As an instance of the last virtue,
they tell us he mended his own clothes and shoes. However, to judge of
him by his actions as related by these same writers, we cannot help
concluding that he was a very subtle and crafty man, who put on the
appearance only of those good qualities, while the governing principles
of his soul were ambition and lust. For we see him, as soon as he found
himself strong enough to act upon the offensive, plundering caravans,
and, under a pretence of fighting for the true religion, attacking,
murdering, enslaving, and making tributaries of his neighbors, in order
to aggrandize and enrich himself and his greedy followers, and without
scruple making use of assassination to cut off those who opposed him. Of
his lustful disposition we have a sufficient proof, in the peculiar
privileges he claimed to himself of having as many wives as he pleased,
and of whom he chose, even though they were within forbidden degrees of
affinity. The authors who give him the smallest number of wives own that
he had fifteen; whereas the _Koran_ allows no Mussulman more than four.
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