accusing some of them of falsehood and killing others?" Now when a new revelation has come confirming what was before it they disbelieve again, and "the curse of God is upon those who disbelieve".

Turning then to his attitude towards Christians, it follows from what has been said in previous lectures that it was practically only after the Hijra that he came into direct relations with them. The development of his political attitude to Christian communities belongs to the Medinan period, and indeed to the later years of that period. His direct knowledge of Christianity was to begin with very limited. He had very little idea of Christian teaching or of what the Christian Church was. In fact, he never did acquire very intimate knowledge of these things. As Nöldeke pointed out long ago, the man who made such a stupid story of the chief Christian sacrament, as that in Surah v. v. 111 ff., one of the latest parts of the Qur'an, could not have known much about the Christian Church.

But I think it is also implied in what has been said that his attitude towards previous Monotheism was a very receptive one. I use that term because I do not wish to prejudice the question, which cannot be definitely decided, if a strict answer be demanded, whether it was Judaism or Christianity to which Muhammad mainly looked, and from which he borrowed most in the early days of his work. He himself did not at all distinguish between them. All things considered, however, I think it was the great religion which prevailed in the lands round

about Arabia, and especially in Syria and the Roman Empire, which had attracted his attention and which occupied in his untutored mind a position of imposing authority. From it he was prepared to borrow, probably assuming that in the Revelation which it cherished were contained those things which by his own reflection he could not reach, but which were as necessary for the true religion as was the truth of God's creative power and bounty, which he had reached for himself, and upon which that religion was also founded.

This is so far confirmed by the few references which he makes in the Qur'an to events outside Arabia. In the Qur'an the religious interest is always dominant, and the local interest centres for long in Mecca. Arabia, as a whole, only comes gradually into the scope of his purpose, and it is only towards the end of his life that anything outside Arabia comes into the centre of what we may call his political interest. So that his references to outside events are very rare. But there are one or two which show that he had a friendly feeling towards the Roman Empire. Surah xxx. begins with the following declaration: "The Romans have been defeated in the neighbouring part of the world, but they, after their defeat will obtain the victory in a few years. The affair before and after belongs to God. On that day the Believers will rejoice in the help of God. He helpeth whom he will; he is the Mighty, the Merciful." That, no doubt, refers to the overrunning of Palestine by the Persians in
A.D. 614. It would be easy simply by altering