Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam: The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism

HAT GOD IS ONE GOD; that there is none other; that He hath no equal,1 no son nor associate; that His eternity hath neither beginning nor end; that it is impossible to explain properly His attributes, and that no intellect can comprehend the extent of His dominion; that contemplative men may conjecture at His being by the daily occurents on earth, but never understand His essence; that the heavens are His throne, the earth His footstool, but that the government of both is no trouble to Him; that He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, who sits upon the universal throne by His essence, and by His understanding penetrates into all things; that His providence disposeth of all affairs below, neither doth anything fall out, not the corn grow, not the grass wither but according to the decrees of His eternal predestination; that whatsoever man doth ascribe to Him or imagine to be in Him, it is eternal, and those attributes do not argue any composition or distinction in His being; that all things in this world, good or evil, befall us according to His will; that the beginnings, progress, and conclusion of all emergencies depend absolutely upon Him: and that He determined from all eternity whatsoever should come to pass; that His knowledge extends to the deepest secrets; that nothing happens against or not according to His pleasure; that in all matters to think, to will, to do, depends upon Him; that the souls of men are immortal; that those who are preserved by faith and the intercession of the apostles of God—Moses, Isa, Mahomet—from sin do upon death live in happiness until the resurrection and day of judgment;² that those who are more or less wicked must in the grave and in a kind of purgatory undergo some torments until the last day, and there with more or less difficulty they shall be saved, but that nothing of evil, how little so ever, shall escape unpunished, nor any thing of good, how small so ever, pass unrewarded.³

This is the sum of the Mahometans’ religion.

As to the manner whereby the Alcoran doth explicate their purgatory or paradise: it is not to be censured by the Christians. It is evident that the Jews, Judaizing Christians, and other sects of Christians were diffused through Arabia <130> and Mahomet, as he continued the ancient usages, so he retained those principles which the nation had imbibed and which he had the Christians and Jews to depose for. Such were those, not only concerning the torments in the grave, praying for the dead, and purgatory, but also of paradise and its joys, as he expresseth in his Alcoran. Doth not Isa (Luke 22:30) speak of eating and drinking at his table in his kingdom and of drinking wine there (Mark 14:25)? I profess that I cannot distinguish betwixt the paradise described by the Jews (and consequently avowed by the Judaizing Christians) and that which Mahomet doth propose to his followers, and if the words be the same I cannot see why they are not as liable to any equitable construction, according as the reason or prejudices of men do sway, as anything delivered by the Jews or Christians.⁴ Since all the descriptions we use concerning the senses and nature of glorified bodies are equivocal and deduced from what we are accustomed to upon earth; since God himself in scripture is described with the parts, actions, and passions of a man, I do not comprehend wherein lies the fault or ignorance in giving the like account of paradise.

Much might be said for the Mahometan doctrine of predestination, did I think any doubted but that it was the general tenet of the Jews and primitive Christians. And, in reference to the soldiery, none venture their lives in battle like those who suppose they cannot die before their appointed time, that all the contrivances of men depend upon the sovereign will of God, that there is no such thing as chance or any mistakes in the management of human affairs but are all swayed by destiny. In the late wars of England it was an observation of O. Cromwell’s that the best fighters were of this opinion and he gave no encouragement to such preachers as taught the contrary.⁵

As to the rites and ceremonies used in their prayers, pilgrimages, and other occasions: many of them if not all were anciently used by the Arabians and prudentially accommodated. These are not reckoned as fundamentals or principal points of their religion, but as trials of their obedience to the more necessary law they teach.6 it adds to the majesty of the author of their religion that there be some parts thereof, some institutions, which transcend our reason: that where our intellect doth comprehend and assent to write or command as good <131> or wise, albeit our compliance be most exact and ready, yet our devotion is less than when we entirely obey upon the command of God since in the other case, we seem rather to follow our own judgment than that of the legislator.⁷ And that as in great empires the reverence to the prince is best secured and established where some capricious and arbitrary decrees intervene and amaze rather than inform the minds of the subjects, so in religion, our obedience becomes more perfect when we know that the divine intellect and will is not subordinate or conformable to ours, but transcends it.

