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PREFACE

The work which is now offered to the student of Comparative Religion is the result of many years' study of various Oriental Religions ancient and modern. Except in Chapter IV, where I have made much use of Rabbi Abraham Geiger's "Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenonmen?" I am not to any great extent indebted to any others who have laboured in the same field. Wherever I have been conscious of any indebtedness, I have fully acknowledged it in the text or notes.

An investigation of the sources from which Islam has sprung would be valueless, unless based upon a thorough personal study of the various ancient records quoted. This I can honestly claim to have undertaken. All the translations I give, from whatever language, are my own, except one or two passages from the Chinese, which language I have not carefully studied. The translations which I have in every other case given are as literal as possible, in some instances too literal to be elegant. But it seemed to me necessary to be exact in order to place the reader in a position to judge for himself of the correctness or incorrectness of my arguments. In each case I have given references to the