Christians were in the habit of reading, the precepts of which they were
religiously to observe, and by the Judgments of which they were always to be
guided, he means, and cannot but mean, the Old and the New Testaments preserved
amongst the whole body of the Jews and Christians, read in their Churches,
Synagogues, and Monasteries, and studied in their private houses.
VI.IMPUTATIONS AGAINST THE JEWS.
The Jews are frequently accused in the Corân of being a rebellious and
stiff-necked people as their fathers had been, and of perverting the meaning of
their sacred books.
When Mahomet went to Medîna, he expected to find the Jews, who resided in
considerable numbers in the neighbourhood, favourable to his cause; and he
entered into a close treaty with them, a copy of which or at least the substance
of it, is recorded in the histories of his life. But the Jews, finding that
Mahomet believed in the Messiahship of Jesus, and in other doctrines
diametrically opposed to their own faith, became hostile to his cause, and
refused to acknowledge that there was any prophecy whatever in their Scriptures
that applied to him. They held that their Messiah was to be of Jewish,
and not of Ishmaelite descent; and they utterly rejected the Arabian prophet.
Thus a deadly enmity grew up between them. Mahomet caused several of his
bitterest opponents to be assassinated. At last he openly warred against them,
expatriated two whole tribes, the Bani Nadhîr and Bani Caynocâa, and having
slain all the males