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the sacred monument, and departing thence before sunrise, haste by Batn Mohasser to the valley of Mina, where they throw seven stones1 at three marks or pillars, in imitation of Abraham, who meeting the devil in that place, and being by him disturbed in his devotions, or tempted to disobedience, when he was going to sacrifice his son, was commanded by God to drive him away by throwing stones at him; though others pretend this rite to be as old as Adam, who also put the devil to flight in the same place, and by the same means.3

This ceremony being over, on the same day, the tenth of Dhu'lhajja, the pilgrims slay their victims in the said valley of Mina; of which they and their friends eat part, and the rest is given to the poor. These victims must be either sheep, goats, kine, or camels; males, of either of the two former kinds, and females if of either of the latter, and of a fit age. The sacrifices being over, they shave their heads, and cut their nails, burying them in the same place; after which the pilgrimage is looked on as completed: though they again visit the Caaba, to take their leave of that sacred building.

The above-mentioned ceremonies, by the confession of the Mohammedans themselves, were almost all of them observed by the pagan Arabs many ages before their prophet's appearance; and particularly the compassing of the Caaba, the running between Safâ and Merwâ, and the throwing of the stones in Mina; and were confirmed by Mohammed, with some alterations in such points as seemed most exceptionable: thus, for example, he ordered that when they compassed the Caaba, they should be clothed; whereas before his time they performed that piece of devotion naked, throwing off their clothes as a mark that they had cast off their sins," or as signs of their disobedience towards God.

It is also acknowledged that the greater part of these rites are of no intrinsic worth, neither affecting the soul, nor agreeing with natural reason, but altogether arbitrary, and commanded merely to try the obedience of mankind, without any farther view; and are therefore to be complied with, not that they are good in themselves, but because God has so appointed. Some, however, have endeavoured to find out some reasons for the arbitrary injunctions of this kind; and one writer,' supposing men ought to imitate the heavenly bodies, not only in their purity, but in their circular motion, seems to argue the procession round the Caaba to be therefore a rational practice. Reland has observed that the Romans had something like this in their worship, being ordered by Numa to use a circular motion in the adoration of the gods, either to represent the orbicular motion of the world, or the perfecting the whole office of prayer to that God who is maker of the universe, or else in allusion to the Egyptian wheels, which were hieroglyphics of the instability of human fortune.3

The pilgrimage to Mecca, and the ceremonies prescribed to those who perform it, are, perhaps, liable to greater exception than any other of

See Korân, chap. 2, p. 23. M. Gagnier has been twice guilty of a mistake in confound. ing this monument with the sacred enclosure of the Caaba. Vide Gagn. Not. ad Abulfed. Vit. Moh. p. 131, et Vie de Moh. tom. 2, p. 262. Dr. Pocock, from al Ghazali, says seventy, at different times and places. Spec. p. 315. Vide Reland, ubi sup. p. 117.

Ebn al Athîr.

Idem. chap. 7.

2 Al Ghazali, Ahmed Ebn Yusef. See Kor. chap. 2, p. 23. Al Faïk, de Tempore Ignor. Arabum, apud Millium de Moham Jallal. al Beid. This notion

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medmo ante Moh. p. 332. Compare Isaiah Ixiv. 6. comes very near, if it be not the same, with that of the Adamites. Al Ghazali, vide Abulfar. Hist Dyn. p. 171. Abu Jaafar Ebn Tofail, in Vita Hai Ebn Yokdhân, p.

151. See Mr. Ockley's English translation thereof, p. 117. 2 De Rel. Moh. p. 123.

Plutarch. in Numa.

Mocammed's institutions; not only as silly and ridiculous in themselves, but as relics of idolatrous superstition. Yet whoever seriously considers how difficult it is to make people submit to the abolishing of ancient cus toms, how unreasonable soever, which they are fond of, especially where the interest of a considerable party is also concerned, and that a man may with less danger change many things than one great one,5 must excuse Mohammed's yielding some points of less moment, to gain the principal. The temple of Mecca was held in excessive veneration by all the Arabs in general (if we except only the tribes of Tay, and Khatháam, and some of the posterity of al Hareth Ebn Caab, who used not to go in pilgrimage thereto), and especially by those of Mecca, who had a particular interest to support that veneration; and as the most silly and insignificant things are generally the objects of the greatest superstition, Mohammed found it much easier to abolish idolatry itself than to eradicate the superstitious bigotry with which they were addicted to that temple, and the rites performed there: wherefore, after several fruitless trials to wean them therefrom,' he thought it best to compromise the matter, and, rather than to frustrate his whole design, to allow them to go on pilgrimage thither, and to direct their prayers thereto: contenting himself with transferring the devotions there paid from their idols to the true God, and changing such circumstances therein as he judged might give scandal. And herein he followed the example of the most famous legislators, who instituted not such laws as were absolutely the best in themselves, but the best their people were capable of receiving: and we find God himself had the same condescendence for the Jews, whose hardness of heart he humoured in many things, giving them therefore statutes that were not X good, and judgments whereby they should not live.s

