revealed those Biblical histories to him. But there can be no doubt, from the
constant identity between the Talmudic perversions of Scripture histories and
Rabbinic moral precepts, that the Rabbins of the Hejaz communicated their
legends to Muhammad. And it should be remembered that the Talmud was
completed a century previous to the era of Muhammad,7 and cannot fail to have
extensively influenced the religious creed of all the Jews of the Arabian
peninsula. In one passage,8 Muhammad speaks of an individual Jew-perhaps some
one of note among his professed followers, as a witness to his mission; and
there can be no doubt that his relations with the Jews were, at one time,
those of friendship and intimacy, when we find him speak of their recognising
him as they do their own children, and hear him blaming their most colloquial
expressions.9 It is impossible, however, for us at this distance of time to
penetrate the mystery in which this subject is involved. Yet certain it is,
that, although their testimony against Muhammad was speedily silenced, the
Koreisch knew enough of his private history to disbelieve and to disprove his
pretensions of being the recipient of a divine revelation, and that they
accused him of writing from the dictation of teachers morning and evening.10
And it is equally certain, that all the information received by Muhammad was
embellished and recast in his own mind and with his own words. There is a
unity of thought, a directness and simplicity of purpose, a peculiar and
laboured style, a uniformity of diction, coupled with a certain deficiency of
imaginative power, which proves the ayats (signs or verses) of the Koran at
least to be the product of a single pen. The longer narratives were,
probably, elaborated in his leisure hours, while the shorter verses, each
claiming to be a sign or miracle, were promulgated as occasion required them.
And, whatever Muhammad may himself profess in the Koran11 as to his
ignorance, even of reading and writing, and however strongly modern
Muhammadans may insist upon the same point an assertion by the way
contradicted by many good authors12-there can be no doubt that to assimilate
and work up his materials, to fashion them into elaborate Suras, to fit them