Mary." The companions asked, "How did they resist Him?" Mohammed answered, "He called them to the same thing to which I now call you, but only those whom He sent to a near place were content and did well, whilst those whom He sent to a distance were displeased and raised difficulties, whereupon Jesus laid the matter before God, and on the following morning all those who had raised difficulties spoke the language of the people to whom they were sent." Amongst the apostles and their successors whom Jesus sent forth, were Peter and Paul, which latter belonged to the successors and not to the apostles. These two were sent to Rome, but Andrew and Matthew into the land where people eat each other; Thomas eastward into the land of Babel; Philip to Carthagena, that is, Africa; John to Ephesus, the land of the sleepers in the cave; James to Jerusalem, the city of the Holy Temple; Ibn Talma (=Bartholomew) to Arabia, the land of Hejaz; Simon to the land of the Berbers; and Jehuda, who had not belonged to the apostles, was put in Judas' place.' Ibn Ishak also mentions the names of nine different messengers who had to carry Mohammed's letters to the following potentates (1) to the Emperor of the Greeks; (2) to Chosroes, the king of Persia; (3) to Najashi, the prince of Abyssinia; (4) to Mokawkas, the prince of Alexandria; (5) to Jeifar and Iyaz, the princes of Oman; (6) to Thumama and Hawza, the princes of Yemama; (7) to Munzir, the prince of Bahrein; (8) to El Harith, the prince of the border districts of Syria; and (p) to the Himyarite Harith Ibn Abd Kulal, the prince of Yemen.

These letters may have made some impression on those recipients who lived near enough to see cause for apprehending that the Prophet might follow them up with measures of violence, such as he had already employed against the Jews and others. But what the biographers tell about the effects they produced on the Emperor Heraclius and the king of Abyssinia, who are represented as becoming fully convinced of Mohammed's Divine mission, and as only kept back from giving public effect to this conviction, by the dread of their Christian subjects, is plainly a gratuitous invention. Thus the Moslem historians seek to magnify the influence of their

prophet; but this only shows us what great need there exists for a wise discrimination, in making use of the Mohammedan biographies as sources of history. Probably Mohammed himself did not seriously expect that his letters and embassies would produce the effect which was their professed object. He may have imagined that the potentates whom he dared to address with such an air of authority, might, by silently ignoring or contemptuously rejecting his summonses, afford him a sufficiently plausible justification for the invasion of their countries by hostile armies, which he already contemplated.

In sending to Abyssinia, he had the additional object of increasing his harem. For he aspired after the hand of Om Habiba, Abu Sofyan's daughter, who lived there as a widow, since her husband's death. The messenger who took the letter to Abyssinia was commissioned to bring her back with him. There also returned with him fifty other emigrants who now wished to join the victorious prophet, though perhaps some of them had not previously been professors of Islam, but stayed in Abyssinia for purposes of trade. They reached Mohammed when the conquest of Khaibar was barely accomplished, and he admitted them to a share in the rich spoil, as a token of welcome.

It is narrated that the governor of Alexandria, after having ascertained the Prophet's fancies, and probably in consideration of presents received from him, accompanied his answer with the gift of a white mule and two beautiful slave girls. One of the latter, a baptized Christian, Mary by name, became so great a favourite with the Prophet that she was envied by his other spouses. She gave birth to Ibrahim, the only son he ever had after claiming to be a prophet, but who died in infancy.

As regards his expectation of ultimately conquering Persia and the eastern empire of Rome, it was not so chimerical as it may at first appear; for he well knew the strength of his compact and daily increasing army of followers, and he was fully acquainted with the devastating wars by which, for a long time, those two neighbouring countries had been weakening each other, and preparing the way for the invasion and conquest of them both. The Emperor Heraclius was on his way to Jerusalem, to render thanks to God for his recent victories