greatest of the prophets; thus initiated, he proceeded to deliver detached sentences, as he pretended to receive them from the Almighty, by the hand of the ange. Gabriel. These pretensions to a divine mission drew on him a requisition from the inhabitants of Mecca that he would convince them by working a miracle; but he replied, “God refuses those signs and wonders that would depreciate the merit of faith, and aggravate the guilt of infidelity." The unity of God was the grand and leading article in the creed he taught, to which was closely joined his own divine mission: Allah il Allah, Muhamed resoul Allah, is their preface to every act of devotion, and the sentence continually in their mouths which is, “there is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet.'

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The Arabian tribes, who occupied the country from Mecca to the Euphrates, were at that time known by the name of Saracens; their religion was chiefly gross idolatry, Sabianism having spread almost over the whole nation, though there were likewise numbers of Christians, Jews, and Magians, interspersed in those parts. The essence of that worship principally consisted in adoring the planets and fixed stars; angels and images they honoured as inferior deities, whose intercessions with the Almighty in their favour they implored: they believed in one God; in the future punishment of the wicked, for a long series of years, though not forever; and constantly prayed three times a day; namely, at sunrise, at its declination, and at sunset; they fasted three times a year; during thirty days, nine days, and seven days; they offered many sacrifices, but ate no part of them, the whole being burnt; they likewise turned their faces, when praying, to a particular part of the horizon; they performed pilgrimages to the city of Harran in Mesopotamia, and had a great respect for the temple of Mecca and the pyramids of Egypt, imagining the latter to be the sepulchres of Seth, also of Enos and Sabi, his two sons, whom they considered as the founders of their religion. Be sides the book of Psalms, they had other books which they esteemed equally sacred, particularly one, in the Chaldee tongue, which they called "the book of Seth." They have been called "Christians of St. John the Baptist," whose disciples they also pretend to be, using a kind of baptism, which is the greatest mark they bear of Christianity: circumcision was practised by the Arabs, although Sale is silent on that practice, when describing the religion of the Sabians; they likewise abstained from swine's flesh. So that in this sect we may trace the essential articles of the creed of Mussulmans.

Mahomet was in the fortieth year of his age when he assumed the character of a prophet; he had been accustomed for several years, during the month of Ramadan, to withdraw from the world, and to secrete himself in a cave, three miles distant from Mecca; " conversation," says Mr. Gibbon, "enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius." During the first three years, he made only fourteen proselytes, among which were his wife Khadijah, his servant, or rather slave, Zeid Ali, who afterward married the prophet's favourite daughter, Fatima, and was surnamed "the Lion of God;" Abubekar, a man distinguished for his merit and his wealth; the rest consisted of respectable citizens of Mecca. The Koreishites, although the tribe from which he sprung, were the most violent opposers of the new religion. In the tenth year of his prophetic office his wife died; and the next year, his enemies having formed a design to cut him off, and he being seasonably apprized, fled by night to Medina, on the 16th of July, 622, from which event the Hegira commenced; he was accompanied only by two or three followers, but he made a public entry into that city, and soon gained many proselytes, on which he assumed the regal and sacerdotal characters. As he increased in power, that moderation and humanity, which had before distinguished his conduct, were gradually erased, and he became fierce and sanguinary; he begun to

