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Nor were the Arabs less propense to liberality after the coming of Mohammed
than their ancestors had been. I could produce many remarkable instances of
this commendable quality among them,5 but shall content myself with the
following. Three men were disputing in the court of the Caaba, which was the
most liberal person among the Arabs. One gave the preference to Abdallah, the
son of Jaafar, the uncle of Mohammed; another to Kais Ebn Saad Ebn Obâdah; and
the third gave it to Arâbah, of the tribe of Aws. After much debate, one that
was present, to end the dispute, proposed that each of them should go to his
friend and ask his assistance, that they might see what every one gave, and
form a judgment accordingly. This was agreed to; and Abdallah's friend, going
to him, found him with his foot in the stirrup, just mounting his camel for a
journey, and thus accosted him: "Son of the uncle of the apostle of GOD, I am
travelling and in necessity." Upon which Abdallah alighted, and bid him take
the camel with all that was upon her, but desired him not to part with a sword
which happened to be fixed to the saddle, because it had belonged to Ali, the
son of Abutâleb. So he took the camel, and found on her some vests of silk
and 4,000 pieces of gold; but the thing of greatest value was the sword. The
second went to Kais Ebn Saad, whose servant told him that his master was
asleep, and desired to know his business. The friend answered that he came to
ask Kais's assistance, being in want on the road. Whereupon the servant said
that he had rather supply his necessity than wake his master, and gave him a
purse of 7,000 pieces of gold, assuring him that it was all the money then in
the house. He also directed him to go to those who had the charge of the
camels, with a certain token, and take a camel and a slave, and return home
with them. When Kais awoke, and his servant informed him of what he had done,
he gave him his freedom, and asked him why he did not call him, "For," says
he, "I would have given him more." The third man went to Arâbah, and met him
coming out of his house in order to go to prayers, and leaning on two slaves,
because his eyesight failed him. The friend no sooner made known his case,
but Arâbah let go the slaves, and clapping his hands together, loudly lamented
his misfortune in having no money, but desired him to take the two slaves,
which the man refused to do, till Arâbah protested that if he would not accept
of them he gave them their liberty, and leaving the slaves, groped his way
along by the wall. On the return of the adventurers, judgment was
unanimously, and with great justice, given by all who were present, that
Arâbah was the most generous of the three.
Nor were these the only good qualities of the Arabs; they are commended by
the ancients for being most exact to their words,1 and respectful to their
kindred.2 And they have always been celebrated for their quickness of
apprehension and penetration, and the vivacity of their wit, especially those
of the desert.3
As the Arabs have their excellencies, so have they, like other nations,
their defects and vices. Their own writers acknowledge that they have

5 Several may be found in D'Herbelot's Bibl. Orient., particularly in the
articles of Hasan the son of Ali, Maan, Fadhel, and Ebn Yahya. 1
Herodot. l.3, c. 8. 2 Strabo, l. 16, p. 1129. 3 Vide
D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. p. 121.

a natural disposition to war, bloodshed, cruelty, and rapine, being so much
addicted to bear malice that they scarce ever forget an old grudge; which
vindictive temper some physicians say is occasioned by their frequent feeding
on camel's flesh (the ordinary diet of the Arabs of the desert, who are
therefore observed to be most inclined to these vices), that creature being
most malicious and tenacious of anger,4 which account suggests a good reason
for a distinction of meats.
The frequent robberies committed by these people on merchants and
travellers have rendered the name of an Arab almost infamous in Europe; this
they are sensible of, and endeavour to excuse themselves by alleging the hard
usage of their father Ismael, who, being turned out of doors by Abraham, had
the open plains and deserts given him by GOD for his patrimony, with
permission to take whatever he could find there; and on this account they
think they may, with a safe conscience, indemnify themselves as well as they
can, not only on the posterity of Isaac, but also on everybody else, always
supposing a sort of kindred between themselves and those they plunder. And in
relating their adventures of this kind, they think it sufficient to change the
expression, and instead of "I robbed a man of such or such a thing," to say,
"I gained it."1 We must not, however, imagine that they are the less honest
for this among themselves, or towards those whom they receive as friends; on
the contrary, the strictest probity is observed in their camp, where
everything is open and nothing ever known to be stolen.2
The sciences the Arabians chiefly cultivated before Mohammedism, were
three; that of their genealogies and history, such a knowledge of the stars as
to foretell the changes of weather, and the interpretation of dreams.3 They
used to value themselves excessively on account of the nobility of their
families, and so many disputes happened on that occasion, that it is no wonder
if they took great pains in settling their descents. What knowledge they had
of the stars was gathered from long experience, and not from any regular
study, or astronomical rules.4 The Arabians, as the Indians also did, chiefly
applied themselves to observe the fixed stars, contrary to other nations,
whose observations were almost confined to the planets, and they foretold
their effects from their influences, not their nature; and hence, as has been
said, arose the difference of the idolatry of the Greeks and Chaldeans, who
chiefly worshipped the planets, and that of the Indians, who worshipped the
fixed star. The stars or asterisms they most usually foretold the weather by,
were those they called Anwâ, or the houses of the moon. These are 28 in
number, and divide the zodiac into as many parts, through one of which the
moon passes every night;5 as some of them set in the morning, others rise
opposite to them, which happens every thirteenth night; and from their rising
and setting, the Arabs, by long experience, observed what changes happened in
the air, and at length, as has been said, came to ascribe divine power to
them; saying, that their rain was from such or such a star: which expression
Mohammed condemned, and absolutely forbade them to use it in the old sense;