SECTION V.

OF CERTAIN NEGATIVE PRECEPTS IN THE KORAN.

HAVING in the preceding section spoken of the fundamental points of the Mohammedan religion, relating both to faith and to practice, I shall, in this and the two following discourses, speak in the same brief method of some other precepts and institutions of the Korân, which deserve peculiar notice, and first of certain things which are thereby prohibited.

The drinking of wine, under which name all sorts of strong and inebriating liquors are comprehended, is forbidden in the Korân in more places than one. Some, indeed, have imagined that only excess therein is forbidden and that the moderate use of wine is allowed by two passages in the same book: but the more received opinion is, that to drink any strong liquors either in a lesser quantity or in a greater, is absolutely unlawful; and though libertines indulge themselves in the contrary practice, yet the more conscientious are so strict, especially if they have performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, that they hold it unlawful not only to taste wine, but to press

Maimonides (in Epist. ad Prosel, Rel) pretends that the worship of Mercury was performed by throwing of stones, and that of Chemosh, by making bare the head, and putting on unsewn garments. According to the maxim, Tutius est multa mutare quàm unum Al Shahrestâni. See Kor. chap. 2, p. 17. Ezek. xx. 25. Vide Spencer, de Urim et Thummim, cap. 4, sect. 7. See chap. 2, p. 25, and chap. 5. Chap. 2, p. 25, and chap. 16. Vide D'Herbel, Bibl. Orient. p. 696. 2 Vide Smith, de Morib. et Instit. Turcar. Ep. 2, p. 28, &c. * Vide Chardin, ubi supra, p. 212.

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grapes for the making of it, to buy or to sell it, or even to maintain themselves with the money arising by the sale of the liquor. The Persians, however, as well as the Turks, are very fond of wine; and if one asks them how it comes to pass that they venture to drink it, when it is so directly forbidden by their religion, they answer, that it is with them as with the Christians, whose religion prohibits drunkenness and whoredom as great sins, and who glory, notwithstanding, some in debauching girls and married women, and others in drinking to excess.

It has been a question whether coffee comes not under the abovementioned prohibition," because the fumes of it have some effect on the imagination. This drink, which was first publicly used at Aden, in Arabia Felix, about the middle of the ninth century of the Hejra, and thence gradually introduced into Mecca, Medina, Egypt, Syria, and other parts of the Levant, has been the occasion of great disputes and disorders, having been sometimes publicly condemned and forbidden, and again declared lawful and allowed. At present the use of coffee is generally tolerated, if not granted, as is that of tobacco, though the more religious make a scruple of taking the latter, not only because it inebriates, but also out of respect to a traditional saying of their prophet (which, if it could be made out to be his, would prove him a prophet indeed), That in the latter days there should be men who should bear the name of Moslems, but should not be really such; and that they should smoke a certain weed, which should be called TOBACCO; however, the eastern nations are generally so addicted to both, that they say, a dish of coffee and a pipe of tobacco are a complete entertainment; and the Persians have a proverb, that coffee without tobacco is meat without salt.

Opium and beng (which latter is the leaves of hemp in pills or conserve) are also by the rigid Mohammedans esteemed unlawful, though not mentioned in the Korân, because they intoxicate and disturb the understanding as wine does, and in a more extraordinary manner: yet these drugs are now commonly taken in the east; but they who are addicted to them are generally looked upon as debauchees.

