there are a thousand matters of a subordinate kind on which every diversity of opinion prevails.

We have not room now to describe their several sects, nor is it necessary. Mr. Sale divides the orthodox Mahometans, or the Sonnites, that is those who receive not only the Koran, but also the traditionary law which has been handed down from the prophet into four distinct parties. (1) The Hanefites, so called from their founder, a man who rather than serve as Kadi or magistrate in the city of Bagdad, ended his days in prison. They are called the followers of reason, probably from their questioning some of the interpretations put upon the prophet's decisions, and abound most among the Turks and Tartars. (2) The followers of Malec Ebn Ans, who is said to have wept that he ever pronounced his own opinion upon any question, the traditions handed down from Mahomet, being, a sufficient guide in every matter of belief and practice. This sect chiefly prevails in Barbary and Africa. (3) The Shafeites, or followers of Shafei, who first reduced the jurisprudence of Mahometans to a method. Shafei was a great enemy to the scholastic interpretations of Mahometan divinity, which had begun to be put forth; and it is related of him that he never confirmed a statement by an oath, deeming it unlawful to swear. A sentiment very much approaching a great practical truth of Christianity is also attributed to him. "Whoever pretends to love the world and its creator at the same time, is a liar."* (4) The followers of Ahmed Ebn

1 John ii. 15.

Hanbal, who was greatly esteemed on account of his virtue and knowledge. It is said that he could repeat nearly a million of the traditions of Mahomet. He maintained that the Koran was uncreated, an eternal essence, subsisting in the very essence of God, for which opinion he was severely scourged and imprisoned by the caliph Motassem. Severe persecutions were instituted at Bagdad against his followers, but the sect could not be extinguished. They have never been numerous.

Of heretical Mahometans the same authority numbers also four leading sects: the Motagalites, the Sefatians, the Kharegites, and the Shiites.

The first denied that God was possessed of eternal attributes, they denied also that his word was uncreated, a doctrine maintained by some of the Mahometans. God himself, they said, was eternal, but he existed without attributes. They denied the doctrines of absolute predestination, and of the safety of every one who has received the faith, whether he continue therein or not. They said also that God can never be seen, even in paradise itself, by the corporeal eye. This sect is subdivided into ten smaller sects. A second heretical sect held the opposite opinions concerning God. He was, in their view, eternal, and all his attributes and operations were also eternal. These also Mr. Sale subdivides into five smaller parties.

The Kharegites have been already mentioned as revolters or rebels. They were so called because they did not adhere to the house of Mahomet when in the person of Ali and his sons it was raised to regal authority. Some of them were remarkably strict in their morals. The Shiites were the opposites of the Kharegites. In their

opinion, regal and ecclesiastical power belonged exclusively to the descendants of the founder of the Moslem faith and dominion. Some of them held peculiar and somewhat loose opinions concerning the future state. Their heaven or paradise was only the pleasures to be enjoyed in this present life; their hell consisted exclusively of its pains, and hence not unfrequently their conduct was grossly immoral. That was right according to them which contributed most to present enjoy

ment.

If the object of these pages were to give a perfect history of Mahometanism, other more modern sects must be added, and a detail of persecution given, which would furnish illustrations in addition to the many we are already familiar with, of the folly of anticipating a uniformity of religious belief, or practice, and condemning, by its results, in no measured terms, the absurdity of inflicting pains and penalties for differences of opinion. Persecution is invariably the result either of ignorance or tyranny.

Some have represented Mahomet as greatly superior to the age in which he lived; and as far surpassing his countrymen in the liberality of his views. In some respects this representation is true, and despite of persecution and ignominy he nobly persevered, as we have seen, in a cause which he deemed sacred; but that he was tolerant, or that, as has been said, "he was distinguished by clemency in the full career of conquest," cannot be admitted. A few passages in the Koran may indeed make bigotry blush. While Mahomet was an humble preacher and reformer, he granted liberty of conscience; but

what ruler, what pretended prophet ever breathed fiercer language of persecution than he. No wars in any age of the world have been so desolating as those which have been conducted under the authority of the Koran; they were all religious wars and as was to be expected, when but little foreign conquest remained to be achieved, the fierce spirits of his followers fell upon each other; nor has the Christian world been subjected, among all its horrors, to one half of the bloodshed and war; or marked by a tithe of the implacable animosity which controversies among Mahometans have occasioned. We are not ignorant of the mischiefs, -the miseries which a political Christianity has produced in almost every civilized nation, but on comparing them with the miseries inflicted, directly or indirectly, by Islamism, we are compelled utterly to repudiate the infidel allegation, that the religion of Jesus Christ has occasioned more cruelty and war in our world than any other cause whatsoever. The history of every age of the Hegira, teems with details of horror. In its prosperity, Mahometanism was the scourge of the nations; and its decline, the representative of its various sects emulated each other in mutual detestation and hatred; they agreed only in a principle of discord; and but that in mercy the Sovereign ruler of the universe restrained its fury, and limited its power, ere now it had rendered the world one vast Aceldama, or field of blood.

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CHAPTER XV.

Literature and science of the Arabs.-Their facilities for literary and scientific pursuits.-Patronage of literature by the princes of the house of Abbas.-Almamoun-Arabian schools. Eloquence. Poetry.-The Arabian tales.-History.-Geography. Speculative sciences. - Astrology. - Mathematical knowledge of the Arabs.- Astronomy.-Architecture.—The fine arts.-Agriculture.--Medicine.-Chemistry.-Our obligations to Arab literature.

HITHERTO the followers of the Arabian prophet have been considered only as enthusiastic military adventurers, subduing in their wide and rapid progress most of the nations of the then known world. The lust of power, and successful military enterprise, are commonly unfavourable to the cultivation of liberal arts, so that a conquering people usually exhibit a literary character not much above that of the savage. The Goths and the Huns, for instance, are everywhere known as among the most implacable foes of knowledge. Nor did the early Arabs regard it with more favour. Mahomet found his countrymen sunk in the deepest barbarism; he was incapable of any direct effort to raise them, and as has already appeared from the ruthless destruction of the Alexandrian library by Omar, one of his earliest successors, they were not in a much better condition after the close than at the commencement of his eventful career.

Their settlement in the countries they had subdued, the unlimited resources which their wide and general conquests placed within their reach, and probably the leisure which their almost universal dominion afforded, led speedily to a change in their character in relation to literary pursuits, of