4 Vide Poc. Spec. p. 87, Bochart, Hierozoic. l. 2, c. I. 1
Voyage dans la Palest. p. 220, &c. 2 Ibid. p. 213, &c. 3 Al
Shahrestani, apud Pocock Orat. ubi sup. p. 9, and Spec. 164. 4
Abulfarag, p. 161.
5 Vide Hyde, in not. ad Tabulas stellar. fixar. Ulugh Beigh, p. 5.

unless they meant no more by it, than that GOD had so ordered the seasons,
that when the moon was in such or such a mansion or house, or at the rising or
setting of such and such a star, it should rain or be windy, hot or cold.1
The old Arabians therefore seem to have made no further progress in
astronomy, which science they afterwards cultivated with so much success and
applause, than to observe the influence of the stars on the weather, and to
give them names; and this it was obvious for them to do, by reason of their
pastoral way of life, lying night and day in the open plains. The names they
imposed on the stars generally alluded to cattle and flocks, and they were so
nice in distinguishing them, that no language has so many names of stars and
asterisms as the Arabic; for though they have since borrowed the names of
several constellations from the Greeks, yet the far greater part are of their
own growth, and much more ancient, particularly those of the more conspicuous
stars, dispersed in several constellations, and those of the lesser
constellations which are contained within the greater, and were not observed
or named by the Greeks.2
Thus have I given the most succinct account I have been able, of the state
of the ancient Arabians before Mohammed, or, to use their expression, in the
time of ignorance. I shall now proceed briefly to consider the state of
religion in the east, and of the two great empires which divided that part of
the world between them, at the time of Mohammed's setting up for a prophet,
and what were the conducive circumstances and accidents that favoured his
success.

_______

SECTION II.

OF THE STATE OF CHRISTIANITY, PARTICULARLY OF THE EASTERN
CHURCHES, AND OF JUDAISM, AT THE TIME OF MOHAMMED'S
APPEARANCE; AND OF THE METHODS TAKEN BY HIM FOR THE
ESTABLISHING OF HIS RELIGION, AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH
CONCURRED THERETO.

IF WE look into the ecclesiastical historians even from the third century, we
shall find the Christian world to have then had a very different aspect from
what some authors have represented; and so far from being endued with active
graces, zeal, and devotion, and established within itself with purity of
doctrine, union, and firm profession of the faith,1 that on the contrary, what
by the ambition of the clergy, and what by drawing the abstrusest niceties
into controversy, and dividing and subdividing about them into endless schisms
and contentions, they had so destroyed that peace, love, and charity from
among

1 Vide Poc. Spec. p. 163, &c. 2 Vide Hyde ubi sup. p. 4.
1 Ricaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 187.

