Muhammad

Most Muslims feel a great love and veneration for Muhammad, and express this feeling in many ways. Voltaire's library is preserved intact in the Russian National Library, St Petersburg. Islam is now the faith of well over a billion people all over the globe, and believed to be the second largest religion of the present day. His Château is now a museum (L'Auberge de l'Europe). Even later, Islam expanded peacefully into much of Africa and Southeast Asia. The town of Ferney (France) where he lived his last 20 years of life, is now named Ferney-Voltaire. Under the Ghaznavids, in the tenth century, Islam was spread to the Hindu principalities east of the Indus by conquering armies in what is now northern India. But some of his critics, like Thomas Carlyle, do argue that while he was unsurpassed in literary form, not even the most elaborate of his works was of much value for matter, and that he has never uttered any significant idea of his own.

The rest of north Africa had come under Muslim rule, as had the southern part of Spain and much of Central Asia (including Sind, in the Indus Valley). Today, Voltaire is remembered and honoured in France as a courageous polemicist, who indefatigably fought for civil rights — the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion — and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the ancien régime. By 750, Islam had emerged as the spiritual counterpart to the two great monotheistic belief systems, Judaism and Christianity, and as the geopolitical successor to the Roman Empire. Voltaire read it through and said, "I do not think this poem will reach its destination.". A few decades after his death, his successors had united all of Arabia, and conquered Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, and much of North Africa. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, not to be confused with the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, sent a copy of his "Ode to Posterity" to Voltaire. Before his death in 632, Muhammad had established Islam as a social and political force and had unified most of Arabia. Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms, like Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"), contained in a verse epistle from 1768, addressed to the anonymous author of a controversial work, The Three Impostors.

In various Muslim countries, there are societies that authenticate claims of descent; some societies are more credible than others. Candide was subject to censorship and Voltaire did not openly claim it as his own work [1]. Many rulers and notables in Muslim countries, past and present, claim such descent, with various degrees of credibility, such as the Fatimid dynasty of North Africa, the Idrisis, the current royal families of Jordan and Morocco, and the Agha Khan Imams of the Ismaili branch of Islam. He is best known in this day and age for his novel, Candide ou l'Optimisme (1759), which satirizes the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz. Descendents of Muhammad are known by many names, such as sayyids, syeds سيد, and sharifs شريف (plural: ِأشراف Ashraaf). Voltaire essentially believed monarchy to be the key to progress and change. The Sunni do not accept this view, but they still honor Muhammad's descendents. Voltaire is quoted as saying that he "would rather obey one lion, than 200 rats of (his own) species".

In Shi'a Islam, it is believed that Fatima's husband 'Ali and his descendants are the rightful leaders of the faithful. To Voltaire only an enlightened monarch, advised by philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of France in the world. (Some say that he had a daughter Zainab, who had borne a daughter, Amma or Umama, who survived him as well.). Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. Muhammad was survived only by his daughter Fatima and her children. Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the church as a static force only useful as a counterbalance since its "religious tax", or the tithe, helped to cement a powerbase against the monarchy. With unity restored in Arabia, the Muslims looked outward and commenced the conquests that would eventually unite the Middle East under the caliphs. Its briefest equivalent may be given as "persecuting and privileged orthodoxy" in general, and, more particularly, it is the particular system which Voltaire saw around him, of which he had felt the effects in his own exiles and the confiscations of his books, and of which he saw the still worse effects in the hideous sufferings of Calas and La Barre.

He spent much of his short reign suppressing rebellious tribes in the Ridda Wars. L'infâme is not God; it is not Christ; it is not Christianity; it is not even Catholicism. However it happened, Abu Bakr became the new leader. No careful and competent student of his works has ever failed to correct this gross misapprehension. The majority Sunni sect dispute this, and say that the leaders of the community conferred and freely chose Abu Bakr, who was pre-eminent among the followers of Muhammad. This has been misunderstood in many ways - the mistake going so far as in some cases to suppose that Voltaire meant Christ by this opprobrious expression. But Abu Bakr and Umar intrigued to oust Ali and make Abu Bakr the leader or caliph. Voltaire's works, and especially his private letters, constantly contain the word l'infâme and the expression (in full or abbreviated) écrasez l'infâme.

According to Shi'a Islam, Muhammad had appointed his son-in-law Ali as his successor, in a public sermon at Ghadir Khom. His immense energy and versatility, his adroit and unhesitating flattery when he chose to flatter, his ruthless sarcasm when he chose to be sarcastic, his rather unscrupulous business faculty, his more than rather unscrupulous resolve to double and twist in any fashion so as to escape his enemies—all these things appear throughout the whole mass of letters. After a short illness, Muhammad died around noon on Monday 8 June 632, in the city of Medina at the age of sixty-three. In this great mass Voltaire's personality is of course best shown, and perhaps his literary qualities not worst. List in alphabetic order:. There remains only the huge division of his correspondence, which is constantly being augmented by fresh discoveries, and which, according to Georges Bengesco, has never been fully or correctly printed, even in some of the parts longest known. There were many other companions in addition to the ones listed here. He was quite unacquainted with the history of his own language and literature, and more here than anywhere else he showed the extraordinarily limited and conventional spirit which accompanied the revolt of the French 18th century against limits and conventions in theological, ethical and political matters.

Companions are responsible for the transmission of hadith, as each hadith must have as its first transmitter a companion. Nowhere, perhaps, except when he is dealing with religion, are Voltaire's defects felt more than here. Third, he must have converted to Islam. In literary criticism pure and simple his principle work is the Commentaire sur Corneille, though he wrote a good deal more of the same kind—sometimes (as in his Life and notices of Molière) independently sometimes as part of his Siécles. Second, he must have seen or heard Muhammad speak on at least one occasion. Almost all his more substantive works, whether in verse or prose, are preceded by prefaces of one sort or another, which are models of his own light pungent causerie; and in a vast variety of nondescript pamphlets and writings he shows himself a perfect journalist. First, he must have been a contemporary of Muhammad. In general criticism and miscellaneous writing Voltaire is not inferior to himself in any of his other functions.

The term companions refers to anyone who met three criteria. The book ranks perhaps second only to the novels as showing the character, literary and personal, of Voltaire; and despite its form it is nearly as readable. For further information on Muhammad's family life and consideration of these criticisms, see Muhammad's marriages. The various title-words of the several articles are often the merest stalking horses, under cover of which to shoot at the Bible or the church, the target being now and then shifted to the political institutions of the writer's country, his personal foes, etc., and the whole being largely seasoned with that acute, rather superficial, common-sense, but also commonplace ethical and social criticism which the 18th century called philosophy. Critics also question his marriage to his adopted son's ex-wife, Zaynab bint Jahsh, and his alleged violation of the Qur'anic injunction against marrying more than four wives. None of Voltaire's works shows his anti-religious or at least anti-ecclesiastical animus more strongly. (See Aisha for a discussion of other, conflicting, traditions). His largest philosophical work, at least so called, is the curious medley entitled Dictionnaire philosophique, comprising articles contributed by him to the great Encyclopédie and of several minor pieces.

