m

| 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; 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 re-animate the breathless clay, and collect the innumerable atoms, that no longer retain their form or substance. The in

ment 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. 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; and a consider-termediate state of the soul it is hard to decide; and able 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." · 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.

ent. p. 292. 718.)

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 pub. lic and private motives of Mahomet are investigated by Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 62-64) and Sale. (Preliminary Discourse, p. 124.) 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.

• See Herodotus (1. ii. c. 123.) and our learned countryman Sir John

dise.

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.
The reunion of the soul and body Hell and para.
will be followed by the final judg
ment 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 suc-
cessive operations, of an earthly tribunal. By his
intolerant adversaries he is upbraided for extending,
even to themselves, the hope of salvation, for assert-
ing the blackest heresy, that every man who believes
in God, and accomplishes good works, may expect
in the last day a favourable sentence. Such rational
indifference is ill adapted to the character of a fa-
natic; 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,"
the belief of God is inseparable from that of Maho-
met: the good works are those which he had en-
joined; and the two qualifications imply the pro-
fession 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, dis-
play a striking contrast of humanity and enthusiasm."

Marsham. (Canon. Chronicus, p. 46.) The Aons of 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 phi-
losophers, of antiquity.

p The Koran (c. 2. p. 259, &c.; of Sale, p. 32. ; of Maracci, p. 97.) re-
lates an ingenious miracle, which satisfied the curiosity, and confirmed
the faith, of Abraham.

q 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.)

Al 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.

7

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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: but he called the Arabs to repentance, and conjured them to remember the ancient idolators of Ad and Thamud, whom the divine justice had swept away from the face of

the earth.

Is opposed by the Koreish,

A. D. 613-622.

The people of Mecca were hardened in their unbelief by superstition and envy. The elders of the city, the uncles of the prophet, affected to despise the presumption of an orphan, the reformer of his country: the pious orations of Mahomet in the Caaba were answered by the clamours of Abu Taleb. "Citizens and pilgrims, listen not to the tempter, hearken not to his impious novelties. Stand fast in the worship of Al Lâta and Al Uzzah." Yet the son of Abdallah was ever dear to the aged chief; and he protected the fame and person of his nephew against the assaults of the Koreishites, who had long been jealous of the pre-eminence of the family of Hashem. Their malice was coloured with the pretence of religion: in the age of Job, the crime of impiety was punished by the Arabian magistrate; and Mahomet was guilty of deserting and denying the national deities. But so loose was the policy of Mecca, that the leaders of the Koreish, instead of accusing a criminal, were compelled to employ the measures of persuasion or violence. They repeat

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 honours, 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 burthen? Who among you will be my companion and my vizir?" 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 vizir over them." Mahomet accepted his offer with transport, and Abu Taleb was ironically exhorted to respect the superior dignity 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 benefac-edly addressed Abu Taleb in the style of reproach tor; " if they should place the sun on my righthand, 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 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 estimated by the absence of eighty-three men and eighteen women, who retired to Æthiopia 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.

J

of his son.

Nor was the charity of Mahomet confined to the

Vezirus, portitor, bajulus, onus ferens; and this plebeian name was transferred by an apt metaphor to the pillars of the state. (Gag hier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 19.) I endeavour to preserve the Arabian idiom, as far as I can feel it myself, in a Latin or French translation. 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.

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

and menace. "Thy nephew reviles our religion;
he accuses our wise forefathers of ignorance and
folly: silence him quickly, lest he kindle tumult
and discord in the city. If he persevere, we shall
draw our swords against him and his adherents,
and thou wilt be responsible for the blood of thy
fellow-citizens." The weight and moderation of
Abu Taleb eluded the violence of religious faction;
the most helpless or timid of the disciples retired
to Æthiopia, and the prophet withdrew himself to
various places of strength in the town and country.
As he was still supported by his family, the rest of
the tribe of Koreish engaged themselves to renounce
all intercourse with the children of Hashem, nei-
ther to buy nor sell, neither to marry nor to give in
marriage, but to pursue them with implacable en-
mity, till they should deliver the person of Mahomet
to the justice of the gods. The decree was suspended
in the Caaba before the eyes of the nation; the

of the tribe of Thamud, fit for men of the ordinary stature, were
shown in the midway between Medina and Damascus, (Abulfed. Ara-
bie Descript. p. 43, 44.) and may be probably ascribed to the Troglo-
dytes of the primitive world. (Michaelis, ad Lowth de Poesi Hebræor.
p. 131-134. Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 48, &c.)

a In the time of Job, the crime of impiety was punished by the
Arabian magistrate, (c. 13. v. 26-28.) I blush for a respectable prelate,
(de Poesi Hebræorum, p. 650, 651. edit. Michaelis; and letter of a late
professor in the university of Oxford, p. 15—53.) who justifies and ap-
plauds this patriarchal inquisition.

