Leominster: Printed by Simon Wilder for John Whiting of Lancaster, 1805. First American edition. 24mo (147 x 89 mm). Contemporary full calf, lightly worn. Spotting and browning throughout; tear to title page; marginal loss affecting text to first page.

Scarce first American edition of one of the earliest biographs of the prophet Mohammad printed in the United States.

The Life of Mahomet was excerpted from Gibbon's best known work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to be published separately. At the time of publication printed works relating to Islam were rare, as its few practitioners in the United States had arrived as part of the slave trade and the practicing of Islam was forbidden on plantations, with nearly all slaves forced to convert to Christianity upon their arrival.