An Apology for the Life and Character of the Prophet Mohamed

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1829. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Mark nor of Jesus, it is the doctrine taught to our soldiers and sailors, into whose hands our faulty translations are put, and who believe the plain English which they find there. And it is also the doctrine of nine-tenths of the Romish and Protestant missionaries.* 110. I know well that Christians are apt to look down with sovereign contempt upon Mohamedans, and upon every thing relating to them and their religion; but let them inquire, and they will find that the Mohamedans were, soon after the establishment of their religion, the most liberal and enlightened race on the earth; that we are more indebted to them for useful learning than even to the ancients; that their religion abounds with precepts of benevolence and sound morality; and that it is no more just to charge it with the crimes of the ignorant bigots which now disgrace it, than it is to charge the Christian religion with the similar crimes of some of its priests and professors. 111. Europeans are very vain of their present superiority over the Mohamedans in science, arts, and arms; and to hear them talk, a person might be induced to suspect, that in no former age had any nations ever risen to any eriiinence in these elegant and useful acquirements. But in this he would be much deceived. Except, perhaps, in some branches of experimental philosophy and manufactures, there was no branch of art or science which was not almost in as great perfection among the subjects of the Caliphs as they now are in Great Britain. 112. Mr. Richardson, whose authority no one upon this subject will question, says, "In the eighth, ninth, and succeeding centuries, when the European world was clouded with barbarity and ignorance, when sovereign princes and great feudal lords could neither read nor write, the Arabi...