stories of the prophets, which he tells and retells in growing detail as he learns more of them. He begins to learn something of their relations to each other in the Bible. In particular, he displays great interest in the story of Moses, and gets to know something of his connection with the revelation of Scripture. To these points I shall have to return again, as I believe they had momentous consequences.

It will be convenient, however, to note here some effects of his increasing acquaintance with the contents of Revelation or, to speak more accurately, with what those who had received the Revelation believed, though in thus grouping them together we shall be carried to some extent out of historical order. One effect was the introduction of mathals or parables into the Qur'an. Some of these are mere similes or similitudes, and they might be regarded as arising spontaneously were it not that they are so solemnly introduced. Thus in xxxvi. v. 12, the Prophet receives the command "Coin a mathal for them", upon which follows what looks like a garbled reminiscence of the account of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, mixed up with the story of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra. In xiv. v. 29, we find "Dost thou not see how thy Lord has coined a mathal", whereupon follows a reminiscence of the comparison of a good man to a tree in Psalm i., "God coins mathals or men in the hope that they may take heed ", xiv. v. 30; "God is not ashamed to coin a mathal", ii. v. 24. Some of these parables are stories of some length, as for instance that in xviii. v. 31 ff., the motif of which is much the same as that of

the rich fool. in the Gospels. Perhaps the most remarkable of them all is that in xxiv. v. 34 f.: "We have sent down to you demonstrative signs, and a parable from those who have passed away before you, and an admonition to those who fear (God). God is the light of the heaven and the earth, his light is like a window in which is a lamp, the lamp in glass, and the glass like a brilliant star, lit from a blessed tree, an olive neither of East nor West, whose oil would almost give light, though fire had not touched it, light upon light; God guideth to his light whom he will. God coineth parables for men, and God knoweth all things". The introductory verse practically tells us that this simile is founded on something which Muhammad has heard of as existing among previous Monotheists, but where we cannot say. The word used for "window" is, according to Nöldeke, Abyssinian, and may indicate an Abyssinian source for the mathal. On the other hand it reminds us of the frequent references in pre-Islamic poetry to the light of the monk's cell, guiding the traveller across the desert. The Christian atmosphere of the simile is made clearer by what follows: "In houses which God has allowed to be reared, and in which he has allowed his name to be held in remembrance, men ascribe praise to him morning and evening, whom neither merchandise nor traffic beguile from the remembrance of God, the observance of prayer and the giving of alms, in fear of a day when both hearts and eyes shall be agitated." The men whom neither merchandise nor traffic beguile from the remembrance of God can hardly be other than Christian