They come at second or third hand. The source of the saying, "God rejoices more over His servant's repentance than one of you when he finds his stray animal in the wilderness", is, however, unmistakable (vide Gospel of Luke, ch. xv. v. 3 ff.). Further, the saying has developed into an independent story suited to Arab life. There are several versions of it, but the general outline is the same in all. A man is travelling across a desert, his supply of food and drink loaded upon a camel. He dismounts for his noonday rest, and falls asleep; when he wakes up he finds that his camel has gone; he seeks it until he is overcome with thirst. Then he says "I will return to the place where I was, and will go to sleep and die". He returns and lays his head on his arm to die, but waking up he finds his beast beside him loaded with his supply of food and drink. God is more rejoiced over the repentance of His believing servant than this man over his beast and his provisions.

Naturally the Parables of the New Testament furnished material which was readily transferred and adapted. Of that I shall only quote the following example: the Prophet is reported to have said: the two Peoples of the Book may be described by the following story: "A man hired labourers and said who will work for me from the morning till the middle of the day for a qirat? So the Jews worked. Then he said: Who will work for me from the middle of the day till afternoon prayer for a qirat? So the Christians worked. Then he said: Who will work for me from after noon prayer till sunset for two qirats? Ye (i.e.

the Moslems) are they. The Jews and Christians became angry and said: What is wrong with us that we get the most work and the least pay? He replied: Have I diminished aught of your right? They said: No. He replied: Then that is my bounty, I give it to whom I will."¹ The derivation of that from the New Testament parable of the labourers in the vineyard is, I think, evident.

The miracle stories of the Old and New Testaments were perhaps even more fruitful in influence upon popular Islam. The motif of the miraculous increase of food as in the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, occurs in various forms. I give one in which it is not yet connected with the prophet or only remotely so. According to tradition there was a bench in the mosque at Medina on which poor people sat who were dependent on the bounty of the Prophet and the richer Moslems. Abd ar-Rahman, the son of Abu Bakr, is made the authority for the following story (I shorten it a little): At the Prophet's request Abu Bakr took three of these people to his house to give them supper. He himself, however, went to the Prophet's house and delayed until supper-time was past. Coming home later he found that they had not supped. He blamed his son for want of hospitality, and though it was explained to him that it was the guests themselves who had refused to eat until he were present, in his irritation he vowed that he would not taste the food. The guests fell to. But for every bit of food which they took from the platter, a larger piece grew up from below; so that when they were satisfied there was more than when