1The Muezzin" began with Mahommedism. He is mentioned expressly in the capitulation of Jerusalem. "The Muezzin," said Omar, "that Calls the faithful to prayers, shall not stand on the steps of the Church of Constantine. The minarek, it may be observed, was not erected till 690 A.D.; and then first at the great Mosque of Damascus. D'Herbelot iii. 137. Hence the Muezzin's standing in Omaes time on the church-steps.
2 " Ye Christian dogs, ye know your option, the Koran, the tribute, or the sword." Such was Caled's characteristic address to the Romans before the battle of Aiznadin. Such, near 200 years after, that in the letter of the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid to the emperor Nicephorus; " Haroun Al Raschid, Commander of the Faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog." Gibb. ix. 390, x. 54. In later years it has been the same from the Turks, and from the same cause. " What care I whether the dog eat the hog, or the hog eat the dog" was the Vizier Kitiperli's answer to the French Ambassador, on his informing him of Louis XlVth's victories over the Spaniards. Eton's Turkey, p. 110.
3 The above is extracted from the Capitulation of Jerusalem granted by Omar; a document given by Al Wakedi, and copied into the Modem Univ. Hist. i. 429 Compare Gibb. ix. 499; who speaks of these degrading enactments as in force 200 years after.
4 And in those days shall the men seek death, and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them." Verse 6. A statement, of which the meaning is made clear by the parallel one in Jer. viii. 3; where it is said of the Jews taken captive to Babylon; " And death shall be chosen, rather than life, by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them." And so again Job iii. 20; " Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul I Which long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures: which rejoice exceedingly when they can find the grave." It is a strong proverbial expression of great wretchedness.
5 I Kings 22:21,23. It is well to remember that the spirits of evil, as well as of good have an individuality of work and office, as well as of person. As to the name noticed, it simply means character; just as in Mark 5:9; our name is Legion, for we are many.
6 So Gibbon x. 2: " The calm historian,.. who strives to follow the rapid course of the Saracens, must study to explain by what means the Church and State were saved from this impending, and as it should seem, inevitable danger." And Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 169. "These conquests, which astonish the careless and superficial, are less perplexing to a calm inquirer than their cessation: the loss of half the Roman empire. than the preservation of the rest." Also ibid. p. 3.
7 Gib. x. 21, 23. Sismondi, ii. 48. In Vol. ix. p. 483, Gibbon thus notices, further, the design of the Moorish conqueror Musa against all Christendom: "to extinguish in Gaul and Italy the declining kingdoms of the Franks and Lombards; to preach the unity of God on the altar of the Vatican; thence, subduing the barbarians of Germany, to follow the course of the Danube to the Euxine sea; to overthrow the Greek or Roman empire of Constantinople; and, returning from Europe to Asia, to unite his new acquisitions with Antioch and the province of Syria."
8 For 30 days went to a month. E. g. if we compare Gen. 7:11 and 8:3, 4, it will appear that 150 days are the equivalent of five months.
9 Verse 5; " And it was given them that they (the apostatized Christians) should be tormented by them five months; and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when it has struck a man; and in those days men shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them." Verse 10; "And their power is to injure the men five months.
"The period seems to me to be twice noticed, only by way of emphasis; like those in Rev. 12:6,14; 20:4, 6. That is, if we accept Griesbach's and the received text in this clause.
10 Bishop Newton on Dan. xi. makes A. D. 606 the year in which Muhammad retired to his cave to forge this imposture.
11 Gibbon ix. 255, 256, 284 Mohammed's"-Hence his supposed prophetic call was in the fourteenth year previous to the flight of Medina: or (since this flight gave date to the famous Mahommedan era of the Hegira, A. D. 622) A.D. 609.
12 It is to be observed that the Christians in Arabia, and along the Red Sea, suffered previously to the year 629 from Mahomet's persecutions : e. g. those of Dawmat Al landal; as related by Al Iannabi, p. 147, referred to in the Mod. Univ. Hist. i. 137. Some were Roman subjects. See the Note about the Roman dependencies in the Red Sea, p. 420 supri.
13 Some object to the application of this principle, for the determining of the commencing epoch of the woe. To myself, common sense seems to require it. On what other principle do we decide on the particular Persian Edict of restoration, whence to date the 70 weeks of Daniel ? So too as to the 400 years of Gen. xv. 13.
Mr. Birks prefers the reckoning from Muhammad's death, and the Caliph Abu beker's accession A.D. 632, to 782, when Haroun Al Rashid carried on a fierce and successful aggression on the Eastern Empire, and concluded a treaty by which the empire was made a permanent tributary to the caliph. I refer the reader to some subsequent remarks on this point, and the double reckoning of the 150 years, also preferred by M. Birks.
14 In Muhammad's celebrated Letter to Chosroes the Persian king, enjoining him to acknowledge him as the Apostle of God, and on his refusal, and tearing the letter, declaring, " God will so tear the kingdom of Chosroes," occurred as early as A.D. 615, according to Boulainvilliers. See his Life of Muhammad. Gibbon would place it somewhat later. Gibbon. viii. 226.
15 The Syrian war was from 632 to 638, A.D.; the Egyptian from 638 to 640; the African began 647. The conquests of the Saracens, suspended in Africa near twenty years, were resumed 665, and in 689 advanced to the Atlantic. In A.D. 670 Cairoan was founded, their African capital. The conquest of Africa was completed in a war from 698 to 709. That of Spain occupied them from 710 to713. That of the south of France, from the Garonne to the Rhone, was effected, 721; to the Loire, 731. The battle of Poitiers was in the month of October, 732: i. e. (as it would seem that the date of Mahomet's public opening of his mission, A.D. 612. Was in an earlier month than October, perhaps July) at the beginning of the fifth prophetic month. So Daubuz, p. 414, 415.
16 "It is now believed that the slaughter at the battle near Poitiers was by no means immense, and even that the Saracens retired without a decisive action." So Mr. Hallam, Note 14 to the Supplement to his Middle Ages. He refers to Sismondi ii. 132, Michelet ii. 13.
17 This is stated in Paul Warnefrid's History of the Lombards: and he says that Luithrand, accordingly, crossed the Alps to give the requested aid to Charles Martel.
18 Pepin recovered Septimania and Narbonne till A.D. 750. Sism. ti. 59
19 Fleury (Hist. Eccles. ix. 297) gives from Sandoval (p. o7, the substance of a treaty between an Arabian chief, and the Goths and Romans of Coimbra in Portugal, fixing the tax to be paid by them for permission to live as Christians; a treaty of the date A.D. 734
20 In A.D. 750 a lieutenant of Africa informed the Caliph that the tribute of the Infidels was abolished by their conversion. Gib. ix. 495
21 Fall of Roman Empire, Vol. ii. p. 92. He dates it about the middle of August
22 See the Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. ii. pp. 277, 279, 284, for a full account of the building of Baghdad, and with the original Arabic authorities subjoined. The palace of Al Manzor, and the oldest part of the city, were built on the western or Euphratean side ; the fort of Al Mohdi on the eastern; round which the city afterwards chiefly gathered. So Benjamin of Tudela also reports of the site of the Caliph's palace in his time; i. e. in 1170. Travels, ch. xii.