& these -
At Medina worldly motives mingle with his spiritual objects
But the scene altogether changes at Medina. There the acquisition of temporal power, aggrandisement, and self-glorification, mingled with the grand object of the Prophet's previous life; and they were sought after and attained by precisely the same instrumentality. Messages from heaven were freely brought forward to justify his political conduct, equally with his religious precepts. Battles were fought, wholesale executions inflicted, and territories annexed, under pretext of the Almighty's sanction. Nay, even baser actions were not only excused, but encouraged, by the pretended divine approval or command. A special license was produced, allowing Mahomet a double number of wives; the discreditable affair with Mary the Coptic slave was justified in a separate Sura; and the passion for the wife of his own adopted son and bosom friend, was the subject of an inspired message in which the Prophet's scruples were rebuked by God, a divorce permitted, and marriage with the object of his unhallowed desires enjoined! If we say that such page 319
revelations" were believed by Mahomet sincerely to bear the divine sanction, it can be but in it very modified and peculiar sense. He was not only responsible for that belief, but, in arriving at any such conviction, he must have done violence to his judgment and to the better principles of his nature.
Rapid moral declension: the natural consequences
As the necessary result of this moral obliquity, we trace from the period of Mahomet's arrival at Medina a marked and rapid declension in the system he inculcated. Intolerance quickly took the place of freedom; force, of persuasion. The spiritual weapons designed at first for higher objects were no sooner prostituted to the purposes of temporal authority, than temporal authority was employed to impart a fictitious weight and power to those spiritual weapons. The name of the Almighty, impiously borrowed, imparted a terrible strength to the sword of the State; and the sword of the State, in its turn, yielded a willing requital by destroying "the enemies of God," and sacrificing them at the shrine of a false religion. "Slay the unbelievers wheresoever ye find them;" was now the watchword of Islam "Fight in the ways of God until opposition be crushed and the Religion becometh the Lord's alone!" The warm and earnest devotion breathed by the Prophet and his followers at Mecca, soon became at Medina dull and vapid; it degenerated into a fierce fanaticism, or evaporated in a lifeless round of cold and formal ceremonies. The Jewish faith, page 320
whose pure fountains were freely accessible to Mahomet, as well as the less familiar system of Christianity, in spite of former protestations of faith and allegiance, were both cast aside without hesitation and without inquiry; for the course on which he had entered was too profitable and too enticing to permit the exercise of any such nice research or close questioning as (perhaps he unconsciously felt) might have opened his eyes to the truth, and forced him either to retrace his steps, or to unveil himself before his own conscience in the fearful form of an impostor. To what other conclusion can we come than that he was delivered over to the judicial blindness of a sell deceived heart; that, having voluntarily shut his eyes against the light, he was left miserably to grope in the darkness of his own choosing.
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inculcated within the circle of the faith; orphans are to be protected, and slaves treated with consideration; intoxicating drinks are prohibited, and Mahometanism may boast of a degree of temperance unknown to any other creed.
outweighed by its evils
Yet these benefits have been purchased at a costly price. Setting aside considerations of minor import, three radical evils flow from the faith, in all ages and in every country, and must continue to flow so long as the Coran in the standard of belief. FIRST: Polygamy, Divorce, and Slavery, are maintained and perpetuated ;- striking as they do at the root of public morals, poisoning domestic life, and disorganizing society. SECOND: freedom of judgment in religion is crushed and annihilated. The sword is the inevitable penalty for the denial of Islam. Toleration is unknown. THIRD: a barrier has been interposed against the reception of Christianity. They labour under a miserable delusion who suppose that Mahometanism paves the way for a purer faith. No system could have been devised with more consummate skill for shutting out the nations over which it has sway, from the light of truth. Idolatrous Arabia (judging from the analogy of other nations) might have been aroused to spiritual life, and to the adoption of the faith of Jesus; Mahometan Arabia is, to the human eye, sealed against the benign influences of the Gospel. Many a flourishing land in Africa and in Asia which once rejoiced in the light and liberty of Christianity, is now overspread by page 322
gross darkness and a stubborn barbarism. It is as if their day of grace had come and gone, and there remained to them "no more sacrifice for sins." That a brighter day will yet dawn on these countries we may not doubt; but the history of the past and the condition of the present is not the less true and sad. The sword of Mahomet, and the Coran, are the most fatal enemies of Civilization, Liberty, and Truth, which the world has yet known.
Inconsistencies run through the character of MahometIn conclusion, I would warn the reader against seeking to portray in his mind a character in all of Mahomet, its parts consistent with itself as the character of Mahomet. The truth is that the strangest inconsistencies blended together according to the wont of human nature) throughout the life of the Prophet. The student of the history will trace for himself how the pure and lofty aspirations of Mahomet were first tinged, and then gradually debased by a half unconscious self-deception; and how in this process truth merged into falsehood, sincerity into guile, - these opposite principles often co-existing even as active agencies in his conduct. The reader will observe that simultaneously with the anxious desire to extinguish idolatry, and to promote religion and virtue in the world, there was nurtured by the Prophet in his own heart, a licentious self-indulgence; till in the end, assuming to be the favourite of Heaven, he justified himself by "revelations" from God in the most flagrant breaches of morality.
Indeed factual history of this monster Mahomet repeatedly warns us to fear the spread of Islam!
Your alleged evidence refuting legitimate history is?
