570 LIFE OF MOHAMMED. 



real — one of those plausible disguises "which he em- 

 ployed to throw a veil of mystery over his proceed- 

 higs. This we may perhaps infer from his extensive 

 commercial intercourse with the polished cities of 

 Syria, and from the fact, that at the time of his birth 

 the use of letters must have been well known at 

 Mecca. The seven poems suspended in the Kaaba, 

 the decree of the Koreish, and other documents in- 

 tended for public perusal, necessarily presuppose 

 that the arts of reading and writing Avere neither 

 uncommon nor extraordinary attainments. That 

 Abu Taleb, Abu Beker, Ali, and many others of the 

 first Moslems, were familiar with letters, are facts 

 that none have ever disputed. Hence the fair pre- 

 sumption is, that Mohammed was not altogether un- 

 instructed in those accomplishments which were 

 possessed by numbers of his fellow-citizens in the 

 same rank and the same profession. It is difficult 

 for hypocrisy to be consistent ; and, notwithstand- 

 ing all his care and circumspection, the mask some- 

 times dropped off. Ifweareto credit his biogra- 

 phers, he wrote letters to several foreign princes ; 

 in his treaty with the Meccans he erased his apos- 

 tolic title, and with his own hand substituted his 

 family name ; and in his last illness he demanded 

 materials to record his final instructions to his peo- 

 ple. The Arabs, indeed, ascribe the latter to the 

 effect of delirium or disease ; and the other they 

 explain by the intervention of a miracle. This, 

 however, is but an unsatisfactory explanation ; and 

 the evidence of these incidental facts seems to at- 

 test that there were moments A\hen his pretended 

 iucapacitj' was forgotten, and when he not only ex- 

 pressed a wish to exercise, but actually practised, 

 that very art of which he and his historians main- 

 tained his total ignorance. 



That, to a certain extent, Mohammed was a bene- 

 factor to his nation cannot be disputed. Gross 

 and absurd as is the whole system of Islam, it pos- 



