24 A R A 
met edablifhed are, profound adoration of one God, whofe 
names, or rather titles, are amazingly diverfified in the 
Koran; (thefe are colledled, to the amount of 999, and 
ferve as a manual of devotion;) the daily offering-up of 
prayers to him, which confid of Oiort ejaculations; Hated 
fads; and a condant didribution of a large portion of per- 
fonal property to the relief of the indigent and didreded: 
nor is the charity which is enjoined confined to alms-giv¬ 
ing, but comprehends, in its fulled extent, general huma¬ 
nity and acts of beneficence to all Muflulmans. A general 
refurredlion of the dead is another article of belief reite¬ 
rated in the Koran. Whatever fuperditious practices ad¬ 
here to it, cannot be imputed to priedcraft, for no religion 
that ever was promulgated to the world, the unadulterated 
religion of Jefus Chrid excepted, fo entirely excluded the 
influence of the priedhood; it may indeed be called em¬ 
phatically “ the laical religion;” ifince its founder had the 
addrefs to obtain the mod enthufiadic regard to his dog¬ 
mas, without giving wealth or confequence to thofe who 
were appointed to illudrate and enforce them ; indeed the 
Koran reproaches the Chridians for taking their prieds 
and monks for their lords befides God. The pilgrimage to 
Mecca, praying toward that place, and the ablutions which 
are enjoined on the mod ordinary adls and occafions, toge¬ 
ther with the adoption of that religious fophifm, predelti- 
' ration, in its mod extravagant extent, feem to comprehend 
the fuperditious parts of this religion; but it has other 
charadteridics which betray its fpurious origin, and prove 
its dedrudlive tendency. 
To compenfate for the rigid fadings which it enjoins, 
and the difufe of wine which it requires, a mod licentious 
indulgence is allowed in the ufe of women; and though 
they may not, as has been imputed to them, deny to that 
fex a future date of exidence, yet as they confider women 
merely as indtuments of gratification, all thofe amiable 
qualities, which the fex is capable of difplaying when its 
faculties are properly dilated by a judicious and liberal 
courfe of education, are fuppreffed as foon as formed. 
Another foul taint in this religion is, the abhorrence which 
it creates againd all thofe who do not embrace the fame 
dodlrines, and the direct tendency of that faith to confign 
the human mind to a date of arrogant and incurable igno¬ 
rance, by confidering the Koran as comprifing every thing 
worthy of being known. The Arabs, from the genial in¬ 
fluence of their climate, as well as from habits tranfmitted 
through fo many generations as to be formed into innate 
principles, were libidinous beyond mod of their fpecies, 
and *:o individual among them felt that propenfity dronger 
than their prophet; neither policy nor inclination there¬ 
fore prompted him to bring his dilciples under feverc re- 
draints with refped! to women ; he ought not, however, 
to be denied the praife which is due to having in fome 
meafure tempered the ludful fiercenefs of his countrymen, 
and he may be faid to haveeffedted fome reformation, when 
he redrained his followers even to four wives, when lie 
forbade inceduous alliances, entitled a repudiated wife to a 
dower from her hufband, made adultery a capital offence, 
and rendered fornication punifliable by law. 
Befides the Koran, which is the written law to the Ma¬ 
hometans alike as to the belief and practice of religion, 
and the adminidration of public judice, there is the Sun- 
nah, or oral law, which was feledted, two hundred years 
after the death of Mahomet, from a vad number of pre¬ 
cepts and injundlions which had been handed down from 
age to age, as bearing the damp of his authority. In this 
work the rite of circumeifion is enjoined, concerning which 
the Koran was filent, nor was it necedary to be there com¬ 
manded, as the Arabians adhered to it before this eda- 
blifhment. By the exprefs command of their founder, the 
Mahometans fet apart Friday in each week for the efpecial 
worlhip of God. They are ever adiduous to make con¬ 
verts to their faith, nor can they rejedt the mod abjed! or 
profligate wretch, who declares his defire of becoming a 
true believer, even although they know him to be ignorant 
alike of their language and the principles of their religion. 