His marriage to Aisha is often criticized today citing traditional sources that state she was only nine years old when he consummated the marriage. To his own age Voltaire was pre-eminently a poet and a philosopher; the unkindness of succeeding ages has sometimes questioned whether he had any title to either name, and especially to the latter. One of the later unions resulted in a son, but the child died when he was ten months old. However, the defense of Christian apologetics of his time was usually not very convincing either. Others were daughters of his close allies or tribal leaders. On the other hand, he claimed that this very same community preserved the texts without making any change to adjust those discrepancies. Some of these women were recent widows of warriors in battle. On one hand, he claimed that the Gospels were figmented and Jesus did not exist--that they were produced by those who wanted to create God in their own image and were full of discrepancies.

He married his other wives after the death of Khadija. Voltaire opposed Christian beliefs fiercely, but not consistently. Khadija was Muhammad's first wife and the mother of the only child to survive him, his daughter Fatima. But even in these books defects are present, which appear much more strongly in the singular olla podrida entitled Essai sur les moeurs, in the Annales de Vempire and in the minor historical works. Some say that he also married his slave girl Maria al-Qibtiyya, but other sources speak to the contrary. (the latter inferior to the former but still valuable) contain a great miscellany of interesting matter, treated by a man of great acuteness and unsurpassed power of writing, who had also had access to much important private information. Later he was to marry more wives, for a total of eleven (nine or ten living at the time of his death). The so-called Siècle de Louis XIV of France and Siecle de Louis XV.

After her death he married Aisha, then Hafsa. The small treatises on Charles XII and Peter the Great are indeed models of clear narrative and ingenious if somewhat superficial grasp and arrangement. From 595 to 619, Muhammad had only one wife, Khadijah. This division of Voltaire's work is the bulkiest of all except his correspondence, and some parts of it are or have been among the most read, but it is far from being even among the best. Muslim commentators, however, argue that he fought only to defend his community against the Meccans, and that he insisted on humane rules of warfare. See especially Micromegas. Critics say that his wars went well beyond self-defense. Voltaire has, in common with Jonathan Swift, the distinction of paving the way for science fiction's philosophical irony.

Much criticism has been leveled at Muhammad for engaging in caravan raids and wars of conquest. The famous "pour encourager les autres" (that the shooting of Byng did "encourage the others" very much is not to the point) is a typical example, and indeed the whole of Candide shows the style at its perfection. He was a warrior for only ten years. Voltaire never dwells too long on this point, stays to laugh at what he has said, elucidates or comments on his own jokes, guffaws over them or exaggerates their form. He took up the sword late in his life. If one especial peculiarity can be singled out, it is the extreme restraint and simplicity of the verbal treatment. For most of the sixty-three years of his life, Muhammad was a merchant, then a preacher. It is in these works more than in any others that the peculiar quality of Voltaire—ironic style without exaggeration—appears.

The Muslims were clearly the dominant force in Arabia, and most of the remaining tribes and states hastened to submit to Muhammad. But (as always happens in the case of literary work where the form exactly suits the author's genius) the purpose in all the best of them disappears almost entirely. This authority was not enforced by any formal governments, however, as he chose instead to rule through personal relationships and tribal treaties. Thus Candide attacks religious and philosophical optimism, L'Homme aux quarante ecus certain social and political ways of the time, Zadig and others the received forms of moral and metaphysical orthodoxy, while some are mere lampoons on the Bible, the unfailing source of Voltaire's wit. The capitulation of Mecca and the defeat of an alliance of enemy tribes at Hunayn effectively brought the greater part of the Arabian world under Muhammad's authority. These productions—incomparably the most remarkable and most absolutely good fruit of his genius—were usually composed as pamphlets, with a purpose of polemic in religion, politics, or what not. Henceforth the pilgrimage would be a Muslim pilgrimage and the shrine a Muslim shrine. The minor poems are as much above the Pucelle as the Pucelle is above the Henriade.

Most Meccans converted to Islam and Muhammad destroyed the idols in the Kaaba. Nevertheless, with all the Pucelle 's faults, it is amusing. Muhammad in turn promised a general amnesty (from which some people were specifically excluded). The Pucelle, if morally inferior, is from a literary point of view of far more value, it is desultory to a degree; it is a base libel on religion and history; it differs from its model Lodovico Ariosto in being, not, as Ariosto is, a mixture of romance and burlesque, but a sometimes tedious tissue of burlesque pure and simple. Eager to placate the powerful Muslims and anxious to regain their lucrative tribal alliances, the Meccans submitted without a fight. Constructed and written in almost slavish imitation of Virgil, employing for medium a very unsuitable vehicle—the Alexandrine couplet (as reformed and rendered monotonous for dramatic purposes)—and animated neither by enthusiasm for the subject nor by real understanding thereof, it could not but be an unsatisfactory performance. Muhammad marched on Mecca with an enormous force, said to number 10,000 men. The Henriade has by wide consent been relegated to the position of a school reading book.

The agreement lasted only two years, however, as war broke out again in 630. As regards his poems proper, of which there are two long ones, the Henriade, and the Pucelle, besides smaller pieces, of which a bare catalogue fills fourteen royal octavo columns, their value is very unequal. While Muhammad would not be allowed to finish his pilgrimage that year, hostilities would cease and the Muslims would have permission to make a pilgrimage to Mecca in the following year. Ironically, despite Voltaire's comic talent, he wrote only one good comedy, Nanine, but many good tragedies -- two of them, Zaire and Mérope, are ranked among the ten or twelve best plays of the whole French classical school. After some negotiation, a treaty was signed at the border town of al-Hudaybiyah. He wrote between fifty and sixty plays (including a few unfinished ones). In March of that year, he set out for Mecca, followed by 1,600 men. The divisions of it have long been recognized, and may be treated regularly.

By 628, the Muslim position was strong enough that Muhammad decided to returned to Mecca, this time as a pilgrim. Vast and various as the work of Voltaire is, its vastness and variety are of the essence of its writer's peculiar quality. Following the Battle of the Trench, the Muslims were able, through conquest and conversion, to extend their rule to many of the neighboring cities and tribes. In 1791 his remains were moved to a resting place at The Panthéon in Paris. All the property from the tribe was then divided among the Muslims. He was finally buried at an abbey in Champagne. The remaining women and children were taken as slaves or for ransom. Because of his criticism of the church Voltaire was denied burial in church ground.

