of Mecca. The number of profelytes in the seventh year of his miffion may be estimated by the abfence of eighty-three men and eighteen women, who retired to Æthiopia *." Yet this progrefs, fuch as it was, appears to have been aided by some very important advantages which Mahomet found in his fituation, in his mode of conducting his design, and in his doctrine.

1. Mahomet was the grandfon of the moft powerful and honourable family in Mecca; and although the early death of his father had not left him a patrimony fuitable to his birth, he had, long before the commencement of his miffion, repaired this deficiency by an opulent marriage. A person confiderable by his wealth, of high defcent, and nearly allied to the chiefs of his country, taking upon himself the character of a religious teacher, would not fail of attracting attention and followers.

* Gibbon's Hift. vol. ix. p. 244 et feq. ed. Dub.

2. Mahomet conducted his defign, in the outfet efpecially, with great art and prudence. He conducted it as a politician would conduct a plot. His first application was to his own family. This gained him his wife's uncle, a confiderable perfon in Mecca, together with his coufin Ali, afterwards the celebrated Caliph, then a youth of great expectation, and even already diftinguished by his attachment, impetuofity and courage. He next addreffed himfelf to Abu Becr, a man amongst the first of the Koreifh in wealth and influence. The intereft and example of Abu Becr drew in five other principal perfons in Mecca, whose folicitations prevailed upon five more of the

Of which Mr. Gibbon has preferved the following fpecimen :-" When Mahomet called out in an affembly of his family, Who among you will be my companion, and my vizir? Ali, then only in the fourteenth year of his age, fuddenly replied, O prophet, I am the man; whofoever rifes against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet, I will be thy vizir over them." Vol. ix. P. 245,

fame

fame rank. This was the work of three years; during which time every thing was tranfacted in fecret. Upon the strength of these allies, and under the powerful protection of his family, who, however some of them might difapprove his enterprife, or deride his pretenfions, would not fuffer the orphan of their house, the relict of their favourite brother, to be infulted, Mahomet now commenced his public preaching. And the advance which he made, during the nine or ten remaining years of his peaccable-miniftry, was by no means greater than what, with these advantages, and with the additional and fingular circumftance of there being no established religion at Mecca at that time to contend with, might reasonably have been expected. How foon his primitive adherents were let into the fecret of his views of empire, or in what ftage of his undertaking these views firft opened themselves to his own mind, it is not now eafy to determine. The event however was, that these his first profelytes all ultimately attained to

riches and honours, to the command of armies, and the government of kingdoms *.

3. The Arabs deduced their descent from Abraham through the line of Ifhmacl. The inhabitants of Mecca, in common probably with the other Arabian tribes, acknowledged, as, I think, may clearly be collected from the Koran, one fupreme deity, but had affociated with him many objects of idolatrous worship. The great doctrine, with which Mahomet fet out, was the ftrict and exclufive unity of God. Abraham, he told them, their illuftrious ancestor; Ifhmael, the father of their nation; Mofes, the law-giver of the Jews; and Jefus, the author of Chrif tianity, had all afferted the fame thing; that their followers had univerfally corrupted the truth, and that he was now commiffioned to restore it to the world. Was it to be wondered at, that a doctrine fo fpecious, and authorifed by names, fome or other of which were holden in the highest

* Gib. vol. ix. p. 244.

7

veneration

veneration by every defcription of his hearers, should, in the hands of a popular miffionary, prevail to the extent in which Mahomet fucceeded by his pacific ministry.

4. Of the inftitution which Mahomet joined with this fundamental doctrine, and of the Koran in which that inftitution is delivered, we difcover, I think, two purposes that pervade the whole, viz. to make converts, and to make his converts foldiers. The following particulars, amongst others, may be confidered as pretty evident indications of these designs:

1. When Mahomet began to preach, his address to the Jews, the Chriftians, and to the Pagan Arabs, was, that the religion which he taught, was no other than what had been originally their own. "We believe in God, and that which hath been fent down unto us, and that which hath been fent down unto Abraham, and Ifmael and Ifaac, and Jacob and the Tribes, and that which was delivered unto Mofes and Jefus,

VOL. II.

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and