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THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
APOLOGY OF AL KINDT, 
 
 WEITTEIS' AT THE COIJItT OF AL MAMXrjS", 
 
 (a.h. 215; A.D. 830) 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF 
 CHRISTIANITY AGAINST ISLAM. 
 
 ttji an lEssag on its ^ue anti ^utjorgjip reati fiefore tfje 
 l^ogal Asiatic .Societg. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM MUIR, K.C.S.L, LL.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF MAHOMET." 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SMITH, ELDER & Co., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1882. 
 \^AU Rights Reserved.'] 
 
HERTFORD : 
 
 PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS. 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 I MAY say at once that my primary object, in the 
 present undertaking, is to place the Apology of Al 
 ^ KiNDY in the hands of those who will use it in the 
 interests of the Christian faith. 
 
 At the same time, apart from the religious aspect, 
 the Apology possesses a very peculiar interest of its 
 own. My attention was first directed to it by the 
 Turkish Mission Aid Society, which printed very 
 carefully the text from two imperfect manuscripts. 
 A cursory perusal convinced me of its high dialectic 
 merit, and also of its presumable authenticity, as 
 belonging to the age — the third century of the Hegira 
 (about 830 a.d.) — in which it purports to have been 
 written. I accordingly published a short sketch, with 
 a few extracts, in the Indian Female Evangelist.^ 
 
 Further study deepened the conviction. The 
 Apology is quoted by the well-known writer Al 
 Biruni (about 390 a.h.), as the Epistle of '^ Abd al 
 
 ^ Indian Female Evangelist ^ London, Nisbet and Co., April, 1881, Art. I. 
 
 4G>1247 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Masih ihn Ishdc^ Al Kindy." This quotation, while 
 proving the currency of the work in the century follow" 
 ing that in which it was written, has given rise to a 
 confusion, in the minds of some, between our Author 
 and the famous Al Kindy (Aeu Yusuf Ibi^ Ishac), 
 ^4he Philosopher of Islam," who also flourished at 
 the Court of Al Mamun. I was led therefore to 
 inquire carefully into the question of authorship. 
 
 The '^ Philosopher" was unquestionably a professed 
 Mahometan, which at once dispels the notion that he 
 could have had any hand in the Apology. But the 
 Beni Kinda (whence* the title Al Kindy) formed a 
 great clan of themselves, who, advancing from the 
 south, spread over the centre and north of Arabia, and 
 had, in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian 
 era, a distinguished role in the history of the Penin- 
 sula.^ At the rise of Islam, though the greater part of 
 the tribe, headed by the celebrated Al Ashath, passed 
 over to the faith of Mahomet, still a respectable 
 minority appear to have continued their attachment to 
 the Christian religion ; and in the time of Al Mamun, 
 this remnant must have afforded ample numbers to 
 produce other men of distinction bearing the tribal 
 title of Kindy ^ besides the great Philosopher. That 
 our Author belonged to such a branch of the Kindy 
 race, there is no reasonable doubt. And the internal 
 evidence (apart altogether from that supplied by the 
 quotation from Al Biruni) affords the strongest pre- 
 
 1 See Life of Mahomet (1st edition), vol. i. p. clxiiii et seq. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 VII 
 
 sumption that the work is what it professes to be, — 
 namely, an Apology in defence of the Christian religion 
 in its polemical aspect, as opposed to the dominant 
 Faith, at the Court of the Caliph Al Mamiin. The 
 Preliminary Essay is designed to establish this. 
 
 Apart from its literary and historical interest, 
 however, the Apology can well afford to stand, as a 
 controversial work, upon its own intrinsic merits. Not- 
 withstanding a good deal that is weak in reasoning, 
 some things that are even questionable in fact, and 
 abundance of censorious epithets against the Moslem, 
 Jewish, and Magian faiths that might well have been 
 materially softened, yet, taken as a whole, the argument 
 is, from the Apologist's stand-point, conducted with 
 wisdom and ability ; while throughout it is charac- 
 terized by a singular mastery of the Arabic language. 
 The treatment of Islam is so trenchant that the circula- 
 tion of the Apology could hardly be tolerated in any of 
 the effete and bigoted Mahometan states of the present 
 day. And, indeed, excepting the Motazelite Caliphs, 
 and perhaps also the great Akbar, I suppose there 
 has been no Mahometan government in any age which 
 would not have considered it a duty to suppress a 
 work so dangerous to Islam, by the severest pains 
 and penalties.^ But as regards our own territories, 
 the case is different. And certainly the appearance of 
 an Apology written and circulated at the Court 
 
 i I am told by Dr. Lansing that by the old law of Egypt any house in 
 which the MS. might be found was liable to be razed to the ground with forty 
 houses round. 
 
VIII PREFACE. 
 
 of an Abbasside Calipli, could hardly be objected to in 
 the dominions of the Defender of the Christian faith. 
 
 With the view, therefore, of facilitating the use 
 and translation of the Apology, or of selections from 
 it, I have compiled a very full analysis of its contents, 
 with a copious translation of the more interesting 
 portions. In doing this, I have indicated a few pass- 
 ages which, for reasons specified, should be omitted. 
 Whether there should be any further curtailment 
 must depend on local considerations. 
 
 As an ancient and indigenous product of Asiatic 
 Christianity, the Apology possesses not only a deep 
 interest for ourselves, but it has also a practical bear- 
 ing on the same controversy still being prosecuted 
 in the East. The Christian Advocate there has it 
 often thrown in his teeth that he is introducing 
 a Christ whose features and teaching have been 
 moulded after a European type ; and whose religion, 
 consequently, though suited to the Western, is alien 
 from the Asiatic, mind and habit. This, at any rate, 
 cannot be said of our Apologist. An Arab of the 
 Arabs, born and bred a thousand years ago in the 
 plains of Chaldsea, Al Kindy presents himself and 
 his faith in a purely Asiatic dress and language. 
 The objectors will find that the Gospel changes not 
 with time or clime ; and that neither in form nor 
 substance, nor in the reasoning by which it is 
 supported, does the Christianity of Al Kindy 
 materially differ (excepting perhaps in the more 
 
PREFACE. jx 
 
 fervid temperament and livelier fancy of the Asiatic 
 disputant) from that which is put forth by the 
 Missionary of the present day. 
 
 I have not sought to transfuse the eloquence of 
 Al Kindy into these pages, but have confined myself 
 to the substance and tenour of the argument. The 
 discourse throughout is much abridged, and even 
 where a passage is marked as a translation, the gist 
 of the same is for the most part given in brief, and 
 without the cumulation of epithets, and exuberance 
 of verbiage, in which our Author delights. Even if 
 I had the ability for the task, the differing genius 
 of our language would have interfered with any 
 attempt of mine at imitation. To form an adequate 
 conception of the rushing flood of Al Kindy's rhetoric, 
 the original must be read. Into Oriental languages, 
 however, such as Persian and Urdoo, there should 
 be little difficulty in transfusing both the style and 
 the spirit of our Author. 
 
 It is now six-and-thirty years since, at the request 
 of Dr. Pfander, I wrote an account of his three 
 excellent Treatises on the Mahometan Controversy, 
 in the Calcutta Eeview.^ The effect produced by 
 these, both in India and Turkey, has been not in- 
 considerable. But it is no disparagement of them 
 to say that Al Kindy's Apology may be expected 
 to cause a sensation incomparably more profound. 
 That the champion of Christianity was himself a 
 
 1 Calcutta Ecview, vol. viii. Art. VI. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 native of the East, of noble Arab birth, and yet a 
 Christian by descent, a philosopher, and an honoured 
 attendant at the Court of the Caliph Al Mamiin, 
 must add prodigiously to the weight already attaching, 
 from its intrinsic merits, to our Author's argument. 
 Between this and Pfander's works, there is just the 
 diflPerence between perusing an essay, and hearing the 
 warm and impassioned eloquence of the advocate in 
 his own defence ; between reading the description of 
 a battle, and witnessing with your own eyes the 
 hotly-contested field of the battle itself. 
 
 Grateful acknowledgment is due to the TurJcish 
 Mission Aid Societi/, for their ready appreciation of 
 the value of the Apology, and the care taken in 
 presenting us, notwithstanding the imperfection of 
 the manuscripts, with a text so intelligently and 
 carefully edited. 
 
 W. M. 
 
 1 December J 1881. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Preface ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 V 
 
 Essay on Age and Authorship . 
 Speech of Al Mamun 
 
 Letter of Al Hashimy the Moslem Advocate 
 Eeply of Al Kindy. 
 •^The Trinity . . . 
 
 Life of Mahomet .... 
 
 i 
 xii 
 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 
 *^ Assassinations ..... 
 
 6 
 
 "Warlike Expeditions 
 
 "Wives of Mahomet .... 
 
 7 
 10 
 
 Evidence of Prophecy 
 
 Conquest of Persia .... 
 
 Miracles ...... 
 
 11 
 13 
 14 
 
 Apostacy of the Arabs .... 
 
 The Three Dispensations 
 
 The Coran: Materials and mode of collection . 
 
 18 
 20 
 22 
 
 ^ Solecisms, matter and style . . . . 
 Worldly inducements .... 
 I^Tame of Mahomet on the Great Throne 
 
 30 
 33 
 35 
 
 Preeminence of the Seed of Abraham . 
 
 36 
 
 Ordinances of Islam . . . . 
 
 37 
 
 Prohibition of Swine's flesh 
 
 38 
 
 Pilgrimage ...••• 
 Saracenic Crusade .... 
 
 40 
 
 v/ Contradictory Passages . . . . 
 
 41 
 
XII 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 War as a Divine remedy 
 Martyrs, Moslem and Christian 
 Temporal inducements . 
 Intercession of Mahomet 
 The Trinity defended 
 Adoration of the Cross 
 The Fateha 
 Christianity described 
 Old Testament Prophecies 
 Jewish Scriptures uncorrupted 
 Life of Christ . 
 Ministry of the Apostles 
 Miracles no longer needed 
 Conclusion . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 45 
 46 
 48 
 50 
 51 
 52 
 
 )> 
 53 
 54 
 
 >} 
 
 55 
 
 57 
 
 58 
 
 69 
 
THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 AN ESSAY ON" ITS AGE AND AUTHOESHIP. 
 
 \_Read before the Royal Asiatic Society.'] 
 
 Al BiRUNi, in his Vestiges of Ancient Nations, written 
 A.D. 1000 (a.h. 390), while describing the customs of the 
 Sabeans, cites the authority of Ibn Ishdc al Kindy, the 
 Christian^ in these words : 
 
 " Likewise Abd al Masih ibn Ishac al Kindy, the Christian, in his 
 reply to the Epistle of Abdallah ibn Ismail al Hashimy, relates of 
 them (the Sabeans) that they are notorious for Human sacrifice, 
 but that at present they are not able to practise openly the same." ^ 
 
 A work answering the above description has recently been 
 published by the Turkish Mission Aid Society, in Arabic, 
 under the following title : The Epistle of Ahdallah ibn Ismail 
 al Hashimy to Abd al Masih ibn Ishdc al Kindy, inviting him 
 to embrace Islam ; and the Reply of Abd al Masih, refuting 
 the same, and inviting the Hdshimite to embrace the Christian 
 Faith. 
 
 The book, we learn from a Note at the end, was printed 
 from two MSS. obtained, one in Egypt, the other in Constan- 
 tinople. Neither has the name of the copyist, nor the year of 
 transcription. They are both said in this note, to be full 
 
 1 Chronology of Ancient Nations, p. 187, by Dr. Sachau, London, 1879. 
 
 .\jz>^ ^^1\ ^^iCij "i CS\d J^^ j^Ul ^M ^^yo ^\ 
 
ii THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 of errors and discrepancies. But the book has been edited 
 with care and intelligence, and as a whole may be regarded 
 as a correct reproduction of the original. The editor certainly 
 deserves great credit for the way in which the task is 
 executed. I proceed to give a brief account of the work. 
 
 The letters, themselves anonymous, are preceded by a 
 short preface : 
 
 '* In the Name of Gob, the One, the Eternal. 
 
 *' It is related that in the time of Abdallah al Mam^^n, there 
 lived a man of Hashimite descent, and of Abbasside lineage, nearly 
 related to the Caliph. The same was famed, among high and low, 
 for devotion to Islam, and the careful observance of all its 
 ordinances. This person had a friend, learned and virtuous, 
 endowed with the gifts of culture and science, of pure and noble' 
 descent from the Beni Kinda, and distinguished for his attachment 
 to the Christian faith. The same was in the service of the Caliph, 
 and nigh unto him in honour and dignity. JS'ow these two men had 
 a mutual love, and an implicit trust in the friendship of each other. 
 Al MlMtrN, Commander of the Faithful, moreover, and his whole 
 Court, were aware of it. But we are averse from mentioning their 
 names, lest it should do harm. The Hashimite wrote to the 
 Christian a letter, of which this is a copy." ^ 
 
 * I subjoin the Arabic text : 
 
 d.jL!i\jJu /♦UiLllj <Li r^j£^\ i^J^-lj ^\Ji\ ^^xj (jXum^-llj ?j^lj 
 
 ilcU*^^ j^^Wl ^^j^^^^\ j^^\ ^l^j <^ ^^^)lb^ fUip^LaJ U^A^ 
 \A^,^yi^\jSdJ ^\ [j^Jb^j CS^dJ liJ^ys^ Ss <5J j^^l-a:uJl_5 ajljs-^l 
 
ITS AGE AND AUTHORSHIP. [\{ 
 
 The Hashimite's letter follows immediately on this. He 
 reminds his friend that he is himself well versed in the 
 Scriptures, and in the practices and doctrines of the various 
 Christian sects ; and he proceeds to explain the teaching of 
 Islam, and .to press its acceptance on him. He begs of his 
 friend to reply without fear or favour, and promises the 
 guarantee of the Caliph that no harm should befall him for 
 any freedom of speech in discussing the merits of their 
 respective faiths. The reply of Al Kindy is introduced thus : 
 
 And the Christian answered him : 
 
 In the fame of God most meeciful ! 
 
 Lord male my task easy : let it not he hard : and fulfil the same 
 
 with thy hlessing. 
 
 ''To E"— , son of ^—, from M— , son of M— , the least of the 
 
 servants of the Messiah. Peace, Mercy, and Grace be upon thee, 
 
 and upon all mankind ! Amen." 
 
 And thereupon he proceeds to take up his friend's argu- 
 ments, point by point. 
 
 The Moslem's letter occupies only twenty-two pages ; Al 
 Kindy's reply the remaining 142. While our Apologist 
 speaks respectfully of the person of Mahomet, he vigorously 
 denounces his claims as a prophet, and attacks the whole 
 system of Islam with uncompromising severity. The latter 
 part of the Apology is devoted to the proofs of Christianity, 
 and our Saviour's life and teaching. The reasoning is not, 
 to our ideas, uniformly sound ; nor are the facts (through- 
 out deeply tinged with Alyite and Abbasside tendencies), 
 especially those connected with the life of the Prophet and 
 the early Caliphate, always accurate. But upon the whole 
 the argument is conceived with great ability and force, and 
 the language throughout is flowing, rich, and eloquent. Many 
 passages, in particular the philippic on Jehad and Martyrdom, 
 are singularly powerful and impassioned. It is clear that the 
 Apology can have proceeded from the pen of no ordinary 
 scholar. 
 
 There is no doubt that this book is substantially the same 
 as that referred to by Al Biruni. At page 26 will be found 
 
iv THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDT. 
 
 the passage quoted by him as noticed at the beginning of 
 this paper. Our Apologist there writes : 
 
 *' We know from the Book of Genesis that Abraham lived with 
 his people four- score years and ten, in the land of Harran, worship- 
 ping none other than Al Ozza, an idol famous in that land, and 
 adored by the men of Harran under the name of the Moon, which 
 same custom prevails among them to the present day. They 
 conceal no part of their ancestral practices, save only the sacrifice of 
 human beings. They cannot now offer up human sacrifices openly ; 
 but they practise the same in secret," ^ 
 
 In the brief Preface, it will have been observed that the 
 correspondence is said to have taken place at the Court of Al 
 Mamun (198-218 A.H.). At the close of the Egyptian MS. 
 is the following Note : 
 
 *' It is related that the subject of these two Epistles reached the 
 ears of Al Mamun; whereupon he sent for them, and had theni 
 both read to him without stopping, from beginning to end. He 
 then declared that he had no ground for interference, nor any cause 
 against the Christian apologist. There are (added the Caliph) two 
 religions — one for this world, the Magiai!^, following the precepts of 
 Zoroaster ; the other for the world to come — the Cheistian-, follow- 
 ing the precepts of the Messiah. But the true religion is that of 
 the Unity taught by our Master. That verily is the religion which 
 serveth both for this life and the next." — p. 165. 
 
 This note is wanting in the Constantinople MS. It is no 
 doubt an addition to the Treatise as originally put forth ; but 
 of what antiquity and authority there is no ground for 
 saying. 
 
 It is otherwise with the short Preface, which is the same 
 in both MSS., and probably formed the Introduction to the 
 Discussion as it at first appeared. Excepting, however, that 
 it gives the name of the Caliph, the preface adds nothing to 
 what we gather from the Epistles themselves of the person- 
 
 '1/'*' L,'^^^*^"' ^ 
 
ITS AGE AND AUTHORSHIP. ^ 
 
 ality of the disputants, namely, that both lived at the Court 
 of the Caliph ; that the Mahometan was the cousin of the 
 Caliph, a Hashimite of Abbasside lineage; and that the 
 Christian was a learned man at the same Court, of distin- 
 guished descent from the tribe of the Beni Kinda, and held 
 in honour and regard by AI Mamiin and his nobles. But the 
 names and further identification of the disputants are with- 
 held, from motives of prudence,— ''in case it might do harm." 
 From the passage in Al Biruni, however, it is evident that 
 in his time (390 a.h.) the Discussion was currently received 
 under the title, " The Eeply of Abd al Masih Ibn Ishdc al 
 Kindy, to the Epistle of Abdallah ibn Ismail al Hashimy." 
 The epithets Abdallah and Abd al Masih are of course noms 
 de plume. It is possible that the other names (in italics) are 
 so also ; — Isaac and Ishmael symbolizing the Christian and 
 Moslem antagonists. 
 
 Whether this be so or no, the name of Tbn Ishdc al Kindy 
 has occasioned the surmise in some quarters that our 
 Apologist was the same as the famous "Philosopher of 
 Islam,'' Abu Yusuf ibn Ishac al Kindy, who also flourished 
 at the Court of Mamun and his Successor. There can, how- 
 ever, be little or no doubt that the famous Al Kindy was a 
 Mahometan by profession. As a Failsitf, or philosopher, he 
 was, it may be, not a very orthodox professor ; but, at any 
 rate, there is no reason to suppose that he had any leaning 
 towards Christianity : on the contrary (as we shall see 
 below), he wrote a treatise to refute the doctrine of the 
 Trinity. His father, or grandfather, was governor of Kufa, 
 a post that could be held by none other than a Mahometan ; 
 and Al Ashath, the renowned chief of the Beni Kinda, who 
 was converted in the time of Mahomet, and married Abu 
 Bekr's sister, is said to have been his ancestor ; whereas our 
 Apologist glories in his Christian ancestry. 
 
 On the philosopher Al Kindy, de Sacy gives us an inter- 
 esting note. After showing that D'Herbelot was mistaken 
 in calling him a Jew,^ and citing the authority of Abul 
 Earaj and Ibn Abi Oseiba for regarding him as a Mussul- 
 1 On this, see notes in Slane's Ibn Khallican, vol. i. pp. xxvii and 355. 
 
vi THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 man, he mentions three considerations which might be urged 
 against this view. First : In the catalogue of his writings 
 there is none relating to the Coran or to Islam. Second : 
 Al Kindy was one of the translators of Aristotle, familiar 
 with Greek and Syriac ; and men of that stamp were mostly 
 Christians. Third: In the Bibliotheque Imperiale there is 
 a MS. (257) entitled A Defence of the Christian Religion 
 (apparently identical with our Apology), written in Syriac 
 characters, but in the Arabic language, the author of which 
 is named Ydciib Kindi. 
 
 *' Of these objections (continues de Sacy) the last alone merits atten- 
 tion ; but it may be met by these counter-considerations. In the 
 Preface the author is not named. The work is only said to have 
 been written by a person attached to the court of Al Mamun, a 
 Christian of Kindian descent. It is called 'The Treatise of Al 
 Kendy, the Jacobite.^ ^ It is most likely by a misunderstanding, 
 or with the view of increasing thereby the value of the work, that 
 it has been ascribed to the authorship of Yacub Kindy. This 
 suspicion acquires greater force, as in the catalogue of Syrian 
 Avriters, written by Ebed Jesu, we find a certain Kendi named as 
 the author of a religious treatise ; and the Kendi in question (the 
 same without doubt as the writer of our Syrian MS. (257), or at 
 least whose name has been assumed as such) lived, according to an 
 historian cited by Assemanus, about 890 a.d. (280 a.h.), a date to 
 which it is little likely that Yacub Kendi survived. . . . Por the rest 
 we may suppose that Kendi, in pursuit of his philosophical studies, 
 had embraced opinions opposed to Mahometan orthodoxy, and that 
 this led to his faith being suspected — a thing which has occurred to 
 many Christian philosophers, and among the Jews happened to the 
 famous Maimonides." '^ 
 
 But this Kendi of Ebed Jesu, whoever he was, could not 
 possibly have been our Apologist, for he flourished towards 
 the end of the third century of the Hegira, whereas the 
 Apology (as I hope to establish below) was certainly written 
 during the reign of Al Mamun, near the beginning of that 
 century. The passage from Assemanus, referred to by de 
 
 1 j^^yUJl ^^xSS\ C-JUi . This, of course, is a mistake, as our Apologist 
 
 ■svas a" staunch Nestorian. There may have been some other Kendy a Jacobite; 
 or rather the epithet ihn Yacub has been so misunderstood and misapplied. 
 
