LIFE OF MOHAMMED. 269 



dren by Kadijah, Fatima alone lived to enjoy his 

 paternal tenderness. She married Ali in the first 

 year of the Hejira, and became the mother of an 

 illustrious progeny. 



The literaiy attainments of the Prophet, like many 

 other parts of his character, have been made the 

 subject of controversy. Adopting the authority of 

 the Koran, and the unanimous testimony of Arabian 

 authors, most histoiians have espoused the conclu- 

 sion that he was totally unacquainted with litera- 

 ture — ignorant even of the elements of reading and 

 •writing. Instead of being ashamed of this defect, 

 his followers gloried in it, as an evident proof of his 

 divine mission. The constant boast of the Arabs 

 was, that the Koran, whose elegance and sublimity 

 were universally acknowledged, could never have 

 been produced without the aid of celestial instruc- 

 tion, by a man destitute of the very rudiments of 

 education. To evade its force, the Christian writers 

 alleged that he was assisted in the compilation of his 

 imposture by various associates, and that the pre- 

 tended revelations of Gabriel were really the com- 

 position of certain private secretaries. A sword- 

 smith at IMecca — two nameless Christians, who pos- 

 sessed copies of the Scriptures — Sergius, the Nes- 

 torian monk — and Abdallah, or Salman, a Persian 

 Jew, are all enumerated as accomplices in this im- 

 pious fabrication. The conjecture of secondary' aid 

 is, indeed, rendered probable from his own words. 

 " I know they wiU say," he remarks (chap, xvi.), 

 "that a man hath taught him the Koran; but he 

 whom they presume to have taught him is a Persian 

 by nation, and speaketh the Persian language. But 

 the Koran is in the Arabic tongue." 



We are, however, by no means satisfied that Mo- 

 hammed was actually the " illiterate barbarian" that 

 history represents him; and, in spite of Abulfeda, 

 Gagnier, Reland, Sale, and Gibbon, we have a sus- 

 picion that his ignorance was more assumed than 



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