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10

THE MOHAMMEDAN CONTROVERSY

Popes and Councils. We have room for no more extracts from Lee's Preface, which, though a useful introduction to the controversy, is wearisomely long; and turn now to the body of the work.

Henry Martyn's three tracts carry us back to the discussions of that devoted apologist during his residence in Persia. Lee gives us first the treatise of Mirza Ibrahim arising out of Martyn's visit to Shiraz, and his public disputations with the Moslem doctors there. It is evidently the work of an able and learned writer, and is remarkable for its freedom from anything harsh and virulent. His argument chiefly concerns miracles, of which he holds the Coran to be the chiefest. A miracle is an act exceeding human experience, accompanied by a prophetic claim and the challenge to produce the like. It may belong to any art, but must be witnessed by those best skilled in such art to be beyond human experience and power. As such the miracle must belong to the age in which the art in question is in the highest stage of perfection. Thus the miracles of Moses and Jesus belong to the arts of magic and physic, which had each reached perfection in their Prophet's day. The evidence of the magicians is accordingly deemed sufficient proof for the miracles of Moses, and that of the physicians for those of Jesus. But had these miracles occurred in any other age than that in which the respective arts flourished, such evidence would have been imperfect, and the miracles not binding. This strange text, — which Martyn in his reply shows to be founded on an inadequate knowledge of history, — the Mirza applies to the Coran, and proves, entirely to his own satisfaction, that it fulfils all the required conditions. For the miracle here belongs to the art of eloquence, and in it the Arabs of the day were the highest adepts of all ages. The Coran was accompanied by a challenge to produce the like, and when the Arabs confessed inability, then evidence, like that of the magicians and physicians in the case of Moses and Jesus, became equally binding. The Mirza further dilates on the superior and lasting character of the miracle, as an exhibition of supernatural

           

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