Mohammed and Mohammedanism: Critically Considered (Classic Reprint) - Taschenbuch

PREFACE A NEW work on Mohammed and Mohammedanism seems to require some words of explanation to the reading public whose attention it claims. There exists already a goodly number of such works, both in the English language and in other European languages. It stands to reason that any further addition should be able to justify itself, either by opening fresh sources of information, or by placing old materials into a new and clearer light. Is this possible? Have the previous works, with the widely diverging results of their investigations, wholly exhausted the topic, or have they left room, if not for startling discoveries, at least for the useful gleanings of earnest and painstaking followers? One of my English predecessors wrote, fifteen years ago, that the treatment of the subject hardly now admits of originality. Probably many are of the same opinion. But I would in all modesty, and yet with confidence, appeal to the judgment of any qualified reader, whether the following work possesses a degree of independence and originality sufficient to vindicate its place amongst all the more or less meritorious productions by which it has been preceded. It is true, the historical data exist for all alike, and we cannot multiply them at will; but in their investigation and utilisation there remains a wide field for the play of a variety of talents and of sundry measures of judgment As in nature, so in history, objects assume a different aspect according to the standpoint from which they are contemplated. In the suitability of the different standpoints also there is a gradation from the worst to the best. About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series