INTRODUCTION. 27 



whose fortunes there has rested, since the days of 

 Abraham, the doom of a rejected and expatriated 

 race. ReUgious prejudices have combined with the 

 predictions of Scripture and the physical impedi- 

 ments of their country, to widen this g:ulf of igno- 

 rance between the Christian and the Mohammedan 

 world. 



When the bloody wars of the Koran had ceased, 

 and the chivalry of France and Spain had deUvered 

 Europe from the terror of the Saracen arms, a new 

 race of combatants appeared on the field. A host 

 of doctors and schoolmen 'crowded the theological 

 arena, and fought against the profaners of tombs and 

 the oppressors of pilgrims vnth all the characteristic 

 bitterness of their sect. Long after the defeat of the 

 Crusaders had left these infidels in the undisputed 

 possession of their mosques and their sepulchres, 

 the ban of the church stood recorded against them ;* 

 and the profoundest fathers in Christendom exer- 

 cised their vast erudition in detecting and refuting 

 the " lies, perjuries, and blasphemies" of the Arabian 

 Prophet ; and predicting the final triumph of the 

 Cross over the profane symbol of the Moslem her- 

 esy.f Kings and emperors entered the ranks of 



* The Greek Church carried its excommunication so high as 

 to pronounce, in their catechisms, anathema against the deity 

 worshipped by the Mohammedans, whom they represented as a 

 solid and spherical being ; for so they translated the word Al- 

 Semed, applied in the Koran to the deity, and which signifies 

 also eternal. The emperor Andronicus ordered this anathema 

 to be erased from the ritual of the Greek Church, on account of 

 the offence it gave to the Saracens who had embraced Chris- 

 tianity. But the Christian doctors opposed it most strenuously. 

 After long and bitter disputes on the subject, the bishops assem- 

 bled in council, and consented, though with the utmost reluc- 

 tance, to transfer the imprecation in their catechisms from the 

 " God of Mohammed" to the impostor himself, his doctrine, and 

 his sect. — Annales NicetcB, lib. vii. p. 113. Reland de Relig. Mo- 

 havuned, lib. ii. sect. 3. 



■\ The titles of most of these erudite works vouch sufficiently 

 it)[ the spirit of their contents. The Cardinal Nicolas de Cusa, 



