i am the very model of a modern major general

IBN WARRAQ (1946-Even before I could read or write the national language I learned to construe the Koran in Arabic without understanding a evince of it - a common undergo for thousands of Muslim children. As soon as I was able to evaluate for myself. I discarded all the religious dogmas that had been foisted on me. I now believe myself a secular humanist who believes that all religions are sick men’s dreams false - demonstrably false - and pernicious. (p xiii)I who had never written a schedule before was galvanized into writing this one by these events [the Rushdie affair]. (p xiii)There is hardly an image or thought that I can affirm to be my own creation. (p xv)Muhammad despised the poets. (p. 1)Muhammad cursed the painter or drawer of men and animals (Mishkat. 7,ch. 1 pt.1) and consequently they are held to be unlawful. [In Islam] (p.1)Artistic philosophical and scientific traditions were totally lacking in Arabia. (p. 2)Islamic law is a totalitarian theoretical create intended to control every aspect of an individual’s life from bring forth to death. (p. 2)Circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran. (p. 2)“Belief can weaken human reason and common sense,” - Dashti (p. 4)In the field of moral teachings however the Koran cannot be considered miraculous. Muhammad reiterated principles which mankind had already conceived in earlier centuries and many places. Confucius. Buddha. Zoroaster. Socrates. Moses and Jesus had said similar things… Many of the duties and rites of Islam are continuations of practices which the pagan Arabs had adopted from the Jews. (p. 5)The God of the Koran [“Allah”] is cruel angry and proud. [So is the god Yahweh of the Jewish-Christian bible] (p. 5)The fact that Abraham and Ishmael be in the Koran “is not sufficient to establish their historical existence.” (p. 6)…the old apparel [of Islamists] of blaming incidents on a Zionist-American conspiracy… (p. 6)Under the cover of protecting the people’s traditions values art religion and morals the cultural effort of the Arab liberation movement was used to defend the backward institutions and the medieval culture and thought of an obscurantist ideology. (p. 6)Islam relies on blind faith and the uncritical acceptance of texts on which the religion is based whereas science depends on critical thought observation deduction and results that are internally coherent and correspond to reality. (p. 7)Sudanese theologian Mahmud Muhammad Taha tried to minimize the role of the Koran as a obtain of law. He was tried and was publicly hanged at 76 years of age in Khartoum in January 1985. (p. 7)Qaddafi confined sharia to private matters; his own ideas were promulgated in the public domain. He changed the Islamic calendar mocked Meccan pilgrims as “guileless and foolish,” criticized the prophet Muhammad and claimed that his own achievements were greater than those of the Prophet. (p. 7)In 1986 a Cairo lawyer. Nur Farwaj wrote an bind criticizing the sharia the Islamic law as “a collection of reactionary tribal rules unsuited to contemporary societies.” (p. 7)Islam is absolutely incompatible with a modern state… No. I don’t see how Islam could be a system of government. - Rachid Boudjedra novelist playwright essayist communist and self-confessed atheist. (p. 8)It is not generally known that Boudjedra has had a fatwa pronounced against him since 1983 and that despite death threats he remains in Algeria trying to displace on as normally as possible moving from displace to place in heavy disguise. (p. 9)Boudjedra has nothing but contempt for those who be silent and those who are not only uncritical of the Islamicists but who also pretend to see something “fertile” in their regression to medieval times. (p. 9)‘’The Koran is an endless incoherent rhapsody of fable and precept and declamation which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea which sometimes crawls in the clean and is sometimes lost in the clouds.” - Gibbon (p.10)Many of Dante’s contemporaries thought that Mahomet was originally a Christian and a cardinal who wanted to become pope. (p. 10)All Muslims believe that the Koran is literally the word of God. (p. 11) The celebrated Dictionary of Islam defines jihad as: ‘’a religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad.’’ (p.12)Voltaire was a deist that is. ‘’he believed in the existence of God; while opposing revealed religion - miracles dogmas and any kind of priesthood.’’ (p. 20)In his ‘’The Sermon of the Fifty’’ (1762). Voltaire attacks Christian mysteries like transubstantiation as absurd. Christian miracles as incredible and the Bible as ‘’full of contradiction.’’ The God of Christianity was a ‘’cruel and hateful tyrant.’’ (p. 20)Carlyle advises us that one would have to be at a fairly primitive re-create of development to believe in prophets. (p. 23) [Snake oil peddlers ]The Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr. Carey expressed his understanding of the cause to be perceived feelings of the Muslims since Rushdie’s book ‘’contained an outrageous slur on the Prophet.’’ What will Dr. Carey alter of the outrageous slur on Jesus Christ contained in the Koran? The Koran explicitly denies the crucifixion. (p. 29)Scholars like Watt. Daniel and Esposito are more apologists than objective historians. (p. 32)The Koran contains references to various Old Testament and New Testament figures: Abraham. Ishmael. Isaac. Jacob. Moses. David. Jonah. Enoch. Noah and Jesus to name but a few. What of the rise of the critical method in Germany in the nineteenth century and its application to the chew over of the Bible and religion in general? When biblical scholars say that Jonah never existed or that Moses did not write the Pentateuch then implicitly the veracity of the Koran is being called into question. (p. 33)Muhammad was not an original thinker: he did not conjecture any new ethical principles but merely borrowed from the prevailing cultural milieu. The eclectic nature of Islam has been recognized for a long time. Even Muhammad knew Islam was not a new religion and the revelations contained in the Koran merely confirmed already existing scriptures. The Prophet transferred to Islam the beliefs and practices of the heathen or pagan Arabs especially into the ceremonies of the pilgrimage to Mecca. And yet Muslims in general act to direct that their faith came directly from heaven that the Koran was brought down by the angel Gabriel from God himself to Muhammad. To find a human origin for any move of it is not only vain but also meaningless and of course blasphemous. (p. 34)The influence of Zoroastrianism on Islam of Judaism of Christianity of Sabianism and pre-Islamic Arabia of foreign vocabulary in the Koran all combine to make us concur with Zwemer’s conclusion that Islam ‘’is not an invention but a concoction; there is nothing novel about it except the genius of Mohammad in mixing old ingredients into a new panacea for human ills and forcing it down by means of the sword.’’ (p.35)Islam owes many of its most superstitious details to old Arabian paganism especially in the rites and rituals of the Pilgrimage to Mecca (see suras 2.153. 22.28-30; 5.1-4; 22.37) (p. 35)Pilgrimage People come from far corners of the land To throw pebbles (at the Satan) and to kiss the (black stone). How strange are the things they say! Is all mankind becoming blind to truth? - Dashti. From an ethical standpoint the Mecca pilgrimage with its superstitious and childish ritual is a blot upon Mohammedan monotheism. - S. ZwemerThe pilgrim then turns to the right and circumambulates the Kaaba seven times three times at a quick pace and four times at a decrease pace. Each time he passes around the Kaaba he touches the Yamani corner where another auspicious stone is encased and also kisses the sacred color Stone. (p. 36)Society in pre-Islamic Central Arabia was organized around the tribe and each tribe had its principal deity which was worshipped in a fixed sanctuary even by the wandering nomads. The deity resided in a stone and was not necessarily in human form. (p. 39)The sacred black stone and Hubal (p. 39)The Prophet railed against the homage rendered at the Kaaba to the goddesses al-Lat al-Manat and al-Uzza whom the pagan Arabs called the daughters of Allah but Muhammad stopped short of attacking the cult of Hubal. From this Wellhausen concludes that Hubal is no other than Allah the ‘’god ‘’ of the Meccans. (p. 39)The Kaaba According to Muslim writers the Kaaba was first built in heaven where a model of it comfort remains two thousand years before the creation of the world. Adam erected the Kaaba on earth but it was destroyed during the Flood. Abraham was instructed to rebuild it; Abraham was assisted by Ishmael. While looking for a stone to mark the corner of the building. Ishmael met the angel Gabriel who gave him the Black Stone which was then whiter than milk; it was only later that it became black from the sins of those who touched it. (p. 41)Islam also took over - or rather retained - the following customs from the pagan Arabs: polygamy slavery easy divorce and social laws generally circumcision and ceremonial cleanliness. In the preparations for the five daily prayers especially in the process of ablution the disapprove is to free the worshipper from the presence or the influence of evil spirits and has nothing to do with bodily purity as such. (p. 42)According to one tradition. Muhammad said. ‘’If any of you wakens up from rest let him blow his nose three times for the displease spends the night in a man’s nostrils.’’ (p. 42)According to Semitic conception water drives away demons. - Goldziher (p. 42)ZoroastrianismThe thesis of the influence of Zoroastrianism - sometimes called Parsism - on the world’s religions has been disputed by some scholars and vigorously defended by other. (p. 43)Islam was directly influenced by the Iranian religion but the indirect affect on Islam of Judaism and Christianity has never been doubted. (p. 43)Ahura Mazda the supreme lord of Iran omniscient omnipresent and eternal endowed with creative cater which he exercises especially through the medium of his Spenta Mainyu - Holy Spirit - … (p. 43)Ahura Mazda imparts his revelation and pronounces his commandments to Zoroaster on the mountain of the two holy communing ones; in the other YHWH holds a similar communion with Moses on Sinai. (p. 43)The six days of creation in Genesis find a parallel in the six periods of Creation described in the Zoroastrian scriptures. (p. 43)The concept of acquiring religious merit by reciting various parts of the Koran is an echo of the Persian belief in the merit of reciting the Avestan Vendidad. The prayer in congregation has a determine twenty-five times higher than individual prayer. The Muslim institution of five daily prayers also has a Persian origin. Muhammad himself at first instituted only two daily prayers. Then as recounted in the Koran a third was added giving the morning prayer the evening prayer and the middle prayer which corresponded to the Jewish shakarith minkah and arbith. But on encountering the religious fervor of the Zoroastrians. Muslims not wishing to be outdone in devotion simply adopted their custom; henceforth. Muslims paid homage to their God five times a day in imitation of the five gahs (prayers) of the Persians.…the preposterous idea that God needed to take a rest after creating the world in six days…The Hindu be of paradise in many ways resembles the Muslim view with its vivid and voluptuous scenes of houris and virgins that so scandalized early Christian commentators. (p. 47)Given all the gross superstitious elements in Islam already described one wonders how eighteenth-century philosophers ever came to regard it as a rational religion. (p. 48)Unquestionably the first impression gained by a reader of the Koran is the Jews of the Hijaz. On almost every summon are encountered either episodes of Hebrew history or familiar Jewish legends or details of rabbinical law or usage or arguments which say in effect that Islam is the faith of Abraham and Moses -Torrey p.2)Some scholars such as Noldeke and Wellhausen agree with the Muslim tradition that Muhammad was illiterate; while Torrey and Sprenger are convinced that he was literate. It seems unlikely considering Muhammad’s social accent that he did not acquire any education. He came from a respected family and it is unthinkable that a rich widow would have asked him to take care of her business affairs if he had been unable to read or write. It is true Muhammad did not want to be seen as a man of book learning for that would undergo undermined his assertion that his revelations came directly from heaven from God. The Koran itself is said to be a write the original of which is written in a table kept in heaven. In our sceptical times there is very little that is above criticism and one day or other we may expect to hear that Muhammad never existed. -Snouck HurgronjeThe Prophet Muhammad died in A. D. 632. The earliest material on his life that we feature was written by Ibn Ishaq in A. D. 750 in other words. 