[9] Deutsch, Lit. Remains, 453, 454: cp. Nöldeke, Beiträge zur Kennt. d. Poesie d. alten Araber, xxiii., xxiv.
[10] Ezekiel xxvii. [19]-24. The identifications of the various names with Arabian towns are partly conjectural, but the general reference is clearly to Arabia. Cf. the ‘Speaker’s’ Commentary, vi. 122; and the interpretations of Hitzig, Movers, Tuch, and Ménant.
[11] C. P. Tiele, Outlines of the History of Religion: tr. J. E. Carpenter, p. 63.
[12] Deutsch. Lit. Remains, pp. 70-72.
[13] R. Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, 2d ed. p. 131.
[14] Or ‘read,’ ‘recite.’ These lines are the beginning of the 96th Soorah of the Ḳur-án.
[15] Sir W. Muir, Life of Mahomet, 402.
[16] The following is an abridgment: cp. Muir 485, and the Seeret-er-Rasool, tr. Weil, ii. 316, 317.
[17] An attempt has been made to explain away Moḥammad’s fidelity to Khadeejeh, by adducing the motive of pecuniary prudence. Moḥammad, they say, was a poor man, Khadeejeh rich and powerfully connected; any affaire de cœur on the husband’s part would have been followed by a divorce and the simultaneous loss of property and position. It is hardly necessary to point out that the fear of poverty—a matter of little consequence in Arabia and at that time—would not restrain a really sensual man for five-and-twenty years; especially when it is by no means certain that Khadeejeh, who loved him with all her heart in a motherly sort of way, would have procured a divorce for any cause soever. And this explanation leaves Moḥammad’s loving remembrance of his old wife unaccounted for. If her money alone had curbed him for twenty-five years, one would expect him at her death to throw off the cloak, thank Heaven for the deliverance, and enter at once upon the rake’s progress. He does none of those things. The story of Zeyneb, the divorced wife of Zeyd, is a favourite weapon with Moḥammad’s accusers. It is not one to enter upon here; but I may say that the lady’s own share in the transaction has never been sufficiently considered. In all probability Zeyd, the freed slave, was glad enough to get rid of his too well-born wife, and certainly he bore no rancour against Moḥammad. The real point of the story is the question of forged revelations, which is discussed below.
[18] ‘The Prophet said: Whosoever shall bear witness that there is one God; and that Moḥammad is His servant and messenger; and that Jesus Christ is His servant and messenger, and that he is the son of the hand-maid of God, and that he is the Word of God, the word which was sent to Mary, and Spirit from God; and [shall bear witness] that there is truth in Heaven and Hell, will enter into paradise, whatever sins he may be chargeable with.’—Mishkát-el-Masábeeh, i. 11.