a result of his own inquiries, and he had often enough difficulty in finding an answer to his inquiries. Naturally it was his own circumstances and the necessities of his own enterprise which prompted these inquiries, and so led to his discovering things pretty much just when he could make use of them.

We found that Muhammad began by an appeal to the gratitude of men and their recognition of God's bounties in creation. He soon found himself up against the hard-heartedness of the wealthy Meccans. His appeal produced little effect. He was convinced that such disobedience must incur the wrath of God. But he had no very definite conceptions of the manner in which the punishment would be inflicted. At first he simply says that God will punish. God, who has power to create, has power to deal with man's disobedience. If his wealthy fellow-citizens will not show their gratitude by worship and generosity he will simply turn from them and leave them to God, who will deal with them. But apparently he could not rest at that, or they would not leave him alone. So we soon find him feeling round for material with which to enforce the truth that disobedience will inevitably bring punishment. He begins to hint at former examples of God's punishment. It is natural to suppose that on some caravan journey to Syria the vestiges of a vanished civilisation which still remain at Meda'in Salih, and perhaps even those at Petra, had been seen by Muhammad, and that he had brooded over the meaning of them. At any rate he makes frequent reference in the

Qur'an to the vanished peoples 'Ad and Thamud, whom God had destroyed for their unbelief and disobedience. In later passages he tells these stories at some length, but at first his references to them are quite short as to something well known. It is Arab material which he is using. With them are conjoined similar references to the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts. It is not necessary, I think, at this stage to assume that he is drawing upon actual knowledge of the Old Testament. So far as these early references require that story may have been sufficiently known in Arabia. When he has gained some knowledge of the Old Testament at a later stage, he tells that story also more fully. These constitute his earliest sanctions for his message. Note that they have nothing to do with the End of the World, but imply a special punishment upon the unbelieving people.

Soon, however, he comes upon a mass of material which admirably suits his purpose of impressing upon the hard-hearted Meccans the consequences of their unbelief, and at the same time makes a deep impression upon himself. It is what we may call, generally, Apocalyptic material—the description of the End of the World, the Judgement Day, the Pains of Hell for the wicked, and the Joys of Heaven for the believers.¹ All this material is directly borrowed. In fact, so far as the descriptions of the End of the World are concerned, almost every detail of