time its acknowledgment with the tongue is also required."

§ 6. The Muhammadan religion not only acknowledges the possibility of a Divine Revelation being given to Mankind for their guidance and instruction,

Divine Revelation.

but asserts that without such a Revelation Man can know nothing of GOD and of His Will. The grand truth that GOD has given us a Revelation it maintains in opposition to the Materialistic and Rationalistic theories which, in our own day, are becoming extensively known in many parts of the East. Muhammad held, as firmly as Job did in earlier ages and in the same country, that the intellect alone is unable to reveal GOD'S Nature and the way of salvation, and all Muslims at the present time would most heartily assent to the Patriarch's words,

"Canst thou by searching find out GOD?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
It is high as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know?"¹

They hold that from the very beginning² GOD taught His servants by direct inspiration : that Adam, Enoch,

Prophets.

Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, as well as a multitude of other Prophets, were sent by Him as occasion required, some for all men and some for individual tribes, that they might guide

men to GOD and reveal His will. Belief in all that these Prophets taught is incumbent upon every Muslim, and whenever he mentions the name of any of them he adds the formula (عَلَيْه اْلّسَلاَمُ ) (‘alaihi 'ssalam) "Peace be upon him." This is in strict accord with the teaching of the Qur'an itself, in which we find many passages like the following (Surah II., 130[136]):—"Say¹ ye, 'We believe in GOD, and in what hath been sent down unto us, and in what hath been sent down unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the Tribes, and in what Moses was brought and Jesus, and in what the Prophets were brought from their Lord; we make no distinction between one of them (and another); and unto Him we are resigned."' Their view of Inspiration, however, is a very mechanical one, since they hold that GOD

Mechanical Theory  of Revelation.

revealed not merely the subject-matter but the very words recorded by the Prophets in the books which they are said to have caused to be written down from the Divine dictation communicated to them through the Archangel Gabriel. To express this the Muslims use the expression "GOD ² sent