4. What hope existed of the Arabs becoming a united nation?
5. How did Mohammed's marriage come about? What effect did it have upon his life?
[[1]] The area of Arabia about equals that of India.
CHAPTER III
THE PROPHET OF ARABIA
'We must be as courteous to a man as to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.'—EMERSON.
Mohammed's first 'Revelation.'
We come now to the event in Mohammed's life about which there has been both the keenest investigation and bitterest controversy. Scholars have elaborated very different theories about the 'method' of Mohammed's inspiration, partly because of its true importance as the crisis and turning-point of his life, and partly because men used to think that the understanding of it was the key to the reading of Mohammed's character. Without troubling ourselves with the various conflicting theories, we shall confine ourselves to what is sufficiently difficult—brushing aside all fancies and excrescences with which the records are garnished, we shall tell as nearly as possible what happened, or at any rate give Mohammed's account of it.