Alexander Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet, translated out of Arabick into French, by the Sieur Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and resident for the French king, at Alexandria. And newly Englished, for the satisfaction of all that desire to look into the Turkish vanities. (1649)

of the children. The children which they have by their slaves are indifferently esteemed with those of their wives, and are all held as legitimate.

They have Temples, Colleges, and Hospitalls well revenued; they have covents of Religious, that live exemplarily; obey their Superiours without contradiction, and dance after the sound of Flutes and other instruments when they make their prayers.

They have moreover another sort of Religious Vagabonds through the world, clothed like fools of that Country; they often go naked, and cut their skin in many places, are held to be holy persons, and live by alms, which are never refused them; both the one and the other sort of Religious are called Dervis, they are known by their habit, and can retire and marry when they please.

They deny Jesus Christ to be God, or the Son of God; neither believe they in the holy Trinity: they say that Jesus Christ was a great Prophet, born of the Virgin Mary, a Virgin both before and after her delivery; that he was conceived by divine inspiration, or by a divine breath, without a father, as Adam was created without a mother; that he was not crucified, that God took him into heaven, and that he shall come again on earth at the end of the world to confirm the Law of Mahomet; they likewise affirm that the Jews thinking to crucifie Jesus Christ, crucified a man among them that resembled him.

They pray to God for the Dead, they invoke their Saints, of whom they have a large Legend, nevertheless they believe not Purgatory; and many among them imagine that the soul and body remain together