the race of the people of God, and into the line of descent in which the prophetic office was appointed to be, as is stated in lvii. v. 26: "We sent Noah and Abraham and We appointed the prophetic office and the Book to be among their descendants". The priority of Abraham to Moses and also to Jesus, enabled him at Medina, when his hopes of the Jews failed, to fall back upon a man of God, independent alike of Jews and Christians, whom he can associate with the Ka'ba and the new Arab faith. "Do ye say that Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the Patriarchs were Jews or Christians? Say Do ye know best or God?" (ii. v. 134). That shows that Muhammad had now certain knowledge that in Scripture Abraham and the others were stated to be prior to both Moses and Jesus, and could not therefore be called followers of either. He has, it may be noted, no room for nationality apart from religion. In the same verse there follows a pretty clear hint that Muhammad was seriously annoyed at this fact having been concealed from him: "Who does a greater wrong than he who conceals something revealed from God which is in his possession. God will not be forgetful of what ye do."

Abraham thus takes his place at the head of the list of prophets, a sign that Islam is finally to stand on its own basis and be independent alike of Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad has in fact, after some confusion due to the attempt to fit his imperfect knowledge of Scripture into his real world, arrived at a philosophy of religion something like that from which he

started, but more comprehensive. We find a statement of this in ii. v. 209, which, with interwoven explanations, runs as follows: "Mankind was one community (i.e. in Qur'an language, there was an original pure religion to which all men belonged). God sent the Prophets to bring good tidings and to warn, and he sent with them the Book, in order that it might judge between men in regard to their differences (i.e. again interpreting the Qur'an language, men had differed, departing from the pure religion, separating and following the worship of various gods,¹ and the prophets were sent to call men back to the pure religion). In regard to it (the Book) no one differed except those to whom it was given after clear proofs had come to them, out of jealousy of each other (Muhammad's language has by the constant use of set phrases become mixed. This means that those who had received the Book, i.e. Jews and Christians, had differed, i.e. gone apart as separate religious communities, only because of jealousy of each other.) But God by his own permission has guided those who believe (the Moslems) to what of the truth they differed about. God guides whom he wills to the straight path" (i.e. the underlying truth of both Judaism and Christianity is restored again in Islam).

Abraham and Ishmael were Moslems. They were the predecessors of Islam being associated with Arabia, and being representatives of this pure primitive religion which was eternal (din