The Mosaical constitutions give much countenance to this plea and an allegorical brain which knows how to dive into mysteries may undoubtedly find out rich mines of knowledge, types, and figures in Mahometanism. Amongst these trials of obedience, they reckon the observation of Friday, circumcision, abstinence from swine’s flesh and blood, etcetera. But as to circumcision and those other ceremonies purely Arabian, I take them to be extremely necessary to such an empire as he designed. And, his country not yielding numbers sufficient for the pursuance thereof, this obliging all to circumcision, et cetera, was no less wisdom than old Rome practiced in denizening foreigners or the Jews in their proselytes. And Mahomet, by prohibiting his Alcoran to be translated into other languages, did (as far as in him lay) oblige all his followers to an unity of language. And, certainly, an unity of language, religion, and customs conduceth very much to the strength and peace of a monarchy.⁸

Concerning some particular institutions of Mahomet, it may not be amiss to treat because they seem to evince his great prudence as a legislator. One is the permission of polygamy. The Alcoran gives liberty to each Musulman to take to himself as many wives as he pleaseth: two, three, four, or more, except he fear he is unable to render all due benevolence.9 Neither is there any positive restraint in their law to a determinate number, wherein the doctrine of Mahomet doth exactly agree with the Law of Nature as Grotius, St. Austin, and all the Jewish rabbins even to Maimonides, whose saying exactly agrees with Mahomet’s. As to <132> the Law of Nature, I do aver, as you may see in Selden.¹⁰ But what the Law of Nature doth so indefinitely permit, the Mosaical Law hath somewhat moderated, for the kings of Israel are forbidden to multiply unto themselves wives (Deuteronomy 17:17). It is evident that David had several wives besides his concubines, even to the number of six or eight,¹¹ and the rabbins tell us that the Jewish king might have eighteen wives, notwithstanding that precept. And that David did not sin therein doth appear hence, that God upbraideth him as with a particular favor that he had done him in giving him sundry wives (2 Samuel 12:8). And where his sins are reckoned up, it is said that David turned not aside from all that the Lord had commanded him, except in the case of Uriah’s wife (1 Kings 15:5). As to private persons, there are rules fixed in the Levitical Law concerning such as have two wives how to demean themselves (Deuteronomy 21:15). And the precept of the brother marrying with his brother’s wife is believed generally to conclude married persons also,¹² so that we cannot imagine polygamy to be interdicted to the Jews.

If we consult Christianity, whether polygamy be thereby prohibited to all or only to bishops, who ought to be the husband of one wife (1Timothy 3: 2) may be a question. The Emperor Valentinian made a law that any man might have two wives and married two himself.¹³ It doth not seem to be a part of the ceremonial law, nor politically confined to the Jews only. How then comes it to be abrogated? Besides it was indubitably practiced by the Judaizing Christians, from whom Mahomet derived much of his religion and is practiced by the Jews in the east to this day: “Judei orientales plures ducunt uxores; occidentalibus quidem licet, sed honoris gratia non faciunt. Paulus noluit Christianos plures ducere et praecipue episcopos, ut sic Judaeis os obturaret qui Christianis hoc objiciebant. Judaeis non praecipit ut cum tres habeant, duas repudient, unam servent.”¹⁴

So that we may conjecture that Mahomet was led by the Judaizing Christians that polygamy was not prohibited by their gospel, and that he esteemed that tenet to be a corruption in the vulgar gospels and inconsistent with his doctrine who came not to abolish but to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17), being rather <133> a paganical tenet derived from the Roman constitutions and complied with by the degenerate Christians. It is indeed remarkable that the Mahometans do upon tradition permit but four wives, and since this tradition is conformable to the Jewish doctrines, why may we not think it consonant to that of the Judaizing Christians?¹⁵

As for concubines, it seems they are not repugnant to the Law of Nature since Abraham, Nachor, Jacob, Eliphaz retained them; nor to the Mosaical Law since Gideon had one and Saul, David, Solomon, and Rehoboam many.16 It was not held inconsistent with Christianity in the days of Justinian for a single Christian to have a concubine, nor is it prohibited by the Canon Law.¹⁷ By the Mahometan laws and usages a Musulman hath no stint as to concubines, but they must not be other than slaves (between which a Musulman, by their civil law, no marriage can intervene).¹⁸ Upon inquiry, I find that polygamy and the use of concubines were most ancient and inveterate practices of the ancient world. And Mahomet might thereupon comply with them: they were both exceedingly subservient to the multiplying of subjects which is the sinew of empire and therefore prudential. They were requisite upon another score because that in the east and south it is observed that there are far more women than men: and he who pretended to be a prophet and a follower of Abraham, Moses, Isa, et cetera had their precedents and the Law of Nature to justify him in the allowance.