 2 Eelation de L'Egypte par Abd Allatif, M. de Sacy, Paris, 1810, p. 487. 
 
ITS AGE AND AUTHORSHIP. yjj 
 
 Sacy, consists of a note on chapter cxlii. of Ebed Jesu's 
 Catalogue (in Syriac verse) of Christian authors. The verse 
 and note are as follows : 
 
 [Verse.]—'' Ca^divs fecit ingens volumen Bisputationis et Fidei, 
 
 [Note.]— ''Candius, \dc^ ^\ , Ebn Canda, hoc est Candiae filius; 
 who flourished under the JS'estorian Patriarch Joannes lY., a.d. 893. 
 Others rc-fer the authorship to Abu Yusuf Yacub ibn Ishac al Kindi; 
 but he, according to Pocock and Abul Paraj, was a Mahometan . . . 
 Eut the Candius whom Ebed Jesu mentions was a Nestorian, not a 
 Mahometan, and wrote in the Syrian language, not in Arabic." ^ 
 
 If any doubts were entertained of the religious principles 
 of Abu Yusuf ibn Ishac, they must be set at rest by the fact 
 that he wrote a treatise to disprove the doctrine of the 
 Trinity. It was answered by Yahya ibn Adi, a Jacobite 
 writer, whose pamphlet appears as No. 108 in Steinschneider's 
 list.2 The same is in the Vatican Library (Codex, 127, 
 f. 88), and was kindly copied out for me by Prof. Ign. 
 Guidi. In this tract, the attack of Ibn Ishac is quoted and 
 replied to passage by passage ; and the tenor of the writing 
 leaves no doubt of the antagonism of the writer to Christianity. 
 
 On all these grounds, we must clearly look for the author 
 of our Apology elsewhere.^ But before doing so, it may be 
 expedient to notice the conjecture of de Sacy, that the Apology 
 may have been ascribed to Abu Yusuf ibn Ishac al Kindy, 
 either by a misunderstanding, or as a pious fraud with the 
 view of gaining for it greater celebrity and weight. 
 
 As to the supposed misunderstanding, it seems doubtful 
 whether, in reality, the Apology ever was so ascribed, except- 
 
 1 Bibliotheca Orientalis, Assemani, a.d. 172.5, vol. iii. p. 213. The assumption 
 that he wrote in Syriac is unfounded. But the treatise was probably translated into 
 that language, as well as transliterated from the original into Syriac writing. 
 
 2 Pol. und Apolog. Literatur in Arab. Sprache, Leipzig, 1877, p. 126. 
 
 2 Those who care to prosecute the inquiry further, will find an elaborate 
 article on Al Kindi der Fhilosoph der Araber, Ein Vorbild seiner Zeit und seiner 
 Volkes, by Dr. G. Fliigel, Leipzig, 1857. The paper is founded mainly on the 
 authority of Ibn Abi Oseiba and Ibn Kufti, and is learned and exhaustive. A 
 curious astrological treatise by the same Al Kindy is given by Dr. Otto Loth, 
 p. 261, Morgenldndische Forschungen, Leipzig, 1875. The cycles of Arabian 
 history are there ascribed to astronomical conjunctions, and the essay closes with 
 a prophecy of the eventual ascendancy of Islam over all other faiths. 
 
 There is also a short article with an exhaustive list of Ibn Ishac's works, bjr 
 Ibn Joljol, the Spanish writer, in the Bibliotheca Escurialensis, Casiri, Matriti, 
 1760 A.i). vol. i. p. 357. 
 
viii THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 ing as a mere conjecture in modern times. The misunder- 
 standing, whatever it may have been, has arisen apparently 
 from the similarity of name and tribe, as given in the 
 quotation by Al Biruni. 
 
 The notion that, with the view of gaining greater weight, 
 a paper purporting to be in refutation of Islam and estab- 
 lishment of Christianity, should have been ascribed to a 
 Mahometan philosopher, will hardly, I think, be seriously 
 held. What possible advantage could have been expected 
 from an attempt to palm off a polemical work of the kind on 
 an enemy of the Christian faith, who had himself attacked 
 one of its cardinal doctrines ? There is, moreover, no trace in 
 the Apology itself of any design to rest upon the authority of a 
 great name. The writer's identity, as we have seen, is care- 
 fully suppressed. The only thing common to the " Philo- 
 sopher" and the Author, which appears throughout the work, 
 is that the Author was learned, and went by the tribal title of 
 Al Kindy ; but that tribe was surely numerous and dis- 
 tinguished enough to embrace other men of letters and noble 
 birth at the Court of Al Mamun. Leaving now the " Philo- 
 sopher," we may proceed, therefore, to consider the internal 
 evidence furnished by the book itself of its age and authorship. 
 
 I have said that the name of Al Mamun, though given 
 in the Preface, occurs nowhere in the Epistles themselves. 
 But the manner in which the Caliph is throughout referred 
 to, accords entirely with the assumption that they were 
 written at his Court. He is spoken of as the paternal 
 cousin of the Moslem writer ; his just and tolerant sway 
 is repeatedly acknowledged by Al Kindy ; the descent 
 of the Dynasty from the family of Mahomet is over and 
 again referred to, and our Author prays that the Empire 
 may long be perpetuated in his Patron's line. All this is 
 perfectl}^ natural, and in entire consistency with the ascrip- 
 tion of the work to a courtier in the reign of Al Mamun. 
 
 Not less remarkable are the propriety and accuracy of all 
 the historical notices. For example, when tracing the fate of 
 the four Examplars of the Coran deposited by Othman in 
 the chief cities of the Empire, our Apologist tells us that the 
 
ITS AGE AND AUTHORSHIP. ix 
 
 copy at Medina disappeared in " the reign of terror, that is, 
 in the days of Yezid ibn Muavia " ; and that the manuscript 
 at Mecca was lost or burnt in the sack of that city by 
 Abu Saraya, " the last attack made upon the Kaaba." ^ 
 This is exactly what a person writing some fifteen years 
 after the event, and in the reign of Al Mamun, would say ; 
 for the siege of Mecca was then, in point of fact, the last 
 which had taken place, under the insurgent Abu Saraya, in 
 the year 200 a.h. Had the Apology been written later on, say 
 in the fourth century, the ** latest attack " on Mecca would 
 not have been that of Abu Saraya, but of Soleiman Abu Tahir 
 in 317 A.H. So also, in illustrating the rapine and plunder 
 of the early Moslem campaigns, Al Kindy mentions, as of 
 a similar predatory and ravaging character, the insurrection 
 of Babek Khurramy, and the danger and anxiety it occa- 
 sioned thereby " to our lord and master the Commander of the 
 Faithful." This rebellious leader, as we know, had raised the 
 standard of revolt in Persia and Armenia aome years before, 
 routed an army of the Caliph, and long maintained himself 
 in opposition to the Imperial forces ; and the notice, as one 
 of an impending danger then occupying men's minds, is 
 precisely of a kind which would be natural and apposite 
 at the assumed time, and at no other.^ Once more, in 
 challenging his friend to produce a single prophecy which 
 had been fulfilled since the era of Mahomet, he specifies 
 the time that had elapsed as "a little over 200 years," 
 and uses the exact expression to denote the period, which 
 would fall from the pen of a person writing about the era, 
 215 A.H., when we assume the work to have been written.^ 
 While the incidental references to dates and historical facts are 
 thus in exact and happy keeping with the professed age of the 
 
 1 p. 81. ., < / 1 ..\ 
 
 2 p. 47. The name is erroneously printed ,^J^' uliowl. But there 
 
 can be no doubt that Babek Khurramy ^/>~ ^. ^ is the correct reading. 
 
 words imply "two hundred and odd years," or a little over 200. The edict 
 ao-ainst the eternity of the Coran was issued I thmk about the year 211 or 
 212 A.H. ; and our Discussion took place probably a year or two later, say 
 
 215 A.H. 
 
X THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 work, there is throughout not a single anachronism or forced 
 and unnatural allusion, — which in a person writing at a later 
 period, and travelling over so large a field, would hardly have 
 been possible. 
 
 Still more striking are the aptness and propriety of the 
 political allusions. These are in the strictest affinity, not 
 only with the traditions of an Abbasside Dynasty, but of 
 a Court which had become partizan of the Alyite faction, 
 which freely admitted Motazelite or latitudinarian sentiments, 
 and which had just declared the Coran to be created and 
 not eternal. The Omeyyad race are spoken of with virulent 
 reprobation ; the time of Yezid is named the " reign 
 of terror " ; and Hajjaj, with his tyranny and the imputation 
 of his having corrupted the Coran, is referred to in the bitter 
 terms that were current in that day. Abu Bekr, Omar, and 
 Othman are treated as usurpers of the Divine right of succes- 
 sion which (it is implied) vested in Ali. I need hardly point 
 out how naturally all this accords with the sentiments pre- 
 dominating at the Court of Al Mamun ; but which certainly 
 would not have been tolerated some forty or fifty years later. ^ 
 
 The freedom of our Author's treatment of Islam would 
 have been permitted at none but the most latitudinarian 
 Court. He casts aside the prophetical claims of Mahomet, 
 censures some of his actions in the strongest language, repro- 
 bates the ordinances of Islam, especially those relating to 
 women, and condemns Jehad with scathing denunciation. It 
 is difficult to conceive how such plain-speaking was tolerated 
 even at the Court of Al Mamun ; at any other, the Apology 
 would have had small chance of seeing the light, or the writer 
 of escaping with his head upon his shoulders. That the 
 work did (as we know) gain currency can only have been 
 due to its appearance at this particular era. 
 
 These remarks apply with very special force to the section 
 on the Coran, since it seems highly probable that the 
 Apology was written shortly after the famous edict of 
 Al Mamun which denied the eternity of the Moslem 
 Scriptures. The composition of the Coran is assailed by 
 
 1 See my Eede Lecture on the Early Caliphale, Smith and Elder, 1881, p. 21. 
 
ITS AGE AND AUTHORSHIP. xi 
 
 our Author in the most incisive style. First, a Christian 
 Monk inspired it, and then Rabbis interpolated it with 
 Jewish tales and puerilities. It was collected in a loose 
 and haphazard way. Besides the authorized edition imposed 
 by the tyranny of Othman (and subsequently depraved by 
 Hajjaj),^ Ali, Obey ibn Kab, and Ibn Masud, had each their 
 separate exemplars. Having been compiled, if not in part 
 composed, by different hands, and thrown unsystematically 
 together, the text is alleged to be in consequence full of con- 
 tradictions, incoherencies, and senseless passages. A great 
 deal of this section, though in less irreverential language, 
 was no doubt very similar to the kind of arguments held by 
 the rationalistic Motazelites of the day, and favoured by Al 
 Mamun. For we know that it was after a hot and prolonged 
 discussion that the Coran was proclaimed by Al Mamun to be 
 created. It is therefore altogether in accord with the proba- 
 bilities of the case, that this particular phase of the argument 
 should have been (as we actually find it) treated by our Author 
 at great length and with a profusion of tradition possessing 
 little authority, although popular in that day, — a kind of 
 rank mushroom growth springing out of Abbasside faction. 
 The tables were soon turned on this free-thinking generation, 
 who in their turn suffered severe persecution; and never 
 before or afterwards did such an opportunity occur, as our 
 Apologist enjoyed, under the very shadow of a Caliph's 
 Court, to argue out his case with his enemy's weapons 
 ready to his hand. 
 
 Al Kindy makes a strong point of the hypocrisy of the 
 Jews and Bedouins who lived at the rise of Islam, their 
 superficial conversion, and the sordid and worldly motives 
 by which, when the great Apostacy followed the Prophet's 
 death, they were brought back to Islam, " some by fear and 
 the sword, some tempted by power and wealth, others drawn 
 by the lusts and pleasures of this life." It was just the same, 
 
 1 The action of Al Hajjaj (who has been sufficiently misrepresented and abused 
 by the Abbasside faction) appears to have been mainly confined to certain additions 
 in the way of diacritical marks. See Slane's Ibn Khallikan, vol. i. p. 359 and 
 note 14, p. 364. But it was natural, at an Abbasside Court, to vilify that great, 
 but stern. Viceroy of the Omeyyads. 
 
xii THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 he said, with the Jews and Maglans of his own day. And 
 to make good his point he proceeds to quote a speech of the 
 Caliph, made in one of the assemblies which he was in the 
 habit of holding. The passage is so remarkable, and so illus- 
 trative of the character of Al Mamun, that, at the risk of 
 lengthening my paper, I give it here in full : — 
 
 And I doubt not but (the Lord bless thee, my Friend ! ) thou 
 rememberest that which passed at an assembly of 
 
 . TVT' - the Commander of the Faithful, to whom it had 
 Al Mamun. , ' , . 
 
 been related in respect of one of his Courtiers that, 
 though outwardly a Moslem, he was at heart a reprobate Magian: 
 whereupon the Caliph delivered himself (as I have been informed) 
 in the following terms : 
 
 " By the Lord ! I well know that one and another (and here the 
 Caliph named a whole company of his Councillors), though pro- 
 fessing Islam, are free from the same ; they do it to be seen 
 of me ; while their convictions, I am well aware, are just the 
 opposite of that which they profess. They belong to a class 
 who embrace Islam, not from any love of this our religion, 
 but thinking thereby to gain access to my Court and share in the 
 honour, wealth, and power of the Realm; they have no inward per- 
 suasion of that which they outwardly profess. Truly their case, to 
 my mind, resembleth the too common one of the Jews, who, when 
 Islam was promulgated, held by the Tourat and the Law of Moses. 
 And, indeed, I know of one and another (here the Caliph named 
 a whole band of his Courtiers) who were Christians, and embraced 
 Islam unwillingly. They are neither Moslems nor Christians, but 
 impostors. And how shall I deal with these, seeing that the curse 
 of God is upon them all ? When they abandoned the Magian religion 
 (the vilest and most abominable of all religions), it was incumbent 
 on them to hold firmly by the new religion which they embraced, 
 instead of by that which they left only in appearance and hypocrisy; 
 and so likewise, with those who abandoned the Christian faith (the 
 most amenable of all religions to the effulgence of Islam and the 
 truth of its creed). But herein, I have the example and precedent 
 of the Prophet (on whom be blessing!^). For many of his com- 
 panions, and familiars, and near of kin professed to follow him and 
 be his Helpers; whilst he (on whom be blessing!) knew well 
 
 1 This pious salutation at mention of the Prophet, universal among the Maho- 
 metans, occurs only here in the Caliph's address, and not in any other part of our 
 Author's writing. 
 
ITS AGE AND AUTHOESHIP. xiii 
 
 enough that they were all the time hypocrites, opposed at heart 
 to what they outwardly professed. These ceased not to study evil, 
 and to plot, to seek his fall, and to assist the Idolaters against 
 him ; insomuch that a company of them lay in wait at a certain 
 pass to affright his mule, so that it might throw him, and he be 
 killed. But the Lord delivered and protected him from their 
 snares, and the evil they thought to visit him with. Notwith- 
 standing, he intreated them courteously to the end, even until 
 the Lord took his spirit unto himself. Thus he guarded himself 
 by kindness and courtesy against their machinations. Where- 
 fore, it well becometh me that I should follow his example. Then 
 after his death they all apostatized, seeking both outwardly and in 
 their hearts, both in secret and in public, to scatter Islam and 
 destroy the empire; until, at the last, the Lord helped the same, 
 and healed the schisms ; and that he did by casting into the hearts 
 of certain amongst them the lust of empire and love of the world ; 
 and so the government was strengthened and the divisions recon- 
 ciled, by means of kindness and forbearance. Thus the Lord 
 fulfilled that which he hath fulfilled for us ; and herein, no thanks 
 or praise to any but to the Lord alone ! Now, therefore, I will no 
 more make mention of that which I have seen and heard in respect 
 of these my Courtiers; but I shall treat them with courtesy and 
 forbearance until the Lord decide between us, and he is the best 
 of all decider s.^^ 
 
 Now, unless my lord, the Commander of the Faithful, had spoken 
 thus openly in the ears of the nobles at his Council (the Lord exalt 
 the same !), and the tidings thereof had spread, and the present 
 ones had told the absent ones, I had not ventured to make mention 
 of it here. Thou art witness that I have not added one thing 
 thereto. And I only remind thee now (for no long time has 
 elapsed) of that which passed at this assembly, in order to bring 
 up clearly the subject of the great Apostacy, and to show that the 
 people were not reconverted therefrom unto Islam, but through 
 love of the world, and to build up this Empire under which they 
 now live. In proof thereof, if the Lord will, this answer will 
 suffice for aU enlightened persons who may peruse my book.— 
 Page 66. ^ 
 
 It may appear strange that the Caliph should have ex- 
 pressed himself in this outspoken way regarding many of 
 his Courtiers in a public assembly. But, certainly, the 
 
xiv THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 sentiments are in entire accord with what we know of tlie 
 character and principles of Al Mamun, and also with the 
 social and religious elements prevailing at Merve, where he 
 first assumed the Caliphate, as well as at Baghdad, where he 
 shortly after fixed his Court. It is difficult to believe that 
 any one would have ventured to fabricate such a speech ; 
 or, supposing it genuine, that it should have been quoted by 
 other than a contemporaneous writer. 
 
 I proceed to notice what evidence there is in the Epistles 
 that the disputants were what they profess to have been, 
 that is, persons of some distinction at the Court of Al 
 Mamun. The Apology, it is true, from its antiquity and 
 rhetoric, may well stand upon its own intrinsic merit; 
 but, undoubtedly, the controversy is invested with fresh 
 life and interest when we know that the combatants were 
 not fictitious, but real personages. 
 
 First, as regards the Hdshimite ; it is conceivable, of course, 
 that he is an imaginary person, set up to be aimed at as the 
 representative of Islam ; a mere catspaw, to draw forth the 
 Christian's argument. This was the surmise of one of the 
 learned Ulema from Constantinople, to whom I showed the 
 book ; but his chief reason for so thinking was that the argu- 
 ment for Islam was weakly stated, and that a much better case 
 might have been made out.^ In opposition to this view, it may 
 be observed that the personality and character of the Moslem 
 are sustained consistently throughout both Epistles. Every 
 notice and allusion is in keeping with his assumed Hashimite 
 and Abbasside descent, his relationship to the Caliph, his 
 friendship for our Apologist, and the guarantee of freedom 
 and safety obtained by him for the discussion. There is 
 besides more than one incident of personal life. Thus we 
 have a curious passage on the use of the Cross, in which 
 Al Kindy reminds his friend that repeatedly in circumstances 
 of danger he had used the sign, or ejaculated an appeal to 
 the Cross, admitting thus the virtue of the same ; and on 
 one of these occasions, he specifies the place (Sabat al Medain) 
 
 ^ lie also objected to the word Qarib (p. 3) as applicable by a Mabometan to a 
 Christian. 
 
ITS AGE AND AUTHOESHIP. XV 
 
 where it occurred. Elsewhere he refers to words used by his 
 friend in another discussion about "the Soul." In ridiculino' 
 
 o 
 
 the notion that the name of Mahomet is written on the 
 heavenly throne, the Christian says that none even of his 
 friend^s own party held to that conceit. And, again, he 
 apologizes for the warmth of his language by reminding 
 his friend that it was he who had begun the controversy.^ 
 
 As regards A I Kindy himself, his personality transpires 
 throughout the whole Apology. With a strong attachment 
 to the Nestorian faith, he ever displays a violent aversion 
 from Jews and Magians, on whom, upon all occasions, he be- 
 stows the most contumelious epithets. While giving honour 
 to the Hashimites as chief of the Coreish, he not the less vaunts 
 the superior and kingly dignity of the Beni Kinda, as the 
 blue blood of the Arabs, acknowledged to have been supreme 
 over the whole Peninsula; and he apologizes from his own 
 stand-point as an Ishmaelite, whenever the argument leads 
 him to prefer the lineage of Isaac to that of Ishmael. The 
 repeated assertion of his own learning, experience, and 
 knowledge of mankind and of the various systems of religion 
 and philosophy, is also in keeping with the vein of conscious 
 superiority, tinged with a slight spice of vanity, which runs 
 throughout the Apology. 
 
 Add to this that, amidst much that is crude in our view 
 and even illogical, the work is characterized throughout 
 by a singular command of the Arabic language, and that 
 the argument rises at times, — as in the passage on Jehad 
 and Martyrdom, — to a high pitch of impassioned eloquence, 
 and it must be evident that the writer was a man of 
 remarkable learning and attainments. The Apologist, 
 therefore, could have been no obscure individual. There 
 seems no ground whatever for doubting that he was 
 in reality what he professes naturally and consistently 
 throughout the Apology to be, a scion of the noble Kinda 
 tribe, belonging further to a branch which had clung un- 
 waveringly to their ancestral faith. For the suspicion of a 
 pious fraud in the assumption of that character, there is not, 
 1 See pp. 129, 114, 95, and 121. 
 
xvi THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 so far as I can see, any reasonable ground whatever ; nor 
 (even if internal evidence admitted the hypothesis) would 
 there have been any sensible advantage in adopting that 
 position. 
 
 To sum up, then ; I hold that the work may take its 
 stand, on internal evidence, as a composition certainly of 
 the era at which it professes to have been written. Further, 
 there is the strongest probability, amounting almost to 
 certainty, that it is the genuine production of a learned 
 Christian, a man of distinction at the Court of Al Mamun, 
 bearing the tribal title of Al K'lndy. And still further, 
 there is a fair presumption that the Apology was written 
 as a reply to the Appeal prefixed to the Apology, and 
 addressed bona fide to his friend by the Moslem, Abdallah 
 Hashimy, the Caliph's cousin. 
 
 There are good grounds for this belief apart altogether 
 from the evidence of Al Biruni. But that evidence, as we 
 have seen, is conclusive of the fact that the work was 
 current in the Fourth century, and that it was so under a title 
 corresponding with the account of the authorship as recited 
 in the Preface to the Apology. Al Biruni's testimony is, to 
 my mind, chiefly valuable as serving to remove a doubt which 
 must occur to the most casual reader ; and that is, whether 
 any one could have dared, at the Metropolis of Islam, to 
 put forth a production written in so fearless and trenchant 
 a spirit against Islam ; and whether, this having been done, 
 the obnoxious treatise would not have been immediately 
 suppressed. Religion and the Civil power are, in the 
 Mahometan system, so welded together, that the Icesa 
 Majestas of the State is ever ready to treat an attack on 
 Islam as high treason of an unpardonable stamp. But the evi- 
 dence of Al Biruni shows that, having survived, our Apology 
 was actually in circulation, in a Mahometan country, a 
 century and a half after the time at which it first appeared. 
 This is almost a greater marvel than that it should even have 
 been written in the first instance ; for, under the tolerant 
 sway of the free-thinking Al Mamun, that was possible, 
 which a few years later would have been utterly impossible. 
 
ITS AGE AND AUTHORSHIP. xvii 
 
 And one may be very certain that, when Orthodox views 
 again prevailed, every effort would be made to suppress and 
 exterminate an Apology, obnoxious not only for its attack 
 on the religion of the State, but also for the political 
 sentiments therein advocated as to the divine right of Ali, 
 the usurpation of Abu Bekr, and the manner in which 
 the Coran was compiled. But the work had in all likelihood 
 already so spread during the reign of Al Mamun and his 
 immediate Successors (who shared his Motazelite views), 
 that its entire suppression became, no doubt on that account, 
 impossible. And so copies survived, although stealthily, here 
 and there in Mahometan countries. But why this remark- 
 able book was not better known and valued in Christian 
 countries, is very strange, indeed to my mind altogether 
 unaccountable. 
 
