them, and after comparing them with those of sundry of his predecessors and cotemporaries, it appears to us that the author has abundant reason to be gratified with the success he has achieved. Most conscientiously prepared, and based

THE poverty of our literature in reference to Mohammed and Mohammedanism is so conspicuous and so inconvenient that we may well receive with gratitude Mr. Muir's very able endeavor to relieve it. With freedom from prejudice and independence of judgment, he combines an ex-on authorities whom the Moslems themtensive and intimate knowledge of the most authentic sources of information, and, after several years of labor, has produced these volumes in the hope of contributing to the complete elucidation and final settlement of Mohammed's real character and

After a careful examination of

*The Life of Mohammed. With Introductory Chapters on the Original Sources for the Biography of Mohammed, and on the Pre-Islamite History of Arabia. By WILLIAM MUIR, Esq., Bengal Civil Service. Four Volumes. London: Smith, Elder,

& Co. 1861.

VOL. LVIII.-NO. 4

selves appeal to as decisive, his work may be used with equal confidence both by the historian and the controversialist. We heartily commend it to every one who, on so important a subject, desires to have what, on the whole, is probably the best and completest book in any language, and shall avail ourselves of it and of other sources of information, in this paper, to present a few of the leading events of the Prophet's life, with a view to a brief illustration of his character and of the means and meaning of his success.

26

Born at Mecca in the year 570, Mohammed was, like most Meccan children of good family, nursed by the Bedouins of the neighboring desert. His father had died before he was born, and soon after his return from the desert in his sixth year, his mother succumbed to the grief and care of widowhood, and left her child to the care of his paternal grandfather. Scarcely two years had passed, when Abd al Muttalib, too, died, and the boy became the charge of an uncle, to whom the affectionate old man hopefully committed him. Abu Talib proved eminently worthy of his trust. He watched over his delicate and much-attached nephew with unfailing solicitude, and when he was twelve years of age, gave him a mount on his camel, and joined the caravan to Syria. Their journey extended to Bostra-perhaps further; and though it can not well have been fraught with such appreciable religious and theological results as some of the biographers of the Prophet have supposed, it is only just to believe that it made impressions which had most important effects upon his subsequent life and character, which could never be forgotten, and which developed into consequences which could then be as little foreseen as they can now be retraced.

practical and lasting by the sight of whole tribes, Arab like himself, converted to the same faith, and practicing the same observances."— Vol. i. pp. 33, 34.

Making due note of this journey into Syria, we are to think of the young Mohammed, after his return to Mecca, as engaged in not very diligent and not very lucrative commerce, varied at intervals with the supposed effeminate and mean occupation of tending sheep, up to his twenty-fifth year. His character with his fellow-citizens was that of a retiring and reflective young man of few business qualifications, with almost no talent for money-making, but singularly moral, and constant in observing the religous and other duties prescribed by the established Paganism. He was any thing but the profligate scoundrel Dean Prideaux has described, and had even won for himself the by-name, El Amin, or The Faithful.

At twenty-five the whole course of his life was changed. A wealthy and virtuous widow, largely engaged in trade, required a steward and superintendent for a caravan she was dispatching to Syria, and the offer of the place being made to Mohammed the Faithful, was gladly accepted. He appears to have managed Khadija's business better than he had usually managed his own, and brought back to her, it is said, an unusually hand"He passed," says Mr. Muir, near to Petra, Jerash, Ammon, and other ruinous sites of for some profit. The next thing was that mer mercantile grandeur; and the sight, no Khadija, though forty years old and very doubt, deeply imprinted upon his reflective wealthy, wished to marry the poor young mind the instability of earthly greatness. The man, who had nothing but a comely perwild story of the Valley of Hejer, with its lone- son and a good character to recommend ly deserted habitations hewn out of the rock, him. Their union proved a remarkably and the tale of Divine vengeance against the cities of the plain, over which now rolled the happy one. Khadija is reported to have availed herself but little of her husband's billows of the Dead Sea, would excite apprehension and awe; while their strange and newly discovered business talents, while startling details, rendered more tragic by Jew- Mohammed was well content with the freeish tradition and local legend, would win and dom from commonplace anxieties, and charm the childish heart, ever yearning after the command of ease and leisure, secured the marvelous. On this journey, too, he pass-through his admirable wife. As the years ed through several Jewish settlements, and glided by, they were blessed with a son, came in contact with the national profession of who lived but two years, with daughter, Christianity in Syria. Hitherto he had witnessed only the occasional and isolated exhi- then a second daughter, a third, and a bition of the faith: now he saw its rites in full fourth, and last another son. On each of and regular performance by a whole commu- these occasions, there was a sacrifice to nity; the national and the social customs the idols of Mecca of one or two kids, founded upon Christianity; the churches with according as the child born was girl or their crosses, images, or pictures, and other boy. How far Mohammed concurred in symbols of the faith; the ringing of bells; the these acts of piety in his wife we cannot frequent assemblages for worship. The reports, and possibly an actual glimpse, of the continu tell. All we know is, that he did not in ally recurring ceremonial, effected, we may any way forbid them. Khadija meant suppose, a deep impression upon him; and well, no doubt, did what was usual, and this impression would be rendered all the more in his then state of indecision and inquiry,