On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
: 234 :
Untitled Article
No department of history is more defective than that which relates to the affairs of religion . Interest and prejudice have united in a thousand cases to falsify or obscure the record , of the past , $ o that ecclesiastical history is replete with difficulties and misrepresentations . Amongst others , Muhanimed has received at the bands Qf writers , an / 1 of Christiaa writers , the most
un-One extreme begets another , and ifc is not therefore surprising to find persons who can see in Muhammed nothing but virtue . Boulainvilliers was the first writer in Christendom ( as far as we know ) who undertook to exhibit him as little short of perfection . But by an author of the present day , and a minister of the Established Church , f " the false prophet" has been converted into a true prophet , and the " Impostor" into a special agent of the Almighty .
fair treatment . We do not say that there have not been exceptions , but till recently the current of historical detail respecting him has been of the most injurious nature . Maracci , Prideaux , apfi a hpst of inferior writers , have held him up to the detestation of the Christian world . With suicidal hatred they have set him forth as destitute of every excellent quality , forgetting that the more they degraded the man , tbe greater they made the difficulty of explaining the origin of his system without the aid of the Divine Being .
The writer of the work entitled An Apology for the celebrated Prophet of Arabia , however , will have it , tkati Muhammed was no prophet at all ; while , together with Mr . Forster , he undertakes the defence of Muhammed ' s character . True it is that Godfrey Higg ins ,, Esq ., goes in his zeal to an extreme that would alarm his pious associate— : looting upon , Christ to be almost equal to Muhammed , and Christianity as b ^ feripr to Is lamisrm
Mr . Forster , in a work which in its general execution does him much credit , advances and defends in great detail the idea , that as Christ is the spiritual descendant of Isaac , so Muhammed is the spiritual descendant of Ishmael , being equally with Jesus an heir of promise and foreordained of God . It does not content him to suppose that the system of Muhammed was in the general providence of God permitted to arise , but he challenges for it a special and prophetic ordination . To this idea he was , he informs his
readers , led by the insufficiency of all the commonly assigned causes to account for its origin and continuance . We admire the learning and diligence and skill which he has shewn in the composition of his work , but we dissent from the theory which he has adopted . For ourselves , we see no difficulty in resting in secondary causes , and the permission of God's general providence , as wholly adequate to bring about the great change effected by the Arabian
prophet . From the earliest periods of history , the Eastern parts of the world have been remarkable for sudden and extensive changes . Even without the aid of religious enthusiasm such changes have been produced . Many concurring circumstances , as Sale has well shewn , conspired to aid Muhammed in the revolution which he effected ; ttke corruption of the Christian religionthe condition of the Arabs—their free and valiant spirit—the personal qualities of Muhammed himself 1 —above all , the success of his arms . Even as a warrior he might , We doubt not , have won his way to extensive dominion ;
* ? An Apology for the Life and Character of the celebrate d Prophet of Arabia , called Moharned , or the Illustrious . By Godfrey Higgins , Esq . Hunter . f Forster ' s Mohammedanism Unveiled .
Untitled Article
HIOGUNS ' S APOLOGY FOR MOHAMED . *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1830, page 234, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2583/page/18/
-