, irresistibly recalls, by force of
contrast, the parting words to his disciples of another religious
teacher that they should go forth and preach a gospel of peace to all
nations. Nor less striking in their contrast is the response to either
mandate;--the Arab, with the Koran in one hand and the sword in the
other, spreading his creed amid the glare of burning cities, and the
shrieks of violated homes, and the Apostles of Christ working in the
moral darkness of the Roman world with the gentle but irresistible power
of light, laying anew the foundations of society, and cleansing at their
source the polluted springs of domestic and national life."

[Sidenote: 121. Major Osborn refuted.]

The learned author quoted above has either misunderstood the character
of the wars of the Prophet of Islam, or has grossly misrepresented it.
He errs in two points: First, he makes the wars as wars of conquest,
compulsion, and aggression, whereas they were all undertaken in the
defence of the civil and religious rights of the early Moslems, who
were, as I have said before, persecuted, harassed, and tormented at
Mecca for their religion, and after a long period of persecution with
occasional fresh and vigorous measures, were condemned to severer and
harder sufferings, were expelled from their homes, leaving their dear
relations, and religious brethren to endure the calamities of the
persecution, and while taking refuge at Medina were attacked upon by
superior numbers, several of the surrounding tribes of Arabs and Jews
joining the aggressive Koreish, making ruinous inroads and threatening
the Moslems with still greater and heavier miseries. From this statement
it will appear that these wars were neither of conquest nor of
compulsory conversion. The second great mistake under which Major Osborn
seems to labour is that he takes the injunctions of war against the
Meccans or other aggressors as a general obligation to wage war against
all unbelievers in the Moslem faith. In fact, these injunctions were
only against those aggressors who had actually committed great
encroachments on the rights and liberties of the early Moslems, and had
inflicted very disastrous injuries on them. These injunctions had and
have nothing to do with the future guidance of the Moslem world.

[Sidenote: 122. The IXth Sura of the Koran.]

It is a great misrepresentation on the part of Major Osborn to assert
that "the ninth Sura is that which contains the Prophet's