BOOKS.

MUIR'S LIFE OF MAHOMET.* THIS life of Mahomet " and history of Islam to the era of the Hegira" was undertaken at the suggestion of Dr. Pfander, the " well-known Christian apologist in the controversy with the Mahometans." The idea was to have recourse only to early Ma- hometan authorities, admitted by the Moslems to be authentic, and the work it would seem was to be translated into Hindoos- tanee. How far the volumes before us are likely to advance the conversion of Mahometans we cannot undertake to say ; they are extremely well Adapted to lead to controversy, and to an ex- amination of the original sources of the Prophet's biography, as well as of his supernatural pretensions and human character, as far as critical disputation can accomplish that object. The greater portion of the work is avowedly disquisitiontd. Even those chap- ters of the life which take the form of narrative, are pervaded by the spirit of disquisition. The author, according to his lights, chooses the probable facts for the text, exhibiting selections from the legendary or the fabulous in foot-notes, mostly accompanied by critical remarks.

The narrative life with its dissertations on various moot points, as, for example, the belief of Mehemet in his own inspiration, is preceded by two very elaborate critical essays. The first, treats of the nature character, and authenticity of the earliest mate- rials extant for the life of Mahomet, and the history of Islamism as connected with it. The second, (formally divided into two parts,) investigates Arabian history from the Patriarchs to the birth of Mahomet, chiefly to exhibit generally the religious and social condition and institutions, of the people, and to account for the success of Mahomet both as prophet and conqueror.

Of these two essays the critical inquiry into early Mahometan literature is unquestionably the most interesting. Beyond the few scattered notices in Scripture, there is for a long time nothing to throw light on the early history of Arabia. It was a country too slightly connected with the general march of history to obtain more than brief and fragmentary notices from Greek, Roman, or Byzantine writers. The most precise and satisfying account which remains is that given by Herodotus. He mentions Alilat as one of the chief divinities of the Arabs ; and this is strong evidence of the worship at that early period of Alija the Meccan idol. He makes likewise a distant allusion to the veneration of the Arabs for "stones." Beyond the names of the fathers of tribes, or such in- cidental pictures as are furnished by the Book of Job, or the sale of Joseph for pieces of silver to merchants in a caravan, the in-

formation of Scripture leads only to conjecture, or at the very best to inference. Of how little value the native records are, or rather

how little the native mind was fitted for the production of history, may be seen from their silence upon the most glorious event in

their annals before Mahomet, their defeat of the Roman invasion.

"It will not escape observation that the Arab histories contain no far- ther clue to this memorable incursion of the Romans ; yet it was a circum- stance which, from its unprecedented novelty, from the lasting marks of devastation, and from the glory acquired in the repulse, was likely above all other events to have lodged itself in the national mind and tradition. Foolish and unmeaning stories are, after a lapse of two thousand years, told with all freshness of detail and circumstance; while this which is perhaps the most salient and striking incident in the history of :Arabia, and which occurred within five or six centuries of the Moslem era, is unnoticed and unknown."

Fuller and more authentic accounts are preserved of the north- eastern kingdom of Hira, lying partly along the banks of the Euphrates, and founded after the Christian era ; as well as of that' of the Bani Gliassan—the Syrian Ghassanicle dynasty founded later than Hira. These, however, were mongrel rather than purely Arab kingdoms. All that can really be learned of Arabian society just before Mahomet, et is that some internal movement, or external opportunity, induced the more genuine Arabs about the sixth century, to make successful plundering expeditions into Syria. Though these were rather signs of Byzantine weakness than of Arab strength. The means of know ledge are fuller touching the social and religious state of Arabia. Mr. Muir de- nies that the native idolatry had been shaken to any great degree. The Christians were few in number; the Jews were more nu- merous, but still not powerful or predominant in the nation ; "the faith and worship of Mecca held the Arab mind in a thraldom rigorous and undisputed." There were means for the change effected by Mahomet in the patriarchal traditions which were mixed up with Arabian idolatry, and in the influence which the Christian and Jewish creeds might directly or indirectly exercise on Arab religious opinion. All this, however, might have been resultless had it not been for Mehemet himself. Such at any rate

is the opinion of Mr. Muir.

