MAHOMET OPENS HIS PRETENDED COMMISSION. 525 arose, and thus addressed his wondering kinsmen:-" I know no man in the whole peninsula of the Arabs, who can propose to his relations any thing more excellent than what I now do to you. Almighty God hath commanded me to call you unto himself: who, therefore, among you will be my Vizir, and become my brother, and viceregent?" Astonishment seized the company, and a universal silence prevailed. No one offered to accept the important station, till the impetuous Ali, his own nephew, burst forth, and declared that he would be the brother and assistant of the prophet:-" I," said he, "O prophet of God, will be thy vizir; I myself will beat out the teeth, pull out the eyes, rip open the bellies, and cut off the legs of all those that shall dare to oppose thee." Mahomet caught the new disciple in his arms, exclaiming, "this is my brother, my deputy, my successor! show yourselves obedient unto him." At this apparently extravagant command, the assembly broke up in confusion, testifying their mirth and astonishment in bursts of laughter. From this time Mahomet began to propagate the dogmas of his new religion. He explained to his countrymen that he was commissioned of heaven to be the prophet of God upon earth-to assert the unity of the Divine Being-to denounce the worship of images-to recall the people to the only true religion -to announce the tidings of paradise to the believing-and to threaten the deaf and unbelieving with the terrible vengeance of the Lord. At first the pretensions of the prophet were very coldly received: the extravagance and absurdity of the fable were too glaring to be acquiesced in. It was not until Abubeker had taken a decided part, and declared his implicit reliance on the truth of the Koran, and the divine mission of the prophet, that the imposture began to succeed. The people, however, came first to distrust their own understandings, and then to credit the astounding assertions of the new apostle of God! Their credulity was quickened by the tremendous vengeance which he denounced against the unbelieving, proclaimed as his threatenings were with vehemence and unblushing effrontery; and belief followed in the train of terror; and thus the extravagant lie, which at first threatened the new religion with early destruction, served by a fortuitous concurrence of circum stances to contribute materially to its success. The apostle who was at first derided, came at length to be feared. The people flocked to hear his doctrines, which were mingled with denunciations well adapted to work on the imagination of an ignorant people. "Because he is an adversary to our signs," said the author of the new religion, "I will afflict him with grievous calamities; for he hath devised contumelious expressions to ridicule the Koran-may he be cursed. How maliciously hath he prepared the same!-may he be cursed. I will cast him to be burned in hell. And what shall make thee understand what hell is? It leaveth not any thing unconsumed neither doth it suffer any thing to escape; it scorcheth men's flesh: over the same are nineteen angels appointed. We have appointed none but angels to preside over hell fire."-" Verily, we have prepared for the unbelievers chains, and collars, and burning fire.” "Verily, those who disbelieve our signs we will surely cast out to be broiled in hell fire; and, when their skins shall be well burned, we will give them other skins in exchange, that they may taste the sharper torments."* These horrible sufferings were to be the lot of the wicked; that is, of the unbelievers,— such as denied the efficacy of the Koran, and disputed on the truth and reasonableness of his mission; for, these, in Mahomet's creed, were transgressions of the deepest dye! The growing influence of Mahometanism at length giving some alarm to the magistrates of the city of Mecca, they unwisely endeavoured to check the evil by punishing the offender, who found an asylum under the roof of his rich uncle Abu Taleb, and the alarm and hostility of his adversaries only served to increase the fame and importance of the prophet. While the uncle lived, the nephew found a defender against the machinations of his enemies; but, at the end of the seventh year of his mission, death deprived him both of his protector and his wife Cadijah. Mahomet was, from this time, exposed to the attacks of his enemies, and found his safety only in flight. Quitting Mecca, his native place, he proceeded to Medina, where his prophetical fame had already extended and secured him the most auspicious reception. Here he found himself at the head of an Sale's Koran, ch. 78. MAHOMET'S INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS FOLLOWERS, 527 army devoted to his person, obsequious to his will, and implicit believers in his apostolic mission. His first act at Medina was to erect a temple in which he might celebrate the offices of religion; and he now, in his own person, combined both the temporal and spiritual power; he was general of his army, judge of his people, and the religious pastor of his flock; and so intense was the devotion of his followers, that the deputy of the city of Mecca beheld with astonishment the blind and devoted veneration which was paid him. We now contemplate this extraordinary man as the martial apostle, propagating his religion by means of the sword. Addressing his followers, he says:-"O true believers, take your necessary precautions against your enemies, and either go forth to war in separate parties, or go forth all together in a body. Let them, therefore, fight for the religion of God, who part with the present life in exchange for that which is to come; for whosoever fighteth for the religion of God, whether he be slain or victorious, we will surely give him great reward."