STUDY OF THE
LIFE OF MUHAMMAD CONSIDERED AS A PREACHER OF ISLAM.
AFTER HIJRAH
A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith
T.W. Arnold Ma. C.I.F
Professor of Arabic, University of London, University College. Written in 1896, revised in 1913
Rearranged by Dr. A.S. Hashim

Upon Arriving in Medina:
Muhammad first care after his arrival in Yathrib, or Medina as it was called from this period—Madinat al-Nabi, the city of the Prophet—was to build a mosque, to serve both as a place of prayer and of general assembly for his followers, who had hitherto met for that purpose in the dwelling-place of one of their number.

The worshippers at first used to turn their faces in the direction of Jerusalem. In many other ways, by constant appeals to their own sacred Scriptures, by according them perfect freedom of worship and political equality, Muhammad endeavored to conciliate the Jews, but they met his advances with scorn and derision. It is then that a Verse was revealed to him as to change his direction in prayer from Jerusalem to the Ka’ba. Prophet, Muhammad bade his followers turn their faces in prayer towards the Ka’ba in Mecca. (ii. 144.)[9]

This change of direction during prayer has a deeper significance than might at first sight appear. It was really the beginning of the National Life of Islam: it established the Ka’ba at Mecca as a religious centre for all the Muslim people, just as from time immemorial it had been a place of pilgrimage for all the tribes of Arabia. Of similar importance was the incorporation of the ancient Arab custom of pilgrimage to Mecca into the circle of the religious ordinances of Islam, a duty that was to be performed by every Muslim at least once in his lifetime.

There are many passages in the Quran that appeal to this germ of national feeling and urge the people of Arabia to realize the privilege that had been granted them of a divine revelation in their own language and by the lips of one of their own countrymen.

“Verily We have made it an Arabic Quran that ye may haply understand. (xliii. 2-3.)

“And thus We have revealed to thee an Arabic Quran, that thou mayest warn the mother of cities and those around it. (xlii. 5.)

“And if We had made it a Quran in a foreign tongue, they had surely said, ‘ Unless its verses be clearly explained (we will not receive it).’ (xli. 44.)

“And verily We have set before men in this Quran every kind of parable that haply they be monished:

“An Arabic Quran, free from tortuous (wording), that haply they may fear (God). (xxxix. 28-29.)

“Verily from the Lord of all creatures hath this (book) come down, … in the clear Arabic tongue. (xxvi. 192, I95.)

“And We have only made it (i.e. the Quran) easy, in thine own tongue, in order that thou mayest announce glad tidings thereby to the God-fearing, and that thou mayest warn the contentious thereby.” (xix. 97.)

But the message of Islam was not for Arabia only; the whole world was to share in it.[10]

As there was but one God, so there was to be but one religion into which all men were to be invited.

This claim to be universal, to hold sway over all men and all nations, found a practical illustration in the letters which Muhammad is said to have sent in the year a.d. 688 (a.h. 6) to the great potentates of that time.

An invitation to embrace Islam was sent in this year to the Emperor Heracleus, the king of Persia, the Governor of Yemen, the governor of Egypt and the king of Abyssinia. The letter to Heracleus is said to have been as follows :—

However audacious this summons may have seemed to those who then received it, succeeding years showed that it was dictated by no empty enthusiasm.[11] These letters only gave a more open and widespread expression to the claim to the universal acceptance which is repeatedly made for Islam in the Quran.

“Of a truth it (i.e. the Quran) is no other than an admonition to all created beings, and after a time shall ye surely know its message. (xxxviii. 87-88.)

“This (book) is no other than an admonition and a clear Quran, to warn whoever liveth; and that against the unbelievers sentence may be justly given. (xxxvi. 69-70.)

“We have not sent thee save as a mercy to all created beings. (xxi. 107.)

“Blessed is He who hath sent down al-Furqan upon His servant, that he may be a warner unto all created beings. (xxv. 1.)

“And We have not sent thee otherwise than to mankind at large, to announce and to warn. (xxxiv. 27.)

“He it is who hath sent His apostle with guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it victorious over every other religion, though the polytheists are averse to it.” (lxi. 9.)

