The measure of population is regulated by the means of

subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be

outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious

province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and

even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, 9 or fish eaters, continued

to wander in quest of their precarious food. In this primitive

and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the

human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or

language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal

creation. Generations and ages might roll away in silent

oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying

his race by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence

to the narrow margin of the seacoast. But in an early period of

antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene

of misery; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain a

people of hunters, they rose at once to the more secure and

plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is

uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert; and in the

portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the features of

their ancestors, 10 who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt

under similar tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and

sheep, to the same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is

lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the

useful animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the

absolute possession of a faithful friend and a laborious slave.

11 Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and

original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not

indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that

generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the

English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: 12 the

Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the

memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price,

but the females are seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble

foal was esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of joy and

mutual congratulation. These horses are educated in the tents,

among the children of the Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which

trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They are

accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their sensations are not

blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip: their

powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no

sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than

they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their

friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop

till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and

Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and

patient beast of burden can perform, without eating or drinking,

a journey of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water is

preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach of the animal, whose

body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the larger breed

is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds; and the

dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the

fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of

the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and

nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal: 13

a valuable salt is extracted from the urine: the dung supplies

the deficiency of fuel; and the long hair, which falls each year

and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the garments, the

furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons,

they consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the desert:

during the heats of summer and the scarcity of winter, they

remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or

the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the

dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and the

villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is

a life of danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or

exchange, he may appropriate the fruits of industry, a private

citizen in Europe is in the possession of more solid and pleasing

luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field at the

head of ten thousand horse.

9 (return) [ Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of

Hejez, (Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 12,) and beyond Aden, (p.

15.) It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the

largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the time,

perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can hardly believe that any cannibals

were left among the savages in the reign of Justinian. (Procop.

de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)]

10 (return) [ See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock, p. 2,

5, 86, &c. The journey of M. d’Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of

the emir of Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine, Amsterdam,

1718,) exhibits a pleasing and original picture of the life of

the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from Niebuhr (Description

de l’Arabie, p. 327-344) and Volney, (tom. i. p. 343-385,) the

last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.]

11 (return) [ Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable

articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M.

de Buffon.]

12 (return) [ For the Arabian horses, see D’Arvieux (p. 159-173)

and Niebuhr, (p. 142-144.) At the end of the xiiith century, the

horses of Neged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen strong

and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble. The horses of Europe,

the tenth and last class, were generally despised as having too

much body and too little spirit, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p.

339: ) their strength was requisite to bear the weight of the

knight and his armor]

13 (return) [ Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces

sunt, was the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen,

p. 88.) Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow,

and does not even mention the camel; but the diet of Mecca and

Medina was already more luxurious, (Gagnier Vie de Mahomet, tom.

iii. p. 404.)]

Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of

Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were

collected into towns, and employed in the labors of trade and

agriculture. A part of their time and industry was still devoted

to the management of their cattle: they mingled, in peace and

war, with their brethren of the desert; and the Bedoweens derived

from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants, and

some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities

of Arabia, 14 enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and

populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, 15

and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, 16 were constructed by the

kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by

the prophetic glories of Medina 17 and Mecca, 18 near the Red

Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and

seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the

Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the termination of the

word is expressive of its greatness, which has not, indeed, in

the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness

of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must

have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising

situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a

plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of

three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of the

holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are

remote from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy

miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the

Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were conspicuous among the

Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil refused the labors of

agriculture, and their position was favorable to the enterprises

of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance only of forty

miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with Abyssinia; and

that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples

of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the

Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city

built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; 19

and from thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they

were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is

placed almost at an equal distance, a month’s journey, between

Yemen on the right, and Syria on the left hand. The former was

the winter, the latter the summer, station of her caravans; and

their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the

tedious and troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets

of Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels

of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics;

a supply of corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of

Bostra and Damascus; the lucrative exchange diffused plenty and

riches in the streets of Mecca; and the noblest of her sons

united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise. 20

14 (return) [ Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16, in tom.

i. Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and sixty-four

towns in Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be small—the

faith of the writer might be large.]

15 (return) [ It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. ii. p.

54) to Damascus, and is still the residence of the Imam of Yemen,

(Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331-342.) Saana is twenty-four

parasangs from Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight from

Aden, (p. 53.)]

16 (return) [ Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p.

52. Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was destroyed

by the legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32,) and had

not revived in the xivth century, (Abulfed. Descript. Arab. p.

58.) * Note: See note 2 to chap. i. The destruction of Meriaba by

the Romans is doubtful. The town never recovered the inundation

which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir of

water—an event of great importance in the Arabian annals, and

discussed at considerable length by modern Orientalists.—M.]

17 (return) [ The name of city, Medina, was appropriated, to

Yatreb. (the Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet.

The distances from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in stations,

or days’ journey of a caravan, (p. 15: ) to Bahrein, xv.; to

Bassora, xviii.; to Cufah, xx.; to Damascus or Palestine, xx.; to

Cairo, xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca to Saana, (p. 52,) or Aden,

xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours, (Shaw’s Travels, p.

477;) which, according to the estimate of D’Anville, (Mesures

Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twenty-five English miles for a

day’s journey. From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in

Yemen, between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria, Pliny

(Hist. Nat. xii. 32) computes lxv. mansions of camels. These

measures may assist fancy and elucidate facts.]

18 (return) [ Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the

Arabians, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368-371.

Pocock, Specimen, p. 125-128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40.) As no

unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are

silent; and the short hints of Thevenot (Voyages du Levant, part

i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African

renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin. tom. iv.

p. 167.) * Note: Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not been

so inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico

Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who was taken

prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly converted to Mahometanism.

His volume is a curious, though plain, account of his sufferings

and travels. Since that time Mecca has been entered, and the

ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers were

unfortunately lost; by the Spaniard, who called himself Ali Bey;

and, lastly, by Burckhardt, whose description leaves nothing

wanting to satisfy the curiosity.—M.]

19 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt

houses near Bassora, in D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 6.]

20 (return) [ Mirum dictu ex innumeris populis pars aequa in

commerciis aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32.)

See Sale’s Koran, Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2.

D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 361. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet,

p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 72, 120, 126, &c.]

The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of

praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy

transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in

favor of the posterity of Ismael. 21 Some exceptions, that can

neither be dismissed nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as

indiscreet as it is superfluous; the kingdom of Yemen has been

successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the Persians, the

sultans of Egypt, 22 and the Turks; 23 the holy cities of Mecca

and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the

Roman province of Arabia 24 embraced the peculiar wilderness in

which Ismael and his sons must have pitched their tents in the

face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are temporary or

local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most

powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey

and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the

present sovereign of the Turks 25 may exercise a shadow of

jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship

of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to

attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the

character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, 26

their intrepid valor had been severely felt by their neighbors in

offensive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a

soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a

pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to

the women of the tribe; but the martial youth, under the banner

of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to practise

the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long

memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its

perpetuity and succeeding generations are animated to prove their

descent, and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds

are suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their

last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was

attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the confederates.

When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front;

in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels,

who, in eight or ten days, can perform a march of four or five

hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters

of the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are

consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an

invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the

heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the

Bedoweens are not only the safeguards of their own freedom, but

the barriers also of the happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote

from war, are enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate.

The legions of Augustus melted away in disease and lassitude; 27

and it is only by a naval power that the reduction of Yemen has

been successfully attempted. When Mahomet erected his holy

standard, 28 that kingdom was a province of the Persian empire;

yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the

mountains; and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget

his distant country and his unfortunate master. The historians of

the age of Justinian represent the state of the independent

Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long

quarrel of the East: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on

the Syrian territory: the princes of Hira were permitted to form

a city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of

Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but

their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity

capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these

roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they

learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of

Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian

tribes 29 were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the

general appellation of Saracens, 30 a name which every Christian

mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and abhorrence.

21 (return) [ A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo

edition) has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by

the independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions

of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12,)

the extent of the application, and the foundation of the

pedigree. * Note: See note 3 to chap. xlvi. The atter point is

probably the least contestable of the three.—M.]

22 (return) [ It was subdued, A.D. 1173, by a brother of the

great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites,

(Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D’Herbelot, p. 477.)]

23 (return) [ By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538) and

Selim II., (1568.) See Cantemir’s Hist. of the Othman Empire, p.

201, 221. The pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one

beys; but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte, (Marsigli,

Stato Militare dell’ Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124,) and the Turks

were expelled about the year 1630, (Niebuhr, p. 167, 168.)]

24 (return) [ Of the Roman province, under the name of Arabia and

the third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra,

which dated their aera from the year 105, when they were subdued

by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, l. lxviii.)

Petra was the capital of the Nabathaeans; whose name is derived

from the eldest of the sons of Ismael, (Gen. xxv. 12, &c., with

the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc, and Calmet.) Justinian

relinquished a palm country of ten days’ journey to the south of

Aelah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19,) and the Romans

maintained a centurion and a custom-house, (Arrian in Periplo

Maris Erythraei, p. 11, in Hudson, tom. i.,) at a place (Pagus

Albus, Hawara) in the territory of Medina, (D’Anville, Memoire

sur l’Egypte, p. 243.) These real possessions, and some naval

inroads of Trajan, (Peripl. p. 14, 15,) are magnified by history

and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia. * Note: On the

ruins of Petra, see the travels of Messrs. Irby and Mangles, and

of Leon de Laborde.—M.]

25 (return) [ Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 302, 303,

329-331) affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of

the Turkish empire in Arabia. * Note: Niebuhr’s, notwithstanding

the multitude of later travellers, maintains its ground, as the

classical work on Arabia.—M.]

26 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. l. xix. p. 390-393,

edit. Wesseling) has clearly exposed the freedom of the

Nabathaean Arabs, who resisted the arms of Antigonus and his

son.]

27 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1127-1129. Plin. Hist. Natur.

vi. 32. Aelius Gallus landed near Medina, and marched near a

thousand miles into the part of Yemen between Mareb and the

Ocean. The non ante devictis Sabeae regibus, (Od. i. 29,) and the

intacti Arabum thesanri (Od. iii. 24) of Horace, attest the

virgin purity of Arabia.]