 Admitting all that has been advanced, it will still remain 
 a question of rare interest who this unknown " Al Kindy, 
 the Christian," was. In a letter from Dr. Steinschneider to 
 Prof. Loth, a suggestion is thrown out which might possibly 
 lead to the identification of our Author. The trace is there 
 given of a Emtathms al Kindy, mentioned among other 
 Christian and Jewish names by Casiri in his Bibliotheca 
 Arabica, as one of the translators of Aristotle, or copyists of 
 Greek works. May this not have been our Apologist ? ^ 
 
 Further inqury in this, or some other similar direction, 
 might possibly throw more certain light on the authorship. 
 Other MSS. of the Apology, whether in the East or in our 
 European Libraries, might also with advantage be compared 
 with the printed version to elucidate the purity of the text, 
 and especially of such passages as appear to be imperfect or 
 uncertain in the MSS. from which this edition was printed.^ 
 
 1 Dr. Steinsclineider's letter will be found at page 315 of the Zeitschrift der 
 Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, vol. xxix. The passage referred to m Casin is as 
 follows: ^JoUl t^Lk^^ \pj ^j>;J^ ^^^ • • • '^^^Z ^' i^^. 
 Bibliotheca Arab. Hisp. Michaelis Casiri, Matriti, 1760 a.d., vol. i- P- 310. 
 
 2 There is the MS. in Paris referred to by de Sacy as No. 2o7 of the Biblio- 
 th^que Orientale. And there is also that mentioned by Steinschneider, No. 112, 
 '^Kmdi, Jacob? Vertheidigiiug der Christlichen Religion gegen den Islam, in 
 Karschunischen MSS." See his Polemische und apologttische Liter at ur tn 
 Arahischer Sprache, Leipzig, 1877, p. 131. In this last, the letter of 
 al Hashimy (we are told) is given in an abridged form. 
 
 2 
 
xvili THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 The inquiry is not unworthy the attention of the most 
 eminent of our Oriental scholars. The Apology is absolutely 
 unique of its kind. In antiquity, daring, rhetoric, and 
 power, we have nothing in the annals of the Mahometan 
 controversy, at all approaching it. And any research that 
 might throw light upon the origin of the Argument, the 
 circumstances of our Author, the authenticity of the work, 
 and the genuineness of the text handed down to us, must 
 possess not only a literary interest, but in some respects a 
 practical and important bearing on the same struggle which 
 is being waged to-day, as engaged the labours of Abdallah 
 the Hashimite and Abd al Masih, Al Kindy, the Christian, 
 in the days of Al Mamun. 
 
 I have to express my acknowledgments to Prof. Ignatius 
 Guidi of Eome, to Dr. Fritz Hommel of Miinchen, and to 
 Dr. Steinschneider of Berlin, for their very kind assistance 
 in the prosecution of this inquiry. To the first, I feel 
 specially grateful for his goodness in copying out for me 
 the entire controversy in which Abu Yusuf al Kindy appears 
 as an opponent of the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY 
 
 IN REPLY TO THE 
 
 LETTER OF ABDALLAH THE HASHIMITE. 
 
 The letter of tlie Mahometan Advocate opens with the 
 
 salutation of peace and mercy. This, though x .. 
 
 , !. "^ ' o Letter of THE 
 
 unusual with Mahometans when addressmg In- HAsHiMiTEto 
 
 fidels, he justifies by the example of the Prophet, ^ Kindy 
 
 who made no difference, as to his style of address, ^^^* ^"^^^' 
 
 between Zimmies (protected Jews and Christians) and true 
 
 Believers.^ He then speaks of the esteem in which Al Kindy 
 
 was held by the Caliph, his cousin, and of his own warm 
 
 regard for him. He dwells on his Friend's noble birth, and 
 
 expresses admiration for his distinguished piety, culture and 
 
 learning. It was in full accord with the teaching of the 
 
 Prophet, that he now invited him to embrace Islam, and 
 
 discuss in a kindly and gracious spirit the merits of their 
 
 respective creeds.^ He was himself familiar with Christianity 
 
 in all its forms. He had read the Jewish and Christian 
 
 Scriptures, the several Books of which he names in order. 
 
 He was acquainted with the tenets of the different sects ; — 
 
 the Melchite, belonging to the Romish Church ; the Jacobite, 
 
 whom he denounces as the most unreasonable of the 
 
 schismatics; and the Nestoriany to which body his Friend 
 
 was attached, and which he describes in favourable terms ; 
 
 1 See, for example, Mahomet's epistle to John ibn Eubah, the Christian Chief 
 of Aylah, Life of Mahomet,^. 457. 
 
 2 He quotes Sura xxix. 46, ** Dispute not with the people of the Book 
 otherwise than in the most gracious manner." 
 
2 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 for it was the N^estorian branch of the church which was 
 known to Mahomet, and praised by him in the Coran. He 
 was familiar with the rites, prayers, fasts and festivals of the 
 various churches ; and had not only visited their Convents 
 and Holy places, but had held discussions with their 
 bishops, priests and learned men. He was not of the 
 vulgar herd, which heaped abuse indiscriminately on 
 all Christians. Conversant with their sects and doctrines, 
 he could appreciate what was good in them. He was 
 thus in a position to call upon his Friend to renounce 
 the errors of his creed, and embrace the grand Catholic 
 faith of Abraham, their common ancestor, with all the 
 attendant blessings of Islam. He then recounts the or- 
 dinances and obligations of the Mahometan religion, as 
 Prayer, Fasting, Pilgrimage, Jehad ; dwells on the delights 
 of Paradise that were open to his Friend, and warns him to 
 escape the pains of Hell — supporting his appeal by numerous 
 quotations from the Coran. He had only to embrace the 
 true faith, and he would at once enter on his proper rank 
 and dignity at Court, and share in all the good things of 
 Islam, both in this life and the next. Among the former 
 he mentions the privilege of marrying four wives (liable 
 to divorce if they did not please him) and slave- girls. He 
 closes with an affectionate appeal; and if he should, 
 notwithstanding, choose to hold by the Christian faith, 
 urges him to answer his epistle without fear or favour, 
 under royal guarantee of absolute security. 
 
 The Apology of Al Kindy begins with a complimentary 
 R p F A ^^^^^ss i^ which he expresses gratitude for 
 
 Kindy. the interest shown in his welfare, and an 
 Introduction assurance of lasting friendship. He offers a 
 
 ^ ' ^^' prayer for the long life and prosperity of the 
 Caliph, whose favour he acknowledges with gratitude beyond 
 his power adequately to express. Then follows a petition 
 for help and guidance from Him who had promised that 
 when his servants were brought before kings and governors, 
 it should be given them in that self- same hour what they 
 speak, etc. (quoting Matthew x. 18, 19). 
 
THE TEINITY. 3 
 
 The first section is devoted to a defence of the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, in which the argument is, to The Trinity 
 our apprehension, often weak and far-fetched. (25-41). 
 His Friend had invited him to embrace the Catholic, or 
 Hanyfite^ faith of Abraham, their common father. Our 
 Apologist answers that the Hanyfite faith was in reality 
 the idolatrous religion of the Sabeans, which the Patriarch 
 professed before his conversion to the worship of the One 
 true God. " Which of these two religions of Abraham," he *- 
 as ks, " am I to adopt ? If it be the Unity, I reply that^Ehe; 
 revelation thereof made to Abraham was inherited by Isaac, \ 
 not by Ishmael, and descended in the line not of, the Arabs, I 
 but of the Israelites ; and it is for them, and not for you,/ 
 to invite me to the same.'' After adducing certain meta- 
 physical arguments in favour of the Trinity, he quotes 
 largely from the books of the Old Testament to show that 
 the mystery, though not fully unfolded until the advent 
 of Christ, was plainly fore-shadowed in the Jewish 
 Scriptures. He asserts that the Trinity, as well as the 
 Sonship of the Messiah, are misrepresented in the Coran, / 
 and that the notion of a Female element in the Godhead ' 
 was borrowed by Mahomet from the Jews. He denies 
 that, as stated in the Coran, Christians hold that " God 
 is one of Three," or that " there are three Gods," — an 
 accusation resting on the heretical dogmas of sects, like 
 the Marcionites, "ignorant dogs," who did not deserve 
 even the name of Christian ; and he appeals to his Friend's 
 intimate knowledge to bear him out in his assertion of the 
 true doctrine held by the Church, namely, that there is 
 " One God in three Persons." 
 
 Our Author is here profuse in quotation from the Old 
 Testament. For example, he refers to the substitution of 
 the Eam for Isaac ; the revelation of Jehovah as I am 
 that I am ; " the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob " ; 
 the use of the plural number in such passages as, " Let Us 
 go down," which he argues was, according to Hebrew 
 usage, not honorific, but based on the mystery of trinity 
 in unity ; the three Angels who visited Abraham ; ** The 
 
4 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 Lord thy God is One Lord ; " " Ood made the heavens, 
 by his Word, and his BreaW (Ps. xxxiii. 6); the Tersanctus 
 of Isaiah, etc. Our Apologist "could rain down showers 
 of similar evidence, if it were not to make his book prolix 
 and wearisome." ^ 
 
 Our Author now addresses himself to his Friend's appeal. 
 
 , Of the person of Mahomet, connected as Al 
 
 prophetic claim Hashimy was by descent with that illustrious 
 
 a proper sub- personage, he would not say one offensive 
 
 ject for discus- ^^^.^^2 5,^^ his claim to be a prophet stood 
 
 sion (41). ^^ 
 
 on diiierent ground, and was open to challenge. 
 
 The summons to believe, coming from any but a tyrant, 
 
 must be based on reason sufficient to carry conviction. 
 
 He would therefore discuss the Prophet's career from 
 
 beginning to end. It was a worthy controversy, in which 
 
 party spirit and bigotry might well be put aside. 
 
 There follows a brief summary of the Prophet's career. 
 
 Brief outline ^"^ early life an orphan, and an idolater, he 
 
 of Mahomet's was raised to affluence by his marriage with 
 
 life (42, 43). Khadija. He then sought to reform his people 
 
 by claiming to be their leader; but, failing in this, 
 
 because of their pride and tyranny, he assumed the 
 
 prophetic office, and persuaded the Arabs to accept his 
 
 teaching, — an ignorant and debased race, who knew 
 
 neither the beginning nor the issue of the path on which 
 
 they were entering. He gained them over by yielding 
 
 to their national love of raids and forays, — and it was 
 
 1 The reasoning is sometimes curious, as in the recognition of three Persons 
 in **the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Among 
 the passages with the plural number is that from the Book of Daniel, " God 
 speaks to thee, king, saying. To thee We speak, Nebuchadnezzar,''^ — not 
 * ' I speak,''^ — an expression which I do not trace. Many of Al Kindy's arguments will 
 hardly carry conviction, especially the metaphysical, though these were probably 
 cast in a polemical mould attractive at the time. But the only passage as to the 
 propriety of circulating or translating which I have doubts, is that in which he 
 asserts the Hanyfite religion of Abraham to have been, not the Catholic faith 
 of the Unity (as is clearly intended in the Goran), but Sabean idolatry. To 
 support this view, our Author twists texts of the Goran, as where Mahomet is 
 commanded to say, "I am the Jlrst Moslem." Mahometan readers will with 
 reason object to such misrepresentation of their Scripture. 
 
 ' Our Author never speaks of the Prophet by name, but generally as thy 
 Master (Sahib). 
 
MAHOMET'S WARLIKE EXPEDITIONS. 5 
 
 one of these attacks on a caravan belonging to Abu 
 Jabl which led to the Prophet's abandoning Mecca with 
 forty followers. He took refuge in Medina, a poor town 
 inhabited mostly by Jews; and people's eyes were first 
 opened to his true character by the unjust occupation of a 
 plot of land belonging to two orphan children, whereon to 
 build a Mosque.^ 
 
 The next section is devoted to the plundering and 
 warlike expeditions which issued from Medina, xn- ,-, 
 The first three, commanded by Companions plundering 
 of the Prophet, are dwelt upon with con- expeditions 
 siderable power. Hamza, sent out with thirty ^ *"^^^* 
 followers, met Abu Jahl at Alis with three hundred ; and, 
 fearing to attack him, retired. Compare this, says Al Kindy, 
 with the aid given by God to Joshua in the conquest of 
 the Promised Land; then one chased a thousand, and two 
 put ten thousand to flight. When Hamza, a believer and 
 follower of Mahomet, gave place to Abu Jahl, the wor- 
 shipper of idols, where was the Divine help, and where 
 the assistant Angels? The captain of the Lord's host 
 appeared to Joshua before Jericho ; and the Josh. v. vi. 
 walls of the city fell down at the blast of the Jewish 
 horns. What parallel can Islam show to that? The next 
 afiair was under Abu Obeida, who with seventy men went to 
 Batn Rabigh, to attack Abu Sofian with two hundred : but no 
 Gabriel appeared to his aid, and he returned empty-handed 
 from the bootless march. How different this from Moses, to 
 whose aid, as the Moslems themselves tell us, Gabriel came 
 and destroyed Pharaoh with his 400,000 followers in the 
 depths of the sea. The third time, Sad was despatched with 
 twenty men to intercept a caravan at Kharrar ; but it had 
 passed a day before, and Mahomet had not known of it. If 
 Mahomet had been a true prophet, he had not thus been 
 left in ignorance; for it is the sign of a true prophet 
 to unfold the unseen, even as Samuel told Saul i Sam. ix. 
 
 ^ This short summary is not only confused, hut in some points erroneous, as the 
 notice of Abu Jahl, which is misplaced, and the calumny as to the orphans' plot 
 of ground.— See Life of Mahomet ^ p. 181. 
 
6 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 of his father's asses being found. Our Saviour said that 
 ^latt.xviii. 16. out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, 
 every word would be established ; and here, says Al 
 Kindy, are three convincing evidences.^ 
 
 The first three expeditions conducted by Mahomet in 
 person were equally unfortunate, for he missed his plunder 
 and retired crest-fallen. " Judge now for thyself," our 
 Author says, ** whether Mahomet could have been a prophet 
 as thou sayest. And what concern have prophets with 
 plunder and pillage? Why did he not leave raids and 
 forays to brigands and highwaymen ? Tell me, wherein the 
 difference lies between thy Master and Babek Khurramy, 
 whose insurrection hath caused such grief to our lord the 
 Commander of the Faithful, and disaster to mankind at 
 large ? ^ I know well that thou canst not answer this. 
 And so it continued all through thy Master's life, even 
 until he died. If a caravan was weak, he attacked it, 
 plundering and slaughtering ; but if strong, he fell back 
 and fled. ' There were nine-and-twenty campaigns in which 
 thy Master engaged in person, besides minor raids and 
 night attacks, and nine pitched battles. Other expeditions 
 were led by his Companions." 
 
 " Still stranger and more flagrant was the commission 
 
 . . ,. ffiven by thy Master to assassinate certain 
 
 Assassinations o j j 
 
 by Mahomet's persons obnoxious to him. Thus Ibn Rawaha 
 command (47- was despatched against Oseir ibn Zarim the 
 '* Jew, whom he slew by guile ; and Ibn Omeir 
 
 was sent to make away with Abu Afek, klso a Jew. This 
 last was an aged man, decrepit and helpless, whom Ibn 
 Omeir perfidiously stabbed to death while asleep at night 
 upon his bed, because he had spoken despitefuUy of thy 
 
 ^ The passages from Scripture, it will be understood, are generally quoted by 
 our Apologist in exfexso. 
 
 2 Babek KJmrramy (the festive or jovial) raised the standard of rebellion in 
 Persia about the year 202 a.h. In 212 he carried his conquests into Meso- 
 potamia, and in 214 (just about the time our Apology was written, or shortly 
 before) he annihilated an entire imperial army. lie continued the rebellion, with 
 great excesses and cruelty, for twenty years ; and it Avas not till 222 a.h. that he 
 was overthrown and killed. In the course of his insurrection he is said to have 
 slain 250,000 men and six generals. See IVeifs Geschichte der (Jhalifen, iii. 301 ; 
 and Sale's Koran, Prel. Discourse, vol. i. p. 218. The terror of his name at the 
 era of the Apology makes the illustration particularly apt. 
 
ASSASSINATION. 7 
 
 Master. Tell me, now, I pray thee, whether thou hast 
 anywhere heard or read of so unjustifiable an act ; hath 
 any revelation ever sanctioned it ; and what kind of 
 ordinance is this, to slay a man simply for speaking words 
 of blame ? Had this aged man done anything worthy at 
 all of death, much less of being assassinated unawares ? 
 If he spake the truth, should he have been slain for the 
 same ? And if he lied, still even for that, one is not to 
 be put to death, but rather chastised that he may refrain 
 therefrom. My Friend, thou well knowest (the Lord be 
 gracious unto thee !) how that it is unlawful to disturb 
 a bird resting in its little nest by night ; how much more 
 to slay a man, sleeping securely in his bed, and that for 
 only speaking words of blame ! Is this aught but murder ? 
 I find not that such an act is justified either by the 
 law of God, of reason, or of nature. Nay, by my life! 
 it is but the old work of Satan towards Adam and his 
 race, ever since he wrought his fall. And how consisteth 
 all this with the saying of thine (the Lord guide thee 
 aright, my Friend !) that thy Master " was sent a Blessing 
 and a Mercy to all mankind." ^ 
 
 Al Kindy now adverts to one or two other warlike 
 passages in the Prophet's life. Abdallah ibn other warlike 
 Jahsh, having been sent towards Mecca with passages (48, 
 a small party of scouts, attacked a caravan ^^)- 
 from Yemen, killed the leader, and carried off the spoil 
 to Medina, where Mahomet, after appropriating the royal 
 Fifth, gave over the remainder to the captors. The justice 
 of this proceeding was much canvassed by the citizens of 
 Medina at the time, and our Author leaves it to his Friend 
 to draw his own conclusion.^ 
 
 Equally unjustifiable was the treatment of the Beni 
 Caynocaa, a Jewish tribe on the outskirts of Expatriation 
 Medina, who without any fault, or colourable of the Beni 
 excuse, were besieged and forced to surrender ^jTiocaa. 
 at discretion. Abdallah ibn Obey, their ally, pleaded for 
 
 1 For these assassinations, see Life of Mahomet, pp. 249 and 362. 
 » Ibid. p. 216. 
 
8 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 them : at his intercession Mahomet spared their lives ; 
 but banishing them to Syria, he laid hold of their property 
 and distributed it among his Companions.^ *' I would (says 
 Al Kindy) that I knew how thy Master reconciled it to 
 his conscience to seize the goods of a people that had not 
 injured him, and with whom there was no ground of 
 quarrel, excepting that he wished to reduce their power, 
 and that they were very rich. Such is not the wont of 
 prophets, nor, indeed, of any that believe in God and in 
 the Last day. I could produce many like things, but 
 that it would weary the reader ; and what I have said 
 sufficeth as a sample. But I must say a word as to what 
 Disaster at befell thy Master on the field of Ohod, when 
 Ohod. ]jig lower front tooth on the right side was 
 
 broken, his lip split open, and his cheek and temple gashed, 
 at the hands of Otba ; and also what befell Talha, who 
 lost several of his fingers in warding off the sword 
 brandished by Ibn Camea over the Prophet's head.^ "With 
 this compare what our Lord, the Saviour of the world, 
 did, when one of his followers had his ear cut off, and 
 the Messiah put it back in its place, whole even as the 
 other. Now if, when that happened to Talha, thy Master, 
 in whose defence he lost his fingers, had restored them 
 and made the hand whole, that indeed had been the sign 
 of a true prophet. But where were the Angels that they 
 did not come to his help, and save him from having 
 his tooth broken, his lip gashed, and his face covered 
 with blood; — ^he the Prophet of prophets, the Elect of 
 the elect, the Messenger of the Lord ? Where were they, 
 that they did not save him as they delivered the prophets 
 of old — Elijah from the followers of King Ahab ; Daniel 
 from the lion of Darius ; Ananias and his brethren, the 
 godly youths, from the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, and 
 other prophets and holy men of God? And yet (as ye 
 hold) Adam and all mankind were created solely on behalf 
 of this thy Master, whose name is also written on the 
 Throne of God ! 
 
 1 life of Mahomet, p. 250. = Ibid, p. 270, 
 
THE WIVES OF MAHOMET. 9 
 
 "I turn to another subject. Now, we say that the 
 bent of thy Master's life doth not answer to the boast 
 that he ' was sent a Mercy and Blessing to the human 
 race.' On the contrary, his chief object and concern was 
 to take beautiful women to wife ; to attack surrounding 
 tribes, slay and plunder them, and carry off their females 
 for concubines. His chief delights were, by his own 
 confession, sweet scents and women — strange proofs these 
 of the prophetic claim ! ^ His amour with Zeinab wife 
 of Zeid, I am averse from noticing out of respect for this 
 my book; — excepting only that I will quote the passage 
 which he himself gave forth as having come down from 
 heaven in this matter : 
 
 And when thou saidst to him on whom God had bestowed 
 favour, Keep thy wife to thyself and fear God ; and thou concealedst 
 in thy mind what God was minded to make known, and thou 
 fearedst man, — whereas God is more worthy that thou shouldst 
 fear him. And when Zeid had fulfilled her divorce, We joined 
 thee in marriage unto her, that there might be no offence charge- 
 able to Believers in marrying the wives of their adopted sons, after 
 they have fulfilled their divorce ; and the command of God is to 
 be fulfilled. There is no offence chargeable to the Prophet in that 
 which God hath enjoined upon him, according to the ordinance of 
 God in respect of those that preceded him ; — and the command of 
 God is a predestined decree. — Sura xxxiii. 36, S?.'* 
 
 " This specimen will suffice for men of understanding." 
 Next is introduced the story of Ayesha's night adventure 
 with Saf wan, which created a great scandal at Ayesha's mis- 
 Medina, and made Mahomet suspicious of his adventure. 
 favourite wife ; — whereupon Ali addressed him in the same 
 sense, ending with these words : Prophet of Ood I the 
 Lord hath not straitened thee in this matter, and there are 
 many other women besides her. " But he would not be per- 
 suaded, because of his uxorious fondness of Ayesha, whom 
 
 1 There is an objectionable passage here, p. 60, lines 4 and 6, which (however 
 much it may add point to the passage) I would omit in the translation. It is 
 
 besides based on a weak tradition, 
 
 2 See Life of Mahomet, p. 302. 
 
10 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 only lie married a maiden, and wlio being young and 
 bewitcliing had possession of his heart (and this was the 
 cause of the enmity between Ali and Ayesha all their life 
 long), so that in the end he promulgated a revelation of 
 her innocence, in Sura Nur — Verily they that slander 
 married icomen, etc. The story is notorious and needeth 
 from me no further application." ^ 
 
 Then follows an enumeration of Mahomet's wives, with 
 Wives of remarks on certain of them. 0mm Salma, our 
 Mahomet. Author tells us, was of a jealous temperament, 
 and wished to avoid the honour of the prophet^s hand 
 by the excuse that she had several children to tend ; where- 
 upon Mahomet engaged to bring them up, but in this he 
 deceived her, for he never fulfilled the promise.^ Of 
 Zeinab he relates that after Mahomet had thrice sent her 
 portion of meat she flung it back in his face, whereupon 
 he swore that he would not go near his wives for a whole 
 month ; but not having patience to wait till the end, he 
 approached them after nine-and-twenty days.^ Safia, the 
 Jewess, was taught by the prophet, when upbraided by 
 her sister- wives, to answer, saying, Aaron is my father , 
 Moses my uncle^ and Mahomet my husband. Muleika, of 
 the Kinda tribe, when solicited by the prophet to be 
 his wife, exclaimed. What! shall Muleika give herself to a 
 mercha)dman ?^ The remaining wives are little more than 
 mentioned by name ; in all he had fifteen wives and two 
 1 Cor. vii. slave-girls. " Paul, the Apostle, said. He that 
 32, 33. /^(if/i^ fl ^/^^^ ^^5 object is how he mMy please 
 her J etc. ; and he spake the truth, for a man is ever 
 occupied with what may please his wife. Our Saviour 
 
 1 Life of Mahomet, p. 313. 
 
 2 Al Kindy therefore calls her " the Deceived." Her excuse and the prophet's 
 promise are certainly mentioned in tradition ; but I do not recollect anything to 
 show that in not himself bringing up the children, or adopting them as his own, 
 Mahomet "deceived" the lady. See Life of Mahomet, p. 300. 
 
