"First of all, it must be freely granted that to his own people Mahomet was a great benefactor. He was born in a country where political organization, and rational faith, and pure morals were unknown. He introduced all three. By a single stroke of masterly genius he simultaneously reformed the political condition, the religious creed, and the moral practice of his countrymen. In the place of many independent tribes he left a nation; for a superstitious belief in gods many and lords many he established a reasonable belief in one Almighty yet beneficent Being; taught men to live under an abiding sense of this Being's superintending care, to look to Him as the rewarder, and to fear Him as the punisher of evil-doers. He vigorously attacked, and modified and suppressed many gross and revolting customs which had prevailed in Arabia down to his time. For an abandoned profligacy was substituted a carefully regulated polygamy, and the practice of destroying female infants was effectually abolished. "As Islam gradually extended its conquest beyond the boundaries of Arabia, many barbarous races whom it absorbed became in like manner participators in its benefits. The Turk, the Indian, the Negro, and the Moor were compelled to cast away their idols, to abandon their licentious rites and customs, to turn to the worship of one God, to a decent ceremonial and an orderly way of life. The faith even of the more enlightened Persian was purified: he learned that good and evil are not co-ordinate powers, but that just and unjust are alike under the sway of one All-wise and Holy Ruler, who ordereth all things in heaven and earth. "For barbarous nations, then, especially--nations which were more or less in the condition of Arabia itself at the time of Mahomet--nations in the condition of Africa at the present day, with little or no civilisation, and without a reasonable religion--Islam certainly comes as a blessing, as a turning from darkness to light and from the power of satan unto God."[137] [Footnote 133: The Life of Mahomet by Sir W. Muir, LL.D., Vol. II, pp. 269-71.] [Footnote 134: The Life of Mahomet by Sir W. Muir, Vol. IV, pp. 320-21.] [Footnote 135: Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, by Marcus Dods, D.D., pp. 17-19 & 119.] [Footnote 136: Christianity and Islam: The Bible and the Koran, by Rev. W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 94, 104, 112, London, 1877.] [Footnote 137: Christianity and Islam: The Bible and the Koran, by the Rev. W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 129-30, London, 1877.] [Sidenote: Indictment against Mohammad.]