"have thirty thousand soldiers; but three such men as these are "still wanting in his host." On receiving the signal, one man plunged a sword into his own breast, another leapt into the Tigris, and the third threw himself down a precipice. From the walls of Bagdad, the Carmathians crossed the deserts to Mecca. The holy city was plundered by them, the temple was mutilated, and thousands of pilgrims and citizens were murdered. For two centuries the Carmathians were the scourge of the Caliphate; the state was convulsed to its centre, and never again became perfectly settled in peace.'

Next comes, as a sort of appendix to the preceding chapters, the dissertation on the causes of the success of the Muhammedan arms and religion. It is very short and very superficial. The success of the religion, he seems to say, was owing to the success of the arms; but what the success of the arms was owing to, he says very little about. The success of arms, he almost seems to think, is sufficiently accounted for by their being arms. It is true, he tells us, that the Arabians were a people fierce and warlike but so they had been for many ages, without making any conquests. He adds, indeed, what is usually said, that the spirit of religious enthusiasm was added to the warlike spirit, in making the conquests of the Saracens. But all this goes a very little way in accounting for the revolutions which the arms of the Saracens produced. In pushing our inquiries, however, beyond this point, we get no assistance from Mr. Mills.

IV. In the history of the Muhammedan-Tartarian empires' he includes, after a short account of the Tartars and their country, the history of the Muhammedan dynasties in Hin dustan; of Zingis Khan and his successors; of Tamerlane; of the Seljukian dynasties; and of the Othman or present Turkish empire. When it is considered, that all this is brought into 187 small octavo pages, the reader who knows any thing about the extent of the field which is surveyed, will be sufficiently sensible that a small portion only of the matters which belong to that field, can here be adduced. Small as it is, however, it is not without use, nor is the statement without merit. The Author must have been master of his subject to no ordinary degree, to give so good an idea of it, in so very narrow a compass. The young and the uninstructed reader will be improved by a view, all the parts of which he can take in at once, and which may serve as a clew to future inquiries. Even the mind which is more furnished with details, may be rendered more perfectly master of its own stores, by a simultaneous view, a glance which shews the leading parts, and the connexion of them; which cuts, as it were, roads and passages through the forest; or, to change the metaphor, groupes the multitude of particulars, and fits them for becoming objects of a distinct and systematic attention

V. We shall not exactly follow the arrangement of the Author, but shall take the last of his topics, in this place, reserving the speculative part of his performance, for our closing remarks. In giving his account of the present state and extent of the Muhammedan religion, we do not think that his particulars are skilfully grouped. The principal seats of that religion are, undoubtedly, first, Persia, including all the states, whether dependent or independent, within its ancient limits; secondly, Turkey in Asia, Europe, and Africa; thirdly, Arabia itself. After these come the countries in which it exists partially, of which Hindustan is the chief; and next, a portion of the islands in the Indian Sea, to which, perhaps, China and Tartary are to be added, as not altogether free from a mixture of the followers of Muhammed. The Author gives us these countries in the order of Tartary, China, Hindustan, the Indian Archipelago, Persia, Africa, Arabia, Turkey. The only one on which he dwells at any considerable length, is Turkey; we are happy to inform the reader that he will find a very instructive account of the state of Muhammedanism in that country, and indeed of the state of the human mind in general. We do not know many books from which an equally accurate conception of the state of the human mind in Turkey could be drawn; and it is here all contained within a very moderate compass.

VI. We come now to the account which our Author has rendered, of what Muhammedanism is in itself. In this are included, according to the strictest sense of the word, the theological, moral, and juridical codes of the Muselmans; and so closely connected with these great particulars are the literature and science of the people to whom these codes belong, that they may all with great propriety be included in the delineation of what Muhammedanism is in itself.

Our Author begins with the religion. This is the most conspicuous characteristic of the Koran. Our Author says,

Abolition of idolatry and superstition, and the restoration of religion to what he called its pristine purity, were the avowed and plausible objects of the Arabian Prophet. The unity and indivisibility of the Godhead formed the basis of his creed, while the promise of rewards and the threat of punishments, both temporal and eternal, secured the virtue of his followers. But their reliance upon the divinity of his own pretended mission in the cause of reformation, was incontestibly necessary for the support of his system; and, therefore, the discordant names of God and Muhammed are united in the confession of the Moslem's faith:

"Allah il Allah, Muhammed resoul Allah".

"There is one God, Muhammed is the Apostle of God.' " p. 261. The inquiry into the system of religion includes two par

ticulars; 1. what it commands its votaries to believe; 2. what it commands them to practise.

It is well known that the unity of the Divine nature is the leading principle of the religion which Muhammed believed himself commissioned to preach.

But

In opposition to the general idolatry (and but for the Persians, who worshipped the Creator under the faint image of fire, we might say the universal idolatry) of mankind, the adoration of one only God was the grand foundation of the Mosaic legislation. Muhammed falsely asserted, that in his days this pure doctrine had been mixed by the acknowledgment of Ezra, as the son or companion of God. At the time of the appearance of the Arabian prophet, the various systems of idolatry and superstitious credence, shocked the moral sense of every philosophical mind, while the false interpretations which the Christian divines of that day, gave of the Scriptural doctrine of the Trinity of persons in one divine essence, too well countenanced the assertion of the Arabian preacher, that a plurality of Gods were worshipped. In order then to banish tenets so absurd, and to settle as a matter of fact, and without reference to metaphysical disquisition, the doctrine concerning the nature of the object of all our hopes and fears, Muhammed proclaims, in every page of the Koran, the unity, holiness, infinity, and eternity, of the Deity.' p. 273, 4.

