156 THE RELIGION OF THE CRESCENT.

The purchaser became ashamed of himself and went away. Once a woman came bringing in her hand a basin of wheaten flour, and said to him, 'Here! set this before them.' He arose, took a stick in his hand and dashed all the images in pieces; then he gave the stick into the hand of the biggest among them. When his father returned he said to Abraham, 'Who has done this to them.' Abraham rejoined, 'What is hidden from thee? A woman came bringing a basin of wheaten flour, and said to me, "Here, place this before them." I offered it to them. One said, "I shall eat first," and another said, "I shall eat first." This one, who was the largest of them, took a stick and broke them in pieces.' His father said, 'Why dost thou tell me fables?—do these know anything?' Abraham replied, 'Do thine ears hear what thy lips say?' Terah seized him and handed him over to Nimrod. Nimrod said to him, 'Let us worship the fire.' Abraham replied, 'Then let us worship the water which extinguishes the fire.' Nimrod assented. Abraham rejoined, 'If so, let us worship the cloud which brings the water. Nimrod said, 'Well, let us worship the cloud.'
אמר לה ונסגד לבר-אנשא דסבל רוחא. אם מלין את משתעי אני איני משתחוה אלא לאור הרי אני משליכך בתוכו. ויבא אלח שאתח משתחוה לו ויצילך ממנו. ירד אברהם לכבשן האש ונצול‫:
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(Quoted by R. Geiger, op. cit., pp. 123, 124.)
THE ORIGIN OF ISLAM. 157

Abraham replied, 'If so, let us worship the wind that scatters the cloud.' When the king assented, Abraham said that it would be better to worship man who could withstand the wind. 'If thou bandiest words with me,' said Nimrod, 'I do not worship anything but the fire, into the midst of which I shall cast thee, and let the God whom thou servest come and deliver thee from it.' Abraham went down into the furnace of fire, but was delivered."

Muhammad does not mention Nimrod,1 and he calls2 Abraham's father Azar 3

Other
Talmudic
Legends.

instead of Terah, but these and a few slight differences in details serve to prove that he related the story from memory, and probably that it was not read to him but that he learned it from the oral traditions of his Jewish friends. In nearly all the tales that he borrows from this source, his blunders 4 show that he was

1 But Muhammadan commentators, following the Jews, do.
2 In the newly-published "Testament of Abraham" (M. R. James, M.A.; Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. ii., no. 2) will be found several tales about that Patriarch which re-appear among Muslims to-day, though some of the incidents are referred to Idris, others to Muhammad himself, and others again to various holy personages. Vide Appendix C.
3 Various conjectures as to the origin of this blunder have been made. It is known that certain of the Jewish Rabbis term Abraham's father Zarah (Talmud), and probably Muhammad, hearing this name, formed Azar from it by unintentional transposition of the letters.
4 Some few of these we have quoted above, but others
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