Sources for his Life. — Arabian literature is very rich in sources for a biography of Mohammed. Besides the Koran, which records the most important events of his life, there exist numerous collections of traditions in which the expressed views of the Arabian prophet on various incidents and relations of life are introduced ; then there are biographies proper, some of which ex- tend as far back as the first century of the Mohamme- dan fera. They are, it is true, written with a religious prejudice, and more or less spiced with legends, but in most cases the historical part worth}' of credit is easilj^ discerned. It must not be believed that these biogra- phies were allowed too free a rein to fancj', or were per- mitted to distort facts or pass them over in periect si- lence ; for they had to fear being convicted of mendacity and negligence by no less an authority than the Koran itself, already collected by the contemporaries of the prophet. Still another circumstance helps the historian in determining truth, namely, that the Mohammedans rarely try to conceal the frailties of their founder, for their judgment is guided by a standard different from that of non-Mohammedans— they praise some of his deeds
and words as virtuous which we brand as infamous. They even proceed generally on the principle that j\Io- hammed, as a privileged individual, was exempt from the common laws. Hence, notwithstanding the abun- dance of historical accounts on the rise of Islam (the proper name for the religion established by Mohammed, while its professors are called Moslems), and the contin- ued lively intercourse between Mohammedans and Christians in Syria and Palestine, as well as in Egypt and Spain, the most perverted opinions on Mohamme- danism and its author came to prevail among the non- Mohammedans, even in the Occident. He was repre- sented either as a sorcerer or as an idol; some believed him the Antichrist, others a renegade cardinal. And in proportion as the later Mohammedans — especially the Persians, greedy of miracles and mysteries— rendered the historical Mohammed of the ancient Arabians scarcely recognisable by over-much adoration and proximity to the supernatural, and the more Mohammedanism spread in the Occident and threatened to become dangerous to Christianity, hatred and fear exerted themselves to dis- figure Mohammed and his creed by ridiculous and absurd calumnies. Even in modern times, after several transla- tions of Arabian biographies of Mohammed had been published, his true character was little understood. As late as 1829 a work appeared in London demonstrating, or rather aiming to demonstrate, that Mohammed was foreshadowed by the little horn which issued from the fourth monster described by the prophet Daniel. In a still later publication, the author endeavors, at a great expense of learning, to prove that Mohammed was an instrument of the devil's device and handling. But, as observed in Weil's work, Mohammed der Prophet, the ad- vance of knowledge in these days requires the histor- ical characters handed down to us from remote periods to be re-examined by the light of new and of better- classified authorities, and to be recast upon a surer and more truthful basis.
Among characters of world-wide celebrity, there is none other that calls more loudly for a reinvestigation of the "original sources" than that of Mohammed. Bom in an obscure age, among a people whose antecedents are dimly shadowed out to us, in a country of all famous re- gions the least explored, his own career was a series of marvels and contradictions. While searching earnestly for truth, he taught millions of men to believe a gigantic fable ; and, while tormented with doubts agonizing to his own breast, he inspired others with an invincible faith in his infallibilitJ^ With too little energy or too little ambition to support himself, except by the despised em- ployment of a shepherd, he withstood for years the ridi- cule, the malice, and the furious opposition of the leaders of his own family and of the nation, and finally van- quished all their efforts. Over this extraordinarj^ and seemingly unfathomable character the disciples and the opponents of his doctrines have alike combined to draw an additional veil of uncertainty. The first Mohamme- dans piously encompassed their prophet with a cloud of miracles — '• the mythology," as Dr. Sprenger calls it, of Islam. Romish prelates foolishly distorted history to calumniate him; and philosophers, more impartial but equally unjust, endowed him with crimes of their own invention, such as they thought congenial to the char- acter of an impostor. Thus, while Khadijah beheld him shaded by angels on his journey to Syria, Prideaux accuses him of robbing orphans of their patrimony, and Voltaire depicts him as yielding to the indulgence of his passions on his triumphal return to Mecca — a triumjih of which the greatest glory was his clemency and for- bearance. Of those who have pretended to describe this singular being, one party has studiously disguised or ■ perverted what they knew, and another has sedulously invented what they did but suspect or hope. In fact, the great difficulty of the Arabic language, and the rarity and inaccessibility of the MSS. of early Mohammedan writers, were sufficient of themselves, if not to deter Eu- ropeans from undertaking the biography of the apostle
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of Islam, at least to cover the attempt, until a corapara- ] lively recent date, with the disgrace of failure. The earliest and most authentic chronicles of the rise of JIo- hamraedanism were not known, even by name, to those who aspired to guide the opinions of Europe on that ■ great event. Gibbon, for example, appeals to Gagnier's I translation of Abulfeda, a prince who wrote in the four- j tcenth century, as his " best and most authentic guide." , Lut to consider so late a historian as Abulfeda an au- ^ thority at all would convict au Orientalist of the most | culpable ignorance in Arabic literature. Yet before we , can turn from the Jlohammed as pictured by enthusi- ] astic Musselmen, or the monks of the MidiUe Ages and their successors among modern writers, to the true his- torical ^Mohammed, as he comes before us after a jiro- found and unprcjudicetlstudy of the original documents, it is necessary that we take a hasty glance at the con- dition of Arabia, the countrj- that claims him as her own, at tlio time and previous to the birth of Jloharamed.