198 FOUETH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
In the eighteenth century this view was gradually corrected. The learned Dean Prideaux still represented Mohammed as a vulgar impostor, but at the same time as a scourge of God in just punishment of the sins of the Oriental churches who turned our holy religion " into a firebrand of hell for contention, strife and violence." He undertook his " Life of Mahomet" as a part of a " History of the Eastern Church," though he did not carry out his design.
Volfcaire and other Deists likewise still viewed Mohammed as an impostor, but from a disposition to trace all religion to priest craft and deception. Spanheim, Sale, and Gagnier began to take a broader and more favorable view. Gibbon gives a calm historical narrative ; and in summing up his judgment, he hesi tates whether "the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man. . . . From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the daemon of Soc rates aifords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud."
Dean Milman suspends his judgment, saying : " To the ques tion whether Mohammed was hero, sage, impostor, or fanatic, or blended, and blended in what proportions, these conflicting elements in his character ? the best reply is the reverential phrase of Islam: < God knows/ " l
Goethe and Carlyle swung from the orthodox abuse to the opposite extreme of a pantheistic hero-worshiping over-estimate of Mohammed and the Koran by extending the sphere of reve lation and inspiration, and obliterating the line which separates Christianity from all other religions. Stanley, R. Bosworth Smith, Emanuel Deutsch, and others follow more or less in the track of this broad and charitable liberalism. Many errors and prejudices have been dispelled, and the favorable traits of Islam and its followers, their habits of devotion, temperance, and
1 Lot. Christianity, II. 120.
g 47. CHRISTIAN POLEMICS AGAINST MOHAMMEDANISM. 199
resignation, were lield up to the shame and admiration of the Christian world. Mohammed himself, it is now generally con ceded, began as an honest reformer, suffered much persecution for his faith, effectually destroyed idolatry, was free from sordid motives, lived in strict monogamy during twenty-four years of his youth and manhood, and in great simplicity to his death. The polygamy which disfigured the last twelve years of his life was more moderate than that of many other Oriental despots, Califs and Sultans, and prompted in part by motives of benevo lence towards the widows of his followers, who had suffered in the service of his religion.1
But the enthusiasm kindled by Carlyle for the prophet of Mecca has been considerably checked by fuller information from the original sources as brought out in the learned biographies of Weil, Noldckc, Sprengcr and Muir. They furnish the au thentic material for a calm, discriminating and impartial judg ment, which, however, is modified more or less by the religious standpoint and sympathies of the historian. Sprenger represents Mohammed as the child of his age, and mixes praise and censure, without aiming at a psychological analysis or philosophical view. Sir William Muir concedes his original honesty and zeal as a reformer and warner, but assumes a gradual deterioration to the judicial blindness of a self-deceived heart, and even a kind of Satanic inspiration in his later revelations. " We may readily admit," he says, " that at the first Mahomet did believe, or per suaded himself to believe, that his revelations were dictated by a divine agency. In the Meccan period of his life, there cer tainly can be traced no personal ends or unworthy motives to
1 The Mohammedan apologist, Syed Ameer All (The Life and Teachings of Mohammed, London, 1873, pp. 228 sqq.), makes much account of this fact, and entirely justifies Mohammed's polygamy. But the motive of benevolence and generosity can certainly not be shown in the marriage of Ayasha (the virgindaughter of Abu-Bakr), nor of Zeynab (the lawful wife of his freedman Zeyd), nor of Safiya (the Jewess). AH himself must admit that "some of Moham med's marriages may possibly have arisen from a desire for male ollspriug." The motive of sensuality he entirely ignores.