Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VIII

A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the martial
activity of Ali; but in a mature age, after a long experience of
mankind, he still betrayed in his conduct the rashness and
indiscretion of youth. 1732 In the first days of his reign, he
neglected to secure, either by gifts or fetters, the doubtful
allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of the most powerful of the
Arabian chiefs. They escaped from Medina to Mecca, and from
thence to Bassora; erected the standard of revolt; and usurped
the government of Irak, or Assyria, which they had vainly
solicited as the reward of their services. The mask of patriotism
is allowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies; and the
enemies, perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance
for his blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha,
the widow of the prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her
life, an implacable hatred against the husband and the posterity
of Fatima. The most reasonable Moslems were scandalized, that the
mother of the faithful should expose in a camp her person and
character; 1733 but the superstitious crowd was confident that
her presence would sanctify the justice, and assure the success,
of their cause. At the head of twenty thousand of his loyal
Arabs, and nine thousand valiant auxiliaries of Cufa, the caliph
encountered and defeated the superior numbers of the rebels under
the walls of Bassora. 1734 Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir, 1735
were slain in the first battle that stained with civil blood the
arms of the Moslems. 1736 After passing through the ranks to
animate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers
of the field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held
the bridle of her camel, were successively killed or wounded; and
the cage or litter, in which she sat, was stuck with javelins and
darts like the quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive
sustained with firmness the reproaches of the conqueror, and was
speedily dismissed to her proper station at the tomb of Mahomet,
with the respect and tenderness that was still due to the widow
of the apostle. 1737 After this victory, which was styled the Day
of the Camel, Ali marched against a more formidable adversary;
against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed the
title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of
Syria and the interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage
of Thapsacus, the plain of Siffin 174 extends along the western
bank of the Euphrates. On this spacious and level theatre, the
two competitors waged a desultory war of one hundred and ten
days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of
Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five,
thousand soldiers; and the list of the slain was dignified with
the names of five-and-twenty veterans who had fought at Beder
under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest the
lawful caliph displayed a superior character of valor and
humanity. 1741 His troops were strictly enjoined to await the
first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to
respect the bodies of the dead, and the chastity of the female
captives. He generously proposed to save the blood of the Moslems
by a single combat; but his trembling rival declined the
challenge as a sentence of inevitable death. The ranks of the
Syrians were broken by the charge of a hero who was mounted on a
piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible force his ponderous
and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted the
Allah Acbar, “God is victorious!” and in the tumult of a
nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that
tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already meditated
his flight; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp
of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their
conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of the
Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances; and Ali was
compelled to yield to a disgraceful truce and an insidious
compromise. He retreated with sorrow and indignation to Cufa; his
party was discouraged; the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen,
and of Egypt, were subdued or seduced by his crafty rival; and
the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed against the three
chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of Mahomet. In
the temple of Mecca, three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed
of the disorders of the church and state: they soon agreed, that
the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the
viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion.
Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger,
devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action.
Their resolution was equally desperate: but the first mistook the
person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his seat;
the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; the
lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from
the hand of the third. He expired in the sixty-third year of his
age, and mercifully recommended to his children, that they would
despatch the murderer by a single stroke. 1742 The sepulchre of
Ali 175 was concealed from the tyrants of the house of Ommiyah;
176 but in the fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a
city, arose near the ruins of Cufa. 177 Many thousands of the
Shiites repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God;
and the desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of
the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than
the pilgrimage of Mecca.

1732 (return) [ Ali had determined to supersede all the
lieutenants in the different provinces. Price, p. 191. Compare,
on the conduct of Telha and Zobeir, p. 193—M.]

1733 (return) [ See the very curious circumstances which took
place before and during her flight. Price, p. 196.—M.]

1734 (return) [ The reluctance of Ali to shed the blood of true
believers is strikingly described by Major Price’s Persian
historians. Price, p. 222.—M.]

1735 (return) [ See (in Price) the singular adventures of Zobeir.
He was murdered after having abandoned the army of the
insurgents. Telha was about to do the same, when his leg was
pierced with an arrow by one of his own party The wound was
mortal. Price, p. 222.—M.]

1736 (return) [ According to Price, two hundred and eighty of the
Benni Beianziel alone lost a right hand in this service, (p.
225.)—M]

1737 (return) [ She was escorted by a guard of females disguised
as soldiers. When she discovered this, Ayesha was as much
gratified by the delicacy of the arrangement, as she had been
offended by the familiar approach of so many men. Price, p.
229.—M.]

174 (return) [ The plain of Siffin is determined by D’Anville
(l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 29) to be the Campus Barbaricus of
Procopius.]

