Had there existed the slightest suspicion that the sacred Scriptures were
anywhere being tampered with, uncorrupted copies would surely have been
preserved by them. The fact is that the assumption is throughout
baseless. There never was such a suspicion. Mahomet certainly never entertained
it; and as little did his immediate followers. Any imputation against the Jews
and Christians of attempting to corrupt their Scriptures was not even thought of
for many years afterwards; not, indeed, until the Mahometan doctors, finding
the Corân to differ from those Scriptures, betook themselves to this most
groundless assumption as the simplest mode of escaping the difficulty.
Again, the supposition of such imputation (assumed for the sake of argument)
cannot at the most be extended beyond the Jews of Medî;na It was they
alone who were inimical to Mahomet; to them only the assertions in the Corân
apply. But the Jewish and Christian Scriptures,attested as they are in every
part of the Corân,were in the hands of millions, other than Jews, throughout
the Roman and Persian empires; in the kingdoms of Abyssinia, Hî;ra, Armenia,
Egypt, the Ghassânide dynasty in Syria, &c. The accusation or suspicion of
inimical tampering, let it be pressed never so unfairly, cannot by any means
reach these multitudes not only of Jews, but of Christians beyond Arabia.
Again, within two years of the death of Mahomet, the Mussulman armies had
overrun Syria, the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, which contained
innumerable copies of the Old and New Testament in the churches, synagogues,
monasteries, and private