unhealthy Eastern city for the pure air of the open country. We have no reason to suppose that asceticism played any considerable part in their life at that period. Muhammad, we are expressly told, used to observe this custom of spending the month of Ramadan every year at Mount Hira: and he was actually living in the very cave once inhabited by Zaid, when, as he believed, the first revelation came to him through the Angel Gabriel. It is an error to see in this any special "retirement from the world" on the part of Muhammad on that occasion, since we are told that his wife Khadijah was with him, and he was only following the custom ¹ of his tribe.

It is evident that, during this yearly visit to Mount Hira, Muhammad had every opportunity of conversing with Zaid. Muhammad's reverence for the man is clearly shown by Tradition. We have already seen that he afterwards acknowledged that Zaid might be prayed for after his death: and this the more noteworthy because Baidawi, in his commentary upon Surah IX., At Taubah, 114, states that Muhammad was forbidden to pray for the salvation of his own mother Aminah, to whom he was tenderly attached, and who had died in his early youth. Moreover, Al Waqidi states that Muhammad "gave Zaid the salutation of Peace," an honour vouchsafed only to Muslims, that he invoked God's grace on him and affirmed, ‘I have seen Him in

Paradise: he is drawing a train after him.’ Sprenger ... says, ‘Muhammad openly acknowledged Zaid as his precursor, and every word known as Zaid's we find again in the Qur'an ¹.’" For instance, in Surah III., Al 'Imran, 19, Muhammad is bidden to say to the common people, "Have ye become Muslims?" or "Have ye surrendered to God?" These words are said by Ibn Ishaq ² to have been addressed to the people by Zaid in the first place. Everyone of the main principles which we have found mentioned as inculcated by Zaid is dwelt upon in the Qur'an also. Among these may be instanced: (1) the prohibition of killing infant daughters by burying them alive, according to the cruel custom of the Arabs of the time; (2) the acknowledgment of the Unity of God; (3) the rejection of idolatry and the worship of Al-Lat, AI-'Uzza' and the other deities of the people; (4) the promise of future happiness in Paradise or the "Garden", (5) the warning of the punishment reserved in hell for the wicked; (6) the denunciation of God's wrath upon the "Unbelievers"; and (7) the application of the titles Ar Rahman (the Merciful), Ar Rabb (the Lord), and Al Ghafur (the Forgiving) to God. Moreover, Zaid and all the other reformers (Hanifs) claimed to be searching for the "Religion of Abraham." Besides all this,