Friday, November 21 1755

At home all day. Paid John Harman for 1½ gross pipes 3/-. This day my brother Moses came over after dinner, but did not stay. In the evening read part of Tournefort’s Voyage into the Levant and his description of the extent, laws, religion and custom of the Turkish Empire… Mahomet was born an idolator… he was a man who had a natural fund of good sense. The only article of faith the Mahometans have is that there is but one God and that Mahomet is the messenger of God. As to the commandments, the Turks reduce them to 5: to pray…to fast… to give alms and do works of charity… to go in pilgrimage… to suffer no filth upon their body. There are 4 other points added, but they are not absolutely necessary to salvation: 1st,. to keep Friday a sabbath; 2nd,. to be circumcised; 3rd, to drink no wine; 4th, not to eat swine’s flesh nor things strangled. There (their?) women are very much confined, but I think upon the whole they seem to have an eye to justice; but sure nothing can seem more ignorant than the greatest part of their religion except the belief in God and some few particulars.

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