proof of our main position, but conveys also an intimation of the future in-gathering of the Mohammedan nations into the Christian Church. The same Prophet, in another part of his predictions, notices "the cities of the wilderness, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit." And again, when denouncing impending calamity upon the land of Arabia, he foretells how "all the glory of Kedar shall fail;" he employs the name of this single tribe as synonymous with that of the entire peninsula. In this connexion the words of the Psalmist may be cited: "Wo is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar." These words are supposed by some of the Jewish commentators to have been written by David, under the influence of inspiration, as the prophetic plaint of the Christian Church, labouring and groaning, as it has sometimes done, under the yoke of Mohammedan oppression. In Jeremiah, also, we find mention of Kedar. He speaks of it as "the wealthy nation that dwelleth without care, which have neither gates nor bars, which dwell alone." Ezekiel, moreover, prophesies conjointly of "Arabia and all the princes of Kedar." An allusion to Tema, the ninth son of Ishmael, as the name of a warlike people of Arabia, occurs as early as in the book of Job: "The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them." Lastly, the tribes sprung from Jetur and Naphish, the tenth and eleventh sons of Ishmael, are commemorated in the first book of Chronicles, who are there called Hagarites, from Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, and

of whom a hundred thousand males were taken captives.

When to this mass of Scripture evidence of the descent of the Arabs from Ishmael we add the acknowledged coincidence between the national character of this people in every age, and the predicted personal character of their progenitor-" And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him”—and the fact, that the Ishmaelitish origin of the Arabs has ever been the constant and unvarying tradition of that people themselves, the subject scarcely admits of a more irrefragable proof. There are certainly few landmarks of history more universal or more permanent than the names of countries affixed by original settlers, or flowing from them, and we may as justly question the derivation of Hungary from the Huns, France from the Franks, Turkey from the Turks, or Judea from Judah and the Jews, as those of the several districts of Arabia from the respective sons of Ishmael.*

*The argument in this chapter is condensed from a more ample discussion of the subject in the Appendix to "Forster's Manometanism Unveiled."

CHAPTER II.

Birth and Parentage of Mohammed-Loses his Parents in early Childhood-Is placed under the care of his uncle Abu Taleb-Goes into Syria on a trading expedition with his uncle at the age of thirteenEnters the service of Cadijah, a widow of Mecca, whom he afterward marries.

MOHAMMED, the Legislator of Arabia, the Founder of the Moslem or Mohammedan religion, and thence dignified by himself and by his followers with the title of Prophet and Apostle of God, was born at Mecca, a city of Arabia, A. D. 569.* His lineage, notwithstanding that many of the earlier Christian writers, under the influence of inveterate prejudice against the prophet and his religion, have represented his origin as base and ignoble, is clearly shown to have been honourable and illustrious; at least, when rated by the common standard of distinction among his countrymen. The ancient Arabians, deriving their pedigree from Ishmael, and inheriting the nomadic habits of their ancestor, had from time immemorial been divided into a number of separate independent tribes, roving at large over the immense sandy regions of which their country is composed, except where here and there a few thousands of them were gathered into cities, and engaged in merchandise. Some of these tribes,

*Other authorities place his birth in A. D. 571. The precise year cannot be determined with certainty.

from various causes, were more numerous, powerful, and renowned than others. That of Koreish, from the founder of which Mohammed was in a direct line descended, had long been accounted the most noble of them all, and his ancestors, for several generations, had ranked among the princes of Mecca, and the keepers of the keys of the Caaba,* its sacred temple. His father's name was Abdallah, one of the thirteen sons of Abdol Motalleb, the chief personage in his day among the Koreish, and inheriting from his father Hashem the principal place in the government of Mecca, and succeeding him in the custody of the Caaba. This Hashem, the great-grandfather of Mohammed, was the most distinguished name in all the line of his predecessors, and from him not only is the appellation of Hashemites bestowed upon the kindred of the prophet, but even to this day, the chief magistrate, both at Mecca and Medina, who must always be of the race of Mohammed, is invariably styled "The Prince of the Hashemites." The name of Mohammed's mother was Amina, whose parentage was traceable also to a distinguished family of the same tribe. Her lot was envied in gaining the hand of the son of Abdol Motalleb, as the surpassing beauty of his person is said to have ravished the hearts of a hundred maidens of Arabia, who were left, by his choice of Amina, to sigh over the wreck of their fondest hopes.

Abdallah, though the son of a rich and princely

* See Appendix B.

father, was possessed of but little wealth, and as he died while his son was an infant, or, as some say, before he was born, it is probable that that little was seized with the characteristic rapacity of the Arabs, and shared among his twelve surviving brothers, the powerful uncles of Mohammed. Although the laws of the Koran, in respect to inheritances, promulgated by the prophet himself, breathe more of the spirit of equity and kindness; yet the pagan Arabs, previous to his time, as we learn from Eastern writers, were wont to treat widows and or phans with great injustice, frequently denying them any share in the inheritances of their fathers and husbands, under the pretence that it ought to be distributed among those only who were able to bear arms, and disposing of widows, even against their own consent, as a part of their husband's possessions. The fatherless Mohammed, accordingly, faring like the rest of his countrymen, received, in the distribution of the patrimony, no more than five camels and an Ethiopian female slave.

The Moslem writers, in order to represent the birth of their pretended prophet as equally marvellous with that of Moses or of Christ, the ancient messengers of God who preceded him, have reported a tissue of astonishing prodigies said to have occurred in connexion with that event. If the reader will receive their statements with the same implicit faith with which they seem to be delivered, he must acknowledge, that at the moment when the favoured infant was ushered into the world, a flood of light burst forth with him and illuminated every