Kabel and Habel (the Arabic names of Cain and Abel) offered sacrifice to God; the offerings of Habel met with a more favourable reception; Kabel envied him and killed him; so envy first occasioned infidelity in heaven, and murder on earth.
The heighth of the celestial happiness is to see God; all those elegant descriptions of beautiful virgins, rivers flowing with honey, gardens of delicious fruits, &c. which are said by some to compose the happiness of the Mohammedan paradise, are allegorical descriptions.
Chap. xl.—“Whoever shall believe and do good works, whether man or woman, shall enter paradise.”
Thus we see that the fate of the Mohammedan women is not altogether so deplorable as some Christians have made it.
Peter Cevaller, in his Zelus Christi contra Saracenos, p. 137, speaking of Mohammed, says—“This madman places Haman in the time of Pharoah, which is such a proof of his ignorance, as ought to put him and all his beastly followers to an eternal silence.”
Peter Cevaller, it appears, was not apprised that Pharaoh was a general name for all the kings of the Pharoah dynasty, which continued to reign in Egypt many centuries. The Mohammedans, moreover, have many traditions about a man of the name of Haman, who was a general of one of the Pharaohs.
Bartholomew of Edessa, in p. 442 of the Varia Sacra, published by Stephen le Moine, reproaches Mohammed with saying, that the blessed Virgin became pregnant by eating dates:
Koran, chap. xix.—“Remember what is written of Mary. We sent to her our spirit, (or angel,) in the shape of a man; she was frightened, but the angel said to her, O Mary! I am the messenger of your Lord, and your God, who will give you an active and prudent son. She answered, How shall I have a son without knowing any man? The angel replied, God has said it, the thing shall happen; it is easy to your Lord, and your son himself shall be a proof of the almighty power of God. Then she conceived, and retired for some time into a solitary place, near a date-tree, and her labour-pains began forthwith; but the angel said, Do not afflict thyself; shake the date-tree, and gather the dates; eat them, drink water, and wash your eyes.” Now this passage, which is the one alluded to, does not say that the pregnancy proceeded from the eating of the dates, although the dates eased the pains of pregnancy. Hence, probably, that superstitious African tradition, that when the Virgin Mary was in pain, she exclaimed, O that I had some dates! and immediately the exclamation, or letter O, was marked on the stone of the fruit.[165]
Dog and hog are synonymous terms of contempt or degradation among the Mohammedans: they are the two unclean animals; and if either of them drink out of a cup, it must be washed. They will not sit down where a dog has been, nor will they wear the skin of the animal, even if made into leather. Some men of rank, however, keep greyhounds, and other dogs for hunting; but seldom let them go into those apartments of their houses, where the women are, for they say, no angel or benediction comes to any place where a dog is.
In the xivth chap. of the Koran Mohammed makes Abraham beg of God to protect Mecca, and to make it a place of peace or safety (aman المعان in the original) to all the world. The learned Robert of Retz, who translated the Koran in the 16th century, has rendered this word, Aman or Hammon, and hence the prophet has absolutely been accused of placing Mecca in the country of the Hammonites, and consequently abused for his geographical ignorance, as if any man of common understanding could so far mistake the place of his birth, a place he had lived in so long, had conquered, and from whence he had made so many eruptions against his neighbours. The word Aman in the original is a consecrated place, or place of faith, of safety, of refuge, of protection. Birds, fish, or animals, are not allowed to be killed in such places, neither is blood to be spilt therein.