In the hour of his deepest despair, when the people of Mecca persistently turned a deaf ear to the words of their prophet (xvi, 23, 114, etc.), when the converts he had made were tortured until they recanted (xvi. 108), and others were forced to flee from the country to escape the rage of their persecutors (xvi. 43, 111)—then was delivered the promise:

“One day we will raise up a witness out of every nation.” (xvi. 86.)[12]

This claim upon the acceptance of all mankind which the Prophet makes in these passages is further prophetically indicated in the words

• “first-fruits of Abyssinia,” used by Muhammad in reference to Bilal, and
• “first-fruits of Greece,” to Suhayb;
• Salman, the first Persian convert, was a Christian slave in Medina, who embraced the new faith in the first year of the Hijrah.
• Thus long before any career of conquest was so much as dreamed of, the Prophet had clearly shown that Islam was not to be confined to the Arab race.

The following account of the sending out of missionaries to preach Islam to all nations, points to the same claim to be a universal religion:

The proof of the universality of Islam, of its claim on the acceptance of all men, lay in the fact that it was the religion divinely appointed for the whole human race and was now revealed to them anew through Muhammad, ” the seal of the prophets ” (xxxiii. 40), as it had been to former generations by other prophets.

“Men were of one religion only: then they disagreed one with another and had not a decree (of respite) previ­ously gone forth from thy Lord, judgment would surely have been given between them in the matter wherein they disagree. (x. 20.)

“I am no apostle of new doctrines, (xlvi. 8.)

“Mankind was but one people: then God raised up prophets to announce glad tidings and to warn: and He sent down with them the Book with the Truth, that it might decide the disputes of men: and none disagreed save those to whom the book had been given, after the clear tokens had reached them, through mutual jealousy. And God guided those who believed into the truth concerning which they had disagreed, by His will; and God guideth whom He pleaseth into the straight path. (ii. 209.)

“And We revealed to thee, ‘ follow the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith, for he was not of those who join gods with God.’ (xvi. 124.)

“Say: As for me, my Lord hath guided me into a straight path: a true faith, the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith; for he was not of those who join gods with God. (vi. 162.)

“Say: Nay, the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith and not one of those who join gods with God (is our religion). (ii. 129.)

“Say: God speaketh truth. Follow therefore the religion of Abraham, he being a Ḥanif and not one of those who join other gods with God.

“Verily the first temple that was set up for men was that which is in Bakka, blessed and a guidance for all created beings. (iii. 89, 90.)

“And who hath a better religion than he who resigneth himself to God, who doth what is good and followeth the faith of Abraham, the sound in faith? (iv. 124.)

“He hath elected you, and hath not laid on you any hardship in religion, the faith of your father Abraham. He hath named you the Muslims.” (xx. 77.)

But to return to Muhammad in Medina. In order properly to appreciate his position after the Flight, it is important to remember the peculiar character of Arab society at that time, as far at least as this part of the peninsula was concerned:

• There was an entire absence of any organized administrative or judicial system such as in modern times we connect with the idea of a government.
• Each tribe or clan formed a separate and absolutely independent body, and this independence extended itself also to the individual members of the tribe. Each of them recognized the authority, or leadership of his chief only as being the exponent of a public opinion which he himself happened to share; but he was quite at liberty to refuse his conformity to the (even) unanimous resolve of his fellow clansmen.
• Further, there was no regular transmission of the office of chieftain; but he was generally chosen as being the oldest member of the richest and most powerful family of the clan. And such person as being personally most qualified to command respect.
• If such a tribe became too numerous, it would split up into several divisions, each of which continued to enjoy a separate and independent existence, uniting only on some extra­ordinary occasion for common self-defense or some more than usually important warlike expedition.

We can thus understand how Muhammad could establish himself in Medina at the head of a large and increasing body of adherents who looked up to him as their head and leader and acknowledged no other authority,—without exciting any feeling of insecurity, or any fear of encroachment on recognized authority, such as would have arisen in a city of ancient Greece or any similarly organized community.

Muhammad thus exercised temporal authority over his people just as any other independent chief might have done, the only difference being that in the case of the Muslims a religious bond took the place of family and blood ties.

Islam thus became what, in theory, at least, it has always remained—a political as well as a religious system.

“It was Muhammad’s desire, by the command of God, to found a new religion, and in this he succeeded; but at the same time Muhammad founded a political system of an entirely new and peculiar character.