After the battle, all the Banu Qurayza adult males (including boys who had reached puberty), as well as one woman, were beheaded by the order of Saad ibn Muadh, an arbiter chosen by the Banu Qurayza. Stories about his death in a state of terror and despair are shown as false. But Muhammad had dug a trench around Medina and successfully defended the city in the Battle of the Trench. The excitement of the trip was too much for him and he died in Paris on May 30, 1778. He was aided by sympathizers among the Medinans, the Jewish tribe of the Banu Qurayza, a tribe that had signed a treaty with Muhammad. Voltaire returned to a hero's welcome in Paris at age 83 in time to see his last play, Irene, produced. In April 627 Abu Sufyan led another strong force against Medina. A much more solid gain to his happiness was the adoption, or practical adoption, in 1776 of Reine Philiberte de Varicourt, a young girl of noble but poor family, whom Voltaire rescued from the convent, installed in his house as an adopted daughter, and married to the marquis de Villette.

The Meccans claimed victory, but they had lost too many men to pursue the Muslims into Medina. The death of Louis XV and the accession of Louis XVI excited even in his aged breast the hope of re-entering Paris, but he did not at once receive any encouragement, despite the reforming ministry of Turgot. The ensuing Battle of Uhud took place on March 23, ending in a stalemate. In this way Voltaire, who had been an old man when he established himself at Ferney (now Ferney-Voltaire), became a very old one almost without noticing it. In 625 the Meccan general Abu Sufyan marched on Medina with 3,000 men. But the general events of this Ferney life are somewhat of that happy kind which are no events. (See Succession to Muhammad for more information on the controversy regarding the question of who the first caliph should have been). In 1768 he entered into controversy with the bishop of the diocese; he had differences with the superior landlord of part of his estate, the president De Brosses; and he engaged in a long and tedious return match with the republic of Geneva.

Sunni Muslims regard these caliphs as the Rashidun, or Rightly Guided. Volumes and almost libraries have been written on the Calas affair, and we can but refer here to the only less famous cases of Sirven (very similar to that of Calas, though no judicial murder was actually committed), Espinasse (who had been sentenced to the galleys for harbouring a Protestant minister), Lally (the son of the unjustly treated but not blameless Irish-French commander in India), D'Etalonde (the companion of La Barre), Montbailli and others. Thus all four of the first four caliphs were linked to Muhammad by blood, marriage, or both. Here, too, he began that series of interferences on behalf of the oppressed and the ill-treated which is an honour to his memory. Each of these men, in later years, would emerge as successors to Muhammad and political leaders of the Muslims. How he built a church and got into trouble in so doing at Ferney, how he put "Deo erexit Voltaire" on it (1760-1761) and obtained a relic from the pope for his new building, how he entertained a grand-niece of Corneille, and for her benefit wrote his well-known "commentary" on that poet, are matters of interest, indeed. According to the Sunni, another daughter, Umm Kulthum, married Uthman. Further lampoons were directed at Fréron, an excellent critic and a dangerous writer, who had attacked Voltaire from the conservative side, and at whom the patriarch of Ferney, as he now began to be called, levelled in return the very inferior farce-lampoon of L'Ecossaise, of the first night of which Fréron himself did an admirably humorous criticism.

Muhammad's daughter Fatima married Ali. These were directed at literary victims such as Lefranc de Pompignan or Palissot. These marriages sealed relations between Muhammad and his top-ranking followers. The suppression of the Encyclopédie, to which he had been a considerable contributor, and whose conductors were his intimate friends, drew from him a shower of lampoons directed now at l'infâme. In Medina, he married Hafsah, daughter of Umar (who would eventually become Abu Bakr's successor). Above all, he now being comparatively secure in position, engaged much more strongly in public controversies, and resorted less to his old labyrinthine tricks of disavowal, garbled publication and private libel. After Khadija's death, Muhammad married again, to Aisha daughter of his friend Abu Bakr (who would later emerge as the first leader of the Muslims after Muhammad's death). His new occupations by no means quenched his literary activity - he reserved much time for work and for his immense correspondence, which had for a long time once more included Frederick, the two getting on very well when they were not in contact.

Virtually all the remaining Medinans converted, and Muhammad became de facto ruler of the city. Many of the most celebrated men of Europe visited him there, and large parts of his usual biographies are composed of extracts from their accounts of Ferney. Following this victory, after minor skirmishes, and the breaking of a treaty that risked the security of the city state, the victors expelled a local Jewish clan, the Banu Qainuqa. At Les Délices (which he sold in 1765) he had become a householder on no small scale; at Ferney (which he increased by other purchases and leases) he became a complete country gentleman, and was henceforward known to all Europe as squire of Ferney. To the Muslims, the victory in Badr appeared as a divine vindication of Muhammad's prophethood, and he and all the Muslims rejoiced greatly. At the end of 1758 he bought the considerable property of Ferney, about four miles from Geneva, and on French soil. This seminal event, celebrated in the Koran, marked the real beginning of Muslim military achievement and led the nascent Islamic society (the Ummah) to associate victory in arms with providential favor. As for himself, he looked about for a place where he could combine the social liberty of France with the political liberty of Geneva, and he found one.

Though outnumbered 800 to 300 in the battle, the Muslims met with success, killing at least forty-five Meccans and taking seventy prisoners for ransom; only fourteen Muslims died. He undoubtedly instigated d'Alembert to include a censure of the prohibition in his Encyclopédie article on "Geneva," a proceeding which provoked Rousseau's celebrated Lettre à D'Alembert sur les spectacles. On March 15, 624 near a place called Badr, the Meccans and the Muslims clashed. But he never was the man to take opposition to his wishes either quietly or without retaliation. They sent a small army against Medina. Voltaire obeyed this hint as far as Les Délices was concerned, and consoled himself by having the performances in his Lausanne house. The Meccans successfully defended the caravan and then decided to teach the Medinans a lesson. In July 1755 a very polite and, as far as Voltaire was concerned, indirect resolution of the Consistory declared that in consequence of these proceedings of the Sieur de Voltaire the pastors should notify their flocks to abstain, and that the chief syndic should be informed of the Consistory's perfect confidence that the edicts would be carried out.

