Islam and Revelation, an historic look at Protestant eschatological thought on the rise and fall of Islam. This Reformation audio resource is a production of Stillwaters Revival Books. There is no copyright on this material and we encourage you to reproduce it and pass it on to your friends. Many free resources as well as our complete mail-order catalog containing classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books at great discounts is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email at swrb at swrb.com, by phone at area code 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. T6L3T5. If you do not have a web connection, please request a free printed catalog. The following excerpt on Islam and Revelation is taken from Lectures upon the Principal Prophecies of the Revelation, 1814 by Alexander Milloud, starting at page 155 and going to page 163, as read by Leah Domes. 5. The time in which these locusts prevail, like the natural locusts which expire with the summer that gave them origin, is said to be five months. Sir Isaac Newton, on account of the repetition of five months, verses 5 and 10, thinks it proper to double the prophetic time and render it 10 symbolical months of 30 days each. And according to the prophetic style of a day for a year, this would amount to a period of 3 centuries. There is, however, no necessity for thus doubling the time specified. It is indeed twice mentioned in the text, but not with the design of adding the two sums together. Newton is more correct in rendering the interpretation 150 years. The effects of the judgment announced by the sounding of the fifth trumpet may remain for a much longer space of time, but the torments inflicted by the Arabian locusts are represented as peculiarly great during the period of five months, being 150 prophetic days a century and a half. This trumpet must be accordingly explained of the woe caused by the Mohammedan Saracens for the space of 150 years after the rise of their false prophet. The events of that period are so interesting a part of the history of man, and had such an effect upon the Christian churches of the East, that they ought to be known to intelligent men, and undoubtedly merit a place in the sacred system of prophecy. That great peninsula, which is washed from the south and east by the waves of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, and on the west by the waters of the Red Sea, has since the remotest ages been known by the name of Arabah or Arabia. This name it received from the most distinguished of its original settlers, Yerup, footnote, Jera, Genesis 10, 26, and a footnote, the son of Joktan, and the fifth in descent from Shem, the son of Noah. Ishmael, the son of Abram, by Hagar, settled with his family in this country, and his descendants were mingled with the former inhabitants. It was not long before the idolatry of the Sabians, who derived their name from Saba, the great grandson of Jogtan, became prevalent through the greater part of this extensive territory. But of its internal history from the time of Moses until the commencement of the Christian era, we know very little. From the Greeks and Romans, we have derived our knowledge of ancient nations, and as Arabia defied the power of these conquering empires, they have not been at the pains of describing its geography or recording its history. The Jews were scattered throughout this country at a very early period, and in the first ministers of Christianity planted churches among the Arabs. Before the close of the 6th century, the period in which Arabian history became generally interesting, the Nestorian heresy had spread over the greater part of the churches of this peninsula. Piety and morals have declined along with orthodoxy among Christians, and the Jews and the idolaters adhere to their religion more from habit than any conviction of duty. The most powerful of the Arabian tribes were the Qorish, descendants of Ishmael. They possessed the distinguished honor of being guardians to the Kabbah. Footnote, the Kaaba was the sacred temple of these idolaters. It stood in the city of Mecca and contained about 360 idols besides the statue of Hobel, the principal object of their worship. To this temple, a yearly visit accompanied with gifts and costly oblations must be paid by the devotees from all parts of Arabia. End of footnote. and the Chiefs united with the love and the practice of war, the profession of merchandise. They carried on an extensive and lucrative commerce between Persia and Egypt, and India and Ethiopia. In the year 579 was born at Mecca the celebrated Mohammed. But note, the prophet Mohammed can no longer be stripped of the famous, though improper, appellation of Mohammed. The well-known cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo would almost be lost in the strange descriptions of Haleb, Damascus, and Al-Qahira. And we are pleased to blend the three Chinese monosyllables, Confuci, in the respectable name of Confucius. Gibbon. End of footnote. The king and apostles of the Arabs, or to use the words of the sacred text, Apollyon the destroyer, king of the locusts. He was descended from one of the most ancient and powerful families. His father Abdallah was the favorite