1741 (return) [ The Shiite authors have preserved a noble
instance of Ali’s magnanimity. The superior generalship of
Moawiyah had cut off the army of Ali from the Euphrates; his
soldiers were perishing from want of water. Ali sent a message to
his rival to request free access to the river, declaring that
under the same circumstances he would not allow any of the
faithful, though his adversaries, to perish from thirst. After
some debate, Moawiyah determined to avail himself of the
advantage of his situation, and to reject the demand of Ali. The
soldiers of Ali became desperate; forced their way through that
part of the hostile army which commanded the river, and in their
turn entirely cut off the troops of Moawiyah from the water.
Moawiyah was reduced to make the same supplication to Ali. The
generous caliph instantly complied; and both armies, with their
cattle enjoyed free and unmolested access to the river. Price,
vol. i. p. 268, 272—M.]

1742 (return) [ His son Hassan was recognized as caliph in Arabia
and Irak; but voluntarily abdicated the throne, after six or
seven months, in favor of Moawiyah St. Martin, vol. xi. p
375.—M.]

175 (return) [ Abulfeda, a moderate Sonnite, relates the
different opinions concerning the burial of Ali, but adopts the
sepulchre of Cufa, hodie fama numeroque religiose frequentantium
celebratum. This number is reckoned by Niebuhr to amount annually
to 2000 of the dead, and 5000 of the living, (tom. ii. p. 208,
209.)]

176 (return) [ All the tyrants of Persia, from Adhad el Dowlat
(A.D. 977, D’Herbelot, p. 58, 59, 95) to Nadir Shah, (A.D. 1743,
Hist. de Nadir Shah, tom. ii. p. 155,) have enriched the tomb of
Ali with the spoils of the people. The dome is copper, with a
bright and massy gilding, which glitters to the sun at the
distance of many a mile.]

177 (return) [ The city of Meshed Ali, five or six miles from the
ruins of Cufa, and one hundred and twenty to the south of Bagdad,
is of the size and form of the modern Jerusalem. Meshed Hosein,
larger and more populous, is at the distance of thirty miles.]

The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his
children; and the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads
of his religion and empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had
been fierce and obstinate; his conversion was tardy and
reluctant; his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest;
he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and the sins of the
time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits of the
family of Ommiyah. Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the
cruel Henda, was dignified, in his early youth, with the office
or title of secretary of the prophet: the judgment of Omar
intrusted him with the government of Syria; and he administered
that important province above forty years, either in a
subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of valor
and liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity and
moderation: a grateful people was attached to their benefactor;
and the victorious Moslems were enriched with the spoils of
Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of
Othman was the engine and pretence of his ambition. The bloody
shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the
emir deplored the fate of his injured kinsman; and sixty thousand
Syrians were engaged in his service by an oath of fidelity and
revenge. Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the
first who saluted the new monarch, and divulged the dangerous
secret, that the Arabian caliphs might be created elsewhere than
in the city of the prophet. 178 The policy of Moawiyah eluded the
valor of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he negotiated
the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was either above or
below the government of the world, and who retired without a sigh
from the palace of Cufa to an humble cell near the tomb of his
grandfather. The aspiring wishes of the caliph were finally
crowned by the important change of an elective to an hereditary
kingdom. Some murmurs of freedom or fanaticism attested the
reluctance of the Arabs, and four citizens of Medina refused the
oath of fidelity; but the designs of Moawiyah were conducted with
vigor and address; and his son Yezid, a feeble and dissolute
youth, was proclaimed as the commander of the faithful and the
successor of the apostle of God.

178 (return) [ I borrow, on this occasion, the strong sense and
expression of Tacitus, (Hist. i. 4: ) Evulgato imperii arcano
posse imperatorem alni quam Romae fieri.]

A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the sons
of Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently dropped a
dish of scalding broth on his master: the heedless wretch fell
prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and repeated a verse of
the Koran: “Paradise is for those who command their anger: “—“I
am not angry: “—“and for those who pardon offences: “—“I pardon
your offence: “—“and for those who return good for evil: “—”I
give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver.” With an
equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan,
inherited a remnant of his father’s spirit, and served with honor
against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople. The
primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy character of
grandson of the apostle, had centred in his person, and he was at
liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant of
Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never
deigned to acknowledge. A list was secretly transmitted from Cufa
to Medina, of one hundred and forty thousand Moslems, who
professed their attachment to his cause, and who were eager to
draw their swords so soon as he should appear on the banks of the
Euphrates. Against the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved
to trust his person and family in the hands of a perfidious
people. He traversed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue
of women and children; but as he approached the confines of Irak
he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country,
and suspected either the defection or ruin of his party. His
fears were just: Obeidollah, the governor of Cufa, had
extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hosein, in
the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of five thousand
horse, who intercepted his communication with the city and the
river. He might still have escaped to a fortress in the desert,
that had defied the power of Caesar and Chosroes, and confided in
the fidelity of the tribe of Tai, which would have armed ten
thousand warriors in his defence.