In March of 624, Muhammad led some 300 warriors in a raid on a Meccan merchant caravan. Voltaire had infringed this law already as far as private performances went, and he had thought of building a regular theatre, not indeed at Geneva but at Lausanne. They owned no land in Medina and if they did not raid, they would have to live on charity and whatever wage labor they could find. Geneva had a law expressly forbidding theatrical performances in any circumstances whatever. Secular scholars will add that this was a matter of survival for the Muslims as well. All was, however, not yet quite smooth with him. Caravan raiding was an old Arabian tradition; later Muslim apologists justified the raids by the state of war deemed to exist between the Meccans and the Muslims. The earthquake at Lisbon, which appalled other people, gave Voltaire an excellent opportunity for ridiculing the beliefs of the orthodox, first in verse (1756) and later in the unsurpassable tale of Candide (1759).

Muhammad turned to raiding caravans bound for Mecca. His Orphelin de Chine, performed at Paris in 1755, was very well received; the notorious La Pucelle appeared in the same year. In Medina, Muhammad signed treaties of alliance and mutual help with neighboring tribes. His residence at Geneva brought him into correspondence (at first quite amicable) with the most famous of her citizens, Rousseau. Relations between Mecca and Medina rapidly worsened (see surat al-Baqara) Meccans confiscated all the property that the Muslims had left in Mecca. He kept open house for visitors; he had printers close at hand in Geneva; he fitted up a private theatre in which he could enjoy what was perhaps the greatest pleasure of his whole life—acting in a play of his own, stage-managed by himself. In this, the Islamic empire was more tolerant than the other great powers of the area, the Byzantine and Sassanid empires, which were actively hostile to any religions or sects other than the state-sponsored religions (Orthodox Christianity and Zoroastrianism). At Les Délices he set up a considerable establishment, which his great wealth made him able easily to afford.

This system would come to typify Muslim relations with their non-believing subjects and that tradition was one reason for the stability of the later Muslim caliphate or Khilafah. He was here practically at the meeting-point of four distinct jurisdictions—Geneva, the canton Vaud, Sardinia, and France, while other cantons were within easy reach; and he bought other houses dotted about these territories, so as never to be without a refuge close at hand in case of sudden storms. In this system, the Jews and other "Peoples of the Book" were allowed to keep their religions as long as they paid tribute. Voltaire had no plans to remain in the city, and immediately bought a country house just outside the gates, which he named Les Délices. 622-623), which laid out the terms on which the different factions, specifically the Jews, could exist within the new Islamic State. In the summer he went to Plombières, and after returning to Colmar for some time, journeyed in the beginning of winter to Lyons, and thence in the middle of December to Geneva. Muhammad drafted a document now known as the Constitution of Medina (ca. His exclusion from France, however, was chiefly metaphorical, and really meant exclusion from Paris and its neighbourhood.

Non-Muslim settlements within Muslim territories were taxed rather than expelled. Nor did an extremely offensive performance of Voltaire's—the solemn partaking of the Eucharist at Colmar after due confession—at all mollify his enemies. Some academic historians suggest that Muhammad abandoned hope of recruiting Jews as allies or followers at this time, and thus the qibla, the Muslim direction of prayer, was changed from the site of the former Temple in Jerusalem to the Kabaa in Mecca. Permission to establish himself in France was now absolutely refused. Muhammad had hoped that they would recognize him as a prophet, but they did not do so. At Colmar he was not safe, especially when in January 1754 a pirated edition of the Essai sur les moeurs, written long before, appeared. However, Medina was also home to a number of Jewish tribes (whether they were ethnically as well as religiously Jewish is an open question, as is the depth of their "Jewishness"). He had been, in the first blush of his Frankfort disaster, refused, or at least not granted, permission even to enter France proper.

He ultimately did so by absorbing both factions into his Muslim community, and forbidding bloodshed among Muslims. Even now, however, in his sixtieth year, it required some more external pressure to induce him to make himself independent. Muhammad came to Medina as a mediator, invited to resolve the feud between the Arab factions of Aws and Khazraj. Voltaire's second stage was now over. The Muslim calendar counts dates from the Hijra, which is why Muslim dates have the suffix AH (After Hijra). The last-named place he reached (after a leisurely journey and many honours at the little courts just mentioned) at the beginning of October, and here he proposed to stay the winter, finish his Annals of the Empire and look about him. This Hijra or emigration (traditionally translated into English as "flight") marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. Voltaire left Frankfurt on the 7th of July, travelled safely to Mainz, and thence to Mannheim, Strasbourg and Colmar.

By breaking the link with his own tribe, Muhammad demonstrated that tribal and family loyalties were insignificant compared to the bonds of Islam, a revolutionary idea in the tribal society of Arabia. This situation was at last put an end to by the city authorities, who probably felt that they were not playing a very creditable part. Muhammad then resolved to emigrate to Medina, then known as Yathrib, a large agricultural oasis where there were a number of Muslim converts. He was followed, arrested, his niece seized separately, and sent to join him in custody; and the two, with the secretary Collini, were kept close prisoners at an inn called the Goat. Muslim traditions say that there were several attempts to assassinate Muhammad. At last Voltaire tried to steal away. By 622, life in the small Muslim community of Mecca was becoming not only difficult, but dangerous. The resident, Freytag, was not a very wise person (though he probably did not, as Voltaire would have it, spell "poésie" (poetry) "poéshie"); constant references to Frederick were necessary; and the affair was prolonged so that Madame Denis had time to join her uncle.

About 620, he announced that he had gone on a heavenly journey - the Isra and Miraj - further alienating his enemies. An excuse was provided in the fact that the poet had a copy of some unpublished poems of Frederick's, which would have implicated Frederick's homosexuality were they to be published, and as soon as Voltaire arrived hands were laid on him, at first with courtesy enough. It was a bleak time. Frankfurt, nominally a free city, but with a Prussian resident who did very much what he pleased, was not like Gotha and Leipzig. Muslims patiently endured hunger and persecution. Once more, on the 25th of May, he moved on to Frankfurt. In 619, both Muhammad's wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib died; it was known as "the year of mourning." Muhammad's own clan withdrew their protection of him. From Leipzig, after a month's stay, Voltaire moved to Gotha.

The incident is reported in only a few sources, and Muslims disagree as to its authenticity. In the second place, in direct disregard of a promise given to Frederick, a supplement to Akakia appeared, more offensive than the main text. It is said that Muhammad was briefly tempted to relax his condemnation of Meccan polytheism and buy peace with his neighbors, but later recanted his words and repented (see the article on the Satanic Verses). In the first place, the poet chose to linger at Leipzig. It was during this period that the episode known as the Satanic Verses may have occurred. There was a rather distinct excuse for Frederick's wrath. Several suras and parts of suras are said to date from this time, and reflect its circumstances: see for example al-Masadd, al-Humaza, parts of Maryam and al-Anbiya, al-Kafirun, and Abasa. It was nearly three months afterwards that the famous, ludicrous and brutal arrest was made at Frankfurt, on the persons of himself and his niece, who had met him meanwhile.