• At first his only wish was to convert his fellow-countrymen to the belief in the One God—Allah;
• But along with this he brought about the overthrow of the old system of government in his native city,
  • and in place of the tribal aristocracy under which the conduct of public affairs was shared in common by the ruling families,
  • he substituted an absolute theocratic monarchy, with himself at the head as vicar of God upon earth.
• “Even before his death almost all Arabia had submitted to him; Arabia that had never before obeyed one prince, suddenly exhibits a political unity and swears allegiance to the will of an absolute ruler.
• Out of the numerous tribes, big and small, of a hundred different kinds that were incessantly at feud with one another, Muhammad’s word created a nation.

The idea of a common religion under one common head bound the different tribes together into one political organism which developed its peculiar characteristics with surprising rapidity.

• Now only one great idea could have produced this result, viz. the principle of national life in heathen Arabia.
• The clan-system was thus for the first time, if not entirely crushed—(that would have been impossible)—yet made subordinate to the feeling of religious unity.
• The great work succeeded, and when Muhammad died there prevailed over by far the greater part of Arabia a peace of God such as the Arab tribes, with their love of plunder and revenge, had never known;
• It was the religion of Islam that had brought about this reconciliation.”[14]
• Even in the case of death, the claims of relationship were set aside and the bond-brother inherited all the property of his deceased companion. But after the battle of Badr, when such an artificial bond was no longer needed to unite his followers, it was abolished; such an arrangement was only necessary so long as the number of the Muslims was still small and the corporate life of Islam a novelty; moreover Muhammad had lived in Medina for a very short space of time before the rapid increase in the number of his adherents made so communistic a social system almost impracticable.
• It was only to be expected that the growth of an independent political body composed of refugees from Mecca, located in a hostile city, should eventually lead to an outbreak of hostilities;
• and, as is well known, every biography of Muhammad is largely taken up with the account of a long series of petty encounters and bloody battles between his followers and the Quraish of Mecca, ending in his triumphal entry into that city in a.d. 630, and of his hostile relations with numerous other tribes, up to the time of his death, a.d. 633.

But it is false to suppose that Muhammad in Medina laid aside his rôle of preacher and missionary of Islam, or that when he had a large army at his command, he ceased to invite unbelievers to accept the faith.

Ibn Sa’d gives a number of letters written by the Prophet from Medina to chiefs and other members of different Arabian tribes, in addition to those addressed to potentates living beyond the limits of Arabia, inviting them to embrace Islam;

And in the following pages will be found instances of his having sent missionaries to preach the faith to the unconverted members of their tribes, whose very ill-success in some cases is a sign of the genuinely missionary character of their efforts and the absence of an appeal to force.

• A typical example of such an unsuccessful mission is that sent to preach Islam to the Banu ‘Amir b. Sa’sa’ah in the year a.h. 4. The chief of this tribe, Abu Bara ‘Amir, visited Muhammad in Medina, listened to his teaching, but declined to become a convert; he seemed, however, to be favorably disposed towards the new faith and asked the Prophet to send some of his followers to Najd to preach to the people of that country.
• The Prophet sent a party of forty Muslims, most of them young men of Medina, who were skilled in reciting the Quran, and had been accustomed to meet together at night for study and prayer. But in spite of the safe conduct given them by Abu Bara Amir, they were treacherously murdered and three only of the party escaped with their lives.[16]
• The successes of the Muslim arms, however, attracted every day members of various tribes, particularly those in the vicinity of Medina, to swell the ranks of the followers of the Prophet;
• And:
  • the courteous treatment which the deputations of these various clans experienced from the Prophet,
  • his ready attention to their grievances,
  • the wisdom with which he composed their disputes, and
  • the politic assignments of territory by which he rewarded an early declaration in favor of Islam,
  • made his name to be popular and spread his fame as a great and generous prince throughout the Peninsula.”[17]
    It not unfrequently happened that one member of a tribe would come to the Prophet in Medina and return home as a missionary of Islam to convert his brethren; we have the following account of such a conversion in the year 5 (a.h.).
• The Banu Sa’d b. Bakr sent one of their number, by name Dhimam b. Tha’labah as their envoy to the Prophet. He came and made his camel kneel down at the gate of the mosque and tied up its foreleg. Then he went into the mosque, where the Prophet was sitting with his companions. He went up close to them and said:

Another such missionary was ‘Amr b Murrah, belonging to the tribe of the Banu Juhaynah, who dwelt between Medina and the Red Sea. The date of his conversion was prior to the Flight, in the same year (a.h. 5), and he thus describes it:

When the truce of Hudaibiya (a.h. 6) made friendly relations with the people of Mecca possible, many persons of that city, who had had the opportunity of listening to the teaching of Muhammad in the early days of his mission, and among them some men of great influence, came out to Medina, to embrace the faith of Islam.