In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the
option of three honorable conditions: that he should be allowed
to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison
against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid.
But the commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and
absolute; and Hosein was informed that he must either submit as a
captive and a criminal to the commander of the faithful, or
expect the consequences of his rebellion. “Do you think,” replied
he, “to terrify me with death?” And, during the short respite of
a night, 1781 he prepared with calm and solemn resignation to
encounter his fate. He checked the lamentations of his sister
Fatima, who deplored the impending ruin of his house. “Our
trust,” said Hosein, “is in God alone. All things, both in heaven
and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother,
my father, my mother, were better than me, and every Mussulman
has an example in the prophet.” He pressed his friends to consult
their safety by a timely flight: they unanimously refused to
desert or survive their beloved master: and their courage was
fortified by a fervent prayer and the assurance of paradise. On
the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on horseback, with his
sword in one hand and the Koran in the other: his generous band
of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty foot; but
their flanks and rear were secured by the tent-ropes, and by a
deep trench which they had filled with lighted fagots, according
to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance,
and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to claim
the partnership of inevitable death. In every close onset, or
single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but
the surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with a
cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain;
a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the
battle at length expired by the death of the last companions of
Hosein. Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at the door
of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the
mouth with a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths,
were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they were
full of blood; and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and
the dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the
tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians, that he would not
suffer Hosein to be murdered before his eyes: a tear trickled
down his venerable beard; and the boldest of his soldiers fell
back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them.
The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful,
reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain
with three-and-thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they
had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of
Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a
cane: “Alas,” exclaimed an aged Mussulman, “on these lips have I
seen the lips of the apostle of God!” In a distant age and
climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the
sympathy of the coldest reader. 179 1791 On the annual festival
of his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his
Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of
sorrow and indignation. 180

1781 (return) [ According to Major Price’s authorities a much
longer time elapsed (p. 198 &c.)—M.]

179 (return) [ I have abridged the interesting narrative of
Ockley, (tom. ii. p. 170-231.) It is long and minute: but the
pathetic, almost always, consists in the detail of little
circumstances.]

1791 (return) [ The account of Hosein’s death, in the Persian
Tarikh Tebry, is much longer; in some circumstances, more
pathetic, than that of Ockley, followed by Gibbon. His family,
after his defenders were all slain, perished in succession before
his eyes. They had been cut off from the water, and suffered all
the agonies of thirst. His eldest son, Ally Akbar, after ten
different assaults on the enemy, in each of which he slew two or
three, complained bitterly of his sufferings from heat and
thirst. “His father arose, and introducing his own tongue within
the parched lips of his favorite child, thus endeavored to
alleviate his sufferings by the only means of which his enemies
had not yet been able to deprive him.” Ally was slain and cut to
pieces in his sight: this wrung from him his first and only cry;
then it was that his sister Zeyneb rushed from the tent. The
rest, including his nephew, fell in succession. Hosein’s horse
was wounded—he fell to the ground. The hour of prayer, between
noon and sunset, had arrived; the Imaun began the religious
duties:—as Hosein prayed, he heard the cries of his infant child
Abdallah, only twelve months old. The child was, at his desire,
placed on his bosom: as he wept over it, it was transfixed by an
arrow. Hosein dragged himself to the Euphrates: as he slaked his
burning thirst, his mouth was pierced by an arrow: he drank his
own blood. Wounded in four-and-thirty places, he still gallantly
resisted. A soldier named Zeraiah gave the fatal wound: his head
was cut off by Ziliousheng. Price, p. 402, 410.—M.]

180 (return) [ Niebuhr the Dane (Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii.
p. 208, &c.) is, perhaps, the only European traveller who has
dared to visit Meshed Ali and Meshed Hosein. The two sepulchres
are in the hands of the Turks, who tolerate and tax the devotion
of the Persian heretics. The festival of the death of Hosein is
amply described by Sir John Chardin, a traveller whom I have
often praised.]

