BOOK II.

Mohammed viewed in the Moonshine of Tradition

THE object of the First Book was, to set forth Mohammed in his true historical character, as, from the materials and data transmitted to us, he can be conceived to have lived and acted, to have been influenced by his surroundings, and to have exercised an influence upon others. Our historical information concerning him being derived almost exclusively from his enthusiastic admirers and implicit believers, the picture with which they have furnished us is not the least likely to do injustice to the actual man. It might possibly have had to be drawn still more to his disadvantage, had the stream of Mohammed's history flowed from purer and less partial sources. It was a plain duty for the author, in availing himself of the material at our disposal, to make use of a due measure of critical discrimination, and to put the reader on his guard against the exaggerations of blindly uncritical narrators.

In this Second Book the author's duty is changed. He no longer aims at placing before the reader an image of the Arabian Prophet, as he actually lived in the body; but he wishes, by mere literal quotations from professed Mussulman writings, to illustrate how the glowing imagination and devout admiration of the Moslem believers have metamorphosed him, and enveloped the genuine natural original in the fictitious halo of a dazzling radiance and a supernatural glory.

There can be no doubt, that the first impulse to this transfiguration of the eminently earthly Prophet into the all, but in name, superhuman Apostle and transcendent Favourite of God, was given by Mohammed himself. What

we have seen of him in the First Book must have sufficiently convinced us that he was by no means given to the rationalistic method of seeking to explain supernatural things by natural causes; but that he was rather prone to raise himself in the estimation of others, by imparting a miraculous colouring to things perfectly natural. From the moment he affirmed himself to be equal, nay superior, to all the preceding prophets, as their chief and seal, he was almost compelled also to claim ascendency over them as the recipient of Divine favours. This he must have found very difficult, especially with regard to Jesus Christ; and it could not but draw him on to very hazardous assertions.

His partisans soon understood how he wished to be estimated by them, and that it was their interest to please him by responding to his wishes. Once having indorsed his pretension of being God's highest Apostle, they became naturally disposed to attribute to him what they fancied so transcendent a dignity should actually comprise. They reasoned thus, if they reasoned at all, 'Mohammed is the last and greatest of the prophets; and therefore it is but right and fitting that he should possess, in a superlative degree, those gifts and favours which distinguished former prophets.' In this way the true dimensions of their prophet's figure imperceptibly magnified themselves to them into gigantic proportions; more especially after his death, when they looked at him through the radiance of almost unexampled military glory and undreamt of riches of spoil. The not unnatural admiration of his successes soon degenerated into a superstitious credulity, which accepted whatever was told about him, with all the greater avidity, the more extraordinary and fantastic it appeared. To the dazzled vision of devout Moslems, a story possessed the highest degree of probability, when it most tended to raise the founder of their triumphant religion far above any other messenger of God.

Hence we find that what is to correspond, in Mohammed, to the 'signs and wonders' of former prophets, notably of Jesus Christ, assumes such an offensively grotesque and utterly incredible character. What an immense contrast between the miracles of the Bible and the miracles of Moslem