Others think that the clause in the Qur'an is of Jewish Origin. Tradition says that one of the Hanifs, whom we shall deal with in our next chapter, Ummiyyah, a poet belonging to Taif, taught this formula to the Quraish ¹, having learnt it from his intercourse with Jews and Christians during his journeys in Syria and elsewhere as a merchant. If Muhammad heard it in this way and adopted it, he doubtless altered it somewhat, as he always did whatever he borrowed. But it is more probably of Zoroastrian origin than of Jewish, and Ummiyyah might have learnt it from the Persians whom he met on his mercantile expeditions.

We have seen how extensive Persian influence was in Arabia in Muhammad's time, and there is therefore no a priori difficulty in accepting the conclusion which must be drawn from all the coincidences mentioned in the present chapter — that Zoroastrian ideas and legends are one of the sources from which Islam has derived very much of what is contained in certain parts of the Qur'an and the Traditions. Tradition itself proves the possibility of this, for the Raudatu'l Ahbab tells us that it was Muhammad's habit to speak ² a few

words in their own language to people that came to him from different nations, and that, since on one or two occasions he spoke Persian to such visitors, a few Persian words in this way found an entrance into the Arabic language. Of course there is a good deal of the legendary in this statement, but it is important in its way because it clearly testifies to the fact that Muhammad had at least some slight acquaintance with Persian, if with no other foreign tongue. Again, among other Persian converts, the Siratu'r Rasul of Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham informs us that there was one called Salman, who must have been a man of some education and ability, since it was by his advice and in accordance with his military experience that Muhammad, when the Quraish and their allies were besieging Medina in February, A.D. 627, defended the city with the celebrated ditch ¹, a method of fortification which the Arabs are said not to have previously used. By Salman's advice Muhammad is also said to have used a catapult at the time of his campaign against Taif (A. D. 630). Some say that Salman, though always known as "the Persian," was originally a Christian ² carried