portion for yourselves, seeing that they are a people of laudable principles and praiseworthy maxims, such as the injunction of what is good, and the prohibition of what is evil, kind-heartedness, beneficence, and charity?" They replied, "Do not grieve: for we shall excite desires in their hearts, leading to error and sin, and shall render oppression and avarice attractive to their views; surely they will be caught by our temptations and be ruined." On hearing these words from them, the Devil rejoiced and laughed, and said to them, "Ye have now delivered my mind from vexation and grief, and made me happy."

'The commentators affirm that the Devil uttered a loud wail on four different occasions, viz. first, on being cursed; second, on being driven from Paradise to the earth; third, when Mohammed was born; fourth, when the opening chapter of the Koran was sent down.

It is reported that twenty days after the beginning of that Highness's public ministry, the Satanic spirits were forbidden to listen. It is recorded that Ibn Abbas said, "Before the Prophet's public mission, the Satanic spirits went up close to heaven and held their ears to it, so that they overheard some words concerning events, about to take place on the earth; and after having mixed up these true words with falsehoods, they went to tell them to the people of the earth: this they did until they were entirely prevented, at the time the Prophet was charged with his public mission."' (Rawzat.)

'The Jewish Rabbis and the Christian Priests, as also the Diviners amongst the Arabs, had already spoken of Mohammed, when his mission was drawing near — the former on account of what they found concerning him in their sacred books and prophetic Scriptures, the latter on account of what the evil spirits had communicated to them of those things which they overheard, before they were prevented by stars being hurled at them. The male and female Diviners dropped many things about Mohammed, but the Arabs did not heed them, till they were accomplished by the mission itself; but since that time the evil spirits could no longer listen, for they were prevented from returning to the places where they previously used to listen, by stars being hurled

down upon them. By this they knew that now had come to pass what God had decreed respecting his servant.

'Mohammed, on one occasion, asked the Ansars, "What was formerly your notion about the shooting-stars? "They answered, "We thought they indicated the death or accession of a king, or the birth or death of a child." Mohammed replied, "It was not so: rather, when God decreed anything concerning His creatures, the Bearers of the Throne praised Him, and the angels below them followed their example, and thus the praise spread down to the lowest heaven. There, one asked the other, 'Why did you praise God?' and the answer was, 'Because the higher ones did so;' and then the higher ones were asked, till the question reached the Bearers of the Throne. Then when these made known God's decree, the answer by degrees came down to the lowest heaven, and here the evil spirits overheard it; and, misunderstanding or misinterpreting some of it, they returned to the Diviners of the earth, and sometimes led these astray, sometimes told them the truth, till God kept off the evil spirits, by hurling stars at them: therefore now divining is at an end, and there are no longer any foretellers or soothsayers."' (Ibn Ishak.)

(36.) As Jesus Christ, so also Mohammed was above all other men in worth and dignity.

a. 'He that cometh from above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth; he that cometh from heaven is above all' (John iii. 31).
'He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence; for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell' (Col. i. 18, 19).

b. Ibn Hisham concludes the second part of his biography of Mohammed in these words, 'He was the best of his people, as regards descent and nobility, both on the paternal and maternal side.'
When Halima, Mohammed's wet-nurse, returned with her charge from Mecca to her own home, and they were met by a flock of sheep on the way, the sheep came near her and