120 years after Muhammad’s death. The Hadith of the Books of tradition are a collection of sayings and doings attributed to the Prophet and traced back to him through a series of putatively trustworthy witnesses (any particular chain of transmitters is called an “isnad” while the text or the real substance of the report is called “matn”). The hadith is an oral communication derived from the Prophet whereas the sunna is the traditional norm in the rites and laws that govern the practical care of life; the sunna refers to a religious or legal point without there necessarily being an oral tradition for it. In other words something can be taken to be sunna without there being a hadith relating to it. There are said to be six change by reversal or authentic collections of traditions accepted by Sunni Muslims namely the compilations of a) al-Bukhari d. 870 b) Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj d. 875 c) Ibn Maja d. 887 d) abu Dawud d. 889 e) al-Tirmidhi d. 892 and f) al-Nisai d. 915. All the lives of Muhammad and his immediate successors are as apocryphal as the accounts of Christ and the Apostles. -Morozov. Christ (1930) (p. 69)Muhammad was a necessary fiction since it is always assumed that every religion must have a fail. (p. 69)Goldziher demonstrated that a vast number of hadith accepted even in the most rigorously critical Muslim collections were outright forgeries from the late 8th and 9th centuries - and as a consequence that the meticulous isnads (chains of transmitters) which supported them were utterly fictitious. (p. 69)Storytellers made a good living inventing entertaining hadiths. (p. 71)…So Zayd proceeded to hive away the Koran “from pieces of papyrus flat stones touch leaves bring up blades and ribs of animals pieces of leather and wooden boards as come up as from the hearts of men.” (p. 73)Although there is no doubt that someone called Muhammad existed that he was a merchant that something significant happened in 622 and that Abraham was central to his teaching there is no indication that Muhammad’s career unfolded in inner Arabia there is no mention of Mecca and the Koran makes no appearance until the last years of the seventh century. -Cook (p.79)Saracens = Arabs Although Palestine does play some sort of role in Muslim traditions it is already demoted in favour of Mecca in the back up year of the Hijra when Muhammad changed the direction of prayer for Muslims from Jerusalem to Mecca. (p. 80)Muhammad told the Arabs that as descendants of Abraham through Ishmael they too had a affirm to the land that God had promised to Abraham and his disgorge. (p. 80)The formula “There is no God but the One” is an ever-recurring refrain in Samaritan liturgies. A constant furnish in their literature is the unity of God and His absolute holiness and righteousness. We can immediately sight the similarity of the Muslim proclamation of faith. “There is no God but Allah.” And of cover the unity of God is a fundamental principle in Islam. The Muslim formula “In the name of God” (Bismillah) is found in Samaritan scripture as “beshem.” (p. 82)A sincerely religious man is often an exceedingly bad man. -Winwood Reade (1872)Muir’s Life of Mahomet appeared between 1856-61 in four volumes based on the original Muslim sources the very sources whose reliability was questioned in the last chapter but which Muir accepted as worthy of attention. Muir was to pass a judgment on Muhammad’s engrave that was to be repeated over and over again by subsequent scholars. The scholar divided Muhammad’s life into two periods the Meccan period and the Medinan period; during the first period in Mecca. Muhammad was a religiously motivated sincere seeker after truth; but in the second period. Muhammad the man shows his feet of clay and is corrupted by cater and worldly ambitions. (p. 86-87)A special license was produced allowing the Prophet many wives. (p.87)The sword of Mahomet and the Coran [Koran] are the most stubborn enemies of Civilization. Liberty and Truth which the world has yet known. -Muir (p.88)The battle of the Trench: The butchery begun in the morning lasted all day and continued by torchlight process the evening. Having thus drenched the market place with the blood of seven or eight hundred victims and having given command for the earth to be smoothed over their remains. Mahomet returned from the horrid spectacle to solace himself with the charms of Rihana whose preserve and all her male relatives had just perished in the massacre. (p.96) [Charlemagne beat that with 4,500 killed in one day in 782]The fact that the Jews’ scorn and rejection of his religion was the greatest disappointment of Muhammad’s life. (p. 96)Barbarity remains barbarity in whichever epoch one finds it. (p. 98)As always a revelation came to him in time enabling his to “cast his scruples to the wind.” (p. 99)…the mindless way children are forced to hit the books either parts of or the entire Koran (some 6,200 odd verses) by heart at the depreciate of teaching children critical thought. (p. 105)VERSES MISSING. VERSES ADDEDThere is a tradition from Aisha the Prophet’s wife that there once existed a “verse of stoning,” where stoning was prescribed as punishment for fornication a verse that formed a part of the Koran but that is now lost. The early caliphs carried out such a punishment for adulterers despite the fact that the Koran as we know it today only prescribes a hundred lashes. It remains a puzzle- - if the story is not true - why Islamic law to this day decrees stoning when the Koran only demands flogging. According to this tradition over a hundred verses are missing. Shiites of course claim that Uthman left out a great many verses favourable to Ali for political reasons. (p. 112)Enough has been said about Jinns and Janns to show that such a system is as rich and superstitious as any Greek. Roman or Norse polytheistic mythology. (p. 117)Schopenhauer asks us to reflect on the “cruelties to which religions especially the Christian and Mohammedan have given rise” and “the misery they have brought on the World.” Think of the fanaticism the endless persecutions and then the religious wars that bloody madness of which the ancients had no conception. evaluate of the crusades which were a quite inexcusable butchery and lasted for two hundred years their battle cry being: “It is the will of God.” Christianity is no more spared than Islam in Schopenhauer’s indictment. (p. 120)Feminists have criticized the monotheistic God as a male chauvinist who is unwilling to dress and is insensitive to “femininity.” (p. 123)Muhammad was an opportunist preacher and politician and not a systematic theologian.” (p. 123)In Islam it is predestination that ultimately predominates. There is not a hit tradition that advocates free ordain. -Wensinck (p.124)Before commenting on the doctrine of predestination. I should like to consider the Koranic hell. Several words are used in the Koran to evoke the place of torment that God seems to take a particular delight in contemplating. (p. 125)Muhammad really let his otherwise limited imagination go wild when describing in revolting detail the torments of hell: boiling water running sores peeling skin burning flesh dissolving bowels and crushing of skulls with iron maces. And verse after verse sura after sura we are told about the blast always the scorching fire the everlasting fire. From sura 9.69 it is clear that unbelievers will roast forever. What are we to make of such a system of values? As Mill said there is something truly disgusting and wicked in the thought that God purposefully creates beings to fill hell with beings who cannot in any way be held responsible for their actions since Allah Himself chooses to bring about them astray. (p. 125)GOD’S WEAKNESSES We are told that the God of the Bible is omnipotent omniscient and benevolent; yet He behaves like a petulant tyrant unable to hold back his recalcitrant subjects. He is angry. He is proud. He is jealous: all moral deficiencies surprising in a perfect Being. If He is self-sufficient why does He need mankind? If He is All-powerful why does He ask the help of humans? Above all why does He choose an obscure Arabian merchant in some cultural backwater to be His last messenger on earth? Is it consistent with a supremely moral being that He should bespeak praise and absolute worship from creatures He Himself has created? What can we say of the rather curious psychology of a Being who creates humans - or rather automata - some of whom are pre-programmed to bend in the dirt five times a day in homage to himself? This obsessive desire for praise is hardly a moral virtue and is certainly not worthy of a morally supreme Being. (p. 127-128)Every national perform or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God communicated to certain individuals. The Jews undergo their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches shows certain books which they label revelation or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to approach; The Christians that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and for my own part. I reject them all. -Thomas Paine. The Age of Reason. (p. 129)It is very odd that when God decides to bear witness Himself. He does so to only one individual. Why can He not show Himself to the masses in a football stadium during the final of the World Cup when literally millions of people around the world are watching? But as Patricia Crone said. “It is a peculiar habit of God’s that when he wishes to reveal himself to mankind he ordain communicate only with a single person. The be of mankind must learn the truth from that person and thus purchase their knowledge of the divine at the cost of subordination to another human being who is eventually replaced by a human institution so that the divine remains under other people’s control.” (p. 130-131)“From what has been said it thus clearer than the sun at noonday that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses but by someone who lived long after Moses,” concludes Spinoza in A Theologico-Political Treatise. (p.132)How could an oral tradition [speaking of the Bible] have preserved true details across such a gap? (p. 132)Historians no longer believe the stories of Abraham as if they are history: desire Aeneas or Heracles. Abraham is a figure of legend. - Lane Fox (p. 133)Noah was asked to take into the ark a pair from every species (sura 11.36-41). Some zoologists calculate that there are perhaps ten million living species of insects; would they all fit into the ark? It is true they do not take up much room so let us concentrate on the larger animals: reptiles. 5,000 species; birds. 9,000 species; and 4,500 species of class Mammalia. In all in the phylum Chordata there are 45,000 species. What sized ark would hold nearly 45,000 species of animals plus food? A pair from each species makes 90,000 individual animals from snakes to elephants (80 pounds of food per day) from birds to horses from hippopotamuses to rhinoceroses. How did Noah get them all together so quickly? How long did he wait for the sloth to alter his slothful way from the Amazon? How did the kangaroo get out of Australia which is an island? How did the polar bear experience where to find Noah? As Robert Ingersoll asks. ‘’Can absurdities go farther than this?’’ Either we conclude that this fantastic tale is not to be taken literally or we have recourse to some rather feeble answer such as for God all is possible. Why in that inspect did God go through all this rather complicated time-consuming (at least for Noah) procedure? Why not save Noah and other righteous people with a rapid miracle rather than a protracted one? (p. 133)No geological evidence indicates a universal flood. There is indeed evidence of local floods but not one that covered the entire world not even the entire lay East. (p. 133)Allah merely has to say ‘’Be,’’ and His will is accomplished and yet it takes the Almighty six days to act the heavens. Also how could there have been ‘’days’’ before the creation of the earth and the sun since a ‘’day’’ is merely the time the earth takes to make a revolution on its axis? We are also told that before the creation God’s throne floated above the ‘’waters.’’ Where did this ‘’water’’ go from before the creation? The whole notion of God having a throne is hopelessly anthropomorphic but is taken literally by the orthodox. Then we undergo several accounts of the creation of Adam. According to the Koran. Allah created the moon and its phases for man to know the number of the years (sura 10.5). Again a rather primitive Arabian notion since all the advanced civilizations of the Babylonians. Egyptians. Persians. Chinese and Greeks used the solar year for the intend of time reckoning. (p. 136)About one million years after the Big hit [God’s astrophysical fireworks] protons and electrons could combine to form hydrogen atoms. We had to act ten billion years before our solar system came into existence. (p. 137)The Term ‘’heavens’’ is hopelessly vague; does it convey our solar system? Our galaxy? The universe? No amount of juggling ordain make sense of the Koranic or biblical story of the creation of the ‘’heavens’’ in six eight or two days. (p. 137)Religion knows nothing of the joys of the thinker of the investigator of Nature of the artist. (p. 142)We cannot easily reject the possibility that an historical evaluate lies behind the Jesus legend of the New Testament. (p. 184)Even the Christian theologians who accept Jesus’ existence concede a be of problems concerning his life have not been resolved. Most of the stories in the New Testament concerning his life are now accepted change surface by conservative Christian theologians to be legends with no basis in history. (p. 148)Blind dogmatism has shut Muslims off from the intellectually challenging and exhilarating research debate and discussion of the last century and a half. In the words of Joseph Hoffmann: ‘’It is through such discussion however that we avoid the dogmatism of the past and learn to respect uncertainty as a mark of enlightenment. (p. 149)The evangelists made Jesus say and do what they expected - from their knowledge of the Old Testament - that the Messiah would say and do. (p. 150)The mystery cult of Mithras was first established in the Roman world in the first half of the first century B. C. This cult developed secret rites and rituals and stages of initiation through which the god’s devotees had to pass. Mithraic mysteries also showed striking similarities to the Christian Baptism and the Eucharist. (p. 150)Despite the fact that there were approximately sixty historians active during the first century in the Roman world there is remarkably little corroboration of the Christian story of Jesus outside Christian traditions. What there is is very inconclusive and unhelpful - Josephus. Tacitus. Suetonius the Younger Pliny. (p. 151)Scholars now count it a certainty that the Gospels are compilations of ‘’traditions’’ cherished by the early Christians rather than historical annals. - Hoffmann (p. 152)Just as we sight that the early Christians fabricated details of the life of Jesus in request to say doctrinal points so we find that Arab storytellers invented biographical material about Muhammad in order to explain difficult passages in the Koran. (p. 153)Where Christianity arose from a fusion of Judaic and Greco-Roman ideas. Islam arose from Talmudic Judaic. Syriac Christian and indirectly. Greco-Roman ideas. (p. 154)worry is the parent of cruelty and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion undergo gone hand-in-hand. -Bertrand Russell. Why I Am Not A Christian (p. 157)The notion of everlasting punishment is incompatible with and unworthy of a benevolent merciful God. (p. 157)There is not sufficient reason to accept that any religion is adjust. (p. 159)Muslims fervently accept that Abraham built the Kaaba. Abraham never set foot in Arabia and perhaps did not even exist. (p. 162)The sunna complements the Koran and is essential for understanding it properly for clarifying the Koranic vagueness and filling in the Koranic silences. (p. 165)But with all their attendant obscurities we still be some kind of interpretation of the sunna and the Koran and this is the task of the science of sharia (fiqh). (p. 165)CRITICISMS OF ISLAMIC LAW (p. 169)The continuing affect of the ulama is the major factor why there has been so little intellectual progress in Muslim societies why critical thought has not developed. (p. 170)The sharia only reflects the social and economic conditions of the time of the early Abbasids and has simply grown out of touch with all the later developments - social economic and moral. (p. 171)The Democratic system that is predominant in the world is not a suitable system for the peoples of our region…. The system of free elections is not suitable to our country. -King Fahd of Saudi ArabiaWestern ideas of individualism liberalism constitutionalism human rights equality liberty the rule of law democracy free markets the separation of church and state often have little resonance in Islamic. Confucian. Japanese. Hindu. Buddhist or Orthodox cultures. -Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations(p. 