 '^ The cause of Mahomet's oath is ordinarily attributed to a worse scandal. 
 Ibid, p. 442. 
 
 * A stroke of our Author's at the superiority of the kingly Kinda lineage over 
 the Coreish, who were a tribe of merchantmen. We shall see that he refers to 
 this again. 
 
THE EYIDENCE OF PROPHECY. H 
 
 also said, iVb man can serve two masters at one and the same 
 
 time; he must needs serve one and slight the other. Now, 
 
 if it be so that a man cannot serve a single wife and 
 
 please her without neglecting his Maker, how much more 
 
 must one have been taken up in seeking to please fifteen 
 
 wives, besides two that were bond-maids? Add to this 
 
 that he was all the while engaged in raids and forays 
 
 and military expeditions, in ordering his troops for the 
 
 same, in sending out spies, and in planning how to 
 
 circumvent his enemies, slay their men, take their women 
 
 captive and plunder their goods. How then could thy 
 
 Master find leisure from all these cares and pleasures for 
 
 fasting and prayer, worship, meditation and preparation 
 
 for the life to come ? I am very sure that no prophet in 
 
 olden times resembled him in these things." 
 
 The next section is on prophecy as the evidence of a 
 
 .Divine commission. It is of two kinds. Reve- ^ ^ , _„ „„ 
 / ^ ^ Prophecy an 
 
 ^ lation of the past, accredited by miracles, — as evidence of 
 the account by Moses of the creation and ancient Divine mission 
 history of man. Second; — Revelation of the 
 
 1 future, accredited by fulfilment, either immediately, as 
 Isaiah's prediction of the destruction of the army of 
 Sennacherib King of Mosul, and the recovery of Hezekiah ; 
 or at some future time, as the Promise of the Holy Land, 
 the return of the Captivity, the Coming of the Messiah, 
 His death, and the Scattering of the Jews, — foretold by 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel. Such evidence was required 
 of all who claimed the prophetic office, and by the issues 
 of the same they were accepted or rejected. The Messiah, 
 the Saviour of the world, was the greatest of all the 
 prophets. They were servants of the Great God ; but he was 
 His beloved Son, and himself the inspirer of the prophets. 
 He knew the unseen. No heart was closed, no secret 
 hidden from him; and He foretold things to come. In 
 proof are quoted prophecies by Jesus regarding Matthew xxiv. 
 the destruction of the Temple, his own decease ^' 2- 
 and the persecutions that should follow. He acquainted 
 His disciples with the death of Lazarus, and then raised 
 
12 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 him to life again. Our Author concludes with Peter's 
 threefold denial as foretold by our Saviour, and his bitter 
 sorrow for the same. 
 
 " JSTow, tell me," he proceeds, " what thing thy Master 
 "Wanting in foretold, or made known, in virtue of which 
 the case of thou holdest him to be a prophet. If thou 
 Mahomet (57). gayest that he made known to us the history 
 of the prophets that went before him, as of Noah, Abraham, 
 Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the Messiah, and others, — I have 
 a ready answer ; namely, that he told us what we knew 
 already, and even our very children read at school. 
 And if thou wilt make mention of such other narratives, 
 /as of Ad and Thamud, of Salih and his Camel, of the 
 'Elephant and the like, I reply that these are witless 
 fables, and old wives' tales, such as we Arabs hear night 
 and day, and are no proof whatever of a Divine mission. 
 And so the evidence of the past falleth to the ground. 
 And if thou sayest that he foretold what was to happen 
 in the future, it behoveth thee to give instances of the 
 same ; for over 200 years have elapsed since his time, 
 and surely something of what he foretold must have 
 come to pass ere this. But thou knowest, and we all 
 know, that thy Master never uttered a single prophecy; 
 and so the other condition also faileth." 
 
 "Such being the case, let us see whether there is any 
 Miracles dis- sign of the second kind of evidence, to wit, 
 avowed hy of miracles. Now, Mahomet himself hath told 
 Mahomet (58). ^^ plainly that it was said to him (by the 
 Almighty), Nothing hindered Us from sending thee with 
 Sura xvii. 60. Miracles, hut that those of old time gave them 
 the lie ; that is to say, * If it had not been that thy people 
 would have called them impostures, even as those of old 
 did, we should have bestowed on thee the gift of Miracles.' 
 Now, by my life, what, according to all the rules of logic, 
 could be a more conclusive answer ! Thou knowest (the 
 Lord guide thee !), and all they that hear my Apology 
 know, that thy Master herein disclaimed miracles as a 
 proof of his mission, because he had not the power of 
 
MIEACLES; CONQUEST OF PERSIA. 13 
 
 showing them; and it is not for an impartial man like 
 
 thee to turn aside from the truth. 
 
 " If thou claimest, as a proof of his mission, that thy 
 
 Master and his Companions, notwithstanding „ 
 
 ,-1 p 11. 1 -. , „ ° Saracen con- 
 
 they were few and weak, trampled under foot quest of Persia 
 
 the mighty kingdom of Persia, with all its no proper evi- 
 resources, armies, and munitions of war, then ^^^^^ i^^> ^^)' 
 we answer thee in the words of the Lord to the children 
 of Israel, 'JsTot because the Lord loved you above all 
 nations, hath he given you the victory over the Amorites 
 and Perizzites so that ye have slain them, ravaged their 
 lands and inherited their cities, but because of the wicked- 
 ness of these nations, and the greatness of their iniquity, 
 hath he given you the victory over them/ ^ Thus He 
 treated even Jerusalem, the city of His choice, the abode 
 of His prophets, the scene of great wonders and miracles, 
 whence praise and worship ascended day and night, 
 the spot where prayer was wont to be answered, the 
 seat of blessing from above ; — when her citizens rebelled 
 against Him, set up other gods, denied His signs and forgat 
 His mercies, thinking they had gotten them by the might 
 of their own hand, — then the Lord gave up Jerusalem 
 into the power of that wickedest of mankind, JN^ebuchad- 
 nezzar, the idolater, who slew the inhabitants thereof, even 
 that chosen race, and carried them away captive and 
 their children, and destroyed the House called by His 
 own name, and took away the holy vessels that were 
 therein to the abominable Babylon for the service of 
 idols. Now, wilt thou say that Nebuchadnezzar, in that 
 he stormed the Holy city, and inflicted these calamities upon 
 it, was a prophet, because of all this ? Even thus is the 
 case of thy Master and his followers with this great kingdom 
 of Persia. For the people were all Magians, wicked and 
 abominable, the dregs of nations, and the vilest of mankind. 
 They worshipped the Sun and Fire ; they took to wife 
 their own daughters, sisters, and mothers ; they rebelled 
 
 1 Paraphrased from Deut. ix. 4, 5. 
 
14 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 against the triith, and exalted tliem selves beyond measure ; 
 in their heathenism they attributed Divinity to those whom 
 the Lord hath not made to be gods ; they abused His 
 gifts and corrupted the land, and thought that their 
 prosperity was verily the work of their own wisdom and 
 might. Wherefore the Lord gave them into the hands 
 of those that ravaged their land, slew their men, destroyed 
 their habitations, made their families captive, and robbed 
 their goods, so that there remained not a woman amongst 
 them but was seized as a concubine, nor one of their 
 children but was led away into slavery. For thus doth the 
 Lord judge an ungodly people." 
 
 Returning to the excuse of Mahomet that he was not 
 Miracles dis- gifted with miracles, lest his people, as of old, 
 claimed in the should call them impostures, our Author repeats, 
 Coran(60). —« By my life! a strange reason to offer to 
 any man of sense. Allow that the Jews aforetime did give 
 the lie to the miracles of their prophets, and rejected them, 
 what then ? As to the Arab tribes they could never have 
 given them the lie, seeing that no prophet had arisen 
 amongst them before, nor any Apostle in Arabia, whether 
 with miracles or without them. Doubtless had thy Master 
 shown them anything like a miracle, they would have 
 attested the same, and not given it the lie ; for do we not 
 see that multitudes of these same Arabs did accept his 
 ministry, although they saw no miracles, neither heard of 
 any wonderful work ? But thou well knowest (the Lord pre- 
 serve thee !) that this argument will not stand inquiry." 
 
 "If now, leaving the testimony of the Coran, we turn 
 F b lous ^^ fables and stories, then we get to such fond tales 
 tales handed as that of the Wolf which stood howling before 
 down by tradi- Mahomet ; whereupon he turned to his Companions 
 ^^^ ^ ' ^' saying that this wolf was a deputation from the 
 Beast of the forests : — ' Wherefore if ye will (continued he) 
 let us impose upon it certain conditions which they shall 
 not transgress ; or if ye will we shall let it go free.' They 
 answered that they did not care to impose conditions ; 
 then Mahomet made signs to it with his three fingers. 
 
ALLEGED MIRACLES OF MAHOMET. 15 
 
 whereupon it turned and went away. Wonderful ! (pro- 
 ceeding in a strain of irony) that Mahomet should under- 
 stand the inarticulate bark of a wolf ! Suppose he had said, 
 This wolf is a messenger from the Almighty to me, could 
 any one have gainsaid it? Such tales, my brother, are 
 meant only for ignorant people innocent of reason and the 
 laws of evidence." Another story of a wolf speaking to 
 one of the Companions (strange that both miracles should 
 be in connection with an animal called in the Scriptures 
 "ravening") he treats with equal contempt. Such conceits 
 were not for sensible men, and there was no need to dwell 
 longer on them. He dismisses with similar scorn the legend 
 of the bull that spoke ; the goat whose empty udders swelled 
 when touched by Mahomet ; and the tree which advanced 
 at his call, ploughing up the ground — a tradition rejected 
 even by intelligent Moslems. More space is given to 
 the miracle of the Roasted shoulder of mutton sent to the 
 Prophet by Zeinab the Jewess, which told him that it 
 was poisoned, and of which Bishr ate and died thereof. 
 "Either Mahomet alone heard the shoulder speak, and 
 then why did he conceal the matter, and not prevent Bishr 
 (a chosen guest) from eating ? or the whole company heard 
 it, and then Bishr himself would surely have refrained. 
 There is no escape from the dilemma. Or, Bishr ate on, 
 perhaps, secure in the company of a prophet whom the 
 Lord heard alway, and answered his prayers. Why then 
 did not thy Master pray to his Lord, as the prophets 
 of old who interceded and the dead were raised to life again ; 
 even as Elias raised the widow's son, and his disciple 
 Elisha the son of the Shunamite. And after his death, 
 virtue yet remained in the bones of Elisha, so that a 
 dead man placed upon the same revived and 2 Kings xii. 
 stood upon his feet. Thou knowest that this 21. 
 is true, for it is in the Scripture, as thou mayest read 
 in the Book of Kings. There is no difference in the text 
 between the Jews and Christians ; for though we differ 
 in religion we agree in the truth of this. Now, why, when 
 Bishr did eat, was the poison not made harmless ? Then had 
 
 3 
 
16 THE APOLOGY OF AL KmDT. 
 
 it been a sign of thy Master's prophetic office : for 
 prophets and holy men of old were shielded by the Lord 
 from calamities incident to unbelief, — according to the 
 promise of our Lord to his disciples in the holy Gospel, 
 which was fulfilled to them, in that He said, If ye drink 
 deadly poison, it shall not hurt you ; that is to say, when 
 ye put forth your claim that men may listen to the 
 Gospel, this shall come to pass. And they did so, and 
 published their message by means of these miracles. And 
 thus great and powerful kings and philosophers and learned 
 men and judges of the earth hearkened unto them, without 
 the lash or rod, with neither sword nor spear, nor the 
 advantages of birth or helpers — with no wisdom of this 
 world or eloquence or power of language or subtlety of 
 reason, with no worldly inducement nor any relaxation 
 of the moral law, but simply at the voice of truth enforced 
 by miracles beyond the power of man to show.^ And so 
 there came over to them the kings and great ones of the 
 earth ; and the philosophers abandoned their systems, and 
 with all their wisdom and learning betook them to a 
 saintly life, giving up the delights of this world and their 
 established usages, and became followers of a company 
 of poor men, fishers and publicans, who had neither name 
 nor rank, or any claim other than that they were obedient to 
 the command of the Messiah, — he that gave them the power 
 to do such wonderful works. Kow these, if ye will, (the 
 Lord guide thee, my friend !) are proofs of a Divine 
 mission, not such silly things as are told of thy Master, 
 in which there is no reality. As for the miracle of the 
 pitcher into which they say he thrust his hand, and forth- 
 with there issued water, so that they drank therefrom, 
 they and their beasts — the account comes from Mohammed 
 ibn Ishac (and) Zohri,- and the authority is insufficient; 
 for even the traditionists themselves are not at one about 
 the truth of it. Thus the historical evidence altogether fails, 
 
 1 In all this a direct contrast is intended with the spread of Islam. 
 
 2 The text reads as if Zoliri were a title of Ibn Ishac ; probably a tj'pographical 
 mistake, as Zohri flourished fifty years earlier — Life of Mahomet^ p. 603, For 
 the incident referred to see Ibid, p. 369. 
 
FALSE TALES TOLD OF MAHOMET. 17 
 
 and the claim must be abandoned. Instead of miracles, 
 the claim of thy Master was enforced simply by tbe sword. 
 Whosoever hesitated to acknowledge him a prophet sent 
 by God, was slain, or spared only on payment of tribute, 
 as the price of his unbelief. 
 
 "Finally, what could be more conclusive proof, if thou 
 wilt judge impartially (the Lord 'guide thee !), 
 than this, that thy Master himself cut away the ^ ^T , . 
 ground from all such tales as are told of him, people not to 
 in that he said openly and plainly, 'There Relieve such 
 
 * hath been no prophet, but his people have told ° 
 
 * lies about him ; and I am no exception that my people 
 
 * should not tell lies about me. Wherefore, whensoever ye 
 
 * shall hear aught about me, then turn to the book which 
 
 * I have left with you ; and if it conform thereto, and there 
 
 * be mention of the same in it, then it is true that I said 
 
 * or did what is related of me ; but if there be no mention 
 
 * of it in the book, then I am free therefrom, and that which 
 
 * is related of me is a lie, and I neither said nor did it/ 
 Wherefore see, my friend, and judge, whether those stories 
 which thy people tell are to be found at all in the book of 
 the Coran ; if there be any mention of them, or any trace, 
 therein, then, by my life ! I will confess that it is true, and 
 that thy Master did the same. Otherwise he is absolved 
 from these fictions, and they are goundless lying tales for 
 which he is not in any wise responsible. 
 
 " Of the same kind, but much worse is the tradition 
 
 regarding thy Master's obsequies. He desired jjtiojjthat 
 
 (so the story runs) that he should not be buried Mahomet 
 
 for three days, seeing that the Lord would raise would rise 
 
 him to Heaven even as He raised our Saviour Y^^^^J,.,. / 
 
 ^ 1 J. -u ^ £i. three days (64). 
 Christ, because he was too honourable to be iett 
 
 longer upon the earth. So after he died they refrained 
 
 till the fourth day, when, forced by the progress of decay, 
 
 they buried him.'' ^ 
 
 1 Some irrelevant observations follow as to the part taken by Aly and 
 Abbas in the funeral obsequies. Parts of the work have here somewhat the 
 appearance of dislocation. The object of introducing the passage is apparently 
 to show how misleading the traditions of the Prophet 8 life may be. 
 
18 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 "After his decease^ there remained not one of thy 
 Apostacy of Master's followers that did not apostatize, saving 
 the Arabs only a small company of his Companions and kins- 
 ^ ^' folk, who were ambitious of succeeding to the 
 
 government. Here Abu Bekr displayed marvellous skill, 
 energy and address, so that the power fell into his hands. 
 Aly was exceedingly angry thereat ; and people resorted to 
 him, not doubting that he would succeed ; but the reins were 
 snatched from his hands, from love of the world and lust of 
 power. 1 But Abu Bekr persevered, until the apostate tribes 
 were all brought back to their allegiance, some by kindly 
 treatment, persuasion and craft, some through fear and terror 
 of the sword, and others by the prospect of power and wealth 
 and the lusts and pleasures of this life. And so it came to 
 pass that they were all in the end converted outwardly, and 
 not from inward conviction." 
 
 To establish this point, our Apologist quotes a speech 
 Speecli of Al- delivered at an assembly of his courtiers by the 
 M&mun, Caliph in which he likens the hypocritical con- 
 
 the Apostates "^^^^^^^ ^^ *^® Magians, Jews and Christians 
 were reclaimed of l^is own day, to that of the Jews and hypocrites 
 by worldly in- in the time of Mahomet, and justifies his own 
 ducements(G6). forbearance by the Prophet's example, and the 
 worldly inducements by which the apostates were reclaimed. ^ 
 
 The objection is here anticipated that if Moses and Joshua 
 Mahomet attacked and slew the Canaanites, took their 
 
 showed no families captive, and ravaged their land, similar 
 miracles, like acts should not be charged against Mahomet as 
 Joshua to ^ fault. But the slaughter of the Canaanites, 
 warrant resort Al Kindy replies, was a chastisement from 
 to the sword heaven, and the commission to inflict the same 
 ^ '* was ratified by miracles, which he recounts 
 
 and which he reminds his Friend that both Jews 
 and Christians, though hostile in other respects, agree 
 in attesting. "Show me," he proceeds, "any the slightest 
 
 ^ All this (which is altogether opposed to historical evidence) is in accord with 
 the Alyite current that ran strong at Al Mamun's court. 
 * This has been given in extenso in the Preliminary Essay, p. xii. 
 
MAHOMET HAD NO DIVINE WARRANT FOR THE SWORD. 19 
 
 proof or sign of a wonderful work done by thy Master 
 to certify his mission, and to prove that what he did 
 in slaughter and rapine was, like the other, by Divine 
 command. I know thou canst not. And so it behoveth 
 thee not (the Lord direct thee !) to blame or injure those 
 who deny that the Lord sent thy Master as an Apostle 
 with the commission to impose his religion by the sword, 
 and hold him to have been an adventurer seeking his 
 own ends and aided therein by his kinsfolk, clan, and 
 fellow-citizens. If any reject the claim of such a one, 
 they are not justly to be blamed ; but rather, if judged 
 impartially, to be praised and commended for searching 
 out the truth. To bolster up fallacies and falsehoods 
 consisteth neither with reason nor justice. These are 
 the weapons of the Jews and heathen, who deal in lies 
 like their father the Devil, even as Jesus Christ our Saviour 
 hath shown in the holy Gospel. 
 
 " And now, as to thine invitation, suppose I should accept 
 it without reason or evidence, wouldest thou ^j ^.^^^^ ^_ 
 regard that as the course of rectitude ? I trow vites his Friend 
 not. And judge, my Friend, how should I to consider the 
 
 -r 1 -I -»r • 1 T. i.1- -J claims of Jesus 
 
 do this, and my Lord the Messiah hath said Christ based on 
 in the holy Gospel, All the prophets have miracles (70, 
 prophesied until the time of my coming ; that is, '^^)- 
 at the era of my appearance, the prophetic office ceaseth ; 
 and whosoever cometh after me claiming to be a prophet, 
 the same is a wolf and a robber, receive him not.^ Tell 
 me, my good friend, if turning aside from the dying 
 command of my Lord, the Saviour of the world, I should 
 be tempted by the pomps, vanities, and carnal inducements 
 of this life, to accept thy call without proof,— I think not 
 that one like thee, endowed with righteousness and wisdom, 
 would approve a sin so heinous, neither is it possible that 
 one like me could turn aside thereto. Nay, my Friend, 
 rather would I appeal to thy reason, and beseech of thee, 
 casting aside considerations of birth and family, to Hsten 
 unto me, thy true counsellor and affectionate adviser. CaU 
 1 Referring possibly to John x. or Acts ix. 29. 
 
20 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 to mind what in tlie holy Gospel, our Lord, the Messiah, 
 saith to His disciples — * Truly many prophets and kings 
 desired to see what ye see and did not see it, and to hear 
 what ye hear and did not hear it/ How canst thou, 
 reading such words, turn therefrom, loving this present 
 life, which swiftly passeth away and disappeareth/' The 
 Section on miracles closes here with an eloquent recapitula- 
 tion of the argument for the truth of Christianity, based on 
 the way in which it spread, not by force, or through any 
 ambitious, sordid, and carnal motives, but simply from 
 choice and conviction, grounded on the incontestable miracles 
 of Christ and His disciples. 
 
 Entering now upon a new argument, Al Kindy lays it 
 The THREE Dis- down as axiomatic that there are but three Dis- 
 PENSATioNs : pensations, to one or other of which the religion 
 ral and Satanic ^^ Mahomet must belong. Fh^st, the Divme ; 
 (72-75). second, the Natural ; and third, the Satanic. 
 