I do not find that polygamy is a piece of sensuality in the Mahometan religion or any argument thereof, nor one sentence in their whole religion, either Alcoran or traditions, tending that way. You may sooner hope to find such suggestions in the Old and New Testament. Yet there is as much luxury in the discipline of their prophet as in the constitutions of Lycurgus.19 I have in the embassy of Ali represented the sense of the Mahometans concerning the pleasures of this life. As to those of the future, I know not why he should be so blamed for representing the joys of paradise by sensual delights. For if our souls must rise with the same bodies which we have here, excepting that our mortality shall put on immortality (for pleasure ariseth as <134> knowledge doth from our senses), and though the stoical and Christian (I add and Mahometan) arguments are conclusive against placing of happiness in sensuality here on earth, yet if we imagine our bodies to be of the same kind and only glorified, the state of the question varieth, and they all come to nothing. The four rivers of paradise of pure water, excellent milk, rich wine, and pure honey are the same with those of the Jews, saving that the rabbins would have their wine spiced, and that they think the Leviathan and Behemoth will make as good dishes there as caviar and botargo or sturgeon here. And they will have a river of oil and balsam, also viands of fruit, and bread, and butter, and thirty-seven tables made of pearl. And the description of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:22) doth so much resemble the paradise of Mahomet that one would hardly imagine that any should condemn the latter as ridiculous and gross and yet approve the former as spiritual truth. And the condemnation of the wicked to a lake of brimstone fire hath as much of folly as the paradise of Mahomet.²⁰

But this is a digression.

If I may conjecture another reason besides what policy suggested to Mahomet, I would deduce it from hence: that he held (as did the Jews and Judaizing Christians) that all men were absolutely obliged by that first precept of increasing and multiplying which could not be fulfilled by the sterile or those who left no issue behind them.²¹ And as the Mahometan marriages have an aspect this way, so there is nothing therein or in their divorces (which last were allowed by the ancient Christian emperors and the laws of the Goths and Franks in several cases) which the Jews and other oriental nations will not justify, as you may read in Selden’s treatise concerning an Hebrew wife.

Another prudent law of Mahomet was that whereby he prohibited usury to his Musulmen. It was an ancient Arabian law that every man ought to improve his estate and that every one that did should be honored and who did not should be punished.²² This prudent legislator, knowing of what importance it was to an empire that was to be great and lasting, that the subjects be not <135> too poor and needy, lest that incline them to rebellion and revolt against their prince, nor exasperated against each other (whence arises revenge, unjust self-preservation, and all its evil consequences) as frequently happens upon usury, amended this former law. And, besides his general obligation to deeds of charity, he did enjoin all his Musulmen to follow some trade or vocation whence he desired this other benefit, that his people had their thoughts and bodies perpetually employed (which is a great secret in government and which perhaps was the reason of the public shows among the Romans, et cetera) and the poorer tradesmen were the better satisfied, their employments not being accounted dishonorable.

Since the prince and the basket maker were of one trade (behold another political mystery), and to prevent any inconvenience that his Musulmen might not hold usury as lawful as trade and object that the bartering and exchange of goods was a sort of usury, he declares in a surat that God had permitted the one but not the other. By his law it is prohibited any Musulman to practice usury not only with a Musulman but with any Christian living under the protection of their monarchy. Nay, if he comes out of any territory not subject to them, usury with him is unlawful.23 Any man that considers the civil laws of Mahomet will find perpetual reasons to admire his subtlety and wisdom. It was a secret of Moses that no Israelite should practice usury with an Israelite: and this was very well, considering that Moses did not design to enlarge the Jewish empire but to preserve his people entire and unanimous in their narrow precincts.

