Further, the court of Hira offered (as did that of Ghassan) an attraction to the poets from many parts of Arabia, and from this centre also a certain knowledge of Christianity must have been carried to the tribes of the interior.

ABYSSINIA

Though separated from Arabia by the Red Sea, the land of Abyssinia nevertheless requires some notice in this sketch of the Christian surroundings of the cradle of Islam. The Semitic population of the western coast of the Red Sea probably found its way thither by gradual infiltration from Arabia.1 There seems to have been, if not a flourishing trade by sea, at any rate a considerable amount of intercourse. Possibly even in these days there was a trade in slaves from the African coast. Slavery was an institution in pre-Islamic Arabia, and many of the slaves seem to have been of African origin. Bilal, the first Mu'azzin whose stentorian voice the Prophet made use of to summon the faithful to prayer, is said to have been an Abyssinian, or more probably a negro who had come by way of Abyssinia, who was a slave in Mecca when Muhammad appeared. The close connection which existed for a period during the sixth century between Abyssinia and South Arabia I shall have to refer to again. But it may be noticed here that the Abyssinian expedition (c. 525) which overthrew Dhu Nuwas and re-established Abyssinian lordship over South

Arabia must have made large demands on shipping. As the expedition was undertaken with at least the approval of the Byzantine Emperor, Greek merchants may have been called upon to assist the expedition in this way. But at any rate there must have been a considerable amount of shipping at that time in the Red Sea in order to furnish transport for such a military expedition. The existence of shipping implies a certain amount of communication. The references to ships and trade by sea in the Qur'an are remarkably frequent. Some nautical terms, such as bahr (sea) and marsa (harbour), are similar in Arabic and Ethiopic, and there are a considerable number of words of one kind and another,1 borrowed by Arabic from Ethiopic, the majority of which are either adopted by Muhammad himself, or were in use before his time. The best proof, however, that Abyssinia requires to be taken into account in dealing with the influence which affected Muhammad is that when his infant community was hard pressed by the hostility of the Meccans it was to Abyssinia that they turned for refuge. A considerable number of them migrated thither for a time to escape the severity of persecution.

Legend surrounds the early history of Abyssinia. Dillmann,2 after examining the evidence, comes to the conclusion that the beginnings of the kingdom of Axum (the original nucleus of the