son of Motaleb, a man of great opulence and liberality, who succeeded his father Hashem in the principality of Mecca and custody of the Kaaba. The aged Motaleb outlived his son and took under his protection the orphan grandson. In the eighth year of his age, however, Mohammed was deprived of this guardian, and came, of course, under the immediate protection of Abu Talib, his uncle, who himself a merchant of the first rank and wealth, now succeeded to all the dignities of his deceased father. It appears to me altogether improper, therefore, to represent this imposter as rising from obscurity to eminence. He was left, indeed, in early life an orphan without a patrimonial inheritance. But he had no alliance with poverty. He was educated in the first families of the age. His connections were the first in power and rank. He traveled along with his uncle through Syria and Egypt. While engaged in mercantile pursuits, he was early made acquainted with the absurd mysteries of the prevailing religion. And under Abu Talib, the victorious general of the Quraysh, He served in a successful war in which he acquired the rudiments of the science in which he afterwards became so famous in the East. In the 28th year of his age, Mohammed found himself possessed of independent property, and to his aspiring mind the most flattering prospects began to be unfolded. This state of things was brought about by his marriage with Khadiga, an opulent widow of Mecca, whose extensive mercantile concerns he had for three years from the death of her first husband conducted to great advantage. He now began to cherish the hope that he might repair the loss incurred by the death of his father, Abdallah, who, had he survived his grandfather, would have been the heir of his fortunes, and would have, of course, transmitted to his son the first dignities of Mecca. His intercourse with men of different nations and religions was sufficient to convince him that, in that age, there was no possibility of acquiring influence over the minds of men without some show of religion. That of the Kabbah was evidently declining, and, in its present state, the chief office of the system was lodged in another, and very powerful hands from which he could have no hopes of resting it for himself. The Christians were greatly divided and the Jewish system was not well adapted to the condition of the Arabians. New sects of different descriptions were frequently springing up with various success. He resolved to become the prophet and apostle of a new religion. Intelligent, wealthy, courageous, crafty, ambitious, and eloquent, he had much to expect from his influence with the people, and the patronage of his powerful relatives promised him in the beginning protection from danger. He was, in short, remarkably qualified to be the king of barbarous fanatics, or an angel of hell. All that was necessary was to open the pit that the smoke which generated the locusts might issue forth. that a suitable system of religion might be contrived for the deluded inhabitants of Arabia, a mongrel race of idolaters, half-convinced of the folly of their present faith, of Jews who knew but little of their own Bible, and of professed Christians without understanding or piety. Mohammed now felt one deficiency, which was likely to prove irremediable. He, with all his natural talents and acquirements, lived in a society into which literature had never been introduced, and he could not himself either read or write. The Jews and the Christians were commonly designated as the people of the book. And no new system could be reasonably expected to prove successful without it replaced in that respect upon a footing with others. Without the smoke of the pit, nothing could be done. The Qur'an must be contrived and executed. And to this task, the son of Abdallah is entirely unequal. He had not the key of the abyss. The Qur'an is the smoke from which the locusts spread over the land, and the author of the Qur'an, whoever he is, and it is certain, it could not be the pretended apostle himself. Footnote. Mr. Gibbon, who appears to have had a great affection for the imposter Mohammed, as well as for Julian the apostate, admits the false prophet was illiterate, and even censures Mr. White, Bampton lecture for suggesting a doubt upon the subject. I think it however extremely probable that the genius of Mohammed could not be satisfied with remaining entirely ignorant of letters. He certainly had a sufficient opportunity of learning at least how to read and write. I suspect that this was in part his business with Sergius and during the time of his retirement in the cave of Hera. Unremitted attention for two or three years might accomplish this object. Is the person designated in the prophecy as the fallen star, and to whom was given the key of the bottomless pit, this man is Sergius. To him must be ascribed the work of composing the religion of the Muscleman. The histories of that age appear, it is true, at a loss whether to ascribe the work to a Jew, a Persian, or a monk, for each of those three were associates of the aposter, but internal evidence is furnished by the Qur'an itself that it owes its origin to someone acquainted with Christianity, and undoubtedly the apocalyptic