avow a design of propagating his religion by the sword, tc destroy the monuments of idolatry, and, without regarding the sanctity of days or months, to pursue the unbelieving nations of the earth. The Koran inculcates, in the most absolute sense, the tenets of faith and predestination. The first companions of Mahomet advanced to battle with a fearless confidence, their leader having fully possessed their minds with the assurance that paradise awaited those who died fighting for the cause of their prophet, the gratifications of which were held out to be such as best suited the amorous complexions of the Arabians. Houries of black-eyed girls, resplendent in beauty, blooming youth and virgin purity; every moment of pleasure was there to be prolonged to a thousand years, and the powers of the man were to be increased an hundred-fold to render him capable of such felicity to those who survived, rich spoils and the possession of their female captives were to crown their conquests. Mahomet was present at nine battles or sieges; and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten years by himself or his lieutenants. Seven years after his flight from Mecca he returned to that city, where he was publicly recognized as a prince and prophet; the idolatrous worship of the Caaba was immediately abolished, and succeeded by the simplicity of the Mahometan establishment. This Arab lawgiver retained both his mental and bodily powers unimpaired till he reached his sixtieth year, when his health began to decline, and he himself suspected that a slow poison had been administered to him by a Jewess, under the effects of which he languished; but his death. was caused by a fever, in the sixty-third year of his age, the six hundred and thirty-second of the Christian era, and tenth of the Hegira. There are some particulars told respecting Mahomet, which have gained general belief, although void of all foundation: such is the story of the tame pigeon, which the people were taught to believe imparted religious truths to the ear of the prophet; the epileptic fits, which have been said to cause him to fall down as in a trance, he is not supposed to have been subject to; and the suspension of his iron coffin at Mecca is a most absurd falsehood, it being well known that he was buried at Medina in a stone coffin. Of the chapters of the Koran, which are one hundred and fourteen in number, the Sieur du Ryer makes ninety-four to have been received at Mecca, and twenty at Medina; but, according to Mr. Sale, a much better authority, the commentators on the Koran have not fixed the place where about twenty of these revelations were imparted; so that no inference can be drawn how far the prophet had proceeded in his pretended inspirations when he fled from Mecca; neither does the order in which they were written, for the seventy-fourth chapter is supposed to have been the first revealed, and the sixty-eighth to have immediately followed it.

The most amiable features in the religion which Mahomet established are, profound adoration of one God, whose names, or rather titles, are amazingly diversified in the Koran; (these are collected, to the amount of nine hundred and ninety-nine, and serve as a manual of devotion ;) the daily offering up of prayers to him, which consist of short ejaculations; stated fasts, and a constant distribution af a large portion of personal property to the relief of the indigent and distressed; nor is the charity which is enjoined confined to alms-giving, but comprehends, in its fullest extent, general humanity and acts of beneficence to all Mussulmans. A general resurrection of the dead is another article of belief reiterated in the Koran Whatever superstitious practices adhere to it, cannot be imputed to priestcraft, for no religion that ever was promulgated to the world, the unadulterated religion of Jesus Christ excepted, so entirely excludes the influence of the priesthood; it may, indeed, be called emphatically "the laical religion," since its founder had the address to obtain the most enthusiastic regard to his dogmas, without giving wealth or consequence to those who were appointed to illustrate and enforce them; indeed, the Koran re

proaches the Christians for taking their priests and monks for their lords beside God. The pilgrimage to Mecca, praying toward that place, and the ablutions which are enjoined on the most ordinary acts and occasions, together with the adoption of that religious sophism predestination, in its most extravagant extent, seem to comprehend the superstitious parts of this religion; but it has other characteristics which betray its spurious origin, and prove its destructive tendency.

To compensate for the rigid fastings which it enjoins, and the disuse of wine which it requires, a most licentious indulgence is allowed in the use of women; and though they may not, as has been imputed to them, deny to that sex a future state of existence, yet, as they consider women merely as instruments of gratification, all those amiable qualities which the sex is capable of displaying when the faculties are properly expanded by a judicious and liberal course of education, are suppressed as soon as formed. Another foul taint in this religion is, the abhorrence which it creates against all those who do not embrace the same doctrines; and also the direct tendency of that faith to consign the human mind to a state of arrogant and incurable ignorance by considering the Koran as comprising everything worthy of being known. The Arabs, from the genial influence of their climate, as well as from habits transmitted through so many generations as to be formed into innate principles, were libidinous beyond most of their species, and no individual among them felt that propensity stronger than their prophet; neither policy nor inclination therefore prompted him to bring his disciples under severe restraints with respect to women; he ought not, however, to be denied the praise which is due to having in some measure tempered the lustful fierceness of his countrymen; and he may be said to have effected some reformation, when he restrained his followers even to four wives, when he forbad incestuous alliances, entitled a repudiated wife to a dower from her husband, made adultery a capital offence, and rendered fornication punishable by law.

