But either Khadija was not fully convinced by what she is reported to have heard from her Christian cousin, or she wished to make assurance doubly sure; for Ibn Ishak gives his next paragraph the superscription: 'How Khadija tested Mohammed's revelation,' and thus introduces the fourth stage, which brought conviction to Khadija and through her to her husband, that he was indeed the recipient of Divine revelation as a chosen prophet of God. The story is derived by tradition from Khadija's own mouth. 'I said to Mohammed, "Canst thou give me notice when thy friend appears to thee? "He said, "Yes." I begged him to do so. Now when Gabriel appeared to him next he informed me of it. I thereupon said to him, "Sit here on my left thigh;" and when he had done so, I inquired, "Dost thou still see him? "He replied, "Yes." Then I made him sit on my right thigh and asked whether he still saw him; and he having answered in the affirmative, I made him sit on my lap and repeated my question. On his again answering by "Yes," I sighed, threw off my veil, and inquired once more whether he still saw him, whereupon he replied "No." Then I said, "Rejoice, O my cousin, and be of good courage. By Allah, it is an angel and not a Satan!"'

Khadija's singular reasoning was this, that a good angel could not bear to see her in a state of undress, permitted only to the eyes of a husband; but that an evil spirit would enjoy the illicit sight and therefore remain. Truly a very earthly and questionable criterion for discriminating between angels and demons: as if clothes could be to the sight of spirits what they are to the eyes of men, an impenetrable covering, or, as if the sexless spirits needed such a protection!

Mohammed's Moslem biographers have connected his periodical retirement to Mount Hira with his development into a prophet; and even modern Christian writers have made much of the circumstance, with the view of enhancing the spiritual character of their hero. According to these

representations Mohammed appears like a great, original mind whose consuming thirst for religious truth and certainty drove him into a new and lonely path to seek by abstraction from everything earthly, and by uninterrupted intense meditation, that light and spiritual communion with God after which his soul panted. But the historical record just quoted informs us that his annual retirement to Hira, instead of being the newly opened path of an original mind whose extraordinary energy shapes for itself uncommon forms of manifestation, was rather 'a custom with the Koreishites in their heathen state,' which he docilely followed, with a characteristic want of originality; and as for the ascetic recluse he has been painted, at those times, we are told that he not only did not leave his cherished Khadija behind him in Mecca, but always went 'with his family.'¹ Khadija was near him when he had his dream in the cave, and she had servants at hand to send in search of him when, on rising, she found that he had gone. They went 'as far as the height of Mecca,' and not finding him, returned to their mistress on Mount Hira. After having regained his consciousness, he, of his own accord, returned to his family and sat on Khadija's lap, pressing himself against her like a frightened child. We have evidently to understand that his family was accommodated in tents not far from the cave. For the cave itself is small, extending only a dozen feet, or so, into the rock. It could not hold the entire family, but was a cool and quiet recess for one or a few at a time. We are told that the Koreishites regarded these annual sojourns on Mount Hira as tahannuth: and in whichever sense we take this word, it gives us to understand that the religiously disposed of the people made special use of their leisure, during these