 First, the Divine, so called because moulded in the 
 likeness of God himself, it transcends reason, and is more 
 excellent than anything drawn from nature. The same 
 is the Gospel, or dispensation of Grace brought by Jesus 
 Christ, and described in the Coran as *'a light and guidance, 
 and a direction to the pious." It is based on Favour, 
 
 Matthew v. ^ercy, and Forgiveness, even as our Saviour 
 
 44, 45. commanded us to overcome evil with good, after 
 
 the example of our Father in heaven. The second is 
 
 the law of reason or nature, summed up by Moses in the 
 
 Sura V. 63. text *' an eye for an eye," etc. ; that is, the 
 law of like for like, returning good for good, and evil 
 for evil, and therein differing altogether from the Gospel 
 which follows the gracious dealing of the Lord with his 
 creatures. The third is the kingdom of the Evil One, 
 tyranny, and wrong. Conscious of treading upon delicate 
 ground, Al Kindy here deprecates his friend's displeasure ; 
 they were in the heat of conflict, and he could not afford 
 to dispense with any of those spiritual weapons from 
 which he hoped for victory. Nor would it be just to 
 blame him, for he had borne patiently things equally 
 
THE THREE DISPENSATIONS. 21 
 
 severe from the other side. Beginning with a prayer that 
 God. would guide his Friend, he asks him which of the 
 three was his Master's creed. "If thou sayest, * The 
 Divine'; I reply, that our Lord the Christ, 600 years 
 before, revealed the same Dispensation ; ever since His 
 Ascension unto the present day. His followers have observed 
 it ; and they will follow the same to the end of time. More- 
 over, I perceive not that thy fellows know aught concerning 
 this law of Grace and Mercy, and as little did they act 
 upon it in thy Master's day. If thou sayest, ' the Natural 
 law ' of reason and justice, that too was revealed aforetime 
 by Moses, and is contained in the Tourat ; and being there, 
 clear as the sun-beam, it were piracy and falsehood, if any 
 other claimed to be the author of the same. There re- 
 maineth the third, the law of Satan, wrong-doing and evil. 
 Now look (the Lord guide thee !) with an eye that shall 
 not deflect from the right, and see who it is that taketh 
 his stand on this dispensation, seeketh help therefrom, 
 and practiseth its principles. And if not this, then tell 
 me what new Dispensation thy Master came with, and 
 what law other than this he revealed, that I may embrace 
 the same, if it be worthy of acceptance ; for I will not refuse 
 the truth from whatsoever quarter it may come. Perchance 
 thou wilt say that thy Master combined the two former 
 dispensations both together, to wit, the rule of the Messiah 
 and the rule of Moses — following up the law of * Life 
 for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, nose for Sura v. 63. 
 nose, etc.,' with the command of our Lord ' but guj-a ii. 238 ; 
 if ye forgive, it is nigher unto piety.' But ^' 9- 
 
 thou well knowest that the two being contradictory, will not 
 consist together, — as if one were to say that a man was 
 standing and sitting, blind and seeing, healthy and diseased, 
 at one and the same time; and I think not that thou 
 wouldest admit so untenable a claim. Besides, this amalga- 
 mated creed would have been fetched from two separate 
 sources, the Gospel, and the Tourat. And supposing thou 
 wert to say, 'I adopt both these Dispensations'; I think 
 not that the professors of either would acknowledge thee ; 
 
22 THE APOGOGY OF AL KINDT. 
 
 for they have inherited their respective creeds and hold 
 the same in their hands intact ; and would reply that 
 it was simple plagiarism. Nay rather, do thou show us 
 something of thine own, which is in thy hands, and not 
 in ours, but new ; and we shall then acknowledge thee 
 to be true and just. Ah, is it not because thou takest refuge 
 in the third, and seeketh help therefrom, however much thou 
 mayest disclaim it ? For I wot not that thou wouldest 
 consent to hold thy Master as a mere follower of Moses 
 and the Messiah, — seeing that thou claimest for him a 
 position so exalted that had it not been for him neither 
 Adam nor the world would have taken shape. And that thy 
 Master showed no miracle (as he himself disclaimed the 
 power), why was it but because there remained no fourth 
 dispensation ? Now if there are but three, and Moses and 
 the Messiah came with two, what is there left for thy 
 Master but the third ? I know not which of these answers 
 I am to choose. I pray thee, my Friend, be honest with 
 thyself, and evade not the question, for that were against the -f- 
 conditions of this controversy ; seeing that Religion is not 
 one of those matters which men of sense and understanding 
 can refrain from probing and discussing, or neglect to test 
 by right principle. The Lord lead thee graciously to the 
 Truth, and strengthen thee to abandon the False." 
 
 " "We come now to what thou regardest as thy stronghold, 
 
 ^ to wit, the Book which is in thy hands. Thine 
 
 The Coran as , • . i . i • i i • (» ^ i 
 
 an evidence of argument IS that the narratives therein oi the 
 
 Mahomet's prophets and the Messiah prove that it was 
 Mission revealed by God, because thy Master was un- 
 
 learned, and could have had no knowledge of 
 the same excepting by way of inspiration. Again, thou 
 sayest that * neither man nor genius could produce the 
 V Sura ii. 23. like thereof * ; and, ' If ye be in doubt as to 
 that which We have revealed unto Our servant, then bring 
 a Sura the like thereof, and call your witnesses other than 
 the Lord, if ye be true men. ' And, yet again, * If We had 
 Suralix. 21. sent down this Coran unto a mountain, thou 
 
THE COEAN; HOW COLLECTED TOGETHER. 23 
 
 wouldest have seen it humbling itself, and cleaving asunder, 
 from fear of tlie Lord ' ; and the like eflPusions. This in 
 thy view is the main evidence of thy Master's claim, rank- 
 ing with the miracle of the Eed Sea, the Staying of the 
 Sun, the Raising of the Dead, and other wonderful works 
 by the prophets of old and the Messiah. And, by my life ! 
 this argument hath deceived many. But it is a weak and 
 hollow subterfuge. The answer is near at hand, and not 
 far off, as I will show thee. The disclosure may be bitter, 
 but it will be wholesome in the end." He then proceeds 
 to give a lengthy account of the origin of the Goran. ^ His 
 story in short is this. *' Sergius, a Nestorian monk, was 
 excommunicated for a certain offence. To expiate it, he 
 set out on a mission to Arabia, and reached Mecca, which 
 he found inhabited by Jews and idolaters. There he 
 met Mahomet, with whom he had intimate converse, 
 and persuaded him, after being instructed in the faith 
 of Nestorius, to abandon heathenism, and become his 
 disciple. This, while it excited the hatred of the Jews, 
 was the reason of the favourable mention of the Christians 
 in the Goran, to wit, that ' they are the nighest Sura v. 91. 
 
 * unto believers in friendship ; and that because there are 
 
 * amongst them priests and monks, and because they are not 
 
 * haughty.' And so the matter prospered, and the Christian 
 faith was near to being adopted, when Sergius died. There- 
 upon two Jewish Doctors, Abdallah and Kab, seized the 
 opportunity, and ingratiated themselves with thy Master, 
 professing deceitfully to share his views and be his followers. 
 Thus they concealed their object and bided their time. 
 Then upon the Prophet's death, when Aly kept aloof and 
 refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bekr, the two Jews 
 sought him out, and tried to persuade him to assume the 
 prophetic office, for which they declared him fit, and 
 promised to instruct him, as Sergius had instructed Mahomet. 
 
 ^ TMs lono- digression about the Coran is strongly coloured by Abbasside and 
 Alyite tradition. Much of it is mere romance, resting on no historical evidence 
 whatever. But it was no doubt the kind of talk popular at the Court of Al 
 Mamiin (where any argument impugning the etermty of the Coran would be 
 well received) ; and, indeed, our Author here and there implies as much. 
 
24 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 Al}^ yet young and inexperienced, listened to them, and 
 was instructed secretly. ^ Before they had fully gained 
 their object, Abu Bekr heard of it and sent for Aly, who 
 finding opposition useless, abandoned his ambitious claim. 
 But the Jews had already succeeded in tampering with the 
 text which Mahomet left in Aly's hands, that namely which 
 was based upon the Gospel. It was then that these Jews 
 interpolated histories from the Old Testament, and portions 
 of the Mosaic law, and introduced such passages as this : — 
 Sura ii. 113. ^ The Christians say that the Jews are founded 
 ' upon nothing, and the Jews say that the Christians are 
 
 * founded upon nothing ; and yet they read the Book. Thus 
 ' did the ignorant people aforetime speak as they do. Where- 
 
 * fore the Lord will judge between them in the day of 
 
 * the Resurrection as to that concerning which they difier.' 
 Hence also arose inconsistencies in the Coran, — passages 
 proceeding from one source, differing from passages that 
 
 Suras xvi. proceeded from another ; as in Chapters, the 
 xxvii.andxxix. Bee, the Ant, the Spider. Now when Aly 
 despaired of succeeding to the Caliphate, he repaired to 
 Abu Bekr forty days (some say six months) after the 
 Prophet's death. As he was swearing allegiance, Abu Bekr 
 asked him, * Father of Hasan, what hath delayed thee 
 so long ? ' He answered, * / was busy collecting the Book 
 of the Lord, for the Prophet committed that to me.' 
 Reflect, my Friend, what could have been the meaning 
 of his being busy in collecting the Book of God? Thou 
 knowest how the tyrant Hajjaj ' collected ' the leaves of the 
 Coran, and left out much thereof. Ah, deceived one ! the 
 Book of God is not ' collected,' nor can any part thereof be 
 lost. Thou, and those of thy persuasion, know and acknow- 
 ledge all that I have said, for it is taken from traditions of 
 your own in which all of you agree. According to some 
 authorities, the first copy was left with the Coreish, and Aly, 
 when he came to power, ordered it to be taken possession 
 of lest it should be tampered with ; and this was the copy 
 
 ^ Hardly young and inexperienced, being then over six-and-twenty years. 
 
THE GORAN, HOW COLLECTED. 25 
 
 wMcli was in accord with the Gospel as delivered to 
 Mahomet by Sergius.^ Now when Aly spake to Abu Bekr, 
 as related above, those about him replied, that tl^ere were 
 scraps and pieces of the Goran with them as well as with 
 Aly ; and it was agreed to collect the whole together. So 
 they collected various parts from the memory of Sura ix. 
 
 individuals, (as Sura Bar at, which they wrote out at the 
 dictation of a certain Arab from the desert,) and other 
 portions from different people, and from the deputations 
 which had visited the Prophet ; besides that which was copied 
 out from tablets of stone, and palm leaves, and shoulder bones, 
 and such like. It was not at first collected in a volume, but 
 remained in separate leaves ; and so the Jews got what they 
 wanted inserted through the leaves of Aly. 
 
 " Then the people fell to variance in their reading. Some 
 read according to the version of Aly (and they follow 
 the same to the present day) ; some read according to the 
 collection of which we have made mention. Others read 
 according to the reading of the Arab from the desert 
 who in his ignorance made changes and additions. A 
 party read according to the text of Ibn Masud, following 
 the saying of thy Haster,—' Whosoever would read the 
 Goran in its pristine purity and freshness, let him read 
 after Ibn mm Mabad ' ; and he used to repeat it over 
 to him once every year, and in the year he died, twice. 
 And, yet again, some read after Obey ibn Kab, following 
 thy Master's word ; — * The best Reader amongst you all, is 
 Obey.' Now the readings of Obey and Ibn Masud are 
 close one to the other. 
 
 "Thus when Othman came to power, and people every- 
 where differed in their readings, Aly sought grounds of 
 accusation against him, compassing his death.^ One man 
 would read a verse one way, and another man another way, 
 each saying that his reading was better than his neighbour's, 
 
 1 Our Author tells us that this Sergius was also called by the Companions 
 " Gabriel," and at other times " The faithful Spirit." ^ ^ 
 
 2 The sentence is remarkable, preceding as it does the notice of Othman s 
 recension, and also as plainly imputing to Aly a design prepense on the life of 
 Othman. 
 
26 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDT. 
 
 and contending for the same; and there was change and 
 interpolation, some copies having more and some less. 
 When this was represented to Othman, and the danger 
 urged of division, strife and apostacy, he thereupon caused to 
 be collected together all the leaves and scraps that he 
 was able, together with what was copied out at the first. 
 But they did not meddle with that which was in the hands 
 of Aly, or of those who followed his reading. Obey was 
 dead by this time. As for Ibn Masud, they demanded 
 his exemplar, but he refused to give it up, and so Abu 
 Musa was appointed governor of Kufa in his room.^ Then 
 they commanded Zeid ibn Thabit, and with him Abdallah 
 ibn Abbas (others say Mohummed, son of Abu Bekr), to 
 revise and correct the text, eliminating all that was corrupt. 
 Now both were young ; ^ and they were instructed when 
 they difiered on any reading, word, or name, to follow 
 the dialect of the Coreish. On many points they did differ. 
 For instance, Zeid wrote Tdhuhf and Ibn Abbas Tdhut. 
 When the recension was completed, four exemplars were 
 written out in large text, and sent one to Mecca, and 
 another to Medina. The third was despatched to Syria, 
 and is to this day at Malatia (Melitene). The copy at 
 Mecca remained there till the city was stormed by Abu 
 Saraya (that is, the last time the Kaaba was sacked, 
 A.H. 200) ; he did not carry it away ; but it is supposed 
 to have been burned in the conflagration. The Medina 
 exemplar was lost in the reign of terror, that is, in the 
 days of Yezid ibn Muavia. The fourth exemplar was 
 deposited in Kufa, then the centre of Islam and home 
 of the Companions of the Prophet. People say that this 
 copy is still extant there ; but this is not the case, for it 
 was lost in the insurrection of Mukhtar.^ 
 
 "After what we have related above, Othman called in 
 all the former leaves and copies, and destroyed them, 
 
 1 The deposition is true, but not the cause here alleged for it. 
 
 2 Our Author is not accurate. At the Ilegira, Zeid was eleven, and Abdallah 
 six years of age ; so at the era of Othman' s recension they must have been 
 thirty and thirty-five years old, respectively. 
 
 3 Mukhtar was slain in the rebellion here referred to, A.n. 67. 
 
VARIOUS READINGS IN THE CORAN. 27 
 
 tlireatening those wlio held any portion back; and so 
 only some scattered remains, concealed here and there, 
 survived. Nothing remained to show the discrepancies 
 which are known to have existed. It is said for example 
 that Sura Nur (xxiv.) used to be longer than Sura Bacr 
 (ii.),^ and that Sura Ahzab (xxxiii.) is mutilated and in- 
 complete ; so also that there was originally no division 
 between Sura Barat (ix.) and Sura Anfal (viii.), and ac- 
 cordingly we see that the invariable heading In the name of 
 God most Merciful, is wanting in the former. Similar is the 
 case of the two 'Incantation Suras,' ^ of which Ibn Masud 
 said when they were placed in the Goran : Add not thereto 
 that ivhich is not therein. And then there is the speech 
 of Omar delivered from the pulpit (of the Great Mosque 
 at Medina), * Let no one say that the Stoning Verse is not 
 in the Book of Grod ; for verily I have myself read. The 
 man and the woman that commit adultery, let them both he 
 stoned to death ; and if it were not that men might say, 
 * Omar hath added to the Goran that which is not therein,* 
 I would have inserted the same with mine own hand.' ^ 
 Likewise at the close of another address : * Truly I know 
 not of any one who saith that the Ordinance of temporary 
 marriage {Al Mutah) is not in the Book of the Lord, for, 
 indeed, I have myself read it ; but it hath fallen out. And 
 verily the Lord will not reward him well that caused it 
 to fall out ; for a trust was given, and he fulfilled not 
 the trust of the Lord and of his prophet; and verily 
 much that belonged to the Goran hath thus fallen out.' 
 And yet once more, Omar said : ' The Lord was not minded 
 to deal lightly with mankind, for verily he sent Mahomet 
 with a wide and comprehensive faith.' 
 
 "And Obey ibn Kab said that there were two Suras which 
 he used to recite (as part of the Goran :) Al Caniit and Al 
 Witr ; in them were these words : ' Lord, we ask thee 
 for help and pardon and guidance, and we believe in thee 
 
 1 The longest Sura in the Coran. 
 
 2 The last two Suras, of only a line or two each. 
 
 ' See Liji of Mahomet (1st edition), vol. i. p. xxv. 
 
28 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 and put our trust in thee/ and so on to tlie end of Al Wetr. 
 (This he said in respect of the first compilation, no longer 
 extant.) 
 
 " Again, as regards the same Ordinance of temporary mar- 
 riage (al Mutah), Aly caused the passage about it to be entirely- 
 excluded. They say that while Caliph, he overheard a man 
 reciting the verse, and had him scourged for the same, and 
 forbade its further repetition. And this was one of the things 
 for which Ayesha reproached Aly after the battle of the Camel 
 when she had retired to the house of Ibn Khalaf (at Bus- 
 sora) ; for, among other things, she said that Aly had beaten 
 men in this matter of the Coran, and forbade the repetition 
 of certain passages, and tampered with the text. More- 
 over, Ibn Masud retained his exemplar in his own hands, 
 and it was inherited by his posterity, as it is this day ; 
 and likewise the collection of Aly hath descended in his 
 family. 
 
 *'Then followed the business of Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, who 
 gathered together every single copy he could lay hold of, 
 and caused to be omitted from the text a great many 
 passages. Amongst these, they say, were verses revealed 
 concerning the House Omeyya with the names of certain, 
 and concerning the House of Abbas also with names. Six 
 copies of the text thus revised were distributed to Egypt, 
 ISyria, Medina, Mecca, Kufa, and Bussora. After that he 
 called in and destroyed all the preceding copies, even as 
 Othman had done before him. 
 
 "And the result of all this is patent to thee who hast 
 read the Scriptures, and seest how in thy book histories 
 are all jumbled together and intermingled ; an evidence 
 that many difierent hands have been at work therein, and 
 caused discrepancies, adding or cutting out whatever they 
 liked or disliked. Are such, now, the conditions of a 
 Bevelation sent down from heaven ? 
 
 ** Furthermore, thy Master was an Arab, living amongst 
 the Bedouins; and before them, and in their language, he 
 laid his lucubrations. Now it is notorious that the Arabs 
 as a nation are incorrigibly heathenish and graceless ; how 
 
IMPERFECTION IN THE COEAN. 29 
 
 could sucli a people receive from him. tlie secret of tlie 
 Lord, or truths proper to be revealed to a prophet ? Thou 
 knowest the enmity subsisting between Aly and Abu Bekr, 
 Omar, and Othman ; and each of these entered whatever 
 favoured his own claims, and left out what was otherwise. 
 How, then, can we distinguish between the genuine and 
 the counterfeit ? And how about the losses caused by 
 Hajjaj ? Thou well knowest what kind of faith that tyrant 
 held in other matters ; then how canst thou make him an 
 arbiter as to the Book of God, — a man who never ceased 
 to play into the hands of the Omeyyads whenever he 
 found opportunity. And besides all this, the Jews also 
 had a hand in the business ; and foisted in what they 
 thought would further their own seditious and rebellious 
 ends. 
 
 " All that I have said (continues Al Kindy, after an affec- 
 tionate personal appeal) is drawn from your own authorities ; 
 and no argument have I advanced but what is based on evidence 
 accepted by yourselves. And in proof thereof, we have the 
 Coran itself, which is a confused heap with neither system 
 nor order. The sense moreover consisteth not with itself ; but 
 throughout one passage is contradicted by another. Now, 
 what could betray greater ignorance than to bring forward 
 such a book as an evidence of Apostleship, and to put it on a 
 par with the miracles of Moses and Jesus ! Surely no one 
 with a grain of sense would dream of it ; much less should 
 we who are versed in history and philosophy, be moved by 
 such deceptive reasoning. 
 
 "Tell me, now, what thy Master intended, when he said 
 that * neither men nor genii, let them strive Sura xvii. 89. 
 together never so hard, could produce a book like unto 
 the Coran.' If the contention be that the language sur- 
 passeth all other composition in eloquence, our answer is 
 that every nation regardeth its own language the most 
 beautiful, while the Arabs hold every other tongue but 
 their own as barbarous ; and similarly the Arabic, held by 
 them as the most beautiful, is regarded by other nations to 
 be barbarous.*' 
 
30 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 " If tlie claim be tLat (apart from all other tongues) the 
 Foreiffn words Coran is an unparalleled and miraculous model 
 in the Goran of Arabic (according to the text, Verily We 
 (85-86). ^^^g gQ^f down the Coran in the Arabic tongue, 
 
 V Sura xii. ^2 ; {f perchance ye may comprehend) ; then, why do 
 we find in it foreign words, as namctric from the 
 Persian, and mishkdt from the Abyssinian, vocabulary ? ^ 
 Here is a defect either in the messenger or the message. 
 If there be in the Arabic language no words to express 
 the ideas, then the medium of communication, and there- 
 fore the message itself, is imperfect ; if otherwise, the mes- 
 [ senger." That not the former, but the latter, was the case, 
 Al Kindy enforces by the congenial argument that there 
 were poets, such as Imrul Cays, and men of eloquence 
 and oratory, without number before Mahomet, whose pro- 
 ductions surpassed his, both in conception and language. 
 This was cast in his teeth by the Meccans; for he turns 
 Sura xliii. 57. round and calls them ' a contentious race.' And, 
 indeed, Mahomet himself admits as much when he attributes 
 their compositions to magic.^ The introduction then of 
 foreign expressions into the Coran must be owing to one of 
 two things ; either to the poverty of the Arabian vocabulary, 
 while confessedly it is the richest and most copious of all 
 tongues, or to the fact that difierent persons had a hand 
 in the work ; and our Author leaves his Friend on the 
 horns of this dilemma. 
 
 " If, again, the claim put forth be, that there is in the 
 Claim of poeti- Coran a supernatural harmony and cadence of 
 cal beauty. language, and beauty of conception ; that will be 
 determined by the accuracy of the measures, the purity and 
 fitness of the composition, and the point and charm of 
 thought and imagery. But thy book throughout is broken 
 
 1 See also Sura xiii. 40 , xx. Ill ; xxxix. 28 ; xli. 2 ; xlii. 6 ; and xlvi. 12. 
 
 2 Namaric, carpets or cushions ; mishkut, a lamp ; sandus, silk ; alastabrac, 
 satin, brocade ; abdrick, goblets, are also quoted as foreign words imported into 
 the Goran. The argument here may appear singular to us ; but to the Arabs, 
 who piqued themselves on the fulness and purity of their language, it would have 
 a force of its own ; and it was no doubt of a kind favourably received at Court. 
 
