uses much the same language as Abu'l Fida, but adds that the customs which he mentions, including that of the Ihlal had been retained from Abraham's time. This is no doubt true of circumcision: but it can hardly he said that Abraham had anything to do with the other matters referred to, in spite of the Muhammadan belief that he visited Mecca and worshipped where the Ka'bah now stands.

It is clear, from all that has been said, that the first source of Islam is to be found in the religious beliefs ¹ and practices of the Arabs of Muhammad's day. From this heathen source, too, Islam has

derived the practice of Polygamy and that of slavery, both of which, though adding nothing to their evil effects in other respects, Muhammad sanctioned for all time by his own adoption of them.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II.

It is sometimes said in the East at the present day that Muhammad not only adopted many of the ancient habits and religions rites of the heathen Arabs and incorporated them into Islam, but that he was also guilty of plagiarism in borrowing parts of certain verses of Imrau'l Qais, an ancient Arabic poet. These, it is asserted, may still be found in the Qur'an. I have even heard a story to the effect that one day when Fatimah, Muhammad's daughter, was reciting the verse "The Hour has come near and the Moon has split asunder" (Surah LIV., Al Qamar, 1), a daughter of the poet was present and said to her "That is a verse from one of my father's poems, and your father has stolen it and pretended that he received it from God." This tile is probably false, for Imrau'l Qais died about the year 540 of the Christian era, while Muhammad was not born till A.D. 570, "the year of the Elephant."

In a lithographed edition of the Mu'allaqat, which I obtained in Persia, however, I found at the end of the whole volume certain Odes there attributed to Imrau'l Qais, though not recognized as his in any other edition of his poems which I have seen. In these pieces of doubtful authorship