Besides the Koran, which is the written law to the Mahometans, alike as to the belief and practice of religion and the administration of public justice, there is the Sunnah, or oral law, which was selected, two hundred years after the death of Mahomet, from a vast number of precepts and injunctions which had been handed down from age to age, as bearing the stamp of his authority. In this work the right of circumcision is enjoined, concerning which the Koran was silent; nor was it necessary to be there commanded, as the Arabians adhered to it before this establishment. By the express command of their founder, the Mahometans set apart Friday in each week for the especial worship of God. They are ever assiduous to make converts to their faith; nor can they reject the most abject or profligate wretch who declares his desire of becoming a true believer, even although they know him to be ignorant alike of their language and the principles of their religion. Charity, as already ob served, is enjoined in the strongest terms in the Koran; and the Turks are remarkable for acts of benevolence to the poor and the distressed, and are even careful to prevent the unfortunate being reduced to necessity They repair highways, erect cisterns of water for the convenience of travellers, build kahns or caravanseras for their reception; and some devout people, it is said, erect sheds by the way side, that the weary traveller may sit under the shade and take his refreshment chap. iv. of the Koran are the following injunctions: "Show kindness to thy parents, to thy relations, to orphans, to the poor; to thy neighbor who is related to thee, and to thy neighbor who is a stranger; to thy familiar companion, to the traveler, and to the captive whom thy right hand has taken; for God loveth not the proud, the vain-glorious, the covetous, or those who bestow their wealth in order to be seen of men

In

They name their children as soon as they are born; when the father, putting some grains of salt into its mouth, and lifting it on high, as dedicating it to God, cries out, "God grant, my son Solyman, that his holy name may be as savoury in thy mouth as this salt, and that he may preserve thee from being too much in love with the world." As to the infants who die young, before they are circumcised, they believe they are saved by the circumcision of their father. Their children are not circumcised, like those of the Jews, at eight days old, but at eleven or twelve, and sometimes at fourteen or fifteen years of age, when they are able to make a profession of their faith. When any renegade Christian is circumcised, two basins are usually carried after him, to gather the alms which the spectators freely give. Those who are uncircumcised, whether Turkish children or Christians, are not allowed to be present at their public prayers; and if they are taken in their mosques, they are liable to be impaled or burnt.

The fast of Ramadan is observed by the Turks exactly in the same manner as by the Persians. The feast of Bairam begins with the next new moon after that fast, and is published by firing of guns, bonfires, and other rejoicings. At this feast the houses and shops are adorned with their finest hangings, tapestries, and sofas. In the streets are swings ́ornamented with festoons, in which the people sit, and are tossed in the air, while they are at the same time entertained with vocal and instrumental music performed by persons hired by the masters of the swings. 'They have also fireworks; and, during the three days of this festival, many women, who are in a manner confined the rest of the year, have liberty to walk abroad. At this time they forgive their enemies, and become reconciled to them; for they think they have made a bad bairam, if they harbour the least malice in their hearts against any person whatsoever. This is termed the Great Bairam, to distinguish it from the Little Bairam, which they keep seventy days after. They have also several other festivals, on all which the steeples of the mosques are adorned with lamps placed in variour figures. They regularly pray three times a day, and are obliged to wash before their prayers, as well as before they presume to touch the Koran. As they make great use of their fingers in eating, they are required to wash after every meal, and the more cleanly among them do it before meals. After every kind of defilement, in fact, ablution is enjoined.

