Hume seems to have had access to some version or other of the Koran, which he calls the " alcoran "; and he was aware of what is now remembered as the Golden Age of Islam . " The advantage indeed of science, moderation, humanity, was at that time entirely on the side of the Saracens ".
12.
According to him, they " knew so little of their sect, that they could say nothing else but that'Mahomet was a Moor, my father was a Moor, and I am a Moor', with some other words of their Alcoran, wherewithal and in abstinence from swine's flesh, they live until the devil take them all " . ( " Moors " ( ) was at the time a common way for the Portuguese to refer to any Muslims ).