Several stories have been told as the occasion of Mohammed's prohibiting the drinking of wine: but the true reasons are given in the Korân, viz., because the ill qualities of that liquor surpass its good ones, the common effects thereof being quarrels and disturbances in company, and neglect, or at least indecencies, in the performance of religious duties. For these reasons it was, that the priests were, by the Levitical law, forbidden to drink wine or strong drink when they entered the tabernacle, and that the Nazarites and Rechabites, and many pious persons among the Jews and primitive Christians, wholly abstained therefrom; nay, some of the latter went so far as to condemn the use of wine as sinful. But Mohammed is said to have had a nearer example than any of these, in the more devout persons of his own tribe.

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Chardin, abi sup. p. 344.

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• Abd'alkâder Mohammed al Ansari has written a treatise concerning coffee, wherein he argues for its lawfulness. Vide D'Herbel. Art. Cahvah. Vide Le Traité Historique de l'Origine et du Progrès du Café à la Fin du Voy. de l'Arabie Heur. de la Roque. Reland, Dissert. Miscell. tom. 2, p. 280. Vide Chardin, Voy. de Perse, tom. 2, p. 14, and 66. • Vide Chardin, ibid. p. 68, &c., and D'Herbel. p. 200. Vide Prid. Life of Moh. p. 82, &c. Busbeq. Epist. 3, p. 255, and Maundeville's Travels, p. 170. Kor. chap. 2, p. 25, chap. 5, and chap. 4, p. 66. See Prov. xxiii. 29, &c. Num. vi. 2. Jerem. xxxv. 5, &c.

2 Levit. x. 9.

This was the heresy of those called Encratita, and Aquarij. Khwâf, a Magian heretic, also declared wine unlawful; but this was after Mohammed's time. Hyde, de Rel. Vet. Pers. p. 300. • Vide Reland. de Rel. Moh. p, 271.

Gaming is prohibited by the Korân' in the same passages, and for the same reasons, as wine. The word al Meisar, which is there used, signifies a particular manner of casting lots by arrows, much practised by the pagan Arabs, and performed in the following manner. A young camel being bought and killed, and divided into ten, or twenty-eight parts, the persons who cast lots for them, to the number of seven, met for that purpose; and eleven arrows were provided, without heads of feathers, seven of which were marked, the first with one notch, the second with two, and so on, and the other four had no mark at all; these arrows were put promiscuously into a bag, and then drawn by an indifferent person, who had another near him to receive them, and to see he acted fairly; those to whom the marked arrows fell won shares in proportion to their lot, and those to whom the blanks fell were entitled to no part of the camel at all, but were obliged to pay the full price of it. The winners, however, tasted not of the flesh, any more than the losers, but the whole was distributed among the poor; and this they did out of pride and ostentation, it being reckoned a shame for a man to stand out, and not venture his money on such an occasion. This custom, therefore, though it was of some use to the poor, and diversion to the rich, was forbidden by Mohammed,' as the source of greater inconveniences, by occasioning quarrels and heart-burnings, which arose from the winners insulting of those who lost.

Under the name of lots the commentators agree that all other games whatsoever, which are subject to hazard or chance, are comprehended and forbidden; as dice, cards, tables, &c. And they are reckoned so ill in themselves, that the testimony of him who plays at them is, by the more rigid, judged to be of no validity in a court of justice. Chess is almost the only game which the Mohammedan doctors allow to be lawful (though it has been a doubt with some), because it depends wholly on skill and management, and not at all on chance: but then it is allowed under certain restrictions, viz., that it be no hindrance to the regular performance of their devotions, and that no money or other thing be played for or betted; which last the Turks and Sonnites religiously observe, but the Persians and Mogols do not. But what Mohammed is supposed chiefly to have disliked in the game of chess, was the carved pieces, or men, with which the Pagan Arabs played, being little figures of men, elephants, horses, and dromedaries; and these are thought, by some commentators, to be truly meant by the images prohibited in one of the passages of the Korân quoted above. That the Arabs in Mohammed's time actually used such images for chessmen appears from what is related, in the Sonna, of Ali, who passing accidentally by some who were playing at chess, asked, What images they were which they were so intent upon? for they were perfectly new to him, that game having been but very lately introduced into Arabia, and not long before into Persia, whither it was first brought from India in the reign of Khosrû Nûshirwân. Hence the Mohammedan doctors infer that the game was disapproved only for the sake of the images: where- * fore the Sonnites always play with plain pieces of wood or ivory; but the Persians and Indians, who are not so scrupulous, continue to make use of the carved ones.

Chap. 2, p. 25, chap. 5.

three blank arrows.

