714 



EUROPEAN TURKEY. 



Tlie Koran was indeed a ready convenience to Mahomet. If a visiter stayed too long, the 

 community was better advised in a chapter. " O, true believers^" says the Koran, "enter not 

 into the houses of the prophet, without waiting his convenient time ; but when ye are invited, 

 then enter. And when ye shall have eaten, disperse yourselves, and stay not to enter into 

 familiar discourse, for this incommodeth the prophet. He is ashamed to bid you depart, but 

 God is not ashamed of the truth." 



Persecution followed partial success, and Mahomet was obliged to retire from Mecca. This 

 flight, called in the Arabic tongue Hejira, has become the grand era of all Mahometan nations. 

 It answers to the year A. D. 622. At Medina, the fugitive became a monarch, and found an 

 army at his command. His doctrines varied with his fortunes, and, with force at his command, 

 his religion was now to be extended by violence, though hitherto he had employed only per- 

 suasion. But he was now a legislator, judge, prophet, priest, and military chief. All the 

 chapters of the Koran were devised under peculiar circumstances, and for certain ends. The 

 most of these that were made at Medina, where the impostor had power to aid his fraud, are 

 intolerant and sanguinary. This spirit has generally animated his followers, and their principle 

 is, "the Koran, death, or tribute." Renegades, however, are distrusted and despised. 



The wars that followed, were attended with various success ; but, in the end, consolidated the 

 power of Mahomet. He died in his 63d year, of the effects of poison, which had been con- 

 cealed in a shoulder of mutton. On this occasion, some of his fanatic followers believe in a 

 miracle, or that the mutton spoke to warn him. The Mahometans, however, do not generally 

 believe in any miracles, but the great standing one of the Koran ; and on this, Mahomet him- 

 self, when questioned as to his miraculous commission, chiefly relied. The chief doctrines of 

 the Koran are contained in the confession of faith, " There is no God but God, and Mahomet 

 is his prophet." The unity of the Supreme was the more insisted on, that the creed might the 

 more differ from the trinity of the Christians. Providence and predestination, universal disso- 

 lution, and the death of even Azrael, the angel of death, a resurrection, judgment, the interces- 

 sion of Mahomet, purgatory, hell, and paradise, are parts of the Mahometan creed. Paradise 

 is painted with the profusion of all that delights the oriental in this life ; with gardens, palaces, 

 fountains, and /loums, or beautiful females, whose only study is to reward the pious believer. 

 It is indeed but a bad creed, that would crown a life of intolerance and violence with a martyr's 

 death, and a sensual paradise.* It is a vulgar error, that Mahomet taught the exclusion of 

 the souls of females from paradise. The reverse is held in the Koran, nor is the exclusion 

 believed in Turkey. The Koran corresponds with the Old Testament in the account of the 

 creation, the fall, the deluge, the deliverance of Noah, the call of Abraham, the histories of 

 Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, and the patriarchs, the selection of the Jews as a chosen people, the 

 office and miracles of Moses, the inspiration of the prophets and psalmists, and in many other 

 particulars. It recognises Christ as the Messiah of the Jews, but all these truths are mixed 

 up with fables and puerilities. 



The principal commandments of the law are to pray five times a day, to fast at Ramazan, to 

 give alms, to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, and to perform ablutions. The minor requisitions 

 are circumcision, abstinence from swine's flesh, or the flesh of any animal strangled. There 

 are two sects, the followers of Ali, and the followers of Omar, as lieutenant of the prophet. 

 The Persians are of the sect of Ali. There. are divers religious orders, of which the princi- 

 pal are 32. There are a great many mendicants and itinerant dervises, who have many moun- 



" " They shall repose on couches, the linings whereof 

 shall be of thick silk, interwoven with gold; and the fruit 

 of the two gardens shall be near at hand together. There- 

 in shall receive them beauteous damsels, refraining their 

 eyes from beholding any besides their spouses, having 

 complexions like rubies and pearls. Besides these, there 

 shall be two other gardens, that shall be dressed in eternal 

 verdure. In each of them shall be two fountains, pouring 

 forth plenty of water. In each of tiiem shall be fruits, 

 and palm-trees, and pomegranates. Therein shall be 

 agreeable and beauteous damsels, having fine black eyes, 

 and kept in pavilions from public view, whom no man 

 shall have dishonored befoie their predestined spouses, 

 nor any genius." '■ They shall dwell in gardens of de- 

 light, reposing on couches adorned with gold and precious 

 Btones; sitting opposite to one another thereon. Youths, 

 which shall continue in their bloom forever, shall go 

 round about to attend them, with goblets and beakers, and 



a cup of flowing wine ; their heads shall not ache by 

 drinking the same, neither shall their reason be dis- 

 turbed." " Upon them shall be garments of fine green 

 silk and of brocades, and they shall be adorned with brace- 

 lets of silver, and their Lord shall give them to drink of 

 a most pure liquor, — a cup of wine mi.\ed with the wa- 

 ter of Zenjebil, a fountain in paradise named Salsabil." 

 " But those who believe and do that which is right, we 

 will bring into gardens watered by rivers, therein shall 

 they remain for ever, and therein shall they enjoy wives 

 free from all infirmities ; and we will lend them into per- 

 petual abodes." " For those who fear their Lord, will be 

 prepared high apartments in paradise, over which shall be 

 other apartments built ; and rivers shall run beneath 

 them." " But for the pious is prepared a place of bliss ; 

 gardens planted with trees, and vineyards, and damsels of 

 equal age with themselves, and a full cup." — Koran. 



