"God's treasures are the secret stores, none knows of them but He; To Him each atom stands revealed, in earth, or in the sea; 'Tis He that steals thy soul at night, and watches thee by day, And guides thee still to do His will, resist it how you may." Such are the incoherent, and often impressive ravings which form the ground-work of the whole text. But the more mystic fancies prevalent among his countrymen, were too congenial to the enthusiasm and character of Mahomet, and too conducive to the aid he sought, not to find a place. The secret inspection of angelic ministers-the invisible crowds of genii, that thronged alike the wilderness and the city-the imperceptible energies and inscrutable essences of the animal and material worlds-are topics he delights to dwell on. In the wildness of his fanatic fancy he sought till he imagined he had found, among these mysterious beings, the kindly reception he in vain solicited from his fellow men. The genii, he affirmed, had heard and believed; and his idle hearers recoiled around him as they were told of the airy beings even then thronging to listen to his words. In chapters 46, 50 and 72, the reader will find enough to gratify his curiosity on this subject.

The precepts and regulations of Mahomet will generally be of a later date than his mere exhortations, since they imply that he gained attentive and zealous hearers. They will be found in chapters 6, 20, 45, 31, 17, 26, 30, 70, and 42. The two first, being of a general and prohibitory nature, may perhaps have been among the earliest composed, but for the sake of classification, we have preferred noticing them with the rest. By no European writer has the demoralization of the Arabs at that period been adequately described. In addition to the lawless and ferocious habits which seem inseparable from the peculiarities of the country they inhabit, they lived in the grossest superstitions, and in the habitual violation of the plainest rules of domestic morality. Guided in every important contingency of life by superstitious fancies, they seem only to have exercised free-will when roused by anger or solicited by cupidity. This extreme of mental debasement produced, as is usual, the opposite excess in the more enlightened few; and we find Mahomet induced by the scepticism of some among his adversaries, to argue repeatedly on the abstract possibility of resurrection after death. His moral instructions were well suited by their simplicity to reform the perverted feelings of his countrymen, and many rude converts to the beauty of truth ignorantly ascribed to him the excellencies that in reality belonged to his doctrine. Besides the prohibition of interest (a law adopted on misapprehension from the Jewish code), his rules merely embody those broad principles of rectitude which the unperverted

reason of man must universally acknowledge. They form, it must be observed, a very small part even of the few chapters in which they occur,-not being in their nature adapted to the amplification in which he was on other topics so fond of indulging in. The internal rules he prescribed to his followers were likewise of necessity few and simple, since their number was not yet sufficient to require more, and his attention was engrossed in the endeavour to increase it.

We have already remarked the excessive austerity of devotion which he at first enjoined, and in chapter 20 we find him again exhorted not to distress himself in his religious service. As his experience increased, and his enthusiasm was diverted into another channel by the opposition he had to encounter, he adopted a course better suited to the infirmities of mankind. Three hours were appointed for prayer; the two twilights and the first watch of the night:-the noon and afternoon prayers, which complete the five, were not added till after the Higera.

The only particular of ritual devotion he as yet insisted on, was the annual pilgrimage to the Caaba. The ceremonials prescribed on this occasion are detailed in chapters 22 and 2. Mahomet's motives in confirming this singular practice have often been misunderstood. Savary supposes him to have been guided by political considerations; and in point of fact, the periodical assemblage of the discordant tribes of Arabia at this common object of their veneration, would do much towards softening their mutual animosities and strengthening the resources of the country by combination. Sale imagines that he himself was averse to the practice on account of the superstitions that had mingled with it, but that he was compelled to sacrifice his own inclinations to the overpowering prejudices of his countrymen. In this supposition he is countenanced by the fact, that the first chapter in which it is actually prescribed was revealed only a short time previous to the Higera. But Mahomet seems, on every other occasion, to have been so entirely guided by religious feeling, and to have so sternly resisted the slightest compromise with any thing his conscience condemned, that we are compelled to seek some more satisfactory solution of the question.

Let us hear him speak for himself." To every sect have we appointed a place of sacrifice-where they might call upon the name of God over what he has bestowed on them of animals and cattle." Here he evidently alludes to the temple at Jerusalem, and the three great feasts at which all the males among the Jews were bound to appear there before the Lord. And this is not the only particular in which he seems to have borrowed from the Mosaic ritual, for no other reason than because it was a divine

one. The tradition too which which referred the building of the Caaba to Abraham, and which is fully recognised by the prophet in chapters 14 and 2, gave it a specific sanctity in his own eyes, which probably prevented him from inquiring into the causes or effects of its being similarly regarded by others.

The injunctions most frequently repeated throughout these chapters relate to a point of considerable importance-the intercourse of his followers with the unbelievers. Men of rude intellects are more influenced by feelings than by reason; and the prophet therefore prohibited them from forming or indulging in friendship with the unconverted. Ridicule, the sharpest weapon to which feeling can be opposed, was all in the hands of their adversaries; and consequently his disciples were forbidden to engage in disputes.