prediction determines the question. It was a fallen star that opened the bottomless pit and set loose the smoke of imposture from whence issued the Arabian locusts under their king, the Destroyer. Sergius, called by the Arabian writers the monk Bahira, was a minister of the Christian Church, who had fallen into error and immorality of the deepest die. He had belonged to that class of people who in those days of dissension were called Nestorians, from the celebrated bishop Nestorius of Constantinople. The dispute between this arrogant prelate and the still more haughty Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, had more of an ambitious policy than a religion to give it origin and support. It began about the titles of the Virgin Mary, and the question was whether she ought to be honored with the epitaph Greek word or Mother of God. Nestorius in adopting the negative was upon the side of truth. This dispute, however, continued until, in vain attempts to explain the union of two natures in Jesus Christ, the historians asserted that there were two persons. Footnote. Greek word. End of footnote. United under one aspect. Footnote. Barsopa or Greek word. End of footnote. This fixed upon them the charge of heresy, and their enemies triumphed. To this sect of Christians, spread over Persia and Arabia before the time of Mohammed, Sergius, the intimate associate of Mohammed, and the principal contriver of the system, which bears that impostor's name, belonged. He had contracted an intimacy with the youthful and engaging nephew of Abu Talal, who he first met at Bostra, a city on the confines of Syria. And it was further cherished by the particular attention afterwards bestowed upon him by the elegant husband of the opulent Khadiga, when he revisited that city, or when they met at Jerusalem. Footnote, Credo's Life of Mohammed, page 32. End of footnote. Shortly after this, Sergius, for high crimes, was degraded from his ministry, and became a fallen star, excommunicated from the church, and expelled from the monastery he fled to Mecca. A man of genius and literature suited to the purposes of Muhammad, and now reduced to the necessity of laboring for his bread, he entered readily into the views of the grandson of the famed Muttalib. Both were unrestrained by moral principle. The one was needy and the other a splendid merchant of uncommon address and boundless ambition. This will account for the connection which they formed. Theophanes, Zonarus, Cedrinus, Anastasius, the author of Historia Miscella, Friar Richard, and several other historians speak of this fallen monk both under his proper name and that of Bahira. Footnote. Bahira is an Arabic word signifying a camel turned out on account of its former usefulness to free pasture. End of footnote. Which he assumed in Arabia as the agent in composing the Quran. Footnote. Preto's life of Mohammed page 31 through 33. End of footnote. He was the Gabriel. Footnote. The imposter pretended immediate intercourse with the angel Gabriel. End of footnote. Of Mohammed. When Sergius had finished his task he was put to death by his base patron for fear he should afterwards betray the imposter. The new religion progressed after a few years with extraordinary rapidity. and in its progress became the woe announced by the 5th Apocalyptic Trumpet which fell upon the Eastern Empire and ravaged the adjacent countries tormenting men for 150 years of Saracenic invasion and conquest. It was in the year 606 Muhammad commenced his imposture by retiring under pretense of extraordinary sanctity to the cave of Hera In 612 he appeared as the apostle at the head of his disciples, publicly to propagate the new doctrine. Then did the locusts issue from the smoke of the pit, opened by the excommunicated monk, under their king Apollyon. In the year 762 the Caliph Amansur built the city of Baghdad, and called it the city of peace. A stop was then put to the devastation of the locusts. The Saracen Empire continued for a longer time, but after this period it lost the disorderly locust character and became a more regular commonwealth. Between the years 612 and 762, during the five months of prophecy, or 150 years, the Saracens overran and subdued with terrible depredations Syria, Persia, India, Egypt, and Spain." The following excerpt on Islam and Revelation is taken from dissertations on the prophecies which have remarkably been fulfilled and at this time are fulfilling in the world. 2 volumes 1817 by Thomas Newton. Volume 2 pages 222 to 232. Chapter 9 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke unto the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth, and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth. neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months, and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the shapes of the locusts were, like unto horses, prepared unto battle, and on their heads were, as it were, crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of a woman, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates as it were breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. And their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. One woe is past, and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter. At