believing community survived the Catastrophe, and perhaps he was beginning to realise that even a believing community might require to be set right occasionally. The way was open for the recognition that more than one prophet might be sent to the same people. Accordingly we soon find that he is aware that the prophets mentioned in Scripture are connected with one another. They are dhurriyya, descendants one from the other. They belong to the same race.

There follows a discovery which combined with other events was fateful. The prophets were all connected with the Book of Moses, and he seems to have assumed that they were all secondary to him. But Moses was not the first of the prophets. He and his people were descendants (dhurriyya) of those who were carried in the Ark with Noah (xvii. v. 3 ff.). As showing that Muhammad was by this time getting fairly accurate and detailed information regarding the Torah we may note that this same passage contains what is clearly a reference to Deuteronomy, chap. xxx.: "We solemnly declared to the children of Israel in the Book, if ye do well to your own behoof will ye do well, and if ye do evil, it is against yourselves" [Sura xvii v. 7, J.M. Rodwell's translation]. It is further stated that it had been decreed that the Children of Israel should twice do evil in the earth and suffer punishment for it. What these two times were is not quite clear, but as the temple is said to have been entered on both occasions the inference would seem to be that the Exile is one and the sack of Jerusalem by Titus the other. Whether the latter was

already connected in his mind with the rejection of Jesus we cannot say. But certainly that came to be one of the counts in his enmity to the Jews.

That is, however, to anticipate. Having discovered that Moses was subsequent to Noah, he soon makes the important discovery that Abraham had his place in the succession of prophets between Noah and Moses. In vi. v. 84 ff., after recounting the story of Abraham, it goes on: "We gave to him Isaac and Jacob, each of them W e guided, and Noah W e had guided before that, and of his seed came David and Solomon and Job and Joseph, and Moses and Aaron — thus do W e reward those who do well — and Zachariah and John and Jesus and Ilyas — each, one of the well-doers — and Isma'il and Elyasa' (Elisha), and Jonas and Lot — each, have We given honour over the creatures". That the names are intended to be in chronological order is not at all likely. The connection of Lot with Abraham must have been known to Muhammad before this. But if he had known the real order of these names he would hardly have made such a jumble of them. In particular the fact that Ishmael is not closely conjoined with Abraham is proof that Muhammad had not, when this passage was revealed, learned of the connection. It soon became of great importance to him. Ishmael was the reputed ancestor of the Arabs, and having discovered that he was the son of Abraham, the prophet of the Arabs knew how to make use of the fact, as well as of the fact that Abraham came in time before Moses. It brought the Arabs and himself into