Note 239 — Chapter XI
Henry Vizetelly translation
One day a stranger presented himself before the Grand Vizier, Raghib-Pasha, saying that Mahomet had appeared to him to invite him to turn Mussulman, and that he had come on purpose from Dantzic to be converted. “Here is a strange rascal,” said the Grand Vizier. “Mahomet has appeared to an infidel, when for more than seventy years I have been exact in the five prayers, and he has never done me such an honour!” And the stranger did not become a Mussulman. “I have heard it said several times by doctors of Mahometan law that, according to their religion, it was not permitted to them to protect one party against another in the dispute which sprang up between the Catholics and the heretics, because, as they said, they were both equally bad.” Manuscript Mémoire of 1771 on matters of religion:—Archives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Turkey, 37.