principal are:— The Merciful, the Gracious, the Master, the Holy, the Faithful, the Creator, the Pardoner, the Wrathful, the Provider of Daily bread, the All-Wise, He that raiseth up and bringeth down, He that hearkeneth, the Beholder, the Just, the Kind, the Great, the Exalted, the Guardian, the Glorious, the Lover, the Witness, the Truth, the Inspirer, the Living, the Eternal, the Vivifier, the Slayer, the One, the Almighty, the First, the Last, the Pure, the Avenger, the Light, the Guide, the Patient One.

A great Muhammadan authority, Al Ghazzali,¹ speaks thus of GOD. "He is One, who hath no partner; singular, having no like,... He is ancient, having no first; eternal, having no

Al Ghazzali on Divine Nature.

beginning; remaining for ever, having no end .... He, praised be His name, is Living, Powerful, Mighty, Omnipotent,...who neither slumbers nor sleeps, nor is obnoxious to decay or death. To Him belongs the kingdom and the power and the might. His is the dominion and the excellency, and the creation and the command thereof. And the heavens are folded up in His right hand, and all creatures are couched within His grasp . . . . He knows all things that can be understood, and comprehends whatsoever passes, from the extremities of the earth to the highest heavens; so that an ant's weight should not escape Him either in earth or heaven, but He would know the creeping of the black ant in the dark night upon the hard stone."

§ 4. Muhammad from the beginning of his claim to the prophetic office showed himself to be

Muhammad's opposition to polytheism.

irreconcilably opposed to polytheism in whatever form, and to be the bitter enemy of all idol-worship. And if ever iconoclasm was needed in the world, it was needed then. Not to speak of the shameful