Mohammed did not claim the power of performing miracles but since his death some of his followers have attributed miracles to him such as, when walking the streets, trees and stones would salute him; he caused a flood of water to spring up from dry ground; he rode on his horse Borak through air from Medina to Mecca, Jerusalem to paradise and to the heavenly mansions and again came back to Mecca. The only miracle Mohammed himself claimed was the revelation of Koran.
HIS CHARACTER.
Some people have the impression that Mohammed was a man of good character and great simplicity. Possibly this was true of him in the earlier part of his life, but he degenerated as Solomon, but unlike the wise preacher of "vanity" he never repented. Mohammed was a slave of sensual passion. The doctrine of polygamy which he taught was the result of his own sensuality. Ayesha his favorite wife said: "The prophet loves three things, women, perfumes and food." He, at the age of fifty-three years, married this woman when she was at the age of nine years. Again he claimed to have a special revelation from heaven to marry Zey-nab the wife of his adopted son. To gratify this wish, it was necessary for Zeyd, his faithful son, to get a divorce from Zey-nab.
THE CONQUEST OF ISLAM.
"The secret of success for Islam is in the sword," said Mohammed. His faith teaches that one drop of blood shed for Allah, or God, avails more than all prayer, fastings and sacrifices. One night spent in the holy armies of Islam will be rewarded by Allah more than human reason can think. Everyone that falls in battle is received in heaven as a martyr and rewarded for his devotion to the faith. After Mohammed's death, his successor became aggressive as his forces grew stronger. His command to his armies was: "Before you is paradise, behind you is hell." Inspired by this belief, the wild and superstitious Arabs rushed forward and subdued Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The churches in the large cities of these lands were converted into mosques for the worship of Mohammed. In 668 and 717 they besieged Constantinople and in 707 subdued the northern provinces of Africa. In 711 they established a Califat in Spain at Cordova. The Arabs crossed the Pyrenees and made the threat that they would soon stable their horses in St. Paul's cathedral at Rome. But they were defeated by Charles Martel in 732. Ferdinand drove them out of Spain into Africa. In the East the Moslems had, in the ninth century subdued Persia, Afghan, Bloogiston, a large part of India, also a large part of Brahmanism and Buddhism. The Turks were conquered in the eleventh century; the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Constantinople fell into the hands of the unspeakable Turks in 1453. The magnificent church of St. Sophia in which Chrysostom preached the gospel with a fiery tongue and many church fathers chanted in it the true Word of God was converted into a mosque. To-day the Koran is read there in instead of the gospel. The Sultan occupies the throne of Constantine and calls himself the "shadow of Almighty," boasts in his fanatical religion, and scorns Christian powers. On the other hand the Christian powers look at him with the cold spirit of Christianity but I believe the time will come and is near when the Gospel will be preached again in the church of St. Sophia instead of the Koran.
CHAPTER III.
THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION.
The Koran is the Mohammedan's holy bible, creed, and code of laws. The holy Koran was delivered to Mohammed neither in graven tablets of stone, nor by cloven tongues of fire, but it was engraven on Mohammed's heart and was communicated by his tongue to the Arabs. His heart was the Sinai where he received his revelation and his tablets of stone were the hearts of believers. The Koran contains 114 chapters and 6225 verses. Each chapter begins with formula, "In the name of God the merciful and the compassionate." The chapter is named from the chief subject treated therein; as "praise," "the light," "the spider," "the woman," etc. Mohammed received all of his revelation at once but when occasion required he dictated new chapters to Zeid. Another notion is that the Koran was delivered orally and was scattered until after the prophet's death when it was collected by Ayesha, his youngest wife, and Zeid. All of it was written in the best classical poetry. It is sweet in the Arabic language but it looses its beauty when translated into other languages.
Mohammed did not invent a new religion but collected most of his doctrines from the Jewish, heathen and Christian religions and Christian tradition. Mohammed was greatly indebted to a Nestorian monk named Sargius Be-hi-ra, a man of rare ability, whom the prophet kept in his home for several years and learned all he knew about Christian doctrines and traditions. Many of the wise counsels, stories, teachings of our duties to God and brethren in the faith, that are related in the Old and New Testament are reproduced in the Koran, but the language is changed and the order of their occurrences is reversed. The Koran contains mistakes such as making the Virgin Mary the mother of our Lord the same person as Mary the sister of Moses and Aaron. But without question the Koran is one of the greatest books of the world in the number of adherents it has. It is a code of civil and religious law; 200,000,000 Mohammedans scattered all over the world to-day are following the teaching of the Koran. The book contains much that is good and wise but one of its most dangerous defects is the prominence and approval given to polygamy and sensualism.