ded traditions about
Muhammad which they ignorantly believed to be to His praise.

Thus some benighted Muslims made His polygamy the pivot of their praises
and held it to be a wonder, regarding it as a miracle; and European
historians, for the most part, rely on the tales of these ignorant people.

For example, a foolish man said to a clergyman that the true proof of
greatness is bravery and the shedding of blood, and that in one day on the
field of battle a follower of Muhammad had cut off the heads of one
hundred men! This misled the clergyman to infer that killing is considered
the way to prove one's faith to Muhammad, while this is merely imaginary.
The military expeditions of Muhammad, on the contrary, were always
defensive actions: a proof of this is that during thirteen years, in
Mecca, He and His followers endured the most violent persecutions. At this
period they were the target for the arrows of hatred: some of His
companions were killed and their property confiscated; others fled to
foreign lands. Muhammad Himself, after the most extreme persecutions by
the Quray_sh_ites, who finally resolved to kill Him, fled to Medina in the
middle of the night. Yet even then His enemies did not cease their
persecutions, but pursued Him to Medina, and His disciples even to
Abyssinia.

These Arab tribes were in the lowest depths of savagery and barbarism, and
in comparison with them the savages of Africa and wild Indians of America
were as advanced as a Plato. The savages of America do not bury their
children alive as these Arabs did their daughters, glorying in it as being
an honorable thing to do.(7) Thus many of the men would threaten their
wives, saying, "If a daughter is born to you, I will kill you." Even down
to the present time the Arabs dread having daughters. Further, a man was
permitted to take a thousand women, and most husbands had more than ten
wives in their household. When these tribes made war, the one which was
victorious would take the women and children of the vanquished tribe
captive and treat them as slaves.

When a man who had ten wives died, the sons of these women rushed at each
other's mothers; and if one of the sons threw his mantle over the head of
his father's wife and cried out, "This woman is my lawful property," at
once the unfortunate woman became his prisoner and slave. He could do
whatever he wished with her. He could kill her, imprison her in a well, or
beat, curse and torture her until