LIFE OF MOHAMMED. 203 



royal line of Persia, and the subjugation of that 

 country by the Arabs, after the reign of fourteen 

 kings. 



A vast multitude of other fictions and supernatural 

 prognostications, equally extravagant, were carefully 

 collected by his biographers. They were devoutly 

 believed, even during his life, by his credulous fol- 

 lowers ; hundreds of whom were to be found, who, 

 on their oath, would have attested the reality of 

 them. These solemn wonders Avere obviously in- 

 vented and propagated with a view to assimilate 

 the birth of their pretended apostle to that of the 

 Founder of Christianity; many of the Scripture 

 texts prefiguring the one, and the marvellous cir- 

 cumstances accompanying his nativity, as recorded 

 in the apocryphal gospels of St. Thomas and St. 

 Barnabas, being literally appropriated to the other. 



The nurture and education of her only child had 

 devolved on Amina ; but the custom of the Arabian 

 nobility, and the unwholesome air of Mecca, made 

 it necessary to delegate this maternal task to other 

 hands ; and the names of the diff"erent nurses that 

 suckled this remarkable infant, the most celebrated 

 of whom was Halima, of the tribe of Saab, have been 

 scrupulously recorded. These facts, however, as 

 well as his speaking in the cradle, and his purifica- 

 tion from original sin by an angel, we leave to be 

 studied in the legendary pages of the Moslem bio- 

 graphers. 



In his sixth year Mohammed was deprived of his 

 mother. This second calamity threw him entirely 

 on the charity of his grandfather. Within ten years 

 the venerable Abdolmotalleb expired at the age of 

 110. Abu Taleb became his next protector, who 

 appears to have been the eldest son and successor 

 to his father's authority.* The uncle treated the 



* Prideaiix calls Abdallah the eldest son, and Boulainvilliers 

 supposes him the youngest. Both are mistaken (vide Sale's 