But

It must not be forgotten that many expressions and ideas are borrowed, and many passages copied from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; and the Korann formed upon both, may be considered as occupying a middle place between the two. Mahomet himself at first practised as well as recommended much of the meekness and humility of the Gospel. "Be gentle towards those believers that follow thee; and if they are unruly, say, Verily I am blameless in what you do." (chap. 26.) During a period of ten years that he was exposed to daily insult and daily peril, he never once offered to repel by violence the violence that he endured. the hatred and ferocity of his enemies drove him to the policy which changed the history of the world. The fierceness of Hamza and the zeal of Ali scorned to acquiesce in a doctrine of submission, and on one or two occasions, when their sacred relative had been treated with more than wonted indignity, they took the liberty of signally avenging him. The feelings of the man were too strong for those of the prophet. Mahomet allowed the act to pass uncensured. The noble pair became his defenders on every emergency, and the comfort of such a safeguard grew the more indispensable the more it was enjoyed. By chapter 23 the divine sanction was given for the first time to a hostile principle: "Repel evil by whatever means are best." How widely such a precept may be interpreted, it is needless to observe, The rule of endurance being once departed from, the mutual animosity of the parties necessarily led to the opposite excess. The hardships to which the early converts were exposed in Mecca had induced them, by Mahomet's advice, to seek security elsewhere; dispersing throughout the surrounding country, they carried with them wherever they went, the story of their prophet's sanctity, and (in their eyes) the proof of his inspiration. The contagion of enthusiasm and the beauties of the Korann excited expectation even where

they failed of credence-which, however, they often obtained. A king of Ethiopia dispatched a present to the prophet and declared himself a believer: an ambassador who arrived on a public mission, had the curiosity to visit the man of whom he had heard so much, and after a short conversation, espoused his faith, which he promulgated among his countrymen on his return. The different feelings entertained towards him within and without of Mecca, must have forcibly struck the prophet, and matured the latent resentment which ten years of patience had nursed.— The country seemed ripe for change. The high destinies he had promised himself were at hand, and he might now flatter himself, without extravagance, with the hope of fulfilling his sacred mission. But Mecca stood as a blot on the fair picture. What wonder if he panted to wash it away? Fiercer thoughts mingled with his holy dreams:-the interests of his religion he might say were changed-the policy of it must be changed likewise. Other circumstances contributed to confirm him in this train of thought. Abutalib, though an infidel, his most powerful friend and protector, had died, and the violence of his enemies was proportionably augmented. His wife, Khadijeh, whose confidence had supported him in his misgivings, and whose affection had soothed him in his humiliations, was now no moreand nightly the prophet returned from a hating city to a lonely home. The exasperated state of his feelings may be traced in chapter 36, of all others the most pregnant with resentment against his adversaries, and the most calculated to excite a similar feeling among his followers. Chapter 23 had pointed to the sword, but chapter 42 took it up;-revenge of injuries is there reckoned among the virtues of a believer.

Could the Coreysh have moderated their animosity, Mahomet, thwarted and incensed as he was, might still have been reluctant to leave the holy city of his affections and his faith-he might have lived, tolerated by some and revered by others, till the spirit of his party-perhaps his own-burnt feebly and faintly to a close. Unfortunately he was forced into immediate contact with his partizans. The Coreysh tired of the disorders they experienced in their own city, and alarmed at the hostile feeling of the surrounding country, resolved to take his life. The time, place, and manner of executing their purpose was agreed on. Mahomet obtained intelligence of it-published the verses of the 22d chapter, inculcating resistance against persecution and flight for the free exercise of religion, and escaped with difficulty to Medina.

This city, the most populous of Hijaz, was situated in the heart of the country where Mahomet's name had been celebrated and his faith diffused by his disciples; and in this he was received

with universal enthusiasm as a prophet and a prince. His confidence was restored and his conviction strengthened by the multitude of those who believed; and what before might have been the doubtful whispering of desponding fanaticism, now assumed the decisive tone of certainty, when echoed by the ready credence of thousands. Thus it was that the incredulity of his enemies appeared the more unreasonable and the more criminal, at the very moment when they had raised his resentment to its utmost height. The result was the 47th chapter of the Korann, in which war to extermination is openly declared against all the enemies of his faith. The consternation of his followers cannot be better represented than in the words of the chapter itself: "They stared on thee with the stare of a dying man." From this time the Korann is a code of law, and a law of blood. Chapters 61, 2, 65, 8, 57, 60, 62, 63, 64, 102, 3, 58, 59, 4, 16 and 5, are successive and pretty clear records of the policy pursued by Mahomet during the first five years, and the success with which it was attended. It will evidently be impossible to comprise within the limits of this article, even the most cursory review of his civil regulations, and our attention will necessarily be confined to the leading circumstances and prominent feelings of the period in which they were produced. It would be expected from the energy of the prophet's character, that when he had once recognised war as a principle of religion, he would take the most decided means for prosecuting it with effect; and accordingly, far the greater part of the Medinian chapters are devoted to this purpose. All the unlimited resources of divine approbation and displeasure are exhausted in animating his followers-but the ardour which carried them to the field could not support them while they were there. A thousand expenses were to be defrayed;-unable to meet them himself, Mahomet resorted to religious contributions and loans without interest. From one or other of these species of co-operation no one was excused, but those who were too poor to give and too weak to fight. The men who, satisfied with the truth of his religion, would have sat down quietly to enjoy the profession of it, and left its farther propagation to the Almighty Being whose care it might be supposed to be, are stigmatized as hypocrites and reviled as cowards. In these precepts, the results entirely of Mahomet's necessities, we trace the origin of the feelings and defects which have always prevailed in Mahommedan society. From the violent and continual excitements to war, they derived their restless and indomitable ferocity. From the assurance of divine guidance and favor, arose their personal pride and intolerance and their abject submission to their rulers.

If the Arabs had heard with dismay their prophet's declaration

VOL. XXIV. NO. XLVII.

C