When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in chains to
the throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to extirpate the
enmity of a popular and hostile race, whom he had injured beyond
the hope of reconciliation. But Yezid preferred the councils of
mercy; and the mourning family was honorably dismissed to mingle
their tears with their kindred at Medina. The glory of martyrdom
superseded the right of primogeniture; and the twelve imams, 181
or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and
the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without
arms, or treasures, or subjects, they successively enjoyed the
veneration of the people, and provoked the jealousy of the
reigning caliphs: their tombs, at Mecca or Medina, on the banks
of the Euphrates, or in the province of Chorasan, are still
visited by the devotion of their sect. Their names were often the
pretence of sedition and civil war; but these royal saints
despised the pomp of the world: submitted to the will of God and
the injustice of man; and devoted their innocent lives to the
study and practice of religion. The twelfth and last of the
Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or the Guide,
surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He
concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the time and place of
his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend that he still
lives, and will appear before the day of judgment to overthrow
the tyranny of Dejal, or the Antichrist. 182 In the lapse of two
or three centuries, the posterity of Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet,
had multiplied to the number of thirty-three thousand: 183 the
race of Ali might be equally prolific: the meanest individual was
above the first and greatest of princes; and the most eminent
were supposed to excel the perfection of angels. But their
adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the Mussulman empire,
allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful imposture, who
claimed affinity with the holy seed: the sceptre of the
Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites, in Egypt and
Syria; 184 of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the Sophis of Persia;
185 has been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title. Under
their reigns it might be dangerous to dispute the legitimacy of
their birth; and one of the Fatimite caliphs silenced an
indiscreet question by drawing his cimeter: “This,” said Moez,
“is my pedigree; and these,” casting a handful of gold to his
soldiers,—“and these are my kindred and my children.” In the
various conditions of princes, or doctors, or nobles, or
merchants, or beggars, a swarm of the genuine or fictitious
descendants of Mahomet and Ali is honored with the appellation of
sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the Ottoman empire they are
distinguished by a green turban; receive a stipend from the
treasury; are judged only by their chief; and, however debased by
fortune or character, still assert the proud preeminence of their
birth. A family of three hundred persons, the pure and orthodox
branch of the caliph Hassan, is preserved without taint or
suspicion in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and still
retains, after the revolutions of twelve centuries, the custody
of the temple, and the sovereignty of their native land. The fame
and merit of Mahomet would ennoble a plebeian race, and the
ancient blood of the Koreish transcends the recent majesty of the
kings of the earth. 186

181 (return) [ The general article of Imam, in D’Herbelot’s
Bibliotheque, will indicate the succession; and the lives of the
twelve are given under their respective names.]

182 (return) [ The name of Antichrist may seem ridiculous, but
the Mahometans have liberally borrowed the fables of every
religion, (Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 80, 82.) In the royal
stable of Ispahan, two horses were always kept saddled, one for
the Mahadi himself, the other for his lieutenant, Jesus the son
of Mary.]

183 (return) [ In the year of the Hegira 200, (A.D. 815.) See
D’Herbelot, p. 146]

184 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 342. The enemies of the Fatimites
disgraced them by a Jewish origin. Yet they accurately deduced
their genealogy from Jaafar, the sixth Imam; and the impartial
Abulfeda allows (Annal. Moslem. p. 230) that they were owned by
many, qui absque controversia genuini sunt Alidarum, homines
propaginum suae gentis exacte callentes. He quotes some lines
from the celebrated Scherif or Rahdi, Egone humilitatem induam in
terris hostium? (I suspect him to be an Edrissite of Sicily,) cum
in Aegypto sit Chalifa de gente Alii, quocum ego communem habeo
patrem et vindicem.]

185 (return) [ The kings of Persia in the last century are
descended from Sheik Sefi, a saint of the xivth century, and
through him, from Moussa Cassem, the son of Hosein, the son of
Ali, (Olearius, p. 957. Chardin, tom. iii. p. 288.) But I cannot
trace the intermediate degrees in any genuine or fabulous
pedigree. If they were truly Fatimites, they might draw their
origin from the princes of Mazanderan, who reigned in the ixth
century, (D’Herbelot, p. 96.)]

186 (return) [ The present state of the family of Mahomet and Ali
is most accurately described by Demetrius Cantemir (Hist. of the
Othmae Empire, p. 94) and Niebuhr, (Description de l’Arabie, p.
9-16, 317 &c.) It is much to be lamented, that the Danish
traveller was unable to purchase the chronicles of Arabia.]