Some of them fled to Abyssinia and founded a small colony there. A kind of reconciliation occurred in March, and after some days of good-fellowship Voltaire at last obtained the long-sought leave of absence and left Potsdam on the 26th of the month (1753). Muhammad and his followers were persecuted. One day Voltaire sent his orders back; the next Frederick returned them, but Voltaire had quite made up his mind to fly. Mohammed’s denunciation of polytheism was especially offensive to his own tribe, the Quraysh, as they were the guardians of the Ka'aba. Things were now drawing to a crisis. If they threw out their idols, as Muhammad preached, there would be no more pilgrims, no more trade, and no more wealth. It could not be proved that he had ordered the printing, and all Frederick could do was to have the pamphlet burnt by the hangman.

Their wealth, after all, rested on the Ka'aba, a sacred house of idols and the focal point of Meccan religious life. Alas! Voltaire had sent copies away; others had been printed abroad; and the thing was irrecoverable. As the ranks of Muhammad's followers swelled, he became a threat to the local tribes and the rulers of the city. But again the affair blew over, the king believing that the edition of Akakia confiscated in Prussia was the only one. Some, however, believed and joined his small group. Frederick did not like disobedience, but he still less liked being made a fool of, and he put Voltaire under arrest. A few mocked him. In a few days printed copies appeared.

Most of those who heard his message ignored it. Of this Frederick was not aware; but he did get some wind of the diatribe itself, sent for the author, heard it read to his own great amusement, and either actually burned the manuscript or believed that it was burnt. Around 613, Muhammad began to spread his message amongst the people. Even Voltaire did not venture to publish this lampoon on a great official of a prince so touchy as the king of Prussia without some permission, and if all tales are true, he obtained this by another piece of something like forgery—getting the king to endorse a totally different pamphlet on its last leaf, and affixing that last leaf to Akakia. This silence worried him, until he received surat ad-Dhuha, whose words provided comfort and reassurance. But Maupertuis must needs write his Letters, and thereupon (1752) appeared one of Voltaire's most famous, though perhaps not one of his most read works, the Histoire du docteur Akakia et du natif de Saint-Malo. Until his death, Muhammad received frequent revelations, although there was a relatively long gap after the first revelation. The king took his president's part; Voltaire took Konig's.

She was soon followed by his ten-year-old cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib and Abu Bakr, whom Sunnis assert to have been Muhammad's closest friend. Maupertuis got into a dispute with one Konig. The first vision of Gabriel disturbed Muhammad, but his wife Khadijah reassured him that it was a true vision and became his first follower. In the early autumn of 1751 one of the king's parasites, and a man of much more talent than is generally allowed, horrified Voltaire by telling him that Frederick had in conversation applied to him (Voltaire) a proverb about "sucking the orange and flinging away its skin", and about the same time the dispute with Pierre de Maupertuis, which had more than anything else to do with his exclusion from Prussia, came to a head. He taught man with the pen; taught him all that he knew not." (See surat Al-Alaq for a fuller account.). However, he succeeded in finishing and printing the Siècle de Louis XIV, while the Dictionnaire philosophique is said to have been devised and begun at Potsdam. Read and your Lord is the Most Honored. The king's disgust at this affair (which came to an open scandal before the tribunals) was so great that he was on the point of ordering Voltaire out of Prussia, and Darget the secretary had trouble resolving the matter (February 1751).

He created man from something which clings. He was accused of forgery -- of altering a paper signed by Hirsch after he had signed it. Around the year 610, while meditating, Muhammad had a vision of the Angel Gabriel and heard a voice saying to him in rough translation "Read in the name of your Lord the Creator. Voltaire had not been in the country six months before he engaged in a discreditable piece of financial gambling with Hirsch, the Dresden Jew. Muhammad had a reflective turn of mind and routinely spent nights in a cave (Hira) near Mecca in meditation and thought. Frederick, though his love of teasing for teasing's sake has been exaggerated by Macaulay, was a martinet of the first water, had a sharp though one-sided idea of justice, and had not the slightest intention of allowing Voltaire to insult or to tyrannize over his other guests and servants. The Shi'a say that Muhammad had only the one daughter, Fatima, and that the other daughters were either children of Khadijah by her previous marriage, or children of her sister. He was restless, and in a way Bohemian.

The four daughters are said to be Zainab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatimah. Voltaire was not humble enough to be a mere butt, as many of Frederick's lead poets were; he was not enough of a gentleman to hold his own place with dignity and discretion; he was constantly jealous both of his equals in age and reputation, such as Maupertuis, and of his juniors and inferiors, such as Baculard D'Arnaud. His son Qasim died at the age of two. It was quite impossible that Voltaire and Frederick should get on together for long. All of Khadija's children were born before Muhammad started preaching about Islam. But Frenchmen regarded Voltaire as something of a deserter; and it was not long before he bitterly repented his desertion, though his residence in Prussia lasted nearly three years. Ibn Ishaq records that Khadijah bore Muhammad five children, one son and four daughters. Voltaire insisted for the consent of his own king, which was given without delay.

By Arab custom minors did not inherit, so Muhammad had received no inheritance from either his father or his grandfather. He pressed him to remain; he gave him (the words are Voltaire's own) one of his orders, twenty thousand francs a year, and four thousand additional for his niece, Madame Jenis, in case she would come and keep house for her uncle. He became a wealthy man by this marriage. At first the king behaved altogether like a king to his guest. The young twenty-five-year old Muhammad so impressed Khadijah that she offered him marriage in the year 595. In 1751, Voltaire accepted Frederick of Prussia's invitations and moved to Berlin. One of Muhammad's employers was Khadijah, a rich widow then forty years old. He went on writing satires like Zadig, and engaged in a literary rivalry with Crébillon père, a rival set up against him by Madame de Pompadour.

He thus became well-travelled and knowledgeable as to foreign ways. He was deeply disturbed for a time, and considered settling down in Paris. As a teenager Muhammad began accompanying his uncle on trading journeys to Syria. Madame du Chatelet's death is another turning-point in Voltaire's life. Merchants from different tribes would visit Mecca during the pilgrimage season, when all inter-tribal warfare was forbidden and they could trade in safety. In September 1749 she died after the birth of a child. Mecca was a thriving commercial center, due in great part to a stone temple called the Kaaba that housed many different idols. He once lay in hiding for two months with the duchesse du Maine at Sceaux, where were produced the comedietta of La Prude and the Tragedie de Rome sauvée, and afterwards for a time lived chiefly at Lunéville; here Madame du Chatelet had established herself at the court of King Stanislaus I of Poland, and carried on a liaison with the soldier-poet, Jean François de Saint-Lambert, an officer in the king's guard.

