Cain who slew his brother, that it is said, 'The voice of thy brother's bloods (pl.) crieth,' etc. He does not say 'of thy brother's blood' (sing.) but 'of thy brother's bloods' (pl.), i.e. of his blood and of the blood of his descendants. Therefore Man was created single in order to teach thee that everyone who destroyeth one soul from Israel, against him the Scripture accounteth it as if he had destroyed the whole world full; and everyone who preserveth alive one soul from Israel, in reference to him the Scripture accounteth it as if he had preserved alive the whole world full." It will be seen that the latter part of this clause is translated almost quite literally in the Qur'an, while the previous portion of it is needed to connect the Arabic verse of which we are speaking with that which immediately precedes it.

Muhammad's account of Abraham's being cast into the fire and miraculously delivered from it is in almost every detail borrowed from the Midrash Rabbah. The tale is told in a fragmentary

Abraham.

manner in several portions¹ of the Qur'an, but the Jewish account forms a continued story and runs as follows:— "Terah ² was a maker of

idols. Once he went away somewhere and seated Abraham in his place as salesman. A man came desiring to purchase, and Abraham asked him, 'How old art thou?' He replied, 'I am fifty or sixty years of age.' Abraham said to him, 'Woe to that man who is sixty years of age and desires to worship that which is only a few days old.'