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THE MOHAMMEDAN CONTROVERSY
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Imams, and the "innumerable multitude"1 Mussulman
believers. Pfander, Rankin, and all our other writers, deny any spiritual
fulfilment of the promise, and hold that it was fulfilled in the rapid
increase of Ishmael's posterity and the twelve princes mentioned in Gen. xxv.
Does Mr. Forster, then, acknowledge the truth of Mohammedanism? Oh no; he
styles it a "false and spurious revelation," a "baleful
superstition," and its author an "imposter, earthly, sensual,
devilish, beyond even the licence of his own licentious creed." Let us
see, then, how he would make out this imposture to be the blessing
promised by God to Abraham; we shall give his views in his own words, and beg
of the reader to remark how he blends a spiritual with a temporal meaning, the
accomplishment of prophecy with the fulfilment of a promise:
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"The basis of the present
argument is laid in the existence of a prophetic promise to Abraham, in behalf
of his sons Isaac and Ishmael. By the terms of this promise, a blessing is
annexed to the posterity of each, and on Ishmael as well as on Isaac this
blessing is pronounced, because he was Abraham's seed, and as a special mark
of Divine favour. This last consideration is worth attending to ; since a
promise to Ishmael, thus connected by Jehovah Himself with his descent from
the faithful, seems to lead the mind naturally beyond the idea of a mere
temporal fulfilment. Some sufficient fulfilment, we are certainly
authorised and bound to expect for each branch of the original promise.
The striking literal correspondence between the terms of its two parts appears
to sanction the further expectation of an analogy equally strong between the
respective fulfilments: which expectation, moreover, receives fresh warrant
from the fact, that the promise in behalf of Ishmael was granted in answer to
a prayer of Abraham; in which he implored for Ishmael the blessing reserved
for Isaac" (p. 87). The promises thus parallel are found actually to have
had a parallel "fulfilment, as the facts of the case so strongly
indicate, in the rise and success of Mohammed, and in the temporal and
spiritual establishment of the Mohammedan superstition . . . . The facts of
the analogy are incontrovertible; they require to be, solved; and they admit
of but the one satisfactory solution. We have only to receive the original
promise to Abraham, according to the terms of it, as germinant and parallel in
both its parts ; and to recognise in Christianity and Mohammedanism its
twofold fulfilment, and the whole doubts and difficulties of the question
disappear" (p. 89).
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In arguing the existence of a spiritual blessing for Ishmael, great stress is
laid on its being the answer to Abraham's prayer.
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