Muhammad now came under care of his uncle Abu Talib, the new leader of the Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe, the most powerful in Mecca. He had various proofs of the instability of his hold on the king during 1747 and in 1748. At the age of six, Muhammad lost his mother Amina, and at the age of eight his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib. He did not indeed hold it very long, but was permitted to sell it for a large sum, retaining the rank and privileges. Tradition says that as an infant, he was placed with a Bedouin wetnurse, Halima, as desert life was believed to be safer and healthier for children. His favour at court had naturally exasperated his enemies; it had not secured him any real friends, and even a gentlemanship of the chamber was no solid benefit, except from the money point of view. Muhammad's father, Abdullah, had died before he was born and the young boy was brought up by his paternal grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, of the tribe of Quraysh. Then the tide began to turn.

Some calculate his birthdate as April 20, 570 (Shia Muslims believe it to be April 26), and some as 571; tradition places it in the Year of the Elephant. He, who had been for years admittedly the first writer in France, was at last elected to the Académie française in the spring of 1746. Muhammad was born into a well-to-do family settled in the northern Arabian town of Mecca. All this assentation had at least one effect. His nickname was Abul-Qasim, "father of Qasim", after his short-lived first son. But he was not a thoroughly skilful courtier, and one of the best known of Voltairians is the contempt or at least silence with which Louis XV received the maladroit and almost insolent inquiry Trajan est-il content? addressed in his hearing to Richelieu at the close of a piece in which the emperor had appeared with a transparent reference to the king. (ibn = "son of" in Arabic; alternate names of people with two names are given in brackets.). In the same year he wrote a poem on Fontenoy, he received medals from the pope and dedicated Mahomet to him, and he wrote court divertissements and other things to admiration.

Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Muttalib (Shaiba) ibn Hashim (Amr) ibn Abd Manaf (al-Mughira) ibn Qusai (Zaid) ibn Kilab ibn Murra ibn Ka`b ibn Lu'ay ibn Ghalib ibn Fahr (Quraish) ibn Malik ibn an-Nadr (Qais) ibn Kinana ibn Khuzaimah ibn Mudrikah (Amir) ibn Ilyas ibn Mudar ibn Nizar ibn Ma`ad ibn Adnan. He was much employed, owing to Richelieu's influence, in the fetes of the dauphin (Louis, dauphin de France)'s marriage, and was rewarded through the influence of Madame de Pompadour on New Year's Day 1745 by the appointment to the post of historiographer-royal, temporarily achieving a secure social and financial position. Muhammad's genealogy up to Adnan is as follows:. He also returned, not too well advisedly, to the business of courtiership, which he had given up since the death of the regent. Adnan in turn is said to be a descendant of Ismaeel (Ishmael), son of Ibrahim (Abraham) though the exact genealogy is disputed. During these years much of the Essai sur les moeurs and the Siècle de Louis XIV was composed. According to tradition, Muhammad traced his genealogy back as far as Adnan, whom the northern Arabs believed to be their common ancestor. It was in this same year that he received the singular diplomatic mission to Frederick which nobody seems to have taken seriously, and after his return the oscillation between Brussels, Cirey and Paris was resumed.

Traditionalists, both Muslim and non-Muslim, paint a much more detailed picture of Muhammad's life, as described below. This last was, and deserved to be, the most successful of its author's whole theatre. However, the historicity of the biographical material about Muhammad presented in the Summary above is not generally contested. Mahomet was first performed at Lille in that year; it did not appear in Paris till August next year, and Mérope not till 1743. (Indeed, most of these traditions are acknowledged by Muslim clerical authorities to be weak; only a few hadith collections are considered sahih, or reliable.) A very small minority called the "Quran Alone Muslims" consider all hadith as unreliable. Brussels was again the headquarters in 1741, by which time Voltaire had finished two of his best plays, Mérope and Mahomet. Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike agree that there are many inauthentic traditions concerning the life of Muhammad in the hadith collections. At last, in September 1740, master and pupil met for the first time at Cleves, an interview followed three months later by a longer visit.

Traditionalists rely on their efforts; the skeptics feel that the question must be revisited, using modern methods. Frederick, now king of Prussia, made not a few efforts to get Voltaire away from Madame du Chatelet, but unsuccessfully, and the king earned the lady's cordial hatred by persistently refusing or omitting to invite her. Traditions multiplied, and Muslim scholars made a strenuous effort to weed out what they felt were spurious stories. In April 1739 a journey was made to Brussels, to Paris, and then again to Brussels, which was the headquarters for a considerable time, owing to some law affairs, of the Du Chatelets. Each sect and school had its own sometimes conflicting traditions of what Muhammad and his companions had done and said. The best-known accounts of Cirey life, those of Madame de Graffigny, date from the winter of 1738-39; they are very amusing, depicting the frequent quarrels between Madame du Châtelet and Voltaire, his intense suffering under criticism, his constant dread of the surreptitious publication of the Pucelle (which Émilie actually hid from him to prevent him from publishing it and losing his life, but which he kept reciting to visitors), and so forth. They argue that by the time the oral traditions were being collected, the Muslim community had fractured into rival sects and schools of thought. He spent about three months in the Low Countries, but in March 1737 returned to Cirey and continued writing, making experiments in physics (he had at this time a large laboratory), and busying himself with iron-founding, the chief industry of the district.

Some skeptical scholars (Goldziher, Schacht, Wansbrough, Cook, Crone, Rippin, Berg, and others) have raised doubts about the reliability of these sources, especially the hadith collections. He was soon in trouble again, this time for the poem, Le Mondain, and he at once crossed the frontier and made for Brussels. They are stories of the words and actions of Muhammad and his companions. In March 1736 he received his first letter from Frederick II of Prussia, then crown prince. The third source, the hadith collections, like the Qur'an, are not a biography per se. In the very first days at Cirey Voltaire had written a pamphlet with the title of Treatise on Metaphysics. Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography some 120 to 130 years after Muhammad's death. The principal literary results of his early years here were the Discours en vers sur l'Homme, the play of Aizire and L'Enfant prodigue (1736), and a long treatise on the Newtonian system which he and Madame du Châtelet wrote together.

822) biography of Muhammad. At Cirey he wrote indefatigably and did not neglect business. 833); and al-Waqidi's (d. In March 1735 the hat was formally taken off him, and he was at liberty to return to Paris, a liberty of which he availed himself sparingly. 768), edited by Ibn Hisham (d. Cirey provided him with a safe and comfortable retreat, and with every opportunity for literary work. The earliest surviving biographies are the Life of the Apostle of God, by Ibn Ishaq (d. Émilie's temper was violent, and after more than a decade she began affairs with lovers other than Voltaire, though he stayed with her.

