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though deserving of high honour and imitation for their piety . All the authority of these prophets , being thus strictly confined to the objects of their missions , should undoubtedly cease sit " any rate with their lives : for
that Providence , by withdrawing them from the scene of their labours , shews its design of thenceforth furthering Its plans for the training of itiankina to knowledge and virtue , by other means and other instruments . And as the
Supreme Being neither has liof can have any participator in his power , these Reformers ccrntend , that to allow to Mahomet , or any other of the departed saints , any superintendence over the affairs of man , or any power to
render him aid hereafter , is blasphemy . Their confession of faith is , There is no other God than God alone ; there are no companions near him ; to him belong dominion and praise and life and death , and he is Lord over all /*
Abdool-Wahhab never offered himself as a prophet divinely commissioned , or claimed any miraculous powers , as has been by some asserted . He only acted as a zealous Reformer , who was desirous of bringing religion to the test of reason , and ofpurifying its worship of all the senseless superstitious mummeries , with which the
Imams , interpreters and doctors had encumbered what he considered its primitive simplicity . In hifc ideas opt ithis subject he was not singular ; many a well-informed Mussulman had long secretly despised these superstitions , and though he seemfed , in the eyes of the multitude , to respect and pay an external conformity to thefri , in his
heart looked less to the ceremonial and dogmatic peculiarities of his faith than to the general and purer principles of Theism , which alone seemed calculated to beCoittfe ibiivetSaL •* Wfe , " said the Arabs of fcjhe [ ; desert , among whom , as wet&fotfe bb&efrvecL tslamism
has always maintained ifa pmftjr , we fi&ve no Mrafc * , H&Nr the * im Wfe make ab ! ut * 6 ns ? We hatf £ n 6 itiohey , how man tea we ^ vfe aftttaj 1 ' *? feI&itf of Ramadan is an useless ct ) nimand to p ^ biis Whd fast all tite yfetf * round , aMif Gott bit every MttM Why # tf to BTfectea to Mtite hii $ P *' Btit Abdoofl Wtthhab wtfs the fiirst whb openly aad
^ jSHebufi ^ s lMfldrlll . de " l AHkM $ . to « 16 ^ . ^ 4 ; Vatiey ' s Voyage * n SVrte / &c , h 380 , quoted by MiBs ; 375 .
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boldly denoimeed the superstitions of his countrymen as impious and ridU cttlous ; In opposition to the orthodox Mussulman who belfews that after the
death of Mahomet , his soul , reunited to Ms body , was carried to heaven on the mare of Gabriel , the Reformer taught that the bones of the Prophet rested in his sepulchre . "The tombs of the Prophet and his immediate sue * the
cessors w ^ e consecrated with most devout t ^ erehce , and Made a source of gam Wjf the craft of the church ; but the Wahhabite despises this folly and kiiavery , and has thrown down their high places , and forbidden pilgrimages
to them . The saints ( amongst whom most unaccountably the Mussulman crowd generally reckons the fool or the idiot , who , as AH Bey observes , is looked upon as the favourite of God , because he has refused him good sense ) were accustomed to be interred in
chapels or temples , to which crowds flocked to testify their devotion ; but the Reformers have destroyed all within their reach , declaring that the worship of the saints is a grievous sin , as giving companions to the Divinity . They continue to preserve the usages of circumcision , ablution , &c ., which they found established , but they consider all these outward observances as founded
on expediency and usage , not on faith , and they have carried their disregard of traditionary lore so far as actually to erase that precious tuft of hair , which the true believer cherishes , as an
assistance to the labour of the angel of light , who is to bear him to paradise . Our estimation of the purity and value of these opinions , is much
lowered by the knowledge of the vehemence and cruelty with which they are Said to have been , in many instances , propagated by the powers who took the neW fiuth under their protection . These seem , however , to have been in
rtiatay respects greatly exaggerated . AH Bfey tod Major Wariftg , both competenfc &bservc * s atod 6 ye-trttnesses , ( the firtt having beek la Mecca when they ioi > k possession of it 9 ) bear their
tesfiti ^ iiy ^ lhe onfe t&thdir Reason and niMeration /* the other to their " ' 'iMtoMtg tod liuittaiilty /* dad surely sft £ h evidence Ought to have gteat wdtf&t . It does not appear that Abdool-Wahhfcb himself qtm Soft Wool-Iah-MoTi ^ mined ^ fever appeared in the character of a military ' lefcdetv w **
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352 The Nonconformist . No . XVllt .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1820, page 352, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2489/page/28/
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