Note 51 — Chapter IX · OF NATIONAL NOSES.
Reading edition
The repugnance of Christian commentators to allow any good in Mahometanism, has caused them to apply the promises of national glory made to Ishmael, to the petty chieftainship and desert supremacy of the Arab tribes during the centuries antecedent to Christ, though it is obvious that they were not then more powerful as “a nation” than they are now, and that to no period of their history but to that of the Saracenic Caliphates can the fulfilment be justly accorded.