them, which the Gospel was given to promote; and instead thereof continually
provoked each other to that malice, rancour, and every evil work; that they
had lost the whole substance of their religion, while they thus eagerly
contended for their own imaginations concerning it; and in a manner quite
drove Christianity out of the world by those very controversies in which they
disputed with each other about it.2 In these dark ages it was that most of
those superstitions and corruptions we now justly abhor in the church of Rome
were not only broached, but established; which gave great advantages to the
propagation of Mohammedism. The worship of saints and images, in particular,
was then arrived at such a scandalous pitch that it even surpassed whatever is
now practised among the Romanists.3
After the Nicene council, the eastern church was engaged in perpetual
controversies, and torn to pieces by the disputes of the Arians, Sabellians,
Nestorians, and Eutychians: the heresies of the two last of which have been
shown to have consisted more in the words and form of expression than in the
doctrines themselves;4 and were rather the pretences than real motives of
those frequent councils to and from which the contentious prelates were
continually riding post, that they might bring everything to their own will
and pleasure.1 And to support themselves by dependants and bribery, the
clergy in any credit at court undertook the protection of some officer in the
army, under the colour of which justice was publicly sold, and all corruption
encouraged.
In the western church Damasus and Ursicinus carried their contests at Rome
for the episcopal seat so high, that they came to open violence and murder,
which Viventius the governor not being able to suppress, he retired into the
country, and left them to themselves, till Damasus prevailed. It is said that
on this occasion, in the church of Sicininus, there were no less than 137
found killed in one day. And no wonder they were so fond of these seats, when
they became by that means enriched by the presents of matrons, and went abroad
in their chariots and sedans in great state, feasting sumptuously even beyond
the luxury of princes, quite contrary to the way of living of the country
prelates, who alone seemed to have some temperance and modesty left.2
These dissensions were greatly owing to the emperors, and particularly to
Constantius, who, confounding the pure and simple Christian religion with
anile superstitions, and perplexing it with intricate questions, instead of
reconciling different opinions, excited many disputes, which he fomented as
they proceeded with infinite altercations.3 This grew worse in the time of
Justinian, who, not to be behind the bishops to the fifth and sixth centuries
in zeal, thought it no crime to condemn to death a man of a different
persuasion from his own.4
This corruption of doctrine and morals in the princes and clergy, was
necessarily followed by a general depravity of the people;5 those of all
conditions making it their sole business to get money by any means,

2 Prideaux's preface to his Life of Mahomet. 3 Vide La Vie de
Mahommed, par Boulainvilliers, p. 219, &c.
4 Vide Simon, Hist. Crit. de la Créance, &c. des Nations du Levant.
1 Ammian. Marcellin. l. 2I. Vide etiam Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. 8, c.
I. Sozom. l. I, c. 114, &c. Hilar. and Sulpic. Sever. in Hist. Sacr. p. 112,
&c. 2 Ammian. Marcellin. lib. 27.
3 Idem, l. 2I. 4 Procop. in Anecd. p. 60. 5 See an instance
of the wickedness of the Christian army, even when they were under the terror
of the Saracens, in Ockley's Hist. of the Sarac., vol. i. p. 239.

and then to squander it away when they had got it in luxury and debauchery.6
But, to be more particular as to the nation we are now writing of, Arabia
was of old famous for heresies;7 which might be in some measure attributed to
the liberty and independency of the tribes. Some of the Christians of that
nation believed the soul died with the body, and was to be raised again with
it at the last day:1 these Origen is said to have convinced.2 Among the Arabs
it was that the heresies of Ebion, Beryllus, and the Nazaræns,3 and also that
of the Collyridians, were broached, or at least propagated; the latter
introduced the Virgin Mary for GOD, or worshipped her as such, offering her a
sort of twisted cake called collyris, whence the sect had its name.4
This notion of the divinity of the Virgin Mary was also believed by some at
the council of Nice, who said there were two gods besides the Father, viz.,
Christ and the Virgin Mary, and were thence named Mariamites.5 Others
imagined her to be exempt from humanity, and deified; which goes but little
beyond the Popish superstition in calling her the complement of the Trinity,
as if it were imperfect without her. This foolish imagination is justly
condemned in the Korân6 as idolatrous, and gave a handle to Mohammed to attack
the Trinity itself.
Other sects there were of many denominations within the borders of Arabia,
which took refuge there from the proscriptions of the imperial edicts; several
of whose notions Mohammed incorporated with his religion, as may be observed
hereafter.
Though the Jews were an inconsiderable and despised people in other parts
of the world, yet in Arabia, whither many of them fled from the destruction of
Jerusalem, they grew very powerful, several tribes and princes embracing their
religion; which made Mohammed at first show great regard to them, adopting
many of their opinions, doctrines, and customs; thereby to draw them, if
possible, into his interest. But that people, agreeably to their wonted
obstinacy, were so far from being his proselytes, that they were some of the
bitterest enemies he had, waging continual war with him, so that their
reduction cost him infinite trouble and danger, and at last his life. This
aversion of theirs created at length as great a one in him to them, so that he
used them, for the latter part of his life, much worse than he did the
Christians, and frequently exclaims against them in his Korân; his followers
to this day observe the same difference between them and the Christians,
treating the former as the most abject and contemptible people on earth.
It has been observed by a great politician,7 that it is impossible a person
should make himself a prince and found a state without opportunities. If the
distracted state of religion favoured the designs of Mohammed on that side,
the weakness of the Roman and Persian monarchies might flatter him with no
less hopes in any attempt on those once formidable empires, either of which,
had they been in their full vigour, must have crushed Mohammedism in its
birth; whereas nothing nourished it more than the success the Arabians met
with in

