was the fact. The number of his followers gradually increased, so that in five years, from the commencement of his mission, his party amounted to about forty persons.

Those who regarded his pretences with incredulity, continually annoyed and disconcerted him with demands to prove the truth of his mission by working miracles. He spoke of Moses and Jesus. "They," said his hearers," and other prophets, as you tell us, wrought miracles to prove that they were sent of God. If thou be a prophet, and greater than any that were before thee, as thou boastest, let us see a miracle from thee also. Do thou make the dead to rise, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear; or else cause fountains to spring out of the earth, and make this place a garden adorned with vines and palm trees, and watered with rivers running through it in divers channels; or do thou make thee a house of gold beautified with jewels and costly furniture; or let us see the book which thou allegest to have come down from heaven, or the angel which thou sayest brings it unto thee, and we will believe." This natural and not unreasonable demand, he had several ways of evadgin, as we learn from the Koran. At one time, he tells them, he is only a man sent to preach to them the rewards of paradise and the punishments of hell. "The infidels say, unless a sign be sent unto him from his Lord, we will not believe. Thou art commissioned to be a preacher only, and not a worker of miracles." "* "Answer, Signs are in the power of God alone; and I am no more than a public preacher. Is it not sufficient for

* Ch. xiii.

pro

them that we have sent down unto thee the book of the Koran, to be read unto them ?"* "We sent not our messengers otherwise than bearing good tidings and denouncing threats. Say, I say not unto you, The treasures of God are in my power: neither do I say, I know the secrets of God: neither do I say unto you, Verily I am an angel: I follow only that which is revealed unto me." At another time he reminds them, that their predecessors had despised the miracles of the former phets, and for this reason God would work no more among them. Again, that those whom God had ordained to believe, should believe without miracles, while the hapless non-elect, to whom he had not decreed the gift of faith, would not believe though ever so many miracles were wrought before them. "And though we had sent down angels unto them, and the dead had spoken unto them, they would not have believed, unless God had so pleased." "If their aversion to thy admonitions be grievous unto thee, if thou canst seek a den whereby thou mayest penetrate into the inward parts of the earth, or a ladder by which thou mayest ascend into heaven, that thou mayest show them a sign, do so, but thy search will be fruitless; for if God pleased he would bring them all to the true direction."§ At a later period, when he was at Medina at the head of an army, he had a more summary way of solving all difficulties arising from this source, for his doctrine then was, that God had formerly sent Moses and Jesus with the power of working miracles, and yet men would not believe, and therefore he had now sent him, a prophet of another order,

* Ch. xiii. + Chap. vi.

+ Chap. vi.

§ Ibid.

commissioned to enforce belief by the power of the sword. The sword accordingly was to be the true seal of his apostleship, and the remark of Gibbon is equally just and striking, that "Mahomet with the sword in one hand, and the Koran in the other, erected his throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome."

CHAPTER V.

The miracles to which Mahomet laid claim.-Intercourse with Gabriel.-The composition of the Koran.-Mode in which it was revealed.-Specimens of its denunciations on his persecutors.-Miracle of the splitting of the moon.-Mahomet's nocturnal journey.-Affinity of some of its circumstances with Rabbinical fables.-Effect produced by relating it.-Death of Abu Taleb and of Kadijah.-Mahomet's temporary withdrawment from Mecca.-Return and marriage with Ayesha and Sawda.

ALTHOUGH by these artifices Mahomet succeeded in satisfying his friends, that the demand for miracles in support of his pretensions, was an unreasonable one, and would not be gratified, nothing could prevent or conceal his mortification that it was so repeatedly urged. He probably felt that it was both natural and just; and hence, though he could not invent the wonders for which his enemies were so urgent, he had recourse to miraculous agency of another kind, as supporting his claims. His converse with the angel Gabriel was of this character-a miracle which he affected to consider sufficient to convince gainsayers; and the composition of the Koran he continually urges as a most complete proof of his divine mission. Its original, or archetype, he taught, was laid up from

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everlasting in the archives of heaven, being written on what he termed the preserved table, near to the throne of God, from which the series of chapters communicated by Gabriel were a transcript. "If," he says, "ye be in doubt concerning the revelation which we have sent down unto our servant, produce a chapter like unto it, and call upon your witnesses, besides God, if ye say the truth." 66 Say, verily, if men and genii were purposely assembled, that they might produce a book like this Koran, they could not produce one like it, although the one of them assisted the other.” + Will they say, he hath forged the Koran? Bring, therefore, ten chapters like unto it, forged by yourselves, and call on whomsoever ye may to assist you." The infatuation of the Meccans in rejecting this inestimable "admonition," stamped as it was with the evident impress of the divinity, he hesitates not to ascribe to the effect of a fearful judicial obstinacy, such as the Jewish prophets frequently threaten against the perverse nation of Israel. "If we had revealed the Koran in a foreign language, they had surely said, Unless the signs thereof be distinctly explained, we will not receive the same: Answer, It is unto those who believe a sure guide and a remedy; but unto those who believe not, it is a thickness of hearing in their ears, and it is a darkness which covereth them."§ "As for the unbelievers, it will be equal. unto them whether thou admonish them or do not admonish them; they will not believe. God hath sealed up their hearts and their hearing; a dimness covereth their sight, and they shall suffer a § Ch, xli.

* Ch. ii. + Ch. xvii. † Ch. xi.

grievous punishment.” "There is of them who hearkeneth unto thee when thou readest the Koran; but we have cast veils over their hearts, that they should not understand it, and a deafness in their ears; and though they should see all kinds of signs, they will not believe therein; and their infidelity will arrive to that height, that they will even come unto thee to dispute with thee."

The master-stroke of Mahomet's policy, in regard to this volume, is seen in the manner of its revelation. It was made known gradually and by piecemeal. "The unbelievers say, unless the Koran be sent down to him entire at once, we will not believe. But in this manner have we revealed it, that we might confirm thy heart thereby, and we have dictated it gradually by distinct parcels." Had the whole volume been published at once, so that a rigid examination could have been instituted into its contents as a whole, and the different parts brought into comparison with each other, glaring inconsistencies would have been easily detected, and objections urged which it would probably have been found impossible to answer. But by pretending to receive his oracles in separate portions, at different times, according as his own exigencies or those of his followers required, he had a ready way of silencing all cavils, and extricating himself with credit, from every difficulty, as nothing forbade the message or mandate of to-day being modified or abrogated by that of tomorrow. In this manner, twenty-three years elapsed before the whole chain of revelations was completed, though the prophet informed his disciples, that he had the consolation of seeing the entire Koran, bound in silk and adorned with gold