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teuch and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the evangelic CHAP. 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.124 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 interest, yet he seldom trampled on a prostrate enemy; and he seems to promise, that, on the payment of a tribute, the least guilty of his unbelieving subjects might be indulged in their worship, or at least in their imperfect faith. In the first months of his reign, he practised the lessons of holy warfare, and displayed his white banner before the gates of Medina : the martial apostle fought in person at nine battles or sieges ; 125 and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten years by himself or his lieutenants. The Arab continued to unite the professions of a merchant and a robber; and his petty excursions for the defence or

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CHAP. the attack of a caravan insensibly prepared his troops for

the conquest of Arabia. The distribution of the spoil was regulated by a divine law : 126 the whole was faithfully collected in one common mass : a fifth of the gold and silver, the prisoners and cattle, the moveables and immoveables, was reserved by the prophet for pious and charitable uses; the remainder was shared in adequate portions, by the soldiers who had obtained the victory or guarded the camp: the rewards of the slain devolved to their widows and orphans ; and the increase of cavalry was encouraged by the allotment of a double share to the horse and to the man. From all sides the roving Arabs were allured to the standard of religion and plunder: the apostle sanctified the license of embracing the female captives as their wives or concubines; and the enjoyment of wealth and beauty was a feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for the valiant martyrs of the faith. “The sword,” says Mahomet, “is the key of “heaven and of hell: a drop of blood shed in the cause of “God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two “months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his “sins are forgiven: at the day of judgment his wounds shall “be resplendent as vermillion and odoriferous as musk;

and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of “angels and cherubim.” The intrepid souls of the Arabs were fired with enthusiasm: the picture of the invisible world was strongly painted on their imagination ; and the death which they had always despised became an object of hope and desire. The Koran inculcates, in the most absolute sense, the tenets of fate and predestination, which would extinguish both industry and virtue, if the actions of man were governed by his speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has exalted the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first companions of Mahomet advanced to bat. tle with a fearless confidence: there is no danger where there is no chance : they were ordained to perish in their beds; or they were safe and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. 127

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126 The whole subject de jure beili Mohammedanorum, is exhausted in a separate dissertation by the learned Reland (Dissertationes Miscellaneæ, tom. ii. Dissert. x. p. 3...53).

127 The doctrine of absolute predestination, on which few religions can reproach each other, is sternly exposed in the Koran (c. 3. p. 52, 53. c. 4.

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Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the CHAP. Hight of Mahomet, had they not been provoked and alarmed by the vengeance of an enemy, who could intercept their

His defenSyrian trade as it passed and repassed through the territory sive wars of Medina. Abu Sophian himself, with only thirty or forty Koreish of

against the followers, conducted a wealthy caravan of a thousand camels: Mecca. the fortune or dexterity of his march escaped the vigilance of Mahomet; but the chief of the Koreish was informed that the holy robbers were placed in ambush to await his return. He dispatched a messenger to his brethren of Mecca, and they were roused, by the fear of losing their merchandise and their provisions, unless they hastened to his relief with the military force of the city. The sacred band of Mahomet was formed of three hundred and thirteen Moslems, of whom seventy-seven were fugitives, and the rest auxiliaries: they mounted by turns a train of seventy camels (the camels of Yathreb were formidable in war); but such was the poverty of his first disciples, that only two could appear on horseback in the field.'28 In the fertile and famous vale of Beder,' three stations from Medina, he was informed by his scouts of the caravan that approached on one side ; of the Koreish, one hundred horse, eight hundred and fifty foot, who advanced on the other. After a short debate, he sacrificed the prospect of wealth to the pursuit of glory and revenge; and a slight intrenchment was formed to cover his troops, and a stream of fresh water that glided through the valley. “O Battle of “God,” he exclaimed as the numbers of the Koreish descend. Beder,

A. D. 623. ed from the hills, “ O God, if these are destroyed, by whom “wilt thou be worshipped on the earth ?...Courage, my chil“dren, close your ranks; discharge your arrows, and the day

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p. 70, &c. with the notes of Sale, and c. 17. p. 413. with those of Maracci). Reland (de Relig. Mohamm. p.61...64), and Sale (Prelim. Discourse, p. 103), represent the opinions of the doctors, and our modern traveliers the confidence, the fading confidence, of the Turks.

