after the Hijra that we find Jesus described as having received the Book, and a distinction begins to be made amongst the "people of the Book" (cf. iii. v. 22, "those who have received part of the Book"). Then Jesus takes his place alongside Moses as one of the great prophets and the Injil or Evangel which was given to Jesus, takes its place alongside the Taurat, which had been given to Moses.

Of the actual contents of the Injil or New Testament, Muhammad seems never to have gained much knowledge. There are phrases here and there throughout the Qur'an which remind us of phrases in it, as there are phrases which remind us of phrases in Christian liturgies. Surah i., the Fatiha, consists almost entirely of phrases which might be used in Jewish or Christian prayers. But if they are directly borrowed and do not belong to the Judæo-Christian atmosphere diffused in Arabia, they are Jewish rather than Christian. There are fairly frequent references to the Holy Spirit, and it is definitely, though not exclusively, associated with Jesus. It really belongs, however, to the realm of Muhammad's prophetic speculation. It is possible that the introduction of mathals or parables into the Qur'an may have been suggested by some information as to the existence of the Gospel parables. These have always had more of a separate existence than the parables which occur in the Old Testament. He does not seem, however, to have actually known many of the New Testament parables. They are just the sort of thing one imagines he would have delighted to include in

the Qur'an had they come to his knowledge. The following passage, however, seems to be made up of Gospel reminiscences: "O ye who believe, make not your alms void by reproaches and injury like him who expendeth his substance to be seen of men and believeth not in God and in the Last Day. The likeness of such a one is that of a rock with a thin soil upon it, on which a heavy rain falleth but leaveth it hard. . . . And the likeness of those who expend their substance from a desire to please God and for the stablishing of their souls, is that of a garden on a hill on which the heavy rain falleth and it yieldeth its fruits twofold" (ii. v. 266 ff.). 1

There is, however, no evidence of such a desire to learn the contents of the New Testament, as prompted his collection of the prophetic stories of the Old. The needs of his own task did not lead him to that; and by the time he learned of the separate existence of the Injil, he was on the point of setting up as a prophet on his own account independent of those who had preceded him. Such knowledge of Christianity as he acquired after this arose out of his political relations with Christian communities on the borders of Arabia. His account of the Lord's Supper is not founded on the New Testament, but on some vague and badly understood information of this kind which came to him. "Remember when the Apostles said: 'O Jesus son of Mary is thy Lord able to send down a furnished table to us