and driven from Mecca,

A. D. 622.

messengers of the Koreish pursued the mussulman exiles in the heart of Africa: they besieged the prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted their water, and inflamed their mutual animosity by the retaliation of injuries and insults. A doubtful truce restored the appearances of concord; till the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the power of his enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his domestic comforts by the loss of his faithful and generous Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah, succeeded to the principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous votary of the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he convened an assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to decide the fate of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke the despair of his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces of Arabia. His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the only resource of Mahomet." At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the assassins watched at the door; but they were deceived by the figure of Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered with the green vestment of the apostle. The Koreish respected the piety of the heroic youth; but some verses of Ali, which are still extant, exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his tenderness, and his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his companion were concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of a league from Mecca; and in the close of each evening, they received, from the son and daughter of Abubeker, a secret supply of intelligence and food. The diligence of the Koreish explored every haunt in the neighbourhood of the city; they arrived at the entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider's web and a pigeon's nest, is supposed to convince them that the place was solitary and inviolate. only two," said the trembling Abubeker. "There is a third," replied the prophet; "it is God himself." No sooner was the pursuit abated, than the two fugitives issued from the rock, and mounted their camels: on the road to Medina, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from their hands. In this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might have changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memorable æra of the Hegira, which, at

"We are

b D'Herbelot, Bibliot, Orient. p. 445. He quotes a particular history of the flight of Mahomet.

The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second caliph, in imita. tion of the era of the martyrs of the christians; (D'Herbelot, p. 444.) and properly commenced sixty-eight days before the flight of Maho. met, with the first of Moharren, or first day of that Arabian year, which coincides with Friday July 16th, A. D. 622. (Abulfeda, Vit. Moham. c. 22, 23. p. 45-50; and Greaves's edition of Ullug Beig's Epochæ Arabum, &c. c. I. p. 8. 10, &c.)

of Medina, A. D. 622.

the end of twelve centuries, still discriminates the lunar years of the Mahometan nations. The religion of the Koran might Received as prince have perished in its cradle, had not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy outcasts of Mecca. Medina, or the city, known under the name of Yathreb, before it was sanctified by the throne of the prophet, was divided between the tribes of the Charegites and the Awsites, whose hereditary feud was rekindled by the slightest provocations: two colonies of Jews, who boasted a sacerdotal race, were their humble allies, and without converting the Arabs, they introduced the taste of science and religion, which distinguished Medina as the city of the book. Some of her noblest citizens, in a pilgrimage to the Caaba, were converted by the preaching of Mahomet: on their return they diffused the belief of God and his prophet, and the new alliance was ratified by their deputies in two secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill in the suburbs of Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two Awsites united in faith and love, protested in the name of their wives, their children, and their absent brethren, that they would for ever profess the creed, and observe the precepts, of the Koran. The second was a political association, the first vital spark of the empire of the Saracens. Seventy-three men and two women of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his kinsmen, and his disciples; and pledged themselves to each other by a mutual oath of fidelity. They promised in the name of the city, that if he should be banished, they would receive him as a confederate, obey him as a leader, and defend him to the last extremity, like their wives and children. "But if you are recalled by your country," they asked with a flattering anxiety," will you not abandon your new allies?” “All things," replied Mahomet with a smile, "are now common between us: your blood is as my blood, your ruin as my ruin. We are bound to each other by the ties of honour and interest. I am your friend, and the enemy of your foes." "But if we are killed in your service, what," exclaimed the deputies of Medina," will be our reward?"" PARADISE," replied the prophet. "Stretch forth thy hand." He stretched it forth, and they reiterated the oath of allegiance and fidelity. Their treaty was ratified by the people, who unanimously embraced the profession of Islam; they rejoiced in the exile of the apostle, but they trembled for his safety, and impatiently expected his arrival. After a perilous and rapid journey along the sea-coast, be halted at Koba, two miles from the city, and made his public entry into Medina, sixteen days after his flight from Mecca. Five hundred of the citizens advanced to meet him;

d Mahomet's life, from his mission to the Hegira, may be found in Abulfeda (p. 14-45.) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 134-251. 342-383) The legend from p. 187-234. is vouched by Al Jannabi, and disdained by

Abulfeda.

(p. 30. 33. 40. 86.) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 342, &c. 349, &c. tom. ii. p. e The triple inauguration of Mahomet is described by Abulfeda 223, &c.)

he was hailed with acclamations of loyalty and de-
votion; Mahomet was mounted on a she-camel, an
umbrella shaded his head, and a turban was un-
furled before him to supply the deficiency of a
standard. His bravest disciples, who had been
scattered by the storm, assembled round his person:
and the equal though various merit of the Moslems
was distinguished by the names of Mohagerians and
Ansars, the fugitives of Mecca, and the auxiliaries
of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of jealousy,
Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal follow-
ers with the rights and obligations of brethren, and
when Ali found himself without a peer, the prophet
tenderly declared, that he would be the companion
and brother of the noble youth. The expedient
was crowned with success; the holy fraternity was
respected in peace and war, and the two parties
vied with each other in a generous emulation of
courage and fidelity. Once only the concord was
slightly ruffled by an accidental quarrel; a patriot
of Medina arraigned the insolence of the strangers,
but the hint of their expulsion was heard with
abhorrence, and his own son most eagerly offer-
ed to lay at the apostle's feet the head of his
father.

