embraced the faith: but there exists complete unanimity on the point that Khadija's conversion preceded that of all the rest. There is not any reason for doubting this. Khadija, as we have seen above, had so great a share in Mohammed's persuasion of his prophetic call, and welcomed it with such fervid eagerness, that it is not easy to decide whether historical truth is better expressed by calling her his convert or him hers. Already at their marriage she was the proposing and he the consenting party. Mohammed was decidedly wanting in lofty independence and robust manliness of character. He had something naive and almost feeble in his mental constitution, which at a later period invited the dominating influence of men like Abu Bekr, Omar, and others, and at the present kept him abjectly dependent on his highminded and clear-sighted wife Khadija. Ibn Ishak says of her: 'She was the first who believed in God, in His apostle, and in the revelation. Thereby God sent him comfort: for whenever he heard something unpleasant, or was grieved by contradiction or charges of lying, God comforted him by her, when he returned home to her. She cheered him, made things easy for him, assured him of her faith in him, and represented to him the talk of the people as utterly insignificant.' Hers was plainly the stronger mind of the two, and he was aware of it, and good-naturedly accepted his position of subordination. She was rich, and he profited by her wealth. It was in her family that Hanifdom had obtained an extensive footing, whilst his own was identified with the interests of idolatry. He had to look up to her in every respect. She was full of resorts and kept her clear head above water, when lie was engulfed in melancholy and fears.

It has been found strange that a man who later on manifested such an excessive passion for women, and provided himself with more than twice the complement of wives he permitted to his followers, should have remained a practical monogamist so long as Khadija lived; and the circumstance has been seized upon by his advocates as a proof of his earlier spirituality and purity. But the cogency of this proof is more than questionable, because the general authority and sway she exercised over him was quite sufficient to keep him within bounds in this respect. The true reason why he

remained a monogamist so long, was plainly not his personal continence and spirituality, but his dread of Khadija, whom he did not dare to offend, by adding to her rival objects of his affection. He, later on, gives the drastic counsel to husbands to punish refractory wives by 'removing them into beds apart and scourging them' (Surah iv. 38); but who can conceive that he himself would have ventured to carry out this advice against Khadija?

By her death he lost a master, and was set free to carry out his long-checked propensities. What these were can be gathered from the following anecdote of the Rawzet ul Ahbab. Shortly after Khadija's death, when Mohammed is represented as having been in a very dejected state of mind, Khawla, the sympathising wife of one of his friends, paid him a visit and asked him why he did not marry again. He replied: 'Who is there that I could take?' She answered: 'If thou wishest for a virgin, there is Aisha, the daughter of thy friend Abu Bekr; and if thou wishest for a woman, there is Sewda who believes in thee.' He without hesitation, solved the dilemma by saying to Khawla: 'Then ask them both for me.' She lost no time in doing what she was bidden, so that two months after Khadija had closed her eyes, Mohammed was already married to the attractive widow Sewda, who is described as tall and corpulent; and betrothed to Aisha, who was then only a girl six years old, and actually became his wife three years later. Aisha herself thus refers to the way in which her mother reared her to meet the prophet's taste: 'When I was betrothed to the prophet, my mother endeavoured to make me fat; and she found that with me nothing succeeded so well as gourds and fresh dates. Eating well of them I became round.'

This carnal taste and tendency of the Arabian prophet, which he showed already under his adverse circumstances in Mecca, naturally increased with his prosperity and opportunities in Medina, and furnished Aisha with a telling retort only a few days before his death. According to the Rawzet ul Ahbab, Aisha narrated as follows: 'The beginning of his Excellency's illness happened in Meimuna's room, whose turn it was that day. Then he came to my room, and as I had a headache, I said, "Oh, my head aches!" His Excellency