Some writers, as al Zamakh. and al Shirâzi, mention bu. Auctores Nodhm al dorr, and Nothr al dorr, al Zamakh, a. Firauzabadi, al Shirâzi in Orat. al Harîri, al Beidâwi, &c. Vide Poc. Spec. p. 324, &c 1 Korân, chap. 5. p. 81. 2 Vide Hyde, de Ludis Oriental. in Proleg. ad Shahiludium. * Vide Eund. ibid. Vide Eundem, ibid. and in Hist. Shahiludij, p. 135, &c Sokeiker al Dimishki, and Auctor libri al Mostatraf, apud Hyde, ubi sup * Khondemir, apud eund. ibid. p. 41. • Vide Hyde, ubi sup. p. 9.

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Chap. 5.

p. 8.

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The Mohammedans comply with the prohibition of gaming much better than they do with that of wine; for though the common people, among the Turks more frequently, and the Persians more rarely, are addicted to play, yet the better sort are seldom guilty of it."

Gaming, at least to excess, has been forbidden in all well-ordered states. Gaming-houses were reckoned scandalous places among the Greeks, and a gamester is declared by Aristotle' to be no better than a thief: the Roman senate made very severe laws against playing at games of hazard, except only during the Saturnalia; though the people played often at other times, notwithstanding the prohibition: the civil law forbade all pernicious games: and though the laity were, in some cases, permitted to play for money, provided they kept within reasonable bounds, yet the clergy were forbidden to play at tables (which is a game of hazard), or even to look on while others played. Accursius, indeed, is of opinion they may play at chess, notwithstanding that law, because it is a game not subject to chance, and being but newly invented in the time of Justinian, was not then known in the western parts. However the monks for some time were not allowed even chess.

As to the Jews, Mohammed's chief guides, they also highly disapprove gaming gamesters being severely censured in the Talmud, and their testimony declared invalid."

Another practice of the idolatrous Arabs, forbidden also in one of the above-mentioned passages, was that of divining by arrows. The arrows used by them for this purpose were like those with which they cast lots, being without heads or feathers, and were kept in the temple of some idol, in whose presence they were consulted. Seven such arrows were kept at the temple of Mecca;9 but generally in divination they made use of three only, on one of which was written, My Lord hath commanded me; on another, My Lord hath forbidden me; and the third was blank. If the first was drawn, they looked on it as an approbation of the enterprise in question; if the second, they made a contrary conclusion; but if the third happened to be drawn, they mixed them and drew over again, till a decisive answer was given by one of the others. These divining arrows were generally consulted before any thing of moment was undertaken; as when a man was about to marry, or about to go a journey, or the like. This superstitious practice of divining by arrows was used by the ancient Greeks, and other nations; and is particularly mentioned in scripture,3 where it is said, that "the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he made his arrows bright," (or, according to the version of the vulgate, which seems preferable in this place, he mixed together, or shook the arrows) he consulted with images, &c.: the commentary of St. Jerome on which passage wonderfully agrees with what we are told of the aforesaid custom of the old Arabs: "He shall stand," says he, "in the highway, and consult the oracle after the manner of his nation, that he may cast arrows into a quiver, and mix them together, being written

Du Fresne, in Gloss.

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Vide Eundem, in Proleg. and Chardin, Voy. de Perse, tom. 2, p. 46. 1 Lib. 4, ad Nicom. 2 Vide Horat. lib. 3. Carm. Od. 24. De Aleatoribus. Novell. Just. 123, &c., Vide Hyde, ubi sup. in Hist. Aleæ, p. 119. Authent. interdicimus, c. de episcopis. In Com. ad Legem Praed. Bava Mesia, 84, 1. Rosh hashana, and Sanhedr. 24, 2. Vide etiam Maimon. in Tract. Gezila. Among the modern civilians, Mascardus thought common gamesters were not to be admitted as witnesses, being infamous persons. Vide Hyde, ubi sup. in Proleg. et in Hist. Aleæ, sect. iii. Kor. chap. 5. See before, p. 14. Ebn al Athîr, al Zamakh. and al Beid. in Kor. c. 5. Al Mostatraf, &c. Vide Poc. Spec. p. 327, &c., and D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. Art. Acdâh. "Vide Potter, Antiq. of Greece, vol. 1, p. 334. Ezek. xxi. 21.

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