The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [1671]
[Footnote 69: Abulfeda, in Vit. c. lxv. lxvi. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 272 - 289. The best traditions of the person and conversation of the prophet are derived from Ayesha, Ali, and Abu Horaira, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 267. Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 149,) surnamed the Father of a Cat, who died in the year 59 of the Hegira.
Note: Compare, likewise, the new Life of Mahomet (Mohammed der prophet) by Dr. Weil, (Stuttgart, 1843.) Dr. Weil has a new tradition, that Mahomet was at one time a shepherd. This assimilation to the life of Moses, instead of giving probability to the story, as Dr. Weil suggests, makes it more suspicious. Note, p. 34. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 70: Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write are incapable of reading what is written with another pen, in the Suras, or chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts, and the tradition of the Sonna, are admitted, without doubt, by Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,) Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,) Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland, (de Religione Mohammedica, p. 236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 42.) Mr. White, almost alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the imposture, of the prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two short trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not sufficient to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca: it was not in the cool, deliberate act of treaty, that Mahomet would have dropped the mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from the words of disease and delirium. The lettered youth, before he aspired to the prophetic character, must have often exercised, in private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first converts, of his own family, would have been the first to detect and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White's Sermons, p. 203, 204, Notes, p. xxxvi. - xxxviii.)
Note: (Academ. des Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that the text of the seveth Sura implies that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone denies it, and, according to Dr. Weil, (p. 46,) there is another reading of the tradition, that "he could not read well." Dr. Weil is not quite so successful in explaining away Sura xxix. It means, he thinks that he had not read any books, from which he could have borrowed. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 71: The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahomet, p. 202 - 228) leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus of Fenelon, or the Cyrus of Ramsay. His journey to the court of Persia is probably a fiction nor can I trace the origin of his exclamation, "Les Grecs sont pour tant des hommes." The two Syrian journeys are expressed by almost all the Arabian writers, both Mahometans and Christians, (Gagnier Abulfed. p. 10.)]
[Footnote 72: I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or conjectures which name the strangers accused or suspected by the infidels of Mecca, (Koran, c. 16, p. 223, c. 35, p. 297, with Sale's Remarks. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 22 - 27. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 400.) Even Prideaux has observed, that the transaction must have been secret, and that the scene lay in the heart of Arabia.]
[Footnote 73: Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p. 133, 135. The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by Abulfeda (Geograph. Arab p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the cave of Egeria, ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicae, of the Idaean Mount, where Minos conversed with Jove, &c.]
It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the learned nations of antiquity were deluded by the fables of polytheism, their simple ancestors of Palestine preserved the knowledge and worship of the true God. The moral attributes of Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with the standard of human virtue: his metaphysical qualities are darkly expressed; but each page of the Pentateuch and the Prophets is an evidence of his power: the unity of his name is inscribed on the first table of the law; and his sanctuary was never defiled