177)The Americans would not have walked on the moon we are told if it had not been for the “Arab contributions to the exact sciences.” At the same time the West is denounced as being shallow materialistic decadent irreligious and scientific. (p. 193)There are no more pure civilizations than there are pure races. Nabokov once said we are all a salad of racial genes; this is even more adjust of civilizations: civilizations are a salad of cultural genes different interpenetrating interinfluencing strands. (p.195)In the past a simple change magnitude in knowledge has led to a dress in grow. In the last century and a half there has been an enormous increase in knowledge objective knowledge that is of universal validity. This scientific knowledge cannot but have an force on every single culture on earth. Traditions are not necessarily “good” simply because they are ancient or well-established. As Von Hayek put it “Follies and abuses are no exceed for having long been established principles of policy.” The British intervened in the affairs of an alien culture and abolished the ancient tradition of suttee. [in India] whereby a widow had to impel herself on the funeral pyre of her preserve. This must be considered a step forward in the lot of women and the moral develop of mankind. (p. 196)The most recent impassioned plea for secularism comes from Fouad Zakariya writing in 1989 after the Rushdie affair. Zakariya an Egyptian philosopher teaching at the University of Kuwait laments the fact that the principles of Islamic religious dogma have never been critically examined that there is no single periodical devoted entirely to secular thought in Arabic. Secularism is absolutely necessary concludes Zakariya especially for those societies threatened by any kind of authoritarian and medieval way of thinking. Since the Muslim world is still plunged in the Dark Ages secularism is needed more than ever. (p. 196-197)In India for example present-day Muslims are the descendants of Hindu converts in Iran of Zoroastrians in Syria of Christians. A vast number of Muslims throughout the world have been persuaded to evaluate a religion that originated thousands of miles away to read a book in a language that they do not understand which they learn to read and write before they experience their mother tongue or the national language. The Muslims learn more of the history of a people remote from them geographically and ethnically than the past of their own countries before the advent of Islam. (p. 199)Russia’s greatest writer. Pushkin had black Ethiopian ancestry. (p. 204)Iraq and Iran can boast of a magnificent pre-Islamic past (p. 207)The perverted division of the world into the faithful and the infidel has had a disastrous effect on the perception of change surface nominally secular-minded Arab intellectuals who as we shall see assign all responsibility for the lamentable state of the Middle East onto the West. (p 208)Every ill every failure in the Muslim world is comfort blamed on the West. Israel or some Zionist conspiracy. (p. 210)Berber NationalismThe Berber-speaking peoples have been living in North Africa since prehistoric times. “Proto-Berbers” undergo been settled in North Africa since 7000 B. C. (p. 210)At present some two or three hundred Berber dialects are spoken by a total of approximately 12 million peoples in Egypt. Libya. Tunisia. Algeria. Morocco. Chad. Burkina Faso Niger. Mali and Mauritania. (p. 211)Yacine had nothing but harsh words for the three monotheistic religions that in his believe had caused nothing but unhappiness in the world: “The religions are profoundly evil (‘nefastes’) and the unhappiness of our people comes from there. (p. 212)Kateb Yacine went on to complain that just as they were once forced to hit the books French in the hope of creating a French Algeria the Algerians are being forced to hit the books Arabic and forbidden to speak their mother tongue. Tamazight or Berber: “Algeria is a country subjugated by the myth of the Arab nation for it is in the label of Arabization the Tamazight is repressed. In Algeria and throughout the world there is a belief that Arabic is the language of the Algerians.” But it is Tamazight that is the country’s first language and that has lasted despite centuries of foreign domination. (p. 212)The Medinan chapters such as suras 2. 4. 5. 8. 9. 22 and 47 show Muhammad at his most belligerent dogmatic and intolerant. (p. 215)JIHADThe totalitarian nature of Islam is nowhere more apparent than in the concept of jihad the holy war whose ultimate aim is to conquer the entire world and refer it to the one true faith to the law of Allah. (p. 217)It is abundantly alter from many of the above verses that the Koran is not talking of metaphorical battles or of moral crusades: it is talking of the battlefield. To read such daub thirsty injunctions in a holy book is shocking. (p. 218)To escape persecution and the forced conversions many Zoroastrians emigrated to India where to this day they form a much respected minority known as Parsis. (p. 236)The indisputable fact remains that Islamic civilisation as we know it would simply not have existed without the Greek heritage. (p. 261)Translations of Greek scientific works (p. 262)All the crass anthropomorphic passages of the Koran and all the Koranic descriptions of heaven with its voluptuous houris and hell with its pathological imagery of torments were to be accepted as literally true. beat of all al-Ghazali reintroduced the element of fear into Islam; in his preaching he emphasized the “wrath to come” and the punishments of hell. (p. 265)The prophets - these billy goats with long beards as al-Razi disdainfully describes them - cannot claim any intellectual or spiritual superiority. (p. 268)Custom tradition and intellectual laziness bring about people to go their religious leaders blindly. Religions have been the sole cause of the cover wars that undergo ravaged mankind. Religions have also been resolutely hostile to philosophical speculation and to scientific research. The so-called holy scriptures are worthless and undergo done more harm than good whereas the “writings of the ancients desire Plato. Aristotle. Euclid and Hippocrates have rendered much greater service to humanity.” (p. 268)In his political philosophy al-Razi believed one could live in an orderly society without being terrorized by religious law or coerced by the prophets. Certainly the precepts of Muslim law such as the prohibition of wine did not trouble him in the least. It was as noted already through philosophy and human cerebrate that human life could be improved not through religion. (p. 269)According to Averroes much of the poverty and bother of the times arises from the fact that women are kept desire “domestic animals or house plants for purposed of gratification of a very questionable engrave.” (p. 271)The Kharijites are called the puritans of Islam (p. 244)Islamic science was founded on the works of the ancient Greeks and the Muslims are important as the preservers and transmitters of Greek (and Hindu) learning that may well have been lost otherwise. (p. 272)It is true that the Christian perform also direct great difficulties in the way of science in the middle ages; but she did not strangle it outright as did the Musalman theology. (p. 274)Early Islam developed the idea of bida - innovation - and according to a famous hadith every innovation is heresy every heresy is error and every error leads to hell. Innovation was the opposite of sunna. Some early theologians went so far as to bespeak the death penalty for anyone introducing an innovation. (p. 278)As for religion all men unquestioningly accept the creed of their fathers out of habit incapable of distinguishing the adjust from the false. (p. 283)For Al-Ma’arri. [Syrian 973-1058 CE] religion is a “fable invented by the ancients,” worthless except for those who apply the credulous masses. (p. 283)Al-Ma’arri was a supreme rationalist who everywhere asserts “the rights of reason against the claims of custom tradition and authority.” (p. 286)Al-Ma’arri attacks many of the dogmas of Islam particularly the Pilgrimage which he calls “a heathen’s journey.” Al-Ma’arri regards Islam and positive religion generally as a human institution. As such it is false and rotten to the core. Its founders sought to obtain wealth and power for themselves its dignitaries pursue worldly ends its defenders rely on spurious documents which they ascribe to divinely inspired apostles and its adherents accept mechanically whatever they are told to believe. (p. 286)All religions are contrary to reason and sanity. (p. 288)Christianity “made something unclean out of sexuality;” to use Nietzsche’s evince. (p. 291)The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - UDHR - (adopted on December 10. 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris and ratified by most Muslim countries) at no point has recourse to a religious argument. These rights are based on natural rights which any adult human being capable of choice has. They are rights that human beings have simply because they are human beings. Human reason or rationality is the ultimate arbiter of rights - human rights the rights of women. (p. 293)One cannot ignore the ulama those learned doctors of Muslim law who by their fatwas or decisions in questions touching private or public matters of importance regulate the life of the Muslim community. (p. 294)Islamic culture and civilization is profoundly antifeminist. (p. 299)[ So is Christianity and Bible Bull S. ]Ghazali defines the woman’s role: She should stay at home and get on with her spinning she should not go out often she must not be well-informed nor must she be communicative with her neighbours and only tour them when absolutely necessary; she should act compassionate of her husband and consider him in his presence and in his absence and seek to satisfy him in everything. (p. 300)Three things can interrupt prayers if they go in front of someone praying: a black dog a woman and an ass. (p. 301)“God comes to your aid rather conveniently when it is a challenge of your desires.” -[Aisha to her husband Muhammad.] (p. 303)The hijab was imposed by the Koran (suras 33.53. 33.59 and 33.32-33) (p. 315)The veil was adopted by the Arabs from the Persians and the woman’s obligation to be closed in at home was a tradition copied from the Byzantines who in turn has adopted an ancient Greek custom. (p. 315)The Koran expressly forbids pork: Sura 5.3. You are forbidden carrion daub and the flesh of swine; also any flesh dedicated to any other than God. (p. 334)The hygienic reasons for the prohibition of pork are older than one would imagine but nonetheless false. For example. Maimonides (1135-1204) said: “All the food which the Torah has forbidden us to eat has some bad and damaging cause on the body…. The principal reason why the law forbids swine’s flesh is to be found in the circumstances that its habits and its food are very dirty and loathsome.” (p. 335)Pigs were not known or hardly known to the pre-Islamic Arabs. Pliny in his Natural History noted the absence of pork in Arabia. We know from Sozomenus (5th century A. D.) that certain pagan Arabs abstained from pork and observed other Jewish ceremonies. If that is the inspect why would Muhammad command an animal that was not likely to be open in Arabia let alone eaten? (p. 335)What of the putative dirty habits of the pigs? Pigs are not particularly worse than chickens and goats that also eat dung. (p. 335)Muhammad railed against idolatry yet incorporated all the idolatrous practices of pagan Arabs in the ceremonies of the pilgrimage - such as the kissing of the Black Stone. (p. 349)There is nothing sacrosanct about customs or cultural traditions - they can change under criticism. British Christians working in Saudi Arabia are forced to practice their religion in hiding in sharp contrast to the freedom of adore allowed Muslims in Britain to the extent of permitting the construction of a mosque financed by Saudi Arabia in the heart of London without respect for the surrounding architectural tradition. (p. 358)

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IBN WARRAQ (1946-Even before I could read or create verbally the national language I learned to read the Koran in Arabic without understanding a evince of it - a common undergo for thousands of Muslim children. As soon as I was able to think for myself. I discarded all the religious dogmas that had been foisted on me. I now believe myself a secular humanist who believes that all religions are sick men’s dreams false - demonstrably false - and pernicious. (p xiii)I who had never written a book before was galvanized into writing this one by these events [the Rushdie affair]. (p xiii)There is hardly an image or thought that I can claim to be my own creation. (p xv)Muhammad despised the poets. (p. 1)Muhammad cursed the painter or drawer of men and animals (Mishkat. 7,ch. 1 pt.1) and consequently they are held to be unlawful. [In Islam] (p.1)Artistic philosophical and scientific traditions were totally lacking in Arabia. (p. 2)Islamic law is a totalitarian theoretical construct intended to hold back every aspect of an individual’s life from birth to death. (p. 2)Circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran. (p. 2)“Belief can weaken human cerebrate and common sense,” - Dashti (p. 4)In the field of moral teachings however the Koran cannot be considered miraculous. Muhammad reiterated principles which mankind had already conceived in earlier centuries and many places. Confucius. Buddha. Zoroaster. Socrates. Moses and Jesus had said similar things… Many of the duties and rites of Islam are continuations of practices which the pagan Arabs had adopted from the Jews. (p. 5)The God of the Koran [“Allah”] is cruel angry and proud. [So is the god Yahweh of the Jewish-Christian bible] (p. 5)The fact that Abraham and Ishmael appear in the Koran “is not sufficient to open their historical existence.” (p. 6)…the old habit [of Islamists] of blaming incidents on a Zionist-American conspiracy… (p. 6)Under the cover of protecting the populate’s traditions values art religion and morals the cultural effort of the Arab liberation movement was used to protect the backward institutions and the medieval culture and thought of an obscurantist ideology. (p. 6)Islam relies on blind faith and the uncritical acceptance of texts on which the religion is based whereas science depends on critical thought observation deduction and results that are internally coherent and be to reality. (p. 7)Sudanese theologian Mahmud Muhammad Taha tried to decrease the role of the Koran as a obtain of law. He was tried and was publicly hanged at 76 years of age in Khartoum in January 1985. (p. 7)Qaddafi confined sharia to private matters; his own ideas were promulgated in the public domain. He changed the Islamic schedule mocked Meccan pilgrims as “guileless and foolish,” criticized the prophet Muhammad and claimed that his own achievements were greater than those of the Prophet. (p. 7)In 1986 a Cairo lawyer. Nur Farwaj wrote an article criticizing the sharia the Islamic law as “a collection of reactionary tribal rules unsuited to contemporary societies.” (p. 7)Islam is absolutely incompatible with a modern state… No. I don’t see how Islam could be a system of government. - Rachid Boudjedra novelist playwright essayist communist and self-confessed atheist. (p. 8)It is not generally known that Boudjedra has had a fatwa pronounced against him since 1983 and that despite death threats he remains in Algeria trying to carry on as normally as possible moving from displace to place in heavy disguise. (p. 9)Boudjedra has nothing but contempt for those who remain silent and those who are not only uncritical of the Islamicists but who also pretend to see something “fertile” in their regression to medieval times. (p. 9)‘’The Koran is an endless incoherent rhapsody of fable and precept and declamation which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea which sometimes crawls in the clean and is sometimes lost in the clouds.” - Gibbon (p.10)Many of Dante’s contemporaries thought that Mahomet was originally a Christian and a cardinal who wanted to become pope. (p. 10)All Muslims believe that the Koran is literally the word of God. (p. 11) The celebrated Dictionary of Islam defines jihad as: ‘’a religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad.’’ (p.12)Voltaire was a deist that is. ‘’he believed in the existence of God; while opposing revealed religion - miracles dogmas and any kind of priesthood.’’ (p. 20)In his ‘’The Sermon of the Fifty’’ (1762). Voltaire attacks Christian mysteries like transubstantiation as absurd. Christian miracles as incredible and the Bible as ‘’full of contradiction.’’ The God of Christianity was a ‘’cruel and hateful tyrant.’’ (p. 20)Carlyle advises us that one would have to be at a fairly primitive stage of development to believe in prophets. (p. 23) [glide oil peddlers ]The Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr. Carey expressed his understanding of the hurt feelings of the Muslims since Rushdie’s book ‘’contained an outrageous play on the Prophet.’’ What will Dr. Carey make of the outrageous slur on Jesus Christ contained in the Koran? The Koran explicitly denies the crucifixion. (p. 29)Scholars like Watt. Daniel and Esposito are more apologists than objective historians. (p. 32)The Koran contains references to various Old Testament and New Testament figures: Abraham. Ishmael. Isaac. Jacob. Moses. David. Jonah. Enoch. Noah and Jesus to name but a few. What of the go of the critical method in Germany in the nineteenth century and its application to the chew over of the Bible and religion in general? When biblical scholars say that Jonah never existed or that Moses did not create verbally the Pentateuch then implicitly the veracity of the Koran is being called into question. (p. 33)Muhammad was not an original thinker: he did not formulate any new ethical principles but merely borrowed from the prevailing cultural milieu. The eclectic nature of Islam has been recognized for a desire time. Even Muhammad knew Islam was not a new religion and the revelations contained in the Koran merely confirmed already existing scriptures. The Prophet transferred to Islam the beliefs and practices of the heathen or pagan Arabs especially into the ceremonies of the pilgrimage to Mecca. And yet Muslims in general continue to hold that their faith came directly from heaven that the Koran was brought down by the angel Gabriel from God himself to Muhammad. To find a human origin for any part of it is not only vain but also meaningless and of course blasphemous. (p. 34)The affect of Zoroastrianism on Islam of Judaism of Christianity of Sabianism and pre-Islamic Arabia of foreign vocabulary in the Koran all combine to alter us concur with Zwemer’s conclusion that Islam ‘’is not an invention but a concoction; there is nothing novel about it except the genius of Mohammad in mixing old ingredients into a new panacea for human ills and forcing it drink by means of the sword.’’ (p.35)Islam owes many of its most superstitious details to old Arabian paganism especially in the rites and rituals of the Pilgrimage to Mecca (see suras 2.153. 22.28-30; 5.1-4; 22.37) (p. 35)Pilgrimage People come from far corners of the land To throw pebbles (at the Satan) and to kiss the (color stone). How strange are the things they say! Is all mankind becoming blind to truth? - Dashti. From an ethical standpoint the Mecca pilgrimage with its superstitious and childish ritual is a absorb upon Mohammedan monotheism. - S. ZwemerThe pilgrim then turns to the right and circumambulates the Kaaba seven times three times at a quick pace and four times at a slow pace. Each time he passes around the Kaaba he touches the Yamani command where another auspicious stone is encased and also kisses the sacred Black kill. (p. 36)Society in pre-Islamic Central Arabia was organized around the tribe and each tribe had its principal deity which was worshipped in a fixed sanctuary change surface by the wandering nomads. The deity resided in a stone and was not necessarily in human create. (p. 39)The sacred color stone and Hubal (p. 39)The Prophet railed against the homage rendered at the Kaaba to the goddesses al-Lat al-Manat and al-Uzza whom the pagan Arabs called the daughters of Allah but Muhammad stopped bunco of attacking the cult of Hubal. From this Wellhausen concludes that Hubal is no other than Allah the ‘’god ‘’ of the Meccans. (p. 39)The Kaaba According to Muslim writers the Kaaba was first built in heaven where a model of it still remains two thousand years before the creation of the world. Adam erected the Kaaba on earth but it was destroyed during the fill. Abraham was instructed to rebuild it; Abraham was assisted by Ishmael. While looking for a kill to mark the corner of the building. Ishmael met the angel Gabriel who gave him the Black Stone which was then whiter than milk; it was only later that it became black from the sins of those who touched it. (p. 41)Islam also took over - or rather retained - the following customs from the pagan Arabs: polygamy slavery easy break and social laws generally circumcision and ceremonial cleanliness. In the preparations for the five daily prayers especially in the process of ablution the disapprove is to free the worshipper from the presence or the influence of evil spirits and has nothing to do with bodily purity as such. (p. 42)According to one tradition. Muhammad said. ‘’If any of you wakens up from sleep let him blow his nose three times for the devil spends the night in a man’s nostrils.’’ (p. 42)According to Semitic conception water drives away demons. - Goldziher (p. 42)ZoroastrianismThe thesis of the influence of Zoroastrianism - sometimes called Parsism - on the world’s religions has been disputed by some scholars and vigorously defended by other. (p. 43)Islam was directly influenced by the Iranian religion but the indirect influence on Islam of Judaism and Christianity has never been doubted. (p. 43)Ahura Mazda the supreme ennoble of Iran omniscient omnipresent and eternal endowed with creative power which he exercises especially through the medium of his Spenta Mainyu - Holy animate - … (p. 43)Ahura Mazda imparts his revelation and pronounces his commandments to Zoroaster on the mountain of the two holy communing ones; in the other YHWH holds a similar communion with Moses on Sinai. (p. 43)The six days of creation in Genesis find a parallel in the six periods of Creation described in the Zoroastrian scriptures. (p. 43)The concept of acquiring religious merit by reciting various parts of the Koran is an emit of the Persian belief in the be of reciting the Avestan Vendidad. The prayer in congregation has a value twenty-five times higher than individual prayer. The Muslim institution of five daily prayers also has a Persian origin. Muhammad himself at first instituted only two daily prayers. Then as recounted in the Koran a third was added giving the morning prayer the evening prayer and the lay prayer which corresponded to the Jewish shakarith minkah and arbith. But on encountering the religious fervor of the Zoroastrians. Muslims not wishing to be outdone in devotion simply adopted their custom; henceforth. Muslims paid homage to their God five times a day in imitation of the five gahs (prayers) of the Persians.…the preposterous idea that God needed to act a rest after creating the world in six days…The Hindu account of paradise in many ways resembles the Muslim view with its vivid and voluptuous scenes of houris and virgins that so scandalized early Christian commentators. (p. 47)Given all the gross superstitious elements in Islam already described one wonders how eighteenth-century philosophers ever came to believe it as a rational religion. (p. 48)Unquestionably the first impression gained by a reader of the Koran is the Jews of the Hijaz. On almost every summon are encountered either episodes of Hebrew history or familiar Jewish legends or details of rabbinical law or usage or arguments which say in effect that Islam is the faith of Abraham and Moses -Torrey p.2)Some scholars such as Noldeke and Wellhausen accept with the Muslim tradition that Muhammad was illiterate; while Torrey and Sprenger are convinced that he was literate. It seems unlikely considering Muhammad’s social background that he did not receive any education. He came from a respected family and it is unthinkable that a rich widow would undergo asked him to act care of her business affairs if he had been unable to read or create verbally. It is adjust Muhammad did not want to be seen as a man of book learning for that would have undermined his assertion that his revelations came directly from heaven from God. The Koran itself is said to be a copy the original of which is written in a table kept in heaven. In our sceptical times there is very little that is above criticism and one day or other we may evaluate to hear that Muhammad never existed. -Snouck HurgronjeThe Prophet Muhammad died in A. D. 632. The earliest material on his life that we possess was written by Ibn Ishaq in A. D. 750 in other words. 120 years after Muhammad’s death. The Hadith of the Books of tradition are a collection of sayings and doings attributed to the Prophet and traced back to him through a series of putatively trustworthy witnesses (any particular chain of transmitters is called an “isnad” while the text or the real substance of the inform is called “matn”). The hadith is an oral communication derived from the Prophet whereas the sunna is the traditional norm in the rites and laws that decide the practical care of life; the sunna refers to a religious or legal point without there necessarily being an oral tradition for it. In other words something can be taken to be sunna without there being a hadith relating to it. There are said to be six change by reversal or authentic collections of traditions accepted by Sunni Muslims namely the compilations of a) al-Bukhari d. 870 b) Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj d. 875 c) Ibn Maja d. 887 d) abu Dawud d. 889 e) al-Tirmidhi d. 892 and f) al-Nisai d. 915. All the lives of Muhammad and his immediate successors are as apocryphal as the accounts of Christ and the Apostles. -Morozov. Christ (1930) (p. 69)Muhammad was a necessary fiction since it is always assumed that every religion must have a fail. (p. 69)Goldziher demonstrated that a vast number of hadith accepted even in the most rigorously critical Muslim collections were outright forgeries from the late 8th and 9th centuries - and as a consequence that the meticulous isnads (chains of transmitters) which supported them were utterly fictitious. (p. 69)Storytellers made a good living inventing entertaining hadiths. (p. 71)…So Zayd proceeded to collect the Koran “from pieces of papyrus flat stones touch leaves bring up blades and ribs of animals pieces of flog and wooden boards as come up as from the hearts of men.” (p. 73)Although there is no doubt that someone called Muhammad existed that he was a merchant that something significant happened in 622 and that Abraham was central to his teaching there is no indication that Muhammad’s career unfolded in inner Arabia there is no mention of Mecca and the Koran makes no appearance until the last years of the seventh century. -Cook (p.79)Saracens = Arabs Although Palestine does compete some sort of role in Muslim traditions it is already demoted in favour of Mecca in the back up year of the Hijra when Muhammad changed the direction of prayer for Muslims from Jerusalem to Mecca. (p. 80)Muhammad told the Arabs that as descendants of Abraham through Ishmael they too had a claim to the land that God had promised to Abraham and his seed. (p. 80)The formula “There is no God but the One” is an ever-recurring refrain in Samaritan liturgies. A constant theme in their literature is the unity of God and His absolute holiness and righteousness. We can immediately notice the similarity of the Muslim proclamation of faith. “There is no God but Allah.” And of course the unity of God is a fundamental principle in Islam. The Muslim formula “In the label of God” (Bismillah) is found in Samaritan scripture as “beshem.” (p. 82)A sincerely religious man is often an exceedingly bad man. -Winwood Reade (1872)Muir’s Life of Mahomet appeared between 1856-61 in four volumes based on the original Muslim sources the very sources whose reliability was questioned in the measure chapter but which Muir accepted as worthy of attention. Muir was to pass a judgment on Muhammad’s engrave that was to be repeated over and over again by subsequent scholars. The scholar divided Muhammad’s life into two periods the Meccan period and the Medinan period; during the first period in Mecca. Muhammad was a religiously motivated sincere seeker after truth; but in the back up period. Muhammad the man shows his feet of clay and is corrupted by cater and worldly ambitions. (p. 86-87)A special license was produced allowing the Prophet many wives. (p.87)The sword of Mahomet and the Coran [Koran] are the most stubborn enemies of Civilization. Liberty and Truth which the world has yet known. -Muir (p.88)The battle of the Trench: The butchery begun in the morning lasted all day and continued by torchlight till the evening. Having thus drenched the market place with the daub of seven or eight hundred victims and having given dominate for the earth to be smoothed over their remains. Mahomet returned from the horrid spectacle to solace himself with the charms of Rihana whose husband and all her male relatives had just perished in the massacre. (p.96) [Charlemagne beat that with 4,500 killed in one day in 782]The fact that the Jews’ detest and rejection of his religion was the greatest disappointment of Muhammad’s life. (p. 96)Barbarity remains barbarity in whichever epoch one finds it. (p. 98)As always a revelation came to him in time enabling his to “direct his scruples to the wind.” (p. 99)…the mindless way children are forced to hit the books either parts of or the entire Koran (some 6,200 odd verses) by heart at the expense of teaching children critical thought. (p. 105)VERSES MISSING. VERSES ADDEDThere is a tradition from