cise the same grinding oppression that the Arab inflicts upon his fellow-countrymen when in his power. The Turk is vain, ignorant, presumptuous, and authoritative (I speak of the governors and officers, who are the only Osmanlis of Egypt of whom I have had any experience); yet in society he is courteous, affable, and gentlemanlike. He never, or very rarely, intermarries with Egyptians; and, as it is a well-known fact that children, born of other women in this country, rapidly degenerate or die, there are few instances of indigenous Turks in Egypt.* Through the long reign of the Mamelukes, there was not one instance, I believe, of a son succeeding to his father's power and possessions. The Mamelukes were young Georgian or Circassian slaves, adopted by their owners, and adopting others in their turn; this dynasty of foundlings ruled for many years in the land of the Pharaohs, and is now extinct: some few survived the massacre under Mehemet Ali, but they have died gradually away. When I arrived, the last of them was to be seen at Alexandria, with snow-white beard and bended form, but an eye that, in extreme old age, retained all its youthful fire. This last of a persecuting and persecuted race is now at rest, with a turban carved in stone above his tomb. * Mehemet Ali's large family would appear to be a remarkable exception. Ibrahim, however, is of European birth, and the others form slight exception to the rule of degeneracy CHAPTER XIII. MAHOMET, AND HIS CREED. While God was uttering through his lip, and writing with his pen, Imposteur à la Mecque, mais Prophète à Médine. MILNES. VOLTAIRE. EL ISLAM signifies "resignation," and is the Moslem expression for the Mahometan faith; the exposition of its principles could not have found one more appropriate. I am not about to enter upon any dry theological discussions, but the whole character of Eastern life is so strongly impregnated by Islamism, that a glance at this faith and its extraordinary founder seems unavoidable. The star-worship of old times was surely the most natural belief to which the wandering soul could cling. It first revealed itself in those unclouded climes where the host of heaven is ever visible. The planets especially appeared to preside over Earth's fluctuating fates, and to each was allotted some peculiar ministry by this lofty superstition. The priests were also astrologers; when their influence had passed away, the book in which they read-its page the sky, its letters stars-remained still open, and was still devoutly gazed on. To this moment, an instinct of this faith lingers among the people of the desert, who attribute the rising of the Nile to one-the falling of the miraculous drop that cures the plague and blesses the year to another star—their human destiny to the combination of the host of heaven and who can tell how often and how deeply the lonely wanderer has been cheered by the belief that these eyes of heaven were watching over his desert path! Nor are such superstitions confined to the Oriental; all those who pass much time under an open midnight sky admit its influence. The sailors who first ventured into the Pacific Ocean observed that a constellation, new to them, was shining over the softened sea like the presence of Him who preached peace to the tempest-tossed: the constel. lation was in the form of a cross, and the mariners no longer marvelled that the sea was still. Our own language bears testimony to the hold that astrology obtained amongst our language. makers; and the expression of a "jovial disposition," a "saturnine" or "martial" look, describes those whom Eastern superstition, grafted on Northern credulity, believed to be born under the "aspect" of those planets. Sabaism was the religion of the Arabians when Mahomet appeared. This religious science, that had been cultivated at Babylon, was carefully preserved by those who had nightly experience of its visions, and found utility realizing their abstract faith. If eternity was written in the empyrean, and incorruptibility in the stars, the former was also their harvest-giver, for the Arab proverb says, "Behold, fertility is in the clouds of the sky, not in the clods of the earth!" By the stars they steered their "ships of the desert" along the trackless wastes; and, by the position of the other planets, traced the movement of their own through spring and harvest. Upon this star-worship was grafted a wild, vague mythology, that expressed itself in idols: this must have been a very complicated theology, for we find Mahomet, in one iconoclasm, destroying three hundred and sixty of its stony saints that had occupied the temple of the Caaba in peace till then.