 3 The imputation was often made by the Meccans, as against Mahomet 
 (Sura xxxiv. 2 ; xliii. 29 ; xlvi. 6). But here Mahomet apparently is represented 
 as attributing to magic the elog^uence of profane writers, which can therefore be 
 no proper test of a revelation, (^y 
 
 j^\ oW^ <^ ^ 
 
 \ ^ 
 
THE CORAN ; ITS STYLE AND PURPORT. 31 
 
 in its rhythm, confused in its composition, and in its flights 
 of fancy unmeaning.'' 
 
 Yet once more, if the claim rest on the matter revealed in 
 the Coran, Al Kindy asks what single truth we Matter revealed 
 find there revealed, unknown to the ancients, and ^^ *^® Coran. 
 which had not already been handled threadbare. In their 
 own day, they were pursuing every branch of knowledge 
 to results unparalleled before ; yet what had that to do 
 with such superhuman conditions as were required for 
 miracles like those of Moses or of Christ ? The truth, in 
 short, was that the Coran with its manifold defects could 
 only have appeared a miracle of eloquence and learning 
 in the eyes of rude ignorant tribes and barbarous races. 
 
 The three false prophets of his time played the same 
 game as Mahomet ; and our Author had read passages 
 given out by Moseilama, which would have drawn away 
 the Moslems after him, if only he had had Helpers to 
 support him like those of Mahomet.^ 
 
 Our Apologist here reminds his Friend that the Arabic 
 tongue was the inheritance equally of them both, being derived 
 from their common ancestor Yarob, the great-grandson of 
 Ishmael. Here they stood on the same ground ; and in the 
 ability to judge of its beauties and defects, his Friend had 
 no advantage over him. It was, moreover, a vain and decep- 
 tive test as addressed to strange nations ; for when the Coran 
 was delivered to them, these could not understand it, but 
 were obliged to take the same on trust, and act upon it 
 so far as their ignorance would admit. The Arabs of the 
 desert alone spoke the language in its purity. Such as 
 lived in cities, by intercourse with foreigners, soon lost 
 the simplicity of their tongue, and were incapable of passing 
 any judgment upon it. His Friend might reply that the 
 Coreish were themselves the most eloquent of the Arabs 
 and skilful in the language, and that they were consequently 
 in a position to press the argument; which Al Xindy 
 
 * I do not know to what utterances of Moseilama our Author can here allude, 
 for the sayings attributed to him by tradition are the veriest rubbish that can 
 well be conceived. 
 
 X 
 
32 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 answers by a characteristic declamation on tlie superiority 
 of his own ancestry. " Thou wilt not deny that when 
 thy Master sought the hand of Muleika, daughter of 
 Neman Al Kindy, she answered, What, shall Muleika marry 
 into a race of merchantmen ? Thou knowest well that the 
 Coreish were the traders of Arabia, and the Beni Kinda 
 its Princes. I do not say this vaunting my own descent 
 over thine ; but simply to remind thee that the Beni Kinda 
 were the chiefest among the Arabs in eloquence, both 
 orjatorical and poetical. Their Kings, foremost in the land, 
 led the armies of Arabia; and so great was their fame 
 that the Persians and Eomans were proud to seek their 
 daughters in marriage. At the same time all the world 
 must admit the glory of the Coreish, and especially of 
 the Beni Hashim ; and, indeed, the same applieth to the 
 whole Arab race, whom the Lord hath distinguished by 
 their noble qualities over all the nations upon earth." 
 
 Peverting once more to the admission of solecisms into 
 the Coran, it might be urged in defence that the Arabic 
 language was embodied in its poetry ; that its vocabulary, 
 drawn from that source, was limited thereby, and that the 
 word for carpets (namdrick) was unknown. True, our apologist 
 replies ; but that arose from the simplicity of the Arab race, 
 who were innocent of the luxuries and refinements of arti- 
 ficial living. In process of time, the language became 
 depraved by foreign words; and in this mongrel tongue 
 people began to make verses, which so aped the ancient 
 poetry of the Peninsula, that it was difficult to distinguish 
 the real from the counterfeit. Now-a-days even learned 
 rhetoricians mistook the spurious -for the genuine. The 
 grace and freshness of the tongue, as well as its capacity 
 for carrying on the business of life, had so popularized 
 Arabic, that foreign ideas, and metaphors strange to artless 
 Arab life, were clothed in language claiming to be cast in the 
 ancient mould. And so any one now wrote poetry in the 
 ancient form, and sought thereby courtly favour and advance- 
 ment. Hence Arabic poetry had become interpolated and 
 corrupted, so that it could not in any way be brought forward. 
 
MATERIAL INDUCEMENTS TO THE SPREAD OF ISLAM. 33 
 
 otherwise than as a language changed and debased, in an ' 
 argument affecting books that relate to the Divine mysteries.^ : 
 
 The use in the Coran of terms of luxury and artificial life, ~ 
 introduces a new subject, namely, the material 
 inducements contributing to the propagation of DucEMENTsfor 
 Islam. The Arabs, as every one acquainted with the propaga- ^ 
 history knew, were a needy and barbarous race, *^°^ °^ ^^\^ya. 
 feeding on lizards and such like, with no shelter 
 from the hot blast of summer, nor covering from the cold 
 winds of winter, hungry and naked. What could they know 
 of rivers of wine and milk ; rare fruits and viands ; couches 
 of silk and satin spread with velvet cushions upon brocaded 
 carpets ; ladies, like pearls hiding in their shells ; beautiful 
 pages handing round goblets ; delicious shade with mur- 
 muring rivulets — things appertaining rather to the palaces 
 of the Chosroes.2 But travellers brought home from Persia 
 the rumour of these marvellous luxuries ; and so hearing led 
 to coveting ; and coveting, to fighting for the same. His 
 Friend would remember the occasion when the invading 
 Moslem army seized baskets laden with the choice things of j 
 Persia ; and as they tasted the delicacies thereof, they spake 
 one to another, — By the Lord ! even if there were no Faith ^ 
 to fight for J it were worth our while to fight for this.^ And 
 so they fought against an impious nation over whom the 
 Lord gave them the victory; so that they slew them and 
 destroyed their dwellings, for that they had rebelled and 
 shed innocent blood. Even thus doth the Lord visit the sins 
 of stiff-necked peoples, by setting one up against the other. 
 
 Al Kindy proceeds to enumerate various classes brought 
 over to Islam, by sordid and unworthy motives. There were 
 first the mongrel boors of the neighbouring Chaldean delta / 
 
 1 On this deterioration of language and imitation of ancient poetry, see 
 Bemerkungen uber die Aechtheit der alter Arab. Gedichte, by Professor Ahlwardt, 
 Greifswald, 1872 ; also Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Poesie der alien Araber, by 
 Theodor Noldeke, Hannover, 1864 ; also an Article by myself on Ancient Arabic 
 Poetry, its Genuineness and Authenticity, Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, 1879. 
 
 2 All these luxuries are mentioned in the Goran as appertaining to Paradise ; . 
 Bee for example Suras xxxvi. 41 ; liii. 23 ; Ivi. 17. 
 
 3 These words were used by Khalid in a speech to his army after one of his 
 early victories in Irac. 
 
34 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 (al Sawad) ; — ''You may address fhem in Arabic, and they 
 may move their tongue, like a parrot, in reply ; but they are 
 mongrel still. Some retain at heart the dregs of their old 
 Jewish and Magian faith ; others, blown about by the wind 
 of the day, cannot tell you the distinction between them- 
 selves, the brute creation, and their Maker ; reared with the 
 Sura vii. 180- l^^asts of the field they are like them, — "nay 
 
 XXV. 45. more erring and stupid than they/* Again, there 
 are the idolatrous races, Magians, and Jews ; low people, 
 aspiring by the profession of Islam, to raise themselves to 
 riches and power, and form alliances with the learned and 
 honourable. Then there are hypocritical men of the world, 
 who in this way obtain indulgences in marriage and con- 
 cubinage, forbidden to them by the Christian faith. There 
 is, moreover, the dissolute class given over wholly to the 
 lusts of the flesh, who take Islam as a ladder to attain 
 their object. Lastly, there are those who by this means 
 obtain an easier livelihood. 
 
 " Now tell me, hast thou ever seen, my Friend (the Lord 
 be gracious unto thee !) or ever heard, of a single person 
 of sound mind, — any one of learning and experience, ac- 
 quainted with the Scriptures, — renouncing Christianity other- 
 wise than for some such worldly object to be reached only 
 through thy religion, or for some gratification withheld by 
 the faith of Jesus? Thou wilt find none; for excepting 
 the tempted ones, all continue steadfast in their faith, secure 
 under our most gracious Sovereign, each in the profession 
 of his own religion." 
 
 Certain classes of apostates and heretics are here de- 
 Apostate here- scribed in bitter terms ; hypocrites who con- 
 tics denounced temned the Prophet and questioned his claims 
 (93, 94). -j^ secret, while outwardly pluming themselves 
 
 in his faith. There were heretics w^ho held that the Holy 
 Ghost was divided into three portions, given one to Jesus, 
 another to Moses, and the third to a certain person whose 
 name Al Kindy had a horror even to mention;' — Mahomet 
 having no lot or part therein. These were the most 
 
 1 I do not know to what person allusion is here made, and again below at p. 36. 
 
/ 
 
 HYPOCEITICAL ADHERENTS OF ISLAM. 35 
 
 heathenisli and detestable of schismatics. Then there were 
 Christian renegades, who used their profession to lord it over 
 innocent and faithful brethren of their old faith, — wolves 
 ravening the lambs, as our Saviour had foretold. The 
 blasphemies of this Satanic brood were beyond description. 
 They boasted that they could produce traditions to prove 
 anything they liked. What would his Friend say of their 
 profanity in pretending that the Lord had sent to Abu 
 Eekr, saying, " Abu Bekr, I am well pleased with thee ; 
 art thou likewise well pleased with me?"^ It was the old 
 tale, — there was no prophet but his followers fabricated lies 
 about him. Of a similar kind were the mass of contra- 
 dictory traditions about the Call to prayer, Funeral rites, 
 Prayers, Fasts, Festivals, etc., which it would be wearisome 
 to detail, and his Friend knew it all. The fiassage is 
 wound up with a scathing denunciation of these hypocriti- 
 cal and blasphemous liars. He had spared the mention of 
 their calumnies against the existing Government, the name 
 of Islam, Prophets, Holy men, etc. But their profanities 
 (like those he had mentioned) were so horrible, the wonder 
 was that they were not destroyed by a thunderbolt, or that 
 the heavens did not fall down and crush them. It was 
 only the mercy and longsuffering of God that spared them 
 and gave space for repentance. 
 
 Al Kindy now addresses himself to the Moslem conceit, — 
 
 advanced by his Friend in exaltation of Islam, — 
 
 ., , p V( • * 1 • 1 T 1 • -11 Tne name of 
 
 that beiore Creation the Almighty had inscribed Mahomet 
 
 upon the great Throne the Prophet's name with written on the 
 
 the Moslem creed. There is no God but the Lord Throne of God 
 
 (94-96). 
 
 and Mahomet is the Apostle of God. He asks, 
 in playful irony, w^hether this was written up for the benefit 
 of the Angels lest they should forget it, — as if those who 
 sang the praises of their Maker when He said. Let there 
 be light, were likely to forget any of His works. Or, 
 was it for the benefit of mankind ? If so, how were they 
 
 ^ As usual the illustrations go in depreciation of Ahu Bekr, as was the fashion 
 of the Alyites at Al Mamun's Court. A few reigns later, no one would have 
 dared to repeat traditions affecting the character of the first three Caliphs. 
 
l/ 
 
 36 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 to see it, while here on earth ? and in the Day of Judgment, 
 the truth would be too clearly set before the eyes of all, to 
 need any adventitious help. He scouts the notion as unworthy 
 of his Friend ; and adds that he never heard of any of the 
 companions of his Friend who shared his views, or indeed 
 of any wise and intelligent Moslem who did not reject 
 the tale. The idea was a preposterous and ignoble fancy 
 borrowed from the corporeal conception of the Jews that 
 God was seated on a material throne. 
 
 " It is customary for your preachers (he proceeds) to open 
 Aro-ument ^^ address by the following invocation : — Lordy 
 from the seed hless Mahomet and the posterity of Mahomet^ even 
 of Abraham ^^ ^V^^m had hlessed Abraham and the posterity of 
 
 Deinff pre- i/ »/ 
 
 f erred above all Abraham; and having so said, they think that 
 mankind" they have exhausted all that can possibly be 
 (96, 97). invoked in the way of blessing. JSTow consider 
 
 the horrid impiety of connecting thus a person (Mahomet) 
 whose name ye imagine to be written with that of the Most 
 High on the Throne of Light and on whose behalf alone 
 Adam and the world were created, — connecting with the 
 name of such an one, the seed of Abraham including a person 
 whom thou knowest, but whose name I should tremble to 
 write in this place.^ But indeed the superiority of the 
 Israelites over all other nations is reiterated in various 
 Sura ii. passages of the Coran itself, as, — * children of 
 47, 123. Israel, remember the Favour wherewith I have 
 favoured you, and preferred you above all mankind,' — 
 preferred therefore above thee, and above thy Master, upon 
 whom in the aforesaid prayer thou invoked the blessing of 
 Abraham." This was mentioned as a mere argumentum ad 
 homineniy and not by any means as conveying his own 
 sentiments. For he had throughout carefully avoided refer- 
 ence to race or superior descent, — seeing that all mankind 
 were of one blood, children of a common parent, — the only 
 difference between man and man being in mind and virtue. 
 And in saying even so much as he had, he deprecates the 
 
 1 Again, I do not know to what descendant of Abraham reference is here 
 intended,— so detestable that Al Kindy will not even mention his name. 
 
ORDINANCES OF ISLAM. 37 
 
 vulgar aspersion whicli the ignorant and spiteful might cast 
 
 upon him, as if he had sought to slight the E-oyal house, the 
 
 Prophet's family, or any of his race. 
 
 Al Kindy now comes to the various Moslem ceremonies 
 
 he had been recommended to adopt. Of Prayer Ordinances 
 
 iT-i- • mn 1 I'-n^'T®^ Islam 
 
 and J^astmg, it sumced to say that his J^riend (96-98). 
 
 had confessed himself acquainted with those duties as per- 
 formed in a far diviner way under the Christian dispensation. 
 In respect of ceremonial washings, he quotes our Saviour's 
 words as teaching the vanity of outward cleansing while 
 there was a foul sepulchre within. " What sense is there in 
 the washing of your hands and feet and your standing up to 
 prayer while your hearts are set upon bloodshed and rapine 
 and the ravishing of women ? Hath not our Lord the Christ 
 given us a better lesson, — Cleanse first that which is within, 
 that the outside may be clean also ? " In respect of Circum- 
 cision, he reminds his Friend, that he himself, along with those 
 of his persuasion, held that Mahomet was not circumcised. 
 If the precedent of Jesus were urged, he answers that he 
 was circumcised simply to fulfil the Law ; — which law, in its 
 Sacrifices, Sabbaths, Passover, etc., ("statutes that Matt. v. 17. 
 were not good'') having been fulfilled by Christ, Ezek. xx. 25. 
 had disappeared in place of ordinances far superior, because 
 entirely spiritual. St. Paul teaches us that cir- i Cor. vii. 19 ; 
 cumcision is nothing ; and, if trusted in, worse ^^^- "^^ 2. 
 than nothing. In short, both washing and circumcision were 
 things indifierent ; if practised by Christians it was simply 
 by way of habit and ancestral custom, and not of obligation.^ 
 The prohibition of swine's flesh is combated on the 
 ground that God made all things "very good," Gen. i. 31. 
 
 and that nothing in nature was unholy or for ^^^^^.^ 
 
 Prohibition of 
 swine's flesh 
 
 bidden ; — excepting only blood, and that which (100-102). 
 
 1 There are several passages which must be omitted here. Page 98, last eight 
 lines. The reason assigned for circumcision is both childish and indelicate. 
 Fage 100, first five lines may be true, but the mode of expression is gross and 
 offensive. Page 102, lower half (and by consequence first seven lines of page 103), 
 relating to Hagar, and a practice current among the Arabs {Life of Mahomet, 
 1st edition, vol. ii. p. 108, note), is at once silly and grossly improper. It is strange 
 that a man of refinement should have admitted such a passage into his book. But 
 it is the habit of the Arabs (see Life of Mahomet, p. 600), and the laxity of 
 Islam has not improved it. 
 
38 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 dieth of itself, and things offered to idols, for these were 
 unlawful by command* of the Lord. The reason assigned 
 for the Mosaic prohibition is curious. The Egyptians 
 worshipped kine, goats, etc., as their gods ; ^ while, on 
 the contrary, they held swine, horses, camels, etc., to be 
 unclean, and offered them in sacrifice to their gods. To 
 disabuse the Israelites of such idolatrous notions, the 
 sacred animals were sacrificed to the True God, and their 
 flesh allowed to be eaten ; while the other animals deemed 
 unclean by the Egyptians were forbidden to be either 
 sacrificed or eaten. As to pork, there was no more reason 
 why it should be prohibited than the flesh of the camel, 
 ass, or horse, allowed by Mahomet. It was a matter in- 
 different, in which each was free to follow his taste and 
 fancy. The prohibition is moreover set down to the per- 
 nicious teaching of Abdallah ibn Sallam, the Jew, who had 
 depraved the faith; and for this Mahomet himself was 
 nowise responsible. 
 
 The invitation to observe the Pilgrimage and Meccan 
 Pilgrimage rites, is derided by Al Kiiidy, as if his Friend 
 
 and rites of ^^^j^ j^'j^ f^^. ^ ^hild or a fool. " Knowest thou 
 Mecca (103- , . 
 
 108). not that the same is the practice of the Sun- 
 
 worshippers and Brahmas in India at the present day ? 
 They make the circuit of their idol Temples, with just 
 these ceremonies, shaved and naked (or with the dress 
 they call ihrdm). The only difference is that ye perform 
 it once in the year at a moveable season, while they do 
 it twice at certain solar conjunctions, one in the Spring 
 when the heat begins, the other in Autumn when the cold 
 sets in. 2 Such is the origin of these idolatrous customs. 
 Thou well knowest that the Arabs practised them from 
 the foundation of the Kaaba ; and thy Master continued 
 the same, with only this alteration, that on account of the 
 distance and labour of travel, he limited the Pilgrimage 
 to one period of the year, and abolished what was indecent 
 
 1 In proof he adduces Exod. viii. 26 ; and also the worship of the golden calf, 
 a relic of Egypt. 
 
 2 Our familiar Indian terms Rubbee and Khur reef axe given for the Spring and 
 Autumn festivals. 
 
PILGEIMAGE ; CUSTOM BORROWED FROM HEATHEN. 39 
 
 in the pilgrim dress.^ Thus, that which ye perform in nothing 
 differs from the idolatrous ceremonies of the Sun-worshippers 
 and Idolators of India. There is a saying attributed to 
 Omar as he stood by the Black Stone and the Station (of 
 Abraham) ; ^ * By the Lord ! I know that neither of these 
 Stones can benefit, nor hurt ; but I have seen the Prophet 
 kiss them both, and therefore I do the same/ Now whether 
 they spake false or true in attributing this utterance to 
 Omar, they certainly spake what is true as regardeth the 
 Stones themselves." Shaving the head, making bare the 
 body, running the prescribed circuits, and casting the small 
 Stones at Mina, senseless and unmeaning rites, were de- 
 fended by some as acts of service to the Deity ; but the 
 worship of God should be conducted, not by unfit and 
 foolish practices, but by observances consonant with reason, 
 pleasing to the Almighty, and edifying to His servants. 
 If otherwise, then why abandon the objectionable customs 
 of the Magians, who thought it lawful to take to wife their 
 own mothers, sisters, and daughters, and other such like 
 abominations. " But what could be more vile (he seizes 
 the opportunity of adding) than your own ordinance for 
 legalizing re-marriage after the thrice repeated divorce ; 
 for by it, a chaste lady, tender and delicate, the mother 
 of virtuous daughters, herself it may be noble-born and 
 held in honour by her kinsfolk,— this pattern of virtue and 
 refinement must submit her person to the lewd embrace 
 of a hired gallant, before she can be restored to her 
 husband, — an abominable law, more odious even than the 
 wicked customs of the Magians. And yet thou invitest 
 me to accept a vile ordinance like this, — an ordinance 
 against which the very beasts of the field, if ye gave 
 "them speech, would cry out for shame ! ^ God forbid that 
 
 1 Our Author is at fault here ; for the only change made by Mahomet in the 
 season of pilgrimage was to abolish the intercalary month, so that the pilgrimage 
 shifts with the lunar, instead of being stationary, according to the kmi- solar 
 year. Life of Mahomet^ p. 486. 
 
 '^ The Ma'cchn. See Life of Mahomet, p. 423 (also Ist edition, vol. ii. p. 38). 
 
 3 Al Kindy's words are strong, but not too strong, here. See Life of Mahotnet, 
 page 350. 
 
40 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 I should so do violence to my reason and my nature ; tlie 
 Lord save me from being amongst the transgressors ! 
 
 " Thou invitest me to visit the Holy places, ' those blessed 
 and marvellous spots/ as thou callest them. 'Marvellous/ 
 in truth, my Friend, must those places be where rites 
 are witnessed so repugnant to common sense. But as for 
 being 'blessed,' I wish to know what blessing hath ever 
 flowed from visiting them. The sick, the maimed, the leper 
 the possessed of the devil, — hath any one of them ever re- 
 turned whole from thence ? Such blessings are known only 
 to the Christian faith. The Lord's are open to the cry where- 
 soever it ariseth from an earnest heart; and Christ hath 
 promised that where any two shall agree in prayer as 
 touching anything, it shall be granted.'* Al Kindy then 
 dilates, with much apparent complacency, on the cures 
 which, at the intercession of Honks, Priests, and Holy 
 men of God, were wrought in churches, monasteries, and 
 other sacred places, where men were wont to call on the 
 name of the Lord. Through such intercession, blessings 
 descended on the humble and the pious ; and even the 
 wicked, if they returned, would be graciously received, as 
 our Author shows in the words of the parable of the 
 Prodigal Son.^ 
 
 ''Distinguish now, my Friend, between thy Faith and mine, 
 and let not misguided zeal mislead thee, for that is naught 
 Sura xii. 6 ; but Satan's guile, according to the text : ' Satan 
 XVU.53; XX.30. ygj-Qy {g the enemy of mankind.' Seest thou 
 not (the Lord have mercy on thee !) that thou art calling 
 me from an unspeakable priceless blessing, coveted by the 
 Angels, and longed for by Prophets and Kings, and Holy 
 men of old, to that which my soul loatheth, and which is 
 utterly repugnant to my reason. Were I to consent, I 
 trow not that I should be among the faithful." 
 The Saracenic " And then, thou callest on me ' to enter on The 
 crusade (108- way of the Lordy that is to wage war against 
 ^^^)* ^ other religions, to smite with the sword, and 
 
 1 In this section, which I have more than usually abbreviated, quotations are 
 given from Ps. xxxiv. and cxlv. ; Matt, xviii. 19 ; x. 8 ; and Luke xv. 
 