28 (return) [ See the imperfect history of Yemen in Pocock,

Specimen, p. 55-66, of Hira, p. 66-74, of Gassan, p. 75-78, as

far as it could be known or preserved in the time of ignorance. *

Note: Compare the Hist. Yemanae, published by Johannsen at Bonn

1880 particularly the translator’s preface.—M.]

29 (return) [ They are described by Menander, (Excerpt. Legation

p. 149,) Procopius, (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 17, 19, l. ii. c.

10,) and, in the most lively colors, by Ammianus Marcellinus, (l.

xiv. c. 4,) who had spoken of them as early as the reign of

Marcus.]

30 (return) [ The name which, used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more

confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has been

derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, obscurely

from the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,) more plausibly

from the Arabic words, which signify a thievish character, or

Oriental situation, (Hottinger, Hist. Oriental. l. i. c. i. p. 7,

8. Pocock, Specimen, p. 33, 35. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.

iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and most popular of these etymologies

is refuted by Ptolemy, (Arabia, p. 2, 18, in Hudson, tom. iv.,)

who expressly remarks the western and southern position of the

Saracens, then an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt. The

appellation cannot therefore allude to any national character;

and, since it was imposed by strangers, it must be found, not in

the Arabic, but in a foreign language. * Note: Dr. Clarke,

(Travels, vol. ii. p. 491,) after expressing contemptuous pity

for Gibbon’s ignorance, derives the word from Zara, Zaara, Sara,

the Desert, whence Saraceni, the children of the Desert. De

Marles adopts the derivation from Sarrik, a robber, (Hist. des

Arabes, vol. i. p. 36, S.L. Martin from Scharkioun, or Sharkun,

Eastern, vol. xi. p. 55.)—M.]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part II.

The slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their national

independence: but the Arab is personally free; and he enjoys, in

some degree, the benefits of society, without forfeiting the

prerogatives of nature. In every tribe, superstition, or

gratitude, or fortune, has exalted a particular family above the

heads of their equals. The dignities of sheick and emir

invariably descend in this chosen race; but the order of

succession is loose and precarious; and the most worthy or aged

of the noble kinsmen are preferred to the simple, though

important, office of composing disputes by their advice, and

guiding valor by their example. Even a female of sense and spirit

has been permitted to command the countrymen of Zenobia. 31 The

momentary junction of several tribes produces an army: their more

lasting union constitutes a nation; and the supreme chief, the

emir of emirs, whose banner is displayed at their head, may

deserve, in the eyes of strangers, the honors of the kingly name.

If the Arabian princes abuse their power, they are quickly

punished by the desertion of their subjects, who had been

accustomed to a mild and parental jurisdiction. Their spirit is

free, their steps are unconfined, the desert is open, and the

tribes and families are held together by a mutual and voluntary

compact. The softer natives of Yemen supported the pomp and

majesty of a monarch; but if he could not leave his palace

without endangering his life, 32 the active powers of government

must have been devolved on his nobles and magistrates. The cities

of Mecca and Medina present, in the heart of Asia, the form, or

rather the substance, of a commonwealth. The grandfather of

Mahomet, and his lineal ancestors, appear in foreign and domestic

transactions as the princes of their country; but they reigned,

like Pericles at Athens, or the Medici at Florence, by the

opinion of their wisdom and integrity; their influence was

divided with their patrimony; and the sceptre was transferred

from the uncles of the prophet to a younger branch of the tribe

of Koreish. On solemn occasions they convened the assembly of the

people; and, since mankind must be either compelled or persuaded

to obey, the use and reputation of oratory among the ancient

Arabs is the clearest evidence of public freedom. 33 But their

simple freedom was of a very different cast from the nice and

artificial machinery of the Greek and Roman republics, in which

each member possessed an undivided share of the civil and

political rights of the community. In the more simple state of

the Arabs, the nation is free, because each of her sons disdains

a base submission to the will of a master. His breast is

fortified by the austere virtues of courage, patience, and

sobriety; the love of independence prompts him to exercise the

habits of self-command; and the fear of dishonor guards him from

the meaner apprehension of pain, of danger, and of death. The

gravity and firmness of the mind is conspicuous in his outward

demeanor; his speech is low, weighty, and concise; he is seldom

provoked to laughter; his only gesture is that of stroking his

beard, the venerable symbol of manhood; and the sense of his own

importance teaches him to accost his equals without levity, and

his superiors without awe. 34 The liberty of the Saracens

survived their conquests: the first caliphs indulged the bold and

familiar language of their subjects; they ascended the pulpit to

persuade and edify the congregation; nor was it before the seat

of empire was removed to the Tigris, that the Abbasides adopted

the proud and pompous ceremonial of the Persian and Byzantine

courts.

31 (return) [ Saraceni... mulieres aiunt in eos regnare,

(Expositio totius Mundi, p. 3, in Hudson, tom. iii.) The reign of

Mavia is famous in ecclesiastical story Pocock, Specimen, p. 69,

83.]

32 (return) [ The report of Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 63,

64, in Hudson, tom. i.) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. iii. c. 47,

p. 215,) and Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1124.) But I much suspect that

this is one of the popular tales, or extraordinary accidents,

which the credulity of travellers so often transforms into a

fact, a custom, and a law.]

33 (return) [ Non gloriabantur antiquitus Arabes, nisi gladio,

hospite, et eloquentia (Sephadius apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 161,

162.) This gift of speech they shared only with the Persians; and

the sententious Arabs would probably have disdained the simple

and sublime logic of Demosthenes.]

34 (return) [ I must remind the reader that D’Arvieux,

D’Herbelot, and Niebuhr, represent, in the most lively colors,

the manners and government of the Arabs, which are illustrated by

many incidental passages in the Life of Mahomet. * Note: See,

likewise the curious romance of Antar, the most vivid and

authentic picture of Arabian manners.—M.]

In the study of nations and men, we may observe the causes that

render them hostile or friendly to each other, that tend to

narrow or enlarge, to mollify or exasperate, the social

character. The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind

has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy;

and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of

jurisprudence, which they believe and practise to the present

hour. They pretend, that, in the division of the earth, the rich

and fertile climates were assigned to the other branches of the

human family; and that the posterity of the outlaw Ismael might

recover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance of which

he had been unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny,

the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchandise;

the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed or pillaged;

and their neighbors, since the remote times of Job and Sesostris,

35 have been the victims of their rapacious spirit. If a Bedoween

discovers from afar a solitary traveller, he rides furiously

against him, crying, with a loud voice, “Undress thyself, thy

aunt (my wife) is without a garment.” A ready submission entitles

him to mercy; resistance will provoke the aggressor, and his own

blood must expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in

legitimate defence. A single robber, or a few associates, are

branded with their genuine name; but the exploits of a numerous

band assume the character of lawful and honorable war. The temper

of a people thus armed against mankind was doubly inflamed by the

domestic license of rapine, murder, and revenge. In the

constitution of Europe, the right of peace and war is now

confined to a small, and the actual exercise to a much smaller,

list of respectable potentates; but each Arab, with impunity and

renown, might point his javelin against the life of his

countrymen. The union of the nation consisted only in a vague

resemblance of language and manners; and in each community, the

jurisdiction of the magistrate was mute and impotent. Of the time

of ignorance which preceded Mahomet, seventeen hundred battles 36

are recorded by tradition: hostility was imbittered with the

rancor of civil faction; and the recital, in prose or verse, of

an obsolete feud, was sufficient to rekindle the same passions

among the descendants of the hostile tribes. In private life

every man, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of

his own cause. The nice sensibility of honor, which weighs the

insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the

quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of their women, and of their

beards, is most easily wounded; an indecent action, a

contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the blood of the

offender; and such is their patient inveteracy, that they expect

whole months and years the opportunity of revenge. A fine or

compensation for murder is familiar to the Barbarians of every

age: but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to

accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law

of retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the

head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent for the guilty

person, and transfers the penalty to the best and most

considerable of the race by whom they have been injured. If he

falls by their hands, they are exposed, in their turn, to the

danger of reprisals, the interest and principal of the bloody

debt are accumulated: the individuals of either family lead a

life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may sometimes

elapse before the account of vengeance be finally settled. 37

This sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been

moderated, however, by the maxims of honor, which require in

every private encounter some decent equality of age and strength,

of numbers and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps of

four, months, was observed by the Arabs before the time of

Mahomet, during which their swords were religiously sheathed both

in foreign and domestic hostility; and this partial truce is more

strongly expressive of the habits of anarchy and warfare. 38

35 (return) [ Observe the first chapter of Job, and the long wall

of 1500 stadia which Sesostris built from Pelusium to Heliopolis,

(Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 67.) Under the name of Hycsos,

the shepherd kings, they had formerly subdued Egypt, (Marsham,

Canon. Chron. p. 98-163) &c.) * Note: This origin of the Hycsos,

though probable, is by no means so certain here is some reason

for supposing them Scythians.—M]

36 (return) [ Or, according to another account, 1200,

(D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 75: ) the two historians

who wrote of the Ayam al Arab, the battles of the Arabs, lived in

the 9th and 10th century. The famous war of Dahes and Gabrah was

occasioned by two horses, lasted forty years, and ended in a

proverb, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 48.)]

37 (return) [ The modern theory and practice of the Arabs in the

revenge of murder are described by Niebuhr, (Description, p.

26-31.) The harsher features of antiquity may be traced in the

Koran, c. 2, p. 20, c. 17, p. 230, with Sale’s Observations.]

38 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 16) places the

two holy months about the summer solstice. The Arabians

consecrate four months of the year—the first, seventh, eleventh,

and twelfth; and pretend, that in a long series of ages the truce

was infringed only four or six times, (Sale’s Preliminary

Discourse, p. 147-150, and Notes on the ixth chapter of the

Koran, p. 154, &c. Casiri, Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom. ii. p.

20, 21.)]