6 Vide Boulainvill. Vie de Mahom. ubi sup. 7 Vide Sozomen. Hist.
Eccles. l. r, c. 16, 17. Sulpic. Sever. ubi supra.
1 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. 6, c. 33. 2 Idem ibid. c. 37.
3 Epiphan. de Hæresi. l, I; Hær. 40.
4 Idem ibid. l. 3; Hæres. 75, 79. 5 Elmacin. Eutych.
6 Cap. 5.
7 Machiavelli, Princ. c. 6, p. 19.

their enterprises against those powers, which success they failed not to
attribute to their new religion and the divine assistance thereof.
The Roman empire declined apace after Constantine, whose successors were
for the generality remarkable for their ill qualities, especially cowardice
and cruelty. By Mohammed's time, the western half of the empire was overrun
by the Goths; and the eastern so reduced by the Huns on the one side, and the
Persians on the other, that it was not in a capacity of stemming the violence
of a powerful invasion. The emperor Maurice paid tribute to the Khagân or
king of the Huns; and after Phocas had murdered his master, such lamentable
havoc there was among the soldiers, that when Heraclius came, not above seven
years after, to muster the army, there were only two soldiers left alive, of
all those who had borne arms when Phocas first usurped the empire. And though
Heraclius was a prince of admirable courage and conduct, and had done what
possibly could be done to restore the discipline of the army, and had had
great success against the Persians, so as to drive them not only out of his
own dominions, but even out of part of their own; yet still the very vitals of
the empire seemed to be mortally wounded; that there could no time have
happened more fatal to the empire or more favourable to the enterprises of the
Arabs, who seem to have been raised up on purpose by GOD, to be a scourge to
the Christian church, for not living answerably to that most holy religion
which they had received.1
The general luxury and degeneracy of manners into which the Grecians were
sunk, also contributed not a little to the enervating their forces, which were
still further drained by those two great destroyers, monachism and
persecution.
The Persians had also been in a declining condition for some time before
Mohammed, occasioned chiefly by their intestine broils and dissensions; great
part of which arose from the devilish doctrines of Manes and Mazdak. The
opinions of the former are tolerably well known: the latter lived in the reign
of Khosru Kobâd, and pretended himself a prophet sent from GOD to preach a
community of women and possessions, since all men were brothers and descended
from the same common parents. This he imagined would put an end to all feuds
and quarrels among men, which generally arose on account of one of the two.
Kobâd himself embraced the opinions of this impostor, to whom he gave leave,
according to his new doctrine, to lie with the queen his wife; which
permission Anushirwân, his son, with much difficulty prevailed on Mazdak not
to make use of. These sects had certainly been the immediate ruin of the
Persian empire, had not Anushirwân, as soon as he succeeded his father, put
Mazdek to death with all his followers, and the Manicheans also, restoring the
ancient Magian religion.2
In the reign of this prince, deservedly surnamed the Just, Mohammed was
born. He was the last king of Persia who deserved the throne, which after him
was almost perpetually contended for, till subverted by the Arabs. His son
Hormûz lost the love of his subjects by his excessive cruelty; having had his
eyes put out by his wife's brothers, he was

1 Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 19, &c. 2 Vide Poc. Spec.
p. 70.

