faces towards Jerusalem, he, with his followers, also imitated them by adopting the same Kibla or direction for saying their prayers. Likewise, finding that the Jews observed their Feast of Atonement on the tenth day of the month, by sacrifices and a rigorous fast, he further ordained the slaying of rams as a Korban, and enjoined on his community a strict fast on that day, retaining for it even its Jewish name Ashura i.e. the tenth.'

This accommodation to the Jews and their religion, though betokening a certain dependence and want of originality, yet in some small degree seems to have had the effect of smoothing the path for the Jews to pass from their old to the new religion. Ibn Ishak mentions by name Abd Allah Ibn Salam and Mukheirik as two learned Rabbis who became converts to Islam, through recognising in Mohammed the traits of the prophet they were expecting. The former went over to the prophet with his whole family, and the latter, not merely a learned Rabbi, but also a landed proprietor extremely rich in palm-trees, bequeathed all his wealth to Mohammed, fell fighting on the Moslem side in the battle of Ohod, and is said to have been called by Mohammed 'the best of the Jews.' These Jewish Rabbis, who, in becoming converts to Islam, were no doubt accompanied by a number of less noted followers, formed a most useful acquisition for Mohammed Being acquainted with the ancient Scriptures, they could furnish him with much information which he lacked, and even direct him to passages which, by a plausible misinterpretation, he might insist upon as prophecies referring to himself. It was fair to expect of him that he should possess a full acquaintance with the previous revelations, since he averred that he was receiving the whole text of God's Book, of which portions only had been revealed to the prophets of old. How helpful, therefore, for obtaining the needed information, must he have found the renegade Jews and Christians who joined his cause, and thus made his interests their own! On such authorities as these he in fact relied, in pretending that he was the prophet whose coming had long been foretold in the ancient Scriptures.

But whatever confidence he and his uninstructed followers may have put in such support, the great body of the

Jews were of a very different opinion. They indeed were aware that the advent of a remarkable prophet was foretold in their Holy Book, but they also knew that he was to spring from the Beni Israel, the house of David, not from the Koreish or any other Arab tribe. The Jews were unquestionably right in their view of the ancient prophecies, and on this very account formed all the more formidable an impediment in the way of the prophet. They were a standing protest against his pretensions. It thus became evident that Islam could as little remain in harmony and amity with the disbelieving Jews, as with the disbelieving Arabs. The Jews were given to understand that they must either believe in the prophet, or take the consequences of unbelief. The prophet's right was established by his might. To resist him was a crime deserving punishment. Ibn Ishak says: 'Under these circumstances the Rabbis of the Jews became Mohammed's enemies. They were filled with envy and wrath, because God had chosen His ambassador from amongst the Arabs.' But the Moslem historian, in thus attributing the disbelief of the Jews to mere jealousy of race, overlooks the fact that the disbelieving Arabs of Mecca and Medina had no such motive for their want of faith, and that Mohammed had himself provoked and almost necessitated the opposition of the Jews, by claiming, without any justification, that he was the subject of prophecies in their Holy Scriptures. At all events it is perfectly clear that the cause of the rupture between Mohammed and the Jews was his claim to be the Great Prophet promised in their Scriptures, and their stout denial of this pretension.

Thenceforth Mohammed's policy assumed a decidedly anti-Jewish character. Regretting the civil concessions and religious accommodation by which he had hitherto vainly tried to bring over the Jews to Islam, he now began to retrace his previous steps, and to make the Jewish unbelievers feel that his aims and claims could not be contravened with impunity. The pressure he brought to bear on them had a similar effect to that produced amongst the Arabs. A number of Jews, always keen to discover means of worldly advantages, simulated submission to the new prophet and his religion, merely to evade the dangers resulting from an open anta-