But the spirit of rapine and revenge was attempered by the milder

influence of trade and literature. The solitary peninsula is

encompassed by the most civilized nations of the ancient world;

the merchant is the friend of mankind; and the annual caravans

imported the first seeds of knowledge and politeness into the

cities, and even the camps of the desert. Whatever may be the

pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from the same

original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldaean

tongues; the independence of the tribes was marked by their

peculiar dialects; 39 but each, after their own, allowed a just

preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In Arabia,

as well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped the

refinement of manners; and her speech could diversify the

fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a serpent, the five

hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this

copious dictionary was intrusted to the memory of an illiterate

people. The monuments of the Homerites were inscribed with an

obsolete and mysterious character; but the Cufic letters, the

groundwork of the present alphabet, were invented on the banks of

the Euphrates; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by a

stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The

arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the

freeborn eloquence of the Arabians; but their penetration was

sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious,

40 and their more elaborate compositions were addressed with

energy and effect to the minds of their hearers. The genius and

merit of a rising poet was celebrated by the applause of his own

and the kindred tribes. A solemn banquet was prepared, and a

chorus of women, striking their tymbals, and displaying the pomp

of their nuptials, sung in the presence of their sons and

husbands the felicity of their native tribe; that a champion had

now appeared to vindicate their rights; that a herald had raised

his voice to immortalize their renown. The distant or hostile

tribes resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by the

fanaticism of the first Moslems; a national assembly that must

have contributed to refine and harmonize the Barbarians. Thirty

days were employed in the exchange, not only of corn and wine,

but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was disputed by the

generous emulation of the bards; the victorious performance was

deposited in the archives of princes and emirs; and we may read

in our own language, the seven original poems which were

inscribed in letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of

Mecca. 41 The Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of

the age; and if they sympathized with the prejudices, they

inspired and crowned the virtues, of their countrymen. The

indissoluble union of generosity and valor was the darling theme

of their song; and when they pointed their keenest satire against

a despicable race, they affirmed, in the bitterness of reproach,

that the men knew not how to give, nor the women to deny. 42 The

same hospitality, which was practised by Abraham, and celebrated

by Homer, is still renewed in the camps of the Arabs. The

ferocious Bedoweens, the terror of the desert, embrace, without

inquiry or hesitation, the stranger who dares to confide in their

honor and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind and

respectful: he shares the wealth, or the poverty, of his host;

and, after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his way, with

thanks, with blessings, and perhaps with gifts. The heart and

hand are more largely expanded by the wants of a brother or a

friend; but the heroic acts that could deserve the public

applause, must have surpassed the narrow measure of discretion

and experience. A dispute had arisen, who, among the citizens of

Mecca, was entitled to the prize of generosity; and a successive

application was made to the three who were deemed most worthy of

the trial. Abdallah, the son of Abbas, had undertaken a distant

journey, and his foot was in the stirrup when he heard the voice

of a suppliant, “O son of the uncle of the apostle of God, I am a

traveller, and in distress!” He instantly dismounted to present

the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison, and a purse of

four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only the sword, either

for its intrinsic value, or as the gift of an honored kinsman.

The servant of Kais informed the second suppliant that his master

was asleep: but he immediately added, “Here is a purse of seven

thousand pieces of gold, (it is all we have in the house,) and

here is an order, that will entitle you to a camel and a slave;”

the master, as soon as he awoke, praised and enfranchised his

faithful steward, with a gentle reproof, that by respecting his

slumbers he had stinted his bounty. The third of these heroes,

the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer, was supporting his steps

on the shoulders of two slaves. “Alas!” he replied, “my coffers

are empty! but these you may sell; if you refuse, I renounce

them.” At these words, pushing away the youths, he groped along

the wall with his staff.

The character of Hatem is the perfect model of Arabian virtue: 43

he was brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a successful

robber; forty camels were roasted at his hospitable feast; and at

the prayer of a suppliant enemy he restored both the captives and

the spoil. The freedom of his countrymen disdained the laws of

justice; they proudly indulged the spontaneous impulse of pity

and benevolence.

39 (return) [ Arrian, in the second century, remarks (in Periplo

Maris Erythraei, p. 12) the partial or total difference of the

dialects of the Arabs. Their language and letters are copiously

treated by Pocock, (Specimen, p. 150-154,) Casiri, (Bibliot.

Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 1, 83, 292, tom. ii. p. 25, &c.,) and

Niebuhr, (Description de l’Arabie, p. 72-36) I pass slightly; I

am not fond of repeating words like a parrot.]

40 (return) [ A familiar tale in Voltaire’s Zadig (le Chien et le

Cheval) is related, to prove the natural sagacity of the Arabs,

(D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 120, 121. Gagnier, Vie de

Mahomet, tom. i. p. 37-46: ) but D’Arvieux, or rather La Roque,

(Voyage de Palestine, p. 92,) denies the boasted superiority of

the Bedoweens. The one hundred and sixty-nine sentences of Ali

(translated by Ockley, London, 1718) afford a just and favorable

specimen of Arabian wit. * Note: Compare the Arabic proverbs

translated by Burckhardt. London. 1830—M.]

41 (return) [ Pocock (Specimen, p. 158-161) and Casiri (Bibliot.

Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 48, 84, &c., 119, tom. ii. p. 17,

&c.) speak of the Arabian poets before Mahomet; the seven poems

of the Caaba have been published in English by Sir William Jones;

but his honorable mission to India has deprived us of his own

notes, far more interesting than the obscure and obsolete text.]

42 (return) [ Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 29, 30]

43 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 458. Gagnier, Vie

de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 118. Caab and Hesnus (Pocock, Specimen,

p. 43, 46, 48) were likewise conspicuous for their liberality;

and the latter is elegantly praised by an Arabian poet: “Videbis

eum cum accesseris exultantem, ac si dares illi quod ab illo

petis.” * Note: See the translation of the amusing Persian

romance of Hatim Tai, by Duncan Forbes, Esq., among the works

published by the Oriental Translation Fund.—M.]

The religion of the Arabs, 44 as well as of the Indians,

consisted in the worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed

stars; a primitive and specious mode of superstition. The bright

luminaries of the sky display the visible image of a Deity: their

number and distance convey to a philosophic, or even a vulgar,

eye, the idea of boundless space: the character of eternity is

marked on these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption

or decay: the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a

principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or imaginary,

influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and its

inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of

astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs

was a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal

marches, they steered by the guidance of the stars: their names,

and order, and daily station, were familiar to the curiosity and

devotion of the Bedoween; and he was taught by experience to

divide, in twenty-eight parts, the zodiac of the moon, and to

bless the constellations who refreshed, with salutary rains, the

thirst of the desert. The reign of the heavenly orbs could not be

extended beyond the visible sphere; and some metaphysical powers

were necessary to sustain the transmigration of souls and the

resurrection of bodies: a camel was left to perish on the grave,

that he might serve his master in another life; and the

invocation of departed spirits implies that they were still

endowed with consciousness and power. I am ignorant, and I am

careless, of the blind mythology of the Barbarians; of the local

deities, of the stars, the air, and the earth, of their sex or

titles, their attributes or subordination. Each tribe, each

family, each independent warrior, created and changed the rites

and the object of his fantastic worship; but the nation, in every

age, has bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of

Mecca. The genuine antiquity of the Caaba ascends beyond the

Christian aera; in describing the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek

historian Diodorus 45 has remarked, between the Thamudites and

the Sabaeans, a famous temple, whose superior sanctity was

revered by all the Arabians; the linen or silken veil, which is

annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a

pious king of the Homerites, who reigned seven hundred years

before the time of Mahomet. 46 A tent, or a cavern, might suffice

for the worship of the savages, but an edifice of stone and clay

has been erected in its place; and the art and power of the

monarchs of the East have been confined to the simplicity of the

original model. 47 A spacious portico encloses the quadrangle of

the Caaba; a square chapel, twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three

broad, and twenty-seven high: a door and a window admit the

light; the double roof is supported by three pillars of wood; a

spout (now of gold) discharges the rain-water, and the well

Zemzen is protected by a dome from accidental pollution. The

tribe of Koreish, by fraud and force, had acquired the custody of

the Caaba: the sacerdotal office devolved through four lineal

descents to the grandfather of Mahomet; and the family of the

Hashemites, from whence he sprung, was the most respectable and

sacred in the eyes of their country. 48 The precincts of Mecca

enjoyed the rights of sanctuary; and, in the last month of each

year, the city and the temple were crowded with a long train of

pilgrims, who presented their vows and offerings in the house of

God. The same rites which are now accomplished by the faithful

Mussulman, were invented and practised by the superstition of the

idolaters. At an awful distance they cast away their garments:

seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the Caaba, and

kissed the black stone: seven times they visited and adored the

adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones into the valley

of Mina; and the pilgrimage was achieved, as at the present hour,

by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair

and nails in the consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or

introduced in the Caaba their domestic worship: the temple was

adorned, or defiled, with three hundred and sixty idols of men,

eagles, lions, and antelopes; and most conspicuous was the statue

of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hand seven arrows, without

heads or feathers, the instruments and symbols of profane

divination. But this statue was a monument of Syrian arts: the

devotion of the ruder ages was content with a pillar or a tablet;

and the rocks of the desert were hewn into gods or altars, in

imitation of the black stone 49 of Mecca, which is deeply tainted

with the reproach of an idolatrous origin. From Japan to Peru,

the use of sacrifice has universally prevailed; and the votary

has expressed his gratitude, or fear, by destroying or consuming,

in honor of the gods, the dearest and most precious of their

gifts. The life of a man 50 is the most precious oblation to

deprecate a public calamity: the altars of Phoenicia and Egypt,

of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with human gore: the

cruel practice was long preserved among the Arabs; in the third

century, a boy was annually sacrificed by the tribe of the

Dumatians; 51 and a royal captive was piously slaughtered by the

prince of the Saracens, the ally and soldier of the emperor

Justinian. 52 A parent who drags his son to the altar, exhibits

the most painful and sublime effort of fanaticism: the deed, or

the intention, was sanctified by the example of saints and

heroes; and the father of Mahomet himself was devoted by a rash

vow, and hardly ransomed for the equivalent of a hundred camels.