* This temple was in existence before the Christian era, and contained the black stone that fell from Heaven, on which Jacob dreamed! Scattered among the Sabeans were many Christians and Jews; the latter principally emigrants from Syria when under the scourge of Titus the avenger; the former, the converts of the Jacobite and Nestorian bishops. The professors of these two creeds bore the name of the "People of the Book," or of the Some say there were only two idols here, Abraham and Nimrod. Bible; and, if the Christians were tolerated, the Jews were even cherished by the Arabs, who rejoiced to find, in the story of the Hebrew Patriarchs, the ancient origin of the fathers of their nation. They respected Abraham as a just man, and one who dwelt in tents; but they adored Ishmael, whose life they found themselves imitating. Then came Mahomet. He was of the tribe of Koreish, and the family of Hashem, the most illustrious in Arabia,-princes of Mecca, and hereditary guardians of the Caaba. It is curious that the controversial Christians—themselves the followers of poor fishermen, who were yet ambassadors of God-endeavored to injure his cause by stating that he was of humble origin. Noble he was, and therefore less wonderful his rise; and his father Abdallah is said to have been so popular that two hundred and three virgins expired of despair on the day of his nuptials with Amina, a daughter of the noble race of the Zahrites. Mahomet, the only issue of this marriage, at an early age found himself an orphan, and a ward of his avaricious uncles. The result of Arabian chancery would argue them to be a civilized people even then, for, on coming of age, he received five camels and a slave as his sole remnant of a noble inheritance. "In the lowly valley grow the mighty trees," says the Arab proverb, and in poverty that soul grew strong which was to influence the world. He first tried his hand and head at trade, wherein he prospered, and then he married Cadijah, the wealthiest widow in Mecca. He had now to look round on mankind, and to study his fellowcountrymen. He found their prejudices and affections divided between the idolatrous faith of their forefathers, the doctrine of the Jews, so gratifying to their worldly pride, and the more spiritual creed of even the Arabian Christian, which invited to self-denial in the present, by the promise of a glorious future. Mahomet took the iron, and brass, and gold, of these respective systems, and fused them into a bronze image of himself. He asserted, and the Eastern world at length believed, that he alone could reconcile the discrepancies, fulfil all the requisitions, and unite the strength of the world's divided faith. The Arab wanted but a leader, Mahomet wanted but to lead, and his was the energetic, self-loyal, indomitable spirit, that could do it effectually. For seven years he struggled through contempt, and jealousy, and danger, as resolutely as the swimmer, who knows that he must reach the shore-or die. His claim to divinity, and his warlike spirit, acted and reacted on each other: did his followers faint under the burning sunshine of the desert, "Hell is much hotter" was at once his sermon and his bulletin; did the threats and the power of the unbelieving Koreishites induce even his devoted followers to remonstrate, "If they should place the sun on my right hand, and the moon upon my left, they should not divert me from my course," was the vaunt of one who felt himself superior to fate, or the maker of his own. When his assassination was determined on at Mecca, and each of the tribes devoted a sword to share his blood, he retired to the desert with only one companion; yet was he then not less the Leader than when, in another emergency, he unrolled his turban as the banner for 10,000 men :-"We are but two," said Abubeker, the companion of his flight, as their pursuers were approaching; "We are three," said Mahomet, "for God is with us;"—just then a pigeon nestled at the door of the cave in which they were concealed, and the pursuers passed on unsuspectingly. It was not enough for Mahomet that he escaped on this occasion-he had the bold assurance to date the triumph of his mission from that day; and all over the East, "The Hegira," or The Flight, is the glorious epoch by which the Believer reckons time. Medina received the Prophet as such, and is consecrated by his burial as Mecca by his birth. Thenceforth, he and his creed triumphed together: the head that would not be converted fell upon the field of battle, and the curved sabre was the true effigy of the Crescent. ture. The deceiving spirit, that wore the form of Mahomet, may perhaps have been itself among the victims of its own imposA believer in metempsychosis might suspect that in a less powerful form, it afterwards assumed the appearance of the Caliph Hakeem, and the prophet Mokanna; and Cromwell himself might appear but another manifestation of the same spirit. い |