"The material for a great change was here. But it required to be wrought ; and Mehemet was the workman. The fabric of Islam no more necessarily grew out of the state of Arabia than a gorgeous texture grows from the slender meshes of silken filament, or the stately ship from unhewn timber of the forest, or the splendid palace from rude masses of quarried rock. Had Mehemet, stern to his early convictions, followed the leading of Jewish and Christian truth, and inculcated upon his fellows their simple doctrine, there would have been a Saint Mahomet,'—more likely perhaps, a Mehemet the Martyr,'—laying the foundation-stone of the Arabian Church. But then (so far as human probabilities and analogy indicate) Arabia would not, certainly in his day, have been convulsed to its centre, or even any considerable portions of it converted. He abandoned his early convictions; for the uncompromising severity of inflexible principle, he • The Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira. With Introductory Chapters on the Original Sources for the Biography of Mahomet, and on the Pre-Islamite History of Arabia. By William Muir, Esq., Bengal Civil Sur- vice. In two volumes. Published by Smith and Elder. substituted the alluring designs of expediency and compromise and then, with consummate skill, he devised a machinery, by the plastic power and adaptive energy of which he gradually shaped the broken and disconnected masses of the Arab race into an harmonious whole,—a body politic endowed with life and vigour. To the Christian he was as a Christian; to the Jew he became as a Jew ; to the lifeccari idolater as a reformed worshipper of the Kaaba. And thief, by unparalleled art and a rare supremacy of mind, he persuaded the whole of Arabia, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, to follow his steps with docile submission. "Such a process is that of the workman shaping his material. It is not that of the-material shaping its own form, much less (as some would hold) moulding the workman himself. It was Mehemet that formed Islam ; it was not Islam or any preUxisting Moslem spirit that' moulded Mehemet."

'• The critical disquisition on the materials for Mahomet's bio- graphy is very curious, landing us in the conclusion that no trustworthy authorities really exist, except as regards those broad features, which are as much historical as biographical. In con- sidering the Koran in the light of a repository of materials for the life of Mehemet, Mr. Muir is naturally led to inquire under what circumstances it was first committed to writing. The same doubt meets us here, which occurs in connexion with some other of those great works which have been regarded with special venera- tion; the poems of Homer for example. Such utterances were made by word of mouth ; and between the time of their first delivery, and that of their methodical registration, an interval will appear to have elapsed, either through carelessness or through a deficiency of writing materials. Hence there is reason enough for doubts, dissertations, prolegomena, and embarrassment to the anxious inquirer.

"The Coven consists exclusively of the revelations or commands which Mehemet professed, from time to hme; to receive through Gabriel, as a mes- sage direct from God ; and which, under an alleged divine direction, he de- livered to those about him. At the time of pretended inspiration, or shortly after, each passage was recited by Mahomet before the Companions or fol- lowers who happened to be present, and was 'generally committed to writing by some one amongst them, upon palm-leaves, leather, stones, or such other rude material as conveniently came to hand. These divine messages con- tinued throughout the three-and-twenty years of his prophetical life, so that the last portion did not appear till the year of his death. The canon was then closed ; but the contents were never, during the Prophet's life time, systematically arranged, or even collected together. 'We have no certain knowledge how the originals were preserved. That there did not exist any special depository for them, is evident from the mode in which, after Mahe- met's death, the various fragments had to be sought for. Much of the Coran possessed only a temporary interest, arising out of circumstances which soon ceased to be important ; and it seems to be doubtful whether the Prophet in- tended passages of this nature for public worship, or even for eventual cur- rency.

"However this may have been, it is very certain that, when Mehemet died, there was nowhere any deposit of the complete series of original tran- scripts, and it seems doubtful whether the original transcripts themselves were then generally in existence."

