[Footnote 70: Those who believe that Mahomet could read or
write are incapable of reading what is written with another
pen, in the Suras, or chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix.
xcvi. These texts, and the tradition of the Sonna, are
admitted, without doubt, by Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,)
Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,) Pocock, (Specimen, p.
151,) Reland, (de Religione Mohammedica, p. 236,) and Sale,
(Preliminary Discourse, p. 42.) Mr. White, almost alone,
denies the ignorance, to accuse the imposture, of the
prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two short
trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not
sufficient to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of
Mecca: it was not in the cool, deliberate act of treaty,
that Mahomet would have dropped the mask; nor can any
conclusion be drawn from the words of disease and delirium.
The lettered youth, before he aspired to the prophetic
character, must have often exercised, in private life, the
arts of reading and writing; and his first converts, of his
own family, would have been the first to detect and upbraid
his scandalous hypocrisy, (White's Sermons, p. 203, 204,
Notes, p. xxxvi. - xxxviii.)
Note: (Academ. des Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that
the text of the seveth Sura implies that Mahomet could read,
the tradition alone denies it, and, according to Dr. Weil,
(p. 46,) there is another reading of the tradition, that "he
could not read well." Dr. Weil is not quite so successful in
explaining away Sura xxix. It means, he thinks that he had
not read any books, from which he could have borrowed. - M.
1845.]