• The continual warfare carried on with the people of Mecca had hitherto kept the tribes to the south of Mecca almost entirely outside the influence of the new religion.
• But this truce now made communications with southern Arabia possible, and a small band from the tribe of the Banu Daws came from the mountains that form the northern boundary of Yemen, and joined themselves to the Prophet in Medina.
• Even before the appearance of Muhammad, there were some members of this tribe who had had glimmerings of a higher religion than the idolatry prevailing around them, and argued that the world must have had a creator, though they knew not who he was; and when Muhammad came forward as the apostle of this creator, one of these men, by name Tufayl b. Amr, came to Mecca to learn who the creator was.
• Though warned by the Quraish of the dangerous influence that Muhammad might exercise over him if he entered into conversation with him, he followed the Prophet to his house one day, after watching him at prayer by the Ka’ba.
• Muhammad expounded to him the doctrines of Islam, and Tufayl left Mecca full of zeal for the new faith.
• On his return home he succeeded in converting his father and his wife, but found his fellow-tribesmen unwilling to abandon their old idolatrous worship.
• Disheartened at the ill-success of his mission, he returned to the Prophet and besought him to call down the curse of God on the Banu Daws; but Muhammad encouraged him to persevere in his efforts, saying, “Return to thy people and summon them to the faith, but deal gently with them.” At the same time he prayed, ” Oh God! guide the Banu Daws in the right way.”
• The success of Tufayl’s propaganda was such that in the year a.h. 7 he came to Medina with between seventy and eighty families of his tribesmen who had been won over to the faith of Islam, and after the triumphal entry of Muhammad into Mecca, Tufayl set fire to the block of wood that had hitherto been venerated as the idol of the tribe.[20]

In a.h. 7, fifteen more tribes submitted to the Prophet, and after the surrender of Mecca in a.h. 8, the ascendancy of Islam was assured, and those Arabs who had held aloof, saying, “Let Muhammad and his fellow-tribesmen fight it out; if he is victorious, then is he a genuine prophet,”[21] now hastened to give in their allegiance to the new religion.

Among those who came in after the fall of Mecca were some of the most bitter persecutors of Muhammad in the earlier days of his mission, to whom his noble forbearance and forgiveness now gave a place in the brotherhood of Islam.

The following year witnessed the martyrdom of ‘Urwah b. Mas’ood, one of the chiefs of the people of Ta’if, which city the Muslims had unsuccessfully attempted to capture.

He had been absent at that time in Yemen, and returned from his journey shortly after the raising of the siege. He had met the Prophet two years before at Hudaibiya, and had conceived a profound veneration for him, and now came to Medina to embrace the new faith.

In the ardor of his zeal he offered to go to Ta’if to convert his fellow-countrymen, and in spite of the efforts of Muhammad to dissuade him from so dangerous an undertaking, he returned to his native city, publicly declared that he had renounced idolatry, and called upon the people to follow his example. While he was preaching, he was mortally wounded by an arrow, and died giving thanks to God for having granted him the glory of martyrdom.

A more successful missionary effort was made by another follower of the Prophet in Yemen—probably a year later—of which we have the following graphic account: “The apostle of God wrote to al-Harith and Masruh, and Nu’aym b. ‘Abd al-Kulal of Himyar: ‘Peace be upon you so long as ye believe on God and His apostle. God is one God, there is no partner with Him. He sent Moses with his signs, and created Jesus with his words.

The Jews say, “Ezra is the Son of God,” and the Christians say, “God is one of three, and Jesus is the Son of God.” He sent the letter by ‘Ayyash b. Abi Rabi’ah al-MaKhzumi, and said:

If they now accept Islam, then ask them for their three rods, before which they gather together to pray, one rod of tamarisk that is spotted white and yellow, and one knotted like a cane, and one black like ebony. Bring the rods out and burn them in the market-place.’ So I set out,” tells Ayyash, “to do as the Apostle of God had bid me.

