LECTURE XII.

Sketch of Mahomet and his Religion-Establishment of the Saracenic Empire-New Organisation of the European West, and Restoration of the Christian Empire.

FROM the earliest period, the pastoral tribes of Arabia have lived under their emirs, in all the wild independence of Nomade nations; they were not, however, without cities, as these were created and rendered necessary by the trade of the caravan, which in its journeys through the wilderness, and in its passage from one inhabited province to another, required these points of rest. A few of the frontier districts and maritime coasts were, indeed, possessed by some of the more ancient Egyptian Pharaohs; but the entire country was never subdued or conquered either by the Assyrians, the Persians, or the Macedonian conquerors. Nor were the Romans more successful; and it was only in the reign of Trajan, the last of Roman emperors, who meditated schemes of conquest, that a small frontier tract of Arabia Petræa was taken possession of, and annexed to the Roman empire. Immediately on the death of Trajan, the Roman government recurred to the pacific policy of Augustus, who had considered it dangerous to enlarge the empire by any new conquests: and in consequence, this province of Arabia was abandoned by the Romans, and left to the enjoyment of its ancient freedom.

This long-established liberty and total independence of all foreign conquerors and rulers has not a little contributed to exalt among the Arabs a strong self-consciousness. Their origin, which is very nearly akin to that of the Hebrews, they deduce as descendants of Yoktan from Heber, who was an ancestor of Abraham, or from Ishmael, the son of Abraham, that was born in the desert. Among these free and warlike pastoral nations, the feelings of clanship, the pride of noble descent, and the glory of an ancient and renowned race, and

again the mutual hostility of tribes transmitted from one generation to another, the never-to-be-cancelled debt of blood, form the ruling and animating principle, nay the almost exclusive purport of existence. This tribe-spirit of the Arabians has had a mighty influence on the origin and first development of the Mahometan religion, and has stamped on it a peculiar character. And among the Nomade nations, in a similar stage of social advancement, and who combine the freedom of the pastoral life with the commerce of caravans, and are not total strangers to the refinement of cities, the faith of Mahomet has not only obtained the easiest access, but has struck the deepest roots, and finds, as it were, its most natural disciples. For the Tartar nations in the interior parts of Asia, and the tribes of Berbers, who are the original inhabitants of the north of Africa, lead the same mode of life, though they cannot boast of the ancient origin and high descent ascribed to the Arabs. Compared with Roman degeneracy, with the corruption of the Byzantine court, with Assyrian effeminacy, and the immorality of the great Asiatic cities, this tribe-character of the Arabians, as preserved in its purity during their ancient freedom, appears undoubtedly to be of a less corrupt, more moral, and more generous nature. Doubtless the Arabs possessed in the first ages of their history, a great moral energy of will and strength of character, and even in the period of their decline, these qualities are still perceptible. On the other hand in this tribe character, and in those feelings of clanship, which determine all the social relations among that people; pride, party-animosities, and the spirit of revenge, are the ruling elements of life, and the passions to which all things are made subservient, or are sacrificed. The moral corruption of the human race, the profound disorder of man's whole being, is proved as well by the constant proneness of civilised nations towards a soft voluptuousness of morals, or by the innate disposition of politer classes and ages to a spirit of speculative contention, as by the rude pride and animosities of tribes, which considered in a natural point of view, appear to be purer and less corrupt in their morals, or to possess greater strength and generosity of character. Those tribe-feelings and passions of pride and hatred, anger and revenge, so prevalent among the Arabians, are displayed in their ancient poetry, and even constitute its essential spirit and purport; for

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except those parables, riddles, and proverbial sayings in which the Orientals so much delight, this poetry has no mythological fictions, like that of the Indians and the Greeks, nor with the exception of a certain enthusiasm of passion, does it evince any truly fertile and inventive power of imagination.

The old Arabians never possessed, like the Indians, Egyptians, and Greeks, a poetical, high-wrought, and scientifically arranged system of polytheism. The historical traditions of their different races had much analogy with those of the Hebrews, and coincided with them in a variety of points; for as they were of the Semitic race, they deduced their origin from Abraham and the other holy patriarchs of the primitive world. Hence the tradition of a purer faith, and the simple patriarchal worship of the Deity appear to have never been totally extinguished among the Arabs; though indeed the veracious Herodotus asserts, that they adored the Asyrian Venus under the name of Alilath. But such a mixture of religious doctrines and practices is by no means incredible, when we reflect on those periods in the history of the Hebrews, when though that people were in possession of the Mosaic revelation and code of laws, and though their whole arrangements of life were founded thereon; though mighty and zealous prophets perpetually arose to warn them of their errors; they still went after Baal, and still sacrificed their children to Moloch. In the age of Mahomet, and shortly before his time, various kinds of idolatry had found their way among the Arabs from the neighbouring nations, who if not now, had formerly been plunged in the errors of paganism. At the same time several Jewish tribes existed in Arabia, and even some Christian communities, belonging mostly to the Oriental sects, mingled with the rest of the population. The neighbouring Christian monarch, or Negus of Ethiopia, also exerted considerable influence on the different tribes and communities of Arabia.

