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THE

LIFE OF MOHAMMED;

FOUNDER

OF

THE RELIGION OF ISLAM, AND OF THE
EMPIRE OF THE SARACENS.

BY THE

REV. GEORGE BUSH, A.M.

New-York:

PRINTED BY J. & J. HARPER, 82 CLIFF-ST.

Sold by Collins & Hannay, Collins & Co., G. & C. & H. Carvill, White,
Gallaher, & White, and O. A. Roorbach;-PHILADELPHIA, Carey &
Lea, John Grigg, Towar & J. & D. M. Hogan, U. Hunt, E. L. Carey
& A. Hart, and M'Carty & Davis;-BALTIMORE, Cushing & Sons,
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brook, Hilliard, Gray, & Co., and Carter & Hendee..

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK, s. BE E IT REMEMBERED, That on the 20th day of September, A. D. 1830, in the fiftyfifth year of the independence of the United States of America, J. & J. HARPER, of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as Proprietors, in the words following, to wit:

"The Life of Mohammed; Founder of the Religion of Islam, and of the Empire of the Saracens. By the Rev. George Bush, M.A."

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for th encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." And also to an Act entitled, "An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encou ragement of Learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the author and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

FREDERICK J. BETTS,

Clerk of the Southern District of New-York.

PREFACE.

THE present work lays claim to no higher character than that of a compilation. This indeed must necessarily be the character of any work attempted, at this day, upon the same subject. All the accessible facts in the life and fortunes of the Arabian prophet have long since been given to the world. New theories and speculations, moral and philosophical, founded upon these facts, and many of them richly deserving attention, are frequently propounded to the reflecting, but they add little or nothing to the amount of our positive information. All therefore that can now be expected is such a selection and arrangement and investment of the leading particulars of the Impostor's history, as shall convey to the English reader, in a correct and concentrated form, those details which are otherwise diffused through a great number of rare books, and couched in several different languages. Such a work, discreetly prepared, would supply, if we mistake not, a very considerable desideratum in our language-one which is beginning to be more sensibly felt than ever, and which the spirit of the age loudly requires to have supplied. How

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far the present sketch may go towards meeting the demand, it becomes others than the writer to judge. He has aimed to make the most judicious use of the materials before him, and from the whole mass to elicit a candid moral estimate of the character of the Founder of Islam. In one respect he may venture to assure the reader he will find the plan of the ensuing pages an improvement upon preceding Memoirs; and that is, in the careful collation of the chapters of the Koran with the events of the narrative. He will probably find the history illustrated to an unexpected extent from this source-a circumstance, which, while it serves greatly to authenticate the facts related, imparts a zest also to the tenor of the narrative scarcely to be expected from the nature of the theme.

In order to preserve the continuity of the story from being broken by incessant reference to authorities, the following catalogue is submitted, which will present at one view the principal works consulted and employed in preparing the present Life-Sale's Koran, 2 vols.; Universal History, Mod. Series, vol. i.; Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iii.; Prideaux's Life of Mahomet; Boulainvillier's do. ; do. in Library of Useful Knowledge, No. 45; Bayle's Historical Dictionary, Art. Mahomet; Hottinger's Historia Orientalis: Abul-Faragii Historia Dynastarum, Pocock's Transl.; Morgan's Mahometism Explained, 2 vols.; Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled, 2 vols.; D'Herbeiot's Bibliotheque Orien

tale; Rycaut's Present State of the Ottoman Empire; Ockley's History of the Saracens, 2 vols.; White's Bampton Lectures; Lee's Translation of the Rev. H. Martyn's Controversial Tracts; Whitaker's Origin of Arianism; Faber's Sacred Calendar of Prophecy, 3 vols.; Buckingham's, Keppel's, Burckhardt's, and Madden's Travels in the East.

So

On the subject of the Arabic proper names so frequently occurring in this work, it may be useful to the English reader to be informed, that Al is a particle equivalent to our definite article The. Thus, Alcoran is composed of two distinct words signifying The Koran, of which the last only ought to be retained in English. Again, Ebn is the Arabic word for son, as is Bint or Binta for daughter, and with the particle Al after it, according to the Arabic usage, Ebno'l is, the son. Abu, father, with the article after it, Abu'l, the father. Thus, Said Ebn Obeidah Abu Omri, is, Said, the son of Obeidah father of Omri; it being usual with the Arabs to take their names of distinction from their sons as well as their fathers. In like manner, Ebno'l Athir, is, the son of Athir ; Abu'l Abbas, the father of Abbas: and as Abd signifies servant, and Allah, God; Abdo'lah or Abdallah is, servant of God; Abdo'l Shems, servant of the sun, &c.

The deciding between the different modes in which the prophet's name is, or ought to be, writ

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