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ed* their children at the age of puberty: The C H A P. same customs, without the censure or the precept of the Koran, have been silently transmitted to their posterity and proselytes. It has been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen. It is more simple to believe that he adhered to the habits and opinions of his youth, without foreseeing that a practice congenial to the climate of Mecca, might become useless or inconvenient on the banks of the Danube or the Volga.

Arabia was free; the adjacent kingdoms were Introducshaken by the storms of conquest and tyranny, and tion of the Sabithe persecuted sects fled to the happy land where ans. they might profess what they thought, and practise what they professed. The religions of the Sabians and Magians, of the Jews and Christians, were disseminated from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In a remote period of antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldeans + and the arms of the Assyrians. From the observations of two thousand years, the priests and astro

nomers

the rite of ablution, (Herodot. 1. i. c. 80.) which is sanctified by the Mahometan law. (Reland, p. 75, &c. Chardin, or rather the Mollab of Shaw Abbas, tom. iv. p. 71, &c.)

* The Mahometan doctors are not fond of the subject; yet they hold circumcision necessary to salvation, and even pretend that Mahomet was miraculously born without a foreskin. (Pocock, Specimen, p. 319, 320. Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 106, 107.)

† Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 142-145.) has cast on their religion the curious, but superficial, glance of a Greek. Their astronomy would be far more valuable: They had looked through the telescope of reason, since they could doubt whether the sun were in the number of the plancts or of the fixed

stars.

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CHA P. nomers of Babylon * deduced the eternal laws of nature and providence. They adored the seven gods or angels who directed the course of the seven planets, and shed their irresistible influence on the earth. The attributes of the seven planets, with the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the twentyfour constellations of the northern and southern hemisphere, were represented by images and talismans; the seven days of the week were dedicated to their respective deities; the Sabians prayed thrice each day; and the temple of the moon at Haran was the term of their pilgrimage+. But the flexible genius of their faith was always ready either to teach or to learn: In the tradition of the creation, the deluge, and the patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with their Jewish captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and Enoch; and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the last remnant of the Polytheists into the Christians of St John, in the territory of Bassora. The altars of Babylon were overturned by

The Magians.

* Simplicius, (who quotes Porphyry) de Cælo, 1. ii. com. xlvi. p. 123. lin. 18. apud Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 474. who doubts the fact, because it is adverse to his systems. The earliest date of the Chaldean observations is the year 2234 before Christ. After the conquest of Babylon by Alexander, they were communicated, at the request of Aristotle, to the astronomer Hipparchus. What a moment in the annals of science!

† Pocock, (Specimen, p. 138-146.) Hottinger, (Hist. Oriental. p. 162-203.) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, p. 124. 128, &c.) d'Herbelot, (Sabi, p. 725, 726.) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 14, 15.) rather excite than gratify our curiosity; and the last of these writers confounds Sabianism with the primitive religion of the Arabs.

D'Anville (l'Euphrates de le Tigre, p. 130-147.) will fix the position of these ambiguous Christians; Assemannus Bib

liot.

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by the Magians; but the injuries of the Sabians c H a p. were revenged by the sword of Alexander; Persia groaned above five hundred years under a foreign yoke; and the purest disciples of Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of idolatry, and breathed with their adversaries the freedom of the desert*. Seven The Jews. hundred years before the death of Mahomet, the Jews were settled in Arabia: And a far greater multitude was expelled from the holy land in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles aspired to liberty and power; they erected synagogues in the cities and castles in the wilderness, and their Gentile converts were confounded with the children of Israel, whom they resembled in the outward mark of circumcision. The Christian The Chrismissionaries were still more active and successful; tians. the Catholics asserted their universal reign; the sects whom they oppressed successively retired beyond the limits of the Roman empire; the Marcionites and the Manichæans dispersed their phantastic opinions and apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the princes of Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the Jacobite and Nestorian bishops †. The liberty of

choice

liot. Oriental. tom. iv. p. 607–614.) may explain their tenets. But it is a slippery task to ascertain the creed of an ignorant people, afraid and ashamed to disclose their secret traditions.

*The Magi were fixed in the province of Bahrein, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 114.) and mingled with the old Arabians, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 1.16—150.)

†The state of the Jews and Christians in Arabia is described by Pocock from Sharestani, &c. (Specimen, p. 60. 134, &c.) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 312-238.) d'He belot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 474-476.) Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. p. 185. tom. viii. p. 280.) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 22, &c. 33, &c.)

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CHA P. choice was presented to the tribes: Each Arab was free to elect or to compose his private religion: And the rude superstition of his house was mingled with the sublime theology of saints and philosophers. A fundamental article of faith was inculcated by the consent of the learned strangers; the existence of one supreme God, who is exalted above the powers of heaven and earth, but who has often revealed himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels and prophets, and whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the Arabs acknowledged his power, though they neglected his worship*; and it was habit rather than conviction that still attached them to the relics of idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the people of the book; the Bible was already translated into the Arabic language†, and the volume of the Old Testament was accepted by the concord of these implacable enemies. In the story of the Hebrew patriarchs, the Arabs were pleased to discover the fathers of their nation. They applauded the birth

and

*In their offerings, it was a maxim to defraud God for the profit of the idol, not a more potent, but a more irritable patron. (Pocock, Specimen, p. 108, 109.)

† Our versions now extant, whether Jewish or Christian, appear more recent than the Koran; but the existence of a prior translation may be fairly inferred, 1. From the perpetual prac tice of the synagogue, of expounding the Hebrew lesson by a paraphrase in the vulgar tongue of the country. 2. From the analogy of the Armenian, Persian, Ethiopic versions, expressly quoted by the fathers of the fifth century, who assert that the Scriptures were translated into all the Barbaric languages. (Walton, Prolegomena ad Biblia Polyglot. p. 34. 93-97. Simon, Hist. Critique du V. et du N. Testament, tom. i. p. 180, 181, 282–286. 293. 305, 306. tom. iv. p. 206.)

and promises of Ismael; revered the faith and CHA P. virtue of Abraham; traced his pedigree and their L. own to the creation of the first man, and imbibed with equal credulity, the prodigies of the holy text, and the dreams and traditions of the Jewish rabbis.

of Maho

569-609,

The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an Birth and unskilful calumny of the Christians*, who exalt education instead of degrading the merit of their adversary. met, A.D. His descent from Ismael was a national privilege or fable; but if the first steps of the pedigree † are dark and doubtful, he could produce many generations of pure and genuine nobility: He sprung from the tribe of Koreish and the family of Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of the Caaba. The grandfather of Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, a wealthy and generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with the supplies of commerce. Mecca, which had been fed by the liberality of the father, was saved by the courage of the son. The kingdom of Yemen was subject to the Christian princes

of

*In eo conveniunt omnes, ut plebeio vilique genere ortum, &c. (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 136.) Yet Theophanes, the most ancient of the Greeks, and the father of many a lie, confesses that Mahomet was of the race of Ismael, ex μas yvxwTarns Quans. (Chronograph. p. 277.)

† Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed. c. 1, 2.) and Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, p. 25-97.) describe the popular and approved genealogy of the prophet. At Mecca, I would not dispute its authenticity: At Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1. That from Ismael to Mahomet, a period of 2500 years, they reckon thirty, instead of seventy five generations. 2. That the modern Bedoweens are ignorant of their history and careless of their pedigree. (Voyage d'Arvieux, p. 100. 103.)