et) by Dr. Weil, (Stuttgart, 1843.) Dr. Weil has a new
tradition, that Mahomet was at one time a shepherd. This assimilation
to the life of Moses, instead of giving probability to the story, as Dr.
Weil suggests, makes it more suspicious. Note, p. 34.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 70: Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write are
incapable of reading what is written with another pen, in the Suras, or
chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts, and the tradition
of the Sonna, are admitted, without doubt, by Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,)
Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,) Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland,
(de Religione Mohammedica, p. 236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse,
p. 42.) Mr. White, almost alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the
imposture, of the prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two
short trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not sufficient
to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca: it was not in
the cool, deliberate act of treaty, that Mahomet would have dropped
the mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from the words of disease
and delirium. The lettered youth, before he aspired to the prophetic
character, must have often exercised, in private life, the arts of
reading and writing; and his first converts, of his own family, would
have been the first to detect and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy,
(White's Sermons, p. 203, 204, Notes, p. xxxvi.--xxxviii.) * Note:
(Academ. des Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that the text of the
seveth Sura implies that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone denies
it, and, according to Dr. Weil, (p. 46,) there is another reading of
the tradition, that "he could not read well." Dr. Weil is not quite so
successful in explaining away Sura xxix. It means, he thinks that he had
not read any books, from which he could have borrowed.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 71: The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahomet, p. 202-228)
leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus of Fenelon, or the Cyrus of
Ramsay. His journey to the court of Persia is probably a fiction nor
can I trace the origin of his exclamation, "Les Grecs sont pour tant des
hommes." The two Syrian journeys are expressed by almost all the Arabian
writers, both Mahometans and Christians, (Gagnier Abulfed. p. 10.)]

[Footnote 72: I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or conjectures
which name the strangers accused or suspected by the infidels of Mecca,
(Koran, c. 16, p. 223