mendicant orders; the relation of Popery and Mahometanism, as, together, the parents, or rather the latter the parent, and the former the nurse, of the scholastic theology, the opposed schools reproducing some of the fruits of early Christianity, in the growth of ascetics, fatalists, mystics; the injunction of celibacy by the western antichrist, and its observance, as a religious ordinance, by the dervises, and other devotees of the eastern antichristian tyranny; the curious mutual approximation of Christianity and Mahometanism, through the medium of their respective sects, -the Christian heresies uniformly tending towards the doctrines of the Koran, the reputed heresies of Mahometanism, on the other hand, towards the mysterious truths of the Gospel; the anomaly alike observable in the two creeds, in the identity of their character, at the commencement, as unlettered religions, and again, in their progress, as the grand restorers and perfecters of human knowledge; their concurrence in sundry rites, ordinances, and institutions, and the analogy of their civil divisions, into the rival empires of the East and West, and the rival caliphates of Spain and Asia, -and of their ecclesiastical, into the rival churches of Rome and Constantinople, and the rival spurious churches of Mecca and Cordova, or again, of the Turks and Persians, the Turks and Persians being the Greeks and Latins of Mahometanism; the analogy of western Christendom and Mahometanism in their division, on the question of tradition, -the one into Sonnites and Suffies, the followers of Omar and those of Ali, the other into the Romanists and the Reformed; the affinity, finally, of the opposed religions, in the claims of their authoritative records, the Bible and the Koran, the one containing the sum of the Christian, the other that of the Mahometan, belief, both documents purporting to be divine revelations, possessing many fundamental points and tenets in common, and the one being, in point of fact, the spurious counterfeit of the other. I shall close this recapitulation by observing, that, if it rested on the single analogy between the Bible and Koran, the historical parallel between Christianity and Mahometanism would be strong: for compare the sacred books of the three religions involved in this parallel, - and they manifestly bear a relation, to those religions, and among themselves, altogether unparalleled in the history of religious belief. In other words, the Old Testament stands to the Jews, the Old and New Testaments to Christendom, and the Koran to the Mahometan world, in a common relation so peculiar, that no fourth record can be adduced, which will bear a comparison with them.* In this historical analogy between the three religions, as in that before submitted between their founders, many of the resemblances obviously are, and many as certainly are not, the result of imitation. An attentive inspection of the table will enable the reader to separate the designed from the undesigned coincidences. It will be enough to remind him, once more, of the importance to the present subject, of both classes of agreement: the designed, to affix to Mahomet the character of antichrist, as the spurious imitator of the Christ; the undesigned, to mark the counsels of God's providence, and the fulfilment of prophecy, in the appearance of this false prophet, and in the whole rise and progress of his appalling superstition. In the tabular sketch of the historical parallel, presented in the present section, our object has been to touch merely upon the general outline of facts. The facts themselves, when scrutinized, will be found to branch out into other comparisons, moral, doctrinal, and ritual, — of sects, heresies, and schisms, between Popery and Mahometanism; between the contents of the - * See section viii. Bible and Koran: between the Mahometan and Christian holy wars; and between the influences of the opposed religions on the general progress of society, and on the general advancement of the human mind. The separate consideration of each of these heads will form the subjects of the ensuing sections. SECTION V. MORAL PARALLEL OF MAHOMETANISM WITH JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. IT has been stated in the Introduction *, as a fundamental character of Mahometanism, that, in its better features, the law of Mahomet was formed after the models of the law of Moses and the Gospel; and, in its worse features, on precedents derived from the traditional figments of the Jewish Talmudists and Rabbins, or from the still wilder speculations of the early Christian heretics. Thus, in whatever aspect we view it, the distinctive mark of this baleful superstition still will be the continuity of its analogy with the true revelation, either as the servile copy of Judaism and Christianity, or as the counterpart of their corruptions. If the system of the Koran were, in principle and practice, far sounder and more pure than it can pretend to be, the very position of Mahometanism, excluding as it does, all notion of originality, must for ever disqualify its moral * See p. 91. |