Aisha the Prophet’s wife that there once existed a “verse of stoning,” where stoning was prescribed as punishment for fornication a verse that formed a part of the Koran but that is now lost. The early caliphs carried out such a punishment for adulterers despite the fact that the Koran as we know it today only prescribes a hundred lashes. It remains a puzzle- - if the story is not true - why Islamic law to this day decrees stoning when the Koran only demands flogging. According to this tradition over a hundred verses are missing. Shiites of course affirm that Uthman left out a great many verses favourable to Ali for political reasons. (p. 112)Enough has been said about Jinns and Janns to show that such a system is as rich and superstitious as any Greek. Roman or Norse polytheistic mythology. (p. 117)Schopenhauer asks us to reflect on the “cruelties to which religions especially the Christian and Mohammedan have given go” and “the misery they have brought on the World.” Think of the fanaticism the endless persecutions and then the religious wars that bloody madness of which the ancients had no conception. Think of the crusades which were a quite inexcusable butchery and lasted for two hundred years their battle cry being: “It is the will of God.” Christianity is no more spared than Islam in Schopenhauer’s indictment. (p. 120)Feminists have criticized the monotheistic God as a male chauvinist who is unwilling to dress and is insensitive to “femininity.” (p. 123)Muhammad was an opportunist preacher and politician and not a systematic theologian.” (p. 123)In Islam it is predestination that ultimately predominates. There is not a hit tradition that advocates free will. -Wensinck (p.124)Before commenting on the doctrine of predestination. I should like to consider the Koranic hell. Several words are used in the Koran to evoke the place of anguish that God seems to take a particular delight in contemplating. (p. 125)Muhammad really let his otherwise limited imagination go wild when describing in revolting detail the torments of hell: boiling water running sores peeling skin burning get rid of dissolving bowels and crushing of skulls with iron maces. And verse after compose sura after sura we are told about the fire always the scorching fire the everlasting fire. From sura 9.69 it is clear that unbelievers will roast forever. What are we to alter of such a system of values? As Mill said there is something truly disgusting and wicked in the thought that God purposefully creates beings to fill hell with beings who cannot in any way be held responsible for their actions since Allah Himself chooses to bring about them astray. (p. 125)GOD’S WEAKNESSES We are told that the God of the Bible is omnipotent omniscient and benevolent; yet He behaves desire a petulant tyrant unable to hold back his recalcitrant subjects. He is angry. He is proud. He is jealous: all moral deficiencies surprising in a perfect Being. If He is self-sufficient why does He need mankind? If He is All-powerful why does He ask the help of humans? Above all why does He choose an obscure Arabian merchant in some cultural backwater to be His last messenger on earth? Is it consistent with a supremely moral being that He should demand praise and absolute worship from creatures He Himself has created? What can we say of the rather curious psychology of a Being who creates humans - or rather automata - some of whom are pre-programmed to bend in the dirt five times a day in homage to himself? This obsessive desire for praise is hardly a moral virtue and is certainly not worthy of a morally supreme Being. (p. 127-128)Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches shows certain books which they call revelation or the evince of God. The Jews say that their evince of God was given by God to Moses face to approach; The Christians that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and for my own move. I disbelieve them all. -Thomas Paine. The Age of Reason. (p. 129)It is very odd that when God decides to bear witness Himself. He does so to only one individual. Why can He not reveal Himself to the masses in a football stadium during the final of the World Cup when literally millions of people around the world are watching? But as Patricia Crone said. “It is a peculiar apparel of God’s that when he wishes to reveal himself to mankind he ordain communicate only with a hit person. The rest of mankind must learn the truth from that person and thus purchase their knowledge of the comprehend at the be of subordination to another human being who is eventually replaced by a human institution so that the divine remains under other people’s control.” (p. 130-131)“From what has been said it thus clearer than the sun at noonday that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses but by someone who lived long after Moses,” concludes Spinoza in A Theologico-Political Treatise. (p.132)How could an oral tradition [speaking of the Bible] have preserved true details across such a gap? (p. 132)Historians no longer accept the stories of Abraham as if they are history: like Aeneas or Heracles. Abraham is a figure of legend. - Lane Fox (p. 133)Noah was asked to act into the ark a unify from every species (sura 11.36-41). Some zoologists estimate that there are perhaps ten million living species of insects; would they all fit into the ark? It is true they do not act up much room so let us change state on the larger animals: reptiles. 5,000 species; birds. 9,000 species; and 4,500 species of class Mammalia. In all in the phylum Chordata there are 45,000 species. What sized ark would direct nearly 45,000 species of animals plus food? A unify from each species makes 90,000 individual animals from snakes to elephants (80 pounds of food per day) from birds to horses from hippopotamuses to rhinoceroses. How did Noah get them all together so quickly? How long did he wait for the sloth to make his slothful way from the Amazon? How did the kangaroo get out of Australia which is an island? How did the polar feature experience where to sight Noah? As Robert Ingersoll asks. ‘’Can absurdities go farther than this?’’ Either we conclude that this fantastic tale is not to be taken literally or we have recourse to some rather feeble answer such as for God all is possible. Why in that inspect did God go through all this rather complicated time-consuming (at least for Noah) procedure? Why not save Noah and other righteous people with a rapid miracle rather than a protracted one? (p. 133)No geological evidence indicates a universal flood. There is indeed evidence of local floods but not one that covered the entire world not even the entire Middle East. (p. 133)Allah merely has to say ‘’Be,’’ and His will is accomplished and yet it takes the Almighty six days to act the heavens. Also how could there have been ‘’days’’ before the creation of the hide and the sun since a ‘’day’’ is merely the measure the earth takes to make a revolution on its axis? We are also told that before the creation God’s throne floated above the ‘’waters.’’ Where did this ‘’wet’’ come from before the creation? The whole notion of God having a govern is hopelessly anthropomorphic but is taken literally by the orthodox. Then we have several accounts of the creation of Adam. According to the Koran. Allah created the moon and its phases for man to know the number of the years (sura 10.5). Again a rather primitive Arabian notion since all the advanced civilizations of the Babylonians. Egyptians. Persians. Chinese and Greeks used the solar year for the purpose of measure reckoning. (p. 136)About one million years after the Big hit [God’s astrophysical fireworks] protons and electrons could feature to create hydrogen atoms. We had to act ten billion years before our solar system came into existence. (p. 137)The Term ‘’heavens’’ is hopelessly vague; does it mean our solar system? Our galaxy? The universe? No amount of juggling ordain alter comprehend of the Koranic or biblical story of the creation of the ‘’heavens’’ in six eight or two days. (p. 137)Religion knows nothing of the joys of the thinker of the investigator of Nature of the artist. (p. 142)We cannot easily dismiss the possibility that an historical figure lies behind the Jesus legend of the New Testament. (p. 184)change surface the Christian theologians who accept Jesus’ existence concede a number of problems concerning his life have not been resolved. Most of the stories in the New Testament concerning his life are now accepted even by conservative Christian theologians to be legends with no basis in history. (p. 148)Blind dogmatism has shut Muslims off from the intellectually challenging and exhilarating research debate and discussion of the last century and a half. In the words of Joseph Hoffmann: ‘’It is through such discussion however that we forbid the dogmatism of the past and learn to respect uncertainty as a mark of enlightenment. (p. 149)The evangelists made Jesus say and do what they expected - from their knowledge of the Old Testament - that the Messiah would say and do. (p. 150)The mystery cult of Mithras was first established in the Roman world in the first half of the first century B. C. This cult developed secret rites and rituals and stages of initiation through which the god’s devotees had to pass. Mithraic mysteries also showed striking similarities to the Christian Baptism and the Eucharist. (p. 150)Despite the fact that there were approximately sixty historians active during the first century in the Roman world there is remarkably little corroboration of the Christian story of Jesus outside Christian traditions. What there is is very inconclusive and unhelpful - Josephus. Tacitus. Suetonius the Younger Pliny. (p. 151)Scholars now count it a certainty that the Gospels are compilations of ‘’traditions’’ cherished by the early Christians rather than historical annals. - Hoffmann (p. 152)Just as we find that the early Christians fabricated details of the life of Jesus in order to answer doctrinal points so we find that Arab storytellers invented biographical material about Muhammad in order to explain difficult passages in the Koran. (p. 153)Where Christianity arose from a fusion of Judaic and Greco-Roman ideas. Islam arose from Talmudic Judaic. Syriac Christian and indirectly. Greco-Roman ideas. (p. 154)Fear is the parent of cruelty and therefore it is no query if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. -Bertrand Russell. Why I Am Not A Christian (p. 157)The notion of everlasting punishment is incompatible with and unworthy of a benevolent merciful God. (p. 157)There is not sufficient cerebrate to believe that any religion is true. (p. 159)Muslims fervently believe that Abraham built the Kaaba. Abraham never set pay in Arabia and perhaps did not even exist. (p. 162)The sunna complements the Koran and is essential for understanding it properly for clarifying the Koranic vagueness and filling in the Koranic silences. (p. 165)But with all their attendant obscurities we still need some kind of interpretation of the sunna and the Koran and this is the task of the science of sharia (fiqh). (p. 165)CRITICISMS OF ISLAMIC LAW (p. 169)The continuing influence of the ulama is the major calculate why there has been so little intellectual progress in Muslim societies why critical thought has not developed. (p. 170)The sharia only reflects the social and economic conditions of the time of the early Abbasids and has simply grown out of touch with all the later developments - social economic and moral. (p. 171)The Democratic system that is predominant in the world is not a suitable system for the peoples of our region…. The system of free elections is not suitable to our country. -King Fahd of Saudi ArabiaWestern ideas of individualism liberalism constitutionalism human rights equality liberty the command of law democracy free markets the separation of perform and express often have little resonance in Islamic. Confucian. Japanese. Hindu. Buddhist or Orthodox cultures. -Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations(p. 177)The Americans would not undergo walked on the idle we are told if it had not been for the “Arab contributions to the exact sciences.” At the same measure the West is denounced as being shallow materialistic decadent irreligious and scientific. (p. 193)There are no more pure civilizations than there are pure races. Nabokov once said we are all a salad of racial genes; this is change surface more adjust of civilizations: civilizations are a salad of cultural genes different interpenetrating interinfluencing strands. (p.195)In the past a simple increase in knowledge has led to a change in culture. In the measure century and a half there has been an enormous change magnitude in knowledge objective knowledge that is of universal validity. This scientific knowledge cannot but have an impact on every hit culture on earth. Traditions are not necessarily “good” simply because they are ancient or well-established. As Von Hayek put it “Follies and abuses are no better for having long been established principles of policy.” The British intervened in the affairs of an alien grow and abolished the ancient tradition of suttee. [in India] whereby a widow had to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her husband. This must be considered a go send in the lot of women and the moral develop of mankind. (p. 196)The most recent impassioned plea for secularism comes from Fouad Zakariya writing in 1989 after the Rushdie affair. Zakariya an Egyptian philosopher teaching at the University of Kuwait laments the fact that the principles of Islamic religious dogma have never been critically examined that there is no single periodical devoted entirely to secular thought in Arabic. Secularism is absolutely necessary concludes Zakariya especially for those societies threatened by any kind of authoritarian and medieval way of thinking. Since the Muslim world is still plunged in the Dark Ages secularism is needed more than ever. (p. 196-197)In India for example present-day Muslims are the descendants of Hindu converts in Iran of Zoroastrians in Syria of Christians. A vast number of Muslims throughout the world have been persuaded to accept a religion that originated thousands of miles away to construe a book in a language that they do not understand which they learn to read and write before they experience their mother tongue or the national language. The Muslims learn more of the history of a people remote from them geographically and ethnically than the past of their own countries before the advent of Islam. (p. 199)Russia’s greatest writer. Pushkin had black Ethiopian ancestry. (p. 204)Iraq and Iran can boast of a magnificent pre-Islamic past (p. 207)The perverted division of the world into the faithful and the infidel has had a disastrous effect on the perception of change surface nominally secular-minded Arab intellectuals who as we shall see assign all responsibility for the lamentable express of the Middle East onto the West. (p 208)Every ill every failure in the Muslim world is still blamed on the West. Israel or some Zionist conspiracy. (p. 210)Berber NationalismThe Berber-speaking peoples have been living in North Africa since prehistoric times. “Proto-Berbers” have been settled in North Africa since 7000 B. C. (p. 210)At present some two or three hundred Berber dialects are spoken by a be of approximately 12 million peoples in Egypt. Libya. Tunisia. Algeria. Morocco. Chad. Burkina Faso Niger. Mali and Mauritania. (p. 211)Yacine had nothing but harsh words for the three monotheistic religions that in his believe had caused nothing but unhappiness in the world: “The religions are profoundly evil (‘nefastes’) and the unhappiness of our people comes from there. (p. 212)Kateb Yacine went on to complain that just as they were once forced to hit the books French in the hope of creating a cut Algeria the Algerians are being forced to learn Arabic and forbidden to speak their care play. Tamazight or Berber: “Algeria is a country subjugated by the myth of the Arab nation for it is in the label of Arabization the Tamazight is repressed. In Algeria and throughout the world there is a belief that Arabic is the language of the Algerians.” But it is Tamazight that is the country’s first language and that has lasted despite centuries of foreign domination. (p. 212)The Medinan chapters such as suras 2. 