While the Qur'an is not a biography of Muhammad, it does provide some information about his life. It was not till the summer of 1734 that Cirey, a half-dismantled country house on the borders of Champagne, France and Lorraine, was fitted up with Voltaire's money and became the headquarters of himself, of his hostess, and now and then of her accommodating husband. The sources available to us for information about Muhammad are the Qur'an, the sira biographies, and the hadith collections. He now obtained a settled home for many years and, taught by his numerous brushes with the authorities, he began his future habit of keeping out of personal harm's way, and of at once denying any awkward responsibility, which made him for nearly half a century at once the leader of European heretics in regard to all established ideas. Later conquests, commercial contact between Muslims and non-Muslims, and missionary activity spread his faith over much of the globe. He had written important and characteristic work before, but had not decided a direction. Under Muhammad's immediate successors the Islamic empire expanded into Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. If the English visit may be regarded as having finished Voltaire's education, the Cirey residence was the first stage of his literary manhood.

By the time of Muhammad's death, he had unified Arabia and launched a few expeditions to the north, towards Syria and Palestine. He himself was safe in the independent duchy of Lorraine with Émilie de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet, with whom he began to be intimate in 1733; he had now taken up his abode with her at the château of Cirey. The military organization honed in this struggle was then set to conquering the other pagan tribes of Arabia. The book was condemned (June 10, 1734), the copies seized and burned, a warrant issued against the author, and his dwelling searched. War between Mecca and Medina followed, in which Muhammad and his followers were eventually victorious. It was published with certain "remarks" on Blaise Pascal, more offensive to orthodoxy than itself, and no mercy was shown to it. In 622 he was forced to flee from Mecca and settle in Yathrib (now known as Medina) with his followers, where he was the leader of the first avowedly Muslim community. Both were likely to make bad blood, for the latter was, under the mask of easy verse, a satire on contemporary French literature, especially on Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, and the former was, in the guise of a criticism or rather panegyric of English ways, an attack on everything established in the church and state of France.

He soon acquired a following by some and rejection and hatred by others in the region. In the middle of this period, in 1733, two important books, the Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais and the Temple du gout appeared. He did not completely reject Judaism and Christianity, two other monotheistic faiths known to the Arabs; he said to have been sent by God in order to complete and perfect their teachings. He then took lodgings with an agent of his, one Demoulin, in an out-of-the-way part of Paris, and was, for some time at least, as much occupied with contracts, speculation and all sorts of means of gaining money as with literature. He was a successful leader on both religious and political levels. In the following winter the death of the comtesse de Fontaine-Martel, whose guest and supposed lover he had been, turned him out of a comfortable abode. He eventually expanded his mission as a prophet, publicly preaching a strict monotheism and predicting a Day of Judgement for sinners and idol-worshippers — such as his tribesmen and neighbors in Mecca. In 1732 two more tragedies appeared with great success: Eriphile and Zaire.

Gabriel told him that God had chosen him as the last of the prophets to mankind. In the spring of the next year, Voltaire went to Rouen to get Charles XII surreptitiously printed. Later he described the experience to those close to him as a visit from the Angel Gabriel, who commanded him to memorize and recite the verses later collected as the Qur'an. At the end of 1730 Brutus was actually staged. Early Muslim sources report that in 611, at about the age of forty, while meditating in a cave near Mecca, he experienced a vision. With both he took all imaginable pains to avoid offending the censorship. Muhammad is said to have been a merchant who traveled widely. But he had great difficulties with two of his chief works which were ready to appear, Charles XII and the Lettres sur les Anglais.

. The Henriade was at last licensed in France; Brutus, a play which he had printed in England, was accepted for performance, but kept back for a time by the author; and he began the celebrated poem of the Pucelle, the amusement and the torment of a great part of his life. 570 in Mecca (Makkah) and died June 8, 632 in Medina (Madinah); both Mecca and Medina are cities in the Hejaz region of present day Saudi Arabia. He was full of literary projects, and immediately after his return is said to have increased his fortune immensely by a lucky lottery speculation. According to traditional Muslim biographers, he was born ca. He saw England as a useful model for what he considered to be a backward France. Most non-Muslims generally consider him the founder of Islam. Voltaire also greatly admired English religious toleration and freedom of speech, and saw these as necessary prerequisites for social and political progress.

Islam is considered by Muslims to be the final step in the revelation of a monotheist religion of which earlier versions were the teachings of Moses, Jesus and the other prophets. He studied England's constitutional monarchy, its religious tolerance, its philosophical rationalism and most importantly the "natural sciences". Muhammad  listen^? (Arabic: محمد, also transliterated Mohammad, Mohammed, Muhammed, and sometimes Mahomet, following the Latin or Turkish), was the final prophet of Islam. While in England Voltaire was attracted to the philosophy of John Locke and ideas of Sir Isaac Newton. Beyond the stories accepted as canonical by Islamic scholars of hadith, or oral traditions, there are many folktales praising Muhammad and recounting miraculous stories of his birth, upbringing and career. The new king was not fond of poetry, but Queen Caroline was, and the kingdom's prestige was enhanced through welcoming a distinguished exile from French illiberality. While even non-iconic representations of Muhammad are discouraged, some Muslims (e.g., Persian miniaturists) believe it permissible to picture Muhammad as long as his face is veiled. Soon after his arrival, George I died and George II succeeded.

Muhammad's relics, such as his grave, his sword, his clothing, even strands of his hair, are revered by some. He was kept in confinement a fortnight, and was then packed off to England in accordance with his own request. Muhammad is often referenced with titles of praise. On the morning appointed for the duel Voltaire was arrested and sent for the second time to the Bastille. Criticism of Muhammad is often equated with blasphemy, which is punishable by death in some Muslim-majority or Islamist states. He was insulted by the chevalier de Rohan, replied with his usual sharpness of tongue, and shortly afterwards, when dining with the duke of Sully, was called out and beaten by the chevalier's hirelings, while Rohan watched. (Some do not, believing that such festivities are modern innovations.). The end of 1725 brought a disastrous close to this period of his life.

Some Muslims celebrate the birthday of Muhammad (Mawlid) with elaborate festivities. Voltaire had made, however, a useful friend in another grand seigneur, as profligate and nearly as intelligent, the duke of Richelieu, and with him he passed 1724 and the next year chiefly recasting the now successful Marianne, but also writing the comedy of L'Indiscret and courting the queen. Concerts of Muslim and especially Sufi devotional music include songs praising Muhammad (see Muslim music, Qawwali). The regent had died shortly before, not to Voltaire's advantage; for he had been a generous patron. When speaking or writing, Muhammad's name is preceded by the title "Prophet" and is followed by the phrase, Peace be upon him, in English often abbreviated to PBUH. Almost at the same time, on the 4th of March, his third tragedy, Marianne, appeared and was well received at first but underwent complete damnation before the curtain fell. Zubair. In November he caught smallpox and was seriously ill, so that the book was not given to the world till the spring of 1724 (and then of course, as it had no privilege, appeared privately).

