shall be brief, and shall only state what is necessary, and what has remained untouched by those three great historians, or that portion of his tenets which stands in the nearest connexion with those of the Ismailites, and by which, in the sequel, they were undermined. Mohammed, the son of Abdallah, and grandson of Abdolmotaleb, was descended from a family of the highest rank among the Arabians, that of Koreish, in whose custody were the keys of the sacred house of the Kaaba. He felt himself called to lead back his countrymen, who were sunk in idolatry, to the knowledge of the only true God, and, as prophet and legislator, to complete the great work of purifying natural religion from the dross of superstition; a task which so many had previously, at different times, attempted. Arabia was divided among the religions of the Christians, the Jews, and the Sabæans. To combine these three into one, by the union of that which flowed from principles common to all, for the attainment of political liberty and greatness, was the aim of his life, which had been so long spent in meditation, and only late in years was roused to active exertion. From his infancy, his mother, Emina, who was a Jewess, and in early youth, during a journey in Syria, the Christian monk, Sergius, imbued him with the religious tenets of Moses and Jesus, and exhibited, in the full light of its infamy, the idolatrous worship of the Kaaba, where three hundred idols demanded the adoration of the people. The Jews were expecting the Messiah as the Saviour of Israel, the Christians looked for the advent of the Paraclete, as their comforter and mediator, when, in his fortieth year (an age which, in the east, has always been considered as that of a prophet), Mohammed felt within him the voice of divine inspiration, enjoining him to read in the name of the Lord,[7] the commands of heaven, and by their promulgation, to prove himself to his people, the prophet and apostle of God. Nature had formed him a poet and an enthusiastic orator, by endowing him with an astounding power of language, a penetrating ardour of imagination, a dignity of demeanour, commanding the profoundest reverence, and a captivating suavity of manners. Valour, magnanimity, and eloquence, qualities prized by every nation, and by none more than the wild son of the desert, were the three great magnets which drew to him the hearts of his people, who had long been wont to do homage to the heroic and munificent, and more especially to the great poets, whose noble productions were hung in the Kaaba, written in golden letters, and as the immediate gifts of heaven, deemed worthy of divine adoration.