the sounding of the fifth trumpet, verse 1, 2, and 3, a star fallen from heaven, meaning the wicked imposter Mohammed, opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, and the sun and the air were darkened by it. That is, a false religion was set up, which filled the world with darkness and error, and swarms of Saracen or Arabian locusts overspread the earth. A false prophet is very fitly typified by a blazing star or meteor. The Arabians likewise are properly compared to locusts, not only because numerous armies frequently are so, but also because swarms of locusts often arise from Arabia, and also because, in the plagues of Egypt, to which constant allusion is made in these trumpets, the locusts, Exodus 10, 13, are brought by an east wind, that is, from Arabia, which lay eastward of Egypt, and also because in the book of Judges 7, verse 12, The people of Arabia are compared to locusts or grasshoppers for multitude, for in the original the word for both is the same. As the natural locusts, footnote, Latin words, chapter 29, section 35, and a footnote. are bred in pits and holes of the earth, so these mystical locusts are truly infernal, and proceed with the smoke from the boneless pit. It is too a remarkable coincidence that at this time the sun and the air were really darkened, for we learn from a footnote, Latin words, and a footnote, eminent Arabian historian, that in the seventeenth year of Heraclius half the body of the sun was eclipsed, And this defect continued for the former Tizrin to Hazarin. That is, from October to June, so that only a little of its light appeared. The 17th year of Heraclius. Footnote, Blaine's Chronological Table, No. 33. Abol, Theragi, Dynamic 9, page 102. Al-Masini, History of the Saracen, led to page 6, end of footnote, coincides with the year of Christ, 626, and with the fifth year of the Hegira. At this time, Muhammad was training and exercising his followers in depredations at home to fit and prepare them for greater conquests abroad. It was commanded them, verse 4, that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, which demonstrates that these were not natural, but symbolical locusts. The like injunctions were given to the Arabian officers and soldiers. When Yazid was marching with the army to invade Syria, Abu Bakr charged him Their commission is to hurt only those men who have not the seal of God in their foreheads, That is those who are not the true servants of God but are corrupt and idolatrous Christians. Now from history it appears evidently that in those countries of Asia, Africa and Europe where the Saracens extended their conquests, the Christians were generally guilty of idolatry in the worshipping of saints, if not of images. It was the pretense of Muhammad and his followers to chastise them for it and to re-establish the unity of the Godhead. The parts which remained the freest from the general infection were Savoy, Piedmont, and the southern parts of France, which were afterwards the nurseries and habitations of the Waldenses and Albigenses. And it is very memorable that, footnote, Potavi, Rationare, Tempe, Part 1, Lib 8, Cap V, Mesurée, Averges, Chronological, A.D. 732, and so on. End of footnote. And when the Saracens approached these parts, they were defeated with great slaughter by the famous Charles Martel in several engagements. As they were to hurt only the corrupt and adulterous Christians, so these, verse 5 and 6, they were not to kill, but only to torment, and should bring such calamities upon the earth, as should make men weary of their lives. Not that it could be supposed that the Saracens would not kill many thousands in their incursions. On the contrary, their angel, verse 11, hath the name of the destroyer. They might kill them as individuals, but still they should not kill them as a political body, as a state or empire. They might greatly harass and torment both the Greek and the Latin churches, but they should not utterly extirpate the one or the other. They besieged Constantinople and, footnote, Sagani, History, D. Ruggino, Italy, Lib 5, Anno 846, and a footnote, even plundered Rome. But they would not make themselves masters of either of those capital cities. The Greek Empire suffered most from them as it lay nearest to them. They dismembered it of Syria and Egypt and some other of its best and richest provinces, but they were never able to subdue and conquer the whole. As often as they besieged Constantinople they were repulsed and defeated. They attempted it, footnote, Theophanes, Cedran, Agn, Constant, V, Zonera, Aenels, Lib 14, Cab 20, and so on. Ptavi, Rationare, Temp, Part 1, Lib 8, Cab 1. Blair's Chronological Table, No. 34, Part 2. In the reign of Constantine Progranitus, A.D. 672, but their men and ships were miserably destroyed by the sea fire invented by Callinicus, and after seven years' fruitless pains, they were compelled to raise the siege and to conclude a peace. They attempted it again. Sigoni History de Regno Itali Lib 3 Anno 718 Ptav Abitum Cap 5 End of footnote. in the reign of Leo Isauricus, A.D. 718, but they were forced to desist by famine and pestilence, and losses of various kinds. In this attempt they exceeded their commission, and therefore