Uthman. In this he was disappointed but he had the work printed at Rouen nevertheless and spent the summer of 1723 revising it. Umar. de Berniêres, a nobleman of Rouen and endeavouring to procure a "privilege" for his poem. Talha. During the late autumn and winter of 1722-1723 he lived chiefly in Paris, taking a kind of lodging in the town house of M. Salman the Persian. The Henriade had got on considerably during the journey and, according to his lifelong habit, the poet, with the help of his friend Thiériot and others, had been "working the oracle" of puffery.

Sad Ibn Abi Waqqas. He stayed at Cambrai for some time, where European diplomatists were still in full session, journeyed to Brussels, where he met and quarrelled with Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, went on to the Hague and then returned. Sa'eed. His visiting espionage, or secret diplomatic mission, began in the summer of 1722 and he set out for it in company with a certain Madame de Rupelmonde, to whom he, as usual, made love, taught deism and served as an amusing travelling companion. Sa'd. In return for this, or in hopes of more, he offered himself as a spy — or at any rate as a secret diplomatist — to Dubois, but meeting his old enemy Beauregard in one of the minister's rooms and making an offensive remark, he was waylaid by Beauregard some time after in a less privileged place and soundly beaten. Hamza. In December 1721 his father died leaving him property, rather more than four thousand livres a year, which was soon increased by a pension of half the amount from the regent.

Ali. He again spent much of his time with Villars, listening to the marshal's stories and making harmless love to the duchess. Abu Bakr. It was a failure, and though it was recast with some success, Voltaire never published it as a whole and used parts of it in other work. Abdulrahman. He returned to Paris in the winter and his second play, Artemire, was produced in February 1720. Abdullah ibn Abbas. He was informally exiled, and spent much time with Marshal Villars, again increasing his store of "reminiscences".

Aamir. In the spring of the next year the production of Lagrange-Chancel's libels, entitled the Philippiques, again brought suspicion on Voltaire. It had a run of forty-five nights and brought the author not a little profit, with which Voltaire seems to have begun his long series of successful financial speculations. Oedipe was performed at the Théâtre Français on November 18 and was well received, though a rivalry grew between parties assisting its success. A further "exile" at Châtenay and elsewhere followed the imprisonment however, though Voltaire was admitted to an audience by the regent and treated graciously, he was not trusted.

The balance of opinion has, however, always inclined to the hypothesis of an anagram on the name "Arouet le jeune" or "Arouet l.j.", 'u' being changed to 'v' and 'j' to 'i' according to the ordinary convention. Some maintain that it was an abbreviation of a childish nickname, "le petit volontaire". The origin of the name has been much debated and attempts have been made to show that it existed in the Daumart pedigree or in some territorial designation. Ever after his exit from the Bastille in April 1718 he was known as Arouet de Voltaire, or simply Voltaire, though legally he never abandoned his patronymic.

Inveigled by a spy named Beauregard into a real or burlesque confession he was sent to the Bastille on May 16, 1717, here he recast Oedipe, began the Henriade and decided to change his name. In May 1716 he was exiled, first to Tulle, then to Sully, later, having been allowed to return, he was suspected of having been concerned in the composition of two violent libels. It seems that Voltaire lent himself to the duchess' frantic hatred of the regent, Philippe II of Orléans, and helped compose lampoons on him. He was introduced to the famous "court of Sceaux", the circle of the beautiful and ambitious duchesse du Maine.

Almost exactly at the time of the death of Louis XIV he returned to Paris where he once more became involved in high society and showed Oedipe among his acquaintances. Here he was still supposed to study law but instead devoted himself in part to literary essays and in part to historical gossip. As a result, his father sent him to stay for nearly a year (1714-15) with Louis de Caumartin, marquis de Saint-Ange, in the country. Voltaire was sent home and, for a time, pretended to work in a Parisian lawyer's office but he began writing libelous poems.

Here he met Olympe Dunoyer, a Protestant girl from a poor family, but his father stopped the affair by procuring a lettre de cachet, though he never used it. Voltaire's father tried to remove him from such society by sending him first to Caen and then, in the suite of the marquis de Châteauneuf, the abbé's brother, to The Hague. The Abbé de Châteauneuf died before his godson left school, but he had already introduced him to the famous and dissipated coterie of the Temple. So Voltaire studied law, at least nominally.

In August 1711, at the age of seventeen, he came home and decided on a writing career, which his father objected to. When she died in 1705, she left him money so he could buy books. In his earliest school years the abbé presented him to the famous author Ninon de Lenclos. Though he derided the education he had received, it formed the basis of his considerable knowledge, and probably kindled his lifelong devotion to the stage.

At the age of ten, he was sent to the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-Grand, and remained there till 1711. The Abbé de Châteauneuf, a friend of François' mother, instructed him in les belles lettres and deism, and the child showed a faculty for facile verse-making. Marguerite Arouet, of whom her younger brother was very fond, married early; the elder brother, Armand, was a strong Jansenist and had a poor relationship with François. Voltaire's mother died when he was seven years old.

He was his parent's fifth child, preceded by twin boys (one of whom survived), a girl, Marguerite-Catherine, and another boy who died in childhood. Nonetheless, throughout his life, Voltaire sometimes implied that he came from a noble background. Both parents were of Poitevin extraction, but the Arouets were long established in Paris, the grandfather being a prosperous tradesman. Voltaire was born in Paris to François Arouet and Marie-Marguerite Daumart or D'Aumard.

. François-Marie Arouet (November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher. "One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker." (1776). "I shall finally have to renounce your Optimism? I'm afraid to say that it's a mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly." (Candide, renouncing the Leibnizian Optimism).

But there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.". "If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism; if there were two they would cut each other’s throats. "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.". "In this country, from time to time, we like to kill an admiral, to encourage the others" (Referencing the execution of Admiral Byng)(Candide).

"You know that these two nations are at war over a few acres of snow near Canada, and that they are spending on this little war more than all of Canada is worth.". Zaire (1732). Nanine. Mérope.

Mahomet. Eriphile (1732). Ecossaise. Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs (Letter to the author of The Three Impostors) (1770).

Dictionnaire philosophique (1764). Candide (1759). Micromegas (1752). Zadig (1747).

Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738). Le Mondain (1736). 1778). Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (1733), revised as Letters on the English (c.

Zaire (1732). Oedipe (1718).