-" And, when the month wherein ye are not allowed to attack the unbelievers shall be passed, kill the idolatrous wheresoever ye shall find them, and take them prisoners, and besiege them, and lay wait for them in every convenient place."* Such were the commands of the Arabian prophet, and they were obeyed to the very letter. "The people of Arabia," says an elegant historian of our day, "a race of strong passions and of sanguinary temper, inured to habits of pillage and murder, found in the law of their native prophet, not merely a license, but a command to desolate the world, and the promise of all their glowing imaginations could anticipate of paradise, annexed to all in which they most delighted on earth.”+ The words of Ali, one of Mahomet's earliest disciples, as formerly quoted, are a text on which the commentary expands into the whole Saracenic history-they comprise the vital essence of his religion; viz. implicit faith and ferocious energy; death, slavery, tribute, to unbelievers, were the glad tidings of the Arabian prophet. To the idolaters, indeed, or those who acknowledged no special revelation, one alternative only was proposed-conversion or the sword. * Koran, ch. iv. p. 108-9; ch. ix. 238. + Hallam's History of the Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 165. Mahomet, who entered upon his religious crusade in the year 612, died in 632, at which time his sovereignty, secular and ecclesiastical, was restricted to the Arabian peninsula. To pursue the progress of the arms of his successors does not fall within my province, and I therefore content myself with merely observing, that such was the rapidity with which the arms of the caliphs over-ran province after province, and conquered kingdom after kingdom, that, in less than a century, we find an empire founded by them which extended over a great part of the eastern world, and even threatening Europe with their intolerable bondage. And as religion was the motive and the avowed object of all their conquests; and, moreover, as the battles which they fought were, according to their conceptions, the battles of the Lord, the propagation of their religion unavoidably kept pace with the extension of their empire. With regard to the religion propounded by Mahomet and so successfully propagated by his followers, it is evidently a compound of the opinions of Heathens, Saracens, Jews, and heretics of the Christian church. It has been questioned whether Mahomet himself ever read any part of the New Testament. His knowledge of Christianity seems rather to have been derived from the apocryphal gospels and similar works. He admitted the miraculous conception and prophetic character of Christ, but not his divinity or pre-existence.* The fundamental points of the Mahometan faith respect the prophet and the Koran. There are also five precepts which he commanded his followers to observe with great strictness-1. To worship one God, but not to admit the doctrine of three distinct persons in deity. 2. To fast during the whole of the ninth month, which month the Mahometans term Ramadan: the fast, however, was confined to the day-it was lawful to eat at night. 3. To pray at appointed hours, five times a day, with their faces turned towards Mecca ablution was necessary before prayer. 4. To bestow alms upon the poor, according to a ratio laid down by the prophet; and, 5. To make a pilgrimage to Mecca once in a man's life. Such is the religious system at this day professed by about one hundred and forty millions of our fellow creatures; that is, one out of every six of the human race, in all the coun * Hallam, vol. ii. p. 164, Note. THE SUCCESS OF MAHOMET ACCOUNTED FOR. 529 tries under heaven-a melancholy consideration truly! But, independent of the five cardinal precepts now enumerated, there were also various ritual observances enjoined upon good Mussulmans, such as frequent and superstitious ablutions, the circumcision of male children, abstinence from pork, and things strangled, and blood. Mahomet also published various dogmas, or articles of belief, which went to impugn the principal points of Christianity, and asserted other revelations respecting the Great Supreme-the doctrine of divine Providence -the missions of Moses and of Christ-the last judgment— paradise-hell, and the state of the soul after death. The learned are not a little divided in their method of accounting for the astonishing and rapid spread of this imposture in the world, or the causes which contributed to the progress of Mahometanism. "I never wondered," says one, "that the attempts of Mahomet, to establish his religion, were crowned with success. When I peruse the Koran, and examine the materials of which it is composed; when I observe how much the work is indebted to the Jewish and Christian revelations; when I survey the particular part which Mahomet or his agents supplied; when I see with how much art the whole is accommodated to the opinions and habits of Jews, Christians, and Pagans; when I consider what indulgences it grants, and what future scenes (it pretends) to unfold; when I advert to the peculiar circumstances of the times in which its author formed the vast design of assuming the royal and prophetical character; and, more than all, when I contemplate the reformer at the head of a conquering army-the Koran in one hand, and in the other a sword; I cannot be surprised at the civil and religious revolution which has immortalized his name. With his advantages, how could he fail of success? Every thing favoured the enterprise; the nations beheld a military apostle; and they who were unconvicted by his arguments trembled at his sword."* I incline to think that this is not an unreasonable solution of the problem. Some, however, have laid great stress on the indulgence which this religion grants to voluptuousness, not only in the article of polygamy, but also by the prospect which it ex * Answer to the question, Why are you a Christian? by Dr. Clarke. |