B I A. 
The fubjed! of this very remarkable religion mud not 
be quitted without obferving, that the Ronutnids, in ex¬ 
plaining the book of Revelation, infid that the religion of 
Mahomet is pointed out by the predicted antichrid; and 
they have, with much ingenuity, explained that mydical 
number 666, which has been fo varioully unravelled, and 
is exprefsly faid to be the number of a man, or the number 
of the name of a man, to apply to the name of Mahomet; 
which, when expreded in the Greek, in which language 
the Apocalypfe was written, is MAOMETIZ, or MOA- 
METIE, as Euthymius and the Greek hidorians Zonares 
and Cedrenus write it. The letters which compofe this 
word, according to the Greek numeration, are thus: 
M 
• 
40 
O - - - 
- 
70 
A 
• 
1 
M 
- 
40 
E 
5 
T - 
- 
300 
I . . . 
- 
10 
S - - - - 
- 
200 
666 
mud be confeded to be a remarkable 
coincidence. 
Bellarmine, Pajlorini’s (Bp. WalmejlefsJ Hi/lory of the Chrif- 
tian Church , p. 366. 
As the Arabs are one of the mod ancient nations in the 
world, having inhabited the country they at prefent pof- 
fefs almod from the deluge, without intermixing with 
other nations, or being fubjugated by any foreign power, 
their language mud have been formed foon after, if not at, 
the confufion of Babel. The two principal dialedls of it 
were, that fpoken by the Hamyarites and other genuine 
Arabs, and that of the Koreifh, in which Mahomet wrote 
the Koran. The fird is dyled by the Oriental writers the 
Arabic of Hamyar, and the other the pure or defecated. As 
Yarab, grandfather of Hamyar, is luppofed by the Ori¬ 
ental writers to have been the fird whofe tongue deviated 
from the Syriac to the Arabic, the Hamyaritic dialed! ac¬ 
cording to them mud have approached nearer to the purity 
of the Syriac ; and confequently have been more remote 
from the true genius of the Arabic than that of any other 
tribe. The dialed! of the Koreidi, termed by the Koran 
the perfpicuous and clear Arabic, is referred to Iflimael as its 
author ; who, fay the above-mentioned writers, fird fpoke 
it; and, as Dr. Pocock believes, after he had contrad!ed 
an alliance with the family of Jorham by marriage, formed 
it of their language and the original Hebrew. As, there¬ 
fore, the Hamyaritic dialed! partook principally of the 
Syriac, fo that of the Koreilh was fuppofed to eonfid 
chiefly of the Hebrew. But, according to Jallalod’din, 
the polit'^efs and elegance of the dialed! of the Koreifh 
ought rattier to be attributed to their having, from the re- 
motefl antiquity, the cudody of the Caaba, and dwelling 
in Mecca, the centre of Arabia. Notwithdanding this, 
the Arabs believe the greated part of their original lan¬ 
guage to be loft; which will not feem improbable, when 
we confider how late the art of writing became generally 
pradlifed among them. For though it was known to Job 
their countryman, to the Edomites, as well as the other 
Arabian nations bordering upon Egypt and Phoenicia, and 
to the Hamyarites many centuries before Mahomet, as 
appears from fome ancient monuments faid to be remaining 
in their charadfer; yet the other Arabs, and thofe of 
Mecca in particular, unlefs fuch of them as were either 
Jews or Chridians, were to the time of Moramer perfedlly 
ignorant of it. The ancient Arabic was undoubtedly de-» 
rived from the Hebrew, and may be termed its fifler dia¬ 
led!. This is now the learned language of the Mahome¬ 
tans, who dudy it as the European Chridians do the Greek 
and Latin. See Language. 
The revival of learning in the tenth century, by Sil- 
veder II. and afterwards among the Europeans in gene¬ 
ral, may be afcribed to the indrudlions and writings of 
the Arabian dodtors and philofophers ; and to the fchools 
s, which 
