clusively after its lower ordinances, neglecting the brighter and better features of the law of Moses. On the contrary, those parts of the Mosaic covenant, and of the other Scriptures of the Old Testament, most difficult in the observance, or most strictly moral in their nature,—such as the precepts concerning truth, justice, liberality, charity, and the observances of fasting, almsgiving, and stated prayers; above all, the commandments and exhortations animating the Jews to zeal for their religion, and inculcating the faith and fear of God, these are all studiously copied; in these particulars, Mahometanism is a fair transcript of Judaism. I proceed to exemplify this side of the analogy, by a brief selection of parallel precepts from the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and from the Koran. Among the injunctions of Moses to the Israelites, we find precepts such as these:"Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry: and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer; neither shalt thou lay upon him usury." Again, "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with thee. And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee, be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant; but as an hired servant, and as a sojourner he shall be with thee."+ Again, "The Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible; which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow; and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God."‡ Compare, now, these precepts of Moses, thus solemnly delivered to the Israelites, as the great practical tests of their faith, with the following passage of the Koran, in which the same principles are presented in like connection with the fear of God, and embodied together in Mahomet's definition of righteousness or religion : "It is not righteousness, that ye turn your faces in Exod. xxii. 21-25. + Levit. xxv. 39, 40. prayer towards the east and the west; but righteousness is of him who believeth in God, and the last day, and the angels, and the Scriptures, and the prophets; who giveth money, for God's sake, unto his kindred, and unto orphans, and the needy, and the stranger, and those who ask, and for redemption of captives; who is constant at prayer, and giveth alms; and of those who perform their covenant, when they have covenanted; and who behave themselves patiently in adversity, and in time of violence: these are they who are true; and these are they who fear God."* These corresponding passages from the Pentateuch and Koran, understood as the Mosaic and Mahometan summaries of practical religion, form no unimportant feature in the moral parallel subsisting between the religions. That we are authorized so to understand the former, as well as the latter, is plain from a well-known passage of the New Testament, which introduces the pious care of the widow and the orphan, as essential elements in the definition of true religion:-" Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. † * Sale's Koran, chap. ii. vol. i. p. 31. + St. James, i. 27. But the moral precepts of the law of Moses, unexpanded by the spiritual comments of the prophets and the Gospel, would be a very imperfect measure of the moral theory of Mahometanism. If, in its lower features, it symbolizes, as we have seen, with the carnal ordinances of the law; in its better part, it copies, with equal exactness, after the more perfect morality of later revelations. In its views and definitions of the three great duties, towards God, our neighbour, and ourselves, the Koran assuredly contains several precepts and principles of action, breathing far more of the spirit of the Gospel, than of the letter of the Jewish law. The parallel of the Koran with the New Testament, the obvious result, throughout, of direct plagiarism, or studied imitation, belongs, more appropriately, to a future place. For the present, we will look rather to Mahometan tradition; whose comments and expositions may be best calculated to show, how far the lights which the Koran originally borrowed from Christianity, subsequently entered into the constitution of Mahometanism, and became incorporated with its spirit. The moral spirit of Mahometanism, in its un- + adulterated strength, is to be found in an au * See section viii. * thentic tradition, contemporary with Mahomet himself, and second in authority only to that of the Koran; - the proverbs or sentences of the Caliph Ali Ebn Abu Taleb. From this primitive source, I shall deduce in brief series, and by select examples, the Mahometan notions of the several duties to God, our neighbour, and ourselves; leaving it with the reader to verify the manifest parallel with the corresponding doctrines of the Gospel. To begin with the duty to God, is but to follow the lead of Mahomet's kinsman and successor, in a fundamental maxim of his sentences; namely, that piety is the source of morals." The following are among the aphorisms of Ali. † — * "Sententiæ Ali Ebn Abi Talebi, Arabice et Latine. Oxonii, 1806." For this valuable edition, the fruits of the learned labours of Cornelius Van Waenen, the oriental student is indebted to the liberality of the Curators of the Clarendon Press. From the same spirit, seconded by the eminent attainments in oriental literature of Dr. Nichol, the present Regius Professor of Hebrew, much, we may safely anticipate, will be done, towards bringing to light the MS. treasures of the Bodleian library, and worthily honouring the memory of Archbishop Laud. In the original, the Proverbs of Ali are divided after the model of the 119th Psalm, into heads or topics corresponding with the letters of the Arabic alphabet; each sentence beginning with the letter of the head under which it occurs. The selection here submitted is arranged differently; the sentences being distributed in a moral order: an arrangement essential to the object proposed in the text. |