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    imperfect one , it bein £ still doubtful whether it owes its origin to the Prophet , a Christian monk , or a Jew , and having avowedly undergone a complete revision , first from Abu-Beker , and afte rwards with less ceremony , 21 years after the supposed author ' s death ,

    by Osman , ins successor , whose disposition would certainly not tend to the rejection of any inclination towards the niarvellous , ) contains undoubtedly a great mass of absurd legend and fabulous tradition , although , perhaps , every instance arises from the qualified adoption of stories , consecrated by time in

    the memories and religious associations of his countrymen , or selected from the ridiculous fables and mystifications of the apocryphal books of the Jews and Christians ., The reader of the Koran will admit

    that this is abundantly evident in every page , and will readily concede , " that few or none of the relations or circumstances contained in it were invented by Mahomet , as is generally supposed , it being easy to trace the greatest part of them much higher , as the rest might be , were more of those books extant , and it was worth while

    to make the inquiry /' His leading doctrines have the same foundation ; though generally modified for the better , in working up the old material into the new structure . The examination of the dead body on its deposition in the grave by the angels Monker and Nakir , the balance in which

    the actions of man are weighed , the nature of his hell , his prayer , his keblah , his sabbath , ( though altered to the Friday , ) many of his fasts and political institutions , and , finally , his Eblis or Satan , are obviously Jewish ,

    - —while the Magi claim , among many others , the bridge Al Sarat , " finer than a hair and sharper than a sword , " and 6 ven the Prophet ' s paradise ; they having before liis day peopled the region of beatitude with the Hourani Behest or

    Hourie of Paradise , who are the blackeyed virgins of the Koran . The wonders too of the Hindu abode of the blest are almost literally copied to complete the paradisiac picture . Its

    celestial Gunga or sabred stream , its Apsaras or heavenly nymphs , its Tarucalpa or tree of desire , dispersing delicious fruits , exquisite viands , and rich vestments , ail find their place in the

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    paradise of Islamism . * The famous invocaticjn of II Allah Allah ( God is great ) was by no * means new , especially as a cry on joining battle , f Most of the absurd stories which form part of the creed of the orthodox

    believer , and which are generally talked of as forming part of the system , are related only in the collections of traditions concerning him , and have not even the authority of the Koran to support them . Even the detail of the

    journey to the seven heavens seems contrived only to square with two or three obscure passages in the 17 th chapter , which would certainly of themselves give very little reason to suspect their connexion with so marvellous a story .

    If these arts of conciliation did not succeed in winning over the votaries of the religions whose peculiar tenets and associations were thus blended in his system , they at least protected him .

    from the charge of inventing' absurdity , and enabled him to stop the mouths of objectors to the puerilities of his creed , by pointing out their origin in the records of their own faith .

    With all the fiery intolerance which many passages of the Koran breathe , ( contrasted with others , however , of a milder , nay , charitable cast , ) it is not historically true that Mahomet or his immediate successor , in practice , went the lengths which they seem to

    authorize , at any rate towards Jews and Christians ; though , if they had , the law of the one , and the practice of the other , would have prevented his system from the charge of singularity even on

    that head . The denunciations in the Jewish law fully equal in severity the precepts of this pretender to a commission to plunder and destroy . * M ^ y those who divide Christ be divided by the sword , may they be hewn in pieces ,

    * Mills , 286 . Malcolm ' s Hist , of Persia , II . 330 . f Allah seems to be nothing more originally than an epithet for the sun , something similar to which exists in the

    Greek 'HXioq and HeXioq . It is mentioned as in use among the Arabians , by Constantine Porphyrogenitus . ( See Bryant ' s Mythology , I . 16 , and VI . 116—144 . ) Plutarch speaks of it as an exclamation , making the Deity feminine : KXu 0 * AAAAA , irdXefA . 8 Srvyarap *

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    The Nonconformist . No . XVIII . 261

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1820, page 261, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2488/page/5/