In the time of ignorance, the Arabs, like the Jews and Egyptians,

abstained from the taste of swine’s flesh; 53 they circumcised 54

their children at the age of puberty: the same customs, without

the censure or the precept of the Koran, have been silently

transmitted to their posterity and proselytes. It has been

sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the

stubborn prejudices of his countrymen. It is more simple to

believe that he adhered to the habits and opinions of his youth,

without foreseeing that a practice congenial to the climate of

Mecca might become useless or inconvenient on the banks of the

Danube or the Volga.

44 (return) [ Whatever can now be known of the idolatry of the

ancient Arabians may be found in Pocock, (Specimen, p. 89-136,

163, 164.) His profound erudition is more clearly and concisely

interpreted by Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 14-24;) and

Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient tom. iv. p. 580-590) has added some

valuable remarks.]

45 (return) [ (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 211.) The

character and position are so correctly apposite, that I am

surprised how this curious passage should have been read without

notice or application. Yet this famous temple had been overlooked

by Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 58, in Hudson, tom. i.,) whom

Diodorus copies in the rest of the description. Was the Sicilian

more knowing than the Egyptian? Or was the Caaba built between

the years of Rome 650 and 746, the dates of their respective

histories? (Dodwell, in Dissert. ad tom. i. Hudson, p. 72.

Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 770.) * Note: Mr. Forster

(Geography of Arabia, vol. ii. p. 118, et seq.) has raised an

objection, as I think, fatal to this hypothesis of Gibbon. The

temple, situated in the country of the Banizomeneis, was not

between the Thamudites and the Sabaeans, but higher up than the

coast inhabited by the former. Mr. Forster would place it as far

north as Moiiah. I am not quite satisfied that this will agree

with the whole description of Diodorus—M. 1845.]

46 (return) [ Pocock, Specimen, p. 60, 61. From the death of

Mahomet we ascend to 68, from his birth to 129, years before the

Christian aera. The veil or curtain, which is now of silk and

gold, was no more than a piece of Egyptian linen, (Abulfeda, in

Vit. Mohammed. c. 6, p. 14.)]

47 (return) [ The original plan of the Caaba (which is servilely

copied in Sale, the Universal History, &c.) was a Turkish

draught, which Reland (de Religione Mohammedica, p. 113-123) has

corrected and explained from the best authorities. For the

description and legend of the Caaba, consult Pocock, (Specimen,

p. 115-122,) the Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, (Caaba,

Hagir, Zemzem, &c.,) and Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p.

114-122.)]

48 (return) [ Cosa, the fifth ancestor of Mahomet, must have

usurped the Caaba A.D. 440; but the story is differently told by

Jannabi, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 65-69,) and by

Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. 6, p. 13.)]

49 (return) [ In the second century, Maximus of Tyre attributes

to the Arabs the worship of a stone, (Dissert. viii. tom. i. p.

142, edit. Reiske;) and the reproach is furiously reechoed by the

Christians, (Clemens Alex. in Protreptico, p. 40. Arnobius contra

Gentes, l. vi. p. 246.) Yet these stones were no other than of

Syria and Greece, so renowned in sacred and profane antiquity,

(Euseb. Praep. Evangel. l. i. p. 37. Marsham, Canon. Chron. p.

54-56.)]

50 (return) [ The two horrid subjects are accurately discussed by

the learned Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chron. p. 76-78, 301-304.)

Sanchoniatho derives the Phoenician sacrifices from the example

of Chronus; but we are ignorant whether Chronus lived before, or

after, Abraham, or indeed whether he lived at all.]

51 (return) [ The reproach of Porphyry; but he likewise imputes

to the Roman the same barbarous custom, which, A. U. C. 657, had

been finally abolished. Dumaetha, Daumat al Gendai, is noticed by

Ptolemy (Tabul. p. 37, Arabia, p. 9-29) and Abulfeda, (p. 57,)

and may be found in D’Anville’s maps, in the mid-desert between

Chaibar and Tadmor.]

52 (return) [ Prcoopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 28,)

Evagrius, (l. vi. c. 21,) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 72, 86,)

attest the human sacrifices of the Arabs in the vith century. The

danger and escape of Abdallah is a tradition rather than a fact,

(Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 82-84.)]

53 (return) [ Suillis carnibus abstinent, says Solinus,

(Polyhistor. c. 33,) who copies Pliny (l. viii. c. 68) in the

strange supposition, that hogs can not live in Arabia. The

Egyptians were actuated by a natural and superstitious horror for

that unclean beast, (Marsham, Canon. p. 205.) The old Arabians

likewise practised, post coitum, the rite of ablution, (Herodot.

l. i. c. 80,) which is sanctified by the Mahometan law, (Reland,

p. 75, &c., Chardin, or rather the Mollah of Shah Abbas, tom. iv.

p. 71, &c.)]

54 (return) [ The Mahometan doctors are not fond of the subject;

yet they hold circumcision necessary to salvation, and even

pretend that Mahomet was miraculously born without a foreskin,

(Pocock, Specimen, p. 319, 320. Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p.

106, 107.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part III.

Arabia was free: the adjacent kingdoms were shaken by the storms

of 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 Chaldaeans

55 and the arms of the Assyrians. From the observations of two

thousand years, the priests and astronomers of Babylon 56 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. 57 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. 58 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. 59 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 Manichaeans 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. 60 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; 61 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, 62 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.

55 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 142-145) has

cast on their religion the curious but superficial glance of a

Greek. Their astronomy would be far more valuable: they had

looked through the telescope of reason, since they could doubt

whether the sun were in the number of the planets or of the fixed

stars.]

56 (return) [ Simplicius, (who quotes Porphyry,) de Coelo, l. ii.

com. xlvi p. 123, lin. 18, apud Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 474,

who doubts the fact, because it is adverse to his systems. The

earliest date of the Chaldaean observations is the year 2234

before Christ. After the conquest of Babylon by Alexander, they

were communicated at the request of Aristotle, to the astronomer

Hipparchus. What a moment in the annals of science!]

57 (return) [ Pocock, (Specimen, p. 138-146,) Hottinger, (Hist.

Orient. p. 162-203,) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, p. 124,

128, &c.,) D’Herbelot, (Sabi, p. 725, 726,) and Sale,

(Preliminary Discourse, p. 14, 15,) rather excite than gratify

our curiosity; and the last of these writers confounds Sabianism

with the primitive religion of the Arabs.]

58 (return) [ D’Anville (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 130-137) will

fix the position of these ambiguous Christians; Assemannus

(Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iv. p. 607-614) may explain their

tenets. But it is a slippery task to ascertain the creed of an

ignorant people afraid and ashamed to disclose their secret

traditions. * Note: The Codex Nasiraeus, their sacred book, has

been published by Norberg whose researches contain almost all

that is known of this singular people. But their origin is almost

as obscure as ever: if ancient, their creed has been so corrupted

with mysticism and Mahometanism, that its native lineaments are

very indistinct.—M.]

59 (return) [ The Magi were fixed in the province of Bhrein,

(Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 114,) and mingled with the

old Arabians, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 146-150.)]

60 (return) [ The state of the Jews and Christians in Arabia is

described by Pocock from Sharestani, &c., (Specimen, p. 60, 134,

&c.,) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 212-238,) D’Herbelot,

(Bibliot. Orient. p. 474-476,) Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom.

vii. p. 185, tom. viii. p. 280,) and Sale, (Preliminary

Discourse, p. 22, &c., 33, &c.)]

61 (return) [ In their offerings, it was a maxim to defraud God

for the profit of the idol, not a more potent, but a more

irritable, patron, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 108, 109.)]

62 (return) [ Our versions now extant, whether Jewish or

Christian, appear more recent than the Koran; but the existence

of a prior translation may be fairly inferred,—1. From the

perpetual practice of the synagogue of expounding the Hebrew

lesson by a paraphrase in the vulgar tongue of the country; 2.

From the analogy of the Armenian, Persian, Aethiopic versions,

expressly quoted by the fathers of the fifth century, who assert

that the Scriptures were translated into all the Barbaric

languages, (Walton, Prolegomena ad Biblia Polyglot, p. 34, 93-97.

Simon, Hist. Critique du V. et du N. Testament, tom. i. p. 180,

181, 282-286, 293, 305, 306, tom. iv. p. 206.)]

The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful calumny

of the Christians, 63 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 64 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 aera

of the elephant. 65 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, 651 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, 66 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 Aethiopian 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. 67 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, 68 he

assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of

the Koran.

63 (return) [ In eo conveniunt omnes, ut plebeio vilique genere

ortum, &c, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 136.) Yet Theophanes, the

most ancient of the Greeks, and the father of many a lie,

confesses that Mahomet was of the race of Ismael, (Chronograph.

p. 277.)]

64 (return) [ Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed. c. 1, 2) and Gagnier

(Vie de Mahomet, p. 25-97) describe the popular and approved

genealogy of the prophet. At Mecca, I would not dispute its

authenticity: at Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1. That

from Ismael to Mahomet, a period of 2500 years, they reckon

thirty, instead of seventy five, generations: 2. That the modern

Bedoweens are ignorant of their history, and careless of their

pedigree, (Voyage de D’Arvieux p. 100, 103.) * Note: The most

orthodox Mahometans only reckon back the ancestry of the prophet

for twenty generations, to Adnan. Weil, Mohammed der Prophet, p.

1.—M. 1845.]

65 (return) [ The seed of this history, or fable, is contained in

the cvth chapter of the Koran; and Gagnier (in Praefat. ad Vit.

Moham. p. 18, &c.) has translated the historical narrative of

Abulfeda, which may be illustrated from D’Herbelot (Bibliot.

Orientale, p. 12) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 64.) Prideaux (Life

of Mahomet, p. 48) calls it a lie of the coinage of Mahomet; but

Sale, (Koran, p. 501-503,) who is half a Mussulman, attacks the

inconsistent faith of the Doctor for believing the miracles of

the Delphic Apollo. Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 14,

tom. ii. p. 823) ascribes the miracle to the devil, and extorts

from the Mahometans the confession, that God would not have

defended against the Christians the idols of the Caaba. * Note:

Dr. Weil says that the small-pox broke out in the army of

Abrahah, but he does not give his authority, p. 10.—M. 1845.]

651 (return) [ Amina, or Emina, was of Jewish birth. V. Hammer,

Geschichte der Assass. p. 10.—M.]

