302 Sprenger, Leben des Mohammad, vol. i, p. 356.

303 It must be remembered that this branch of Muḥammadan tradition derives from the pietists of the first century after the Flight, who were profoundly dissatisfied with the reigning dynasty (the Umayyads), and revenged themselves by painting the behaviour of the Meccan ancestors of the Umayyads towards Muḥammad in the blackest colours possible. The facts tell another story. It is significant that hardly any case of real persecution is mentioned in the Koran. Muḥammad was allowed to remain at Mecca and to carry on, during many years, a religious propaganda which his fellow-citizens, with few exceptions, regarded as detestable and dangerous. We may well wonder at the moderation of the Quraysh, which, however, was not so much deliberate policy as the result of their indifference to religion and of Muḥammad's failure to make appreciable headway in Mecca.

304 Ibn Hishám, p. 168, l. 9. sqq.

305 At this time Muḥammad believed the doctrines of Islam and Christianity to be essentially the same.

306 Ṭabarí, i, 1180, 8 sqq. Cf.Caetani, Annali dell' Islam, vol. i, p. 267 sqq.

307 Muir, Life of Mahomet, vol. ii, p. 151.

308 We have seen (p. 91 supra) that the heathen Arabs disliked female offspring, yet they called their three principal deities the daughters of Allah.

309 It is related by Ibn Isḥáq (Ṭabarí, i, 1192, 4 sqq.). In his learned work, Annali dell' Islam, of which the first volume appeared in 1905, Prince Caetani impugns the authenticity of the tradition and criticises the narrative in detail (p. 279 sqq.), but his arguments do not touch the main question. As Muir says, "it is hardly possible to conceive how the tale, if not founded in truth, could ever have been invented."

310 The Meccan view of Muḥammad's action may be gathered from the words uttered by Abú Jahl on the field of Badr—"O God, bring woe upon him who more than any of us hath severed the ties of kinship and dealt dishonourably!" (Ṭabarí, i, 1322, l. 8 seq.). Alluding to the Moslems who abandoned their native city and fled with the Prophet to Medína, a Meccan poet exclaims (Ibn Hishám, p. 519, ll. 3-5):—

They(the Quraysh slain at Badr) fell in honour. They did not sell their kinsmen for strangers living in a far land and of remote lineage;

Unlike you, who have made friends of Ghassán(the people of Medína), taking them instead of us—O, what a shameful deed!

Tis an impiety and a manifest crime and a cutting of all ties of blood: your iniquity therein is discerned by men of judgment and understanding.

311 Súrais properly a row of stones or bricks in a wall.

312 See p. 74 supra.

313 Koran, lxix, 41.

314 Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorâns, p. 56.

315 I.e., what it has done or left undone.

316 The Last Judgment.

317 Moslems believe that every man is attended by two Recording Angels who write down his good and evil actions.

318 This is generally supposed to refer to the persecution of the Christians of Najrán by Dhú Nuwás (see p. 26 supra). Geiger takes it as an allusion to the three men who were cast into the fiery furnace (Daniel, ch. iii).

319 See above, p. 3.

320 According to Muḥammadan belief, the archetype of the Koran and of all other Revelations is written on the Guarded Table ( al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfúẓ) in heaven.

321 Koran, xvii, 69.

322 See, for example, the passages translated by Lane in his Selections from the Kur-án(London, 1843), pp. 100-113.

323 Ikhláṣmeans 'purifying one's self of belief in any god except Allah.'

324 The Prophet's confession of his inability to perform miracles did not deter his followers from inventing them after his death. Thus it was said that he caused the infidels to see "the moon cloven asunder" (Koran, liv, I), though, as is plain from the context, these words refer to one of the signs of the Day of Judgment.

325 I take this opportunity of calling the reader's attention to a most interesting article by my friend and colleague, Professor A. A. Bevan, entitled The Beliefs of Early Mohammedans respecting a Future Existence( Journal of Theological Studies, October, 1904, p. 20 sqq.), where the whole subject is fully discussed.

