in righteousness by inflexible standards. This religion is
coming to the surface even in the "time of ignorance."

Judaism and Christianity in Arabia.--The question has been much
discussed whether the new religion of Arabia was due to contact with
Judaism or with Christianity. Both of these faiths were known in
Arabia before the time of the Prophet. There was a large Jewish
population at Medina, and synagogues existed in many other places;
and there were Christians in Arabia, though their Christianity was
that only of small sects and of lonely ascetics, and had failed to
convert the country as a whole. To the Arabs the Jews were "the
people of the Book," the book in the traditions of which they also
had some share. Ignorant themselves for the most part of the arts of
reading and writing, and divided among a multitude of petty worships
which they were ceasing to respect, they looked up with envy to those
whose faith had been fixed for so many ages in a literary standard.
But while the Jews were respected in Arabia, they were far from
popular. The qualities which have drawn down on them the bitter
hatred of modern peoples among whom they dwell, acted there in the
same way; their pride and exclusiveness, their keenness in business,
their profession as money-lenders, made them detested in Arabia as in
modern Germany. On the other hand, the ascetic view of life which the
Christians represented had attractions even for some of the higher
minds among the Arabs. A set of men called "Hanyfs" were well known
in Mahomet's time, who were seeking for a better religion than the
Arab worships afforded, and a better life than that of eternal feud.
The meaning of the name is controverted; those to whom it was applied
had not attached themselves to Judaism nor to Christianity; they were
people in earnest about religion who had not reached any definite
position. Even where, as with Mahomet himself, the facts of Judaism
and of Christianity were most inaccurately known, the view of God
held in these religions and the moral standard they set up could not
fail to exercise much influence. If in Arab thought itself a god like
Allah was rising to definite personal character and to a position of
great superiority over the old gods, then the inner movement was in
the same direction as the influence of older religions from without,
and the time was ripe for a new faith. It was not to be expected that
a people like the Arabs should accept a religio