George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)

to decline, in saying which they perform five such adorations as the former: and the same they do the third time, ending just as the sun sets. They fast three times a year, the first time 30 days, the next nine days, and the last seven. They offer many sacrifices, but eat no part of them, burning them all. They abstain from beans, garlick, and some other pulse and vegetables ¹. As to the Sabian Kebla, or part to which they turn their faces in praying, authors greatly differ; one will have it to be the north ², another the south, a third Mecca, and a fourth the star to which they pay their devotions ³: and perhaps there may be some variety in their practise in this respect. They go on pilgrimage to a place near the city of Harran in Mesopotamia, where great numbers of them dwell, and chey have also a great respect for the temple of Mecca, and the pyramids of Egypt ⁴; fancying these last to be the sepulchres of Seth, and of Enoch and Sabi his two sons, whom they look on as the first propagators of their religion; at these structures they sacrifice a cock and a black calf, and offer up incense ⁵. Besides the book of Psalms, the only true scripture they read, they have other books which they esteem equally sacred, particularly one in the Chaldee tongue which they call the book of Seth, and is full of moral discourses. This sect say, they took the name of Sabians frem the above mentioned Sabi, tho’ it seems rather to be derived from צבא Saba ⁶ or the host of heaven, which they worship ⁷. Travellers commonly call them Christians of St. John the Baptist, whose disciples also they pretend to be, using a kind of baptism, which is the greatest mark they bear of Christianity. This is one of the religions, the practice of which Mohammed tolerated (on paying tribute,) and the professors of it are often included in that expression of the Korân, those to whom the scriptures have been given, or literally, people of the book.

The idolatry of the Arabs then, as Sabians, chiefly consisted in worshipping the fixed stars and planets, and the angels and their images, which they honoured as inferior deities, and whose intercession they begged, as their mediators with God. For the Arabs acknowledged one supreme God, the Creator, and Lord of the universe, whom they called Allah Taâla, the most high God, and their