But Mahomet, proposing vaster designs, prohibits it to all strangers living under the protection of the Musulmen. For, had this been permitted, there being such a multitude of Christians and others among them, this questuosa segnities (as Pliny calls it),²⁴ the facile way of growing rich by usury would have effeminated the Mahometans. The frequent and great quarrels and tumults arising upon usury would have endangered their empire and rendered the government odious and oppressive to the stranger subjects: whereof he prohibited all usury with them. But yet it is a rule in their law that a Musulman may practice usury with a Christian living in a foreign territory and, by such means, extort or cheat out of him his estate,²⁵ the reason of which is because such persons <136> are, as it were, in a perpetual hostility with them, and where a war is always deemed lawful against them, usury may be put in execution. The Mahometan reason: “Quia facultates eorum patent veluti ad praedam et direptio earum licita est quacunque via” is the same which St. Ambrose gives: “Cui jure inferuntur arma, huic legitime indicantur usure: quem bello vincere potes, de hoc [cito] potes [centesima] vindicare te. Ab hoc usuram exige, quem non fit crimen occidere. Sine ferro dimicat qui usuram flagitat. Sine gladio se de hoste ulciscitur qui fuerit usuraruis exactor inimici. Ergo ubi jus belli, ibi etiam jus usuræ.”²⁶ Let then that please censure Mahomet as ignorant and brutish. Some discourses of politics, considering what evils arise from the Levitical permission of usury with strangers, would prefer the wisdom of Mahomet before that of Moses.

This puts me in mind of another Mahometan constitution against gaming and accumulating riches by any kind of lottery,27 which he prohibits, as also wine, as introducing discord and poverty and a neglect of their duty to God. From this law it appears how prudently Mahomet did weigh the least and most remote consequences and would not allow of those distinctions betwixt abuse and use or those sophisms by which the Christians delude themselves into practices that terminate at last in the ruin of their commonwealth. He knew how much it imported a Musulman to pray to God and have him reverentially before his eyes always. He foresaw that such as were given to gaming and engaged by the hopes of further winning or sense of losing would be apt to forget their sallah or daily prayers and so lapse into irreligion. He foresaw that gaming and the profits arising thence would induce men to cheat each other and that the first principle of cheating was a contempt of God, a disregard of other men, and an inordinate desire of wealth. It was his usual saying that he that was professed with a vehement thirst after riches and temporal advantages is in a fair way to commit all manner of wickedness. He knew that private quarrels often occasioned public damages and involved families, towns, and kingdoms in an universal ruin. Nor did the inconveniences seem less which follow private losses, which not only include the small detriment of a few, but many, and excite the desperate and needy to the highest and most pernicious attempts in which the public suffers. He knew that the examples of some gamesters infect others, <137> that men are naturally more prone to hope than fear, to be idle than work, to neglect than attend the service of God, to desire trials of enriching themselves suddenly though with great hazards, rather than stay the tedious procedure which industry and wisdom puts them on, and therefore made this severe prohibition, the strictness whereof is such that he permits them not so much as to draw lots who shall pay a shot.²⁸

Whether it were his great prudence or care for the worship of the true God, I shall not determine. But certainly his legislative care extended far when he prohibited all observation of omens and all divination by lots, as debates to do or forbear an action by opening the Alcoran as the Romans did Virgil, or shooting an arrow into the air, or drawing an arrow out of the sheaf wherein should be written: “It is not the pleasure of God.” This great prophet would not suffer his Musulmen to employ anything but reason in their debates. He imprinted in their minds that there is not any such thing as chance, no mistakes in providence whereby that befalls one which God intended for another;²⁹ and that it was a sort of atheism to imagine that God would reveal that by the flight or cry of a bird which He would conceal from human prudence; or to conceive that a man’s hand could discover more than His judgment; that the Alcoran and conduct of prudence were less available to our direction than the blind drawing out or shooting up of an arrow.

It were an endless task to descant upon the particular motives upon which depends the excellency of his laws. What a discourse might be made upon his uniting the civil and ecclesiastical powers in one sovereign, upon his rejecting all the Christian scripture rather than decide amidst so great uncertainty of books and so difficult rules to judge of the right and to reconcile the different sects and tenets. Was it not prudently foreseen that it would be more easy to introduce a new religion than to reform such a one, and well conjectured that all interested parties would more willingly submit to a novel doctrine than yield themselves to have been all in an error except one party?

