1 Al Kazwîni, apud Golium in notis ad Alfrag. p. 4, &c. Al Shahrestani, apud Poc. Spec. p. 311. Al Jawhari, al Firauzab. 2 Golius, ubi supra, p. 5. 3 Al Shahrestani, ubi supra. See before, p. 95. 4 Al Mogholtaï. 5 Abulfeda, Vit. Moh. p. II. 6 al Kodâï, al Firauz. apud Poc. Spec. p. 174. Al Mogholtaï mentions both opinions. 7 Mr. Bayle (Dict. Hist. et Crit. Art. la Mecque, Rem. F.) accuses Dr. Prideaux of an inconsistency for saying in one place (Life of Mahomet, p. 64) that these sacred months were the first, the seventh, the eleventh, and the twelfth, and intimating in another place (ibid. p. 89) that three of them were contiguous. But this must be mere absence of mind in Mr Bayle; for are not the eleventh, the twelfth, and the first months contiguous? The two learned professors, Golius and Reland, have also made a small slip in speaking of these sacred months, which, they tell us, are the two first and the two last in the year. Vide Golii Lex. Arab. col. 601, and Reland. de Jure Milit. Mohammed anor. p. 5. 8 Vide Gol. in Alfrag. p. 9. 9 Vide ibid. p. 6. 10 Al Makrîzi, apud Poc ubi supra. 11 Idem, and Auctor Neshk al Azhâr, ibid. 12 See Kor. c. 106. 1 A. Edrîsi apud Poc. Specim. p. 127. 2 Cap. 9; c. 2, p. 20; c. 5, p. 73; c. 5, p. 85, &c. 3 Cap. 9; c. 2, p. 20. months, Mohammed thought proper to reform: for some of them, weary of sitting quiet for three months together, and eager to make their accustomed incursions for plunder, used, by way of expedient, whenever it suited their inclinations or conveniency, to put off the observing of al Moharram to the following month Safar,4 thereby avoiding to keep the former, which they supposed it lawful for them to profane, provided they sanctified another month in lieu of it, and gave public notice thereof at the preceding pilgrimage. This transferring the observation of a sacred month to a profane month, is what is truly meant by the Arabic word al Nasî, and is absolutely condemned, and declared to be an impious innovation, in a passage of the Korân5 which Dr. Prideaux,6 misled by Golius,7 imagines to relate to the prolonging of the year, by adding an intercalary month thereto. It is true, the Arabs, who imitated the Jews in their manner of computing by lunar years, had also learned their method of reducing them to solar years, by intercalating a month sometimes in the third, and sometimes in the second year;8 by which means they fixed the pilgrimage of Mecca (contrary to the original institution) to a certain season of the year, viz., to autumn, as most convenient for the pilgrims, by reason of the temperateness of the weather, and the plenty of provisions;9 and it is also true that Mohammed forbade such intercalation by a passage in the same chapter of the Korân; but then it is not the passage above mentioned, which prohibits a different thing, but one a little before it, wherein the number of months in