This subject is further pursued in connexion with the tenacity of Arab memory, and the order in which the Koran has come down to us, whether in an arbitrary or accidental arrangement ; to what extent determined by the Prophet—and as to the manner in which the complete work was put together—how, when this was accomplished, and variations began to appear, a uniform text was settled ; and the steps which were taken to preserve this uni- formity. All this inquiry no doubt proceeds on the assumption that the correct text of the Koran, critically ascertained, is valu- able, and not mendacious considered as a biographical record. Possibly there are persons Who consider time thrown away in such an investigation; nothing in the Koran being reliable, and the correction of the text, in their view, a work of entire supereroga- tion. • -

The materials derived from tradition are still more questionable. The first biographer, of whose work portions only have come down to us wrote a hundred years after Mahomet; the second, whose whole work is extant, lived upwards of two centuries after the Hegira. These writers might possibly have means of in- formation now lost, though such does not appear to have been the case. It was about the time of the first biography that the "tra- ditions" began to be collected, and these collections were com- pleted about the period when the second life was written. In strictness these traditions are of no authority whatever, for who- ever uses them must determine by his own judgment what he will receive, and what he will reject. After arguing that it is very doubtful whether any of these traditional stories or sayings were written down during the life of Mahomet, Mr. Muir goes on to show how vanity, fanaticism, superstition, and political motives would tend to corrupt them, or to generate pure inventions ; he thus describes the critical principles which guided the formation of the most authoritative collections.

"It is evident, then, that some species of criticism was practised by the Compilers ; and that, too, so unsparingly that out of a hundred traditions not more than one was accepted, and the remaining ninety-nine entirely re- jected. -But the European reader will be grievously deceived if he at all re- gards such criticism, rigorous as it was, in the light of a sound and discrimi- nating investigation into the credibility of the traditional elements. It was not the subject-matter of a tradition' but simply the names attached thereto, which decided the question of credit. Its authority must rest on some Com- panion of the Prophet, and on the character of each individual in the long

chain of witnesses through whom it was handed down. If these were un- impeachable, the tradition must be received. No inherent improbability, however glaring, could exclude a narration thus attested from its place in the authentic collections. The compilers would not venture upon the open sea of criticism, but steered slavishly by this single miserable canon along the shallows of a mere formal system."

The life which is drawn from such materials and the early biographers is, as already intimated, less a work of authority, than of opinion. Mr. Muir takes the original accounts, selects that which seems to him likely or natural for the text, and pre- sents examples of the marvellous or fabnlous in foot-notes, while

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certain facts are illustrated by quotations from the Koran. Such' a mode of composition must be repelling to a Mahometan who will'

encounter matter for critical (independent of theological) dispute at almost every sentence. To an European, however, it is the -best if not the only mode of proceeding, and one which frequently has to be adopted in dealing with religious periods or notabilities in European history. The result in Mr. Muies case is a lifelike narrative, with an Oriental colouring thrown over the Whole, arising as well from the author's practical knowledge of the East as from his adherence to the manner as it were of his authorities. We may not be sure as to particular facts of Mahomet's life, but we see the sort of life he must have led. The biographer, how- ever, does not as yet account convincingly for the success of Ma.., hornet by the actual state of Arabia, any more than-he showed fa the pre-Islamite history the causes which led to that state. In a good history of the Reformation we can trace through a long course of years the various causes which alienated the minds of the people and the interests of the higher classes from the Papal Church, rendering its overthrow in some countries a necessity, We cannot do this with Mahomet and Islamism in Mr. Muies Life. During the dozen years after his assumption of the Pro- phetic office Mahomees success in Mecca was slight—mainly among his own connexions and slaves. At the time of the He- gira less than two hundred (the biographer estimates about one hundred and fifty) souls left Mecca for Medina.- The,." flight" of the Prophet was political ; grounded upoii the 'sable principle' which induces any sort of adventurer to quit a town Where' he is not succeeding, for another that promises better. . At the time this flight was planned Mahomet was subject to no particular danger from Persecution,' nor except, when he and his followers were what the Polynesians call taboo, was he much persecuted at all. Except that the boys and rabble sometimes pelted him in the Oriental fashion, Mahomet does not seem to have undergone worse persecution than a radical had to bear in this country fifty years ago. When he fled to Medina he felt secure enough in the justice of the Mecums, or the strength of his own friends, to leave his family behind.

