inhorrescere nobis debet animus"). The learned Abbé Maracci, who in 1698
produced a Latin translation of the Qorân accompanied by an elaborate
refutation, was no less than Hottinger imbued with the necessity of
shuddering at every mention of the "false" Prophet, and Dr. Prideaux,
whose _Vie de Mahomet_ appeared in the same year in Amsterdam, abused and
shuddered with them, and held up his biography of Mohammed as a mirror to
"unbelievers, atheists, deists, and libertines."

It was a Dutch scholar, H. Reland, the Utrecht professor of theology, who
in the beginning of the eighteenth century frankly and warmly recommended
the application of historical justice even towards the Mohammedan religion;
in his short Latin sketch of Islâm[1] he allowed the Mohammedan authorities
to speak for themselves. In his "Dedicatio" to his brother and in his
extensive preface he explains his then new method. Is it to be supposed,
he asks, that a religion as ridiculous as the Islâm described by Christian
authors should have found millions of devotees? Let the Moslims themselves
describe their own religion for us; just as the Jewish and Christian
religions are falsely represented by the heathen and Protestantism by
Catholics, so every religion is misrepresented by its antagonists. "We
are mortals, subject to error; especially where religious matters are
concerned, we often allow ourselves to be grossly misled by passion."
Although it may cause evil-minded readers to doubt the writer's orthodoxy
he continues to maintain that truth can only be served by combating her
opponents in an honourable way.

[Footnote 1: _H. Relandi de religione Mohammedica libri duo_, Utrecht, 1704
(2d ed. 1717).]

"No religion," says Reland, "has been more calumniated than Islâm,"
although the Abbé Maracci himself could give no better explanation of the