Note 50 — CONTENTS OF THE SEVENTH VOLUME. (continued 2)

i.e. “He who violently assaults his peers” (the best men of the age). Batshat al-Kubrá = the Great Disaster, is applied to the unhappy “Battle of Bedr” (Badr) on Ramazan 17, A.H. 2 (= Jan. 13, 624) when Mohammed was so nearly defeated that the Angels were obliged to assist him (Koran, chapts. iii. 11; i. 42; viii. 9). Mohammed is soundly rated by Christian writers for beheading two prisoners Utbah ibn Rabí’a who had once spat on his face and Nazir ibn Háris who recited Persian romances and preferred them to the “foolish fables of the Koran.” What would our forefathers have done to a man who spat in the face of John Knox and openly preferred a French play to the Pentateuch?