a great deal of Jewish legend. It is impossible to quote all the passages that prove this, but we shall now adduce a few out of many ¹.

1. The Story of Cain and Abel

The Qur'an does not mention the names of these "two sons of Adam," though commentators call them Qabil and Habil. But we find in Surah V., Al Maidah, 30-35, the following account of them.

"Recite unto them truly the narrative of Adam's two sons, when they both offered sacrifice: then it was accepted from one of them, and from the other it was not accepted. [The latter] said, ‘Verily I shall assuredly slay thee.’ [The other] said, ‘Truly God accepteth from the pious. Verily if thou stretch forth thine hand upon me to slay me, I shall not stretch forth mine hand upon thee to slay thee: indeed I fear God, the Lord of the worlds. I indeed choose rather that thou shouldst bear my sin and thine own sin, then shalt thou be of the companions of the Fire, and that is the recompense of the unjust.’ Then his soul permitted to him [Cain] the murder of his brother: accordingly he slew him: thus he became one of the lost. Then God sent a raven, which scratcheth in the ground, that it might show him how to hide his brother's corpse. He said, ‘Ah! woe unto me!

cannot I be as this raven and hide my brother's corpse?’ Then did he become one of the penitent. On that account have We written for the Children of Israel that whoso slayeth a soul, except for a life or for evildoing in the land, then truly shall it be as though he had slain all men; and whoso saveth it alive, then truly it shall be as though he had saved all men alive."

A conversation, or rather argument, between Cain and Abel is mentioned in Jewish legend both in the Targum of Jonathan ¹ and in the Targum of Jerusalem. Cain, we are told, said, "There is no punishment for sin, nor is there any reward for good conduct." In reply to this, Abel asserted that good was rewarded by God and evil punished. Angered at this, Cain took up a stone and with it smote his brother and slew him. The resemblance between this narrative and that given in the beginning of the foregoing quotation from the Qur'an is not striking. But the source of the rest of the Qur'anic account of the murder is the legend related in the Pirqey Rabbi Eli'ezer, chapter xxi, which may be thus rendered:—

"Adam and his helpmeet were sitting weeping and lamenting over him (Abel), and they did not know what to do with Abel, for they were not acquainted with burial. A raven, one of whose companions had died, came. He took him and dug in the earth and buried him before their eyes.