companions. At the end of two hundred years, the Sonna, or oral law,
was fixed and consecrated by the labors of Al Bochari, who discriminated
seven thousand two hundred and seventy-five genuine traditions, from a
mass of three hundred thousand reports, of a more doubtful or spurious
character. Each day the pious author prayed in the temple of Mecca,
and performed his ablutions with the water of Zemzem: the pages were
successively deposited on the pulpit and the sepulchre of the apostle;
and the work has been approved by the four orthodox sects of the
Sonnites.