f the observations made with constantly improved
instruments. Let me endeavour, very briefly, to satisfy this curiosity.
That the report of the bookkeeping might make a somewhat different
impression if another accountant had examined it, goes without saying, and
sometimes I shall draw particular attention to my personal responsibility
in this respect.

Of Mohammed's life before his appearance as the messenger of God, we know
extremely little; compared to the legendary biography as treasured by the
Faithful, practically nothing. Not to mention his pre-existence as a Light,
which was with God, and for the sake of which God created the world, the
Light, which as the principle of revelation, lived in all prophets from
Adam onwards, and the final revelation of which in Mohammed was prophesied
in the Scriptures of the Jews and the Christians; not to mention the
wonderful and mysterious signs which announced the birth of the Seal of the
Prophets, and many other features which the later Sirahs (biographies) and
Maulids (pious histories of his birth, most in rhymed prose or in poetic
metre) produce in imitation of the Gospels; even the elaborate discourses
of the older biographies on occurrences, which in themselves might quite
well come within the limits of sub-lunary possibility, do not belong to
history. Fiction plays such a great part in these stories, that we are
never sure of being on historical ground unless the Qoran gives us a firm
footing.

The question, whether the family to which Mohammed belonged, was regarded
as noble amongst the Qoraishites, the ruling tribe in Mecca, is answered
in the affirmative by many; but by others this answer is questioned not
without good grounds. The matter is not of prime importance, as there is no
doubt that Mohammed grew up as a poor orphan and belonged to the needy and
the neglected. Even a long time after his first appearance the unbelievers
reproached him, according to the Qoran, with his insignificant worldly
position, which fitted ill with a heavenly message; the same scornful
reproach according to the Qoran was hurled at Mohammed's predecessors by
sceptics of earlier generations; and it is well known that the stories
of older times in the Qoran are principally reflections of what Mohammed
himself experienced. The legends of Mohammed's relations to various members
of his family are too closely connected with the pretensions of their
descendants to have any value for biographic pur