[3] Conde, i. 240.

    [4] It is fair to state that Hakem I. was not always so
    generous.

    [5] Lane-Poole, “Story of the Moors,” p. 77.

Prone as the Mohammedans were to superstition, and many as are the miracles and wonders, which are described in their histories, it must be acknowledged that their capacity for imagining and believing in miracles never equalled that of Christian priests in the Middle Ages.[1]

We hear indeed of a vision of Mohammed appearing to Tarik, the invader of Spain;[2] of a miraculous spring gushing forth at the prayer of Akbar ibn Nafir;[3] of the marvellous cap of Omar;[4] of the wonders that distinguished the corpse of the murdered Hosein; of the vision shewing the tomb of Abu Ayub;[5] but nothing that will bear a comparison with the invention of St James’ body at Ira Flavia (Padron), nor the clumsy and unblushing forgery of relics at Granada in the year of the Armada.[6] Yet the following story of Baki ibn Mokhlid, from Al Kusheyri,[7] reminds us forcibly of similar monkish extravagancies.  A woman came to Baki, and said that, her son being a prisoner in the hands of the Franks, she intended to sell her house and go in search of him; but before doing so she asked his advice.  Leaving her for a moment he requested her to wait for his answer.  He then went out and prayed fervently for her son’s release, and telling the mother what he had done, dismissed her.  Some time after the mother came back with her son to thank Baki for his pious interference, which had procured her son’s release.  The son then told his story:—­“I was the king’s slave, and used to go out daily with my brother slaves to certain works on which we were employed.  One day, as we were going I felt all of a sudden as if my fetters were being knocked off.  I looked down to my feet, when lo!  I saw the heavy irons fall down broken on each side.”  The inspector naturally charged him with trying to escape, but he denied on oath, saying that his fetters had fallen off without his knowing how.  They were then riveted on again with additional nails, but again fell off.  The youth goes on:—­“The Christians then consulted their priests on the miraculous occurrence, and one of them came to me and inquired whether I had a father.  I said ‘No, but I have a mother.’  Well, then, said the priest to the Christians, ’God, no doubt, has listened to her prayers.  Set him at liberty,’” which was immediately done.  As a set-off to this there is a remarkable instance of freedom from superstition recorded of King Almundhir(881-2).[8] On the occasion of an earthquake, the people being greatly alarmed, and looking upon it as a direct interposition of God, this enlightened prince did his best to convince them that such things were natural phenomena, and had no relation to the good or evil that men did,[9] shewing that the earth trembled for Christian and Moslem alike, for the most innocent as well as the most injurious of creatures without distinction.  They, however, refused to be convinced.