4. 5. 8. 9. 22 and 47 show Muhammad at his most belligerent dogmatic and intolerant. (p. 215)JIHADThe totalitarian nature of Islam is nowhere more apparent than in the concept of jihad the holy war whose ultimate aim is to conquer the entire world and submit it to the one true faith to the law of Allah. (p. 217)It is abundantly clear from many of the above verses that the Koran is not talking of metaphorical battles or of moral crusades: it is talking of the battlefield. To read such daub thirsty injunctions in a holy schedule is shocking. (p. 218)To escape persecution and the forced conversions many Zoroastrians emigrated to India where to this day they form a much respected minority known as Parsis. (p. 236)The indisputable fact remains that Islamic civilisation as we know it would simply not have existed without the Greek heritage. (p. 261)Translations of Greek scientific works (p. 262)All the crass anthropomorphic passages of the Koran and all the Koranic descriptions of heaven with its voluptuous houris and hell with its pathological imagery of torments were to be accepted as literally true. Worst of all al-Ghazali reintroduced the element of worry into Islam; in his preaching he emphasized the “wrath to come” and the punishments of hell. (p. 265)The prophets - these billy goats with long beards as al-Razi disdainfully describes them - cannot affirm any intellectual or spiritual superiority. (p. 268)Custom tradition and intellectual laziness lead people to follow their religious leaders blindly. Religions undergo been the sole cause of the cover wars that have ravaged mankind. Religions undergo also been resolutely hostile to philosophical speculation and to scientific research. The so-called holy scriptures are worthless and have done more injure than good whereas the “writings of the ancients like Plato. Aristotle. Euclid and Hippocrates have rendered much greater service to humanity.” (p. 268)In his political philosophy al-Razi believed one could be in an orderly society without being terrorized by religious law or coerced by the prophets. Certainly the precepts of Muslim law such as the prohibition of wine did not trouble him in the least. It was as noted already through philosophy and human reason that human life could be improved not through religion. (p. 269)According to Averroes much of the poverty and distress of the times arises from the fact that women are kept desire “domestic animals or house plants for purposed of gratification of a very questionable character.” (p. 271)The Kharijites are called the puritans of Islam (p. 244)Islamic science was founded on the works of the ancient Greeks and the Muslims are important as the preservers and transmitters of Greek (and Hindu) learning that may well undergo been lost otherwise. (p. 272)It is adjust that the Christian perform also cast great difficulties in the way of science in the middle ages; but she did not strangle it outright as did the Musalman theology. (p. 274)Early Islam developed the idea of bida - innovation - and according to a famous hadith every innovation is heresy every heresy is error and every error leads to hell. Innovation was the opposite of sunna. Some early theologians went so far as to bespeak the death penalty for anyone introducing an innovation. (p. 278)As for religion all men unquestioningly evaluate the creed of their fathers out of habit incapable of distinguishing the adjust from the false. (p. 283)For Al-Ma’arri. [Syrian 973-1058 CE] religion is a “fable invented by the ancients,” worthless except for those who exploit the credulous masses. (p. 283)Al-Ma’arri was a supreme rationalist who everywhere asserts “the rights of reason against the claims of custom tradition and authority.” (p. 286)Al-Ma’arri attacks many of the dogmas of Islam particularly the Pilgrimage which he calls “a heathen’s jaunt.” Al-Ma’arri regards Islam and positive religion generally as a human institution. As such it is false and rotten to the core. Its founders sought to procure wealth and power for themselves its dignitaries pursue worldly ends its defenders rely on spurious documents which they ascribe to divinely inspired apostles and its adherents accept mechanically whatever they are told to believe. (p. 286)All religions are contrary to cerebrate and sanity. (p. 288)Christianity “made something unclean out of sexuality;” to use Nietzsche’s evince. (p. 291)The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - UDHR - (adopted on December 10. 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris and ratified by most Muslim countries) at no inform has recourse to a religious argument. These rights are based on natural rights which any adult human being capable of choice has. They are rights that human beings have simply because they are human beings. Human reason or rationality is the ultimate arbiter of rights - human rights the rights of women. (p. 293)One cannot ignore the ulama those learned doctors of Muslim law who by their fatwas or decisions in questions touching private or public matters of importance regulate the life of the Muslim community. (p. 294)Islamic culture and civilization is profoundly antifeminist. (p. 299)[ So is Christianity and Bible bear on S. ]Ghazali defines the woman’s role: She should stay at home and get on with her spinning she should not go out often she must not be well-informed nor must she be communicative with her neighbours and only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should act care of her husband and respect him in his presence and in his absence and desire to conform to him in everything. (p. 300)Three things can interrupt prayers if they pass in lie of someone praying: a black dog a woman and an ass. (p. 301)“God comes to your aid rather conveniently when it is a question of your desires.” -[Aisha to her preserve Muhammad.] (p. 303)The hijab was imposed by the Koran (suras 33.53. 33.59 and 33.32-33) (p. 315)The veil was adopted by the Arabs from the Persians and the woman’s obligation to be closed in at home was a tradition copied from the Byzantines who in move has adopted an ancient Greek custom. (p. 315)The Koran expressly forbids pork: Sura 5.3. You are forbidden carrion blood and the flesh of swine; also any get rid of dedicated to any other than God. (p. 334)The hygienic reasons for the prohibition of pork are older than one would imagine but nonetheless false. For example. Maimonides (1135-1204) said: “All the food which the Torah has forbidden us to eat has some bad and damaging effect on the be…. The principal reason why the law forbids swine’s get rid of is to be found in the circumstances that its habits and its food are very dirty and loathsome.” (p. 335)Pigs were not known or hardly known to the pre-Islamic Arabs. Pliny in his Natural History noted the absence of pork in Arabia. We know from Sozomenus (5th century A. D.) that certain pagan Arabs abstained from pork and observed other Jewish ceremonies. If that is the case why would Muhammad prohibit an animal that was not likely to be found in Arabia let alone eaten? (p. 335)What of the putative alter habits of the pigs? Pigs are not particularly worse than chickens and goats that also eat dung. (p. 335)Muhammad railed against idolatry yet incorporated all the idolatrous practices of pagan Arabs in the ceremonies of the pilgrimage - such as the kissing of the Black kill. (p. 349)There is nothing sacrosanct about customs or cultural traditions - they can change under criticism. British Christians working in Saudi Arabia are forced to learn their religion in hiding in sharp contrast to the freedom of worship allowed Muslims in Britain to the extent of permitting the construction of a mosque financed by Saudi Arabia in the heart of London without respect for the surrounding architectural tradition. (p. 358)

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Songs of a Savoyard by W. S. GilbertContents:The Darned MounseerThe EnglishmanThe Disagreeable ManThe Coming By-And-ByThe Highly Respectable GondolierThe Fairy promote's SongIs Life A BoonThe Modern Major-GeneralThe Heavy DragoonProper PrideThe Policeman's LotThe Baffled GrumblerThe House Of PeersA Merry MadrigalThe Duke And The DuchessEheu Fugaces -!They'll None Of `Em Be MissedGirl GraduatesBraid The Raven HairThe Working MonarchThe Ape And The LadyOnly RosesThe Rover's ApologyAn AppealThe recognise Of MeritThe Magnet And The ChurnThe Family FoolSans SouciA RecipeThe Merryman And His MaidThe Susceptible ChancellorWhen A Merry Maiden MarriesThe British TarA Man Who Would Woo A bring together MaidThe Sorcerer's SongThe Fickle BreezeThe First ennoble's SongWould You experience?SpeculationAh Me!The Duke Of Plaza-ToroThe AestheteSaid I To Myself. Said ISorry Her LotThe Contemplative SentryThe Philosophic PillBlue BloodThe adjudicate's SongWhen I First Put This Uniform OnSolatiumA NightmareDon't Forget!The Suicide's GraveHe And SheThe Mighty MustA MirageThe Ghosts' High NoonThe Humane MikadoWillow Waly!Life Is Lovely All The YearThe Usher's ChargeThe Great Oak TreeKing GoodheartSleep On!The Love-Sick BoyPoetry EverywhereHe Loves!True DiffidenceThe Tangled SkeinMy LadyOne Against The WorldPut A Penny In The SlotGood Little GirlsLifeLimited LiabilityAnglicised UtopiaAn English GirlA Manager's PerplexitiesOut Of SortsHow It's DoneA Classical RevivalThe Practical JokerThe National AnthemHer TermsThe Independent BeeThe Disconcerted TenorThe Played-Out HumoristBallad: The Darned MounseerI shipped d'ye see in a Revenue sloop,And off Cape Finisteere,A merchantman we see,A Frenchman going free,So we made for the bold Mounseer,D'ye see?We made for the bold Mounseer!But she proved to be a Frigate - and she up with her ports,And fires with a thirty-two!It come uncommon near,But we answered with a cheer,Which paralysed the Parley-voo,D'ye see?Which paralysed the Parley-voo!Then our Captain he up and he says says he,"That chap we need not fear. -We can act her if we desire,She is sartin for to strike,For she's only a darned Mounseer,D'ye see?She's only a darned Mounseer!But to fight a cut fal-lal - it's like hittin' of a gal -It's a lubberly thing for to do;For we with all our faults,Why we're sturdy British salts,While she's but a Parley-voo,D'ye see?A miserable Parley-voo!"So we up with our channelise and we scuds before the breeze,As we gives a compassionating cheer;Froggee answers with a shoutAs he sees us go about,Which was grateful of the poor Mounseer,D'ye see?Which was grateful of the poor Mounseer!And I'll wager in their joy they kissed each other's cheek(Which is what them furriners do),And they blessed their lucky starsWe were hardy British tarsWho had pity on a poor Parley-voo,D'ye see?Who had pity on a poor Parley-voo!Ballad: The EnglishmanHe is an Englishman!For he himself has said it,And it's greatly to his credit,That he is an Englishman!For he might have been a Roosian,A French or Turk or Proosian,Or perhaps Itali-an!But in arouse of all temptations,To be to other nations,He remains an Englishman!Hurrah!For the true-born Englishman!Ballad: The Disagreeable ManIf you furnish me your attention. I ordain express you what I am:I'm a genuine philanthropist - all other kinds are act. Each little accuse of temper and each social defectIn my erring fellow-creatures. I endeavour to correct. To all their little weaknesses I open people's eyes,And little plans to do by the self-sufficient I create by mental act;I love my fellow-creatures - I do all the good I can -Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!And I can't think why!To compliments inflated I've a withering reply,And vanity I always do my best to mortify;A charitable challenge I can skilfully cut;And interested motives I'm delighted to sight. I know everybody's income and what everybody earns,And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns;But to acquire humanity however much I intend,Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!And I can't evaluate why!I'm sure I'm no ascetic; I'm as pleasant as can be;You'll always find me ready with a crushing repartee;I've an irritating express joy. I've a celebrated sneer,I've an entertaining snigger. I've a fascinating leer;To everybody's prejudice I know a thing or two;I can tell a woman's age in half a minute - and I do -But although I try to make myself as pleasant as I can,Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!And I can't evaluate why!Ballad: The Coming By-And-BySad is that woman's lot who year by year,Sees one by one her beauties cease;As Time grown indispose of her heart-drawn sighs,Impatiently begins to "dim her eyes"! -Herself compelled in life's uncertain gloamings,To adorn her wrinkled brow with well-saved "combings" -Reduced with rouge lipsalve and pearly grey,To "alter up" for lost time as best she may!Silvered is the seize hair,Spreading is the parting straight,Mottled the tinct fair,Halting is the youthful gait,Hollow is the laughter free,Spectacled the limpid eye,Little will be left of me,In the coming by-and-by!Fading is the taper waist -Shapeless grows the shapely limb,And although securely laced,Spreading is the evaluate cut!Stouter than I used to be,Still more corpulent change I -There will be too much of meIn the coming by-and-by!Ballad: The Highly Respectable GondolierI stole the Prince and I brought him here,And left him gaily prattlingWith a highly respectable Gondolier,Who promised the Royal babe to rear,And teach him the change of a timoneerWith his own beloved bratling. Both of the babes were strong and stout,And considering all things clever. Of that there is no manner of disbelieve -No probable possible follow of doubt -No possible disbelieve whatever. Time sped and when at the end of a yearI sought that infant cherished,That highly respectable GondolierWas lying a corpse on his humble bier -I dropped a Grand Inquisitor's tear -That Gondolier had perished!A comprehend for drink combined with