Mahomet felt the most decided aversion to all pagan idolatry, and even to all veneration of images; and it is very possible, according to the opinion of a great historian, who, on the whole does not judge the Arabian prophet unfavourably, that the expectation which the Jews still entertained of the future coming of a Deliverer and Prophet, should have operated very powerfully on the mind and imagination of Mahomet. In the same way as the Jews, then incomparably more active than

afterwards, still expected Him who had long since come; so certain Christian sects, totally misunderstanding the Scriptures which they interpreted according to their own arbitrary sense, believed that the Holy Ghost and the divine Paraclete whom the Saviour had promised was yet to come; although the Saviour had promised that the Holy Spirit should come down upon his disciples immediately after his ascension, and had added, that the same spirit should for ever abide with them. Now every one who professed himself a Christian, knew very well from the Holy Scriptures, that a supernatural light had descended on the apostles in the first assembly they held, and when as they thought, their Lord and Master had abandoned them; and that this light had transformed the disciples, till then weak, wavering, and trembling before the world, into apostolic men filled with the spirit of God, into prophets of eternal truth and divine love, humble, but energetic, and no less heroic than enlightened. That Assister and Comforter, or that guiding Paraclete promised by God to his disciples, which in the apostles had proved itself a spirit of knowledge, of illumination, and of insight into the mysteries of faith-in the martyrs, a spirit of divine power and of heroic constancy under sufferings, was now in the great doctors of the church, and in the general councils, the guiding spirit of wisdom, rightly discerning and steadfastly adhering to the truths of revelation. But this truth did not prevent many leaders of those sects from regarding themselves in their own conceit as the Comforter and the Paraclete promised by God for the consolation of succeeding ages, or even from permitting themselves to be so considered by their own disciples. The supposition of the great historian just now cited, that these Judæo-Christian expectations of the future coming of an earthly Deliverer, Redeemer, and Teacher, or Prophet of the world, may have exerted no inconsiderable influence on the mind of Mahomet, and may have awakened similar conceptions and imaginations on his own head, is confirmed by the fact, that the Koran itself contains no very obscure allusions and references to the notions of the Paraclete, and to a supernatural and divine power and force under the very denomination used among the later Hebrews, and according to the very word sanctioned for that peculiar object.

In the time of Mahomet, and shortly before him, the Caaba at Mecca constituted the great sanctuary of Arabian worship.

This, if we may so designate it, was a simple chapel of pagan pilgrimage, which contained the black stone, the object of the religious devotion of the Arabs from a very ancient period. The idolatrous worship of such shapeless or conical blocks of stone was by no means unknown to the wayward genius of ancient polytheism. We meet with a similar form of idolatry in the mythology of the Greeks, though set off and embellished by the peculiar fancy of that people; and instances of a like kind were to be found in the worship which the neighbouring people of Syria paid to Belus or Baal. Those stones which are frequently mentioned by ancient historians as having fallen from heaven, may probably have given rise to this peculiar species of idolatry; and the fact itself (as now indeed is often the case with the general traditions of antiquity) is sufficiently proved by the existence of those well-known meteor stones, whose origin, though they have undergone chemical analysis, and mineralogical investigations, still remains, even in the present advanced state of modern science, a problem of no small difficulty.

The Arabian tribe from which Mahomet was sprung, had long been intrusted with the care and custody of the Caaba and the black stone, and placed its highest glory in this its allotted dignity. According to the Arabian tradition, Abraham had first erected the Caaba, and the Amalecites had afterwards repaired it. When the tribe of Koreish, who were invested with this high charge, had to rebuild this temple; they were at a loss to know how the sacred black stone should be fixed in the walls, and what hand should touch the consecrated piece, when quite unexpectedly, this honour fell to the lot of Mahomet, than a stripling of fifteen. For this reason, we may well suppose that this ancient seat of Arabian worship-the Caaba -produced one of those youthful impressions that determined the future destiny of this extraordinary_man. Even in the

religious system which he afterwards founded, this ancient sanctuary with its magical stone, has remained in every age a high object of veneration; and it is only in our times that the temple of Mecca, has been exposed to the rage of the Wechabites, who, though their religious fury has taken an opposite course, exhibit the old Arabian character in all its fanatical violence. But this old black stone-idol is a very remarkable feature in the history of Mahomet and of his religion.