Not that this duty was necessary for the repose of
their souls, for every Muhammadan killed in fighting against men who
believed not in his prophet went, as a matter of course, to paradise;
and every unbeliever, killed in the same action, went as surely to
hell. There are only a few hundred men, exclusive of the prophets,
who, according to Muhammad, have the first place in paradise--those
who shared in one or other of his first three battles, and believed
in his holy mission before they had the evidence of a single victory
over the unbelievers to support it. At the head of these are the men
who accompanied him in his flight from Mecca to Medina, when he had
no evidence either from _victories_ or _miracles_. In all such
matters the less the evidence adduced in proof of a mission the
greater the merit of those who believe in it, according to the person
who pretends to it; and unhappily, the less the evidence a man has
for his faith, the greater is his anger against other men for not
joining in it with him. No man gets very angry with another for not
joining with him in his faith in the demonstration of a problem in
mathematics.
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