ories, seven in number, are the heavens,
the highest being the habitation of God, whose throne--for the Koran
does not reject Assyrian ideas--is sustained by winged animal forms. The
shooting-stars are pieces of red-hot stone thrown by angels at impure
spirits when they approach too closely. Of God the Koran is full of
praise, setting forth, often in not unworthy imagery, his majesty.
Though it bitterly denounces those who give him any equals, and assures
them that their sin will never be forgiven; that in the judgment-day
they must answer the fearful question, "Where are my companions about
whom ye disputed?" though it inculcates an absolute dependence on the
mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all those who make a
merchandise of religion, its ideas of the Deity are altogether
anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic man living in a paradise. In this
respect, though exceptional passages might be cited, the reader rises
from a perusal of the 114 chapters of the Koran with a final impression
that they have given him low and unworthy thoughts; nor is it surprising
that one of the Mohammedan sects reads it in such a way as to find no
difficulty in asserting that, "from the crown of the head to the breast
God is hollow, and from the breast downward he is solid; that he has
curled black hair, and roars like a lion at every watch of the night."
The unity asserted by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction
to the Trinity of the Christians, and the doctrine of a divine
generation. Our Saviour is never called the Son of God, but always the
son of Mary. Throughout there is a perpetual acceptance of the delusion
of the human destiny of the universe. As to man, Mohammed is diffuse
enough respecting a future state, speaking with clearness of a
resurrection, the judgment-day, Paradise, the torment of hell, the worm
that never dies, the pains that never end; but, with all this precise
description of the future, there are many errors as to the past. If
modesty did not render it unsuitable to speak of such topics here, it
might be shown how feeble is his physiology when he has occasion to
allude to the origin or generation of man. He is hardly advanced beyond
the ideas of Thales. One who is so untrustworthy a guide as to things
that are past, cannot be very trustworthy as to events that are to come.

[Sidenote: Its literary inferiority compared with the Bible.]

Of the literary execution of his work, it is, perhaps, scarcely