have been a character of pure gold and unalloyed piety. It is by the fruit that the nature of a tree is made known. The impure secular and sensual outcome of Mohammed's second period was nothing else, as this work will plainly show, than the full development of the potentialities, the matured fruit of the seeds and germs, already covertly operative in the first.

That the political power and military conquests which mark Mohammed's second period were already contemplated by him, when he was still an opposed and persecuted reformer in Mecca, is not a mere surmise founded on the historical sequence of the two periods, but must necessarily be gathered from sundry express statements by his earliest biographers. Ibn Ishak narrates that on one occasion, when the prophet was still destitute of any political power, and owed the toleration which he enjoyed solely to his powerful family and influential friends, the elders of the Koreish came to his uncle Abu Talib, for the purpose of effecting a modus vivendi with his nephew, based on mutual concessions. Abu Talib called the troublesome nephew, and thus addressed him before them: 'Thou seest the nobles of thy people are assembled here to concede to thee certain things, and, in return, to receive concessions from thee.' Mohammed made this reply: 'Well, then, give me a word whereby the Arabs may be governed and the Persians subjugated.' Abu Jahl responded to this request in the name of his fellow-elders by saying: 'Thou shalt have ten words.' But Mohammed, setting him right, and indicating what kind of word, in his opinion, could alone answer the purpose, rejoined: 'Say, There is no God except Allah; and renounce what you worship besides Him.' These two remarkable words of Mohammed, taken in their context, as reported by his earliest biographer, plainly entitle us to the logical conclusion that Mohammed looked upon religion as the best means for securing worldly power: for he says in effect, — 'If you wish to govern the Arabs and to subjugate the Persians, then exchange your idolatry with the profession of Monotheism and you will succeed.'

Ibn Ishak further reports that, when rough and combatant Omar, a near relative of Mohammed's precursor Zeid, had openly cast in his lot with the new prophet's movement,

he was in consequence attacked by some Koreishites. Having struggled with them from early morning till the sun stood above their heads, and being wellnigh exhausted, he addressed them thus: 'Do what you think best; but, by Allah, if we were only three hundred men in number, we would fight till either you had to give way to us, or we to you.'

These and such-like incidents plainly show that, with Mohammed and his early coadjutors, aspirations after secular power no less than after the dominance of their creed, and a disposition to use force, were not at all foreign to their iconoclastic zeal and their wish for religious reform, even in Mecca. The Meccans were keen-sighted enough to perceive this full well. The historian, from whom we quote, expressly ascribes their sending the above deputation to the motive of fear. He informs us that they said: 'We are not sure whether the dominion will not be taken from us.' Religious profession and political pursuits were evidently as much blended in Mohammed's own thoughts and life as religion and politics are inseparably mixed up in Islam. The words spoken by him on the formal occasion referred to clearly show that when apparently he laboured for the subversion of idolatry and the propagation of Monotheism only, he was in fact already aiming at civil government at home and at military conquests abroad.

It is in this light that the two distinct periods of Mohammed's public life have to be viewed, and thus their essential continuity and their substantial inward union will without difficulty be discerned. Mohammed's apostolic cloak was loose and elastic enough to cover both the prophet and the tyrant, as the circumstances seemed to require it. The ardent preacher, the zealous reformer, the austere prophet of Mecca, pleading amidst annoyances and opposition for mere toleration and the bare recognition of his teaching, is in reality the seed and the precursor of the military commander, the insatiable conqueror, the despotic autocrat of Medina. In both places he is essentially the same man: only in Mecca he is trying to succeed with his plan, and in Medina he actually succeeds. This sameness, as well as distinctness of the two periods now to be passed in review before us, is intimated by the superscriptions which they respectively bear.