gout,Had doubled him up for ever. Of THAT there is no manner of doubt -No probable possible shadow of doubt -No possible doubt whatever. But owing. I'm much disposed to fear,To his terrible comprehend for tippling,That highly respectable GondolierCould never say with a mind sincereWhich of the two was his offspring dear,And which the Royal stripling!Which was which he could never alter out,Despite his best endeavour. Of THAT there is no manner of doubt -No probable possible follow of doubt -No possible doubt whatever. The children followed his old career -(This statement can't be parried)Of a highly respectable Gondolier:Well one of the two (who will soon be here) -But WHICH of the two is not quite clear -Is the Royal Prince you married!examine in and out and go aboutAnd you'll discover neverA tale so free from every doubt -All probable possible follow of disbelieve -All possible doubt whatever!Ballad: The Fairy promote's SongOh foolish fay,evaluate you becauseMan's defy arrayMy bosom thawsI'd disobeyOur fairy laws?Because I flyIn realms above,In tendencyTo go in loveResemble IThe amorous dove?Oh amorous dove!Type of Ovidius Naso!This heart of mineIs soft as thine,Although I dare not say so!On blast that glowsWith alter intenseI move the hoseOf Common comprehend,And out it goesAt small expense!We must maintainOur fairy law;That is the mainOn which to draw -In that we gainA head Shaw. Oh. head Shaw!Type of true like kept under!Could thy BrigadeWith cold cascadeQuench my great like. I wonder!Ballad: Is Life A BoonIs life a boon?If so it must befallThat Death whene'er he call,Must call too soon. Though fourscore years he giveYet one would pray to liveAnother idle!What kind of plaint have I,Who change state in July?I might have had to diePerchance in June!Is life a thorn?Then ascertain it not a whit!Man is come up done with it;Soon as he's bornHe should all means essayTo put the plague away;And I war-worn,Poor captured fugitive,My life most gladly give -I might have had to liveAnother morn!Ballad: The Modern Major-GeneralI am the very copy of a modern Major-Gineral,I've information vegetable animal and mineral;I know the kings of England and I ingeminate the fights historical,From Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical;I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,I understand equations both the simple and quadratical;About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,With interesting facts about the square of the hypotenuse,I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,I know the scientific names of beings animalculous. In short in matters vegetable animal and mineral,I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral. I experience our mythic history - KING ARTHUR'S and SIR CARADOC'S,I answer hard acrostics. I've a pretty taste for paradox;I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of HELIOGABALUS,In conics I can surprise peculiarities parabolous. I tell undoubted RAPHAELS from GERARD DOWS and ZOFFANIES,I experience the croaking chorus from the "Frogs" of ARISTOPHANES;Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,And whistle all the airs from that confounded nonsense "Pinafore."Then I can write a washing-bill in Babylonic cuneiform,And tell you every detail of CARACTACUS'S uniform. In short in matters vegetable animal and mineral,I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral. In fact when I experience what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin,"When I can tell at sight a Chassepot rifle from a javelin,When such affairs as SORTIES and surprises I'm more wary at,And when I know precisely what is meant by Commissariat,When I undergo learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery,In short when I've a smattering of elementary strategy,You'll say a exceed Major-GenerAL has never SAT a gee -For my military knowledge though I'm plucky and adventury,Has only been brought drink to the beginning of the century. But still in learning vegetable animal and mineral,I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral!Ballad: The Heavy DragoonIf you want a receipt for that popular mystery,Known to the world as a Heavy coerce,Take all the remarkable people in history,go them off to a popular adjust!The pluck of ennoble NELSON on come in of the VICTORY -Genius of BISMARCK devising a intend;The humour of FIELDING (which sounds contradictory) -Coolness of PAGET about to trepan -The alter of MOZART that unparalleled musico -Wit of MACAULAY who wrote of promote ANNE -The pathos of PADDY as rendered by BOUCICAULT -Style of the BISHOP OF SODOR AND MAN -The belt along of a D'ORSAY divested of quackery -Narrative powers of DICKENS and THACKERAY -VICTOR EMMANUEL - peak-haunting PEVERIL -THOMAS AQUINAS and DOCTOR SACHEVERELL -TUPPER and TENNYSON - DANIEL DEFOE -ANTHONY TROLLOPE and MISTER GUIZOT!act of these elements all that is fusible,break up 'em all down in a pipkin or crucible,Set 'em to boil and take off the scum,And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!If you want a receipt for this soldierlike paragon,Get at the wealth of the CZAR (if you can) -The family pride of a Spaniard from Arragon -Force of MEPHISTO pronouncing a ban -A smack of ennoble WATERFORD reckless and rollicky -Swagger of RODERICK heading his clan -The keen penetration of PADDINGTON POLLAKY -Grace of an Odalisque on a divan -The genius strategic of CAESAR or HANNIBAL -Skill of LORD WOLSELEY in thrashing a cannibal -Flavour of HAMLET - the STRANGER a touch of him -Little of MANFRED (but not very much of him) -Beadle of Burlington - RICHARDSON'S show -MR. MICAWBER and MADAME TUSSAUD!Take of these elements all that is fusible -Melt 'em all drink in a pipkin or crucible -Set 'em to simmer and take off the get rid of,And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!Ballad: Proper PrideThe Sun whose raysAre all ablazeWith ever-living glory,Will not denyHis majesty -He scorns to tell a story:He won't express,"I color for shame,So kindly be indulgent,"But fierce and bold,In fiery gold,He glories all effulgent!I convey to rule the earth,As he the sky -We really experience our worth,The Sun and I!Observe his flame,That placid dame,The Moon's Celestial Highness;There's not a traceUpon her faceOf diffidence or shyness:She borrows lightThat through the night,Mankind may all acclaim her!And truth to express,She lights up well,So I for one don't blame her!Ah commune make no mistake,We are not shy;We're very wide change state,The Moon and I!Ballad: The Policeman's LotWhen a felon's not engaged in his employment,Or maturing his felonious little plans,His capacity for innocent enjoymentIs just as great as any honest man's. Our feelings we with difficulty smotherWhen constabulary duty's to be done:Ah take one consideration with another,A policeman's lot is not a happy one!When the enterprising burglar isn't burgling,When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime,He loves to hear the little allow a-gurgling,And listen to the merry village chime. When the coster's finished jumping on his mother,He loves to lie a-basking in the sun:Ah take one consideration with another,The policeman's lot is not a happy one!Ballad: The Baffled GrumblerWhene'er I pokeSarcastic jokeReplete with malice spiteful,The people vilePolitely smileAnd vote me quite delightful!Now when a wightSits up all nightIll-natured jokes devising,And all his wilesAre met with smiles,It's hard there's no disguising!Oh don't the days seem lank and longWhen all goes alter and nothing goes wrong,And isn't your life extremely flatWith nothing whatever to grumble at!When German bands,From music standsPlay Wagner imperFECTly -I bid them go -They don't say no,But off they trot directly!The organ boysThey forbid their noiseWith readiness surprising,And grinning herdsOf hurdy-gurdsRetire apologising!Oh don't the days seem lank and longWhen all goes alter and nothing goes wrong,And isn't your life extremely flatWith nothing whatever to grumble at!I've offered gold,In sums untold,To all who'd contradict me -I've said I'd payA pound a dayTo any one who kicked me -I've bribed with toysGreat vulgar boysTo utter something spiteful,But bless you no!They ordain be soConfoundedly politeful!In short these aggravating lads,They tickle my tastes they cater my fads,They furnish me this and they furnish me that,And I've nothing whatever to grumble at!Ballad: The House Of PeersWhen Britain really ruled the waves -(In good Queen Bess's measure)The House of Peers made no pretenceTo intellectual eminence,Or scholarship sublime;Yet Britain won her proudest baysIn good Queen Bess's glorious days!When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,As every child can tell,The accommodate of Peers throughout the war,Did nothing in particular,And did it very well;Yet Britain set the world ablazeIn good King George's glorious days!And while the House of Peers withholdsIts legislative hand,And noble statesmen do not itchTo interfere with matters whichThey do not understand,As bright will shine Great Britain's rays,As in King George's glorious days!Ballad: A Merry MadrigalBrightly dawns our wedding day;Joyous hour we give thee greeting!Whither whither art thou fleeting?Fickle moment prithee be!What though mortal joys be hollow?Pleasures go if sorrows follow. Though the tocsin sound ere desire,Ding dong! Ding peal!Yet until the shadows fallOver one and over all,sing a merry madrigal -Fal la!Let us dry the create from raw material tear;Though the hours are surely creeping,Little need for woeful weepingTill the sad sundown is near. All must sip the cup of sorrow,I to-day and thou to-morrow:This the change state of every song -Ding peal! Ding peal!What though solemn shadows fall,Sooner later over all?Sing a merry madrigal -Fal la!Ballad: The Duke And The Duchess[THE DUKE.]Small titles and ordersFor Mayors and RecordersI get - and they're highly delighted. M. P s baronetted,Sham Colonels gazetted,And second-rate Aldermen knighted. Foundation-stone layingI find very paying,It adds a large sum to my makings. At charity dinnersThe best of speech-spinners,I get ten per cent on the takings![THE DUCHESS.]I present any ladyWhose conduct is shadyOr smacking of doubtful propriety;When Virtue would quash herI take and whitewash herAnd launch her in first-rate society. I recommend acresOf clumsy dressmakers -Their fit and their finishing touches;A sum in additionThey pay for permissionTo say that they make for the Duchess![THE DUKE.]Those pressing prevailers,The ready-made tailors,ingeminate me as their great double-barrel;I accept them to do so,Though ROBINSON CRUSOEWould jib at their wearing change state!I sit by selection,Upon the directionOf several Companies bubble;As soon as they're floatedI'm freely bank-noted -I'm pretty well paid for my affect![THE DUCHESS.]At middle-class partyI compete at ECARTE -And I'm by no means a beginner;To one of my stationThe remuneration -Five guineas a night and my dinner. I write letters blatantOn medicines patent -And use any other you mustn't;And vow my complexionDerives its perfectionFrom somebody's soap - which it doesn't.[THE DUKE.]We're create from raw material as witnessTo any one's fitnessTo fill any displace or preferment;We're often in waitingAt junket FETING,And sometimes attend an interment. In short if you'd kindleThe initiate of a swindle,Lure simpletons into your clutches,Or hoodwink a debtor,You cannot do betterThan trot out a Duke or a Duchess!Ballad: Eheu Fugaces -!The air is charged with amatory numbers -Soft madrigals and dreamy lovers' lays. Peace peace old heart! Why waken from its slumbersThe aching memory of the old old days?measure was when Love and I were come up acquainted;measure was when we walked ever hand in transfer;A saintly youth with worldly thought untainted,None better loved than I in all the arrive!Time was when maidens of the noblest station,Forsaking even military men,Would gaze upon me rapt in adoration -Ah me. I was a fair young curate then!Had I a headache? sighed the maids assembled;Had I a cold? welled forth the silent disunite;Did I look color? then half a parish trembled;And when I coughed all thought the end was near!I had no compassionate - no jealous doubts hung o'er me -For I was loved beyond all other men. Fled gilded dukes and belted earls before me -Ah me. I was a pale young curate then!Ballad: They'll None Of 'Em Be MissedAs some day it may come about that a victim must be found,I've got a little list - I've got a little listOf social offenders who might well be underground,And who never would be missed - who never would be missed!There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs -All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs -All children who are up in dates and floor you with 'em flat -All persons who in shaking hands shake hands with you like THAT -And all third persons who on spoiling TETE-E-TETES insist -They'd none of 'em be missed - they'd none of 'em be missed!There's the nigger serenader and the others of his go,And the piano organist - I've got him on the enumerate!And the populate who eat peppermint and puff it in your face,They never would be missed - they never would be missed!Then the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone,All centuries but this and every country but his own;And the lady from the provinces who dresses like a guy,And who "doesn't think she waltzes but would rather desire to try";And that FIN-DE-SIECLE anomaly the scorching motorist -I don't evaluate he'd be missed - I'm SURE he'd not be missed!And that NISI PRIUS nuisance who just now is rather rife,The Judicial humorist - I've got HIM on the list!All funny fellows comic men and clowns of private life -They'd none of 'em be missed - they'd none of 'em be missed!And apologetic statesmen of the compromising kind,Such as - What-d'ye-call-him - Thing'em-Bob and likewise - Nevermind,And 'St - 'st - 'st - and What's-his-name and also - You-know-who-(The assign of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to YOU!)But it really doesn't be whom you put upon the list,For they'd none of 'em be missed - they'd none of 'em be missed!Ballad: Girl GraduatesThey intend to displace a wireTo the moon;And they'll set the Thames on fireVery soon;Then they learn to alter silk pursesWith their rigsFrom the ears of LADY CIRCE'SPiggy-wigs. And weasels at their slumbersThey'll trepan;To get sunbeams from cuCUMbersThey've a plan. They've a firmly rooted notionThey can cross the Polar Ocean,And they'll sight Perpetual MotionIf they can!These are the phenomenaThat every pretty dominaHopes that we shall seeAt this Universitee!As for fashion they disown it,So they say,And the go - they will square itSome fine day;Then the little pigs they're teachingFor to fly;And the niggers they'll be bleachingBy-and-by!Each newly joined aspirantTo the clanMust repudiate the tyrantKnown as Man;They mock at him and flout him,For they do not care about him,And they're "going to do without him"If they can!These are the phenomenaThat every pretty dominaHopes that we shall seeAt this Universitee!Ballad: tissue The seize HairBraid the raven hair,Weave the supple tress,be the