and charges his sect with being a compound of "blasphemy, robbery, and sensuality." It is not very
strange. that in the heat of that polemical age the Romanists charged the Lutherans, and the Lutherans
the Calvinists, and both in turn the Romanists, with holding Mohammedan heresies.^205
In the eighteenth century this view was gradually corrected. The learned Dean Prideaux
still represented Mohammed as a vulgar impostor, but at the same time as a scourge of God in just
punishment of the sins of the Oriental churches who turned our holy religion "into a firebrand of
hell for contention, strife and violence." He undertook his "Life of Mahomet" as a part of a "History
of the Eastern Church," though he did not carry out his design.
Voltaire and other Deists likewise still viewed Mohammed as an impostor, but from a
disposition to trace all religion to priestcraft and deception. Spanheim, Sale, and Gagnier began to
take a broader and more favorable view. Gibbon gives a calm historical narrative; and in summing
up his judgment, he hesitates whether "the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to
that extraordinary man .... From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the
daemon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a
good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between
self-illusion and voluntary fraud."
Dean Milman suspends his judgment, saying: "To the question whether Mohammed was
hero, sage, impostor, or fanatic, or blended, and blended in what proportions, these conflicting
elements in his character? the best reply is the reverential phrase of Islâm: God knows.’ "^206
Goethe and Carlyle swung from the orthodox abuse to the opposite extreme of a pantheistic
hero-worshiping over-estimate of Mohammed and the Koran by extending the sphere of revelation
and inspiration, and obliterating the line which separates Christianity from all other religions.
Stanley, R. Bosworth Smith, Emanuel Deutsch, and others follow more or less in the track of this
broad and charitable liberalism. Many errors and prejudices have been dispelled, and the favorable
traits of Islâm and its followers, their habits of devotion, temperance, and resignation, were held
up to the shame and admiration of the Christian world. Mohammed himself, it is now generally
conceded, began as an honest reformer, suffered much persecution for his faith, effectually destroyed
idolatry, was free from sordid motives, lived in strict monogamy during twenty-four years of his
youth and manhood, and in great simplicity to his death. The polygamy which disfigured the last
twelve years of his life was more moderate than that of many other Oriental despots, Califs and
Sultans, and prompted in part by motives of benevolence towards the widows of his followers, who
had suffered in the service of his religion.^207
(^205) Maracci, Vivaldus, and other Roman writers point out thirteen or more heresies in which Mohammedanism and
Lutheranism agree, such as iconoclasm, the rejection of the worship of saints, polygamy (in the case of Philip of Hesse), etc.
A fanatical Lutheran wrote a book to prove that "the damned Calvinists hold six hundred and sixty-six theses (the apocalyptic
number) in common with the Turks!" The Calvinist Reland, on the other hand, finds analogies to Romish errors in the
Mohammedan prayers for the dead, visiting the graves of prophets, pilgrimages to Mecca, intercession of angels, fixed fasts,
meritorious almsgiving, etc.
(^206) Lat. Christianity, II. 120.
(^207) The Mohammedan apologist, Syed Ameer Ali (The Life and Teachings of Mohammed, London, 1873, pp. 228 sqq.),
makes much account of this fact, and entirely justifies Mohammed’s polygamy. But the motive of benevolence and generosity
can certainly not be shown in the marriage of Ayesha (the virgin-daughter of Abu-Bakr), nor of Zeynab (the lawful wife of his
freedman Zeyd), nor of Safiya (the Jewess). Ali himself must admit that "some of Mohammed’s marriages may possibly have
arisen from a desire for male offspring." The motive of sensuality he entirely ignores.