the incidents with which they find fault, are all exaggerated,
if not entirely without foundation.

Briefly, Muhammad appeared in the desert of Hijaz in the Arabian
Peninsula, which was a desolate, sterile wilderness, sandy and
uninhabited. Some parts, like Mecca and Medina, are extremely hot; the
people are nomads with the manners and customs of the dwellers in the
desert, and are entirely destitute of education and science. Muhammad
Himself was illiterate, and the Qur'an was originally written upon the
bladebones of sheep, or on palm leaves. These details indicate the
condition of the people to whom Muhammad was sent. The first question
which He put to them was, "Why do you not accept the Pentateuch and the
Gospel, and why do you not believe in Christ and in Moses?" This saying
presented difficulties to them, and they argued, "Our forefathers did not
believe in the Pentateuch and the Gospel; tell us, why was this?" He
answered, "They were misled; you ought to reject those who do not believe
in the Pentateuch and the Gospel, even though they are your fathers and
your ancestors."

In such a country, and amidst such barbarous tribes, an illiterate Man
produced a book in which, in a perfect and eloquent style, He explained
the divine attributes and perfections, the prophethood of the Messengers
of God, the divine laws, and some scientific facts.

Thus, you know that before the observations of modern times--that is to
say, during the first centuries and down to the fifteenth century of the
Christian era--all the mathematicians of the world agreed that the earth
was the center of the universe, and that the sun moved. The famous
astronomer who was the protagonist of the new theory discovered the
movement of the earth and the immobility of the sun.(11) Until his time
all the astronomers and philosophers of the world followed the Ptolemaic
system, and whoever said anything against it was considered ignorant.
Though Pythagoras, and Plato during the latter part of his life, adopted
the theory that the annual movement of the sun around the zodiac does not
proceed from the sun, but rather from the movement of the earth around the
sun, this theory had been entirely forgotten, and the Ptolemaic system was
accepted by all mathematicians. But there are some verses revealed in the
Qur'an contrary to the theory of the Ptolemaic system. One of them is "The
sun moves in a fixed place," which shows the fixity of the sun, and its
movemen