66 (return) [ The safest aeras of Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. i. p. 2,)

of Alexander, or the Greeks, 882, of Bocht Naser, or Nabonassar,

1316, equally lead us to the year 569. The old Arabian calendar

is too dark and uncertain to support the Benedictines, (Art. de

Verifer les Dates, p. 15,) who, from the day of the month and

week, deduce a new mode of calculation, and remove the birth of

Mahomet to the year of Christ 570, the 10th of November. Yet this

date would agree with the year 882 of the Greeks, which is

assigned by Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 5) and Abulpharagius,

(Dynast. p. 101, and Errata, Pocock’s version.) While we refine

our chronology, it is possible that the illiterate prophet was

ignorant of his own age. * Note: The date of the birth of Mahomet

is not yet fixed with precision. It is only known from Oriental

authors that he was born on a Monday, the 10th Reby 1st, the

third month of the Mahometan year; the year 40 or 42 of Chosroes

Nushirvan, king of Persia; the year 881 of the Seleucidan aera;

the year 1316 of the aera of Nabonassar. This leaves the point

undecided between the years 569, 570, 571, of J. C. See the

Memoir of M. Silv. de Sacy, on divers events in the history of

the Arabs before Mahomet, Mem. Acad. des Loscript. vol. xlvii. p.

527, 531. St. Martin, vol. xi. p. 59.—M. ——Dr. Weil decides on

A.D. 571. Mahomet died in 632, aged 63; but the Arabs reckoned

his life by lunar years, which reduces his life nearly to 61 (p.

21.)—M. 1845]

67 (return) [ I copy the honorable testimony of Abu Taleb to his

family and nephew. Laus Dei, qui nos a stirpe Abrahami et semine

Ismaelis constituit, et nobis regionem sacram dedit, et nos

judices hominibus statuit. Porro Mohammed filius Abdollahi

nepotis mei (nepos meus) quo cum ex aequo librabitur e

Koraishidis quispiam cui non praeponderaturus est, bonitate et

excellentia, et intellectu et gloria, et acumine etsi opum inops

fuerit, (et certe opes umbra transiens sunt et depositum quod

reddi debet,) desiderio Chadijae filiae Chowailedi tenetur, et

illa vicissim ipsius, quicquid autem dotis vice petieritis, ego

in me suscipiam, (Pocock, Specimen, e septima parte libri Ebn

Hamduni.)]

68 (return) [ The private life of Mahomet, from his birth to his

mission, is preserved by Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. 3-7,) and the

Arabian writers of genuine or apocryphal note, who are alleged by

Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 204-211) Maracci, (tom. i. p.

10-14,) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 97-134.)]

According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet 69 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; 70 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. 71 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. 72 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,

73 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.

69 (return) [ Abulfeda, in Vit. c. lxv. lxvi. Gagnier, Vie de

Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 272-289. The best traditions of the person

and conversation of the prophet are derived from Ayesha, Ali, and

Abu Horaira, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 267. Ockley’s Hist. of the

Saracens, vol. ii. p. 149,) surnamed the Father of a Cat, who

died in the year 59 of the Hegira. * Note: Compare, likewise, the

new Life of Mahomet (Mohammed der prophet) by Dr. Weil,

(Stuttgart, 1843.) Dr. Weil has a new tradition, that Mahomet was

at one time a shepherd. This assimilation to the life of Moses,

instead of giving probability to the story, as Dr. Weil suggests,

makes it more suspicious. Note, p. 34.—M. 1845.]

70 (return) [ Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write

are incapable of reading what is written with another pen, in the

Suras, or chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts,

and the tradition of the Sonna, are admitted, without doubt, by

Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,) Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,)

Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland, (de Religione Mohammedica, p.

236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 42.) Mr. White, almost

alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the imposture, of the

prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two short

trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not sufficient

to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca: it was

not in the cool, deliberate act of treaty, that Mahomet would

have dropped the mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from the

words of disease and delirium. The lettered youth, before he

aspired to the prophetic character, must have often exercised, in

private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first

converts, of his own family, would have been the first to detect

and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White’s Sermons, p. 203,

204, Notes, p. xxxvi.—xxxviii.) * Note: (Academ. des Inscript. I.

p. 295) has observed that the text of the seveth Sura implies

that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone denies it, and,

according to Dr. Weil, (p. 46,) there is another reading of the

tradition, that “he could not read well.” Dr. Weil is not quite

so successful in explaining away Sura xxix. It means, he thinks

that he had not read any books, from which he could have

borrowed.—M. 1845.]

71 (return) [ The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahomet, p.

202-228) leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus of Fenelon,

or the Cyrus of Ramsay. His journey to the court of Persia is

probably a fiction nor can I trace the origin of his exclamation,

“Les Grecs sont pour tant des hommes.” The two Syrian journeys

are expressed by almost all the Arabian writers, both Mahometans

and Christians, (Gagnier Abulfed. p. 10.)]

72 (return) [ I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or

conjectures which name the strangers accused or suspected by the

infidels of Mecca, (Koran, c. 16, p. 223, c. 35, p. 297, with

Sale’s Remarks. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 22-27. Gagnier,

Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 400.) Even

Prideaux has observed, that the transaction must have been

secret, and that the scene lay in the heart of Arabia.]

73 (return) [ Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p.

133, 135. The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by Abulfeda

(Geograph. Arab p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the cave of

Egeria, ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicae, of the Idaean

Mount, where Minos conversed with Jove, &c.]

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. 74 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 preeminence 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. 75 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: 76 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. 77

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, 78 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; 79 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.

74 (return) [ Koran, c. 9, p. 153. Al Beidawi, and the other

commentators quoted by Sale, adhere to the charge; but I do not

understand that it is colored by the most obscure or absurd

tradition of the Talmud.]

75 (return) [ Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 225-228. The

Collyridian heresy was carried from Thrace to Arabia by some

women, and the name was borrowed from the cake, which they

offered to the goddess. This example, that of Beryllus bishop of

Bostra, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 33,) and several others,

may excuse the reproach, Arabia haerese haersewn ferax.]

76 (return) [ The three gods in the Koran (c. 4, p. 81, c. 5, p.

92) are obviously directed against our Catholic mystery: but the

Arabic commentators understand them of the Father, the Son, and

the Virgin Mary, an heretical Trinity, maintained, as it is said,

by some Barbarians at the Council of Nice, (Eutych. Annal. tom.

i. p. 440.) But the existence of the Marianites is denied by the

candid Beausobre, (Hist. de Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 532;) and he

derives the mistake from the word Roxah, the Holy Ghost, which in

some Oriental tongues is of the feminine gender, and is

figuratively styled the mother of Christ in the Gospel of the

Nazarenes.]

77 (return) [ This train of thought is philosophically

exemplified in the character of Abraham, who opposed in Chaldaea

the first introduction of idolatry, (Koran, c. 6, p. 106.

D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 13.)]

78 (return) [ See the Koran, particularly the second, (p. 30,)

the fifty-seventh, (p. 437,) the fifty-eighth (p. 441) chapters,

which proclaim the omnipotence of the Creator.]

79 (return) [ The most orthodox creeds are translated by Pocock,

(Specimen, p. 274, 284-292,) Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol.

ii. p. lxxxii.—xcv.,) Reland, (de Religion. Moham. l. i. p.

7-13,) and Chardin, (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 4-28.) The

great truth, that God is without similitude, is foolishly

criticized by Maracci, (Alcoran, tom. i. part iii. p. 87-94,)

because he made man after his own image.]

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. 80 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: 81 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; 82 and the memory of Abraham was

obscurely revered by the Sabians in his native land of Chaldaea:

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; 83

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. 84 “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.” 85 The

wonders of the genuine and apocryphal gospels 86 are profusely

heaped on his head; and the Latin church has not disdained to

borrow from the Koran the immaculate conception 87 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. 88 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. 89 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, 90 the greatest and the last of the apostles

of God.

80 (return) [ Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. i. p. 17-47. Sale’s

Preliminary Discourse, p. 73-76. Voyage de Chardin, tom. iv. p.

28-37, and 37-47, for the Persian addition, “Ali is the vicar of

God!” Yet the precise number of the prophets is not an article of

faith.]

81 (return) [ For the apocryphal books of Adam, see Fabricius,

Codex Pseudepigraphus V. T. p. 27-29; of Seth, p. 154-157; of

Enoch, p. 160-219. But the book of Enoch is consecrated, in some

measure, by the quotation of the apostle St. Jude; and a long

legendary fragment is alleged by Syncellus and Scaliger. * Note:

The whole book has since been recovered in the Ethiopic

language,—and has been edited and translated by Archbishop

Lawrence, Oxford, 1881—M.]

82 (return) [ The seven precepts of Noah are explained by

Marsham, (Canon Chronicus, p. 154-180,) who adopts, on this

occasion, the learning and credulity of Selden.]

83 (return) [ The articles of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, &c., in

the Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, are gayly bedecked with the

fanciful legends of the Mahometans, who have built on the

groundwork of Scripture and the Talmud.]

84 (return) [ Koran, c. 7, p. 128, &c., c. 10, p. 173, &c.

D’Herbelot, p. 647, &c.]

85 (return) [ Koran, c. 3, p. 40, c. 4. p. 80. D’Herbelot, p.

399, &c.]

86 (return) [ See the Gospel of St. Thomas, or of the Infancy, in

the Codex Apocryphus N. T. of Fabricius, who collects the various

testimonies concerning it, (p. 128-158.) It was published in

Greek by Cotelier, and in Arabic by Sike, who thinks our present

copy more recent than Mahomet. Yet his quotations agree with the

original about the speech of Christ in his cradle, his living

birds of clay, &c. (Sike, c. i. p. 168, 169, c. 36, p. 198, 199,

c. 46, p. 206. Cotelier, c. 2, p. 160, 161.)]

87 (return) [ It is darkly hinted in the Koran, (c. 3, p. 39,)

and more clearly explained by the tradition of the Sonnites,

(Sale’s Note, and Maracci, tom. ii. p. 112.) In the xiith

century, the immaculate conception was condemned by St. Bernard

as a presumptuous novelty, (Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio di

Trento, l. ii.)]

