13

THE MOHAMMEDAN CONTROVERSY

have no standard for measuring their limits. Thus we sometimes meet with unexampled, and almost incredible powers of memory and calculation; and those of eloquence and composition are equally irregular,1 so that a surpassing instance in those arts, though it might be unapproachably excellent, cannot possibly bear any of the marks or requisites of a miracle. Wander has treated the miracle of the Coran very ably,2 but he has not exhibited it exactly in this light. He shows that the Mohammedan argument, admitted to its furthest extent, does not prove the Coran to be superior to works in other languages; but to this the Persian Doctors reply, that these were not accompanied, as the Coran, with a challenge and claim to prophecy; and irreverently assert that, when, these are brought forward by any worker of wonders, it becomes incumbent upon the Deity, if the claim be false, to raise up an equal or superior!3

Again (p. 117), Martyn says that when Mohammed calls Christ the Word and Spirit of God, these titles must bear the same relation to the Deity, as the "word and spirit" of man to man. This is combated by his opponent, and Dr. Lee (p. 430) remarks, "It is certainly to be regretted that Martyn did not meet his opponent purely on his own ground. The title, Spirit of God, seems here to have been adopted by way of accommodation (it being the language of the Coran), by which, however, nothing could be gained, but much lost in the further prosecution of this question." We have a curious illustration of the truth of this in Pfander's controversy. That writer, in the beginning of his


1 Had Lord Brougham forgotten the Coran, when, speaking of the wonderful composition of Rousseau's Confessions, he says, " No triumph so great was ever won by diction; there hardly exists such another example of the miracles which composition can perform."— (Lives of Men, Letters, etc., p. 183.).
2 Mîzân-ul-Haqq, pp. 216-220, and also in the controversy with Kazim Ali.
3 Compare pp. 192, 204 and 210 of Mahommed Ruza's reply, where it is held, that a miracle does not necessarily exceed human power; but that when any wonder or work is brought forward with a challenge by a claimant of prophecy; and is not surpassed, it must be received as a miracle, otherwise the Deity would have interposed.