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THE MOHAMMEDAN CONTROVERSY
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by one sentence, which the angel
Gabriel could have delivered and explained to any one of the Prophets." Lee
replies:— "However this might have been done concerns not us to know. Our
question is not, as to what might have been, done, but what has been done. If
the Almighty had thought proper, He might have revealed His will in ways totally
different from those which He has chosen; but as His will has been revealed, it
is our duty to inquire what that is, and not to suggest what might have
been" (p. 560).
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And, again, as to the miracles ascribed to Mohammed:—
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"They are either said to have been performed in private, as his being
saluted as a prophet by stocks and stones, when he was a child; or are false,
such as his dividing the moon, causing the sun to stand still, etc., which
would have been recorded by the Greeks and others had any such thing actually
taken place; or they were executed for no adequate purpose whatever, such as
the poisoned shoulder of mutton speaking.1 . . . Again, as to the
number of the witnesses to these miracles, they may generally be reduced to
one: Ali, for instance, or Ayesha, or Hasan, or Hosein, who delivered the
account orally to someone who delivered it to another in the same way:— and
so, after many generations, the account is committed to writing by Kuleini, or
Bochari, or some other respectable collector of traditions. These, then, are
copied by a number of compilers who follow; and then the number calculated to
produce assurance is cited as worthy of all credit!" (p. 567).
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The subject of such traditions, as evidence competent to prove miracles, is
ably treated by Pfander in his Mîzân-ul-Haqq, where he shows that the
original witnesses were interested, that their testimony never exceeded
hearsay, and had already become shadowy before it was committed to paper; and
that the traditions refute themselves from the absurdity as well as
discrepancy of their contents. This is a topic of extreme importance; what we
require, is a sifting analysis of the traditions, according to the probable
dates of their being recorded; an account of the individuals who registered
them; of the means they possessed for arriving at a true knowledge of the
facts; and of the number through whom they successively descended. Such a
manual would prove useful to the missionary; and, if written in a proper
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