[341]. This person was one of the Amsál or Exampla of the Arabs. For her first thirty years she whored; during the next three decades she pimped for friend and foe; and, during the last third of her life, when bed-ridden by age and infirmities, she had a buck-goat and a nanny tied up in her room and solaced herself by contemplating their amorous conflicts.
[342]. And modern Moslem feeling upon the subject has apparently undergone a change. Ashraf Khan, the Afghan poet, sings,
Since I, the parted one, have come the secrets of the world to ken,
Women in hosts therein I find, but few (and very few) of men.
And the Osmanli proverb is, “Of ten men nine are women!”
[343]. His Persian paper “On the Vindication of the Liberties of the Asiatic Women” was translated and printed in the Asiatic Annual Register for 1801 (pp. 100–107); it is quoted by Dr. Jon. Scott (Introd. vol. i. p. xxxiv. et seq.) and by a host of writers. He also wrote a book of Travels translated by Prof. Charles Stewart in 1810 and re-issued (3 vols. 8vo.) in 1814.
[344]. The beginning of which I date from the Hijrah, lit. = the separation, popularly “The Flight.” Stating the case broadly, it has become the practice of modern writers to look upon Mohammed as an honest enthusiast at Meccah and an unscrupulous despot at Al-Medinah, a view which appears to me eminently unsound and unfair. In a private station the Meccan Prophet was famed as a good citizen, teste his title Al-Amín = the Trusty. But when driven from his home by the pagan faction, he became de facto as de jure a king: nay, a royal pontiff; and the preacher was merged in the Conqueror of his foes and the Commander of the Faithful. His rule, like that of all Eastern rulers, was stained with blood; but, assuming as true all the crimes and cruelties with which Christians charge him and which Moslems confess, they were mere blots upon a glorious and enthusiastic life, ending in a most exemplary death, compared with the tissue of horrors and havock which the Law and the Prophets attribute to Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel and to the patriarchs and prophets by express commandment of Jehovah.
[345]. It was not, however, incestuous: the scandal came from its ignoring the Arab “pundonor.”
[346]. The “opportunism” of Mohammed has been made a matter of obloquy by many who have not reflected and discovered that time-serving is the very essence of “Revelation.” Says the Rev. W. Smith (“Pentateuch” chapt. xiii.), “As the journey (Exodus) proceeds, so laws originate from the accidents of the way,” and he applies this to successive decrees (Numbers xxvi. 32–36; xxvii. 8–11 and xxxvi. 1–9) holding it indirect internal evidence of Mosaic authorship (?) Another tone, however, is used in the case of Al-Islam. “And now, that he might not stand in awe of his wives any longer, down comes a revelation” says Ockley in his bluff and homely style, which admits such phrases as, “the imposter has the impudence to say.” But why, in common honesty, refuse to the Koran the concessions freely made to the Torah? It is a mere petitio principii to argue that the latter is “inspired” while the former is not; moreover, although we may be called upon to believe things beyond Reason, it is hardly fair to require our belief in things contrary to Reason.
[347]. This is noticed in my wife’s volume on The Inner Life of Syria, chapt. xii. vol. i. 155.