208 lifj: of mohammed. 



most likelv supplied the first materials for the great 

 political structure which he afterward reared on 

 this basis. Instead of religious innovations, had his 

 aim been merely secular aggrandizement, there was 

 much in the condition both of his own and the sur- 

 rounding nations favourable to his revolutionary 

 projects. No usurper, perhaps, ever enjoyed these 

 advantages to a greater extent. Nor can we sup- 

 pose that a vigorous and reflecting mind like his, 

 enlarged by travel and observation on mankind, 

 could lack either courage or discernment to turn 

 them to his interest. The political state of the 

 Eastern World was wretched in the extreme. Ex- 

 hausted with continual wars, and enervated by lux- 

 ury, it could offer little resistance to any aggressor. 

 Had the Roman empire retained its pristine vigour, 

 the Arabian heresy must have been instantly crushed, 

 or driven to the inaccessible retreats of the moun- 

 tains. Its hapless founder might have been con- 

 demned to the stake by a council of bishops, or 

 carried in chains as a rebel to languish out his days 

 in some dungeon of the Grecian capital. But this 

 mighty power had fallen, under the successors of 

 Constantine, into a state of weakness and decay. 

 The Goths in the west, and the Huns in the east, 

 had overrun its finest provinces, and made the once 

 potent Cesars tributaries to a barbarous conqueror. 

 But whatever information IMohammed had, or 

 whatever use he designed to make of the advanta- 

 geous posture of oriental affairs, his grand and ear- 

 liest object of attention was the idolatry of his 

 countrymen. He did not pretend to introduce a 

 new religion; for that would have alarmed the 

 jealousies of all parties, and combined their dis- 

 cordant opinions into a general opposition. His 

 professed object was merely to restore the only true 

 and primitive faitli, such as it had been in the days 

 of the patriarchs and prophets, from Adam to the 

 Messiah. The fundamental doctrine of this ancient 