326 Shaddád b. al-Aswad al-Laythí, quoted in the Risálatu ’l-Ghufránof Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí (see my article in the J.R.A.S.for 1902, pp. 94 and 818); cf.Ibn Hishám, p. 530, last line. Ibn (Abí) Kabsha was a nickname derisively applied to Muḥammad. Ṣadáand hámarefer to the death-bird which was popularly supposed to utter its shriek from the skull ( háma) of the dead, and both words may be rendered by 'soul' or 'wraith.'

327 Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorâns, p. 78.

328 Cf.also Koran, xviii, 45-47; xx, 102 sqq.; xxxix, 67 sqq.; lxix, 13-37.

329 The famous freethinker, Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí, has cleverly satirised Muḥammadan notions on this subject in his Risálatu ’l-Ghufrán( J.R.A.S.for October, 1900, p. 637 sqq.).

330 Journal of Theological Studiesfor October, 1904, p. 22.

331 Ibn Hishám, p. 411, l. 6 sqq.

332 Ibid., p. 347.

333 L. Caetani, Annali dell' Islam, vol. 1, p. 389.

334 Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorâns, p. 122.

335 Translated by E. H. Palmer.

336 Ibn Hishám, p. 341, l. 5.

337 Muḥammad's Gemeindeordnung von Medina in Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, Heft IV, p. 67 sqq.

338 Ibn Hishám, p. 763, l. 12.

339 Koran, ii, 256, translated by E. H. Palmer.

340 Muhamm. Studien, Part I, p. 12.

341 See Goldziher's introductory chapter entitled Muruwwa und Dîn( ibid., pp. 1-39).

342 Bayḍáwí on Koran, xxii, 11.

343 Die Berufung Mohammed's, by M. J. de Goeje in Nöldeke-Festschrift(Giessen, 1906), vol. i, p. 5.

344 On the Origin and Import of the Names Muslim and Ḥaníf( J.R.A.S.for 1903, p. 491)

345 See T. W. Arnold's The Preaching of Islam, p. 23 seq., where several passages of like import are collected.

346 Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, translated by J. S. Black, p. 73.

347 See Professor Browne's Literary History of Persia, vol. i, p. 200 sqq.

348 Ṭabarí, i, 2729, l. 15 sqq.

349 Ibid., i, 2736, l. 5 sqq. The words in italics are quoted from Koran, xxviii, 26, where they are applied to Moses.

350 ‘Umar was the first to assume this title ( Amíru ’l-Mu’minín), by which the Caliphs after him were generally addressed.

351 Ṭabarí, i, 2738, 7 sqq.

352 Ibid., i, 2739, 4 sqq.

353 Ibid., i, 2737, 4 sqq.

354 It is explained that ‘Umar prohibited lamps because rats used to take the lighted wick and set fire to the house-roofs, which at that time were made of palm-branches.

355 Ṭabarí, i, 2742, 13 sqq.

356 Ibid., i, 2745, 15 sqq.

357 Ibid., i, 2747, 7 sqq.

358 Ibid., i, 2740, last line and foll.

359 Al-Fakhrí, ed. by Derenbourg, p. 116, l. 1 to p. 117, l. 3.

360 Ṭabarí, i, 2751, 9 sqq.

361 Ibn Khallikán (ed. by Wüstenfeld), No. 68, p. 96, l. 3; De Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 152.

362 Mu‘áwiya himself said: "I am the first of the kings" (Ya‘qúbí, ed. by Houtsma, vol. ii, p. 276, l. 14).

363 Al-Fakhrí, ed. by Derenbourg, p. 145.

364 Ya‘qúbí, vol. ii, p. 283, l. 8 seq.

365 Mas‘údí, Murúju ’l-Dhahab (ed. by Barbier de Meynard), vol. v. p. 77.

366 Nöldeke's Delectus, p. 25, l. 3 sqq., omitting l. 8.

367 The Continuatioof Isidore of Hispalis, ˜ 27, quoted by Wellhausen, Das Arabische Reich und sein Sturz, p. 105.