292 MOHAMMED A PARODY OF CHRIST. [BK. II.

'When Mohammed had left the Koreish; Abu Jahl said, "You see that Mohammed will only despise our religion, revile our fathers, call us fools, and blaspheme our gods. I therefore take God for a witness that to-morrow I will take with me a stone into the temple, as heavy as I can carry; and when he prostrates himself in prayer, I will smash his head with it. Then you may either protect me, or give me up to be dealt with by the Beni Abd Menaf, as they please." To this the Koreish replied, We shall never give thee up: do what thou wilt." The next day Abu Jahl took a heavy stone and waited for Mohammed in the temple. In the morning the latter went to the temple to worship, as he always did in Mecca, with his face turned towards Syria, between the Black Stone and the southern pillar, so that the Kaaba lay between himself and Syria.1 The Koreish were all assembled to see what Abu Jahl was going to do. When Mohammed prostrated himself, Abu Jahl went towards him with the stone; but on approaching him, he turned back again like a fugitive, pale and terrified, his hands sinking down with the stone, till he let it drop. The Koreish went towards him and asked what was the matter with him. He answered, "I wanted to carry out what I had told you yesterday; but when I came near him, I saw a camel between him and me, with a head, neck, and teeth, such as I had never seen in a camel, and it showed signs as if it was going to devour me." At the close of this account Ibn Ishak adds, I have been informed that Mohammed said, "This was Gabriel who would have annihilated him, had he approached nearer."'
Abd Allah Ibn Abi Nejih reported that the Calif Omar narrated his conversion to Islam as follows: 'I was an enemy of Islam, loved wine, and drank a great deal of it. One night I went to a certain wine-seller of Mecca, in order to drink wine; but not finding him at home, I resolved to go to the Kaaba to circumambulate it seven or fourteen times. On my arrival there, I found Mohammed praying between the Black Stone and the southern pillar, and with his face turned towards Syria, having the Kaaba between him and Syria.

1 The drift of this observation seems to be to intimate that Mohammed did not neglect any one of the two Kiblas, but that in facing the one he at the same time also faced the other.
CH. I. 21.] OMAR'S CONVERSION TO ISLAM. 293

When I saw him, I thought I will listen to-night to what he says; but lest I should frighten him, I went near him softly from the side of the northern wall and passed behind the curtains of the Kaaba, by which alone I was separated from him. On hearing how Mohammed prayed and read the Koran, my heart softened, I wept, and Islam gained entrance with me. I remained in my place till Mohammed had finished his prayer and went away. Going after him, I overtook him between the houses of Abbas and Ibn Azhar. Recognising me, and supposing that I had followed him, in order to harm him, he called out aloud, "What dost thou want at this hour, thou son of Khattab?" I answered, "I come, in order to believe in God and His apostle, and that which he has brought from God." Mohammed praised God, and said, "God has guided thee aright." 1

1 It is worthy of remark that immediately before this account of Omar's conversion, Ibn Ishak, on the authority of Abd-er-Rahman Ibn el Harith, gives a wholly different narrative of it with equal minuteness; and, as both cannot by any possibility be true, the truth of the one necessarily demonstrating the falsehood of the other, we have here an undeniable proof that the most detailed circumstantiality of description and the most plausible semblance to a graphic account by eye-witnesses, in these Mussulman sources of history, cannot by any means be relied upon as of themselves safe guarantees for the historical truth of a narrative. According to Abd-er-Rahman's account, Omar took his sword one day and went out with the intent of killing Mohammed. Being met on the way by Nueim Ibn Abd Allah, and asked what he was about, he communicated to him his intention. Nueim said, Thou hadst better righten matters in thy own family. Omar asked, Whom dost thou mean? Nueim replied, Thy brother-in-law Seid and thy sister Fatima have embraced Islam and followed Mohammed: first occupy thyself with them. Thereupon Omar went to his brother-in-law's house, where he found them engaged in reading a portion of the Koran. He smote Seid in the face, and on Fatima interfering, he also gave her a blow which wounded her. When he saw his sister bleeding, he regretted what he had done, was frightened, and said to her, Give me the manuscript from which I have just now heard you read, so that I may see what Mohammed has brought to you. After having read a little, he exclaimed, 'How beautiful, how sublime are these words! Take me to Mohammed that I may become a Moslem in his presence.' They told him that Mohammed was in a house near Safa, together with some of his companions; and after having gone there and confessed his faith in Islam, Mohammed exclaimed, God is great! and all those assembled in the house knew from this, that Omar had become a Moslem. At the end of these stories Ibn Ishak, evidently feeling their mutual contradiction, observes, 'God knows which of the two traditions is the correct one;' and the scrutinising reader may add with equal candour, 'God knows whether any is correct, and whether both are not false, and merely invented, as so many other things, to glorify the Koran and its earliest professors.'