By the Mahometan law a man may divorce his wife twice, and if he afterwards repents, he may lawfully take her again; but Mahomet, to prevent his followers from divorcing their wives upon every slight occasion, or merely from an inconstant humour, ordained, that if any man divorces his wife a third time, it is not lawful for him to take her again, till she has been married and bedded by another, and divorced from that husband. The Koran allows no man to have more than four wives and concubines, but the prophet and his successors are laid under no restriction. Church government, by the institutions of Mahomet, appears to have centered in the mufti, and the order of the moulahs, from which the mufti must be chosen. The moulahs have been looked upon as ecclesiastics, and the mufti as their head; but the Turks consider the first rather as expounders of the law, and the latter as the great law officers. Those who really act as divines are the imaums, or parish priests, who officiate in, and are set aside for the service of the mosques. No church revenues are appropriated to the particular use of the moulahs; the imaums are the ecclesiastics in immediate pay. Their scheiks are the chiefs of their dervises (dervishes), or monks, and form religious communities, or orders, established on solemn vows; they consecrate themselves merely to religious offices, domestic devotion, and public prayer and preaching; there are four of these orders, the Bektoshi, Mevelevi, Kadri, and Seyah

who are very numerous throughout the empire. The Mevelevi, in their acts of devotion, turn round with velocity for two or three hours incessantly. They are passionately fond of music, particularly a flute formed of an Indian reed; they live in their monastery; profess poverty and humility'; entertain kindly all strangers, of whatever religion, who visit them; and receive alms. They sometimes even offer to wash the feet of a Mussulman. The Kadri express their devotion by lacerating their bodies; they walk the streets almost naked, with distracted and wild looks; they hold their hands joined together, as if in the act of prayer, except when they perform their religious dances, which they continue many hours, and sometimes the whole day, repeating incessantly, Hu! hu! hu! hu! one of their names of the deity, until at last, as if they were in a violent rage or phrensy, they fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth, and every part of their body bathed in sweat. The Seyahs, like the Indian fakiers, are little better than mere vagabonds.

The Turks appropriate to themselves the name of Moslemim, which has been corrupted into Mussulman, signifying persons professing the doctrine of Mahomet. They also term themselves Sonnites, or observers of the oral traditions of Mahomet and his three successors; and likewise call themselves True Believers, in opposition to the Persians and others, the adherents of Ali, whom they call a wicked and abominable sect. Their rule of faith and practice is the Koran. Some externals of their religion, besides the prescribed ablutions, are prayers, which are to be said five times every twenty-four hours, with the face turned towards Mecca, and alms, which are both enjoined and voluntary; the former consists of paying two and a half per cent. to charitable uses out of their whole income. Their feasts have been already spoken of; and every Mahometan must, at least, once in his lifetime, go in pilgrimage, either personally or by proxy, to the Caaba, or house of God at Mecca.

THE HISTORY OF INDIA.

As the Hindus (or Hindoos), never had any historical writings, all tne information to be obtained respecting the original inhabitants of India, is gleaned from popular poems or the accounts of foreigners. How vague and unsatisfactory such accounts always are, and how mixed with fab ulous invention, the result of all researches in such labyrinths most abundantly proves; we shall, therefore, make but a brief analysis of it Under the name of India the ancients included no more than the penin sula on this side the Ganges, and the peninsula beyond it, having little or no knowledge of the countries which lie farther eastward. By whom these countries were originally peopled, is a question which has given rise to much speculation, but which, in all probability, will never be solved. Certain it is, that some works in these parts discover marks of astonishing skill and power in the inhabitants; such as the images in the island of Elephanta, the observatory at Benares, and many others. These stupendous works are, by Bryant, attributed to the Cushites or Babylonians; and it is possible that the subjects of Nimrod, the beginning of whose kingdom was in Shinar, might extend themselves in this direction, and thus fill the fertile regions of the east with inhabitants, before they