obliged to resign the crown to his son Khosrû Parvîz, who at the instigation
of Bahrâm Chubîn had rebelled against him, and was afterwards strangled.
Parvîz was soon obliged to quit the throne to Bahrâm; but obtaining succours
of the Greek emperor Maurice, he recovered the crown: yet towards the latter
end of a long reign he grew so tyrannical and hateful to his subjects, that
they held private correspondence with the Arabs; and he was at length deposed,
imprisoned, and slain by his son Shirûyeh.1 After Parvîz no less than six
princes possessed the throne in less than six years. These domestic broils
effectually brought ruin upon the Persians; for though they did rather by the
weakness of the Greeks, than their own force, ravage Syria, and sack Jerusalem
and Damascus under Khosrû Parvîz; and, while the Arabs were divided and
independent, had some power in the province of Yaman, where they set up the
four last kings before Mohammed; yet when attacked by the Greeks under
Heraclius, they not only lost their new conquests, but part of their own
dominions; and no sooner were the Arabs united by Mohammedism, than they beat
them in every battle, and in a few years totally subdued them.
As these empires were weak and declining, so Arabia, at Mohammed's setting
up, was strong and flourishing; having been peopled at the expense of the
Grecian empire, whence the violent proceedings of the domineering sects forced
many to seek refuge in a free country, as Arabia then was, where they who
could not enjoy tranquility and their conscience at home, found a secure
retreat. The Arabians were not only a populous nation, but unacquainted with
the luxury and delicacies of the Greeks and Persians, and inured to hardships
of all sorts; living in a most parsimonious manner, seldom eating any flesh,
drinking no wine, and sitting on the ground. Their political government was
also such as favoured the designs of Mohammed; for the division and
independency of their tribes were so necessary to the first propagation of his
religion, and the foundation of his power, that it would have been scarce
possible for him to have effected either, had the Arabs been united in one
society. But when they had embraced his religion, the consequent union of
their tribes was no less necessary and conducive to their future conquests and
grandeur.
This posture of public affairs in the eastern world, both as to its
religious and political state, it is more than probably Mohammed was well
acquainted with; he having had sufficient opportunities of informing himself
in those particulars, in his travels as a merchant in his younger years: and
though it is not to be supposed his views at first were so extensive as
afterwards, when they were enlarged by his good fortune, yet he might
reasonably promise himself success in his first attempts from thence. As he
was a man of extraordinary parts and address, he knew how to make the best of
every incident, and turn what might seem dangerous to another, to his own
advantage.
Mohammed came into the world under some disadvantages, which he soon
surmounted. His father Abd'allah was a younger son2 of Abd'almotalleb, and
dying very young and in his father's lifetime, left

1 Vide Teixeira, Relaciones de los Reyes de Persia, p. 195, &c.
2 He was not his eldest son, as Dr. Prideaux tells us, whose
reflections built on that foundation must necessarily fail (see his Life of
Mahomet, p. 9); nor yet his youngest son, as M. De Boulainvilliers (Vie de
Mahommed, p. 182, &c) supposes; for Hamza and al Abbâs were both younger than
Abd'allah.

his widow and infant son in very mean circumstances, his whole substance
consisting but of five camels and one Ethiopian she-slave.1 Abd'almotalleb
was therefore obliged to take care of his grandchild Mohammed, which he not
only did during his life, but at his death enjoined his eldest son Abu Tâleb,
who was brother to Abd'allah by the same mother, to provide for him for the
future; which he very affectionately did, and instructed him in the business
of a merchant, which he followed; and to that end he took him with him into
Syria when he was but thirteen, and afterward recommended him to Khadîjah, a
noble and rich widow, for her factor, in whose service he behaved himself so
well, that by making him her husband she soon raised him to an equality with
the richest in Mecca.
After he began by this advantageous match to live at his ease, it was that
he formed the scheme of establishing a new religion, or, as he expressed it,
of replanting the only true and ancient one, professed by Adam, Noah, Abraham,
Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets,2 by destroying the gross idolatry into
which the generality of his countrymen had fallen, and weeding out the
corruptions and superstitions which the latter Jews and Christians had, as he
thought, introduced into their religion, and reducing it to its original
purity, which consisted chiefly in the worship of the one only GOD.
Whether this was the effect of enthusiasm, or only a design to raise
himself to the supreme government of his country, I will not pretend to
determine. The latter is the general opinion of the Christian writers, who
agree that ambition, and the desire of satisfying his sensuality, were the
motives of his undertaking. It may be so; yet his first views, perhaps, were
not so interested. His original design of bringing the pagan Arabs to the
knowledge of the true GOD, was certainly noble, and highly to be commended;
for I cannot possibly subscribe to the assertion of a late learned writer,3
that he made the nation exchange their idolatry for another religion
altogether as bad. Mohammed was no doubt fully satisfied in his conscience of
the truth of his grand point, the unity of GOD, which was what he chiefly
attended to; all his other doctrines and institutions being rather accidental
and unavoidable, than premeditated and designed.
Since then Mohammed was certainly himself persuaded of his grand article of
faith, which, in his opinion, was violated by all the rest of the world; not
only by the idolaters, but by the Christians, as well those who rightly
worshipped Jesus as GOD, as those who superstitiously adored the Virgin Mary,
saints, and images; and also by the Jews, who are accused in the Korân of
taking Ezra for the son of GOD;4 it is easy to conceive that he might think it
a meritorious work to rescue the world from such ignorance and superstition;
and by degrees, with the help of a warm imagination, which an Arab seldom
wants,5 to suppose himself destined by providence for the effecting that great
reformation. And this fancy of his might take still deeper root in his mind,
during the solitude he thereupon affected, usually retiring for a month in the
year to a cave in Mount Hara, near Mecca. One thing which may be probably
urged against the enthusiasm of this prophet of