88 (return) [ See the Koran, c. 3, v. 53, and c. 4, v. 156, of

Maracci’s edition. Deus est praestantissimus dolose agentium (an

odd praise)... nec crucifixerunt eum, sed objecta est eis

similitudo; an expression that may suit with the system of the

Docetes; but the commentators believe (Maracci, tom. ii. p.

113-115, 173. Sale, p. 42, 43, 79) that another man, a friend or

an enemy, was crucified in the likeness of Jesus; a fable which

they had read in the Gospel of St. Barnabus, and which had been

started as early as the time of Irenaeus, by some Ebionite

heretics, (Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p. 25,

Mosheim. de Reb. Christ. p. 353.)]

89 (return) [ This charge is obscurely urged in the Koran, (c. 3,

p. 45;) but neither Mahomet, nor his followers, are sufficiently

versed in languages and criticism to give any weight or color to

their suspicions. Yet the Arians and Nestorians could relate some

stories, and the illiterate prophet might listen to the bold

assertions of the Manichaeans. See Beausobre, tom. i. p.

291-305.]

90 (return) [ Among the prophecies of the Old and New Testament,

which are perverted by the fraud or ignorance of the Mussulmans,

they apply to the prophet the promise of the Paraclete, or

Comforter, which had been already usurped by the Montanists and

Manichaeans, (Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom. i.

p. 263, &c.;) and the easy change of letters affords the

etymology of the name of Mohammed, (Maracci, tom. i. part i. p.

15-28.)]

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, 91

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. 92

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. 93 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. 94 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. 95

91 (return) [ For the Koran, see D’Herbelot, p. 85-88. Maracci,

tom. i. in Vit. Mohammed. p. 32-45. Sale, Preliminary Discourse,

p. 58-70.]

92 (return) [ Koran, c. 17, v. 89. In Sale, p. 235, 236. In

Maracci, p. 410. * Note: Compare Von Hammer Geschichte der

Assassinen p. 11.-M.]

93 (return) [ Yet a sect of Arabians was persuaded, that it might

be equalled or surpassed by a human pen, (Pocock, Specimen, p.

221, &c.;) and Maracci (the polemic is too hard for the

translator) derides the rhyming affectation of the most applauded

passage, (tom. i. part ii. p. 69-75.)]

94 (return) [ Colloquia (whether real or fabulous) in media

Arabia atque ab Arabibus habita, (Lowth, de Poesi Hebraeorum.

Praelect. xxxii. xxxiii. xxxiv, with his German editor,

Michaelis, Epimetron iv.) Yet Michaelis (p. 671-673) has detected

many Egyptian images, the elephantiasis, papyrus, Nile,

crocodile, &c. The language is ambiguously styled

Arabico-Hebraea. The resemblance of the sister dialects was much

more visible in their childhood, than in their mature age,

(Michaelis, p. 682. Schultens, in Praefat. Job.) * Note: The age

of the book of Job is still and probably will still be disputed.

Rosenmuller thus states his own opinion: “Certe serioribus

reipublicae temporibus assignandum esse librum, suadere videtur

ad Chaldaismum vergens sermo.” Yet the observations of

Kosegarten, which Rosenmuller has given in a note, and common

reason, suggest that this Chaldaism may be the native form of a

much earlier dialect; or the Chaldaic may have adopted the

poetical archaisms of a dialect, differing from, but not less

ancient than, the Hebrew. See Rosenmuller, Proleg. on Job, p. 41.

The poetry appears to me to belong to a much earlier period.—M.]

95 (return) [ Ali Bochari died A. H. 224. See D’Herbelot, p. 208,

416, 827. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. c. 19, p. 33.]

The mission of the ancient prophets, of Moses and of Jesus had

been confirmed by many splendid prodigies; and Mahomet was

repeatedly urged, by the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, to

produce a similar evidence of his divine legation; to call down

from heaven the angel or the volume of his revelation, to create

a garden in the desert, or to kindle a conflagration in the

unbelieving city. As often as he is pressed by the demands of the

Koreish, he involves himself in the obscure boast of vision and

prophecy, appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and

shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those

signs and wonders that would depreciate the merit of faith, and

aggravate the guilt of infidelity But the modest or angry tone of

his apologies betrays his weakness and vexation; and these

passages of scandal established, beyond suspicion, the integrity

of the Koran. 96 The votaries of Mahomet are more assured than

himself of his miraculous gifts; and their confidence and

credulity increase as they are farther removed from the time and

place of his spiritual exploits. They believe or affirm that

trees went forth to meet him; that he was saluted by stones; that

water gushed from his fingers; that he fed the hungry, cured the

sick, and raised the dead; that a beam groaned to him; that a

camel complained to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him

of its being poisoned; and that both animate and inanimate nature

were equally subject to the apostle of God. 97 His dream of a

nocturnal journey is seriously described as a real and corporeal

transaction. A mysterious animal, the Borak, conveyed him from

the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem: with his companion

Gabriel he successively ascended the seven heavens, and received

and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets, and

the angels, in their respective mansions. Beyond the seventh

heaven, Mahomet alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the

veil of unity, approached within two bow-shots of the throne, and

felt a cold that pierced him to the heart, when his shoulder was

touched by the hand of God. After this familiar, though important

conversation, he again descended to Jerusalem, remounted the

Borak, returned to Mecca, and performed in the tenth part of a

night the journey of many thousand years. 98 According to another

legend, the apostle confounded in a national assembly the

malicious challenge of the Koreish. His resistless word split

asunder the orb of the moon: the obedient planet stooped from her

station in the sky, accomplished the seven revolutions round the

Caaba, saluted Mahomet in the Arabian tongue, and, suddenly

contracting her dimensions, entered at the collar, and issued

forth through the sleeve, of his shirt. 99 The vulgar are amused

with these marvellous tales; but the gravest of the Mussulman

doctors imitate the modesty of their master, and indulge a

latitude of faith or interpretation. 100 They might speciously

allege, that in preaching the religion it was needless to violate

the harmony of nature; that a creed unclouded with mystery may be

excused from miracles; and that the sword of Mahomet was not less

potent than the rod of Moses.

96 (return) [ See, more remarkably, Koran, c. 2, 6, 12, 13, 17.

Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 18, 19) has confounded the

impostor. Maracci, with a more learned apparatus, has shown that

the passages which deny his miracles are clear and positive,

(Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 7-12,) and those which seem to

assert them are ambiguous and insufficient, (p. 12-22.)]

97 (return) [ See the Specimen Hist. Arabum, the text of

Abulpharagius, p. 17, the notes of Pocock, p. 187-190.

D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 76, 77. Voyages de

Chardin, tom. iv. p. 200-203. Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. p. 22-64)

has most laboriously collected and confuted the miracles and

prophecies of Mahomet, which, according to some writers, amount

to three thousand.]

98 (return) [ The nocturnal journey is circumstantially related

by Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed, c. 19, p. 33,) who wishes to think

it a vision; by Prideaux, (p. 31-40,) who aggravates the

absurdities; and by Gagnier (tom. i. p. 252-343,) who declares,

from the zealous Al Jannabi, that to deny this journey, is to

disbelieve the Koran. Yet the Koran without naming either heaven,

or Jerusalem, or Mecca, has only dropped a mysterious hint: Laus

illi qui transtulit servum suum ab oratorio Haram ad oratorium

remotissimum, (Koran, c. 17, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 407;

for Sale’s version is more licentious.) A slender basis for the

aerial structure of tradition.]

99 (return) [ In the prophetic style, which uses the present or

past for the future, Mahomet had said, Appropinquavit hora, et

scissa est luna, (Koran, c. 54, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p.

688.) This figure of rhetoric has been converted into a fact,

which is said to be attested by the most respectable

eye-witnesses, (Maracci, tom. ii. p. 690.) The festival is still

celebrated by the Persians, (Chardin, tom. iv. p. 201;) and the

legend is tediously spun out by Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i.

p. 183-234,) on the faith, as it should seem, of the credulous Al

Jannabi. Yet a Mahometan doctor has arraigned the credit of the

principal witness, (apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 187;) the best

interpreters are content with the simple sense of the Koran. (Al

Beidawi, apud Hottinger, Hist. Orient. l. ii. p. 302;) and the

silence of Abulfeda is worthy of a prince and a philosopher. *

Note: Compare Hamaker Notes to Inc. Auct. Lib. de Exped.

Memphides, p. 62—M.]

100 (return) [ Abulpharagius, in Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 17; and

his scepticism is justified in the notes of Pocock, p. 190-194,

from the purest authorities.]

The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of

superstition: a thousand rites of Egyptian origin were interwoven

with the essence of the Mosaic law; and the spirit of the gospel

had evaporated in the pageantry of the church. The prophet of

Mecca was tempted by prejudice, or policy, or patriotism, to

sanctify the rites of the Arabians, and the custom of visiting

the holy stone of the Caaba. But the precepts of Mahomet himself

inculcates a more simple and rational piety: prayer, fasting, and

alms, are the religious duties of a Mussulman; and he is

encouraged to hope, that prayer will carry him half way to God,

fasting will bring him to the door of his palace, and alms will

gain him admittance. 101 I. According to the tradition of the

nocturnal journey, the apostle, in his personal conference with

the Deity, was commanded to impose on his disciples the daily

obligation of fifty prayers. By the advice of Moses, he applied

for an alleviation of this intolerable burden; the number was

gradually reduced to five; without any dispensation of business

or pleasure, or time or place: the devotion of the faithful is

repeated at daybreak, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening,

and at the first watch of the night; and in the present decay of

religious fervor, our travellers are edified by the profound

humility and attention of the Turks and Persians. Cleanliness is

the key of prayer: the frequent lustration of the hands, the

face, and the body, which was practised of old by the Arabs, is

solemnly enjoined by the Koran; and a permission is formally

granted to supply with sand the scarcity of water. The words and

attitudes of supplication, as it is performed either sitting, or

standing, or prostrate on the ground, are prescribed by custom or

authority; but the prayer is poured forth in short and fervent

ejaculations; the measure of zeal is not exhausted by a tedious

liturgy; and each Mussulman for his own person is invested with

the character of a priest. Among the theists, who reject the use

of images, it has been found necessary to restrain the wanderings

of the fancy, by directing the eye and the thought towards a

kebla, or visible point of the horizon. The prophet was at first

inclined to gratify the Jews by the choice of Jerusalem; but he

soon returned to a more natural partiality; and five times every

day the eyes of the nations at Astracan, at Fez, at Delhi, are

devoutly turned to the holy temple of Mecca. Yet every spot for

the service of God is equally pure: the Mahometans indifferently

pray in their chamber or in the street. As a distinction from the

Jews and Christians, the Friday in each week is set apart for the

useful institution of public worship: the people is assembled in

the mosch; and the imam, some respectable elder, ascends the

pulpit, to begin the prayer and pronounce the sermon. But the

Mahometan religion is destitute of priesthood or sacrifice; and

the independent spirit of fanaticism looks down with contempt on

the ministers and the slaves of superstition. 1011

II. The voluntary 102 penance of the ascetics, the torment and

glory of their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured in his

companions a rash vow of abstaining from flesh, and women, and

sleep; and firmly declared, that he would suffer no monks in his

religion. 103 Yet he instituted, in each year, a fast of thirty

days; and strenuously recommended the observance as a discipline

which purifies the soul and subdues the body, as a salutary

exercise of obedience to the will of God and his apostle. During

the month of Ramadan, from the rising to the setting of the sun,

the Mussulman abstains from eating, and drinking, and women, and

baths, and perfumes; from all nourishment that can restore his

strength, from all pleasure that can gratify his senses. In the

revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadan coincides, by turns,