RELIGIOUS WARS ; CONTRADICTORY COMMANDS. 41 
 
 make slaves of mankind, until they confess ' that there is no 
 God but the Lord, and that Mahomet is his Servant and 
 Apostle ; ' or, if they refuse, * until they pay tribute with 
 their hands and are humbled.' Dost thou indeed desire 
 (may the Lord enlighten thee !) that I should work the 
 works of Satan, the bereft of mercy, who first himself be- 
 guiled mankind, and then, by filling them with hate and 
 bitterness, hath made them his tools, to carry out thereby 
 his devilish ends of murder, rape, and rapine. 
 
 "Now tell me how thou wilt reconcile the two sets of 
 passages that follow (for they are confessedly Contradic- 
 discordant) out of the book thou boldest to be toryPassages. 
 divine ? * Let there be a people amongst you who invite 
 to that which is just, enjoin the right and Sura iii. 104. 
 forbid the evil; these shall be blessed.' Again, 'The di- 
 rection of them appertaineth not unto thee ; but rather, 
 the Lord directeth whom he pleaseth.' And Sura ii. 273. 
 more forcibly still : ' Had the Lord so pleased, verily all 
 that are on the earth would have believed, every one^ 
 Wilt thou, then, compel men to become be- Sura x. 98. 
 lievers, seeing that no soul can believe but by command 
 (or permission) of God?' Seest thou not how these 
 commands are inconsistent with force ? Hear yet again : 
 * Say, men, the truth hath verily now come Sura x. 107. 
 unto you from your Lord ; he, therefore, that is rightly 
 directed, is directed for the benefit of his own soul; and 
 he that erreth, erreth only against the same ; I am no 
 Guardian over you. Do thou (0 Mahomet) follow that 
 which is revealed unto thee. Be patient until the Lord 
 decide ; for he is the best of all Deciders.' Similarly, 
 in another text: * If thy Lord had pleased, Suraxi. 119. 
 he had made all men of one faith ; but they shall not 
 cease to difier among themselves, excepting those upon 
 whom thy Lord hath mercy ; and unto this hath he 
 created them.' Again, thy Master reiterates emphatically, 
 that he Was sent with Merc?/ to the human race} ' Mercy,' 
 
 1 The words are not quoted literally ; but the expression occurs in more than 
 one passage, as Sura xxi. 107 ; xxviii. 47. 
 
y 
 
 42 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 in slaying, plundering, and enslaving ! Tlie Jews accuse thy 
 book of contradicting itself. I will use no such oppro- 
 brious expression towards tbe book ; but what I say is 
 that thou, my Friend, contradictest thyself. Thou art 
 never weary of crying up thy faith as divine; and anon 
 thou turnest clean round, and sayest just the opposite ; 
 for what after all, are these doings, — killing and shedding 
 of blood, rapine and robbery, and making slaves of men and 
 women, — what are they, but the works of the Devil ? 
 
 "If the precedent of Moses and Joshua be urged, I 
 demand miracles such as they wrought to justify the 
 commission. Moreover, they fought against idolaters ; but 
 here, the horrors of war, bloodshed, rapine, and slavery 
 are hurled against the innocent, nay, against the people 
 of Grod, — those who observe His ordinances, devote soul 
 and body to His service, believe in His Messiah, worship 
 Him and are guided into the right way, — those whose 
 Leaders are blessed and renowned both in this world 
 and the next. 
 
 " Still further, thou art not content with this, but insistest 
 on calling it * The Way of the Lord.' God forbid that that 
 should be His way, or that His children should commit 
 such crimes ; for He loveth not the transgressors. And 
 then thou hast it revealed, in direct contradiction thereof. 
 Sura ii. 25. — ^ Let there be no constraint in religion.* 
 Sura iii. 20. And, * Say unto those who have received the 
 
 * Scriptures, and to the Gentiles, — Do ye embrace Islam ? 
 ' Now, if they embrace it, they are surely guided aright ; 
 
 * but, if they turn their backs, verily unto thee (0 Prophet) 
 
 * belongeth delivery of the message only, for God observeth 
 Sura ii. 254. * His servants.' And again, 'If the Lord had 
 
 * so willed, those who came after them {i,e. after the Apostles 
 
 * and Jesus) would not have contended among themselves, 
 
 * after manifest signs had been shown unto them. But 
 
 * they fell to variance. Some believed, and some believed 
 ' not. And if God had so pleased, they had not so contended. 
 
 * But the Lord doeth as it so pleaseth Him.' And yet again, 
 addressing the Unbelievers (Kafirs), thy Master is bidden 
 
RELIGIOUS WAR: CONTRADICTORY PASSAGES. 43 
 
 to say, * Ye have your religion, and I have Sura cix. 
 mine/ And finally, ' Contend not with the People of the 
 Book,^ but in the way that is most mild and Sura xxix. 46. 
 gracious.' And then thou stirrest up thy people to attack 
 mankind with the sword, to plunder them, and lead them 
 
 away captive, that they may be forced to embrace the . 
 
 faith by violence and against their will. Which of the ^ 
 two directions am I to follow, the first or the last? 
 
 " Thou wilt say, then, that one of the two sets of ^ 
 texts is cancelled by the other. But which Onesetofpas- 
 cancelleth, and which is cancelled, thou canst sages cancelled 
 not show. Thou hast confessedly neither proof ^^ ^^ o^&[. 
 nor certain knowledge in this matter ; and it may be that 
 thou mistakest the one for the other. How are we to 
 discriminate the true from the false, for the two sets of 
 passages both being in thy Book, are directly opposed the 
 one to the other ; and there is this risk that the one which 
 thou regardest as true, and on which thou art bound to act, 
 may be the one that is false and therefore to be abandoned ; 
 so that really each counteracteth the other, and neither can 
 be the command of the Lord. 
 
 " And, now, say, — Hath it ever reached thine ears, or 
 hast thou ever read in any book, sacred or profane, of a 
 preacher, other than thy Master, imposing his creed by 
 force, or summoning men to believe, against their conscience, 
 by sword and threat, rapine and slavery ? Even the ab- 
 horred Magians claim that inspiration descended on Zerdasht, 
 at the hill Sailan, and that Kashtasaf and his people 
 believed on seeing the miracle of the dead horse brought 
 to life again, and that the ten thousand volumes of the 
 Zenda- vesta were revealed in every human tongue (which 
 yet if ye ask the meaning thereof no one knoweth). After 
 the same manner is the miracle of the Phoenix wrought 
 by Bood in India, from the bowels of which a damsel 
 issued, prophesying, and testifying that Bood was a divine 
 image, and his doctrine true. These are but examples. 
 
 1 That is, Jews and Christians. 
 
44 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 And so, my Friend, thou wilt find in history mention of no 
 teacher, true or false, who did not advance some kind of 
 proof, to be weighed in the scales of right and wrong, 
 excepting only thy Master ; for he used no other argument 
 that I can see, but the sword. Nor wilt thou hear of any 
 other but he, standing up and saying, — Whoever doth not 
 accept me as a Frophet and the Apostle of God, the same shall 
 v/ be slain J his goods seized, and his women and children carried 
 off captive ; — and all this without a tittle of evidence ! 
 
 " As for the ministry of our blessed Saviour, it is too 
 sacred and excellent to be brought into comparison here. 
 Thou knowest it all. Now say, my Friend, doth it become 
 a man of thine intelligence and culture to ask one like 
 me, who have devoted my life to the study of men and 
 things, to embrace a faith like this, — I who read the words 
 of the Saviour, — my garment and my righteousness, — 
 night and day : hearken to His gracious voice : — •* Be tender 
 unto all mankind, and merciful ; that ye may be like unto 
 your Father in Heaven, for He causeth his sun to shine 
 on the good and on the bad, and sendeth down his rain 
 upon the righteous and upon the wicked.' How should 
 I, with these words ringing in my ears, — I who have 
 been nurtured in this blessed faith of Grace and Mercy, — 
 so that it hath become part of my flesh, my bones, my 
 blood, my very life, — God forbid that I should harden 
 my heart and become rebellious, changed into the image 
 of Iblis, the Enemy and Murderer ; and should smite 
 with the sword, and slay children of mine own species, 
 the seed of Adam formed by the hand of the Almighty, 
 and in the likeness of the Most High ; — He that saith, 
 * I desire not the death of the sinner, who is to-day in his 
 sins, and on the morrow, if he repent, I will receive him 
 as a tender Father doth.' " There follows a glowing descrip- 
 tion of the glory and honour bestowed on humanity by the 
 Son of God having taken our nature, and as such worshipped 
 by angels and endowed with all power in heaven and earth, — 
 our Brother, seated at the right hand of the Majesty on 
 high, to come hereafter as the Judge of men, angels, and 
 
RELIGIOUS WAR, CONTRARY TO DIVINE LAW. 45 
 
 devils. ** Wilt tliou, my Friend, that I, rejecting His grace 
 and favour, should destroy and enslave mine own species, 
 ennobled thus and allied with the Divine nature ? God 
 forbid ! I flee to the Lord for refuge, from His wrath and 
 indignation ! " 
 
 Should his Friend urge, as an analogy, that God sends death, 
 famine, and such like calamities on mankind, our Apologist 
 would reply (not with the childish answer his Friend once 
 made, in a former discussion " on the soul," that God made 
 it so,) as follows. "The Lord sendeth death and calami- 
 ties upon His servants not because he hateth and seeketh to 
 injure them, for then why should He ever have created man- 
 kind, and why seek (as we know He doth) to fulfil them with 
 His grace and mercy and take them from this transitory and 
 imperfect life, to the blessed life above ? Rather, these trials 
 and calamities are meant as a probation to prepare for the 
 reward hereafter ; — even as a skilful and gracious physician, 
 seeking to recover the sick, giveth bitter medicine and 
 nauseous draughts, now starveth the appetite, and now 
 even burneth with the cautery, or cutteth off a limb with the 
 sharp knife. No one would say that he doeth this from hate 
 or emnity, but to recover his patient from pain and disease, 
 to the blessings of health. But you will say, God might have 
 made man happy without theae trials. Of course. He might ; 
 and even so. He might not have created this earth at all, but 
 have placed man from the first, without trial or trouble, 
 and without any claim of merit, in Paradise. But in His 
 sovereign wisdom, he hath made the world, and this life 
 a pilgrimage, and us as * Sons of the road ' resting for the 
 night as it were in a Khan, that He might, after proving 
 us for a while with trial and hunger, translate us to our 
 reward in the Home above of endless peace and happiness. 
 
 "Now if this thy Master, whom thou invitest me to 
 follow, slew, enslaved, scourged, and expatriated men, with the 
 view of raising them to a better state, — by my life ! surely 
 he would rather have been patient in admonition, and kind, 
 and gracious, — following therein the example of the High 
 and Holy One. But he did not thus, neither concerned 
 
46 THE APOLOGY OF AL KIXDY. 
 
 himself for this end. His aim was the aggrandizement of him- 
 self and his fellows, and the establishment of his kingdom 
 Sura ix. 30. according to his own words, — Until they pay tribute 
 ivith their hand and are humbled. Seest thou not, my clear- 
 sighted Friend, that his desire was not to bring them from 
 infidelity to faith, nor any regard for their well-being and 
 happiness, but like other conquerors, to extend his empire. 
 And yet in the book thou boldest divine, he purporteth to have 
 been commanded thus ; * Say to the people of the Book and 
 to the Gentiles, Do ye accept Islam ? , . . and if they turn 
 their backs, verily thy duty is only to deliver the message.' 
 Dost thou not perceive that he was commanded to preach 
 with his lips, and forbidden to strike with the sword ? 
 Now the Lord enlighten thee, my Friend, and enable thee 
 to escape from the horns of this dilemma ! 
 
 " I marvel much that ye call those Martyrs that fall 
 in war. Thou hast read, no doubt, in history of 
 Martyrs ^^^ followers of Christ put to death in the per- 
 contrasted secutions of the Kings of Persia and elsewhere, 
 with Christian ^^^ i}^Q^Q more worthy to be called Martyrs, or 
 thy fellows that fall fighting for the world and 
 the power thereof ? " Then follows a description of various 
 barbarities and kinds of death inflicted on the Christian 
 confessors. The more they were slain, the more rapidly spread 
 the faith ; in place of one, sprung up a hundred. On a 
 certain occasion, when a great multitude had been put to 
 death, one said to the king. The number of them increaseth, 
 instead of fas thou thinkest) diminishing. **How can that 
 be ? " exclaimed the king. " Yesterday,'' replied the Courtier, 
 " thou didst put such and such a one to death, and immedi- 
 ately there were converted just double that number ; and the 
 people say that a man appeared to the confessors from 
 heaven, strengthening them at the last moment." The king 
 finding this to be true, was thereupon himself converted, and 
 the persecution stayed. These men thought not their lives dear 
 unto them. Some were transfixed while yet alive ; of others, 
 the limbs were cut ofi" one after another. Some were cast to 
 the wild beasts, and others burned in the fire. Such con- 
 
CHRISTIAX AND MOSLEM MARTYRS. 47 
 
 tinued long to be tlie fate of the Christian confessors : no 
 parallel is to be found to it in any other religion : and 
 all was endured with . constancy, and even with joy. The 
 story is related of one who smiled in the midst of great 
 suffering : — " Was it cold water," they asked, " that was 
 brought to thee ? " " JSTo," answered the Martyr ; " but a 
 youth stood by me and anointed my wounds ; and that 
 made me smile ; for the pain forthwith departed, and seemed 
 as if it entered into my tormentors instead/' But this 
 Angel, you may say, could equally well have stayed the hand 
 of the persecutors, and that might have turned to their 
 conversion ? To this Al Kindy answers. True, for if God 
 had so willed He might have forced all men into the faith ; 
 but then the glory of humanity, which lies in Free-will, 
 would have gone, and with it the merit of obedience based on 
 evidence without miracles. For miracles were needful only 
 to those of the early ages, in order to perfect their faith. 
 But these interpositions are now withdrawn, to make it 
 manifest that obedience is to be grounded on free and 
 intelligent conviction. And if men having this evidence 
 refuse the truth, except they see miracles, the Lord leaveth 
 them in their error. 
 
 With all this, however, our Apologist holds that the virtue 
 of working miracles, though latent, still survives in the 
 Christian Church ; and of all religions in it alone. He had 
 seen with his own eyes, as well as heard on sufficient 
 evidence, of cures wrought by the clergy and monks in 
 their holy places, tombs, and churches dedicated to the 
 Christian martyrs, and also in virtue of their bones and 
 relics. It was so in every land of the East and West, 
 excepting only the land of Mahomet, for in Arabia there never 
 had been any of this class, saving only Sergius and Bahira.^ 
 
 *']Srow looking with an impartial eye, tell me seriously, 
 my Friend, which of these two hath the best claim to 
 be called a Martyr ' slain in the ways of the Lord ' ; he 
 
 1 Our Author need not have forgotten the Christians of Najran with their 
 Eishop Coss, and the martyrs of the Fiery Pits. See Life of Mahomet^ pp. v, 
 und 81, and Sura Ixxxv. 
 
48 THE APOLOGY OF AL KIXDY. 
 
 wlio surrendereth liis life rather than renounce his faith, — 
 who when it is said, Fall down and worship the sun and 
 moon, or the idols of silver and gold work of men's hands, 
 instead of the True God, — refuseth, choosing rather to give 
 up life, abandon wealth, and forego even wife and family ; 
 — or he that goeth forth, ravaging and laying waste, plun- 
 dering and spoiling, slaying the men, carrying off their 
 children into captivity, and ravishing their wives and maidens 
 in his unlawful embrace ; and then shall call it Jehad in the 
 u-ai/s of the Lord, and shall say of him that slayeth or is slain 
 that ' he hath inherited Paradise/ Judge aright, my Friend, 
 in this matter. If a robber plundering a house, should fall 
 into a well, or the wall fall down upon him, or the owner 
 rush out and strike him, so that he die ; would blood-money 
 at all be claimable for such a one ? I trow that no Cadhee 
 / v^^ould so decide. How then shall paradise be to him who 
 falleth upon a people unawares, secure and at peace in their 
 homes, — he knowing not them, nor they him ; plundering, 
 enslaving, and ravishing ? And, not content therewith, 
 instead of humbling thyself before the Lord and seeking 
 pardon for the crime, — thou say est of such a one, whether 
 he slay or be slain, that ' he hath earned Paradise,' and thou 
 namest him ' a Martyr in the ways of the Lord ' ! If such be 
 thy judgment, it is naught but the judgment of Satan, 
 the Enemy of Adam and his race from of old. But well I 
 know that thy reason and justice both forbid it." 
 
 He pauses to apologize for the warmth of his language. 
 V Sparks will fly from the flint when it is struck by steel. It was 
 his friend himself who had enlarged the sphere of the discus- 
 sion ; and there had been much need for the stipulated for- 
 bearance on either side. Moreover, his argument was intended 
 not merely for his friend, but for all who should read his book. 
 
 Of the temporal enjoyments held out as a motive for his 
 
 conversion, he says that these flit past like a 
 
 i^rrmelits <iream of the night, or the lightning which, 
 
 offered by dazzling the eye of the bystander for a moment, 
 
 Islam (121- leaves him in deeper darkness. Such was not 
 
 123) 
 
 the chief end of a rational and immortal being. 
 
WORLDLY INDUCEMENTS. 49 
 
 Holy men of God souglit rather to be freed from these 
 allurements. The Goran tells us that the Almighty 
 ** created Men and Genii only that they might Sura li. 56. 
 serve Him." That was the true end of man: and now 
 his Friend turned round and tried inconsistently to snare 
 him with this bait, — Marry such women as are pleasing to 
 thee, tii'o, three, or four; and slave-girls without stint ;^ 
 eat, drink, and enjoy life like the beasts that have no 
 restraint either of reason or revelation. As for the change 
 of wives, and especially the " thrice repeated divorce," 
 he had already dwelt upon it, — the latter being Jeremiah iii. i 
 an abomination, denounced by the prophet ^®^*- ^^^^' ^' 
 Jeremiah, and by all other creeds and nations; and he 
 would not defile his book by dwelling further on the 
 revolting subject. 
 
 Coming now near to the close of his argument against 
 Islam, our Author thankfully acknowledges the r^-^ ^^ .^ ^ 
 guarantee of immunity in the free treatment of for guarantee 
 their discussion. Our Saviour, indeed, bade us ^f security 
 not to fear him who hath power over the body ^ " -'' 
 only, but to fear the Creator of both soul and body. 
 Nevertheless Al Kindy had gained additional freedom and 
 assurance from the just and impartial rule of the Com- 
 mander of the Faithful, who always protected the weak like 
 himself, and under the shadow of whose benign and power- 
 ful sceptre, the Christian community reposed in comfort and 
 security. And he besought the Lord, who answered the 
 prayers of His faithful servants, to grant every worldly 
 blessing both to his august Person and to his Family. 
 
 Referring, once more, to his Friend's invitation to share 
 with him the honours and dignities of the realm 
 and the rank proper to his distinguished birth, J^^^ noTbf^ 
 our Apologist says that the Lord truly had be- dazzled by the 
 stowed upon the kindred of his Friend the distinctions 
 Caliphate, with all its honours and distinc- ^23 124) 
 tions ; and long might it remain safe and intact 
 
 1 Piio:e 20. 
 
V. 
 
 50 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 in tlie Abbasside line of tbe Prophet's bouse. But, as 
 for the glory that remaineth, there was none but that 
 which arose from a holy life. The Prophet himself, address- 
 ing his people, said, " ye seed of Abd Menaf, birth and 
 dignity shall profit nought either for me or for you : verily, 
 with the Lord, the best of you is the holiest.'* And truly, 
 Holy men of God have mostly had little to boast of in race or 
 blood or worldly greatness. Their piety was their nobility ; 
 the world to come, their inheritance. Our Apologist had 
 no desire to parade his ancestry, descended though he 
 was from the Kings of the Beni Kinda, whose authority was 
 once acknowledged over all Arabia ; for as the apostle Paul 
 had said. He thai gloyieth, let him glory in the Lord. Beyond 
 that glory he had no ambition. His boast was in the faith 
 of Christ, whom to know was Life eternal. 
 
 The Hashimite had spoken of the need of the Prophet's 
 p . . advocacy in the Day of Judgment, when he 
 Mahomet's would cry aloud, " These are my kin ; these 
 intercession ^re my people ! " and his intercession would 
 ^ ' ^'' prevail.^ "My dearest Friend," answers Al 
 Kindy, " are thine eyes asleep, or dreaming, that thou 
 utterest such senilities ? There is no shadow of doubt but 
 that our Lord Jesus Christ, — the same as is borne testimony 
 to in thine own book, — in that day will be sole Judge, 
 rendering by the strictest rule of right, to every man 
 according to his deeds, be they good or evil. Righteous- 
 ness alone will then avail." Let not his Friend be be- 
 guiled by the lying vanities of the world. The march was 
 swift ; death was near ; the day at hand, when we must all 
 stand before the Judgment- seat, and then repentance, excuse, 
 and supplication would be all too late. And so he ends an 
 earnest personal appeal, of which I have contented myself 
 with giving the mere outline. 
 
