them can be paralleled in well-known books of Apocalyptic. But it was borrowed from a source which Muhammad assumed to be one of absolute authority. It was in fact for him the content of that Revelation which previous Monotheists had received, and which they regarded as so sacred. We have seen that brooding upon the question as to what the Revelation, which he knew existed, could have reference to, he had come to the conclusion that it must contain what man could not otherwise know. What was revealed was al-ghaib, the secrets of the divine counsel. Now he has found some source of information from which he derives what seems to him to fulfil that definition.

We have no means of knowing what that source of information was. He does not reproduce any known book of Apocalyptic closely enough to make us suspect that he had secured a copy. From what we know of his methods later it is very improbable that he used any written source. He would rely upon oral information given him in response to his inquiries. We cannot even say definitely whether it was Jewish or Christian informants with whom he had got in touch. This Apocalyptic material was originally Jewish, and it might have been cherished in Jewish circles in Arabia. The main stream of Judaism had, however, practically dropped Apocalyptic after the Fall of Jerusalem in the first century A.D. It was by the Christian Church rather than by Judaism that these Apocalyptic books were preserved, and it was in popular rather than in official Christianity that

Apocalyptic was really alive—as it lives in popular Christianity to this day. Will it be far wrong to surmise that Muhammad got his information from some Christian (perhaps Abyssinian) slave in Mecca, and that he then gave the material form in his qur'ans?¹

Muhammad's source of information was in any case a very imperfect one; for it left him with the impression that this and practically this alone was the content of Revelation. The carefully written and preserved Book is a warning of coming Judgement (Surah lxxx. vv. 11-15, quoted above). His own Qur'an, reproducing it, is a warning. For a time he uses the word tadhkira, "warning", as practically synonymous with qur'an: "Verily this is a warning (tadhkira), and whoso willeth chooseth a road to his Lord" (lxxiii. v. 19; lxxvi. v. 29; cf. lxxiv. v. 54; lxxx. v. 11 f.). He himself is a "warner", nadhir. The use of tadhkira to denote his message is soon dropped, but the association of the Qur'an with warning remains. "Verily it is just a warning and a clear qur'an" (xxxvi. v. 69, rebutting the charge that it is poetry). "Therefore we have revealed to thee an Arabic qur'an that thou mayest warn the mother city (Mecca) and all around it, that thou mayest warn them of that Day of the Gathering, of which there is no doubt, when part shall be in Paradise and part in the Flame" (xlii. v. 5). "Warn then by the Qur'an those who fear My threat" is a command addressed to the Prophet (1. v. 45). The Qur'an is described as