they were not crowned with their usual success. The taking of this city and the putting an end to this empire was a work reserved for another power, as we shall see under the next trumpet. In the following verses, 7, 8, 9, and 10, the nature and qualities of these locusts are described partly in allusion to the properties of natural locusts and the description given of them by the Prophet Joel, and partly in allusion to the habits and manners of the Arabians, to show that not real but figurative locusts were here intended. The first quality mentioned is their being like unto horses prepared unto battle, which is copied from Joel, chapter 2, verse 4, the appearance of them is as the appearance of horses, and as horsemen so shall they run. Many authors have, footnote, Latin words, the head and face are not unlike that of a horse, hence locusts are called by the Italians, cavalette, or little horses. Cole, 474. End of footnote. Observe that the head of a locust resembles that of a horse. The Italians, therefore, call them cavalette, as it were little horses. The Arabians, too, have in all ages been famous for their horses and horsemanship. Their strength is well known to consist chiefly in their cavalry. Another distinguishing mark and character is their having on their heads, as it were, crowns like gold, which is an allusion to the headdress of the Arabians. Footnote. Latin words. The Arabians wear mitres, and so on. Plain Natural History, Lib 6, Cap 28, Section 32. Edit Hardwin. Latin words. Here are the Arabians covered with a mitre, Claudian du Laude, still 1, 156, Pococki, not, in Carm, Tigrai, Arab, page alt, end of footnote, who have constantly worn turbans or mitres and boast of having those ornaments for their common attire, which are crowns and diadems with other people. The crowns also signify the kingdoms and dominions which they should acquire. For as Mr. Meade, footnote, Latin words, Meade, page 468, end of footnote, excellently observes, no nation had ever so wide a command, nor ever were so many kingdoms, so many regions, subjugated in so short a space of time. It sounds incredible, yet most true it is, that in the space of eighty or not many more years, they subdued and acquired to the diabolical kingdom of Mohammed, Palestine, Syria, both Armenias, almost all Asia Minor, Persia, India, Egypt, Numidia, all Barbary, even to the river Niger, Portugal, Spain. Neither did their fortune or ambition stop here, till they had added also a great part of Italy, as far as to the gates of Rome, moreover Sicily, Candia, Cyprus, and the other islands of the Mediterranean Sea. Good God, how great a tract of land! How many crowns were here! Whence also it is worthy of observation that mention is not made here as in other trumpets of the third part, forasmuch as this play fell no less without the bounds of the Roman Empire than within it, and extended itself even to the remotest Indies. They have also faces of the faces of men, and hair as the hair of women. The Arabians wore their beards, or at least mustaches, as men, while the hair of their heads was flowing or plaited like that of women. LATIN WORDS The Arabians wear miters or keep the hair unchorn. Their beard is shaven off, excepting on the upper lip. Some do not shave this also. LATIN WORDS The hair of many of them is not cut. Their heads are covered with a miter. A part of the beard is shaven close to the skin. LATIN WORDS A certain man with long hair. Latin words. Well, Rhoesius has this note, such was the dress of the Saracens, as Jerome informs us, in his life of Malchus. Lo, suddenly the Ishmaelites riding on horses and camels rush in wearing long hair and having their heads tied up with ribbons, and so on. and Theodorus, Bishop of Mopsnes. On Jeremiah 10 saith that the Saracens pulled off the hair from their foreheads, but behind suffered it to hang down. And so on. Page 954. Edit, Paris, 1681. End of footnote. Pliny and other ancient authors testify. Another property copied from Joel is their having teeth as the teeth of lions, that is, strong to devour. So Joel describes the locusts, 1, verse 6, as a nation whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion, and is wonderful how they bite and gnaw all things, as, footnote, Latin words, They gnaw everything by their biting, not even accepting the doors of houses. Pliny says even the doors of houses. They had also breastplates as it were, breastplates of iron, and the locusts have a hard shell or skin which, footnote, Claudian Latin words. Their kindred covering hardens on their back, nature hath armed their skin. End of footnote. hath been called their armor. This figure is designed to express the defensive as the former was the offensive arms of the Saracens, and the sounding of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. Much the same comparison hath been used by Joel 2 verse 5. like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, and, footnote, Latin words, translated in the text, plin abidum, end of footnote. Pliny affirms that they fly with so great a noise of their wings that they may be taken for birds. Their wings and the sound of their wings denote the swiftness and rapidity of their conquests, and it is indeed astonishing