Arabic Authors

he author and founder of a new religion, which both during his lifetime and after his death was accepted with a marvellous rapidity, and is still being accepted in various parts of Africa, it must be admitted that he was an extraordinary person. At the beginning of what may be called his inspired life at Mecca, he stood forth as a reformer, preacher, and apostle. But, though full of enthusiasm and belief in the great cause that he advocated, he was, without doubt, from the commencement to the end of his career, a practical man of business, which Buddha and Jesus certainly were not. The life of Muhammad has been written in many languages, and with such voluminous details, that it is hardly necessary to enter into these details very minutely here. Sir William Muir's works on the subject are graphic, descriptive, and full of interesting matter, while a lengthy article on the subject of Muhammad and Muhammadism, in the third volume of the ' Dictionary of Christian Biography,' from the pen of the late Rev. G. P. Badger, is one of extraordinary interest. A perusal of the above-named works, with Hughes's ' Dictionary of Islam' as a reference book, will give the ordinary English reader as much information as is likely to be required in the ordinary course of things. But by way of preface to certain remarks upon Muhammad as a reformer, preacher, and apostle at Mecca, as pope and king at Madinah, as author of the Koran, founder of a religion, legislator, military l...