siderations sometimes entirely outweighed religious interests in those who joined him and his party.

One day as Hamza, still an idolater, was returning from the chase, he was met by a woman who told him how rudely his nephew had just been reproached by Abu Jahl, when passing him on Mount Safa. This communication so touched the uncle's honour and family pride, that he forthwith took the nephew's part, as narrated by Ibn Ishak in these words 'Hamza, since God was about to bless him with His grace, was filled with wrath, and resolved to attack Abu Jahl at once, if he should still happen to be near the Kaaba. Then taking the way to the Kaaba, and finding him sitting with others, he went straight up to him, and gave him a severe blow with his bow, saying, "Wilt thou also dare to revile him, if I confess his faith and make his words my own? Return the blow if thou hast the courage! "Abu Jahl did not retaliate, and said to some Makhzumites who were ready to take his part, "Leave him alone; for, by Allah, I have badly reviled his nephew." From that moment Hamza remained a Moslem, following Mohammed's teaching in every thing; and the Koreish perceived that in Hamza's protection Mohammed had acquired a strong support, so that they desisted from many a vexation which they had hitherto been giving him.'

Hamza possessed a powerful frame, and is described as one of the strongest men among the Koreish. The prowess which he afterwards displayed in Mohammed's wars earned for him the distinction of being surnamed by him, 'The Lion of God.' Now a man who so obviously embraced Mohammed's cause from pity and a sense of family honour rather than from religious conviction, would naturally exercise his influence in favour of the unprincipled compromise which was brought about soon after, and was to have stilled for ever the bitter strife. Thus it is quite possible that Hamza's so-called conversion may have had something to do with Mohammed's notorious compromise, which reflects so unfavourably upon the prophet, and had to be given up again as soon as it was found that it did not effect the results which were looked for from it.

Mohammed was still living in the house of his Makhzumite

friend Arkam, and under the shadow of his protection, when he acquired another convert of equal importance, in the person of Omar Ibn ul Khattab, whose influence on the fate of Islam was of a most decided character. He, like Abu Bekr, gave Mohammed one of his daughters for a wife, succeeded him in the capacity of Calif, to extend the power of Islam by victorious armies, and had no small share in its formation from the time he became a convert. It is recorded of him that he declared: 'God agreed with me in three things.' These are specified to be: the adding of the so-called place of Abraham to the temple proper; the introduction of the practice of veiling the women; and the quelling of a mutiny of the prophet's wives, by the threat that they might have to make place for others more submissive. The agreement in point of fact consisted in this, that the pretended revelations on these points were made at Omar's suggestion. It was quite natural that the trenchant, strong, and impetuous mind of the highly esteemed disciple should leave its marked impress on the weaker and far more pliable mind of the visionary teacher.

Omar was closely related to the reforming party; for he was first cousin to Zeid, the distinguished Hanifite leader, and his sister was married to Seid, the surviving son of Zeid. He probably had views and plans of his own, as to who might be best fitted for the fuller development and chief direction of the Hanifite movement. Perhaps doubts of this nature had hitherto kept him back from joining Mohammed as a subordinate. That Omar had already previously exercised an independent activity on behalf of religion, may be gathered from a public declaration made at a later period in Kufa by his brother-in-law, Seid, who said 'There was a time when Omar strengthened me and my wife in our faith, even before he had himself joined Islam.'

Mohammedan tradition gives several contradictory accounts of Omar's conversion, all with a tendency to show that it was owing to the striking beauty of a portion of the Koran which he accidentally heard, and by which his enmity to the new prophet was suddenly turned into friendship and devotion.¹ But the question of personal protection, the