Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/367

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 345 nocturnal journey is seriously described as a real and corporeal transaction. A mysterious animal, the Borak, conveyed him from the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem ; with his companion Gabriel, he successively ascended the seven heavens, and received and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the angels, in their respective mansions. Beyond the seventh heaven, Mahomet alone was permitted to proceed ; he passed the veil of unity, approached within two bow-shots of the throne, and felt a cold that pierced him to the heart, when his shoulder was touched by the hand of God. After this familiar though important conversation, he again descended to Jerusalem, re- mounted the Borak, returned to Mecca, and performed in the tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand years. ^^4 According to another legend, the apostle confounded in a national assembly the malicious challenge of the Koreish, His resistless word split asunder the orb of the moon : the obedi- ent planet stooped from her station in the sky, accomplished the seven revolutions round the Caaba, saluted Mahomet in the Arabian tongue, and, suddenly contracting her dimensions, en- tered at the collar, and issued forth through the sleeve, of his shirt. ^^^^ The vulgar are amused with these marvellous tales ; de Chardin, torn. iv. p. 200-203. Maracci (Alcoran, torn. i. p. 22-64) has most laboriously collected and confuted the miracles and prophecies of Mahomet, which, according to some writers, amount to three thousand. 1"'! The nocturnal journey is circumstantially related by Abulfeda (in Vit. Mo- hammed, c. 19, p. 33), who wishes to think it a vision ; by Prideaux (p. 31-40), who aggravates the absurdities ; and by Gagnier (tom. i. p. 252-343), who declares. from the zealous Al Jannabi, that to deny this journey is to disbelieve the Koran. Yet the Koran, without naming either heaven or Jerusalem or Mecca, has only dropped a mysterious hint : Laus illi qui transtulit servum suum ab oratorio Haram ad oratorium remotissimum (Koran, c. 17, v. i, in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 407; for Sale's version is more licentious). A slender basis for the aerial structure of tradi- tion. [The literal translation of the opening words of the 17th sura (which clearly belongs to the later Meccan period) is ' ' Praise be unto him who transported his servant by night from the sacred temple to the farther temple, the circuit (or envi- rons) of which we have blessed". The simplest inference may seem to be that the prophet actually visited Jeru.salem in the course of the last two years of the Mec- can period ; yet it is hard to believe that the visit would not have been known as a fact.] i"5 In the prophetic style, which uses the present or past for the future, Mahomet had said : Appropinquavit hora et scissa est luna (Koran, c. 54, v. i ; in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 688). This figure of rhetoric has been converted into a fact, which is said to be attested by the most respectable eye-witnesses (Maracci, tom. ii. p. 690). The festival is still celebrated by the Persians (Chardin, tom. iv. p. 201); and the legend is tediously spun out by Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 183-234), on the faith, as it should seem, of the credulous Al Jannabi. Yet a Mahometan doctor has arraigned the credit of the principal witness (apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 187) ; the best interpreters are content with the simple sense of the Koran (Al Beidawi, apud Hottinger, Hist. Orient. 1. ii. p. 302) ; and the silence of Abulfeda is worthy of a prince and a philosopher.