that in less than a century they erected an empire which extended from India to Spain. Moreover, they are thrice compared unto scorpions, verse 3, 5, and 10, and had stings in their tails like unto scorpions. That is, they should draw a poisonous train after them, and wherever they carry their arms, there also should they distill the venom of a false religion. It is further added, verse 11, that they had a king over them. The same person should exercise temporal as well as spiritual sovereignty over them. And the Caliphs were their emperors as well as the heads of their religion. The king is the same as the star or angel of the bottomless pit, whose name is Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek, that is, the destroyer. imagines that this is some allusion to the name of Abodas, the common name of the kings of the part of Arabia from whence Mohammed came, as Pharaoh was the common name of the kings of Egypt and Caesar of the emperors of Rome. And such allusions are not unusual in the style of scripture. However that be, the name agrees perfectly well with Mohammed and the Caliphs, his successors, who were the authors of all those horrid wars and desolations, and openly taught and professed that their religion was to be propagated and established by the sword. One difficulty, and the greatest of all, remains yet to be explained, and that is the period of five months assigned to these locusts, which, being twice mentioned, merits the more particular consideration. They tormented men five months, verse 4, and again, verse 10, their power was to hurt men five months. It is said, without doubt, in conformity to the type for locusts, footnotes, Latin words, they bring forth young about the time of the rising of the constellation of the seven stars, that is, about the 7th of May, and die about the rising of the dog star about the 18th of July, and then others come up in their place. Latin words. Locusts are produced in the spring. They die at the end of summer. Nor do they usually live more than five months. Bokart Hylos. Part. Post. Lip. Four. Cap. Eight. Coal, 495. Arbs are to live about five months, that is, from April to September. Scorpions too, as, Latin words, nor is it in vain said that the power of herding was not given to these mystical locusts which had the tails of scorpions for more than five months, for neither do locusts nor scorpions prove hurtful for a longer time. for they are benumbed by the cold, and danger from them is no longer to be feared. Bokart Abitum, Lib 4, Cap 29, Col 640. End of footnote. Bokart asserts, are noxious for no longer a term, the cold rendering them torpid and inactive. But of these locusts it is said, not that their duration or existence was only for five months, but their power of hurting and tormenting men continued five months. Now these months may either be months commonly so taken, or prophetic months, consisting each of thirty days, as John reckons them, and so making 150 years at the rate of each day for a year, or the number being repeated twice, The sums may be thought to be doubled, and 5 months and 5 months in prophetic computation will amount to 300 years. If these months be taken for common months, then as the natural locusts live and do hurt only in the five summer months, so the Saracens in the five summer months, too, made their excursions and retreated again in the winter. It appears that this was their usual practice, and particularly when, footnote, House History of the World, Part 3, Chapter 4, Section 7, page 288. Greek words, Latin words, translated into text, Cedrini, History Compendum, page 437, Edit Paris, page 315, Latin words, page 264, Edit Paris, page 234, Edit Venet. End of footnote. They first besieged Constantinople in the time of Constantine Progenatus. For from the month of April till September they pertinaciously continued their siege, and then, despairing of success, departed to Sazanacum, where they wintered and in spring again renewed the war, and this course they held for seven years, as the Greek annals tell us. If these months be taken for prophetic months or 150 years, it was within that space of time that the Saracens made their principal conquests. Their empire might subsist much longer, but the power of hurting and tormenting men was exerted chiefly within that period. Read the history of the Saracens and you will find that their greatest exploits were performed, their greatest conquests were made between the footnote Credo Life of Mohammed, page 14, 8th edition. Al Masini, History of the Saracens, Lib 1, Cap 1, page 3. Lib 2, Cap 3, page 102. Farajai, History of the Dinam. 