 "Thou invitest me (he continues), to the Ecmy ivay of faith 
 Islam an easy ^^'^^ practice. Alas, alas ! and our Saviour telleth 
 religion (125, us in the Gospel, When ye have done all that ye 
 ^^^)* are commanded, say, We are unprofitahle ser- 
 
 1 Page 19. 
 
THE TRINITY. 51 
 
 vanfs ; we have done that ichich was commanded us, and ivhere 
 is our merit ? The same Lord Jesus saith, * How straiglit 
 is the road which leadeth unto life, and how few they that 
 w^alk therein ! how wide the gate that leadeth to destruction, 
 and many there be who go in thereat ! ' DijQPerent 
 this, my Friend, from the facilities of thy wide and 
 easy gate, and thine advice to me to enjoy the pleasures 
 oflPered by thy faith in wives and damsels ! '* Then he 
 prays that God would guide his Friend from such deceits 
 and errors into the right way, and from the darkness in 
 which he was shrouded into the marvellous light of the 
 Gospel. Such prayers (he adds) are constantly put up by 
 the Christian Church for all sorts and conditions of men, — 
 that sinners might be converted, and the faithful built 
 up. "May the Lord fulfil the same for thee and for all 
 our brethren ! " 
 
 He now proceeds to answer the double objection, — that to 
 acknowledge the Trinity, and to worship the Cross, are both 
 of them " blasphemy and error. '^ The first our The Triuity 
 Author (having disposed of it before) treats here '^^^ended from 
 but briefly. Moslems called the doctrine of the abuse (126 
 Trinity takhlit (confusion of essence), but so in 127). 
 truth they call everything which they do not comprehend, 
 according to the proverb, Man is an enemy to whatever he 
 doth not understand, — "a principle from which the Lord 
 defend us ! " That which they call takhlit was an inefiuble 
 mystery before the Creation ; and thereafter, the angels 
 and cherubim, prophets and holy men of God, desired to 
 look into the little that was revealed of it by distant 
 adumbration ; until the Son himself came and unfolded 
 the same ; — as when He said, — " Go and call all nations 
 to the true and perfect knowledge, that which is in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost." The Apostles received this commission from His 
 sacred lips, and handed it down to us, the whole com- 
 pany of believers, accompanied by signs and wonders ; and 
 we stand firmly upon the same, and will, by the grace of 
 God, do so to the end of time. 
 
52 THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. 
 
 The adoration of the Cross is dwelt upon at greater 
 Adoration of length, but may be disposed of briefly here, 
 the Cross It was not the Cross they worshipped, but the 
 (127-129). power that rested in it as a symbol, the strength 
 derived therefrom, and the redemption wrought out upon 
 the same. " We reverence it, as we reverence symbols of 
 royalty ; even as the Israelites reverenced the Ark, not the 
 wooden material, but the presence which it signified ; ^ and 
 so we follow the example of prophets and holy men, when w^e 
 do homage to the Cross." Here he takes the opportunity 
 of bringing home to his friend the inconsistency between 
 his practice and profession, for it seems that he had been 
 in the habit, when in sudden peril, of invoking the Cross, 
 or using the sign, as a safeguard. Repeated occasions are 
 quoted when this had happened to his friend ; —once on falling 
 from his beast ; again when he fled from some danger ; and 
 yet again when on a journey to Omar al Karakh, a lion 
 started up before them as they neared Sabat al Medain.^ 
 He refers also to an assembly in which his Friend seems 
 to have recognized and avowed the practice. "And now," 
 says Al Kindy, "thou writest as if it were a superstition 
 which bringeth no good, but hurt. I should like to know 
 what hath changed thy mind; and what hurt the appeal 
 to the Cross hath ever caused thee?" 
 
 Before passing on to the evidences of Christianity, Al 
 
 Kindy founds a quaint but afiectionate remon- 
 
 , " ^ ^ ' strance on his friend's daily use of the Fateha. 
 or daily . -^ 
 
 prayer not to *' Thine earnest ajDpeal (he says) deserveth my 
 be among those gratitude as a friendly act; and now if I re- 
 mo 132^^^^ verse the appeal to thee, I shall deserve thy 
 thanks with an infinitely deeper meaning. Nay, 
 what need have I to speak, when thou thyself, five times 
 in the day, repeatest in thy prayer, — Guide us into the 
 straight path, the path of those Thou art gracious unto, not 
 Sura i. of those with whom Thou art wroth, nor of them 
 
 ^ Here he quotes lumbers x. 35 ; Avhen the Ark was set forward, Moses said, 
 ** Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered," etc. 
 2 A station in Mesopotamia, near Medain (Ctesiphon). 
 
THE FATEIIA. 53 
 
 that go astray. Now, if thou art already rightly guided, 
 what need hast thou to beg with prostration and impor- ^ 
 tunity, in every prayer of thine, to be guided aright? 
 There would thus be no reason in the prayer. If, then, thou 
 art not yet rightly guided, inform me, my Friend (the 
 Lord bless thee !) who those people are on whom God is 
 gracious, and into whose way thou art ever praying, night 
 and day, to be guided. And yet thou claimest to be ' the best 
 people that have been raised up,' and thy faith Suraiii. no. 
 the most approved of God for thee. Which religion, then, 
 is meant?" Hereupon he enumerates the various religions 
 of the world ; the Magians and Jews, both of whom he 
 condemns with characteristic warmth ; the idolaters of Arabia, 
 Atheists, Brahmas, etc. "And, now, as thou canst not but 
 agree with me in rejecting each and all of these, there 
 remaineth only as 'the faith of those on whom the Lord 
 is gracious,' the Christian faith : that truly is the ' Straight 
 path ' which leadeth to the knowledge of God, and his Word, 
 and Spirit, and all the ordinances thereof are spiritual and 
 perfect. I ask thee to accept it, for indeed thou art well 
 acquainted with the same, and canst not gainsay me in thus 
 praising it. To us this gracious Gospel hath been given ; 
 thine own Master beareth testimony to it in his book ; and 
 all religions bow down before it. Give heed, my Friend, 
 to what I have here put before thee ; study it as one that 
 seeketh to have his soul directed aright, not as one that 
 seeketh to beguile the same. Each soul is responsible for the 
 road it taketh. If the truth be truth, then follow the 
 same ; it behoveth thee not to stifle conviction. The Lord 
 guide thee aright, and direct thy feet into ' the straight 
 path/ by his power and grace ! " 
 
 The remainder of the book is devoted by Al Kindy to 
 the evidences of Christianity and a brief ac- An account of 
 count of the life and teaching of our Saviour, l^^^ ^2^'^- 
 His friend had begged for this;^ and Al Kindy (132-164). 
 
 > Paffe 29. 
 
/ 
 v 
 
 54 THE APOLOGY OF AL KIXDY. 
 
 compliments him as specially qualified, both, by natural gifts 
 and by knowledge of the subject, to grasp the argument. 
 He first ofiers up a prayer that the Holy Spirit's light and 
 guidance might be shed upon his Friend, and all his readers ; 
 and then proceeds with his subject. 
 
 Eight pages are devoted to the prophecies of the Old 
 Old Testament Testament, from all parts of which quotations 
 prophecies are freely taken. It is unnecessary to say more 
 (133-138). .^]^^j^ ^-^^^ neither in the passages selected, nor 
 in the manner of applying them, does the Apology ma- 
 terially difier from similar treatises in the present da^^ 
 The section closes with a powerful defence of the Jewish 
 Jewish , Scriptures against the charge of interpolation 
 ^^^^ ^f , and corruption. First we have their common 
 
 uncorrupted ^ 
 
 (138-140). use from the earliest times by Christians as 
 well as Jews, notwithstanding that these are irreconcileably 
 opposed on every other point. Then the Scriptures are 
 attested by the Coran itself: — "If thou art in doubt as 
 Sura X. 93. to what We have revealed unto thee, then ask 
 those who read the Book (revealed) from before thee, — 
 that verily the truth hath come unto thee from thy Lord, 
 and be not thou among them that doubt." And still more 
 Sura ii. 122. explicitly : — " They to whom we have given 
 the Book read it according to its true reading. These 
 are they that believe therein ; and whosoever believeth not 
 therein, they shall be lost." "Our * reading' is here as- 
 serted to be the right one, and thy Master directeth that 
 we (that is the Christians) are to be asked concerning the 
 same, and that what we declare in respect of it must be 
 accepted. How then canst thou accuse us of corruption, or 
 of ' changing the text from its place ? ' That would be to 
 contradict thyself, and go back from the rule of fair inter- 
 pretation which we agreed to for the conduct of this argu- 
 ment." He points out further the utter impossibility of 
 collusion. How could nations of different religion, and 
 various sects scattered over every land, agree to falsify their 
 Scriptures ? It were an unheard-of thing. Finally, he con- 
 trasts the Christian Scriptures with the Moslem, dwelling 
 
THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 55 
 
 briefly on his former arguments as to the heterogeneous 
 character of the materials and composition of the Goran, 
 and the compulsory enforcement of its acceptance, without 
 miracle or proof, at the point of the sword. " Judge fairly, 
 my Friend; for verily the Lord hath appointed reason 
 and the balance of justice to be the test in this matter ; 
 and thou, if thou inquirest sincerely, wilt surely, by the 
 blessing of God, attain unto the Truth." 
 
 He then proceeds to the life of our Saviour and the 
 fulfilment of the prophecies that went be- n,-. j. 
 fore. After an account of the Annunciation tion and Birth 
 as given in the Gospels,^ he quotes at length ^^ Christ 
 the corresponding passage from the Coran,^ ^ " •'* 
 and adds: — "This is the story as told by thy Suraiii. 35, et 
 Master himself, in attestation of the Gospel ^eq. (42.49). 
 history. Now say, my Friend (and the Lord direct thee !) 
 whether thou hast ever heard, or read in books, of any one 
 who was ushered into the world with a blessed annunciation 
 such as I have related to thee from the Gospel, and also 
 from thine own Scripture." There follows Mary's visit 
 to Elizabeth, and the vision of Zecharias (in respect of 
 which the Goran is again quoted as showing that it was 
 the ofiice of John the Baptist to bear witness Sura iii. 39. 
 *' to the Word of God " ^), the Adoration of the Magians, 
 and the Angels' Song to the shepherds. 
 
 He passes on briefly to the Ministry of Ghrist; his 
 baptism, the testimony of his being the Lamb Ministry of 
 of God, the Temptation, and Miracles. He Christ (145, 
 dwells on the meekness, humility and kindness ^^^)- 
 of Jesus ; and lays stress on his poverty and the absence of 
 any worldly object save only to bring salvation to mankind. 
 
 1 Curiously enough he quotes the Salutation thus :— "The blessing of mir Lord 
 be with thee: " not m?/ Lord, but ours; i.e. of angels and men, implying that 
 he is "the Lord of heaven and earth," etc. I do not find this reading anywhere. 
 
 2 "And when the Angels said, 0, Mary, verily God hath chosen thee, and 
 sanctified thee, and exalted thee above all the women of the world. Mary, 
 be devout towards thy Lord, and worship, and bow down with those who bow 
 down ... Mary, the Lord giveth thee good tidings of the Word proceeding 
 from himself, called Jesus the Christ, the Son of Mary," etc. 
 
 3 In quoting this passage (tj^-w;^ <dll ^ |'«^ UJA*^^) he applies 
 " lord" (Syed) to Jesus, whereas by the construction it must refer to John. 
 
y 
 
 56 THE APOLOGY OF AL KIXDY. 
 
 A full outline follows of our Saviour's teaching drawn 
 Teachino- of from the Sermon on the Mount ; and a page 
 our Saviour is devoted to justify the doctrine of the Father- 
 (146-155). ^^^^^ ^f Q^^^ rpj^g brotherhood and unity of 
 
 mankind as flowing therefrom are contrasted with the 
 Sura Ixiv. 15. teaching of the Coran ; ^ and the claim of the 
 Almighty to be regarded as a wise and tender Parent 
 is illustrated from Hebrews xii. 6. He dwells upon the 
 Sura ii. 87, miracles of Jesus, and shows that they were 
 254,andiii.48. aoknowledged in the Coran. In contrast with 
 the wonderful works done by the Jewish prophets, Jesus 
 performed these by His own inherent power, and never 
 Jerem.vii.i6. failed as Moses did at the waters of Meriba, 
 or Jeremiah whom the Lord refused to hear. 
 
 For his Apostles the Lord chose simple and unlearned 
 . , , persons, poor fishermen and despised tax gatherers, 
 disciples sent Through these He overturned all the wisdom and 
 forth by Christ philosophy, the nobility and kingly power that 
 ^ ' ^ ^' opposed the faith on every hand. The instruc- 
 tions with which the Apostles and the Seventy disciples 
 were sent forth are given in considerable detail, and are 
 summed up with great force and eloquence, in implied 
 contrast with the interested aims, and worldly agencies, of 
 the first propagators of Islam. 
 
 The death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are 
 Death and As- recounted in a very few lines. " Let me add 
 cension of Jesus (says our Author) " the testimony of the 
 (160). Coran, — * When God said, Jesus, verily I 
 
 * will cause thee to die, and will raise thee up unto myself, 
 
 Sura iii. * ^^^ will deliver thee from the unbelievers ; 
 54-57. < and will make thy followers to be over those 
 
 * that disbelieve even until the day of judgment. Then 
 
 * unto me shall ye return ; and I will judge between you, 
 
 * as to that concerning which ye have been at variance. 
 
 ^ I must note, hovrever, that the passage quoted does not bear out his argu- 
 ment : — " ye that believe, verily from amongst your wives and children, ye 
 have enemies ; wherefore beware of them" : meaning, no doubt that they were 
 dangerous because likely to tempt them from the right way ; as Luke xiv. 26. 
 
THE SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL CONTRASTED WITH ISLAM. 57 
 
 * But they that disbelieve, I will visit them with a grievous 
 
 * punishment, both in this world and the next ; they shall 
 
 * have none to help them. But they that believe and 
 
 * do good works, we shall fulfil to them their reward. And 
 
 * God loveth not the transgressors. These signs (or verses) 
 
 * and this sage admonition do we rehearse unto thee.* Now 
 may the Lord open thine eyes and understanding, for 
 these are the very words of thy Master and his confession 
 and testimony in the revelation which he claimed (and 
 which thou admittest) to be from the Lord. Turn not 
 then away from the right, for if thou wilt be true to 
 thyself, the light shall spring upon thee.'* 
 
 Advancing now to the ministry of the Apostles, — after 
 a brief notice of the descent of the Holy Ghost, 
 
 -,, - f>-r» 1 Ministry of the 
 
 " the Jraraclete, on the day 01 Pentecost, and j\posties and 
 the gift of tongues, he proceeds : — *' Upon that, spread of 
 the Apostles separated, each to the country to Christianity 
 which he was called, and the language of which 
 was made known unto him. And they wrote out the 
 Holy Gospel, and the story and teaching of Christ, in 
 every tongue at the dictation of the Holy Ghost. So the 
 Nations drew near unto them, and believed their testimony ; 
 and, giving up the world and their false beliefs, embraced the 
 Christian faith, as soon as ever the dawn of truth and light 
 of the Good tidings broke upon them. Distinguishing thus 
 the true from the false, and error from the right direction, 
 they embraced the Gospel and held it fast without doubt or 
 wavering, when they saw the wonderful works and signs 
 of the Apostles, and their lives and conversation set after the 
 holy and beautiful example of our Saviour, the traces whereof 
 remain even unto the present day. From them, the Faith 
 hath been handed down ; we have added nothing to it, 
 neither taken aught therefrom. In this Faith we shall live, 
 in it we shall die, and in the same shall we rise again, and 
 stand in the presence of Christ our Lord, in the day when 
 the whole world shall be gathered before Him. How 
 difierent this from the life of thy Master and his Com- 
 panions, who ceased not to go forth in battle and rapine, 
 
58 THE APOLOGY OF AL KIXDY. 
 
 to smite with the sword, to seize the little ones, and ravish 
 wives and maidens, — plundering and laying waste, and carry- 
 ing the people away into captivity ! And this they continue 
 unto the present day, — inciting men to these evil deeds, 
 even as Omar the Caliph said, — // one hath a heathen neigh- 
 hour, and is. in need of his price, let him seize and sell him} 
 And many such things they say and teach. Look now at 
 the lives of Simon and Paul, who went about healing the 
 sick, and raising the dead, by the name of Christ our Lord ; 
 and mark the contrast." 
 
 If it be asked why the power of working miracles is 
 
 no longer seen in our Holy men, our Apologist 
 
 / lono-er shown ^^^wers that their ministry differs from that 
 
 saving in of the Apostles who had to preach a new faith 
 
 individual and ^^{i\^ extraordinary evidence. Miraculous cures, 
 
 casesfie'^ 163) ^^ ^^ prayer of Holy men, are still performed in 
 
 individual cases, to mark their acceptance with 
 the Lord, and to show that the healing virtue is not dead. 
 But if the practice were common of quickening the dead and 
 healing the sick, then no one need die, and where then would 
 be the promise of the Resurrection? Moreover, they are 
 no longer required. Miracles were needed only in the first 
 days of spreading the faith amongst nations sunk in idolatry 
 and ignorance. Man is not to be forced by superfluous 
 exhibitions of power, nor driven like the beasts by the appeal 
 to his senses. Sufiicient evidence had been long ago pro- 
 vided, and he was left, as a rational being in the exercise of 
 his faculties to apply the same. 
 
 " And now," concludes Al Kindy, " I have related to 
 Final appeal thee, very briefly, the story of our Saviour the 
 (163-165). Christ, with a short notice of his Apostles from 
 whom we have received our blessed Faith and hold it fast. 
 Now consider what thou wilt of that which I have set 
 before thee, in connection with what thou already knowest 
 of the same, and judge between us righteously. if thou 
 wouldest but listen to my advice, and, leaving what is 
 
 1 I need hardly say that this sentiment is entirely at variance with the liberal 
 and tolerant policy of Omar. 
 
>C{)NCLUSIOX. 59 
 
 dark and evil, come to the liglit and brightness of the 
 Gospel, then shonldest thou be of the number of our 
 Saviour's chosen ones, inheriting the kingdom of heaven 
 and that blessedness which knoweth no ending, and the joy 
 of which passeth description. Fear Him, my Friend, who 
 hath power both over the body and the soul, Who is ready 
 to have mercy on thee, and embrace thee, even as a tender 
 father embraceth his wandering son. The Lord hath 
 favoured thee with wisdom and understanding above thy 
 fellows. Be not then deceived with the pomps and vanities 
 of this transitory life ; for verily the world with its lusts 
 and pleasures is a Syren that leadeth to destruction. Look 
 to thy soul, my Friend, before the day when thy sight shall 
 fail from thine eyes, and weigh well what I have written 
 in the scales of justice and by the light of reason. The 
 matter is one of infinite import, and cannot, without eternal 
 risk, be put aside. It concerneth thee, not only in this life, 
 but in the great future before thee, when no vain excuse 
 will be accepted. And know of a certainty that he who 
 rejecteth all vain and false securities, and believeth in the 
 Lord, hath laid hold of a sure refuge, and will find eternal 
 rest in His good pleasure. 
 
 *' I have now done my task to the best of my ability ; 
 and, having delivered my Message to the utmost Conclusion 
 of my power, I leave it with thee, and with (164-105). 
 all those who shall read this my Book, — praying the Lord 
 to fulfil in thee, and in us all, every good work, redeem us 
 from all iniquity, and join us hereafter in His kingdom 
 above with the chosen ones whom he visiteth with His 
 beneficence and grace. 
 
 "And now. Peace be on thee, and Mercy from the Lord, 
 and His blessing! Amen." 
 
 STKPHEN AISTIN AND SONS, PRINTKR8, HKRTFORD. 
 
317 
 
 Art. XX. — Further Note on the Apology of Al-Kinchj. By 
 Sir W. MuiR, K.C.S.I., D.C.L., LL.D. 
 
 With reference to my paper on the Apology of Al-Kindy, 
 I have received the following letter from Professor Ignatius 
 Guidi, dated Rome, 24th February : — 
 
 " You will be glad to hear that in the Propaganda Library 
 (Museo Borgiani) I found a MS. of the Apology of Al-Kindi, 
 together with the letter of his Moslem friend. The amanu- 
 ensis was, I think, a Jacobite (the MS. is written in Karshuni 
 character), hence he says (page 5, line 18 of the printed text) : 
 
 The Roman MS. is apparently of the same family with the 
 Paris MS. as described by Zotenberg, Catalogue des MS8. 
 Syriaques de la Bihlioth. Nationale, Nos. 204, 205.^' 
 
 In a subsequent communication, dated 12th March, M. 
 Ign. Guidi adds : — 
 
 " The Propaganda MS. of Al-Kindy's Apology has, at the 
 end of the letter of the Moslem, a note which states that a 
 certain Abuna Saliba l-wJ-^ ^J^^ ^y-^^ abridged the letter of 
 the Moslem ; then a certain Musa transcribed, from the copy 
 of Abuna Saliba, the MS. now in the Propaganda, in the year 
 of the Greeks 1957, corresponding with 1052 of the Hegira 
 (1642-3 A.D.). 
 
 " The MS. is in octavo, and has 18 lines in every page ; 
 the letter of the Moslem occupies 16 pages ; it seems therefore 
 to he a little shorter than the printed text." 
 
 1 That ia to say, the Moslem advocate is made to represent the Nestorian as 
 the worst, and the Jacobite the best, form of the Christian religion. The Arabic 
 MSS. reverse this statement, and make Al-Kindy a Nestorian, which no doubt 
 he was. 
 
318 THE APOLOGY OF AL-KINDY. 
 
 The notices referred to above from Zotenberg's Catalogue 
 are as follows, pp. 155, 156 : 
 
 " 204. No. 8 (fol. 124?;.) Apologie de la religion chretienne, 
 par un chretien Jacobite (Jacque al Kindi) addressee, sous 
 le forme de lettre, a un Musulman qui Tavait attaquee. En 
 Carschouni ; . . . . 
 
 ^'205. Apologie de la religione chretienne, par Jacques le 
 Kindien, Jacobite, en reponse a une attaque d'un Musulman 
 de la famille de Haschim. En Carschouni .... Le preface 
 est suivi de la lettre abregee du Musulman. L'ouvrage 
 proprement dit commence ainsi .... Cet exemplaire ne 
 renferme pas la conclusion qui se trouve dans I'autre copie. 
 
 "Ce MS. a ete execute en 1934 des Grecs (1619 de J.C). 
 La copie fut commencee par la diacre Salibi, de Dam as, qui 
 a abrege lui-meme la lettre Mahom^tane, et qui ajoute 
 plusieurs notes marginales. La transcription a ete continuee 
 et terminee par son frere, le diacre Joane, et deux autres 
 diacres, Serge et Moise. 
 
 " II est a croire que Touvrage n'etait pas designe 
 
 par un titre particulier." 
 
 The Apology thus reaches us through the medium of MSS. 
 belonging to two distinct families. Fir sty the Arabic proper, 
 handed down by the Nestorian section of the Church, which 
 I take to be the original form in which the Apology appeared. 
 Secondly, the Karshuny, or Arabic in Syriac character, handed 
 down by the Jacobite Church ; — which explains the appella- 
 tion which I took to be a mistake in M. de Sacy's article 
 (see p. vi of my paper). 
 
 The Karshuni family of MSS. is shown by Prof. Guidi's 
 notes to have existed in a separate and independent form, at 
 any rate Two and a half centuries ago. 
 
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