t that the words he uttered under its influence were the words of
God. This is technically called Ilka, and is by some supposed to be the
degree of inspiration to which the Traditions belong.

Above all, the Prophet was not allowed to remain in any error; if, by any
chance, he had made a wrong deduction from any previous revelation, another
was always sent to rectify it. This idea has been worked up to a science of
abrogation, according to which some verses of the Quran abrogate others.
Muhammad found it necessary to shift {41} his stand-point more than once,
and thus it became necessary to annul earlier portions of his revelation.

Thus in various ways was the revelation made known to Muhammad. At first
there seems to have been a season of doubt (Ante p. 3), the dread lest
after all it might be a mockery. But as years rolled on confidence in
himself and in his mission came. At times, too, there is a joyousness in
his utterances as he swears by heaven and earth, by God and man; but more
often the visions were weird and terrible. Tradition says:--"He roared like
a camel, the sound as of bells well-nigh rent his heart in pieces." Some
strange power moved him, his fear was uncontrollable. For twenty years or
more the revelations came, a direction on things of heaven and of earth, to
the Prophet as the spiritual guide of all men,[43] to the Warrior-Chief, as
the founder of political unity among the Arab tribes.

A Muhammadan student, after passing through a course of instruction in
grammar, rhetoric, logic, law, and dogmatics, at length reaches the stage
when he is permitted to enter upon the study of "'Ilm-i-usul," or the
exegesis of the Quran, and the inspired sayings of the Prophet. This done,
he can henceforth read the approved commentaries in order to learn what the
Fathers of Islam have to say. This science in one way fits him to be a
commentator, for the work of a Muslim divine now is, not to bring things
"new and old" out of the sacred book, but to hand down to others the things
old. There is no indwelling spirit in the Church of Islam which can reveal
to the devout mind new views of truth, or lead the pious scholar on to
deeper and more profound knowledge.

The greatest proficient in theology is the man who can repeat the Quran by
heart, who knows also and can reproduce at will what the early commentators
have said, who can remember, and quote in the most apposite manner, the
{42} Prophet's sayings preserved in th