9, page 141. Verse, Pakaki, Blair's Chronological Table, number 36, part 2. End of footnote. Year 612, when Muhammad first opened the bottomless pit, and began publicly to teach and propagate this imposture, and the year 762 when the Caliph Al-Mansur built Baghdad to fix there the seat of his empire and called it the City of Peace. Syria, Persia, India and the greatest part of Asia, Egypt and the greatest part of Africa, Spain and some parts of Europe were all subdued in the intermediate time. But when the Caliphs who before had removed from place to place fixed their habitation at Baghdad, when the Saracens ceased from their excursions and ravages like locusts, and became a settled nation, then they made no more such rapid and amazing conquests as before, but only engaged in common and ordinary wars like other nations. Then their power and glory began to decline, and their empire by little and little to moulder away. then they had no longer, like the prophetic locusts, one king over them. having revolted in the year 756 and set up another caliph in opposition to the reigning House of Abbas. If these months be taken doubly, or for three hundred years, then according to, footnote, Sir Isaac Newton on the Apocalypse, Chapter 3, page 305. See likewise page 91 of Mr. Jackson's address to the deists wherein are some pertinent observations concerning the completion of this and the succeeding woe. End of footnote. Sir Isaac Newton, the whole time that the Caliphs of the Saracens reigned with the Temporal Dominion at Damascus and Baghdad together was 300 years, namely from the year 637 to the year 936 inclusive. When, footnote, al-Masimi, Lib 3, Cap 1, page 203, Blair's Table, Their empire was broken and divided into several principalities or kingdoms, so that let these five months be taken in any possible construction, the event will still answer and the prophecy will still be fulfilled, though the second method of interpretation and application appears much more probable than either the first or the third. In the conclusion it is added, verse 12, one woe is past and behold there comes two woes more hereafter. This is added not only to distinguish the woes and to mark more strongly each period, but also to suggest that some time will intervene between the first woe of the Arabian locust and the next of the Euphratian horsemen. The similitude between the Locusts and the Arabians is indeed so great that it cannot fail of striking every curious observer, and a farther resemblance is, footnote, Davos, page 409, and a footnote. noted by Mr. Dobas, that there hath happened in the extent of this torment a coincidence of the event with the nature of the locusts. The Saracens have made inroads into all those parts of Christendom where the natural locusts are wont to be seen and known to do mischief, and nowhere else, and that too in the same proportion. Where the locusts are seldom seen, there the Saracens stay little. Where the natural locusts are often seen, there the Saracens abode most. And where they breed most, there the Saracens have their beginning and greatest power. This may easily be verified by history." We conclude our look at Islam and Revelation with a short note from Dr. Francis Nigel Lees, Calvin and Islam, also available at swrb.com. John Calvin writes, In our own day, indeed 1550, very many people began to waver. When they consider the long, continued dispersion of the Church, as if this had not been regulated by the purpose of God, the pretext of the Preteristic Romanus, which they make an extenuation of the tyranny of their idol, the Papacy, is that it was not possible for Christ to forsake His Bride. But here the weak have an assurance on which to rest when they learn that the disfigurement which they see in the church has long since been foretold. The impudence of the Romanists, on the other hand, is clearly exposed, because Paul declares that when the world has been brought under the rule of Christ, a defection will take place. The minds of Romanizing ancients are so bewitched they believed preteristically that Nero would be Antichrist. However, Paul is not speaking of one individual but of a kingdom that was to be seized by Satan for the purpose of setting up the seat of abomination in the midst of God's temple. This we see accomplished in potpourri. The defection has indeed spread more widely. For, since Mohammed was an apostate, he turned his followers, the Turks, from Christ. The sect of Mohammed was like a raging overflow, which in its violence tore away about half of the church. It remained for the papal antichrist to infect with his poison the part which was left. Yet in the words the Lord Jesus shall slay, in 2 Thessalonians 2, 8, Calvin insists Paul predicted the destruction of the reign of Antichrist. He will be annihilated by the word of the Lord. Paul does not think that Christ will accomplish this in a single moment. Christ will scatter the darkness in which the Antichrist will reign by the rays which he will emit before his coming. Just as the sun, before becoming visible to us, chases away the darkness of the night with its bright light. Furthermore, Dr. Lee writes, it does seem that the Fourth Iron Kingdom was in fact both the pre-papal and the pre-Islamic undivided pagan Roman Empire, as well as the later Western Roman Papal and the contemporaneous Eastern Roman Islamic Empire into which it then subdivided. Indeed, both Mohammed and the Pope, as we have already seen, Dr. Calvin called the two horns of Antichrist. Thus, they correspond to the two legs of the later Roman Empire, Islam and the Papacy." This Reformation audio resource is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. There is no copyright on this material and we encourage you to reproduce it and pass it on to your friends. 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