together and said, "Mohammed has promised to give us an answer on the following day, and now fifteen nights have passed away, without his giving an explanation." Mohammed himself was sad, because of his non-reception of a revelation and because of the Meccans' talk against him. At last God sent Gabriel with the Sura of the Cave (i.e. the 18th), in which he is rebuked on account of his grief, and informed about the men who had gone away, and about the wanderer, and about the Spirit.¹ Mohammed said to Gabriel, "Thou hast been long in coming, so that I feared for the worst." Gabriel replied, "We can only come down to thee at the behest of God, thy Lord." In the said Sura the story of the men who had gone away is thus elucidated: "When the youths betook themselves to the cave, they said, O our Lord, grant us mercy from before thee, and order for us our affair aright. Then struck we upon their ear with deafness, in the cave, for many years. Then we awakened them that we might know which of the two parties could best reckon the space of their abiding. We will relate to thee their tale with truth. They were youths who had believed in their Lord, and we had increased them in guidance. And we had made them stout of heart, when they stood up and said, Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and of the earth: we will call on no other God but Him . . . . And thou mightest have seen the sun, when it arose, passing on the right of their cave; and when it set; leave them on the left, while they were in its spacious chamber. . . . And thou wouldest have deemed them awake, though they were sleeping: and we turned them to the right and to the left; and at the entrance lay their dog with outstretched paws. Hadst thou come suddenly upon them, thou wouldest surely have turned thy back on them in flight, and have been filled with fear of them . . . . Some say they were three, their dog the fourth; others say five, their dog the sixth, guessing at the secret; others say seven, and their dog the eighth. Say, my Lord best knoweth the number: none, save a few shall know them . . . . And

they tarried in their cave 300 years and 9 years over. Say, God best knows how long they tarried: with Him are the secrets of the heavens and of the earth.¹ The story of the wanderer who reached to the remotest east and west is thus explained: "They will ask thee about Dzu-l-Karnain.² Say, I will recite to you an account of him. We stablished his power upon the earth, and made for him a way to every thing, and a route which he followed until he reached the setting of the sun. He found that it set in a miry fount; and, hard by, he discovered a people. We said, O Dzu-l-Karnain, either chastise them or treat them generously . . . . Then followed he a route until he reached the rising of the sun. He found that it rose on a people to whom we had given no shelter from it. . . . Then followed he a route until he came between the two mountains between which he discovered a people who scarce understood a language. They said, "O Dzu-l-Karnain, verily Gog and Magog waste this land. Shall we then pay thee a tribute, so that thou mayest build a rampart between us and them?" . . . He said, "Bring me blocks of iron," until, on having filled the space between the mountain-sides, he said, "Ply your bellows," until, after having made it red with heat, he said, "Bring me molten brass that I may pour it all. over it." And Gog and Magog ³ were not able to scale it, neither were they able to dig through it.