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dels.

fervour of enthusiasm acts with more energy and truth than the cold and formal servility of courts. In the state of nature every man has He declares war a right to defend, by force of arms, his against the infi. person and his possessions; to repel, or even to prevent, the violence of his enemies, and to extend his hostilities to a reasonable measure of satisfaction and retaliation. In the free society of the Arabs, the duties of subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and Mahomet, in the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent mission, had been despoiled and banished by the injustice of his countrymen. The choice of an independent people had exalted the fugitive of Mecca to the rank of a sovereign; and he was invested with the just prerogative of forming alliances, and of waging offensive or defensive war. The imperfection of human rights was supplied and armed by the plenitude of divine power: the prophet of Medina assumed, in his new revelations, a fiercer and more sanguinary tone, which proves that his former moderation was the effect of weakness: the means of persuasion had been tried, the season of forbearance was elapsed, and he was now commanded to propagate his religion by the sword, to destroy the monuments of idolatry, and, without regarding the sanctity of days or months, to pursue the unbelieving nations of the earth. The same bloody precepts, so repeatedly inculcated in the Koran, are ascribed by the author to the Pentateuch and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the evangelic style may explain an ambiguous text, that Jesus did not bring peace on the earth, but a sword: his patient and humble virtues should not be confounded with the intolerant zeal of princes and bishops, who have disgraced the name of his disciples. In the prosecution of religious war, Mahomet might appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of the judges and the kings of Israel. The military laws of the Hebrews are still more rigid than those of the Arabian legislator.i The Lord of hosts marched in person before the Jews: if a city resisted their summons, the males, without distinction, were put to the sword: the seven nations of Canaan were devoted to destruction; and neither repentance nor conversion could shield them from the inevitable doom, that no creature within their precincts should be left alive. The fair option of friendship, or submission, or battle, was proposed to the enemies of Mahomet. If they professed the creed of Islam, they were admitted to all the temporal and spiritual benefits of his primitive disciples, and marched under the same banner to extend the religion which they had embraced. The clemency of the prophet was decided by his and pulpit, as two venerable relics of the apostle of God; and the portrait of his court is taken from Abulfeda, (c. 44. p. 85.)

His regal dignity, From his establishment at Medina, A. D. 622-632. Mahomet assumed the exercise of the regal and sacerdotal office; and it was impious to appeal from a judge whose decrees were inspired by the divine wisdom. A small portion of ground, the patrimony of two orphans, was acquired by gift or purchase; on that chosen spot, he built a house and a mosch more venerable in their rude simplicity than the palaces and temples of the Assyrian caliphs. His seal of gold, or silver, was inscribed with the apostolic title; when he prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned against the trunk of a palm-tree; and it was long before he indulged himself in the use of a chair or pulpit of rough timber. After a reign of six years, fifteen hundred Moslems, in arms and in the field, renewed their oath of allegiance; and their chief repeated the assurance of protection till the death of the last member, or the final dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that the deputy of Mecca was astonished by the attention of the faithful to the words and looks of the prophet, by the eagerness with which they collected his spittle, a hair that dropt on the ground, the refuse water of his lustrations, as if they participated in some degree of the prophetic virtue. "I have seen," said he, "the Chosroes of Persia and the Cæsar of Rome, but never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet among his companions." The devout f Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 44.) reviles the wickedness of the impostor, who despoiled two poor orphans, the sons of a carpenter; a reproach which he drew from the Disputatio contra Saracenos, composed in Arabic before the year 1130; but the honest Gagnier (ad Abulfed. p. 53.) has shown that they were deceived by the word Al Nagjar, which signifies, in this place, not an obscure trade, but a noble tribe of Arabs. The desolate state of the ground is described by Abulfeda; and his worthy interpreter has proved, from Al Bochari, the offer of a price; from Al Jannabi, the fair purchase; and from Ahmed Ben Joseph, the payment of the money by the generous Abubeker. Ou these grounds the prophet must be honourably acquitted.

Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 246. 324.) describes the seal

h The eighth and ninth chapters of the Koran are the loudest and most vehement; and Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p. 59-64.) has inveighed with more justice than discretion against the double dealing of the impostor.

i The tenth and twentieth chapters of Deuteronomy, with the practical comments of Joshua, David, &c. are read with more awe than satisfaction by the pious christians of the present age. But the bishops, as well as the rabbis, of former times, have beat the drum-ecclesiastic with pleasure and success. (Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 142, 143.)