When I arrived, I found that all the people had decked themselves out for a festival: I walked on to see them, and came at last to three enormous curtains hung in front of three doorways.

I lifted the curtain and entered the middle door, and found people collected in the courtyard of the building. I introduced myself to them as the messenger of the Apostle of God, and did as he had bidden me; and they gave heed to my words, and it fell out as he had said.”[22]

In a.h. 9 a deputation of thirteen men from the Banu Kilab, a branch of the Banu ‘Amir b. Sa’sa’ah, came to the Prophet and informed him that one of his followers, Dhahhak b. Sufyan, had come to them, reciting the Quran and teaching the doctrines of Islam, and that his preaching had won over their tribe to the new faith.[23]

Another branch of the same tribe, the Banu Ru’as b. Kilab, was converted by one of its members, named Amr b. Malik, who had been to Medina and accepted Islam, and then returned to his fellow tribes and persuaded them to follow his example.[24]

In the same year a less successful attempt was made by a new convert, Wathilah b. al-Asqa’, to induce his clan to accept the faith that he himself had embraced after an interview with the Prophet. His father scornfully cast him off, saying, “By God! I will never speak a word to you again,” and none were found willing to believe the doctrines he preached with the exception of his sister, who provided him with the means of returning to the Prophet at Medina.[25]

This ninth year of the Hijrah has been called the year of the deputations, because of the enormous number of Arab tribes and cities that now sent delegates to the Prophet, to give in their submission.

The introduction into Arab society of a new principle of social union in the brotherhood of Islam had already begun to weaken the binding force of the old tribal ideal, which erected the fabric of society on the basis of blood-relationship.

• The conversion of an individual and his reception into the new society was a breach of one of the most fundamental laws of Arab life, and its frequent occurrence had acted as a powerful solvent on tribal organization and had left it weak in the face of a national life so enthusiastic and firmly-knit as that of the Muslims had become.
• The Arab tribes were thus impelled to give in their submission to the Prophet, not merely as the head of the strongest military force in Arabia, but as the exponent of a theory of social life that was making all others weak and ineffective.[26]
• Muhammad had succeeded in introducing into the anarchical society of his time a sentiment of national unity, a consciousness of rights and duties towards one another such as the Arabs had not felt before.[27]
• In this way, Islam was uniting together clans that hitherto had been continually at feud with one another, and as this great confederacy grew, it more and more attracted to itself the weaker among the tribes of Arabia.
• In the accounts of the conversion of the Arab tribes, there is continual mention of the promise of security against their enemies, made to them by the Prophet on the occasion of their submission, “Woe is me for Muhammad!” was the cry of one of the Arab tribes on the news of the death of the Prophet. “So long as he was alive, I lived in peace and in safety from my enemies;” and the cry must have found an echo far and wide throughout Arabia.

How superficial was the adherence of numbers of the Arab tribes to the faith of Islam may be judged from the widespread apostasy that followed immediately on the death of the Prophet.

Their acceptance of Islam would seem to have been often dictated more by considerations of political expediency, and was more frequently a bargain struck under pressure of violence than the outcome of any enthusiasm or spiritual awakening.

They allowed themselves to be swept into the stream of what had now become a great national movement, and we miss the fervent zeal of the early converts in the cool, calculating attitude of those who came in after the fall of Mecca.

But even from among these must have come many to swell the ranks of the true believers animated with a genuine zeal for the faith, and ready, as we have seen, to give their lives in the effort to preach it to their brethren.

But for such men as these, so vast a movement could not have held together, much less have recovered the shock given it by the death of the founder. For it must not be forgotten how distinctly Islam was a new movement in heathen Arabia, and how diametrically opposed were the ideals of the two societies.[29]

For the introduction of Islam into Arab society did not imply merely the sweeping away of a few barbarous and inhuman practices, but a complete reversal of the pre-existing ideals of life.

Herein we have the most conclusive proof of the essentially missionary character of the teaching of Muhammad, who thus comes forward as the exponent of a new scheme of faith and practice.

Whatever may have been the conditions favorable to the formation of a new political organization, Muhammad certainly did not find the society of his day prepared to receive his religious teaching and waiting only for the voice that would express in speech the inarticulate yearnings of their hearts.

But it is just this spirit of expectancy that is wanting among the Arabs—those at least of the Central Arabia towards whom Muhammad’s efforts were at first directed.