"Mehemet and Abu Baler trusted their respective clans to protect their families from insult. But no insult or annoyance of any kind was offered by the Coreish. Nor was the slightest attempt made to detain them ; although it was not unreasonable that they should have been detained as hostages against any hostile excursion from Medina. These facts lead us to doubt the intense hatred and bitter cruelty which the strong colouring of tradition is ever ready to attribute to the Cereish. * *

"in accordance with this view is the fact that the first aggressions, after the Hegira, were solely. on the part of Mehemet and his followers. It was not until several of their caravans had been waylaid and plundered, and blood had thus been shed, that the people of Mecca were forced in self-defence to resort to arms."

The summary notices of the Prophet's character are more fa- vourable than the narrative with its occasional glimpses into the future seems to justify. From a chronological and critical ana- lysis of the Koran, Mr. Muir concludes that Mahoraet at the out- set was thoroughly honest in his search after truth and his belief in his own inspiration. 'As his prospects widened and his-know- ledge increased,- the' biographer conceives that the character of the chief of Islam deteriorated. Not only political and theologi- cal ambition prompted his actions, but even the personal motives of revenge and baser lusts. Of the Bible Mr. Muir thinks that Mahomet had little 'original knowledge, learning what ,he_knew from Jews settled in Arabia ; - while of Christianity he knew no- thing except from Christian slaves, or Jews who perverted what they related. As he gained this spurious knowledge of other re- ligions, he made it a feature of the Koran, with the view'of ex- tending his influence. • But whatever may have been the evil influences which perverted Mahomet's career, we are glad to see that Mr. Muir is willing to acknowledge in this extraordinary' man something very different to cold, calculating imposture. It would appear incredible, indeed, that such achievements as his should be traceable to the mere promptings of hypocrisy. That Mahomet believed in his own inspiration does not appear to us to admit of question. We are not surprised at Mr. Muir's main- taining this view' which we think not irreconcileable with the opinions advanced as to the later career of the prophet.

"However strange it may appear, the heavenly origin of his revelations, obtained though they were from such fallible and imperfect sources, appears to have been believed by Mehemet himself. It would be against the analogy of his entire life, to suppose a continuing sense of fraud,:--a consciousness that the whole was a fabrication of his own mind, an im- position upon his followers, an impious assumption. of the, name of the Almighty. Occasional doubts and misgivings, especially when he first submitted to Jewish prompting, there may have been ; but a 'process similar to that by which he first assured himself of his own inspiration, would quickly put them to flight.

"The absence of spiritual light and of opportunities for obtaining.it which excused this marvellous self-deception in the early prophetical life - of Mehemet, cannot be pleaded for his later years. Ignorance was no longer then involuntary. The means of reaching a truer knowledge lay plentifully within his reach. But they were not heeded;' or rather they were deliberately rejected, because a position had been already taken up from which there could be no receding without discredit or inconsistency. The living inspiration of God vouchsafed to himself was surely better and more safe than the recorded Revelations of former prophets ; it was at any rate incomparably more authoritative than tht uncertain doctrines dedu.ad from them by their erring adherents. -Thus did ignorance become wilful. Light was at hand ; but Mehemet preferred darkness. He chose to walk 'in the 'glimmerings of his own fire, and in the sparks which he had kindled. "If it please God to give the author time and opportunity for pursuing the subject, frequent, and often melancholy, illustration will be afforded by the career of the Prophet at Medina of that unconscious self-deception which can alone explain the mysterious foundation of a Faith strong but often descending to subterfuge, never wavering yet always incon- sistent."

. The work exhibits a great deal of research in Oriental litera- ture, often assisted by the labours of other scholars. This is es- pecially the case in the chapter on Ante-Mahometan history, the materials- of which are principally derived from the Essa: sur Ifisfoire des Arabes avant ?Islamism° of M. A. Caussin de Pereeval. - The discussions are somewhat dry, especially those re- lating to Arabian history, but the life itself is beyond all question the best that has yet appeared in English ; while the exhibition of the authorities on which it is founded is a rare and curious piece of critical investigation.