It may perhaps be urged as an argument of Mahomet’s ignorance that he denies all contagion in the pest and other diseases in man or beast. But if we consider that Hippocrates speaks nothing thereof,30 and that much may be said for it out of physic and the doctrine of predestination, this objection will have less force than is usually imagined and in reference to the wisdom of it and the successes which his followers have <138> gained by that opinion, whilst the Christians yield up their towns, break up their camps, and upon contrary apprehensions these things plead highly for it.

Alcoran—As to the Alcoran, I have shewed that it was not all written at one time but by parcels and upon several occasions. And it was no small obstacle to his progress that for want of paper the prophet was forced to write the scattered surats at first upon the bones of sheep and other cattle from which occasion perhaps some surats received their appellations, as that of “The Cow.” It was never reduced into one volume by Mahomet, but by the care of Abubacr,³¹ his immediate successor, who made a collection of all that had been scatteredly written by the Prophet upon the bones or skins of animals, or leaves of palms, or preserved in the memory of his auditors, and deposited this entire copy with Hapsa, the daughter of Omar and wife of Mahomet.³²

And, after him, Othman, the third successor of the caliphs, suppressed all the spurious copies which either the ignorance or malice of men had diffused and ordered all for the future to be transcribed out of the copy of Hapsa.33 This Alcoran is written in Arabic verse. It is not one continued poem, but a collection of sundry surats or poems which Mahomet published occasionally,³⁴ the language, the numbers, the style are all so exquisite, inimitable, that Mahomet himself doth frequently urge this as the ground authentic testimony of his apostleship, that the Alcoran doth surpass all human wit and fancy, and offered to be counted an impostor if any man could but write ten verses equal to any therein. The Mahometans esteem each line of it as an entire miracle and say that, if miracles do attest to the reality of a prophet, the author of the Alcoran brought three thousand demonstrations of his legislative power; that other miracles, being once performed in the sight of a few, lose much of their evidence and certainly when they are communicated to posterity. But God by Mahomet took a better course by leaving to mankind one lasting miracle, the truth whereof should in all ages be satisfactory and convincing.

This is the assertion of Bredani and of Ahmed Ben Edris and the words of Algazali are these:³⁵

The Alcoran, a transcendent miracle, and which is more, one that is permanent, from generation to generation. Nor is there any lasting miracle of the prophet, excepting that whereunto he appealed, challenging all the wits of Arabia (and Arabia did then abound with thousands whose chief study was eloquence and poetry) to make one chapter or more that might compare therewith <139> and thereby demonstrated to the most incredulous, the truth of his prophesy. And God said concerning it, that if all men and angels should combine to write anything like it, they should fail in their enterprise.

I do not find any understanding author who doth controvert the elegancy of the Alcoran, and it hath this advantage over the Christian Bible, that being a poem there is a greater liberty allowed to fiction, figurative expressions, and allegories than is allowed of in prose. Also defects in chronology and errors in history are here tolerable, though, for my part, I believe that many of the incoherencies and chronological and historical defaults are voluntary, partly because the vulgar, being prepossessed with them (in many cases this is evident to have dissented thereform) would have been prejudicial to his aims, the universal credit of the errors being likely to overbear the real truth of things, partly because it was a received tradition among the Jews and Judaizing Christians (and it is now made use of as an apology for our scripture) that the Spirit of God in the prophets is not confined to the grammatical rules’ ordinary methods.

It is further observable that the Alcoran, being such a poem, is not to be judged of by any translation into prose, much less such as is formed in Christendom. Our English doth follow the French, and the French is very corrupt, altering and omitting many passages.36 There are so many stories alluded unto: such idioms of Arabic poetry and of the Arabian tongue that it is impossible to explicate it without the help of the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish commentaries, which our translators, not knowing (or for their interest) not regarding, they have obtruded to the world such figments as Mahomet never uttered.³⁷ I have often reflected upon the exceptions made by the Christians against the Alcoran and find them to be no other than what may be argued with the same strength against our Bible, and what the Christians say for themselves will fully justify the Alcoran. Therefore I will not excuse him by comparing the errors of Mahomet with those of the Talmud and our ecclesiastical history, or the popish legends or the fables recorded in our Fathers and believed by the primitive Christians.