The talents of Mahomet are entitled to our applause; but his
success has, perhaps, too strongly attracted our admiration. Are
we surprised that a multitude of proselytes should embrace the
doctrine and the passions of an eloquent fanatic? In the heresies
of the church, the same seduction has been tried and repeated
from the time of the apostles to that of the reformers. Does it
seem incredible that a private citizen should grasp the sword and
the sceptre, subdue his native country, and erect a monarchy by
his victorious arms? In the moving picture of the dynasties of
the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a baser
origin, surmounted more formidable obstacles, and filled a larger
scope of empire and conquest. Mahomet was alike instructed to
preach and to fight; and the union of these opposite qualities,
while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success: the
operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear,
continually acted on each other, till every barrier yielded to
their irresistible power. His voice invited the Arabs to freedom
and victory, to arms and rapine, to the indulgence of their
darling passions in this world and the other: the restraints
which he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of the
prophet, and to exercise the obedience of the people; and the
only objection to his success was his rational creed of the unity
and perfections of God. It is not the propagation, but the
permanency, of his religion, that deserves our wonder: the same
pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and
Medina, is preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries,
by the Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the
Koran. If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could
return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of
the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that
magnificent temple: at Oxford or Geneva, they would experience
less surprise; but it might still be incumbent on them to peruse
the catechism of the church, and to study the orthodox
commentators on their own writings and the words of their Master.
But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendor
and size, represents the humble tabernacle erected at Medina by
the hands of Mahomet. The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the
temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to
a level with the senses and imagination of man. “I believe in one
God, and Mahomet the apostle of God,” is the simple and
invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the
Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of
the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue;
and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his
disciples within the bounds of reason and religion. The votaries
of Ali have, indeed, consecrated the memory of their hero, his
wife, and his children; and some of the Persian doctors pretend
that the divine essence was incarnate in the person of the Imams;
but their superstition is universally condemned by the Sonnites;
and their impiety has afforded a seasonable warning against the
worship of saints and martyrs. The metaphysical questions on the
attributes of God, and the liberty of man, have been agitated in
the schools of the Mahometans, as well as in those of the
Christians; but among the former they have never engaged the
passions of the people, or disturbed the tranquillity of the
state. The cause of this important difference may be found in the
separation or union of the regal and sacerdotal characters. It
was the interest of the caliphs, the successors of the prophet
and commanders of the faithful, to repress and discourage all
religious innovations: the order, the discipline, the temporal
and spiritual ambition of the clergy, are unknown to the Moslems;
and the sages of the law are the guides of their conscience and
the oracles of their faith. From the Atlantic to the Ganges, the
Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of
theology, but of civil and criminal jurisprudence; and the laws
which regulate the actions and the property of mankind are
guarded by the infallible and immutable sanction of the will of
God. This religious servitude is attended with some practical
disadvantage; the illiterate legislator had been often misled by
his own prejudices and those of his country; and the institutions
of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to the wealth and
numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On these occasions, the
Cadhi respectfully places on his head the holy volume, and
substitutes a dexterous interpretation more apposite to the
principles of equity, and the manners and policy of the times.

His beneficial or pernicious influence on the public happiness is
the last consideration in the character of Mahomet. The most
bitter or most bigoted of his Christian or Jewish foes will
surely allow that he assumed a false commission to inculcate a
salutary doctrine, less perfect only than their own. He piously
supposed, as the basis of his religion, the truth and sanctity of
their prior revolutions, the virtues and miracles of their
founders. The idols of Arabia were broken before the throne of
God; the blood of human victims was expiated by prayer, and
fasting, and alms, the laudable or innocent arts of devotion; and
his rewards and punishments of a future life were painted by the
images most congenial to an ignorant and carnal generation.
Mahomet was, perhaps, incapable of dictating a moral and
political system for the use of his countrymen: but he breathed
among the faithful a spirit of charity and friendship;
recommended the practice of the social virtues; and checked, by
his laws and precepts, the thirst of revenge, and the oppression
of widows and orphans. The hostile tribes were united in faith
and obedience, and the valor which had been idly spent in
domestic quarrels was vigorously directed against a foreign
enemy. Had the impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home
and formidable abroad, might have flourished under a succession
of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was lost by the extent
and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were
scattered over the East and West, and their blood was mingled
with the blood of their converts and captives. After the reign of
three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina to the
valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris; the holy cities
were violated by impious war; Arabia was ruled by the rod of a
subject, perhaps of a stranger; and the Bedoweens of the desert,
awakening from their dream of dominion, resumed their old and
solitary independence. 187

187 (return) [ The writers of the Modern Universal History (vols.
i. and ii.) have compiled, in 850 folio pages, the life of
Mahomet and the annals of the caliphs. They enjoyed the advantage
of reading, and sometimes correcting, the Arabic text; yet,
notwithstanding their high-sounding boasts, I cannot find, after
the conclusion of my work, that they have afforded me much (if
any) additional information. The dull mass is not quickened by a
spark of philosophy or taste; and the compilers indulge the
criticism of acrimonious bigotry against Boulainvilliers, Sale,
Gagnier, and all who have treated Mahomet with favor, or even
justice.]