They were by no means ready to receive the preaching of a new teacher, least of all one who came with the (to them unintelligible) title of apostle of God.

To the heathen Arab, friendship and hostility were as a loan which he sought to repay with interest, and he prided himself on returning evil for evil, and looked down on any who acted otherwise as a weak nidering.

He is the perfect man who late and early plotteth still

To do a kindness to his friends and work his foes some ill.

To such men the Prophet said,

“Recompense evil with that which is better” (xxiii. 98);

as they desired the forgiveness of God, they were to pass over and pardon offences (xxiv. 22),

and a Paradise, vast as the heavens and the earth, was prepared for those who mastered their anger and forgave others. (iii. 128.)

The very institution of prayer was jeered at by the Arabs to whom Muhammad first delivered his message, and one of the hardest parts of his task was to induce in them that pious attitude of mind towards the Creator, which Islam inculcates equally with Judaism and Christianity, but which was practically unknown to the heathen Arabs.

This self-sufficiency and this lack of the religious spirit, joined with their intense pride of race, little fitted them to receive the teachings of one who maintained that

“The most worthy of honor in the sight of God is he that feareth Him most” (xlix. 13).

No more could they brook the restrictions that Islam sought to lay upon the license of their lives; wine, women, and song, were among the things most dear to the Arab’s heart in the days of the ignorance, and the Prophet was stern and severe in his injunctions respecting each of them.

[9] The appointment of the fast of Ramaḍān (Qur’ān ii. 179-84), is doubt­less another sign of the breaking with the Jews, the fast on the Day of Atonement being thus abolished.

[10] “Aber Gottes Botscbaft ist nicht auf die Araber beschränkt. Sein Wille gilt für alle Creatur, es heischt unbedingten Gehorsam von aller Menschheit, und dass Muhammed als sein Bote denselben Gehorsam zu heischen berechtigt und verpflichtet sei, scheint von Anfang an ein integrirender Bestandtheil seines Gedankensystem gewesen zu sein.” (Sachau, pp. 293-4.) Goldziher (Vorlesungen übcr den Islam, p. 25 sqq.) and Nöldeke (WZKM, vol. xxi. pp. 307-8) express a similar opinion.

[11] On the doubtful authenticity of these letters, see Caetani, vol. i. p. 725 sqq.

[12] It seems strange that in the face of these passages, Some have denied that Islam was originally intiended by its founder to be A Universal religion……. (see rest of cititon in the Book page 29).

[13] Ibn Sa’d, § 10. This story may indeed be apocryphal, but is significant at least of the early realisation of the missionary character of Islam.

[14] A. von Kremer (3), pp. 309, 310.

[15] This would seem to be acknowledged even by Muir, when speaking of the massacre of the Banū Qurayẓah (A.H. 6): “The ostensible grounds upon which Mahomet proceeded were purely political, for as yet he did not profess to force men to join Islam, or to punish them for not embracing it.” (Muir (2), vol. iii. p. 282.)

[16] Ibn Isḥāq, p. 648 sq.

[17] Muir (2), vol. iv. pp. 107-8. See also Caetani, vol. i. p. 663. “Assai più ,’che tutte le prediche del Profeta, assai più che tutta la bontà delle dottrine islamiche, siffatti vantaggi militari contribuirono al aumentare il numero dei seguaci. La rapidità della diffusione dell’ Islām divenne in special modo sensibile per il contegno et per lo spirito di tolleranza, di libertà, e di opportunismo, che diresse il Profeta nei suoi rapporti con i convertiti.”

[18] Ibn Isḥāq, p. 943-4. (This story rests on somewhat doubtful authority, cf. Caetani, vol. i. p. 610.)

[19] Ibn Sa’d, § 118

[20] Ibn Isḥāq, pp. 252-4.

[21] Caetani, vol. ii. t. i. p. 341.

[22] Ibn Sa’d, § 56.

[23] Ibn Sa’d, § 85.

[24] Id. § 86.

[25] Id. §91.

[26] See Sprenger, vol. iii. pp. 360-1.

[27] Caetani, vol. ii. p. 433.

[28] Caetani, vol. ii. p. 429.

[29] This has been nowhere more fully and excellently brought out than in the scholarly work of Prof. Ignaz Goldziher (Muhammedanische Studien, vol. i.), from which I have derived the following considerations.

To be Continued