angel Gabriel and received by him in a state of trance is probable. There may even have been a certain amount of personal belief or self-deception in the matter. Moses, according to the story of the Exodus, received direct Divine communications; why should not he? His powerful, but in many ways primitive mind, working upon such suggestions from the story of Moses, may have devised some means which he himself believed put him in direct communication with God. Tradition, at any rate, represents that not only his followers but he himself drew a very clear distinction between his own normal thought and what he gave out as direct revelation.

Parallel to and aiding in this development other changes in Muhammad's conceptions had been taking place. Even before he left Mecca he had made further discoveries in regard to Bible history. He never forgot the difficulty he had in getting access to knowledge. He hints somewhere that the Jews had tried to make money out of his curiosity. His want of accurate knowledge misled him, and the withholding of knowledge, coupled with the misleading way in which it actually came to him, is the basis of the charge that the Jews had concealed and perverted the Scriptures. It is against the Jews that this charge is first made, though probably when he first made it Muhammad had not realised that they were distinct from the Christians. Later the same charge was made against the Christians specifically. It forms part of Moslem argument against Christians to this day. But the Jews were the first actual possessors of the

Book with whom he came into direct relations, and it was they who were blamed when he discovered that he had been misled.

By the end of his Meccan period Muhammad was beginning to get fairly direct information as to what was in Scripture, or at any rate the Old Testament portion of it. There were Jews in Medina, and he was probably already making advances to them. He seems to have assumed that they were the Bani Isra'il to whom Moses had brought the Book, though he would just as readily have applied the term Bani Isra'il to the Christians, and in fact probably does do so in some passages. For had they not also the Book, which as far as he could learn had been revealed through Moses to the Bani Isra'il ? But it was actually with Jews that he had found contact. That when he went to Medina he was still in a mood to learn from them is shown by the fact that he adopted some of their practices, such as the Fast of the 'Ashura or Day of Atonement. His followers were instructed to pray with their faces towards Jerusalem. He expected no doubt that the Jews would recognise him, or at least give him moral support. But in that he was disappointed.

Towards the end of the Meccan period he had discovered that 'Isa (Jesus) whose wonderful birth he had before related, had also been a prophet to the Bani Isra'il. That may have been a little disconcerting to him. It was not in accordance with his idea that each people had their own prophet and only one. But he had already learned from the story of Moses that the