with its desert spaces and nomad population, while secure from political domination, was not shut off entirely from communication with the outside world. Arabs wandered far afield. Imru'ul-Qais, the famous poet, is known to have visited Constantinople. Most of the poets whom we know about were frequent visitors at the courts of Hira and Ghassan, where they gained reward by their eulogies upon the reigning chiefs. No doubt, too, as at the present day, camel riders and caravans continually visited centres of population. Political influences also affected, as we have seen, the religious atmosphere of Arabia. Rome favoured Christianity. Persian influence was against it, except in the form of Nestorianism. The hostility of the Nestorians to the Monophysites, Persia would be quite ready to make use of. Judaism may have been more actively favoured (as Glaser contends). But if so it was only as a means of counteracting Rome. But against both influences there operated the strong feeling of independence which has always characterised the nomad.

From the south, Christianity does not seem to have made much headway; from the northeast it spread down the shores of the Persian Gulf. From the north-west it spread into the northern centre of the peninsula and southward to the shores of the Red Sea, but—and this is important—in spite of traditions to the effect that the picture of Jesus was found on one of the pillars of the Ka'ba, there is no good evidence of any seats of Christianity in the Hijaz or in the near neighbourhood of Mecca or even of Medina.

It is late in his Medinan period when Muhammad comes into negotiation with Christian chiefs and tribes. That shows that they were at a distance from Medina itself. Nor can we assume that even among the tribes which were nominally Christian, any deep grasp of, or attachment to that religion, had been implanted. The Christian dealer, with his supplies of wine, penetrated far into Arabia. He may have done something to spread a knowledge of Christianity, but it is probably also true, as Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet, is said to have remarked, that many professing Christians had learned nothing but the wine-drinking.

If we ask for evidence of the influence of Christianity upon Arab thought and life, the results appear at first sight discouraging. One naturally turns first to the pre-Islamic poets. In their verses one finds indications enough that they knew something about Christianity. They speak often enough of the wine-seller, and sometimes designate him as a Christian.¹ They refer to the externals of Christianity, its churches and places of worship, the wooden gongs or bells which were used to summon worshippers to them, as for instance in the following verses of al-A'sha, a contemporary of Muhammad:

Many an early cup (glistening) like the eye of a cock have I drunk with trusty youths in its curtained chamber while the church-bells rang—