enter into a covenant that they should publish them to mankind."
Further than this we do not find that Mahomet accused even his enemies the
Jews of Medîna. The inference that by "concealing" is intended the
excision or erasure of passages from their manuscripts, is altogether
groundless.
As to altering or corrupting their copies of the sacred Scriptures, there is
not a single verse which, fairly construed, bears out the charge. Even if any
passage could be so forced, the whole tenor of the Corân and its plain
testimony from first to last in favour of the genuineness and authority of the
Jewish as well as of the Christian Scriptures, would prove that such meaning was
not that which Mahomet intended.
Would the Prophet have appealed to a corrupted Tourât? Would he have
constantly attested the truth of an interpolated Law? Would he have
commanded that disputes amongst the Jews should be adjusted by an obsolete and
adulterated Revelation; or have summoned them to produce the roll of a doubtful
Scripture, and to read therefrom in order that a difference between themselves
and him should thus be finally adjudicated? Would he have solemnly inculcated
the observance of a falsified Text; or have said of any other than a genuine
Book, that the faith of the Jews was futile unless they "set up" that
book and observed its precepts ?
It is further to be well observed that the imputations contained in the
Corân (whatever their nature) are from first to last confined to the Jews.
There is not a