form intimate friendships outside their own body (iii. v. 114), is now modified so as to apply specifically not only to Jews but to Christians: "O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other, and those of you who take them as friends belong to them; God does not guide the people who do wrong" (v. v. 56). This is a verse which has caused much political difficulty, because it has always been in the background of relations between Moslem and Christian peoples.

As he had before accused the Jews, so now also he accuses the Christians of corrupting and concealing their Scriptures. This remains a commonplace of Moslem controversy with Christians, and in modern times considerable play is made with the results of our own Higher Criticism. Nothing of that sort, it goes almost without saying, was in Muhammad's mind. Partly the charge refers to the concealment of a supposed prophecy of his own coming. In lxi. v. 6, a passage the genuineness of which has indeed been questioned, he had claimed that he was foretold by Jesus: "When Jesus son of Maryam said: 'O Children of Israel, see I am a messenger of God to you confirming the Torah which is already before me, and bringing you good tidings of a messenger who will come after me whose name is Ahmad'". There seems to be here a reminiscence of the passage of St. John's gospel, where the Holy Spirit is promised. It has long been suspected that the name Ahmad, Praised, rests on a confusion between parakletos, "comforter", and periklutos, "famous". The confusion, however,

is not likely to have been made by Muhammad himself. It must have come to him in the information he received.

Whether that confusion was actually made or not, it was part of Muhammad's preconceived idea that the previous Scriptures, being prophecies of the future, must have contained references to his own coming, and if Christians would not admit it, they must be concealing something that was in the Book revealed to them.

But the real gravamen of the charge is that the Christians have altered the teaching delivered to them. Muhammad still clings to the idea that the message of the Taurat and the Injil must have been the same as his own. When he discovered that in essential respects the beliefs of Christians differed from his teaching, it followed that they must have corrupted the Evangel. If they would hold to the message originally delivered to them, God would be gracious to them. "O people of the Book, you have no ground to stand upon until you establish the Torah and the Evangel" (v. v. 72). "If the people of the Book would believe and fear (God), We would cover their evil deeds and cause them to enter the Gardens of Delight. If they would establish the Torah and the Evangel and what has been sent down to them from their Lord, they might eat of what is above them and of what is underneath their feet.¹ A community of them act aright but many are evil in what they do" (v. v. 70). Who are meant by the community