The existence of angels, the eternity of the Divine decrees, the revelation of the will of God to mortals, by prophets and by scriptures, the intermediate state of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments, are the leading points of belief, which, after the unity of God, our Author presents as commanded by the religion of Muhammed.

The principal acts, the performance of which is enjoined by the Moslem religion, our Author adduces in the following order, 1. Prayer; 2. The keeping of Friday as a Sabbath; 3. Ablution; 4. Giving alms, observing covenants, and patience in the bearing of evil; 5. Fasting; 6. Pilgrimage to Mecca; 7. Circumcision; 8. Abstinence from wine. Add to these, general exhortations to virtue, kindness to parents and others, justice, and fidelity, &c.

All this is useful to be known, though all this is very commonly known, and very easily said. From any of the more difficult inquiries respecting this system of religion, the Author totally abstains.

As the different species of religion, known among mankind, form a gradation from the lowest and most disgusting of the creeds of the savage, up to the most pure and rational forms of Christianity, one important question is, at what intermediate degree in this scale, is the religion of Muhammed placed? how far does it ascend above the lowest extreme, and how much does it fall short of the highest? An important question this; which we just have time and space to put, but far from either

time or space to discuss. In the elucidation of this question much information would come forth. The points which constitute the excellence of any system of religion, the points which constitute its defects, would be sought out, defined, and established. If this were done as clearly and accurately as it ought to be done, the comparison of one system of religion with another, or of one form with another form of the same system, would be easy. Every man would immediately see where his choice ought to fall. There would not be the same doubt and hesitation; there would not be the same prevalence of error. We should not see it so very frequently happen, that men would choose a worse, when they have a better before their eyes, because they have no criterion by which what is good and what is evil, can be easily discriminated.

Another inquiry, less extensive and less difficult, with regard to the Muhammedan religion, would have been the effects it is calculated to produce upon its votaries; whether it is, or whether it is not of any use; whether it produces upon the whole good rather than evil; or whether any people, or every people, would be better without it; whether it affords motives to good conduct sufficient to overbalance the evils which it produces in other respects; whether it aids the progress of the human mind in its gradual ascent from what is less perfect to what is more so; or whether it is wholly an obstruction to that progress. The former inquiry related to the comparison as between this superstition and any other; which produced more, and which less of evil or of good. This inquiry relates to the comparison between this religion and the absence of all religion; whether a people who had no religion at all, or a people who were governed by the Muhammedan religion, would be most favourably situated, cæteris paribus, for good conduct towards one another, for progress in knowledge, for every thing, in short, whereon depend the perfection and happiness of this life. Whether in this case application may be made of the opinion of Lord Bacon, expressed in his Essay on Superstition, that it were better to have no opinion of God at 'all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him: For the one is but non-belief: The other is contumely: And certainly superstition is the reproaching of Deity.-Atheism leaves a man 'to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: All which may be guides unto virtue, though religion were not. But superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth ' an absolute tyranny in the mind of men, &c.'

6

After the religion and morality of Muhammedanism, our Author proceeds to its Jurisprudence. This is an important article, but very superficially treated. There was not room upon the plan of this work, to do the subject justice; but our Author has

done enough to shew that he was not sufficiently provided with the appriate knowledge for the performance of the task. There are two species of laws, of which the one exists only for the sake of the other. One species of laws exists for the sake of some good which those laws procure to individuals, severally or conjointly; the other species of laws exists only for the sake of carrying the first species into execution. The last species are the rules for the construction of the tribunals and the modes in which tribunals should perform their business. The first species of laws consists of two sorts; first, the laws which establish what shall belong to this individual, and that individual, or body of individuals; secondly, those which determine what acts (burtful to others) shall be restrained by punishment, and what the punishment employed. 1. The first of these orders of law is commonly denominated the Civil. 2. The second, is commonly denominated the Penal branch of law. 3. The auxiliary branch, mentioned above, which relates to procedure, might, for the sake of distinction, be called the Procedorial branch.

A proper disquisition on the Muhammedan Jurisprudence, would have selected such particulars as would give us a notion of the sort of provisions made by the Muhammedan nations under each of these three heads; and would then, by means of comparison, have shewn us what rank, in point of excellence or of defect, it held among the other systems of the world, and to what degree it fell short of that standard of excellence to which all systems ought to aspire. Instead of this, Mr. Mills gives us only a few words on each of the following topics in the following order: polygamy, prohibited degrees of marriage, divorce, adultery, interdiction of meats, inheritance, prohibition of female infanticide, usury, debts, contracts, murder, theft, retaliation for personal injuries. On these points we have no room to make any comment, nor is it necessary; such a system declares its own character by visible signs.

Last of all we come to the Literature and Science of the Saracens and Turks. This is a well executed part of the work. The Author has been at no small pains to make himself acquainted with the subject, and has surveyed it with more than an ordinary share of judgement and taste. The reader may here obtain a knowledge, to a considerable degree both correct and complete, in respect to the literary institutions among the Arabians, the actual state of their knowledge, their acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle, their mathematics, their pretensions to the invention of the digits, their knowledge of astronomy, anatomy, surgery, chemistry, botany, medicine; the influence of the Saracens in conveying learning into Europe; the literature of Turkey, languages, rhetoric, morality, mathematics,