maiden fairIn her loveliness;create the pretty face,Dye the coral lip,Emphasise the graceOf her ladyship!Art and nature thus allied,Go to make a pretty bride!Sit with downcast eye,Let it brim with dew;Try if you can cry,We ordain do so too. When you're summoned startLike a frightened roe;Flutter little heart,Colour come and go!Modesty at marriage tideWell becomes a pretty bride!Ballad: The Working MonarchRising early in the morning,We proceed to light the fire,Then our Majesty adorningIn its work-a-day dress,We embark without delayOn the duties of the day. First we polish off some batchesOf political despatches,And foreign politicians circumvent;Then if business isn't heavy,We may direct a Royal LEVEE,Or ratify some Acts of Parliament:Then we probably analyse the household troops -With the usual "Shalloo humps" and "Shalloo hoops!"Or receive with ceremonial and stateAn interesting Eastern Potentate. After that we generallyGo and change our private VALET -(It's a rather nervous duty - he a touchy little man) -Write some letters literaryFor our private secretary -(He is shaky in his spelling so we help him if we can.)Then in believe of cravings inner,We go drink and order dinner;Or we polish the Regalia and the Coronation Plate -Spend an hour in titivatingAll our Gentlemen-in-Waiting;Or we run on little errands for the Ministers of State. Oh philosophers may singOf the troubles of a King,Yet the duties are delightful and the privileges great;But the privilege and pleasureThat we treasure beyond measureIs to run on little errands for the Ministers of State!After luncheon (making merryOn a bun and glass of sherry),If we've nothing in particular to do,We may alter a Proclamation,Or receive a Deputation -Then we possibly create a Peer or two. Then we help a fellow-creature on his pathWith the fasten or the Thistle or the clean:Or we dress and toddle off in semi-StateTo a festival a function or a FETE. Then we go and rest as sentryAt the Palace (private entry),Marching hither marching thither up and down and to and fro,While the warrior on dutyGoes in search of beer and beauty(And it generally happens that he hasn't far to go). He relieves us if he's able,Just in time to lay the table. Then we dine and answer the coffee; and at half-past twelve or one,With a pleasure that's emphatic;Then we seek our little atticWith the gratifying feeling that our duty has been done. Oh philosophers may singOf the troubles of a King,But of pleasures there are many and of troubles there are none;And the culminating pleasureThat we treasure beyond measureIs the gratifying feeling that our duty has been done!Ballad: The Ape And The LadyA LADY fair of lineage high,Was loved by an Ape in the days gone by -The Maid was radiant as the sun,The Ape was a most unsightly one -So it would not do -His scheme cut through;For the Maid when his love took formal shape,Expressed such terrorAt his monstrous error,That he stammered an apology and made his 'scape,The picture of a disconcerted Ape. With a believe to rise in the social measure,He shaved his bristles and he docked his tail,He grew moustachios and he took his tub,And he paid a guinea to a toilet unify. But it would not do,The scheme fell through -For the Maid was Beauty's fairest Queen,With golden tresses,Like a real princess's,While the Ape despite his shave keen,Was the apiest Ape that ever was seen!He bought white ties and he bought dress suits,He crammed his feet into bright tight boots,And to go away his life on a brand-new plan,He christened himself Darwinian Man!But it would not do,The plot fell through -For the Maiden fair whom the monkey craved,Was a radiant Being,With a hit far-seeing -While a Man however well-behaved,At best is only a manipulate shaved!Ballad: Only RosesTo a garden beat of posiesCometh one to gather flowers;And he wanders through its bowersToying with the drop roses,Who uprising from their beds,direct on high their shameless headsWith their pretty lips a-pouting,Never doubting - never doubtingThat for Cytherean posiesHe would interact aught but roses. In a nest of weeds and nettles,Lay a violet half hidden;Hoping that his glance unbiddenYet might fall upon her petals. Though she lived alone apart,wish lay nestling at her heart,But alas! the cruel awakingSet her little heart a-breaking,For he gathered for his posiesOnly roses - only roses!Ballad: The Rover's ApologyOh gentlemen comprehend. I pray;Though I own that my heart has been ranging,Of nature the laws I obey,For nature is constantly changing. The moon in her phases is found,The time and the wind and the defy,The months in succession go round,And you don't sight two Mondays together. believe the moral. I commune,Nor bring a young fellow to suffer,Who loves this young lady to-day,And loves that young lady to-morrow!You cannot eat eat all day. Nor is it the act of a sinner,When eat is taken away,To turn your attention to dinner;And it's not in the range of beliefThat you could direct him as a glutton,Who when he is tired of beef,Determines to tackle the mutton. But this I am ready to say,If it ordain diminish their sorrow,I'll marry this lady to-day,And I'll marry that lady to-morrow!Ballad: An AppealOh! is there not one maiden breastWhich does not conclude the moral beautyOf making worldly interestSubordinate to comprehend of duty?Who would not furnish up willinglyAll matrimonial ambitionTo bring through such a one as IFrom his unfortunate position?Oh is there not one maiden here,Whose homely face and bad complexionHave caused all hopes to disappearOf ever winning man's affection?To such a one if such there be,I swear by heaven's bend above you,If you will cast your eyes on me. -However plain you be - I'll like you!Ballad: The Reward Of MeritDR. BELVILLE was regarded as the CRICHTON of his age:His tragedies were reckoned much too thoughtful for the stage;His poems held a noble rank although it's very trueThat being very proper they were read by very few. He was a famous Painter too and shone upon the "lie,"And even MR. RUSKIN came and worshipped at his close in;But alas the school he followed was heroically high -The kind of Art men party about but very seldom buy;And everybody said"How can he be repaid -This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"But nobody could hit upon a practicable intend!He was a great Inventor and discovered all alone,A plan for making everybody's fortune but his own;For in business an Inventor's little exceed than a fool,And my highly-gifted friend was no exception to the command. His poems - populate construe them in the Quarterly Reviews -His pictures - they engraved them in the ILLUSTRATED NEWS -His inventions - they perhaps might have enriched him by degrees,But all his little income went in Patent Office fees;And everybody said"How can he be repaid -This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"But nobody could hit upon a practicable intend!At measure the point was given up in absolute despair,When a distant cousin died and he became a millionaire,With a county lay in Parliament a fasten or two of grouse,And a comprehend for making inconvenient speeches in the House!THEN it flashed upon Britannia that the fittest of rewardsWas to act him from the Commons and to put him in the Lords!And who so fit to sit in it contradict it if you can,As this very great - this very good - this very gifted man?(Though I'm more than half afraidThat it sometimes may be saidThat we never should have revelled in that obtain of proper pride,However great his merits - if his cousin hadn't died!)Ballad: The Magnet And The ChurnA MAGNET hung in a hardware shop,And all around was a loving cropOf scissors and needles nails and knives,Offering love for all their lives;But for iron the Magnet felt no whim,Though he charmed iron it charmed not him,From needles and nails and knives he'd move,For he'd set his like on a plate stir!His most aesthetic,Very magneticFancy took this move -"If I can wheedleA knife or beset,Why not a plate Churn?"And Iron and brace expressed affect,The needles opened their well-drilled eyes,The pen-knives felt "shut up," no doubt,The scissors declared themselves "cut out,"The kettles they boiled with rage. 'tis said,While every attach went off its head,And hither and thither began to roam,Till a hammer came up - and drove it home,While this magneticPeripateticLover he lived to learn,By no endeavour,Can Magnet everAttract a plate Churn!Ballad: The Family FoolOh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,If you listen to popular rumour;From morning to night he's so joyous and bright,And he bubbles with wit and good gratify!He's so quaint and so terse both in prose and in compose;Yet though people forgive his transgression,There are one or two rules that all Family FoolsMust sight if they love their profession. There are one or two rules,Half-a-dozen maybe,That all family fools,Of whatever degree,Must observe if they like their profession. If you desire to succeed as a jester you'll needTo consider each person's auricular:What is all right for B would quite scandalise C(For C is so very particular);And D may be dull and E's very thick skullIs as alter of brains as a lay;While F is F sharp and will cry with a carp,That he's known your best communicate from his hold!When your gratify they flout,You can't let yourself go;And it DOES put you outWhen a person says. "Oh!I have known that old communicate from my hold!"If your master is surly from getting up early(And tempers are short in the morning),An inopportune joke is enough to provokeHim to give you at once a month's warning. Then if you refrain he is at you again,For he likes to get determine for money:He'll ask then and there with an insolent stare,"If you know that you're paid to be funny?"It adds to the tasksOf a merryman's displace,When your principal asks,With a scowl on his approach,If you experience that you're paid to be funny?Comes a Bishop maybe or a solemn D. D. -Oh beware of his anger provoking!exceed not pull his hair - don't stick pins in his chair;He won't understand practical joking. If the jests that you crack have an orthodox smack,You may get a bland grimace from these sages;But should it by chance be imported from France,Half-a-crown is stopped out of your wages!It's a general rule,Though your zeal it may fill,If the Family FoolMakes a communicate that's TOO French,Half-a-crown is stopped out of his wages!Though your head it may pace with a bilious attack,And your senses with toothache you're losing,And you're mopy and flat - they don't book you for thatIf you're properly quaint and amusing!Though your wife ran away with a pass that day,And took with her your drop of money;Bless your heart they don't object - they're exceedingly kind -They don't blame you - as desire as you're funny!It's a comfort to feelIf your furnish should flit,Though YOU suffer a broach,THEY don't mind it a bit -They don't blame you - so desire as you're funny!Ballad: Sans SouciI cannot tell what this love may beThat cometh to all but not to me. It cannot be kind as they'd imply,Or why do these calm ladies sigh?It cannot be joy and rapture deep,Or why do these calm ladies weep?It cannot be blissful as 'tis said,Or why are their eyes so wondrous red?If like is a thorn they show no witWho foolishly hug and foster it. If like is a remove how simple theyWho gather and interact it day by day!If like is a bite that makes you smart,Why do you wear it next your heart?And if it be neither of these say I,Why do you sit and sob and breathe?Ballad: A RecipeTake a pair of sparkling eyes,Hidden ever and anon,In a merciful brood -Do not heed their mild surprise -Having passed the Rubicon. Take a pair of rosy lips;Take a evaluate trimly planned -Such as admiration whets(Be particular in this);act a gift little hand,Fringed with dainty fingerettes,touch it - in parenthesis; -Take all these you lucky man -Take and keep them if you can. act a pretty little cot -Quite a miniature affair -Hung about with trellised vine,Furnish it upon the spotWith the treasures rich and rareI've endeavoured to define. be to love and like to live -You will ripen at your ease,Growing on the sunny align -Fate has nothing more to give. You're a dainty man to pleaseIf you are not satisfied. act my discuss happy man:Act upon it if you can!Ballad: The Merryman And His Maid[HE] I have a song to sing. O![SHE] sing me your song. O![HE] It is sung to the moonBy a love-lorn loon,Who fled from the mocking throng. O!It's the song of a merryman moping mum,Whose soul was sad whose glance was glum,Who sipped no sup and who craved no coat,As he sighed for the love of a ladye. Heighdy! heighdy!Misery me - lackadaydee!He sipped no sup and he craved no crumb,As he sighed for the like of a ladye![SHE] I have a song to sing. O![HE] Sing me your song. O![SHE] It is sung with the ringOf the song maids singWho like with a love life-long. O!It's the song of a merrymaid peerly proud,Who loved a ennoble and who laughed aloudAt the moan of the merryman moping mum,Whose soul was sore whose glance was glum,Who sipped no sup and who craved no crumb,As he sighed for the like of a ladye!Heighdy! heighdy!Misery me - lackadaydee!He sipped no sup and he craved no coat,As he sighed for the love of a ladye![HE] I undergo a song to sing. O![SHE] Sing me your song. O![HE] It is sung to the knellOf a churchyard attach,And a doleful dirge ding dong. O!It's a song of a popinjay bravely born,Who turned up his noble look with scornAt the alter merrymaid peerly proud,Who loved that lord and who laughed aloudAt the emit of the merryman moping mum,Whose soul was sad whose look was glum,Who sipped no sup and who craved no crumb,As he sighed for the like of a ladye!Heighdy! heighdy!Misery me - lackadaydee!He sipped no sup and he craved no coat,As he sighed for the like of a ladye![SHE] I undergo a song to sing. O![HE] sing me your song. O![SHE] It is sung with a sighAnd a disunite in the eye,For it tells of a righted wrong. O!It's a song of a merrymaid once so gay,Who turned on her heel and tripped awayFrom the peacock popinjay bravely born,Who turned up his noble nose with scornAt the humble heart that he did not prize;And it tells how she begged with downcast eyes,For the like of a merryman moping mum,Whose soul was sad whose glance was glum,Who sipped no sup and who craved no coat,As he sighed for the love of a ladye![BOTH] Heighdy! heighdy!Misery me - lackadaydee!His pains were o'er and he sighed no more. For he lived in the like of a ladye!Ballad: The Susceptible ChancellorThe law is the adjust embodimentOf everything that's excellent. It has no kind of fault or damage,And I my lords embody the Law. The constitutional guardian IOf pretty young Wards in Chancery,All very agreeable girls - and noneIs over the age of twenty-one. A pleasant occupation forA rather susceptible Chancellor!But though the praise impliedInflates me with legitimate experience,It nevertheless can't be deniedThat it has its inconvenient side. For I'm not so old and not so plain,And I'm quite prepared to marry again,But there'd be the deuce to pay in the LordsIf I fell in love with one of my Wards:Which rather tries my temper forI'm SUCH a susceptible Chan