God had already given you the victory at Beder, when ye were inferior in numbers; therefore, fear God, that ye may be thankful. When thou saidst unto the faithful, Is it not enough for you, that your Lord should assist you with three thousand angels, sent down from Heaven. Verily, if ye persevere, and fear God, and your enemies come upon you suddenly, your Lord will assist you with five thousand angels, distinguished by their horses and attire."*

The vindictive spirit of the prophet was strikingly evinced not long after this event by the assassination of Caab, the son of Al-Ashraf, a Jew. This nian, having a genius for poetry, and being inveterately opposed to Mohammed, went to Mecca after the battle of Beder, and with a view to excite the Koreish to revenge, deplored in touching verses the unhappy fate of those of their brethren who had fallen while valiantly resisting a renegade prophet, with his band of marauders. He afterward returned to Medina, and had the hardihood to recite his poems to the people within the walls of that city. Mohammed was so exceedingly provoked by the audacity of the poet, who must, indeed, have been possessed of the highest phrensy of his tribe to promise himself impunity in these circumstances, that he exclaimed, "Who will deliver me from the son of Al-Ashraf?" A certain namesake of the prophet, Mohammed, the son of Mosalama, a ready tool of his master, replied, "I, O prophet of God, will rid you of him." Caab was soon after murdered while entertaining one of the apostle's fol lowers.

Koran, ch. iii.

CHAPTER X.

Mohammed alters the Kebla-Many of his Followers greatly offended thereby-Mohammedan Institution of Prayer-Appoints the Fast of Ramadan-Account of this Ordinance.

On the second year of the Hejira, Mohammed altered the Kebla for his disciples, that is, the point of the compass towards which they were to direct their prayers. It was usual among the votaries of all the religions of the East to observe some particular point in the heavens towards which they turned their faces when they prayed. The Jews, in whatever part of the world they chanced to be, prayed with their faces towards Jerusalem, the seat of their sacred temple; the Arabians, towards Mecca, because there was the Caaba, the centre of their worship; the Sabians, towards the North Star; the Persians, who deified fire and light, to wards the East, where the Sun, the fountain of Light, arose. "Every sect," says the Koran, "have a certain tract of heaven to which they turn themselves in prayer."* Mohammed, when he first arrived in Medina, deeming the particular point itself a matter of perfect indifference, and with a view probably to ingratiate himself with the Jews, directed his disciples to pray towards Jerusalem, which he used to call the Holy City, the City of

* Koran, ch. ii.

the Prophets, and which he, at one time, intended to have made the grand seat of his worship, and the place of pilgrimage to his followers. But finding the Jews too intractable, or that his other converts still retained a superstitious regard for the temple of Mecca, for so many ages the place of idolatrous resort, and thinking it would tend to conciliate the inhabitants of that city, if he kept up the sanctity of their temple, he, at the end of six or seven months, repealed his former law regulating the Kebla, and thenceforward required all the faithful to offer their supplications with their faces directed towards Mecca. Though not now in actual possession of that city, yet anticipating the time when it would be in the hands of Moslem masters, he fixed upon it as the future" holy city" of his followers. "From what place soever thou comest forth, turn thy face towards the holy temple; and wherever ye be, thitherward turn your faces, lest men have matter of dispute against you." This change was indeed an offence to many of his disciples, from its indicating a singular degree of fickleness in a professed prophet, and large numbers accordingly forsook him altogether on account of it. But his growing aversion to the Jews made him steadfast in the present alteration, to which he thus alludes in the Koran: "The foolish men will say, What hath turned them from their Kebla towards which they formerly prayed? Say, Unto God belongeth the East and the West: he directeth whom he pleaseth in the right way." "We

have seen thee turn about thy face towards heaven with uncertainty; but we will cause thee to turn thyself towards a Kebla that will please thee. Turn therefore thy face towards the holy temple of Mecca; and, wherever ye be, turn your faces towards that place." "Verily, although thou shouldst show unto those to whom the Scripture hath been given all kinds of signs, yet they will not follow thy Kebla, neither shalt thou follow their Kebla; nor will one part of them follow the Kebla of the other." The bearing or situation of Mecca, with its holy temple, from any particular region of the Mohammedan world, is pointed out within their mosques by a niche, which governs the direction of their faces; and without, by the situation of the . doors which open into the galleries of the minarets. There are also tables calculated for the purpose of readily finding out their Kebla, when they have no other means of ascertaining the right direction.

No duty enjoined by the Mohammedan creed is more prominent than that of prayer. The prophet himself used to call prayer "the pillar of religion and the key of paradise," and to say that there could be no good' in that religion which dispensed with it. He therefore prescribed to his followers five stated seasons in the space of twenty-four hours for the performance of their devotions. 1. In the morning, between daybreak and sunrise. 2. Just after noon, when the sun begins to decline from the meridian. 3. At the middle hour between

noon and sunset. 4. Between sunset and dark. 5. An hour and a half after night has fully closed in. At these times, of which public notice is given by the muezzins, or criers, from the galleries of the minarets attached to the mosques-for the Mohammedans use no bells-every conscientious Moslem engages in this solemn duty, either in a mosque, or by spreading his handkerchief, and kneeling in any clean place upon the ground. Such extreme sacredness do they attach to this part of worship, and with such intensity of spirit do, they hold themselves bound to attend upon it, that the most pressing emergency, the bursting out of a fire in their chamber, or the sudden irruption of an armed enemy into their gates or camps is not considered a sufficient warrant for their abruptly breaking off their prayers. Nay, the very act of coughing, spitting, sneezing, or rubbing their skin in consequence of a fly-bite, in the midst of their prayers, renders all the past null and void, and obliges them to begin their devotions anew. the act of prayer they make use of a great variety of postures and gestures, such as putting their hands one on the other before them, bending their body, kneeling, touching the ground with their foreheads, moving the head from side to side, and several others, among which it is impossible to distinguish those enjoined by Mohammed himself from those which were common among the ancient Arab tribes before he arose. Still it is affirmed by travellers, that, notwithstanding the scrupulous preciseness of the Moslem devotions, no people

In