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THE MOHAMMEDAN CONTROVERSY

consequently be admitted on the testimony of the Prophet of Islam. Under any circumstances, the assertions of such corruption cannot be regarded as reflecting on the prophetical claim of Mohammed (as if he had advanced an intellectual impossibility). And the great injustice and departure from right which ye commit, is this, that ye do not regard the assertion of a logical impossibility to be an argument against a claim to prophecy, while you here hold the assertion of a simple miracle to be so. That is to say, the assertion of the incarnation and manifestation of God, and of the equality of that which is produced to that which produces it (doctrines which you hold with regard to Jesus on the authority of the Bible), is not regarded by you as falsifying the claim to prophecy; and yet ye hold a statement regarding the corruption of the Bible, which would not amount even to a common miracle, to be a disproof of the prophetical rank of the blessed Prophet of Islam. Verily, this is a marvellous thing (pp. 438-440).

Pfander had referred to the evidence of the Coran itself as proving that our Scriptures were not altered prior to Mohammed's appearance, and to the evidence of ancient manuscripts that they had not been altered since; and here is an example of the way in which Ali Hassan avoids the conclusion:—

According to the above interpretation of the passage,1 it might indeed be held that the prophecies regarding the last of the prophets were not corrupted until his appearance, else why were the people in expectation of his coming, and ready to believe upon him? My reply is, that even supposing this argument to be correct, all that would be proved therefrom, would be that only those passages containing predictions of Mohammed remained uncorrupted until his appearing; not by any means, that throughout the whole Bible no other passage had been corrupted. The Padre's deduction that the entire Bible remained intact, thus falls to the ground.

And if any one say that the passages which contain those predictions (asserted in the Coran to have been altered after Mohammed's appearing) are still identically the same with the corresponding places in the ancient manuscripts to which the Padre has referred; my reply is that the naked claim of the Padre, as to the existence of manuscripts thirteen or fifteen hundred years old, is not worthy of being listened to, especially as his stories contradictions and bigotry have already been fully exposed. That paper and writing should remain so many ages, and yet be legible, would be miraculous indeed. Some Pope, or other such personage, in order to cast


1 Sura xcviii. 3: "Neither were those who possessed the Scriptures, divided among themselves, until after the clear evidence (Islam) had come unto them."—See Sale's note.