As for miracles, I do not find but that Mahomet constantly rejected their authority as impertinent and unnecessary since so many were obtruded on the world (especially by the Christians) that he scorned the pretense. And he had this further reason: that true miracles and <140> false cannot be distinguished by any human test, that the wicked may do real miracles, that the original of miracles might be derived from magic, or are the effect of some celestial constellation ruling the nativity of particular persons. This last opinion was common among the Arabians and Chaldeans and the oriental astrologers so that for him to have insisted on miracles among them would have been to little purpose or advantage. Whatsoever of miracles befell him was ascribed to magic by the Coreischites.³⁸ And yet did they importune him to transfer mountains, raise the dead, produce an angel visibly, to all which he replied that the greatest of miracles was the Alcoran,³⁹ that such was their unbelief that they would be obstinate even against miracles and evade them by sundry pretensions.

That miracles were the works of God, not of man, that they never were arbitrary to the prophets, but God wrought them when, where, and how He pleased, and not only to confirm the truth, but sometimes to try His people; and that some prophets never wrought any: the Protestants in the beginning of the Reformation excused themselves handsomely as to this point. It is written of John Baptist expressly that he did no miracles nor do we read that Amos and others did any, that Antichrist may do some, and that the Papists have some real miracles. It would be tedious to transcribe their defense. Yet do I find those miracles recorded of Mahomet though it were his modesty or policy not to insist on them:

First. That he showed the people publicly the moon so cleft into two parts that a mountain was visible in it.40 Whether he had the use of any telescope or by what chance such an aperture discovered itself in the moon, I know not. But of this miracle there is no mention in the Alcoran, but it is said that before the end of the world such a rupture shall happen, and it bears a resemblance with the predictions of Christ concerning the end of the world. I find that some Mahometans do relate this miracle as if it had happened, but others deny it to have been done. And the Christians needed not to have spent themselves in refuting as impossible what is not pretended to have been done and what it is possible to have seen without the help of our modern glasses.

Secondly. That he, being afflicted with scorching heat, did once cause two trees to remove together thereby to shade him. <141>

Thirdly. That the stones saluted him in the streets and cried: “Peace unto thee O Apostle of God,” and it is reported of Mahomet that he should say that to his remembrance no stone saluted him in Mecca until God commissioned him for His prophet.

Fourthly. That twice when his army was in great distress for want of water, the prophet putting his hand into a little vessel of water, it issued thence betwixt his fingers in so great a quantity as to supply all their necessities.

Fifthly. That he fed multitudes with a little food, as eighty persons once with four measures of barley and one kid; at another time, also eighty persons with a little bread which multiplied as he brake it into pieces.

Lastly. That he relieved his whole army with a few dates which a damsel brought him in her hand, and there remained many after they were satisfied.

Sixthly. That an old beam or tree did groan audibly as loud as any camel when he removed his station where he preached (which was near to it and made use of a pulpit) and that when he returned to his usual place it desisted to groan.

Seventhly. That a camel came to him and complained of his master that he put him upon hard work and yet made slender provision to feed him.

Eighthly. That the sheep spake to him when he was eating the impoisoned shoulder of mutton and bid him beware to eat it because it was impoisoned.41

These are the miracles which are related concerning him whereupon the Mahometans do not much rely. Yet do they say that though they were not done but once or seldom, yet is the concurrent testimony of so many miracles joined together a pregnant evidence of the truth of his apostleship since they are related by credible witnesses who would not conspire to cheat mankind in such a matter; which is also the plea of the Christians and therefore not to be rejected lightly. But the most judicious of them do principally insist upon the Alcoran as a standing miracle, since many persons of singular eloquence did attempt to write the like but never could equal it.

As to the pretenses out of our scripture which were urged in his behalf by his followers, they are those: that God (in the law) is said to have come from Sinai, to have appeared in Seir and manifested himself in Paran: that is, the Mosaical Law came from Mount Sinai, the Gospel from Seir, which are mountains adjacent to <142> Jerusalem, and Paran are the mountains about Mecca where Mahomet arose.⁴²Also in the Psalms: it is said that God did manifest in Sion Ectilan Mahumidan, which words import in the Syriac version a glorious crown, but they mystically or by way of allusion to Mahmud and Mahomet did accommodate to their prophet. Lastly whereas it is said in the Gospel, “Except I go hence, the comforter shall not come,” this they interpret about Mahomet, and it is one of the names of Mahomet among the Saracens viz., the Comforter.⁴³