nd performed in the tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand
years. [98] According to another legend, the apostle confounded in a
national assembly the malicious challenge of the Koreish. His resistless
word split asunder the orb of the moon: the obedient planet stooped from
her station in the sky, accomplished the seven revolutions round the
Caaba, saluted Mahomet in the Arabian tongue, and, suddenly contracting
her dimensions, entered at the collar, and issued forth through the
sleeve, of his shirt. [99] The vulgar are amused with these marvellous
tales; but the gravest of the Mussulman doctors imitate the modesty of
their master, and indulge a latitude of faith or interpretation. [100]
They might speciously allege, that in preaching the religion it was
needless to violate the harmony of nature; that a creed unclouded with
mystery may be excused from miracles; and that the sword of Mahomet was
not less potent than the rod of Moses.

[Footnote 96: See, more remarkably, Koran, c. 2, 6, 12, 13, 17. Prideaux
(Life of Mahomet, p. 18, 19) has confounded the impostor. Maracci, with
a more learned apparatus, has shown that the passages which deny his
miracles are clear and positive, (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 7-12,)
and those which seem to assert them are ambiguous and insufficient, (p.
12-22.)]

[Footnote 97: See the Specimen Hist. Arabum, the text of Abulpharagius,
p. 17, the notes of Pocock, p. 187-190. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 76, 77. Voyages de Chardin, tom. iv. p. 200-203. Maracci
(Alcoran, tom. i. p. 22-64) has most laboriously collected and confuted
the miracles and prophecies of Mahomet, which, according to some
writers, amount to three thousand.]

[Footnote 98: The nocturnal journey is circumstantially related by
Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed, c. 19, p. 33,) who wishes to think it a
vision; by Prideaux, (p. 31-40,) who aggravates the absurdities; and
by Gagnier (tom. i. p. 252-343,) who declares, from the zealous Al
Jannabi, that to deny this journey, is to disbelieve the Koran. Yet the
Koran without naming either heaven, or Jerusalem, or Mecca, has only
dropped a mysterious hint: Laus illi qui transtulit servum suum ab
oratorio Haram ad oratorium remotissimum, (Koran, c. 17, v. 1; in
Maracci, tom. ii. p. 407; for Sale's version is more licentious.) A
slender basis for the aerial structure of tradition.]

[Footnote 99: In the prophetic style, which uses the present or past for
the future,