with the winter cold and the summer heat; and the patient martyr,

without assuaging his thirst with a drop of water, must expect

the close of a tedious and sultry day. The interdiction of wine,

peculiar to some orders of priests or hermits, is converted by

Mahomet alone into a positive and general law; 104 and a

considerable portion of the globe has abjured, at his command,

the use of that salutary, though dangerous, liquor. These painful

restraints are, doubtless, infringed by the libertine, and eluded

by the hypocrite; but the legislator, by whom they are enacted,

cannot surely be accused of alluring his proselytes by the

indulgence of their sensual appetites. III. The charity of the

Mahometans descends to the animal creation; and the Koran

repeatedly inculcates, not as a merit, but as a strict and

indispensable duty, the relief of the indigent and unfortunate.

Mahomet, perhaps, is the only lawgiver who has defined the

precise measure of charity: the standard may vary with the degree

and nature of property, as it consists either in money, in corn

or cattle, in fruits or merchandise; but the Mussulman does not

accomplish the law, unless he bestows a tenth of his revenue; and

if his conscience accuses him of fraud or extortion, the tenth,

under the idea of restitution, is enlarged to a fifth. 105

Benevolence is the foundation of justice, since we are forbid to

injure those whom we are bound to assist. A prophet may reveal

the secrets of heaven and of futurity; but in his moral precepts

he can only repeat the lessons of our own hearts.

101 (return) [ The most authentic account of these precepts,

pilgrimage, prayer, fasting, alms, and ablutions, is extracted

from the Persian and Arabian theologians by Maracci, (Prodrom.

part iv. p. 9-24,) Reland, (in his excellent treatise de

Religione Mohammedica, Utrecht, 1717, p. 67-123,) and Chardin,

(Voyages in Perse, tom. iv. p. 47-195.) Marace is a partial

accuser; but the jeweller, Chardin, had the eyes of a

philosopher; and Reland, a judicious student, had travelled over

the East in his closet at Utrecht. The xivth letter of Tournefort

(Voyage du Levont, tom. ii. p. 325-360, in octavo) describes what

he had seen of the religion of the Turks.]

1011 (return) [ Such is Mahometanism beyond the precincts of the

Holy City. But Mahomet retained, and the Koran sanctions, (Sale’s

Koran, c. 5, in inlt. c. 22, vol. ii. p. 171, 172,) the sacrifice

of sheep and camels (probably according to the old Arabian rites)

at Mecca; and the pilgrims complete their ceremonial with

sacrifices, sometimes as numerous and costly as those of King

Solomon. Compare note, vol. iv. c. xxiii. p. 96, and Forster’s

Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. i. p. 420. This author quotes the

questionable authority of Benjamin of Tudela, for the sacrifice

of a camel by the caliph at Bosra; but sacrifice undoubtedly

forms no part of the ordinary Mahometan ritual; nor will the

sanctity of the caliph, as the earthly representative of the

prophet, bear any close analogy to the priesthood of the Mosaic

or Gentila religions.—M.]

102 (return) [ Mahomet (Sale’s Koran, c. 9, p. 153) reproaches

the Christians with taking their priests and monks for their

lords, besides God. Yet Maracci (Prodromus, part iii. p. 69, 70)

excuses the worship, especially of the pope, and quotes, from the

Koran itself, the case of Eblis, or Satan, who was cast from

heaven for refusing to adore Adam.]

103 (return) [ Koran, c. 5, p. 94, and Sale’s note, which refers

to the authority of Jallaloddin and Al Beidawi. D’Herbelot

declares, that Mahomet condemned la vie religieuse; and that the

first swarms of fakirs, dervises, &c., did not appear till after

the year 300 of the Hegira, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 292, 718.)]

104 (return) [ See the double prohibition, (Koran, c. 2, p. 25,

c. 5, p. 94;) the one in the style of a legislator, the other in

that of a fanatic. The public and private motives of Mahomet are

investigated by Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 62-64) and Sale,

(Preliminary Discourse, p. 124.)]

105 (return) [ The jealousy of Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p.

33) prompts him to enumerate the more liberal alms of the

Catholics of Rome. Fifteen great hospitals are open to many

thousand patients and pilgrims; fifteen hundred maidens are

annually portioned; fifty-six charity schools are founded for

both sexes; one hundred and twenty confraternities relieve the

wants of their brethren, &c. The benevolence of London is still

more extensive; but I am afraid that much more is to be ascribed

to the humanity, than to the religion, of the people.]

The two articles of belief, and the four practical duties, of

Islam, are guarded by rewards and punishments; and the faith of

the Mussulman is devoutly fixed on the event of the judgment and

the last day. The prophet has not presumed to determine the

moment of that awful catastrophe, though he darkly announces the

signs, both in heaven and earth, which will precede the universal

dissolution, when life shall be destroyed, and the order of

creation shall be confounded in the primitive chaos. At the blast

of the trumpet, new worlds will start into being: angels, genii,

and men will arise from the dead, and the human soul will again

be united to the body. The doctrine of the resurrection was first

entertained by the Egyptians; 106 and their mummies were

embalmed, their pyramids were constructed, to preserve the

ancient mansion of the soul, during a period of three thousand

years. But the attempt is partial and unavailing; and it is with

a more philosophic spirit that Mahomet relies on the omnipotence

of the Creator, whose word can reanimate the breathless clay, and

collect the innumerable atoms, that no longer retain their form

or substance. 107 The intermediate state of the soul it is hard

to decide; and those who most firmly believe her immaterial

nature, are at a loss to understand how she can think or act

without the agency of the organs of sense.

106 (return) [ See Herodotus (l. ii. c. 123) and our learned

countryman Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chronicus, p. 46.) The same

writer (p. 254-274) is an elaborate sketch of the infernal

regions, as they were painted by the fancy of the Egyptians and

Greeks, of the poets and philosophers of antiquity.]

107 (return) [ The Koran (c. 2, p. 259, &c.; of Sale, p. 32; of

Maracci, p. 97) relates an ingenious miracle, which satisfied the

curiosity, and confirmed the faith, of Abraham.]

The reunion of the soul and body will be followed by the final

judgment of mankind; and in his copy of the Magian picture, the

prophet has too faithfully represented the forms of proceeding,

and even the slow and successive operations, of an earthly

tribunal. By his intolerant adversaries he is upbraided for

extending, even to themselves, the hope of salvation, for

asserting the blackest heresy, that every man who believes in

God, and accomplishes good works, may expect in the last day a

favorable sentence. Such rational indifference is ill adapted to

the character of a fanatic; nor is it probable that a messenger

from heaven should depreciate the value and necessity of his own

revelation. In the idiom of the Koran, 108 the belief of God is

inseparable from that of Mahomet: the good works are those which

he has enjoined, and the two qualifications imply the profession

of Islam, to which all nations and all sects are equally invited.

Their spiritual blindness, though excused by ignorance and

crowned with virtue, will be scourged with everlasting torments;

and the tears which Mahomet shed over the tomb of his mother for

whom he was forbidden to pray, display a striking contrast of

humanity and enthusiasm. 109 The doom of the infidels is common:

the measure of their guilt and punishment is determined by the

degree of evidence which they have rejected, by the magnitude of

the errors which they have entertained: the eternal mansions of

the Christians, the Jews, the Sabians, the Magians, and

idolaters, are sunk below each other in the abyss; and the lowest

hell is reserved for the faithless hypocrites who have assumed

the mask of religion. After the greater part of mankind has been

condemned for their opinions, the true believers only will be

judged by their actions. The good and evil of each Mussulman will

be accurately weighed in a real or allegorical balance; and a

singular mode of compensation will be allowed for the payment of

injuries: the aggressor will refund an equivalent of his own good

actions, for the benefit of the person whom he has wronged; and

if he should be destitute of any moral property, the weight of

his sins will be loaded with an adequate share of the demerits of

the sufferer. According as the shares of guilt or virtue shall

preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced, and all, without

distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous bridge of the

abyss; but the innocent, treading in the footsteps of Mahomet,

will gloriously enter the gates of paradise, while the guilty

will fall into the first and mildest of the seven hells. The term

of expiation will vary from nine hundred to seven thousand years;

but the prophet has judiciously promised, that all his disciples,

whatever may be their sins, shall be saved, by their own faith

and his intercession from eternal damnation. It is not surprising

that superstition should act most powerfully on the fears of her

votaries, since the human fancy can paint with more energy the

misery than the bliss of a future life. With the two simple

elements of darkness and fire, we create a sensation of pain,

which may be aggravated to an infinite degree by the idea of

endless duration. But the same idea operates with an opposite

effect on the continuity of pleasure; and too much of our present

enjoyments is obtained from the relief, or the comparison, of

evil. It is natural enough that an Arabian prophet should dwell

with rapture on the groves, the fountains, and the rivers of

paradise; but instead of inspiring the blessed inhabitants with a

liberal taste for harmony and science, conversation and

friendship, he idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds, the robes

of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines,

artificial dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole train of

sensual and costly luxury, which becomes insipid to the owner,

even in the short period of this mortal life. Seventy-two Houris,

or black-eyed girls, of resplendent beauty, blooming youth,

virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility, will be created for the

use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be

prolonged to a thousand years; and his faculties will be

increased a hundred fold, to render him worthy of his felicity.

Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the gates of heaven will be

open to both sexes; but Mahomet has not specified the male

companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the

jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb their felicity, by

the suspicion of an everlasting marriage. This image of a carnal

paradise has provoked the indignation, perhaps the envy, of the

monks: they declaim against the impure religion of Mahomet; and

his modest apologists are driven to the poor excuse of figures

and allegories. But the sounder and more consistent party adhere

without shame, to the literal interpretation of the Koran:

useless would be the resurrection of the body, unless it were

restored to the possession and exercise of its worthiest

faculties; and the union of sensual and intellectual enjoyment is

requisite to complete the happiness of the double animal, the

perfect man. Yet the joys of the Mahometan paradise will not be

confined to the indulgence of luxury and appetite; and the

prophet has expressly declared that all meaner happiness will be

forgotten and despised by the saints and martyrs, who shall be

admitted to the beatitude of the divine vision. 110

108 (return) [ The candid Reland has demonstrated, that Mahomet

damns all unbelievers, (de Religion. Moham. p. 128-142;) that

devils will not be finally saved, (p. 196-199;) that paradise

will not solely consist of corporeal delights, (p. 199-205;) and

that women’s souls are immortal. (p. 205-209.)]

109 (return) [ A Beidawi, apud Sale. Koran, c. 9, p. 164. The

refusal to pray for an unbelieving kindred is justified,

according to Mahomet, by the duty of a prophet, and the example

of Abraham, who reprobated his own father as an enemy of God. Yet

Abraham (he adds, c. 9, v. 116. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 317) fuit

sane pius, mitis.]

110 (return) [ For the day of judgment, hell, paradise, &c.,

consult the Koran, (c. 2, v. 25, c. 56, 78, &c.;) with Maracci’s

virulent, but learned, refutation, (in his notes, and in the

Prodromus, part iv. p. 78, 120, 122, &c.;) D’Herbelot,

(Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368, 375;) Reland, (p. 47-61;) and

Sale, (p. 76-103.) The original ideas of the Magi are darkly and

doubtfully explored by their apologist, Dr. Hyde, (Hist.

Religionis Persarum, c. 33, p. 402-412, Oxon. 1760.) In the

article of Mahomet, Bayle has shown how indifferently wit and

philosophy supply the absence of genuine information.]

The first and most arduous conquests of Mahomet 111 were those of

his wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend; 112 since he

presented himself as a prophet to those who were most conversant

with his infirmities as a man. Yet Cadijah believed the words,

and cherished the glory, of her husband; the obsequious and

affectionate Zeid was tempted by the prospect of freedom; the

illustrious Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, embraced the sentiments of

his cousin with the spirit of a youthful hero; and the wealth,

the moderation, the veracity of Abubeker confirmed the religion

of the prophet whom he was destined to succeed. By his

persuasion, ten of the most respectable citizens of Mecca were

introduced to the private lessons of Islam; they yielded to the

voice of reason and enthusiasm; they repeated the fundamental

creed, “There is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;”

and their faith, even in this life, was rewarded with riches and

honors, with the command of armies and the government of

kingdoms. Three years were silently employed in the conversion of

fourteen proselytes, the first-fruits of his mission; but in the

fourth year he assumed the prophetic office, and resolving to

impart to his family the light of divine truth, he prepared a

banquet, a lamb, as it is said, and a bowl of milk, for the

entertainment of forty guests of the race of Hashem. “Friends and

kinsmen,” said Mahomet to the assembly, “I offer you, and I alone

can offer, the most precious of gifts, the treasures of this

world and of the world to come. God has commanded me to call you

to his service. Who among you will support my burden? Who among

you will be my companion and my vizier?” 113 No answer was

returned, till the silence of astonishment, and doubt, and

contempt, was at length broken by the impatient courage of Ali, a

youth in the fourteenth year of his age. “O prophet, I am the

man: whosoever rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth,

tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet, I

will be thy vizier over them.” Mahomet accepted his offer with

transport, and Abu Taled was ironically exhorted to respect the

superior dignity of his son. In a more serious tone, the father

of Ali advised his nephew to relinquish his impracticable design.

“Spare your remonstrances,” replied the intrepid fanatic to his

uncle and benefactor; “if they should place the sun on my right

hand, and the moon on my left, they should not divert me from my

course.” He persevered ten years in the exercise of his mission;

and the religion which has overspread the East and the West

advanced with a slow and painful progress within the walls of

Mecca. Yet Mahomet enjoyed the satisfaction of beholding the

increase of his infant congregation of Unitarians, who revered

him as a prophet, and to whom he seasonably dispensed the

spiritual nourishment of the Koran. The number of proselytes may

be esteemed by the absence of eighty-three men and eighteen

women, who retired to Aethiopia in the seventh year of his

mission; and his party was fortified by the timely conversion of

his uncle Hamza, and of the fierce and inflexible Omar, who

signalized in the cause of Islam the same zeal, which he had

exerted for its destruction. Nor was the charity of Mahomet

confined to the tribe of Koreish, or the precincts of Mecca: on

solemn festivals, in the days of pilgrimage, he frequented the

Caaba, accosted the strangers of every tribe, and urged, both in

private converse and public discourse, the belief and worship of

a sole Deity. Conscious of his reason and of his weakness, he

asserted the liberty of conscience, and disclaimed the use of

religious violence: 114 but he called the Arabs to repentance,

and conjured them to remember the ancient idolaters of Ad and

Thamud, whom the divine justice had swept away from the face of

the earth. 115

111 (return) [ Before I enter on the history of the prophet, it

is incumbent on me to produce my evidence. The Latin, French, and

English versions of the Koran are preceded by historical

discourses, and the three translators, Maracci, (tom. i. p.

10-32,) Savary, (tom. i. p. 1-248,) and Sale, (Preliminary

Discourse, p. 33-56,) had accurately studied the language and

character of their author. Two professed Lives of Mahomet have

been composed by Dr. Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, seventh edition,

London, 1718, in octavo) and the count de Boulainvilliers, (Vie

de Mahomed, Londres, 1730, in octavo: ) but the adverse wish of

finding an impostor or a hero, has too often corrupted the

learning of the doctor and the ingenuity of the count. The

article in D’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 598-603) is chiefly

drawn from Novairi and Mirkond; but the best and most authentic

of our guides is M. Gagnier, a Frenchman by birth, and professor

at Oxford of the Oriental tongues. In two elaborate works,

(Ismael Abulfeda de Vita et Rebus gestis Mohammedis, &c. Latine

vertit, Praefatione et Notis illustravit Johannes Gagnier, Oxon.

1723, in folio. La Vie de Mahomet traduite et compilee de

l’Alcoran, des Traditions Authentiques de la Sonna et des

meilleurs Auteurs Arabes; Amsterdam, 1748, 3 vols. in 12mo.,) he

has interpreted, illustrated, and supplied the Arabic text of

Abulfeda and Al Jannabi; the first, an enlightened prince who

reigned at Hamah, in Syria, A.D. 1310-1332, (see Gagnier Praefat.

ad Abulfed.;) the second, a credulous doctor, who visited Mecca

A.D. 1556. (D’Herbelot, p. 397. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 209, 210.)

These are my general vouchers, and the inquisitive reader may

follow the order of time, and the division of chapters. Yet I

must observe that both Abulfeda and Al Jannabi are modern

historians, and that they cannot appeal to any writers of the

first century of the Hegira. * Note: A new Life, by Dr. Weil,

(Stuttgart. 1843,) has added some few traditions unknown in

Europe. Of Dr. Weil’s Arabic scholarship, which professes to

correct many errors in Gagnier, in Maracci, and in M. von Hammer,

I am no judge. But it is remarkable that he does not seem

acquainted with the passage of Tabari, translated by Colonel Vans

Kennedy, in the Bombay Transactions, (vol. iii.,) the earliest

and most important addition made to the traditionary Life of

Mahomet. I am inclined to think Colonel Vans Kennedy’s

appreciation of the prophet’s character, which may be overlooked

in a criticism on Voltaire’s Mahomet, the most just which I have

ever read. The work of Dr. Weil appears to me most valuable in

its dissection and chronological view of the Koran.—M. 1845]

112 (return) [ After the Greeks, Prideaux (p. 8) discloses the

secret doubts of the wife of Mahomet. As if he had been a privy

counsellor of the prophet, Boulainvilliers (p. 272, &c.) unfolds

the sublime and patriotic views of Cadijah and the first

disciples.]

113 (return) [ Vezirus, portitor, bajulus, onus ferens; and this

plebeian name was transferred by an apt metaphor to the pillars

of the state, (Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 19.) I endeavor to

preserve the Arabian idiom, as far as I can feel it myself in a

Latin or French translation.]

114 (return) [ The passages of the Koran in behalf of toleration

are strong and numerous: c. 2, v. 257, c. 16, 129, c. 17, 54, c.

45, 15, c. 50, 39, c. 88, 21, &c., with the notes of Maracci and

Sale. This character alone may generally decide the doubts of the

learned, whether a chapter was revealed at Mecca or Medina.]

115 (return) [ See the Koran, (passim, and especially c. 7, p.

123, 124, &c.,) and the tradition of the Arabs, (Pocock,

Specimen, p. 35-37.) The caverns of the tribe of Thamud, fit for

men of the ordinary stature, were shown in the midway between

Medina and Damascus. (Abulfed Arabiae Descript. p. 43, 44,) and

may be probably ascribed to the Throglodytes of the primitive

world, (Michaelis, ad Lowth de Poesi Hebraeor. p. 131-134.

Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 48, &c.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part V.