128 Al Jannabi(apıd Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 9.) allows him seventy or eighty horse ; and on two other occasions prior to the batile of Ohud, he enlists a body of thirty (p. 10), and of 500 (p. 66.) troopers. Yet the Musulmans, in the field of Ohud, had no more than two horses, according to the better sense of Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohamm. p. xxxi. p. 65). In the stony province, the camels were numerous; but the horse appears to have been less common than in the Happyor the Desart Arabia.

129 Bedder Houneene, twenty miles from Medina, and forty from Mecca, is on the high road of the caravan of Egypt; and the pilgrims annually cominemorate the prophet's victory by illuminations, rockets, &c. Shaw's Travels, p. 477. VOL. VI.

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CHAP. “is vour own.” At these words he placed himself, with Abu

beker, on a throne or pulpit 130 and instantly demanded the succour of Gabriel and three thousand angels. His eye was fixed on the field of battle: the Musulmans fainted and were pressed: in that decisive moment the prophet started from his throne, mounted his horse, and cast a handful of sand into the air; “Let their faces be covered with confusion.” Both armies heard the thunder of his voice: their fancy beheld the angelic warriors :131 the Koreish trembled and fled: seventy of the bravest were slain ; and seventy captives adorned the first victory of the faithful. The dead bodies of the Kore. ish were despoiled and insulted: two of the most obnoxious prisoners were punished with death ; and the ransom of the others, four thousand drams of silver, compensated in some degree the escape of the caravan. But it was in vain that the camels of Abu Sophian explored a new road through the de. sart and along the Euphrates: they were overtaken by the diligence of the Musulmans; and wealthy must have been the prize, if twenty thousand drams could be set apart for the fisth of the apostle. The resentment of the public and private loss stimulated Abu Sophian to collect a body of three thousand men, seven hundred of whorn were armed with cuirasses, and two hundred were mounted on horseback: three thousand camels attended his march; and his wife Henda, with fifteen matrons of Mecca, incessantly sounded their timbrels to animate the troops, and to magnify the

greatness of Hobal, the most popular deity of the Caaba. of Ohud, The standard of God and Mahomet was upheld by nine A. D. 623. hundred and fifty believers: the disproportion of numbers

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was not more alarming than in the field of Beder; and their CHAP. presumption of victory prevailed against the divine and human sense of the apostle. The second battle was fought on mount Ohud, six miles to the north of Medina ;132 the Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent: and the right wing of cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most successful of the Arabian warriors. The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on the declivity of the hill; and their rear was guarded by a detachment of fifty archers. The weight of their charge impelled and broke the centre of the idolaters; but in the pursuit they lost the advantage of their ground: the archers deserted their station: the Musulmans were tempted by the spoil, disobeyed their general, and disordered their ranks. The intrepid Caled, wheeling his cavalry on their flank and rear, exclaimed with a loud voice, that Mahomet was slain. He was indeed wounded in the face with a javelin: two of his teeth were shattered with a stone ; yet, in the midst of tumult and dismay, he reproached the infidels with the murder of a prophet; and blessed the friendly hand that staunched his blood, and conveyed him to a place of safety. Seventy martyrs died for the sins of the people: they fell, said the apostle, in pairs, each brother embracing his lifeless companion:'3 their bodies were mangled by the inhuman females of Mecca; and the wife of Abu Sophian tasted the entrails of Hamza, the uncle of Mahomet. They might applaud their superstition and satiate their fury; but the Musulmans soon rallied in the field, and the Koreish wanted strength or courage to undertake the siege of Medina. It was attacked the ensuing year by an army of ten The nathousand enemies; and this third expedition is variously na

tions, or

the ditch, med from the nations, which marched under the banner of A. D. 625. Abu Sophian, from the ditch which was drawn before the city, and a camp of three thousand Musulmans. The prudence of Mahomet declined a general engagement: the valour of Ali was signalized in single combat; and the war was protracted twenty days, till the final separation of the confederates. A tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents: the private quarrels were fomented by an insidious

132 Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 47.

133 In the third chapter of the Koran (p. 50...53. with Sale's notes), the prophet alleges some poor excuses for the defeat of Ohud.