their enterprises against those powers, which success they failed not to attribute to their new religion and the divine assistance thereof. The Roman empire declined apace after Constantine, whose successors were for the generality remarkable for their ill qualities, especially cowardice and cruelty. By Mohammed's time, the western half of the empire was overrun by the Goths; and the eastern so reduced by the Huns on the one side, and the Persians on the other, that it was not in a capacity of stemming the violence of a powerful invasion. The emperor Maurice paid tribute to the Khagân or king of the Huns; and after Phocas had murdered his master, such lamentable havoc there was among the soldiers, that when Heraclius came, not above seven years after, to muster the army, there were only two soldiers left alive, of all those who had borne arms when Phocas first usurped the empire. And though Heraclius was a prince of admirable courage and conduct, and had done what possibly could be done to restore the discipline of the army, and had had great success against the Persians, so as to drive them not only out of his own dominions, but even out of part of their own; yet still the very vitals of the empire seemed to be mortally wounded; that there could no time have happened more fatal to the empire or more favourable to the enterprises of the Arabs, who seem to have been raised up on purpose by GOD, to be a scourge to the Christian church, for not living answerably to that most holy religion which they had received.1 The general luxury and degeneracy of manners into which the Grecians were sunk, also contributed not a little to the enervating their forces, which were still further drained by those two great destroyers, monachism and persecution. The Persians had also been in a declining condition for some time before Mohammed, occasioned chiefly by their intestine broils and dissensions; great part of which arose from the devilish doctrines of Manes and Mazdak. The opinions of the former are tolerably well known: the latter lived in the reign of Khosru Kobâd, and pretended himself a prophet sent from GOD to preach a community of women and possessions, since all men were brothers and descended from the same common parents. This he imagined would put an end to all feuds and quarrels among men, which generally arose on account of one of the two. Kobâd himself embraced the opinions of this impostor, to whom he gave leave, according to his new doctrine, to lie with the queen his wife; which permission Anushirwân, his son, with much difficulty prevailed on Mazdak not to make use of. These sects had certainly been the immediate ruin of the Persian empire, had not Anushirwân, as soon as he succeeded his father, put Mazdek to death with all his followers, and the Manicheans also, restoring the ancient Magian religion.2 In the reign of this prince, deservedly surnamed the Just, Mohammed was born. He was the last king of Persia who deserved the throne, which after him was almost perpetually contended for, till subverted by the Arabs. His son Hormûz lost the love of his subjects by his excessive cruelty; having had his eyes put out by his wife's brothers, he was
1 Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 19, &c. 2 Vide Poc. Spec. p. 70.
obliged to resign the crown to his son Khosrû Parvîz, who at the instigation of Bahrâm Chubîn had rebelled against him, and was afterwards strangled. Parvîz was soon obliged to quit the throne to Bahrâm; but obtaining succours of the Greek emperor Maurice, he recovered the crown: yet towards the latter end of a long reign he grew so tyrannical and hateful to his subjects, that they held private correspondence with the Arabs; and he was at length deposed, imprisoned, and slain by his son Shirûyeh.1 After Parvîz no less than six princes possessed the throne in less than six years. These domestic broils effectually brought ruin upon the Persians; for though they did rather by the weakness of the Greeks, than their own force, ravage Syria, and sack Jerusalem and Damascus under Khosrû Parvîz; and, while the Arabs were divided and independent, had some power in the province of Yaman, where they set up the four last kings before Mohammed; yet when attacked by the Greeks under Heraclius, they not only lost their new conquests, but part of their own dominions; and no sooner were the Arabs united by Mohammedism, than they beat them in every battle, and in a few years totally subdued them. As these empires were weak and declining, so Arabia, at Mohammed's setting up, was strong and flourishing; having been peopled at the expense of the Grecian empire, whence the violent proceedings of the domineering sects forced many to seek refuge in a free country, as Arabia then was, where they who could not enjoy tranquility and their conscience at home, found a secure retreat. The Arabians were not only a populous nation, but unacquainted with the luxury and delicacies of the Greeks and Persians, and inured to hardships of all sorts; living in a most parsimonious manner, seldom eating any flesh, drinking no wine, and sitting on the ground. Their political government was also such as favoured the designs of Mohammed; for the division and independency of their tribes were so necessary to the first propagation of his religion, and the foundation of his power, that it would have been scarce possible for him to have effected either, had the Arabs been united in one society. But when they had embraced his religion, the consequent union of their tribes was no less necessary and conducive to their future conquests and grandeur. This posture of public affairs in the eastern world, both as to its religious and political state, it is more than probably Mohammed was well acquainted with; he having had sufficient opportunities of informing himself in those particulars, in his travels as a merchant in his younger years: and though it is not to be supposed his views at first were so extensive as afterwards, when they were enlarged by his good fortune, yet he might reasonably promise himself success in his first attempts from thence. As he was a man of extraordinary parts and address, he knew how to make the best of every incident, and turn what might seem dangerous to another, to his own advantage. Mohammed came into the world under some disadvantages, which he soon surmounted. His father Abd'allah was a younger son2 of Abd'almotalleb, and dying very young and in his father's lifetime, left
1 Vide Teixeira, Relaciones de los Reyes de Persia, p. 195, &c. 2 He was not his eldest son, as Dr. Prideaux tells us, whose reflections built on that foundation must necessarily fail (see his Life of Mahomet, p. 9); nor yet his youngest son, as M. De Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahommed, p. 182, &c) supposes; for Hamza and al Abbâs were both younger than Abd'allah.
his widow and infant son in very mean circumstances, his whole substance consisting but of five camels and one Ethiopian she-slave.1 Abd'almotalleb was therefore obliged to take care of his grandchild Mohammed, which he not only did during his life, but at his death enjoined his eldest son Abu Tâleb, who was brother to Abd'allah by the same mother, to provide for him for the future; which he very affectionately did, and instructed him in the business of a merchant, which he followed; and to that end he took him with him into Syria when he was but thirteen, and afterward recommended him to Khadîjah, a noble and rich widow, for her factor, in whose service he behaved himself so well, that by making him her husband she soon raised him to an equality with the richest in Mecca. After he began by this advantageous match to live at his ease, it was that he formed the scheme of establishing a new religion, or, as he expressed it, of replanting the only true and ancient one, professed by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets,2 by destroying the gross idolatry into which the generality of his countrymen had fallen, and weeding out the corruptions and superstitions which the latter Jews and Christians had, as he thought, introduced into their religion, and reducing it to its original purity, which consisted chiefly in the worship of the one only GOD. Whether this was the effect of enthusiasm, or only a design to raise himself to the supreme government of his country, I will not pretend to determine. The latter is the general opinion of the Christian writers, who agree that ambition, and the desire of satisfying his sensuality, were the motives of his undertaking. It may be so; yet his first views, perhaps, were not so interested. His original design of bringing the pagan Arabs to the knowledge of the true GOD, was certainly noble, and highly to be commended; for I cannot possibly subscribe to the assertion of a late learned writer,3 that he made the nation exchange their idolatry for another religion altogether as bad. Mohammed was no doubt fully satisfied in his conscience of the truth of his grand point, the unity of GOD, which was what he chiefly attended to; all his other doctrines and institutions being rather accidental and unavoidable, than premeditated and designed. Since then Mohammed was certainly himself persuaded of his grand article of faith, which, in his opinion, was violated by all the rest of the world; not only by the idolaters, but by the Christians, as well those who rightly worshipped Jesus as GOD, as those who superstitiously adored the Virgin Mary, saints, and images; and also by the Jews, who are