case, give cause to one Turk to say to another who suspects him of lying or deceit:  ‘Do you take me for a Christian?’ ("putasne me Christianum esse").  In truth, the Mohammedans often put us to shame by their virtues; and a better knowledge of Islam can only help to make our irrational pride give place to gratitude to God for the undeserved mercy which He bestowed upon us in Christianity.”  Reland has no illusions that his scientific justice will find acceptance in a wide circle “as he becomes daily more and more convinced that the world wishes to be deceived and is governed by prejudice” ("qui quotidie magis magisque experior mundum decipi velle et praeconceptis opinionibus regi").

It was not long before the scale was turned in the opposite direction, and Islam was made by some people the object of panegyrics as devoid of scientific foundation as the former calumnies.  In 1730 appeared in London the incomplete posthumous work of Count de Boulainvilliers, Vie de Mahomet, in which, amongst other things, he says of the Arabian Prophet that “all that he has said concerning the essential religious dogmas is true, but he has not said all that is true, and it is only therein that his religion differs from ours.”  De Boulainvilliers tells us with particular satisfaction that Mohammed, who respected the devotion of hermits and monks, proceeded with the utmost severity against the official clergy, condemning its members either to death or to the abjuration of their faith.  This Vie de Mahomet was as a matter of fact an anti-clerical romance, the material of which was supplied by a superficial knowledge of Islam drawn from secondary sources.  That a work with such a tendency was sure to arouse interest at that time, is shown by a letter from the publisher, Coderc, to Professor Gagnier at Oxford, in which he writes:  “He [de Boulainvilliers] mixes up his history with many political reflections, which by their newness and boldness are sure to be well received” ("Il mele son Histoire de plusieurs reflexions politiques, et qui par leur hardiesse ne manqueront pas d’etre tres bien recues").

Jean Gagnier however considered these bold novelties very dangerous and endeavoured to combat them in another Vie de Mahomet, which appeared from his hand in 1748 at Amsterdam.  He strives after a “juste milieu” between the too violent partisanship of Maracci and Prideaux and the ridiculous acclamations of de Boulainvilliers.  Yet this does not prevent him in his preface from calling Mohammed the greatest villain of mankind and the most mortal enemy of God ("le plus scelerat de tous les hommes et le plus mortel ennemi de Dieu").  His desire to make his contemporaries proof against the poison of de Boulainvilliers’ dangerous book gains the mastery over the pure love of truth for which Reland had so bravely striven.