Note 34 — Chapter III

Von Hoff, Geschichte der Veränderungen der Erdoberfläche, vol. i. p. 406, who cites Delisle, bey Hismann Welt- und Völkergeschichte. Alte Geschichte 1ter theil, s. 234.—The Arabian persecutions for heretical dogmas in theology were often very sanguinary. In the same ages wherein learning was most in esteem, the Mahometans were divided into two sects, one of whom maintained that the Koran was increate, and had subsisted in the very essence of God from all eternity; and the other, the Motazalites, who, admitting that the Koran was instituted by God, conceived it to have been first made when revealed to the Prophet at Mecca, and accused their opponents of believing in two eternal beings. The opinions of each of these sects were taken up by different caliphs in succession, and the followers of each sometimes submitted to be beheaded, or flogged till at the point of death, rather than renounce their creed.—Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. ii. ch. iv.